I move—

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Before dealing with this Bill, and with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I first want to express my thanks and appreciation to the hon. member for Pretoria-Central (Mr. Van den Heever) and all the members of the Select Committee on the Constitution Amendment Bill, which submitted this amended Bill, for the time and energy which they devoted to the matter.

When on 17 March 1965, I moved as an unopposed motion that the subject of the Bill be referred to a Select Committee for enquiry and report, the Committee to have leave to bring up an amended Bill, I indicated that I was taking that step with a view to reaching the highest possible measure of agreement on a matter which affected all of us. Accordingly I am pleased that the desired agreement was reached on the Select Committee, and I want to tell you at once that I am prepared to accept this Bill.

In terms of the provisions of the South Africa Act, 1909, the predecessor of the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act, 1961, 121 seats were delimited for members of the first House of Assembly of the Union at the first delimitation, which was signed on 10 May 1910. That Act of 1909 also contained provisions in terms of which the total number of eats of the four provinces could be increased until the maximum of 150 had been reached. The basis applied in determining whether further seats had to be added to the original number of 121 was the number of adult European males as determined at the 1904 population census.

For the purposes of the Act that number of adult European males was taken to be the following:

The Union quota was therefore 2,891 voters.

The South Africa Act, 1909, also made provision for a loading or unloading of 15 per cent per electoral division above or below the quota of any province according to the weight of the factors which were mentioned in the Act and which are known to all hon. members.

The maximum number of seats laid down for the then Union, namely 150, was reached at the sixth delimitation in 1932, which was based on the results of the 1931 census. The number of seats per province and the provincial quotas at that delimitation were as follows:

That maximum number of seats was arrived at without the female voters being taken into account. Women were granted the franchise by Act No. 18 of 1930, but that Act also provided specifically that the number of female voters was not to be taken into account in the delimitation of electoral divisions. It was only with effect from 1942, as a result of the provisions of Act No. 30 of 1942, that the number of women was taken into account for delimitation purposes.

Up to 1952 the particulars obtained by means of population censuses were used in making delimitations, but Act No. 55 of 1952 made it clear that the number of registered voters was to form the basis of delimitation.

The Report of the Eleventh Delimitation Commission was signed on 19 December 1957. The division of seats and the provincial quotas which were laid down by that Commission and which still apply at the moment, are as follows:

Cape Province: 517,338 voters with 52 seats and a quota of 9,949.

Natal: 160,408 voters with 16 seats and a quota of 10,026.

Transvaal: 680,634 voters with 68 seats and a quota of 10,009.

Orange Free State: 136,556 voters with 14 seats and a quota of 9,754.

Total: 1,494,276 voters and 150 seats.

If a delimitation had to be made now in terms of the present law, the particulars of the voters’ lists in force on 1 May 1965 would have to be used. On the basis of the particulars of 1 January 1965 it would appear that the position would be more or less as follows (I am using the particulars of 1 January 1965 because the particulars for 1 May 1965 are not yet available for release at the present stage):

The principle of representation is one of the most important principles on which our parliamentary system is based. A high degree of political development is necessary before this principle can be successfully applied as one of the corner-stones of a constitutional system. In essence the principle of representation means that the representative does not plead his own convictions, but pleads the conviction of the people represented by him, even if it is not in accordance with his own views. A high degree of political integrity is therefore an absolute prerequisite for the successful application of that principle.

In my opinion the fact that the Select Committee succeeded in reaching agreement in drafting this Bill demonstrates very clearly that the members placed the interests of the people above the interests of individuals and political parties. Further proof that they did succeed in doing the latter is to be found in the fact that one of the principles of this Bill is that a Republican quota is accepted as the basis on which the proposed number of 160 seats is to be classified and divided.

They met one another across the provincial boundaries on a basis which places the national interest above all other matters. The unanimity which has been reached as far as this principle is concerned, presages a great future for our Republic.

As far as the application of the principle of representation is concerned, there are two factors in particular which have to be taken into account, namely, the value of each vote, and the area which has to be represented. We all know that this principle was originally established and developed as a constitutional principle in England as a result of certain geographic and historical factors, and that the geographic area played a very important part as a factor in representation.

The fact that due regard was had to geographic areas when the provisions of this Bill were formulated is a clear indication that an endeavour was made to find a balance between the two important factors of vote value and geographic area.

In England we initially had the old assembly of the people where every able-bodied man had a right to be heard, but in course of time it was found to be unpractical and the idea of representation came into its own.

The reason why the assembly of the people became unpractical was not so much the fact that there was an increase in the population, but rather the fact that the invading Germanic tribes were constantly engaged in a struggle with the native British population. As a result it was very risky for the men to attend the assembly of the people and to leave behind their families and possessions unprotected while doing so. Consequently it became the custom to send one man to the assembly of the people to act on behalf of everybody living on a particular piece of land.

In addition it became the custom still to send only one such person in spite of the fact that the population on that piece of land had increased or decreased.

I have referred briefly to these historical facts in order to emphasize the importance of the territorial aspect as a factor, because the necessity of investigating the question of delimitation in the Republic arose particularly as a result of the fact that certain electoral divisions became so large that members of the House of Assembly concerned found it extremely difficult to carry out their function properly.

Thus, for example, we have ten seats in the Cape Province, two in the Transvaal and one in the Free State each of which extends over an area of more than 10,000 square miles.

In the Free State we have the electoral division of Fauresmith-Boshof, which extends over an area of 11,625 square miles and had approximately 8,989 voters on 1 January 1965.

In the Cape Province we have the following examples, to mention a few only:

Gordonia: 24,928 square miles and 8,314 voters.

Kuruman: 25,947 square miles and 10,626 voters.

Prieska: 26,762 square miles and 8,278 voters.

Namaqualand: 38,481 square miles and 9,730 voters.

In the Transvaal:

Soutpansberg: 15,061 square miles and 10,928 voters.

Waterberg: 13,108 square miles and 9,227 voters.

In spite of the fact that the population is to-day organized into various organizations which can maintain contact with the member of the House of Assembly, and do, in fact, do so, it is nevertheless a major task for him to attend the meetings of the various associations throughout his electoral division and, in addition, he is approached by a large number of voters with their personal problems every day. Consequently, he has to attend, not only to those probelms which affect groups, but also the the numerous personal problems of individuals.

The proposal that the principle of unloading and loading should be retained represents a continuation of the approach which the fathers of the Constitution adopted in respect of delimitation in 1909 and the value of which has been proved in the course of time, but the important amendment which is being proposed is that loading and unloading should now take place on a national instead of a provincial basis.

The further proposal that the number of voters in those seats which have an area of 10,000 square miles may be reduced to 8,000 or 70 per cent of the quota, whichever is the greater, will not only bring relief to the members of the House of Assembly for those electoral divisions, but will also enable a delimitation commission to comply more effectively with the requirement that due consideration should be given to community or diversity of interests and other factors.

In addition it is being proposed that the delimitation commission should give due consideration to factors such as the probability of increase or decrease of papulation, and local authority and magisterial district boundaries. By taking into account the first-mentioned factor, such a commission will, in large measure, be able to prevent the number of voters in a division increasing or decreasing to such an extent within a brief period after delimitation that the prescribed percentage loading or unloading is inordinately exceeded.

In many areas it is obvious long before the event that there are going, to be large increases or decreases in the number of voters, but up to now commissions have not been allowed to take such a probability into account.

Particularly in the rural areas the magistrate’s office is the place where the inhabitants of the magisterial disrtict make the most contact with the administration of the country and to which the member of the House of Assembly has to turn on behalf of the voters.

You can, therefore, appreciate that if a magisterial district falls in more than one electoral division,, the one member of the House of Assembly cannot speak on behalf of all the voters in that magisterial district. This difficulty will not be eliminated now, but it will be possible to clear it up to a certain extent.

In order to implement the scheme embodied in the Bill, it is necessary to increase the number of electoral divisions, but to a lesser extent than was proposed in the original Bill.

The proposed number of seats, namely 160, is not the absolute minimum, but will ensure that the number of seats is not too small for the successful application of the proposed principles; in other words, the number of seats is a direct result of the application of a Republican quota and increased unloading of certain rural seats on account of their area. The final form taken by the delimitation will, of course, depend on the delimitation commission.

The cause of the problem being combated by means of this BUI is, of course, the shift of voters from the .rural areas to the towns.

The shift of voters from the rural areas to the towns has continued for many years now. The end of the process is not yet in sight, and the process itself is due to the industrialization of the Republic and the situation of minerals and other raw materials.

In this Bill the, two main factors in representation, namely, the value of any particular vote and the geographic unit, have been balanced in a way which was not possible in 1909.

With the principle of representation as the starting-point, truly South African forms of delimitation and election which are adapted to our own circumstances have, therefore, developed over the years.

The Republican quota means that an urban vote in Cape Town, for example, will have the same value as an urban vote in the Transvaal, but that the value of a rural vote will differ from that of those urban votes.

The present difference between the value of a rural vote and that of an urban vote is being reduced, however, in that unloading and loading will now take place on a Republican instead of a provincial basis.

The principle of unloading of rural seats and the loading of urban seats has also existed ever since 1910, but what is, indeed, a new and commendable idea is the principle of a Republican middle quota and the special unloading of the large rural constituencies to 70 per cent of the quota or 8,000 voters, whichever number is the larger.

As I pointed out earlier, it is pleasing to note that, unlike in 1909, so important a matter as delimitation is now being considered on a broad Republican basis instead of on a provincial basis.

We made a great deal of progress between 1910 and 1961, but this Bill is proof of the fact that, since the establishment of the Republic in 1961, we have made much more progress, particularly by giving expression to anti ensuring the survival of those eternal values which form the real foundations of a nation.

Mr. Speaker, the Select Committee which considered the Bill, which the hon. the Minister has accepted in, full had to deal with a simple problem, namely the difficulties experienced by members of Parliament who have to represent extraordinarily large constituencies, large in surface area and in heterogeneous nature of their population. I agree with the hon. the Minister: it is almost unbelievable that eventually the Select Committee was able to achieve the high degree of unanimity which it did achieve. When we started we found there was a large number of divergent views, views which were strongly held and propounded. But because all the members of the Committee wanted to do something for the Parliamentary institution of South Africa, such unanimity was in the end made possible. In the end there were no considerations of which party could score some small advantage here or another there. The members were, to the contrary, all determined to improve our Parliamentary institution, and to do it in such a way that there would be stability for at least one or two future generations. They were keen to ensure that it would not be necessary to make repeated changes in the Constitution as it affects Parliament.

Before I continue, Sir, I would mention in passing that we as a Parliamentary institution should be grateful to the Press for the manner in which it—and here I include the Press of all parties—presented this Bill to the public.. It was presented with understanding, with sympathy and with obvious respect for our Parliamentary institution. I do think we should have our appreciation recorded.

There was, however, unfortunately one discordant note. A certain Johannesburg newspaper complained that it was quite wrong that we should increase the number of members-of Parliament while so many people who are not White are not adequately represented in this Parliament. Well, this is a point which may well be argued. I am sure we will have the opportunity later on to discuss it among, ourselves. But the terms of reference of the committee dealt with Parliament as it is constituted at present and as such it was called upon to remove certain anomalies in the representation of the country’s inhabitants. I think it is most regrettable that while Parliament can be unanimous on a certain matter, there should be parties outside who try to exacerbate racial feelings as a result of changes which are agreed upon and which are completely divorced from the point raised by the newspaper concerned.

Mr. Speaker, members who represent large constituencies have to deal with special problems. Not only is the area they represent vast, necessitating no mean amount of travelling, but very often the constituencies are also of a diverse nature. In spite of the relatively small population in such a constituency one might find there mining interests, agricultural interests, commercial interests, small industrial interests—and here I think inter alia of Namaqualand and the Soutpansberg—while many of them have more than 20 and sometimes even more than 30, different municipalities. In the Cape Province we also have a large number of Divisional Councils. All these interests constantly require the attention of the member of Parliament. As a result, Sir, the burden is becoming unconscionable for several members of Parliament.

In addition, there is the problem that the system of a provincial quota causing inequities between province and province. I shall refer to this later on. Any way, it was felt that the problems inherent in the representation of a large constituency should be treated separately. The committee came to the conclusion that, rather than to have the entire 150 constituencies affected by the minority of large seats, it would be wiser to deal with the very large constituencies—those comprising more than 10,000 square miles—as a separate problem. This proposal is embodied in the Bill. It was decided that the 13 odd constituencies, falling in this category should be allowed a deloading of 30 per cent without increasing the load on the cities. By putting the big constituencies on one side by isolating them, it was possible to retain for the balance of the constituencies, that is, about 90 per cent, the system of a load or deload of 15 per cent, a system which has obtained in this country since 1931 when we first reached 150 constituencies. We felt this step to be a healthy step. We also felt that we could meet their problem further by removing another anomaly that had persisted in our Constitution, namely the system of a provincial quota to which I referred earlier on. Because it was expected that each province should carry its own load on the cities to counter the deload of its platteland, certain anomalies arose. For example, Mr. Soeaker, the Orange Free State has only one city, with one other potential city developing at the moment. The result was that if the city was loaded to the maximum, as determined by the various delimitation commissions from time to time, it was only possible to deload a Free State platteland constituency to the extent of less than 3 per cent. But because in the Transvaal and Natal you have a preponderance of urban areas, it was possible to deload the full 15 per cent if the commission so resolved. In the Cape Province, on the other hand, if one had to have anything like an adequate deloading of platteland constituencies, one had to load the cities almost to the maximum. In the result there was a double discrepancy. For there was a discrepancy not only between city and platteland in the same province, but also between the urban voters in one province and the urban voters in another province and the platteland voters in one province and the platteland voters in another province. This situation, Sir, was contrary to the spirit of Union. Delimitation takes place, in the first instance, for the election of a central Parliament. It is therefore strange that there should be this additional discriminiation between the value of a vote in a city in one province and a vote in a city in another province and between a platteland area in one province and a platteland area in another province. In the end the committee decided to recommend the one great change in principle contained in this Bill. That is that the system of deloading and loading on a provincial basis should be abolished and replaced by a basis covering the entire Republic. And in this respect, Sir, I think we members of the Transvaal have been extraordinarily generous, because this means that the Witwatersrand will assist the Cape Province to have a more equitable and comfortable representation of its vast platteland areas. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I hope glowing tribute will be paid to the unselfish members of the Transvaal by the members of the Cape Province!

I wish to emphasize that the Select Committee throughout its deliberations tried its best to maintain an equality in value of votes in South Africa as far as that is possible. With only the exception of ten or 13 constituencies, the customary maximum loading or unloading of 15 per cent, one way or the other, was retained.

I think hon. members should appreciate that the Committee went to the trouble of examining the position in a large number of Western countries which have a Parliamentary system similar to ours. To our amazement—and I must confess to my complete and utter surprise it was found that the load and unload in South Africa was one of the lowest in the Western world. I do not want to bore the House with many examples to illustrate this point, and I will confine myself to describing the position in Canada. That country was for many years a sister dominion of ours, and it has the same approach to its democratic institutions as we have in this country. What do we find, Sir? We find that in the Legislative Assembly of Canada a State like Prince Edward Island has thirty members. Each member on an average represents 1,866 voters. This makes a minimum figure of 8,000 voters for an area like Soutpansberg most reasonable. The State of Ontario has 98 members in the Legislative Assembly, each representing 32,545 voters. This is the position in Canada, Mr. Speaker, a country recognized as a democracy.

In the House of Commons in Canada the following position obtains. Prince Edward Island has four representatives, and the four constituencies so represented vary from 9,956 voters to 19,314 voters, giving an average of 13,550 voters. But Ontario has 85 representatives representing constituencies which contain voters varying from 17,142 to 112,628. This gives an average of 37,522. So on an average Prince Edward Island is represented in the House of Commons of Canada by 13,550 voters per constituency whereas the corresponding figure for Ontario is 37,522. It may be said that it is not fair to compare federation with the Republic, so I think it would be interesting if we were to study the position that exists in the Mother of Parliaments, the model on which our Parliament is based, namely the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1947 in England, as distinct from the rest of Britain, there were 511 constituencies of which 36 had been given between 40.000 and 45,000 voters. On the other hand there were eight constituencies with 75,000 to 80.000 voters. In Scotland the difference varied from 26,000 minimum to 64,000 maximum voters per constituency. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I trust that people who were hypocritical about our suggestion that special consideration should be given to the seats consisting of wide, extensive areas will bear in mind that the position in the Western world bears out our contentions, and that we have indeed been very modest and very conservative in our proposals.

Many of us who served on the Select Committee felt that we have to do here with a problem of movements of population, something to which the hon. the Minister also referred. It is a problem which will stay with us. We have tried in our recommendations to introduce the new principle of loading and deloading on a country-wide basis with a minimum of disruption and of change. That is why the Committee suggested that the number of members of this House should be increased from the present 150 to 160. This will mean that no province will suffer as a result of the new system to the extent that it will lose seats. Indeed, Sir, the suggested change will result in a maximum of stability. But natural processes will continue, and population shifts from one area of the country to another will and should be felt in this House.

We felt that the attention of the Government and of the public should be drawn to the fact that something should be done to assist those parts of the country which are becoming depopulated, to retain their people. We felt that the attention of the Government should be drawn to the necessity for carrying out some policy or other to stimulate secondary and tertiary development in the rural areas which people are leaving at such an alarming rate.

For the moment this Bill will benefit the Cape Province in the first instance. But this position need not necessarily remain. If the Orange River project is as successful as both sides of this House hope it will be, we may find the position changing. We may find that the project will operate more to the advantage of another province. That illustrates the sentiments of the Committee members. Simultaneously with the development of the Orange River scheme similar plans should be undertaken in other parts of the country in order to stimulate the economy of those areas and to prevent the depopulation of vast, of interesting and of beautiful parts of our country.

The hon. the Minister has referred to other minor provisions of the Bill. The Committee has recommended, and the hon. the Minister has accepted its recommendation, that Judges appointed to the delimitation commission-should have had at least five years’ experience. Two reasons prompted this recommendation. Delimitation work is, of course, very important work, and the more experienced a Judge is, the greater will be the confidence of the people in the report of the commission. Also, Sir, it has happened—and happened under various governments for that matter—that a Judge is appointed to the bench as well as the delimitation commission at about the same time. In the past very junior Judges, gentlemen who had shortly before been elevated to the bench, have been appointed to a delimitation commission. In the result it was well-nigh inevitable that people who were dissatisfied with the recommendations of the commission harboured a slight suspicion regarding the appointment of the Judge. And, Sir, because we have no wish to see our Judges subjected to such suspicion, it has been decided to recommend that only Judges with at least five years’ experience should be appointed to a commission.

The Committee also decided to recommend the addition of two further factors to the list of factors the commission should consider when deciding upon delimitation. Firstly, the-potential growth or decline in population of an area should be considered. This factor has-been stressed by various persons and bodies in the past when testifying before delimitation commissions, but the commissions have said —quite rightly—that they could not take it into consideration. The result has been. Sir, that delimitations have become disjointed very shortly after they have been announced. We have the present position in Bloemfontein where one seat has about 20,000 voters on the roll. On the other hand some of the Platteland constituencies have just over 6.000. which means a difference of 300 per cent. This, of course, is quite contrary to the spirit in which we desire to conduct our delimitations in South Africa. If this provision is approved, it wilt mean that in future the Judges sitting on delimitation commissions can and will be permitted to take into consideration the potential growth or decline in population in any specific area.

There was also the recommendation that the municipal and magisterial boundaries should betaken into consideration. I do not think it is necessary for me to say anything about this. This recommendation was arrived at unanimously. I want to say, however, that certain aspects which to us as laymen seemed to be somewhat anomalous can now be rectified. I think, for instance, of the case of a town which normally should be one constituency but which has two constituencies, each with a rural appendage, a position which obtains in Kimberley.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I should like to say that I do think—because I am interested in politics, in the drama and the conflicts of politics—it is interesting and significant that members of the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa can. when they deal with a matter as important as this, a matter affecting our Constitution and the establishment of our Parliament, come forward with a unanimous report. I must admit that there were certain difficulties, and at times rather protracted discussions. but due to the tact of the Chairman of the Committee, as well as various of its members, this unanimous report was finally brought out. It must certainly inspire no mean measure of confidence among all members of this House in the institution of Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, one feels pleased when one has completed a job which has been received as well as has been the case in regard to this Bill. I think that it is only fair for me to tell the members of the Select Committee that all credit is due to them for the feeling which existed among them to find one another and to co-operate with one another. At the start, Mr. Speaker, we were still feeling one another out. but later on we all realized that this was not a matter which justified any political fly-catching. We then began to work together for a solution. This solution we find in the Bill which we are now discussing.

I do not think that I can recommend strongly enough to the House that more use be made of Select Committees for the purpose of finding solutions to specific matters, such as this one which we are dealing with now. This Select Committee proved once again that we can find one another in regard to specific matters.

There was a large variety of suggestions at the start in regard to how we should tackle the matter; indeed, it appeared that we were wandering about in a maze. Fortunately, we did find one another and discussed the matter openly with one another. I want on this score to thank hon. members who served with me on the Committee.

I want to say that I think that every hon. member of this House ought to study this report of the Committee carefully. All the necessary information will be found in it. including adequate grounds for the necessity for this legislation. I am pleased that the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) also referred to the position in other countries in this connection. It is true that we also investigated the position in other countries and we learnt a great deal by so doing. As far as the position here is concerned, I should like to refer to the provisions of sub-section (2) of Section 43 of the Constitution. It reads as follows—

We also find this provision in the relevant laws of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as in other Western countries. But notwithstanding this fact, we also find certain deviations in Canada—for example, those which were referred to by the hon. member for Yeoville. According to Dawson in his book “The Government of Canada”, this principle is applied by Canada as follows—

He goes on to give a number of very convincing reasons as to why this should be so. Among other things, he also has this to say—

This was also the principle upon which we in the Select Committee eventually decided and which forms the basis of the Bill which is now under discussion.

The crux of our problem was of course our vast, sprawling constituencies, constituencies which because of their size have become unmanageable. There are only two of this type of constituency in the Transvaal, but the two together cover about 25 per cent of the total surface of the Transvaal. There are ten of them in the Cape, that is to say, constituencies of more than 10,000 square miles, but they cover 75 per cent of the total surface area of the province. If a delimitation has to take place under the existing set-up, two of these ten constituencies will have to disappear. This will mean that there will then be eight constituencies which will cover about three-quarters of the surface area of the province. Such constituencies are quite unmanageable.

This was a problem which was appreciated by all the members of the Committee and from the start it was felt that special provision should be made for this type of constituency. I want in this connection to pay hon. members of the United Party on the Committee a compliment in that the basis upon which we eventually started working, flowed from a question originally asked by the hon. member for Yeoville, namely, whether we should not make special provision for constituencies in excess of 10,000 square miles in extent. He also asked whether matters should not be so arranged that the urban areas, in the other provinces as well, the Cape Peninsula and other areas in the Cape, could assist in carrying the burden which would have to fall on those urban areas if special treatment was given to the aforementioned constituencies. The Committee then started working in this direction and we eventually arrived at a solution in this regard.

Another problem with which we were faced was the fact that the present set-up does obviously result in a great deal of discrimination. Both the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Yeoville referred to this fact. I want to point out that the delimitation formula which exists at present in the Constitution does result in discrimination although it was never the intention that there should be this discrimination. But I trust that what has been suggested in this regard will provide a solution to this problem as well. Let me illustrate this further by means of a few figures. I am referring here to figures which appear on page 26 of our report. There hon. members will see that with the last delimitation, constituencies on the Transvaal platteland were unloaded by an average of 13.1 per cent, while the urban constituencies were loaded by an average of 6.7 per cent. In the Cape, the unload for the platteland was 7.1 per cent and the load for the cities was 11.4 per cent. In the Orange Free State the unload for the platteland was 2.85 per cent. From the nature of things this could not have been higher because there were only two urban seats to load and these were loaded by 10.5 per cent.

I think that all these irregularities will be eliminated by means of what we are proposing here.

Let us look now at page 24 of the report where there is a table of the number of constituencies between 2,000 and 3,000 square miles in extent. There are seven of them in the Transvaal and they are being unloaded by an average of 13.6 per cent; in the Cape there are four which are being unloaded by an average of 2.4 per cent— a difference of more than 10 per cent in comparison with the Transvaal: in Natal there is one and it has been unloaded by 7.8 per cent. There are five in the Orange Free State but they have had to be loaded by 1.6 per cent; in other words, these constituencies contained 15.6 per cent more voters than simliar constituencies in the Transvaal. This was the problem with which we were faced.

But we had to be careful lest we create other problems in our solution to this problem. We had to prevent constituencies disappearing in terms of our formula, constituencies which would otherwise have continued to exist. We did not want to make martyrs of certain constituencies. We had therefore to seek a formula to cover this aspect as well. With this aim in mind it was considered necessary for the total number of constituencies to be increased to 160.

In order to solve the other problem, this discrimination between city and platteland in the various provinces, the obvious solution was to change over to a Republic quota instead of keeping to the provincial quota system. There was a considerable amount of opposition to this idea on the committee at the start, but our friends very soon realized that the matter could not be solved in any other way and towards the end we adopted this principle unanimously. The result has been that we are now bringing in the Pretoria-Witwatersrand areas as co-helpers of the Cape Peninsula and other Cape seats to help carry the unload of these tremendously vast and sprawling constituencies. After considerable deliberation on the committee, we had three draft Bills drawn up. Hon. members will find all three of them in the report—Bills A, B and C, and we also had the Bill which had been referred to us by this House. We had therefore four draft Bills before us and we had to decide which one we should work on. We summoned the senior electoral officer and told him: Here is the new formula in terms of Bill A (which was eventually the Bill we accepted) and Bill C; make us a trial delimitation of the whole of the Republic on this basis. He had to work very quickly and it was of course not possible for him to include all the frills in his plans, but he completed this work over the period of one week-end and he submitted the result to us. It was fortunate that the senior electoral officer had been connected with four delimitation commissions previously as their assistant secretary and later as secretary, and so he knew how these commissions considered these matters and was therefore able to give us a better idea of the position. What did he do then? One will find the results of his trial delimitation on pages 18 to 24 of the report of the Select Committee. He did the unloads of the constituencies of over 10,000 square miles in extent first, and he unloaded them by a figure of between 21 per cent and 30.5 per cent. He unloaded the rest of the platteland. He told me that he did the four provinces simultaneously, and the eventual result was that the Cape had an unload of 7.5 per cent, the Transvaal, 7.1 per cent, the Free State, 8.9 per cent and Natal, 10.6 per cent. The differences in the percentages he attributed to the fact that one has more semi-urban constituencies in one province than in another, and this influences the percentage, but the position balances as far as purely platteland and purely urban constituencies are concerned. He made the unloads in the cities. In the Peninsula it is 10.2 per cent, on the Witwatersrand-Pretoria complex, 11.1 per cent, the Free State, 10.8 per cent and Natal, 5.8 per cent. The difference as far as Natal is concerned is due to the fact that Natal has no seat of more than 10,000 square miles which could carry a special unload. In his evidence before the committee the senior electoral officer drew certain conclusions which were of the most vital importance and which I think were eventually the deciding factor in the committee’s reaching agreement in regard to the introduction of the Bill which is now before us. I should like to quote something of what he said. He was asked his impression of the system and he said [translation]—

Mr. Speaker, there you have it in a nutshell —the conclusions of a person who has had all the experience. I want to point out that under this scheme one cannot determine in advance how many constituencies a province will have. The senior electoral officer also told me that it was only after he had completed his delimitation that he added up all the seats and found that the Cape would have 54, Natal, 18, the Transvaal, 73 and the Free State, 15. Under Bill C the position would have been: The Cape, 52, Natal, 18, the Transvaal, 76 and the Free State, 14. The C scheme actually made the application of this formula impossible for the Cape because there were not sufficient urban constituencies to bear the burden of the heavy unload. The C scheme is that every province should continue to have its own quota. I want to say that in terms of this Bill it will be necessary for political parties or other interested persons wishing to make representations to delimitation commissions in the future to submit a plan to the judges, a co-ordinated unit plan for the whole of the Republic. The question of every province being delimitated separately will disappear if this legislation is adopted. I also think that it will lead to a far more scientific approach to delimitation. An indication of this is given in the Bill and the principles upon which the delimitation must be based are better defined than in the past. The parties can work out a very scientific plan for submission to a commission. But I want to emphasize the fact that such plan will have to embrace the whole of the Republic as a unit, and that the plans for all four provinces will have to be submitted to the commission simultaneously. I simply cannot see how they can judge whether there has been the necessary coordination or not if the whole plan is not submitted to them as a unit.

To sum up, I should just like to say that we have a few basic principles in this Bill. The hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. the Minister have already pointed out the additional matters which have arisen and which a commission will have to consider. I think that this will facilitate the task of the commission and of the parties. Then of course we have the basic principle of dealing with the Republic as a unit, and the basic principle of giving special treatment to the large, sprawling constituencies, which was something that was not done in the past. It means I think that one will deal first of all with all those constituencies over 10,000 square miles in extent and then deal with the rest of the country as a unit. There is of course also the basic principle that we do not want to allow existing constituencies to disappear as a result of this new scheme. There are constituencies which would have had to have disappeared if we had not increased the number of constituencies from 150 to 160. Let me say again, we did not want to make martyrs of any constituencies; we did not want to do any injustice to anybody in order to try to solve some other problem. I hope that we will be able to pass this Bill very soon. I do not know who is more curious—the hon. member for Yeoville or myself—to see the result of the first delimitation under this legislation and how the system will function.

Mr. Speaker, I regret that I should be the only person in this House to strike a discordant note. [Interjection.] Well, not as usual. Sometimes the official Opposition also strikes a note of discord, but this does not seem to be the case to-day. This measure has come to the House as an agreed measure, because it was before a Select Committee. In order to give my reasons succinctly—I shall go into more details later—I wish to move the following amendment—

To omit all the words after “That” and to substitute “this House declines to pass the Second Reading of the Constitution Amendment Bill because, inter alia —

1. (a) it provides for the delimitation of constituencies for White voters in a manner whereby the existing disparity in the value of votes of urban and rural electors is further extended; and
2. (b) it reduces the relative proportion of the representation of Coloured voters to that of White voters in this House”.

The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn), in supporting this measure, stated first of all that this country was simply following the example set by many other countries in having a load-offload quota and the example he gave was Canada, where of course there is a definite tradition, which is upheld by law, that Canada does not attach major importance to the equality of vote value per se, but prefers to have over- or under-represented areas rather than to disturb the established tradition, and in principle apparently Canada thinks that the population in rural areas should be less than that of the urban constituencies. That is the accepted principle in Canada as quoted by the hon. member for Yeoville. He went on to say that he would also like to bring the example of Britain to the fore, and he quoted the disparity of votes in certain constituencies in England, with a very large difference, to the extent of some 30,000 or 40,000 votes in the particular seat he mentioned. I note, however, that he mentioned the figures for 1947, and of course since then there has been a Boundary Commission in England, and indeed, right now there is a Boundary Commission sitting in England. Therefore there are more recent examples of the principles applied in Britain than the one mentioned by the hon. member. It is perfectly true that there is at the present stage in British constituencies a tremendous difference in the numbers of voters in some of those areas as compared with others. However, the “rotten boroughs” have been eliminated and the Boundary Commission, which is the British equivalent of our Delimitation Commission, has tried to ensure as far as possible, and certainly will be attempting to ensure in 1965, that Parliamentary representation is now based on constituencies of substantially equal population. It is true that there have to be deviations based on geographic and other reasons, but the principle as adopted in Britain was that—and this indeed is quoted in the Select Committee’s Report— the Representation of the People Act lays upon the four Boundary Commissions a duty to equalize electorates almost, but not quite, by arithmetical rule of thumb. That seems to me to be a pretty specific rule or principle by which the Boundary Commissions are asked to carry out their functions. In Australia there is some deviation as well, as the result of the difficulty of communication, diversity and community of interests, physical features, existing boundaries and electoral boundaries, which do play their part in delimitation. In America, of course, it works absolutely differently. In America it is accepted without question that representation can no longer be upheld which deviates from populations in view of modern developments in transport and communications. There have been a number of very interesting court cases in the U.S., deciding this particular point of view, all based on the grounds known as the Equal Protection Clause of the American Constitution, i.e. the 14th Amendment, which implies that seats in the Legislature must be apportioned substantially on a population basis. I am not particularly interested in going into details of the 14th amendment and the constitutional law applying to the U.S., but what does interest me was the general principle argued in the course of these cases, because I believe that is a general principle which can apply anywhere, irrespective of any constitutional amendment as incorporated in the American law. The main argument is one that was put up by the Chief Justice, Earl Warren, in favour of the equality of the vote, the equal value of the votes. This is what he said—

Then he said, and I think this is a very good point, that Legislatures represent people, not trees, or acres, but Legislatures are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests. [Interjection.] He went on to say that over-weighting and over-valuation of the votes living in one particular place have the certain effect of dilution or under-valuation of the votes of those living somewhere else, and he said that the resulting discrimination against those individual voters living in disfavoured areas is easily demonstrable mathematically; their right to vote is simply not the same as the right to vote of those living in a favoured part of the State; two, five or ten of them must vote before the effect of their voting is equivalent to that of their favoured neighbour. That, in essence, is my argument, expressed in terms far more lucid than any I could summon up.

Now the point I want to make is that in South Africa exactly the reverse trend has been preferred, if one follows the pattern of the various Delimitation Commissions that have sat, certainly since 1923. There has been a gradual process by which the degree of loading and unloading has been significantly increased from year to year to such an extent that now, by the time we reach the last delimitation, extreme loading and unloading have become the rule and equality has become the exception. This was so even in 1948, although the then Delimitation Commission, the Ninth one, had many telling things to say about it. The Ninth Commission stated quite unequivocally that is was unable to subscribe to the general principle directed to them that rural seats were as of right entitled to a substantial unloading, even up to the maximum, at the expense of a corresponding heavy load upon the urban seats.

What did the eleventh Delimitation Commission say on that point? They repudiated it.

This is the point of view I support, naturally. Surely it is my job to summon evidence for the point of view I support, and not for the point of view supported by the hon. member. [Interjection.] The Delimitation Commission went on to say that the basic object was approximation as nearly as possible to the quota, and the grant of an unload or the imposition of a load, is not a right but merely a means entrusted to the Commission; the discretion of giving effect to one or a combination depends on five specific factors. Now what are these factors? They are, of course, as laid down in Section 40 (3). There are five factors which the Delimitation Commission may give consideration to: Community or diversity of interests, means of communication, physical features, existing electoral boundaries, sparsity or density of the population. But the section is specific, and it says “in such a manner while taking the quota of voters as the basis of division, the commissioners may, wherever they deem it necessary, depart therefrom, but in no case to any greater extent than 15 per cent more or 15 per cent less that the quota.” Sub-section (2) of the same section provides that each province shall be divided into electoral divisions in such a manner that each sub-division shall, subject to the provisions of subsection 40 (3), contain a number of voters as near as may be equal to the quota. The point I am trying to make is that the equality was stressed by the word “shall”. The ability to deviate from that equality was under-stressed by the use of the word “may” in our constitution, and therefore I maintain, together with the Ninth Delimitation Commission, that the emphasis was on trying to get the votes as near as possible to equality—not that there shall be a diversity, simply in order to give the rural voter an advantage over the urban voter. The South African Act was implicit that there should be equality as between electoral divisions, that equality should be the rule and disproportion should be the exception. Now in any case it is quite obvious that of the five factors mentioned hardly any of them, and perhaps only the first factor, retains any real significance to-day. To-day we have modern means of communication and a wide network of roads enabling people to get around their constituencies. Certain of these factors have lost all their significance altogether, except, of course, where it suits the Government, when the disproportion can be carried to the most absurd extent, such as, to give an example, in the Provincial Council delimitation where one seat for the Coloured voters is equal in extent to something like 250,000 square miles. The third factor, of the electoral boundaries, has in any case been entirely disregarded by successive Delimitation Commissions. There are very few seats remaining in this country which have their original geographical outlines, and that is, of course, as it should be. It is to be expected because populations shift and a population which might have been primarily rural in character may become urban. That happens in most industrialized countries and it certainly happens in South Africa. In 1907 we were still a predominantly rural country, but by 1965 we are predominantly urbanized. To-day something like three-quarters of the White population, if not more, in fact dwell in the urban areas, and therefore the whole complex of this country has changed since then. I maintain that the factors which were originally important do not retain their same importance. I do not see, for instance, as other members do, any reason to wail about the depopulation of the platteland. I see no occasion for mourning, yet year after year there is always a private member’s motion and somebody stands up wailing about the depopulation of the platteland. The depopulation of the platteland is indicative of one thing only, of industrialization and a rise in the standard of living of the people, and I see nothing to wail about. I think it is a very good thing indeed, and l certainly do not see the need artificially to try to keep people in the platteland by maintaining marginal farmers on the land, etc. [Interjection.]

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

Very well, Sir. I am saying that this shift of population is natural, it is part of industrialization and it is part of the rise in the standard of living, and as far as I am concerned, there is nothing to wail about. Now, I again want to quote Earl Warren, who says that a system of qualified voters is no more nor no less, because he lives in the city or on the farm; he is a voter. The basic principle of representative government remains and should remain, that the weight of the citizen’s vote cannot be made to depend on where he lives. Population should be the starting point of consideration and the controlling criterion of judgment in these delimitation commissions. It is the practice in America and elsewhere.

Order!

I believe this Bill will encourage the next Delimitation Commission and all future commissions to debase or dilute a citizen’s vote depending on where he happens to live to an even greater extent than did the original section in the South Africa Act. I cannot agree with the interpretation of the hon. member for Yeoville that the Bill is designed to narrow the gap between the value of the vote between the rural and the urban areas. It is quite true that as far as the provinces are concerned, the load borne by the Cape and Orange Free State urban areas as against the load borne by the Witwatersrand urban areas is greater, for the simple reason that there are more cities on the Rand and more constituencies which can carry the load of the Transvaal rural seats than there are in the Cape and Orange Free States, in comparison with the number of rural seats and rural voters in the Cape and the Free State. But this amendment simply means that the platteland as a whole throughout South Africa is now placed at a greater advantage vis-à-vis the urban population right throughout the Republic. It means that the spread of more than 15 per cent unload and 15 per cent maximum load can now be carried to the nth degree throughout the whole Republic instead of being largely centred in the two more predominantly rural provinces, the Cape and the Free State. It means that the Witwatersrand urban areas and the Natal urban areas are going to carry a bigger proportion of the load of the Cape platteland and the Orange Free State platteland, and I personally see absolutely no justification for it. If there are provincial anomalies, it is because we are wedded to the provincial system, but the real anomalies which should have been removed, and not the provincial anomaly, are the anomalies of this load and unload and the criteria which were laid down more than 50 years ago. That is what should have been changed in this Bill, and not the anomalies between the provinces. But in fact, the Bill does not do that, and I might mention that the official Opposition supported an amendment my party moved on a constitutional Bill a few years ago reducing the load. They actually supported it, so I presume that in principle, anyway, they are not in favour of the existing load-unload system. But this Bill actually increases the disproportion and emphasizes particularly the one criterion laid down in the South Africa Act, the fifth one, i.e. density or sparsity of population, and it adds two more. It attempts to accept in advance the population movements in this country. How can one predict with any degree of accuracy how and whither the population will shift is beyond me. Mining areas get worked out and marginal mines close down and new discoveries are made elsewhere. Phalaborwa opens up. One cannot predict these things any more than the British Delimitation Commission was able to anticipate its population quotas, which is why there is such a big discrepancy now, in 1965. I think the new one that has been added, local authority and magisterial district boundaries, is quite a good new provision, but to some extent of course it is encompassed by one of the existing ones, with the community of interests. I think it certainly should have replaced the boundaries of the existing electoral division as a criterion which has long since gone by the board anyway. Nobody worries about such boundaries at all in delimitation commissions. I do not like the additional provision that the electoral division in an area of 10,000 square miles or more—there the commission has an additional discretion in reducing the number of votes. My contention therefore is that the Bill not only maintains but it extends the existing inequalities in the value of the urban voters. That is my first objection. My second objection to the Bill, as encompassed in my amendment, is equally important, because it will reduce still further the already sorely curtailed rights of the Coloured people to representation in this Parliament. Sir. the present ratio is four Coloured representatives, four for the 1,500,000 Coloured people in this country, to 150 representatives for the 3,500,000 White people of South Africa. Leaving aside the principle of separate representation, of which I do not approve in any way, the blatant inequality of the representation becomes even more evident now. The Government has come with its suggestion that the White voters should have a further ten representatives and already the number of voters that each member in this House represents is comparatively small compared with the position in other countries, compared with England, with its 60,000 voters per representative and with other countries with 30,000, 40,000 and even 100,000 voters per representative in some cases. The Government now comes along with its proposal that the White voters of this country should have an extra ten representatives, but there is no attempt whatsoever to raise the utterly inequitable ratio of Coloured representation in this House. I want to point out, Sir, that this is a violation of undertakings given when the Coloured people were removed from the Common Roll and put on a separate roll. The Minister of Finance at that time, in 1951, said in the House of Assembly, in reference to the representation of the Coloured people—

The then Minister of the Interior said—

The Minister of the Interior at that time, of course, was the present Minister of Finance. Mr. P. W. Botha, the member for George, now the Minister of Coloured Affairs, said—

he was referring to the present member for Fort Beaufort Dr. Jonker): we have certainly changed our affiliations in that respect—

Well, Sir. here is the opportunity, but I do not see the then member for Gardens taking his Opportunity of putting forward a plea for this alteration in the ratio.

Sir. the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also had something to say in those days. He said—

Sir, is this not a further diminution of rights? The ratio is being changed. It will now be not 150 to four but 160 to four, or 1 to 40. Exactly the same sort of argument was used by the hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) in 1951. He said—

Sir, it may be very difficult to give the Coloureds one more representative at the present stage but there has been no word of reassurance given by the hon. the Minister or any member on the opposite side that this matter will in fact receive consideration and that there is a possibility that Coloured representation will also be increased. As I see it, there is nothing to prevent the number of White representatives being increased still further and again there is no necessity to increase the ratio of Coloured representation in this House to the fixed number of White representatives. It was 150 to four: it is now 160 to four. It was disproportionate when it was 150 to four, so at least when we raised the number of White representatives to 160 we should increase the number of Coloured representatives in this House so as to reduce the disproportion existing when the ratio was 150 to four.

Sir, these are my remain arguments in respect of the second point of my amendment. I believe that this Bill ignores the undertaking given to the Coloured people in 1951. and also because it extends the outmoded and inequitable system of delimiting constituencies in South Africa so as to undermine the principle that prima facie every vote should be of equal value, I must vote against the second reading of this Bill.

Sir, it is going to be interesting to see who is going to resolve the small revolution in the Progressive Party. We did not realize until now that it was big enough to have splits within its own ranks, but apparently a party of one member can be split, and it is going to be interesting to see what happens at the Congress of the Progressive Party when the members of the party come together and the chairman of the Progressive Party in Natal meets the representative of the Progressive Party in Parliament and asks her to explain to him why she repudiated her own party when she spoke on this measure, because I have here a Press report of the 5 June, a report which says—

Here we have the leader of the Party in Natal hoping that this new measure will give the Progressive Party a break-through to the electorate—obviously accepting that it is a vain hope, but that the party has no other hope— but we have the representative of the Progressive Party in Parliament opposing the Bill. Sir, I will leave the hon. member for Houghton to argue that out with her own party and with her own leader, but I want to deal with the two objections which the hon. member for Houghton has to this measure. The first that it increases the discrepancy between urban and rural voters in the value of their vote. But what the hon. member does not tell the House is that this measure at the same time reduces the discrepancy once you take into account the seats over an area of 10,000 square miles. The hon. member for Houghton apparently has no concern whatsover for the practical problems of representation in the rural areas; she is concerned with the airy-fairy theory of “one man, one vote”, which our legislation accepts; it accepts that the value of votes should be equal as nearly as possible.

Why is it airy-fairy?

But it also recognizes the practical problems which must necessarily be faced when applying that theory in practice. And that is where the hon. member for Houghton breaks down. She never realizes the differences between theory and practice. Even Britain, whom the hon. member herself quoted, recognizes this and makes provision in its legislation, not 20 years ago but in the next delimitation, for a differentiation of more than approximately a quarter of the quota, in other words, a 50 per cent difference in the value of the vote between constituencies.

The position is different there.

No, it is exactly the same as ours. Britain’s provisions, Canada’s provisions, Australia’s provisions, provide that the number shall be equal as nearly as possible provided that it may vary, and in Britain it varies by 25 per cent up or 25 per cent down, far more than in South Africa. The same applies to Canada. I do not want to waste the time of the House but the Canadian legislation makes provision for this. You find the same thing in Australia. The differentiation in America is so big and the seats have varied so much, that the Federal Government is being forced to interfere because of the differences. But the basic, practical problem of density and sparsity of population is recognized by every country which has constituency-based representation. There is only one which has a smaller variation and that is New Zealand. The hon. member wants to objects to our recognizing the problem when it affects our own seats here in South Africa. This legislation provides for 14 constituencies—it may be more or less as time goes on, but at the moment it will be 14 constituencies—which will be given special favoured-nation treatment, 14 constituencies which may be de-loaded to a maximum of 30 per cent, which is in itself only 10 per cent more than what has always been the accepted practice in South Africa. It is an increase in the maximum de-load, not in the maximum load. In other words, special provision is made for special cases, and as a result of that provision the rest of South Africa, the other 146 seats in South Africa, can be more equitably delimited, but the hon. member objects to making that special exception in the case of 14 seats with the object of getting greater equality in the 146; she would rather have greater inequality in 150. [Interjection.] The existing legislation would have resulted in greater differentiation in 150 seats. This legislation makes the differentiation greater in 14 seats and less in 146, and to our mind it is better to have a small number treated as exceptional constituencies and to have the vast majority closer to parity, which we accept as the ideal. We in the United Party have always stood for votes having an equal value, as far as it is practically possible; we have fought for that year after year and we support this legislation because that is exactly what it achieves in the majority of South African seats. We are prepared to regard a special group of seats as exceptional in order to get greater equality in the vast majority of seats, rather than to have exceptional seats creating a greater inequality spread throughout the country.

Then I come to the second objection of the hon. member for Houghton, the question of the ratio between White and Coloured seats. The Separate Representation of Voters Act makes provision for it and if the increase in the number of White seats had justified it then I assume that the Government would have been obliged by the law to increase the Coloured representation. The law provides that the ratio shall be maintained but the increase of ten seats does not affect to the extent of a complete seat the over-all ratio. But let us look at the figures for the Coloured seats; what is the position, despite the activities in registration of the Progressive Party. They registered 13,200 votes in the last supplementary registration, or at any rate the vast bulk of those votes were registered by them. With those additional votes one constituency has 6,900, one has 5,500, one 6,600 and one 9,500; in other words, every one of them below the quota for the White seats.

Below the minimum.

Below the minimum which would be allowed on an unloaded White seat. I do not think the hon. member for Houghton can complain that the qualification for a Coloured voter is unreasonably high; that it is going to exclude civilized people from the vote. The hon. member for Houghton laid emphasis on a statement made by Chief Justice Warren of the United States who said that members of Parliament represent people, not areas. Sir, if you apply her own rule, then members of Parliament representing Coloureds must represent people and not Karoo-bossies, and I have just quoted the numbers to show that the numbers do not justify an increase at the moment. Sir, she cannot have it one way for the Whites and another way for the Coloureds. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. This idea that the Whites are always wrong and that anybody who is non-White is always right does not hold water. [Interjection.] Sir, the hon. member complains that I am misrepresenting her case. She must not squeal if I use her own arguments to break down her own case. [Interjection.] Sir, I am not worried; I take it from whence it comes. I have not distorted either the hon. member’s words or her arguments. The hon. member made out a case for equal representation but when I apply her own argument to the case that she uses as the second leg of her objection to the Bill, then she says that I am distorting her argument. Sir, it is no wonder South Africa cannot and never will understand the Progressive Party. Here we have two objections to the Bill, one closing its eyes to the reality of the practical problem of sparsely populated areas and the other based on an emotional appeal, unsupported by facts or arguments, that it is unfair to the Coloured voters. But only two years ago this member was saying that the whole system of the separate roll was completely wrong and that her party would have nothing to do with it, and it urged the Coloured voters not to participate in Coloured elections based on a separate roll. Now suddenly when they have won two seats in a Provincial election it is not all wrong to take part in these elections; it is no longer all wrong and it is now important that the number of seats should be increased because there is disproportionate representation! I am sorry, Sir, if the hon. member does not like being told home truths, but the hon. member herself used this line of argument; we did not choose it for her. She must not complain now if we attack her argument as being confused and not based on logic. However, I do not want to continue dealing with the contradictions of the hon. member for Houghton, except to deal with one question which she asked as to how you predict population shifts. I do not know whether the hon. member for Houghton has ever taken part in a delimitation, but if you do and you have an area in which a township is established and houses are built and you have persons moving into those houses, then as far as I am concerned there is clear and concrete evidence of a probable increase in population in that area. If you have an area in which a gold mine has been discovered and is starting to be developed, then obviously one can assume—it is logical and probable—that that area’s population will increase. That is the object of the inclusion of this provision. An increase in population must not be possible, it must be probable and where it is probable that there will be an increase, that probability can be proved. Take an area like Isipingo, for instance, which has been proclaimed as an Indian group area. There it is not only probable but inevitable that your 952 voters in that area will disappear and therefore a delimitation commission must essentially take note of the fact when a probability is placed before them which they could not previously take into account.

You are too deep for her.

We on this side of the House will continue to support this measure. We support it primarily because we believe that it will lead to a greater equality in the value of a vote throughout South Africa. We feel that although there should be a minimum discrimination between the value of one vote and another, there must essentially be such a differentiation in South African circumstances and conditions. After all, we were the Government for some 30 odd years; we had this provision, and this Government has maintained it. This provision is necessary for numerous reasons. I am not going to deal with those reasons now, but those who want to give fair and proper representation to the voters will take note of those reasons. We do and therefore we recognize the need for differentiation in the value of votes, but we want the differentiation to be as little as possible and to as fairly spread as possible. By spreading the quota over the whole of the Republic we believe that that spread will be more equitable and therefore we support this measure. We would like to see circumstances arise where you could have exact equality in the value of votes; that would be the ideal, but it is no use living up in the clouds with airy-fairy dreams of what is the ideal. What you have to do, if you are a responsible Government, or a responsible Opposition, is to look at what is possible and what is practical in the light of the facts. Secondly, we realize that in applying a new formula such as this, it is necessary, in order to avoid a complete disruption in the existing delimitation of South Africa, to have this increase of ten seats. We do not as a party feel that there was justification for increasing the number of members of Parliament merely because we wanted ten more members of Parliament. We do not believe that any case could be made out for arbitrarily saying that there should be more members of Parliament, but we recognize that in the application of this new formula, without this increase in the number of seats, you would have had radical widespread changes in the whole pattern of our South African representation. Constituencies would have have disappeared all over South Africa; completely new constituencies would have had to be established, as will still happen, but in the process you would have had such disruption that the continuity of political representation and organization would largely have disappeared. We therefore accept as a consequence of the new formula this necessary increase which maintains the stability of every existing seat in South Africa. Under this new formula, with the increase, every constituency can be maintained. It may have to be changed radically and new constituencies may have to be added; there may be changes of names, but basically your existing structure can be maintained in both the rural areas and the urban areas. We feel that rather than have widespread disruption it is better to have this small consequential increase in the number of seats. I think it is important that we should make it clear that the reason why we support this increase is because it is consequential on a system and not the other way around.

Apart from that, the merits of this measure have been clearly put to the House by the hon. the Minister, by the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) and others and I do not want to repeat what has already been said. But I do want to say that the fact that both sides of the House, with the one lonely exception, were able, on a matter of such importance to the Government of South Africa and the pattern of our government, to agree, is a fact that we welcome and that augurs well for the future of the system of parliamentary government in South Africa.

I had not intended taking part in this debate until the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) spoke and moved her amendment. Sir, I am as jealous of the interests of the Coloured people as she is but I am not prepared to take up a dog in the manger attitude. What we must try to do in this House as Coloured representatives is to convince the Minister and the Government that the representation of Coloureds in this House is completely illogical, completely wrong. Sir, before you call me to order I want to say that I am not going to discuss the question of Coloured representation at any length; it is not germane, but having regard to the amendment I must say that what I would like to see is that all the Coloureds in the whole of South Africa are represented in this House.

Order!

That is beside the point.

I believe that the hon. member for Houghton in opposing this increase in the number of White representatives is not doing the Coloured people a favour under the present law. What we must do is to convince the Government to increase the number of White representatives under the present law to 170 instead of 160, so that the Coloureds can get an extra seat. If the Government refuses to increase the number to 170, to keep the ratio in terms of the Act of 1951, we must try to encourage the Government to recognize the justice of greater representation for the Coloureds in this House.

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

In terms of the Act of 1951 it is clear that if the number of members of the House of Assembly is increased, there must be a proportionate increase in the number of Coloured representatives in this House. It is because of this Act that we have not previously taken any steps with regard to the question of Coloured representation in this House, because, to use a colloquialism, we are snookered. We cannot do anything about it except to tell the hon. the Minister and his colleagues that the whole concept of Coloured representation should be reviewed.

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

In conclusion I just want to say that we want to encourage more European representation under the present law in order to get more Coloured seats, and for that reason I am not prepared to support the amendment and will vote for the Bill.

I want to express my gratitude and appreciation to hon. members on the other side of the House for the way in which they have approached this matter and for the clear and explicit way in which they have set out this Bill. I particularly wish to congratulate the hon. members for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) and Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) on their speeches. I think the hon. member for Yeoville has made a model type of speech. I think before he makes another speech in future he should first have a look at this speech of his!

I do not think I need say much in reply to the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) after the hon. member for Durban (Point) has taken her to task. He was courteous towards her as one should be towards a lady but he completely destroyed her arguments. The hon. member used her own arguments to destroy the case she had put up. I do not think there is much for me to say except to say that I am surprised that anybody can come with an amendment such as that—particularly the second part of it—particularly if you have made a study of the Separate Representation Act. The hon. member for Houghton should merely have made a simple little calculation, namely, that if the number becomes 160 it gives you 4.26 as against four representatives if there are 150 seats. I have yet to learn of a quarter representative being made a full representative. You will first have to have 169 before it will be more than half. In other words, if there are 169 White representatives it is just over half and then the Coloureds will have to get an additional representative. The hon. member for Houghton should never have moved this amendment. She tried to stir up something when there was nothing to stir up. It is not necessary for me to say anything further. It is not as though she has caused a big furore in this House but she has struck a false note and raised something which really has no substance.

I just want to say that the moment this legislation is placed on the Statute Book I shall immediately appoint the Delimitation Commission and request them to commence with their duties on 1 July. I also wish to underline what the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) has said, namely, that a somewhat different procedure will have to be followed. I naturally cannot prescribe to the Delimitation Commission but now that we have to have a Republican quota I agree with what the hon. member has said, namely, that there will have to be co-ordinated action and that right at the beginning the Delimitation Commission will in all probability have to be met by representatives from all over the Republic so as to decide what to do with these 13 seats; must they first be delimited or not; what quota must be allocated to them because it is only then that you will know how many are left. It is only when each province knows how many voters there are within its provincial borders that the ordinary provincial plans can be submitted. I therefore want to appeal to the various political parties and to everybody interested in the matter to start work immediately and that they ask the Delimitation Commission to meet them as soon as possible to discuss all these major principles with them so that the Commission can give a decision. Because it is only then that that delimitation can take place on a provincial basis. I just want to say to the hon. member for Houghton that we. who do delimitation work, know what we are talking about. We have a great deal to do with this sort of thing and we know exactly what the problems are.

I do not think there is anything further to which I have to reply. I just want to repeat that the way in which this matter has been approached and the end result which has been obtained is encouraging. I feel very strongly about this that the voters who send us here must be satisfied that as far as this is concerned, no problems are being created here for them or that the opinion of a certain party has been forced down the throat of another but that we have come to a decision in an objective manner and in accordance with the guidance given to us by the Select Committee and by the entire House. We have come to a decision in regard to which they can be assured that the representatives who sit here do not regard themselves as the heirs to certain seats who can simply set about things in an irresponsible manner but that they want to represent the electorate in this House as best they possibly can and see to it that the interests of the State are placed before the interests of the individual. I am pleased, therefore, that this spirit prevails. I think all this will assist the voters outside to have a better appreciation of our problems.

Amendment put and negatived (Mrs. Suzman dissenting).

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a second time.

I move—

That the consideration of this clause stand over.

Agreed to.

On Clause 3,

I wish to move as an amendment—

The hon. Minister has already indicated that he is prepared to accept this amendment. That being the case I shall not waste the time of the Committee by saying anything further.

I have no objection to the amendment.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 4,

I have no objection to this clause but I do hope that when this Bill is consolidated, as we all hope it will be, attention will be given to the translation of the word “delivered” as opposed to “oorhandig”. We considered moving an amendment but throughout the Electoral Act “oorhandig” or “handig oor” is translated as “delivered”. “Deliver” implies that it can be delivered through a third person; it need not necessarily be delivered in person. This has sometimes led to some confusion. In Afrikaans you have to “oorhandig”; that clearly implies personal delivery. I would just like the hon. the Minister, for record purposes, to give a ruling on this matter in case it should again, as it has often been, be queried by returning officers.

I think that should be put to our language experts and I undertake to do so.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 6,

I move—

In terms of the existing Clause 6 Section 48 of the Electoral Law is amended in such a way that a person who has voted with a special vote cannot vote at a polling booth on election day. That is only right because nobody is allowed to vote twice in the same election. The provisions of the existing Section 48 provide that no person to whom a postal vote has been issued may vote at a polling booth. That means that if those postal vote documents did not reach him, or reached him too late for him to return them, he is disenfranchised. The amendment which I have now moved, as well as the consequential amendments I still intend moving to Clauses 18, 33 and 1 (that was why I asked for it to stand over) now provide that a voter who has voted with a special vote or a voter in respect of whom a postal vote has been issued, may make a declaration on election day to the effect that he has not voted as a special voter or as an absent voter by a postal vote. In that case he can vote by means of the so-called declaration vote.

Also in urban constituencies?

Yes. I know the declaration (deklarasiestem) vote only applies to the platteland but this declaration vote (verklaringstem) can be exercised by everybody. If the electoral officer at the controls discovers that a voter’s special vote or postal vote has indeed been received he rejects the declaration vote. But if no special vote or postal vote in respect of the voter is received the declaration vote is counted. I do want to issue a note of warning, however, namely that if anybody should try to vote twice in this way he will be making himself guilty of a punishable offence. People must not think that this is a loophole. I do think, however, that the control is such that that danger does not exist.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 7,

I move—

To omit paragraph (b) of the proposed Section 56 bis and to substitute the following paragraph:

1. (b) shall at the request of the absent voter in writing in the prescribed form which shall include evidence of identity certified by a presiding officer for absent votes who is a person in the full-time employ of the State, forthwith deliver that voter’s envelope to the presiding officer for absent votes who certified that request and who shall furnish him with a receipt therefor together with that request.”.

I do not want to enlarge upon this except to point out that it is intended to put a stop to political parties fighting over a postal vote. If an absent voter asks that his postal vote should be delivered to a certain presiding officer and he subsequently decides that he has lost confidence in that person, or something of that nature, he can demand it back but only if he agrees that it be handed over to a presiding officer in the employ of the State, in other words, an impartial person. That will immediately put a stop to any argument. I trust the Minister will accept this.

I have no objection to it.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 9,

I move—

The object is to enable the voter always to know exactly where his postal vote is. It can happen that his postal vote is handed to somebody without his knowing where it is.

On Clause 10,

I move—

Just in case it is necessary to point it out to those who are interested in the Bill I want to emphasize that the object of this amendment is to give protection to the ballot paper once it has been sent out to a presiding officer. Under the existing and the proposed law an unused ballot paper is returned unopened, sealed up and put away. This provides that the reason for its non-delivery shall be endorsed thereon and—this is even more important to my mind—that it shall also be opened and its contents checked. The reason why I emphasize this is that in case any enthusiastic person reads the Hansard of this debate he will know that it will be unwise to return an unused ballot paper envelope which does not contain the original ballot paper in it.

Amendments put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 12,

I move—

This is a consequential amendment.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 17,

This is a very long clause running into some three or four pages and I have about eight or nine amendments which I move as one amendment—

To add the following as a sub-section (2) at the end of the proposed Section 71 bis:

1. (2) A copy of the list referred to in paragraph (e) of sub-section (1), shall on request be supplied by the presiding officer concerned to the authorized representative of any political party or candidate concerned;

in line 37 and 38, to omit “initialled by the applicant personally”; in line 67, after “belief” to add “and every such declaration shall be initialled by the applicant personally”; in line 14, page 14, after “application” to add “and that he has not previously voted as an absent voter or a special voter in that division or in any other division during the relevant election”; in line 15, page 14, after “the” to insert “present”; in line 39, page 14, after “applicant” to add “and that the applicant has confirmed that he understood and approved such contents”; in line 46, page 14, after “the” where it occurs for the second time, in line 69, page 14, after “the” and in line 54, page 18, after “the” where it occurs for the second time, respectively, to insert “second”; in lines 70 and 71, page 18, to omit “Immediately after nine o’clock in the afternoon of the day on which” and to substitute “As soon as possible after”; in line 73, page 18, after “voters” to insert “but not later than nine o’clock in the forenoon of the next day”; in line 42, page 20, after “voter” to add “and such lists shall be open for public inspection free of charge at the office of the chief electoral officer during a period of 30 days after polling day”; in line 5, page 22, after “delivered” to insert “ ‘by’ followed by the name of the person by whom delivery was effected”; and in line 31, page 22, after “shall” to insert “unless he considers the reasons advanced for such request to be inadequate”.

I will not deal with all the amendments. It provides that parties may get copies of the lists of candidates which will be supplied to special presiding officers. It clarifies one of the difficulties which has been experienced with normal postal ballots in that it was not clear to many people where they had to initial the reasons for their application for a ballot paper. This now makes provision for the printing of a new application form where there can be no confusion; there will, therefore, be no rejection of ballot papers through people initially in the wrong place.

The most important matter which is dealt with is that the amendment means that special balloting will close on the evening of the Monday before an election, the evening of the second day before an election, instead of the night before the election as was originally proposed. This is in respect of special votes only, not for ordinary postal ballots. Special voters will be able to vote up to 9 o’clock in the evening of the second day, i.e. the Monday, before an election on the Wednesday. I emphasize this because people may have got the idea from the original Bill that they could vote up to election eve only to find they cannot at the next election.

For the sake of clarity let me also say that we have moved this amendment—the Minister has indicated that he will accept them—so as to enable the details of all those persons who have voted as special voters to be available to the candidates before polling starts on polling day. Had it not been so you would have entered polling day with the candidates having no knowledge of the people who had voted the night before. Now every candidate will know on the day before the election exactly to whom special ballot papers have been issued and will be able to mark his records accordingly.

The other matters are minor administrative matters which we proposed, to which the Minister has agreed, and which we believe will simplify the procedure and machinery for the operation of this clause.

I just want to say that all the amendments standing on the Order Paper have my approval. The Opposition was good enough to come and discuss everything with me beforehand. The amendments have been submitted to the law advisers, who say that they are drafted in the correct form. It is unnecessary for me to get up in respect of every amendment and say that I accept it. They have been carefully scrutinized and there is no danger in them. If hon. members do not understand them they should just ask and I will explain matters. I move my amendment—

Briefly, it amounts to this, that if the position remains as it is here, one will perhaps have to send a telegram to a presiding officer sitting in the office next to one. All we do now is to provide that he can get the information by letter. I just want to say that the amendments moved by the hon. member for Point are all improvements; they close loopholes and are heartily welcomed by me.

Amendments put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 18,

I move—

In line 47, after “amended” to insert “(a)”; and to add the following paragraph at the end of the clause:

1. (b) by the addition of the following subsection:

   “(9) The provisions of this section shall mutatis mutandis apply in respect of an absent voter or a special voter who signs a declaration in the prescribed form to the effect that he has not voted as an absent voter or a special voter at the election in question.”

It is a consequential amendment to the one we accepted in Clause 6 to provide for the application of the declaration vote.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On New Clause to follow Clause 20,

I move—

That the following be a new clause to follow Clause 20:

1. 21. Section 79 of the principal Act is hereby amended by the substitution for subsection (1) of the following sub-section:

   “(1) If a person representing himself to be a particular voter applies for a ballot paper after another person has voted in his name, the applicant shall, upon duly answering the questions permitted by Section 75 to be asked of voters at the time of polling, be entitled to mark a ballot paper in the same manner as any other voter, but the ballot paper shall not be put into the ballot box, but shall be given to the presiding officer, endorsed by him with the name of the voter and his number on the voters’ list and set aside in a separate packet, and shall not be counted by the returning officer.”

All we are doing is to omit the words “where the Voters’ Roll shows that a ballot paper has been issued to him as prescribed by Section 53”. We take that out because it now refers to the preferred ballot paper. If one discovers that someone has voted in one’s name, one can hand in a proferred ballot paper. That ballot paper is kept folded and is counted only under certain circumstances. Then comes the declaration vote with which we have already dealt. That is the meaning of the whole amendment.

New clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 22,

I move—

To insert the following as paragraphs (a) and (b) after “amended” in lines 16 and 17:

1. (a) by the substitution for sub-section (3) of the following sub-section:

   1. “(3) The returning officer shall also open the sealed packets of declaration envelopes, and, if on the aforesaid comparison of the marked copies of the voters’ list, it appears that the same person has received a ballot paper at two or more polling stations or if the returning officer has received a ballot paper on which the same person has recorded his vote as an absent voter or a special voter, shall forthwith reject every vote appearing to have been given by such person by means of declaration ballot papers.”

2. (b) by the substitution for sub-section (5) of the following sub-section:

   1. “(5) If on the comparison aforesaid it appears that a person has received a ballot paper at a polling station other than the polling station of the polling district in respect of which he is registered, but has not received a ballot paper at such last-mentioned polling station or if the returning officer has not received a ballot paper on which the same person has recorded his vote as an absent voter or a special voter, the returning officer shall carefully open the declaration envelope of such person so that the declaration appearing thereon is not defaced in any way or the ballot paper enclosed therein is not torn or mutilated, and shall place the declaration ballot paper envelope, unopened, in a ballot box or other suitable receptacle where it shall remain until dealt with as provided in sub-section (9).”.

This amendment is also consequential to Clause 6. The first portion of it provides that if the postal vote or the special vote is received, it cancels the declaration vote. The second portion provides that if the postal vote or the special vote has not been received, the declaration vote is valid.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause as amended put and agreed to.

The Committee reverted to Clause 1 standing over.

On Clause 1,

In regard to Clause 1, this amendment as printed deals with the terms “declaration ballot paper”, “declaration ballot paper envelope”, “declaration envelope” and “declaration vote list”, because the other clauses were amended in that way. I now move the amendment—

To insert the following as a paragraph (a) after “amended” in line 6:

1. (a) by the substitution for the definitions of “declaration ballot paper”, “declaration ballot paper envelope”, “declaration envelope” and “declaration votes list”, of the following definitions:

   “ ‘declaration ballot paper’ means a ballot paper referred to in sub-section (5) of Section 74 or in that sub-section read with sub-section (9) of the said section; ‘declaration ballot paper envelope’ means a blank envelope referred to in sub-section (5) of Section 74 or in that sub-section read with sub-section (9) of the said section;

   ‘declaration envelope’ means an envelope referred to in sub-section (4) of Section 74 or in that sub-section read with sub-section (9) of the said section, in which an envelope containing a marked declaration ballot paper is placed;

   ‘declaration votes list’ means a list referred to in sub-section (6) of Section 74 or in that sub-section read with subsection (9) of the said section;”

in line 14, after “Commissioner” to insert “post master”; in line 18, to omit “or post master”; and to add the following proviso at the end of paragraph (a):

The practical difficulty we experience is that the Postmaster, unlike the magistrate, does not have the right to delegate the power to anybody to deal with postal votes. We are now remedying that.

Then after the words “police force” on page 3, we insert the following: “Provided that no justice of the peace . . .” as set out above. I intimated during the second reading that I would consider it. We all expressed the hope that the blank ballot paper would still triumph, but everybody is satisfied with our not changing that long list of persons who can handle postal votes, but that these people should take an oath in the same way as the others.

The last amendment discussed by the hon. the Minister in connection with justices of the peace is a compromise amendment put forward by the Minister following our discussions in the second reading. We on this side of the House accept this form of amendment. I would like to say that, in doing so, we had at no time reflected on the integrity of justices of the peace as such. I think the form of this amendment makes that clear. We have not suggested that justices of the peace would abuse that office or that they would act dishonourably or incorrectly in any other way. Our objection was that they were a group of people unknown to the parties in the sense that all the other people were. We knew who postmasters, station masters and magistrates were and to whom we could address a ballot paper. The same applies in the case of appointed people whose names must be publicized. This amendment deals with this group who are neither one nor the other. And as I say, in accepting it, I want to make it clear that our pressure in this regard was not because we distrusted justices of the peace or were opposed to them but that we wished to have all those handling postal votes under the same regulations and treated in the same way.

We also welcome the amendment dealing with declaration votes. That is also an improvement by the Minister on our proposal. We accept that entirely as also the fact that the postmaster can delegate his power.

Amendments put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

I move—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to. Clause 4 put and negatived.

On Clause 5,

I move—

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

1. (a) by the insertion after paragraph (r) of sub-section (1) of the following paragraph:

   “(r )bis. the records which may be destroyed in terms of the proviso to paragraph (a) of sub-section (1) of section 3;”; and

; in line 40, to omit “Minister” and to substitute “board”; in line 53, to omit “Minister” and to substitute “regulations board”; and to omit sub-section (2).

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 6 put and negatived.

On new Clause to follow Clause 5,

I move—

That the following be a new clause to follow Clause 5—

1. 5. Section 13 of the principal Act is hereby amended by the addition of the following sub-section:

   1. “(4) Any deed, document or endorsement which under this section is required to be signed by a registrar, may, if the registrar is not available to sign such deed, document or endorsement, be signed by the successor in office of the registrar or by any person acting in the place of the registrar, whereupon any reference in sub-section (1) or (3) as to the signature of the registrar shall be deemed to include a reference to the signature of such successor or person acting as registrar, as the case may be.”

Agreed to.

On Clause 8,

I move—

This proviso provides that the State can acquire land and acquire title to land merely by giving endorsement to the title deed. Yesterday, opposition was expressed to this proviso from both sides of the House. The hon. Minister in justifying the proviso said that in the first place it was wanted because the Government only pays for a property when transfer is taken, and he said that if they have to wait for the full process of transfer taking place, there would be delay and sometimes even the financial year would pass without the money having been paid out for the purchase of the property. Secondly, he said that where the State expropriates property and takes possession, it has to pay interest on the purchase price. Those were the main reasons why he wanted this proviso. Now the point is simply this that the State is in no worse a position than any other purchaser of land. Any purchaser only pays when transfer is passed, and if a purchaser takes possession before transfer is passed, that purchaser also pays interest on the purchase price as he has the use of the property in the meantime. That is only right. There is no reason why the State should be placed in a better position than an ordinary purchaser.

I asked the Minister if the preliminary work would not have to be done in any event, and whether it was not correct that the only delay that would take place and which could be saved would be in the process of passing the deed through the Deeds Office. The Minister said no. He said—

But, Sir, until that endorsement has been made on the title deed, there is no transfer of the property and I submit that the Government Attorney cannot simply take a title deed and himself place an endorsement on that title deed. The title deed has to be submitted to the Deeds Office to make the endorsement, and surely there has to be some document from the owner of the property authorizing the Registrar of Deeds to make that endorsement, and how can he do it otherwise than by a power of attorney? The seller will still have to authorize the endorsement to be made, and surely, Sir, although transfer duty is not paid—the Minister correctly said that the State does not pay transport duties—surely the other taxes and assessments which are due on the property will have to be paid before transfer is made. Or is the State simply going to take over property now and then itself become responsible for paying arrear taxes on the property? I see the hon. Deputy Minister is now getting advice from the Minister of Lands, but the Minister himself knows very little about it and I wonder whether it is wise for the hon. Deputy Minister to listen to him. He should rather consult the hon. member for Ceres as to what the procedure should be. The hon. Minister must realize that when a property is transferred, there are preliminary documents which have to be prepared, and they are prepared by an attorney. It need not be an attorney in private practice; the Government Attorney can do the work and he in fact does do the work in many cases. What happens as a rule is that the seller is asked to nominate an attorney if he wishes his own attorney to attend to the preparation of the documents and to see that everything is in order. But on the other hand, if the seller does not wish to have his own attorney attend to the matter, then the Government Attorney attends to the matter and in fact the societies object to the intrusion of the Government Attorney in this type of work, but he in fact does do it. So you do not need to have this proviso in this Act merely to authorize the Government Attorney to attend to the preliminary work in passing a transfer. But once the owner of the property has agreed to sell it to the Government, certain documents have to be prepared. The Minister is recorded in Hansard as having said that the money is paid over on a “koopbrief”.

The transfer follows later.

This is what the hon. Deputy Minister said—

That is not right. They do not transfer the land merely with a deed of sale.

You have got a copy of my speech and I have not even seen it yet.

Did you not say so?

I distinctly said that payment takes place on registration of the title deed.

If that is what the hon. Minister did say, if he says that the Government pays over on handing over the deed of transfer, that is quite right. That is what we want the position to be. How else is the Government going to pay over? I want the Deputy Minister to tell us what is going to be the procedure now. If the Government buys a property: They agree on the purchase price and a deed of sale is signed; what is going to be the next step? Is the Government merely going to act on that deed of sale and merely endorse the title deed himself? That is what the Minister says his Government Attorney will do.

No, they cannot do that.

Of course, they cannot. Why does not the Minister of Labour take over this portfolio ! Then we will get much more sense in the discussions. This is ridiculous, the position we find ourselves in here. In previous discussions I understood that the preliminary work will in any event be done. I ask the Minister now, not the Deputy Minister, to listen to that: I understood that in any event the preliminary work would be done.

What preliminary work?

You see, he should ask the hon. Minister of Labour to take over this Bill. The hon. Deputy Minister knows nothing about it. Naturally preliminary work has to be done. A power of attorney has to be prepared. There has to be a certificate as to the race of the purchaser and the seller. But that certificate is not required when the Government buys. But that is part of the preliminary work. You have to have a transfer duty receipt. That is part of the preliminary work. But in the Government’s case a transfer duty receipt is not necessary, because the Government does not pay transfer duties. So that portion of the preliminary work is cut out. But you have to get rates clearance certificates and you have got to satisfy the registrar that all the rates which are due on the property have been paid.

Naturally.

Well, that is part of the preliminary work, and a transfer cannot be passed unless that clearance certificate is obtained and lodged with the Registrar. You have to satisfy him that the bond-holder has been paid, or that he has consented to the cancellation of the bond. That is all work that has got to be done beforehand. [Time limit.]

The hon. member raised two matters. Firstly, he spoke on the merits, as to why this clause is necessary. Now let me, in regard to the reason why the clause is necessary, point out that it has happened in the past that transfer had to be given to an amount of as much as R 1,500,000 which was voted in a particular year and in respect of which they were busy preparing the deeds of transfer, but as the result of this whole cumbersome procedure the deeds could not be registered in time and the next financial year began. Now it is a rule of the Treasury that if loan funds are not utilized in that specific year they must again be voted anew the next year. That confuses all the calculations. Let us say that for the next year R3,000,000 has been estimated. Now some of that money has to be taken to pay for the expenditure incurred during the previous year. That again leaves the department with a shortage for the same purposes for the next year. There is a very sound reason as to why speeding up should take place here, and streamlining. I think the hon. member will realize that it is really in the interest of the seller. The seller will now obtain his money sooner. It is in the interest of those people that it should be done as soon as possible. And the Minister has said that the whole object of this Bill is to streamline the registration of deeds.

The second point to which the hon. member objects is the procedure which now has to be followed. He says there will in any case have to be a power of attorney. That is true. That is done in the other case under the Housing Act—there must be a power of attorney by the owner. He can use his own attorney for that, but instead of following the lengthy procedure of drawing up a deed of transfer, the position is that the power of attorney is handed in together with the owner’s existing deed of transfer. It is then endorsed and the matter is disposed of. And if there are mortgage bonds, their cancellation can take place at the same time.

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

Afternoon Sitting

Just before business was suspended I was dealing with the procedure which will be followed. The hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) had quite a lot of objection to the procedure. He says that in this particular case we cannot do away with a certain number of documents which will have to be signed, e.g. a power of attorney, etc. It is true that a power of attorney will have to be signed by the owner. But now the procedure will surely be much easier. If the owner has signed the power of attorney, it goes to the Registrar together with the deed, and he then makes the ordinary endorsement without the other formalities in connection with a formal deed of transfer, because the Government really does not need a deed of transfer. So that is not really a very serious objection. I do not know why the hon. member wants to object on those grounds. For that purpose he will probably be able to use his own attorney. But it will be much easier and more convenient if the State Attorney is used to do it. We already have that system in the case of housing. In that case the legislation has been amended in this way and it is working very well, and it is very effective, and it can be done in this case also.

I hope that during the luncheon break the hon. Deputy Minister has been able to do his homework and has got the Deeds office to advise him as to what is intended and that we will not get completely nonsensical suggestions from him, as we have had in this debate. I am surprised at the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman). I see he is moving up now to advise the hon. Deputy Minister. He thinks the Minister needs assistance. The hon. member for Heilbron was a practising attorney and I believe he was a member of the Council of the Law Society of the Free State. Now we get him here pleading that the Government Attorney must be given this work. That hon. member suggests that it should be taken away from the private practitioners, because it can be done more expeditiously by government attorneys. This inconsistency you have not only in the Cabinet, but also amongst members of the party opposite. The Minister of Justice has gone out of his way to protect the country practitioner and to assure that the country practitioner gets certain work and that only he shall do the work, because he has realized that it is necessary to keep the country practitioner in practice. With the depletion of the platteland and more and more of the attorney’s work being taken by other people, the country attorney finds himself unable to make a living, and this provision is going to have exactly the effect that he will have still less work to do, but the hon. member for Heilbron supports it. Contrary to what the Deputy Minister said the hon. member for Heilbron says that there will have to be preliminary documents. I asked the Deputy Minister a question—

The hon. Deputy Minister replied; “Dit is een van die vernaamste”. He wanted to do away with the preliminary work. Now as far as the preliminary work is concerned, surely somebody has got to check up to see if the bondholder has been paid, if there is a bond against the property, what about other conditions that may be registered against the title? The hon. member for Ceres (Mr. S. L. Muller) yesterday introduced an old title deed full of endorsements of different kinds. Surely somebody has got to check up to see that the third parties are protected when a transfer to the Government takes place. No, I cannot see what can be saved by this procedure of merely endorsing a deed. What time will be saved? If there is unnecessary delay in the Deeds Office after the preliminary documents have been prepared, then I suggest the Minister could have made provision in this Act for a speedy passing of the title deeds in the Deeds Office. If that is the only delay, he could have made provision for that to see that the deeds are more expeditiously dealt with. The hon. Minister and the hon. member for Heilbron both referred to the procedure which has already been accepted in this House by allowing the Housing Board to take title merely by giving an endorsement. When that happened, Sir, we were afraid that that was an inroad which would spread. We get an assurance now from the hon. Minister that this proviso will only apply to cases where the State is taking transfer. But, Sir, this is the second time this Government has made inroads into deeds office practice; this is the second time now that they have interfered with our practice of registration of titles, and we are afraid that they will go on and on and that next year they will allow somebody else to take title deed merely by endorsement saying that after all the House has accepted the principle before. I want to ask the hon. Minister to reconsider this matter. He has had the opportunity now of hearing what the objections are. He heard the hon. member for Ceres giving a very good address yesterday of what it involves, and I ask him to reconsider the matter and to delete this proviso.

It is true that the amendment in this new clause provides that a transfer by way of endorsement will only take place when the land is transferred to the State. Now when we talk about the merits and demerits of this amendment, we should bear in mind that we see it in its broad concept, but that this amendment only provides for transfer in favour of the State. Secondly, it also provides that the State must take over all the land under the deed of transfer concerned. In other words, where the State takes over portion of a property registered in my name in terms of a deed of transfer, it cannot be done. It can only be done if the whole property is taken over by the State. I am quite aware of it. and I do not think it is necessary for us to argue about it. That is the position. But what worries us is that a principle is being taken up in our Deeds Registries Act. We argued yesterday about the question that the same principle has already been adopted in the Housing Act. Now I must say unequivocally that I personally think that was a mistake, but because it was done in the Housing Act and not in the Deeds Registries Act it went through easily and was accepted without argument. One expects to find any matter dealing with the registration of deeds in the Deeds Registries Act and not in the Housing Act. It was passed here last year and I said yesterday that I was very sorry about it because I feel very strongly about our sound system of registration. But in view of the fact that the Deputy Minister is now considering the possibility of making another change in this amendment and in this clause, I should like to discuss the difficulties and the problems in connection with it. If this clause remains as it is, we should ask ourselves how it will be done. The hon. member for Heilbron suggested that it should be done by way of power of attorney. I think it is a good thing that we should make an analysis of how the transfer of land takes place to-day. There was reference to preliminary work. Let us see whether the preliminary work will still be there. This preliminary work is in the first place the power of attorney which is handed in together with every deed of transfer. The seller, the man who gives transfer, must sign it and in that power of attorney he authorises the conveyancer to appear before the Registrar and to transfer the land described to the purchaser. The hon. member for Heilbron says he thinks the power of attorney should still be there. I should like the Minister to enlighten us as to what the procedure will be in future. I cannot quite see why there should be a power of attorney, because we have many cases where deeds of transfer are endorsed. There are various endorsements which are placed on deeds in terms of the Estates Act in the case where there are definite heirs, and where it would lead to unnecessary expenditure to give transfer one can have the deed endorsed. In the case where there are indefinite heirs, the deed is endorsed to the effect that the property is left to indefinite heirs. So we have examples in the Deeds Office of endorsements on deeds, but those endorsements are all accompanied by an application for endorsement. In other words, if one wants to have an endorsement made to a deed, somebody must apply. In this case I accept it as a principle that land may not be transferred to anybody, whether it is the State or someone else, without the signature of the seller appearing on some or other document. That is obvious, and therefore the deed cannot simply be handed in for endorsement. There must be some accompanying document containing the signature of the seller, and without it land can and should never be transferred. In this case where it is transferred to the State we shall have to have something in the form of a power of attorney or an application. It seems to me that for purposes of endorsement an application is perhaps better than a power of attorney because in the power of attorney one empowers somebody to appear to do something, but here one does not want to empower somebody to do anything. One only asks the Registrar to endorse the deed because one has sold the property to the State. I should like to know whether this is the procedure which will be followed.

There was reference to other preliminary work and the Deputy Minister was asked whether that work must still be done in regard to the endorsement of deeds. This other preliminary work is, e.g., tax certificates. With every deed that is registered it is essential to submit tax certificates from any local authority in which the land is situated. Where it is situated in the municipal area, the municipality has to give such a certificate, and similarly in the case of a divisional council or an irrigation board. The reason for it is twofold, firstly, because this is the safety measure these bodies use to ensure that their taxes are paid, and, secondly, so that they will know in future who the new owner is who has to pay the taxes. As I see the matter, we cannot do without these things. If we use the system of endorsement in favour of the State, it will still be necessary to provide these tax certificates so that the present owner is relieved from his responsibility for taxation. But there is also other preliminary work like birth certificates and group area declarations which are now perhaps not applicable here. But I take the case of estates, where land is transferred from an estate. Then there are certain essential things which must be obtained from the Master’s Office. He must give his consent in terms of Section 62 (3) of the Estates Act; a death duties endorsement must be obtained from the Master to show that death duties have been paid, etc. Therefore, I feel that all this preliminary work will still be necessary. If the day should come when this preliminary work is no longer done, even though the transfer is by way of endorsement, that will be a very unfortunate day for our registration system. I regard it as the basis of our system of registration. I am very sorry that a new system is now being introduced in terms of which the new owner, even though it is the State, does not receive a deed of transfer. I do not think that should be so, but now it is said that this is already the position and therefore we must just continue with it. I therefore want to ask the Minister whether it will be possible for him to say in his reply that it will not go further than it is now. and not because we do not want the work of the Deeds Office to be facilitated. In fact, I do not think this will save the Deeds Office much work. It is only the examination of the deed of transfer itself which will be eliminated. I want to ask the Minister whether it is possible to give us the assurance that this principle will end there and that we will not continue with it further, because that is the difficulty I see in this new principle. [Time limit.]

It is very gratifying to listen to the hon member for Ceres giving an accurate picture of the position involved in this clause, and I agree wholeheartedly that this is a matter of principle, and that is why the matter is being so carefully dealt with and the attention of the Deputy Minister is drawn to the important change he is seeking to make. In the second reading I dealt with the fact that if it is necessary to provide for a specific set of circumstances, the very Act which created those circumstances, should have contained the necessary provisions. That is why, as the previous speaker has said, there was a clause inserted in the Housing Act which dealt with this quick method of transfer, and probably because it was dealt with in that Act this House did not concentrate its attention on that change because it accepted the fact that it applied to a specific set of circumstances, to a specific acquisition by the State for a specific purpose. Does the Deputy Minister realize why it is sought to have a certain procedure that should be followed? One of the principal facts is that it is the duty of the examiner in the Deeds Office to look into all the aspects connected with a particular title deed, the conditions that apply to that land, whether there are any servitudes that have to be protected. The object of examination in the Deeds Office is not to prolong the period which should expire before a transaction is completed, but because certain important investigations must be made so that there is an absolute assurance that no rights are lost either to the owner or to contiguous owners or other persons, e.g. in a township. Then there is the method to be employed. Attention was drawn to endorsements under the Administration of Estates Act, but surely some application must be made to some authority. There the special power of attorney or the application was sent to the Master so that he could make sure that no rights are injuriously affected. Here it is clear that you cannot merely give ownership to the State by the method suggested by the Deputy Minister and supported by the hon. member for Heilbron. He said it was a quicker way of paying the seller, but that is nonsense. The essence of the matter is not that the seller should get his money sooner. Then you might as well change the entire Deeds Registry Act so that the seller gets his money immediately the purchaser says he is prepared to pay the price. [Interjection] That is what he said, that the money would be paid on the deed of sale, and he also said that payment would be made quicker. The member also said that the transaction might not go through in time and then the funds would have to be re-voted. The whole of the defence of the amending clause put up by the Minister and those who support him does not bear examination. It just means nothing. [Interjection] And the hon. member knows that it has no value and that it is not a sound argument in support of this clause. The position is that we have a system which has merit because it has an objective and you have to jealously guard the right of the citizen, in regard to the ownership of property. I can tell the Deputy Minister that there are townships laid out on certain conditions where you cannot even change the use of a piece of land because other people have purchased under those conditions and they will be affected. All these things are examined in the Deeds Office.

I am very sorry, but I cannot accept the amendment. In the first place I want to say that I take it amiss of the hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) that he looked at my Hansard without telling me, Hansard which I had not even seen yet. I repeatedly told the hon. member to-day that I said yesterday evening that payment was made when the deed of transfer was registered. Now he wants to suggest that I said that payment was made when the purchase was concluded. Surely he knows that that is not so? I think the hon. member should at least accept what I say.

When I listen to those hon. members, the question that occurs to me is this. When the Bill was first published, the Law Society came to see the Minister, and after they had failed to get certain proposals of theirs accepted, after they had failed to get Clause 4 withdrawn, the Law Society once again approached the Minister through the hon. member sitting next to me, Mr. Visse, and on that occasion the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. S. L. Muller) was also present. Clause 4 was eventually withdrawn as requested by the Law Society, and the Society accepted the rest of the Bill as it was. Now the hon. members are acting as the champions of the country attorneys, but the country attorneys will not be affected, because they are still going to do the preparatory work on behalf of the seller. They will still handle the powers of attorney. Let the hon. members and the hon. member for Florida (Mr. H. Miller) show me where that is stated in the clause. I shall read it again—

This whole quarrel is about the words “to register free of charge”. They still want the city attorney to have the work which has been done by the country attorney redone by his typist, after which it is handed in. That is what is involved here. I want to ask the hon. members to tell me where they find in this clause that an examination will no longer be made. If they tell me that they find here that the city correspondent no longer makes the examination, but that it is done by the State Attorney, then they are right.

Let us analyse the matter further. The Deeds Office has the deed with all the particulars. Even in the case of ordinary registration, it is still the duty of the Deeds Office, as in the past, to see whether the work has been done properly, and if any error is found, they may reject the document concerned. In other words, when the land is registered in the name of the State now, the machinery of the State will itself ascertain what mortgages are registered against the deed and what tax certificates there are, and so forth.

May I ask a question? On account of what the Minister has just told us, I just want to know why it is necessary to effect an amendment?

I said at the second reading already that the first reason was to expedite the registration of deeds, and that the second reason was that it was not possible to expedite matters under the old system, and that the old system was not necessary where the land was passing to the State. The hon. member for Ceres said that he regretted what had been done in the Housing Act, but if that attitude is adopted, then hon. members have not done their homework, because it is not only in the Housing Act that that was done. The Housing Act provides very clearly that it can be done by endorsement, and it refers to the Deeds Registries Act. Let the hon. member tell me whether there have been any instances of deeds being registered under that Act in which the mortgagees were not treated in the right way, or the tax certificates were not included? Can the hon. member tell me of any instance under that Act in which, as a result of action taken by the State, the Master found that we had not treated the heirs in the right way? But that is not the only Act. That is the Act of 1962, but in 1961 Parliament did something similar in connection with the preservation of Coloured areas, when it was also stated that transfer could be effected by way of endorsement and without any payment of fees. The attorneys fully agreed in 1961 that our staff were sufficiently capable to do this work without having the examination which those hon. members are so anxious to have undertaken. Can the hon. members tell me of any case in which there has been irregularities? The hon. member for Florida says that when a township is laid out, certain servitudes are registered. Can he mention any instance— and we are clearing up many townships and moving population groups at the moment—in which the requirements in respect of the protection of those servitudes have not been complied with? No, it is only a matter of trying to find some excuse. Let me make it very clear that when we buy, the Deeds Office, in any case, ascertains precisely what encumbrances and servitudes exist, and then we must see to it that the course of action adopted is the right one, otherwise the State can easily be accused of having bought land on which servitudes are registered without its being aware of that fact. The necessary protection does, therefore, exist. The hon. member for Transkeian Territories now says that the Minister of Justice has always gone out of his way to protect the country attorneys. I want to ask the hon. members: The fact that the Minister of Lands repeatedly met the Law Society and has withdrawn that one clause, does that not represent an accommodating attitude on his part? In view of the fact that they expressed their satisfaction with the Bill, on whose behalf are those hon. members then speaking?

As far as the preliminary examination is concerned, that work is being done in any case, is it not? That position is not being altered here. But in a case where the State Attorney decides to carry out an examination on behalf of the State himself, do they want the transfer to remain suspended in mid-air after that? He satisfies himself that it is in order. I repeat that the hon. members should not try to create the impression that a new principle is being introduced as far as the registration of deeds is concerned. We accepted that principle in two different Acts in 1961 and 1962. The fact that transfer is effected by endorsement will not prejudice the country attorney. He will not suffer any loss of income. He will still do all that preliminary work, because he will be acting on behalf of the seller. But the State does not always have to buy land; it can also expropriate land, and what is the position then? Who does the work then? Must the State get an attorney to do it? On the contrary, we are very accommodating in this connection. I repeat that there will be a saving of time as a result of the fact that the city correspondent will not be acting as an intermediary, and it is usually in the office of the city correspondent that the mistakes and the delays occur, because he merely gets his typist to re-do everything which has been done by the country attorney, and if a single typing mistake is made, there is a delay. The Regulations Board will have to make regulations to lay down the procedure for transfer by endorsement. In other words, the Law Society is still being recognized in the matter, because it will make the regulations governing the manner in which the endorsement is to be made. Possibly there will be no need for a power of attorney, but the signed consent of the seller will be all that is required. He will submit his deed of transfer, together with the declarations, to the Department, and we shall then hand in the documents at the Deeds Office. Why must we have an intermediary?

I am sorry to disagree with what the hon. the Deputy Minister has said. In my view the case that has been put to him of interference with our registration system is entirely justified. Sir, the hon. the Minister says that the position is that platteland attorneys will not be affected at all. I must draw his attention to the wording of the provision which is before us—

Sir. there is no requirement in terms of that provision that the power of attorney must be signed by the owner of the land, none whatsoever. There is merely provision for an endorsement of the title deeds. I naturally accept what the hon. the Deputy Minister says he said yesterday, but I was listening to him very carefully and I was very definitely under the impression that these transfers would be passed upon proof of the sale. Sir, our whole registration system is magnificent and up to date; we have sought to strengthen that system, and I submit that this is an inroad into that system and that at the very least it should not be proceeded with except after very careful inquiry. Sir. it is true that in Acts passed in 1961 and 1962 similar provisions are contained regarding transfer, but it is clear from this debate that the method of dealing with this matter has not been worked out. I challenge the hon. the Deputy Minister to show me any legal provision in this Act which contains this provision which requires that there shall be a power of attorney signed by the owner of the property. I challenge him to show me any provision which prohibits this transfer without the production of proof that rates and taxes have been paid. Sir, in addition to that, there is no provision in this short-cut method that we have here which deals with the position of a person holding a registered bond over the property. I submit to the hon. the Deputy Minister that this is a half-baked method of dealing with the matter, and at the very least, if the Government decides to proceed with the matter on the basis provided for in this measure, there should be adequate provision to safeguard our registration system. The sound thing to do obviously is to stand by the system which has stood the test of time and to drop the idea of these short-cuts. Only in that way can the rights of the owner be properly protected. I mentioned in an earlier stage of this debate a case of expropriation of which I personally have knowledge. I mentioned the fact that mortgage bonds were being left without endorsements on them to show that the amount of the bond has not been paid. Apparently exactly the same thing will occur here. Taking short-cuts of that sort, doing slipshod work of that sort, can only result in weakening the registration system which it should be the pride of this House to preserve as it is, because it has no equal in the world.

I feel that I cannot allow what the hon. the Deputy Minister has said to go unchallenged. We feel very disappointed indeed that an important issue of this nature has been reduced in many senses to a question of what fees will be earned by conveyancers, because that is a matter that was raised purely incidentally in the course of the arguments put to the hon. the Deputy Minister as to why it would be unwise to make an incision of this nature into the workings of this Act. In this very section in the Act itself reference is made to the sequence of transactions. In fact, one of the principles very jealously guarded is that transactions should follow the proper sequence and even where there are two or three purchasers almost simultaneously of the same piece of land, there is provision to avoid a skipping of transfers.

Clause 14 provides for it.

If the Deputy Minister is so cautious he will realize that that is an important factor. What does Clause 14 provide? I do not know what the hon. the Deputy Minister’s point is. Sir, I will deal with Clause 14 when we come to it, but I want to point out to the Deputy Minister the importance that is attached to a sequence of transactions. Those words are used in the original section which is under discussion. I will get hold of the Act and read it out to the Deputy Minister a little later, but I want him to know that you cannot reduce this discussion purely to a question of conveyancers’ fees, because I can assure him that the only conveyancers who are affected, as far as country attorneys are concerned, are those in areas where there is a Deeds Office seat. There is not a great deal of country work that comes to centres other than Cape Town, Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Pietermaritzburg. The rest of the big cities are not affected by country work. If the hon. the Deputy Minister would like to know something else on that point. I can also tell him that country attorneys also get their allowance in respect of deeds of transfer, but I do not even want to raise that issue because that was not the cardinal issue that we raised in this matter.

The hon. the Deputy Minister goes on to talk about the fact that it will not be necessary for conveyancers to do the examination and the checking of a deed to ensure protection. He says that the State Attorney will do it. I would like him to know that that is never done by the attorney. The work is done by the Deeds Office, obviously, and that is the very procedure that we want. Sir, it was mentioned by a previous speaker that the proviso mentions that the Registrar shall make the alterations. I would like to know from the Minister who gave us the assurance earlier on that powers of attorney would be used, that attorneys would submit the proper documents and that the matter would go through the ordinary procedure of being examined by the Deeds Office, whether he really means what he says. Does he know that that is going to take place? Does he want us to read that into this clause?

That is self-evident.

No, it is not as self-evident as the Deputy Minister thinks. Sir, we have to go by the exact words of the clause. I also want to point out to the Deputy Minister that although he gave us some examples, he did not give examples of cases where the Deeds Registries Act was amended. He gave examples of cases where Statutes were passed to deal with certain specific big undertakings of the State. The State, for example, undertook to tackle the question of housing as an emergency because of the tremendous scale of immigration. The State has to undertake urban renewals schemes, so provision has been made to enable the State under the Housing Act to try to accelerate certain things because of the emergency that is facing us. Those amendments were not made to the Deeds Act; they were made to the Act dealing with that particular subject.

What is the difference in principle?

There is a very important difference. Then we have the Community Development Act, for example. The new Community Development Act, which has now superseded the Group Areas Development Act, deals with a number of matters affecting surveys and changed conditions, and an elaborate procedure is provided to accelerate matters. Provision is made, for example, for consultation with the Administrator and local authorities in order to ensure that there is a proper recording of these various changes, but the Deeds Act is not changed; the Deeds Act which is the foundation of our whole system of land registration is not changed because it is not wise to interfere with something that is virtually the cornerstone of the entire system of land registration in this country. I would like the Deputy Minister to know the difficulties that some of the younger countries are having with regard to land registration. They follow the example of countries like South Africa and Britain to ensure that the owner of the land will have security. After all, the ownership of land is a basic thing under the whole system of capitalism, and the ownership of land is very jealously guarded.

Why so aggressive?

Sir, I think that in a sense we have been treated very shabbily to-day, because the Deputy Minister takes an important Statute such as the Deeds Registries Act and he waves it aside as if with a magic wand, expecting everything to disappear like mist before the morning sun, simply because the State in this case will acquire property by purchase or otherwise. I say that there is an important principle involved here and I say that we are entitled to ask that these principles should be respected and that this debate should not be reduced to the mundane level of a discussion on attorneys’ fees.

Order! The proposed amendment has been discussed very thoroughly now, and hon. members must put forward new arguments now.

The hon. member who has just sat down made the statement that we were concerned with a principle in our law here. We just want to point out that it is no longer a principle in our law. As far as private persons are concerned, the Administration of Estates Act already provides that transfer may be effected merely by way of endorsement. That is the position as far as private persons are concerned. The hon. member dealt with the position in so far as the State was concerned. He objects to the clause, but he loses sight of the fact that it is, indeed, possible to issue regulations under this Bill, regulations which will prescribe precisely what course of action must be adopted here.

The hon. the Deputy Minister took exception to certain remarks of mine as to what he said yesterday. He says that he said that the purchase price was paid over on transfer. Sir, that is the normal procedure, but that is not what we understood the Deputy Minister to say yesterday. It was not only I who misunderstood him, but other members as well. The Deputy Minister said that, of course, the preliminary work must be done, but the whole discussion to-day has taken place because of a statement made by the Deputy Minister yesterday that the preliminary work would not be done. How could everybody misunderstand him on this question as to whether the preliminary work has to be done or not? The preliminary work has to be done. The Minister now says that all the preliminary work will be done by the Government attorney. Well, if that is so, he will not be saving any time; the work will not be done more expeditiously and, therefore, I can see no reason for the introduction of this measure.

In the first instance I want to say to hon. members that the elimination of a new deed of transfer represents a large saving. In my second-reading speech yesterday I told hon. members what the staff problems in the Deeds Office were. This saving of time and labour, particularly for the Deeds Office, will be of great value to us. It will no longer be the position that two original documents are supplied. In the second instance I just want to point out that the Deeds Registries Act does not prescribe in detail what procedure must be adopted in registering a transfer. Section 10 of the Act provides that the Regulations Board shall prescribe the manner and form of endorsement and what particular documents are to be submitted. We cannot anticipate the decisions of the Regulations Board at this stage; the necessary arrangements will be made by the board itself. Hon. members of the Opposition have asked me to tell them at this stage how it will be done, and I have already said twice that the Regulations Board is there and that the Regulations Board will prescribe what is to be done as well as the fees. The hon. member now comes along here and says that land is so valuable and that the registration of land is now being interfered with. Sir, it is not being interfered with; he is misrepresenting the position here. Nothing is being done here which will interfere with the deed of transfer, which will be retained by the owner. All that is being done here is that provision is being made for the procedure to be complied with when land is transferred to the name of the State, and if that land is subsequently retransferred to any person after it has been reclassified and re-constituted, that person will get a proper deed of transfer in respect thereof.

Amendment put and negatived.

Official Opposition dissenting.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 14,

I would like the Deputy Minister to explain to us what the effect of Clause 14 is. I think the House is entitled to an explanation, in view of the fact that a little while ago the Deputy Minister made a great song and dance about this clause.

When I referred a little while ago to Section 14, I was referring to the Deeds Act, not to this Bill.

Clause put and agreed to.

I move—

That the Committee revert to Clause 2.

Agreed to.

On Clause 2,

During the second-reading debate yesterday, we spoke about the certified copies which have to be kept in the Deeds Office in cases where they return from the Archives. I do not think any provision has been made for that as yet, and I should like to move—

I shall be glad if the hon. member will withdraw his amendment, and to meet the hon. member I shall then move in lieu thereof—

Amendment, proposed by Mr. Muller, withdrawn with leave of the Committee.

Amendment, proposed by the Deputy Minister of Lands, put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

Orders of the Day Nos. V to IX to stand over until Order of the Day No. X had been disposed of.

I move—

That the Bill be now read a second time.

As usual, this Bill is being introduced to give effect to certain Budget proposals, and in addition it deals with various other matters affecting the Consolidated Revenue Fund and the Railway and Harbour Fund.

I do not consider it necessary to deal with every clause in detail, as the various clauses are explained in the White Paper (Explanatory Memorandum) which hon. members have before them.

As far as Clause 7 is concerned, I pointed out on previous occasions this Session that the amount of R6,000,000, which is the maximum which may be provided under special warrant in terms of existing legislation, is relatively a very small one in proportion to the total State expenditure at present. I want to emphasize in advance that the proposed amendment does not contemplate a freer utilization of funds in anticipation of parliamentary sanction. As national services expand, urgent emergency requirements arise in the broader sphere from time to time. Those requirements cannot be postponed without prejudicing the public interest. I now propose that a percentage limitation should be accepted as the basis. Formerly, when the limit was prescribed in the Act in the form of an amount, it represented approximately 1 per cent of the expenditure for any particular year. It is, therefore, quite realistic to accept that as a permanent basis, which will keep pace with any increase in the country’s requirements. Hon. members need have no misgivings whatsoever in this regard. Special warrants will continue to be subject to the same careful and strict scrutiny before they are submitted to the State President.

Perhaps it is also necessary to add to the explanation in respect of Clause 10. In terms of the present law treasury bills have to be issued in the monetary unit of the Republic; that is to say, the Rand. In the second place, they have to be issued in multiples of R200. Conversions of foreign units do not always work out at multiples of R200. The German Revolving Credit Agreements, for example, provide for the issuing of securities in the form of treasury bills, as promissory notes are not acceptable to the German banks for some reason or other. Because treasury bills can only be issued in multiples of R200, problems arise in connection with the odd amounts which do not fall into multiples of R200 upon conversion. In addition, the German agreements provide that the treasury bills must be issued in the South African equivalent of the German Mark at the gold parity rate applying at the time. The South African Reserve Bank, however, credits the Treasury account with the South African equivalent as converted at the preferential rate of exchange applying at the time. The result is that the amount placed to the credit of the Treasury Account does not correspond with the total amount of the treasury bills. In order to eliminate all problems, the logical step is to amend the Act as now being proposed. That will enable the Treasury to issue treasury bills for the amount of the foreign currency. The South African equivalent or the various rates do not enter into the matter then. Future agreements will then provide for the issuing of treasury bills for the amount borrowed and repayable in the monetary unit in which the loan was taken up. As in the case of other foreign loans, rate of exchange losses or gains will then be for the Treasury Account. Losses will be paid out of appropriated funds and gains will be paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

To my mind the other clauses require no further explanation, but if any hon. member requires more information in respect of any of them, I shall gladly furnish it.

With the Minister’s explanation and the White Paper we have before us, we are quite ready to go into Committee.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

House in Committee:

On Clause 4,

I notice that Clause 4 provides for the contribution to be made by South Africa to the I.D.A. Will the Minister tell us what purpose I.D.A. is serving as far as South African interests are concerned. We would like to know what the implication of this is and we would like to have some more information in regard to I.D.A. in so far as it affects this country.

Hon. members will remember that a few years ago we made an initial contribution towards the funds of I.D.A., the International Development Association. The object of that is to give assistance on more liberal and easier terms to the less-developed countries. It is really part of the International Bank. It is administered by the same officers, but they are are able to lend the money on more liberal conditions as to rates of interest and the date of repayment. We made an initial contribution as a gesture. Two years ago the International Monetary Fund was approached again for a replenishment of the capital amount of this fund. Most of the countries which were original signatories and contributors to I.D.A. promised further amounts. We explained at the time that, although we were not averse to the objects and were only too ready to help, as we had done in the past, we had our own problems in South Africa in respect of which we were not approaching I.D.A. for further funds and that accordingly our contribution would not be of the same order as that of the other contributors. We then decided on the amount which hon. members will find here, 1,330,000 United States dollars. That is one-third of the total amount we promised to contribute. The International Development Association asked us to give them an assurance—they got it from the other contributors—that the payment of future installments would have parliamentary approval in advance. That is why we are now asking for approval of the payment of the first installment ex our Loan Account and the further installments during the next two years.

The clause authorises the hon. the Minister to enter into certain commitments. Am I to understand from this that the amounts to be paid will come up for normal appropriation and will not be regarded as a statutory appropriation? The wording is certainly not in conformity with normal statutory appropriation wording. I take it, therefore, that normal appropriation in regard to the two amounts to be paid in the next two years will take place.

That is right. It will appear on Loan Account for the next two years. But they want to know in advance that the contribution has parliamentary approval.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 10,

I appreciate the Minister’s explanation regarding the purpose of the change in this clause but will the hon. Minister please tell us on what basis the conversion of any foreign bills of exchange takes place, for record purposes. Is the conversion rate some fixed rate or is it at current market rates? If it is on current market rates there will be variations from year to year for the purpose of keeping a record of the transactions.

The current market rate will be adopted.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 11,

A fairly full explanation is given in the White Paper of what is intended but could the hon. Minister enlarge upon this and indicate—I am not asking for specific institutions—what kind of institutions are likely to benefit from the provisions of this clause.

The object of this Bill is to give an opportunity to the smaller trust companies, particularly in the Western Province. They have two functions: They are deposit-receiving institutions and they also administer estates. As far as the banking side of their business is concerned, you may find that three or four of them want to merge into one but each one wants to retain his identity as far as the administration of estates is concerned. This request has been made to us by these various institutions which have more or less become a tradition in the Western Province, in particular, and we saw no harm in acceding to their request.

Clause put and agreed to.

Remaining clauses and the Title put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Mr. Chairman, during the second-reading debate I told the hon. the Minister that we supported the Bill. I also asked the hon. the Minister whether Clause 1 would provide sufficient cover to a member of a control board when travelling to or from a meeting of such board or committees which might be appointed by it. Are they covered under this insurance in that case as well. The reply which the hon. the Minister gave yesterday was not quite complete, and my purpose in getting up was only to afford the hon. the Minister an opportunity of giving us more information about the clause concerned, so that we may know whether these people will be properly covered when they are in the service of the board, and not only when they are carrving out inspections or attending such meetings.

The legal interpretation is that a member is in the service of the board from the moment he leaves his home on the business of the board, whether it be a meeting of the board or any other business, until he returns to his home after the meeting or business has been concluded. Until such time as the court decides otherwise, our interpretation is that the person is duly covered while proceeding to and returning from the meeting.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 4,

The hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman) raised objections in connection with this clause yesterday. I take it that the object of Clause 4 is to sanction what happened in the past when payments were made in respect of wool deriving from skins. However, we still wonder whether the clause, as it stands here, is not framed too widely. We should like to have an assurance from the hon. the Deputy Minister that it is indeed the object of this clause to cover the payments which have already been made. Then we also want to ask him whether he knows of any similar cases to-day and whether such cases will occur in future. We on this side of the House naturally accept that the Wool Board is representative of the farmers and farmers’ interests and that as far as this clause is concerned, although it is framed very widely, the Wool Board will be a kind of guarantee to the wool farmers that they will not land in a position where they will eventually have to pay all the levies while other buyers of wool are not required to do so. I should like to have that assurance from the Minister.

I am glad that the hon. member has the necessary confidence in the wool farmers, because she says the farmers will in any case see to it that any levies which have been collected are not repaid by the Wool Board if it is not necessary. In the first place this clause is included here to provide for cases such as the skin transactions, etc. In future that could only be done if the levy were increased. As hon. members know, the levy can only be increased with Ministerial approval. It is therefore not possible for such cases to occur haphazardly.

Clause put and agreed to.

Remaining clause and Title put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Bill read a third time.

Would the Minister please tell us why the phrase “or by any place outside the Republic” has been inserted in Clause 3 (b)? Does that mean that substances will come in from outside the Republic to be used inside or will we have people outside the Republic working in outside laboratories?

Material from outside the Republic, for example, from South West Africa, which is outside the Republic, can also be examined here. It can also be sent here for processing and examination.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 4,

I would just like the re-assurance from the hon. the Minister that he is going to make provision, in this clause, for representatives from the Transvaal Chamber of Mines and from the University of the Witwatersrand to serve on the board. He indicated that during the second reading and I would like to know whether my interpretation of what he said is correct.

I said yesterday that I was prepared to consider the appointment. But as I have pointed out Clause 4 (1) (d) provides that one shall be appointed by reason of his knowledge of matters relating to the industry. I also indicated that the Chamber of Mines itself did not represent the whole mining industry. I shall, however, take into consideration these representations when the appointments are made. As far as the Witwatersrand University is concerned I shall also take into consideration the services rendered by it in connection with the establishment of this laboratory and the assistance they have rendered throughout the years.

Clause put and agreed to.

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

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Bill read a third time.

I move—

That the Bill be now read a third time.

At this the final stage of the passage of this Bill through this House it is appropriate to re-state the standpoint of this side of the House regarding the disposal of the Klipfontein Organic Products Corporation on the lines disclosed to us during the second reading by the hon. the Minister. Let me re-affirm, therefore, that we, as the Opposition, are not opposed to the disposal of the Klipfontein Organic Products Corporation to private enterprise. We are, however, definitely opposed to the method by which the disposal of this State-owned property is taking place ostensibly in terms of the Bill before the House.

In an earlier debate the hon. the Minister stated that the first firm offer for the acquisition of K.O.P. came from Federale Volksbeleggings Beperk. I accept that statement, Sir, but surely that was the time for the Government to have had regard to how best set about the disposal of this valuable asset and not to how to dispose of it expeditiously. Surely that was the time to have given publicity to the Government’s preparedness to consider offers for disposal thus affording an opportunity to other concerns interested to compete for the acquisition of this concern. Nothing that the hon. Minister has said satisfies us that there was any justification for the Government to ignore this salutary procedure of advertising and submitting the disposal of K.O.P. to public tender before clinching a deal, whether the deal was clinched with Federale Volksbeleggings or with any other concern or group. In those circumstances I am constrained to say that to act as the hon. the Minister has done in this instance does not redound to his credit or to the credit of the Government.

Why?

I shall tell you. I think the circumstances speak for themselves. But in saying that I have in mind not so much the Government but the hon. Minister himself. The hon. gentleman himself has admitted that the disposal of State-owned property, after public tender, is the proper and the normal procedure to follow in State administration. I repeat, therefore, that I do not think that anything the hon. the Minister has said justified him or the Government in departing from this salutary and acceptable procedure.

We on this side, as an Opposition, endeavoured to remedy matters by moving amendments during the Committee Stage but they were rejected. I think it is fair to say that, in the circumstances, that rejection was not because the amendments were unacceptable in principle but because they were unacceptable to the Government because, for all practical purposes, the disposal of K.O.P. as a State controlled enterprise had already been completed. In fact all the evidence and statements indicate that the disposal was completed before the principle of the Bill before this House was approved. The Opposition has registered its protest, not to the disposal, but to the method of disposal followed by the Government. We did that at earlier stages and we intend to register our opposition to the method of disposal at this stage as well. We will vote against the third reading.

This topic has now been exhausted, and all that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) said was that they object to the method of selling K.O.P.C. What I want to put to him as an accountant is this, that the only method of selling a concern such as this is the method which has been adopted by the Minister. I also want to say to him that it is the most ridiculous idea in the world to put out on tender a concern such as this. I do not think a large concern such as this has ever been put out on tender in the business world. Can the hon. member give me an example? Concerns of this nature have already been sold in the private sector, and those people also want the best possible terms when selling such a concern. Have any of them put it out on tender? Of course not. One does it by way of private negotiation.

The hon. member now says that when a definite offer was made by Federale Volksbe-leggings the Government should have publicised that fact and put the concern out on tender. But all the publicity in the world was given to that. The financial pages of all the newspapers —including the Financial Mail —mentioned the fact from time to time that Federale Volksbeleggings were negotiating to buy K.O.P.C. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) would have had something of a case if he had been able to say that any of the few buyers there might possibly have been, such as Capex or Fisons—one can count them on the fingers of one hand—could say that they had been tricked, that they also wanted to tender. No interest was displayed by any other buyer. It is not a question of the Minister having had a choice as to whether he wanted to negotiate privately or by way of tender. He had no choice. This was the only possible way. In the normal course of events a concern such as this is simply not put out on tender. As I said at the second reading, if there is one person who ought to know that, then it is a former Auditor-General. There have been cases in which the Tender Regulations were departed from, and this is a classic example of a case in which one does not put something out on tender, and the hon. member knows that. Hon. members know that they should not have opposed this Bill. The only reason why they continue to oppose it is that they took the wrong decision at the outset and thought that they had to oppose it.

The very vehemence of the hon. member’s objection convinces us that the stand we are taking is right. This organization is for sale.

It is not for sale.

If the member says it has been sold then it only gives more substance to our objection. We are satisfied that in transactions of this kind the world should know that an organization of this kind is for sale. The hon. member said that anybody reading the Financial Mail knew that Federale Volks-beleggings was interested in the transaction. Anybody was equally entitled to assume that, because these negotiations were going on by that organization with the Government, the matter was cut and dried; that is was too late to do anything.

Why?

They were entitled to draw that assumption as much as they were entitled to draw the assumption that the organization was for sale. Our objection is still well-founded therefore. I think this has been a lesson to the Minister. We trust that if he has any other large Government projects for sale he will make it known to the outside world and that he is endeavouring to get the best price possible. I do not accept what the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) says that tenders cannot be asked for in a transaction of this kind. Specifications could be drawn up subject to certain qualifications and subject to certain safeguards. It is not unknown for transactions of this kind to be done on this basis. We had the example some time ago when it was suggested that the Cuthbert organization was for sale, and as the hon. member for Kensington said, the Industrial Development Corporation on behalf of one particular organization was very assiduous in endeavouring to get control and, fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon the point of view, those negotiations failed, and another organization got control at a much more advantageous price.

What we are concerned about in this matter is that when a sale of this kind takes place of public assets by a Government organization there should be the maximum publicity and it should be patent to everyone that the best possible price was being obtained. We are not in a position now to say that the better price could have been obtained, nor can we say that the hon. the Minister has not obtained the best price. The Minister may have obtained the best price. But we want to register our protest, not because we are against this being sold to private enterprise, but our whole object in protesting is to underline what we have said in the earlier stages, namely, that transactions of this kind should be done in the light of day so that all the world may know that the best possible price has been obtained. For that reason we are going to vote against the third reading of this Bill.

If the hon. member who has just resumed his seat had listened to what the hon. the Minister said in his second-reading speech, he would have known, both from what the Minister said and from the whole history of this undertaking, that this undertaking had never yet been advertised for sale. The attitude adopted by the Government was very definitely that it was not married to this undertaking. The Government was prepared to dispose of it, and the hon. the Minister said that if there was a feeling on the part of the private sector that the exploitation of this industry was something which really belonged in its sphere, and someone who wanted to buy K.O.P.C. came to the fore, the Government would be prepared to sell it. But the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) also indicated that it was not as though there were quite a number of possible buyers in South Africa. After all, we know that that is the position, and that at most there are one or two or three who might be interested. and that the first time that any buyers were interested in buying the concern was nearly 18 years ago. The fact that this concern was for sale was not concealed during those 18 years—it was known during those 18 years—and, in spite of that, the possible buyers throughout that period were not prepared to come forward and to make the Government an offer for this undertaking. How can those hon. members say now that it could have been sold on a basis other than the one on which the hon. the Minister has done so? But what is more, if the hon. members could make out a case here to say that if the Government could have sold it by advertising it, they might possibly have obtained a better price, they would have had a point. But surely such an attitude would not be correct either. Surely a better price could not be obtained if this undertaking were now thrown on the market and advertised. Surely it is not possible to do that in the case of this type of concern. The example of Cuthberts has been mentioned. I do not know too much about Cuthberts, but my information is that Cuthberts was never advertised.

Of course not.

It was never advertised, but what normally happens is that it is known who may possibly be interested and that such interested parties come forward and enter into negotiations in connection with such an undertaking, and that is precisely what has happened here. Moni’s was not advertised either. In all such major transactions co-experts in the particular industry concerned who are interested reach a point at which they begin to negotiate with a view to take-over. The undertaking is not advertised except in a case of insolvency, and this undertaking was not insolvent. It is only insolvent concerns that are thrown on the market and in respect of which it is said: “We are now throwing this concern on the market and the highest bidder gets it.” And the Klipfontein Organic Products Corporation was no insolvent concern. No, Mr. Speaker, one only adopts the course of action desired by those hon. members if the concern the Government wants to sell is not a sound one. But, as far as K.O.P.C. is concerned, the concern which the Government wants to sell is a sound one, and the Government is not anxious to sell it at any price to just anybody who happens to come along. It is negotiating with the only really interested possible buyers at the moment. This is the first time in 18 years that people have come forward and said that they are interested in taking over this concern. I do not think those hon. members have a case. I think the hon. the Minister has acted in the only way possible, and none of the hon. members on the other side can mention one single case in history where the State disposed of an undertaking of this nature in a way other than the way in which the State is now disposing of this undertaking.

Hon. members who are supporting the Government in this matter must look at this matter on the facts. If one takes the case of these various take-overs, it was a case of the acquisition of a proportion of the shares with an attempt to acquire the rest of the shares, and in case after case, Sir, there has been an enormous rise in those shares once persons found that control was involved. Here the State was in a position of trustee in relation to the public of South Africa, and I submit that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) was quite correct in moving the amendment which he did whereby he sought to ensure that the best possible price would be obtained by putting this out to tender. It would not have affected the sale. There was a suggestion that there might be no other buyer. It was known there was a buyer who was prepared to pay a certain price. If some other buyer had come along who had all the necessary qualifications—obviously, the Government must ensure that control of this organization remains in South Africa for one thing—if all those circumstances had been there, I am convinced that there might have been competition. But in a matter of this sort where a great sum of money is involved, I submit it would have been far better if the hon. Minister had accepted the proposal of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) so that there could have been competition. Sir, we will see in the years that lie ahead which side of the House was correct. I hope that this organization will have a very rosy future in the interest of this country, but I have no doubt that the stand taken by this side of the House will prove to be fully justified.

Members on the other side have said again in connection with the Bill that the hon. Minister could not have got tenders elsewhere and the sale of Cuthberts was mentioned—the approach to the Cuthbert shareholders by the I.D.C. Now there were shareholders in Cuthberts, just the same as there are shareholders in Klipfontein Organic Products, but the shareholder in the Klipfontein Organic Products at the moment is the Government and the shareholders in Cuthberts were a large number of private individuals. It so happened that I represented an estate which was the biggest single shareholder in Cuthberts and we simply sat as sellers; we were approached for the shares and we sat; we were approached by one lot, but we did not say a word; we were approached by somebody else, and eventually, being in the same position as private shareholders as the Government is in regard to this organization, we got nearly double the figure that we were offered originally. To us as shareholders the shares were not worth any more than the market price at the time when the negotiations started, and we sat and we sat, and there was competition. It was not handed over to one particular organization.

May I ask the hon. member a question? The hon. member represented a certain interest. Did they advertise their shares? Did they put them up for tender?

Other people knew that there were people after these shares. But in this case anybody outside has been faced with an accomplished fact. The negotiations had been completed with the Federale Beleggings Be-perk on a basis of a certain figure and on certain conditions. We have been faced by an accomplished fact and nobody else had been given the opportunity to compete.

I find the attitude of hon. members on the other side even more confusing now than before. When the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) mentioned that this transaction had been going on for months, a fact which was well-known, and that others were also at liberty to come forward, the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Hopewell) said— and that statement has again been repeated by the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross)—* “that it was a cut and dried affair”; that everything had been settled and that there was nothing more that could be done about it. They say that the public was under the impression that everything had been settled; that they knew precisely what was happening. But two days ago when I moved the second reading here, the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) stood up and said that this had come as a surprise; that they had never heard of such a thing, and he asked that the debate be postponed so that they could consider this new development. Sir, I want to know what is the truth. Was the whole thing cut and dried, or did they know nothing about it? Hon. members opposite cannot, if the one argument does not suit them, switch to another argument which is diametrically opposed to the first one.

The arguments which hon. members opposite have advanced here are arguments which we have frequently heard before; I have replied to them time and again, so I do not think it is necessary for me to go into this matter again at any great length. The main points, just to sum up, are the following: K.O.P. is an organization which is of such a character that it does not lend itself to the tender system. There was no “for sale” board hanging outside its door. It was not our intention, when an offer was made to us, to canvass other prospective buyers to see whether we could not improve on the offer. One cannot, as hon. members opposite seek to suggest, dispose on a tender basis of an organization with a technical character such as an intricate chemical industry. The second point I want to make is this: If we had simply accepted an arbitrary price for that organization, there would have been room for criticism, but we followed the correct course by appointing independent valuators to determine a price for us. I believe that those valuators are very honourable people and very honourable firms and that they will give us the correct guidance, and we will be able to determine a fair price on the basis of their valuations. The hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker) says that we will soon see that they were ridit and that K.O.P. is worth more than the price for which we are going to sell it. I think the hon. member is perhaps right in believing that when this organization is under the control of private initiative, which is not hampered in the same way as the State is hampered, it will be possible to build it up into a much more profitable undertaking; we hope so. In this respect the hon. member’s words may prove true and they probably will prove true, but that would not have been the case if it had remained under Government Control in view of the fact that we can only move within a limited sphere where we cannot compete with private initiative. In this respect, therefore, he may be right. But that still does not mean to say that their attitude is correct. Sir, in the third place we did the right thing by coming to Parliament, which is the highest authority. We did not simply sell this organization at an arbitrary figure. We had the price properly determined by independent valuators and we then came to Parliament and said, “Here is the proposition; do you approve of it?” I feel, therefore, Mr. Speaker, that there is nothing more to say with regard to this matter and I want to say to my hon. friend over there that the time may still come when he will say that we were right.

Motion put and the House divided:

AYES—75: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; 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.; Faurie, W. H.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Henning, J. M.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Knobel, G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Malan, A. I.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, T.: Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, H.; Muller, S. L.; Odell, H. G. O.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pelser, P. C.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Serfontein, J. J.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Swanepoel, J. W. F.; 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 Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Visse, J. H.; Vosloo, A. H.; Waring, F. W.; Webster, A.; Wentzel, J. J.

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

NOES—43: Basson, J. D. du P.; Bennett, C.; Cadman, R. M.; Connan, J. M.; Durrant, R. B.; Eaton, N. G.; Eden, G. S.; Emdin, S.: Field, A. N.: Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Graaff, de V.: Henwood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Lewis, H.; Malan, E. G.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; 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.; Taurog, L. B.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; 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.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

May I have the privilege of the half-hour?

I want to start firstly by criticizing the way legislation concerning pneumoconiosis is presented to this House. Since I have been a member of this House, we have had several Ministers of Mines: We had Dr. Van Rhyn, Senator de Klerk, Dr. Diederichs and now Minister Haak, and each one in turn has found it necessary for some reason or other to leave legislation concerning pneumoconiosis right till the end of the Session. Sir, that makes the work of this House most difficult and the results most unsatisfactory. It is because of this presentation of the Bills and the changes at the end of sessions, that we find it necessary from time to time to have to come back and either revise the whole legislation or amend the legislation. I find the same sort of thing happening again this year. We gather from the newspapers that the hon. Minister intends amending the Pneumoconiosis Act. I could not find what the amendments were going to be, I had no idea of what was going to happen, nobody on this side of the House knew what was going to happen. Yesterday, in our boxes we were presented with the Pneumoconiosis Compensation Commission’s Report. There are some very, very important items in this report, items that we would like to bring up and discuss here this afternoon, but because it has just been presented to us, we find it almost impossible to study this report properly and present our case to the Minister. Moreover we find that the Silke Commission has been sitting dealing with pneumoconiosis, and in spite of that commission, we find that the Minister is presenting legislation concerning pneumoconiosis. I do not know whether the Minister has been presented with the Silke Commission’s Report, but it has not yet been tabled and we on this side of the House have got no idea as to what that report contains, what the recommendations are and whether this proposed legislation that the Minister is going to bring into the House is going to alter in any material way the recommendations of the Silke Commission. The hon. Minister was kind enough and courteous enough this afternoon to present me with a copy of the proposed legislation concerning pneumoconiosis. I received this approximately an hour ago. I could not go through this proposed legislation and come with any suggestions to the Minister this afternoon, nor can I criticize it. We will probably have to deal with this at a later stage again, but I must protest most strongly at the method of presenting this type of legislation, and I must ask the Government in future to deal more courteously with us here, and to make sure that legislation concerning the victims of pneumoconiosis will be presented to us in time to give us an opportunity at least to study the pleas of those sufferers properly. Those people who are going to benefit or not, from the proposed legislation should have a right to state their case to us.

I leave it at that and pass on to another most important matter which is troubling South Africa at the moment. Mr. Chairman, for the first time in very many years the Republic is faced with serious unrest in the mining industry. It appears that this has come about through dissatisfaction of a group of mineworkers in the Mineworkers’ Union who disagree with the proposed experiment devised by the Mineworkers’ Union and agreed to by the Transvaal Chamber of Mines, the Government Mining Engineer and the Minister of Mines. This experiment involves the relaxation of the regulations of the Mines and Works Act of 1956. It attempts to relieve the minewokers of certain duties which can be performed by non-Whites. It is hoped that this will enable the White mineworkers to concentrate on more responsible work, which, in turn, would bring in a better income, better living standards and improved benefits and pensions. The dissatisfied group of mine-workers fear the possible replacement of Whites by non-Whites as a result of this experiment. The present unrest may become so serious that it may well cause disruption in many other spheres of our industrial complex. This unrest has unfortunately been stimulated further by erroneous and misleading reports in certain newspapers. I refer particularly to the Vaderland in its issues of the 3rd and 14th of last month, and the expression of opinion by Members of Parliament on the Government benches, which do not appear to be factual. This has had the effect of producing unnecessary dissatisfaction and uncertainty in the ranks of the Mineworkers’ Union. It has led to threatened strikes in the President Steyn Mine and at Coalbrook. The hon. Minister appears to view these disturbing outside interferences with trade union activities in such a serious light that he has seen fit to strongly repudiate the erroneous Press reports and has appealed to his own parliamentary colleagues to await the findings of the commission of inquiry before passing judgment. This commission will report on the possible advantages and disadvantages to both the mineworkers and the industry as a whole. We of the United Party have always stated that the democratic right of negotiation between the employer and the employee should not be disturbed and should remain of paramount importance at all times.

We made our viewpoint quite clear in an article in the Sunday Times of 7 March 1965. We say that the cornerstone of industrial democracy should be the right of the employer and the employee to be allowed to negotiate without hindrance or interference from outside. The stimulation from outside bodies to break any scheme devised to find a way to improve working conditions is to be deprecated, to say the least of it. We say let this experiment proceed to the end of its allotted time, 30 June this year. The extremely delicate nature of the experiment and the negotiations should not be prejudiced by untimely interference. It is a pity that the Minister allowed the strife in the Mineworkers’ Union to develop as far as it has, especially in view of the fact that negotiations in regard to this experiment started approximately 18 months ago The difficulties of the dissident group fall under two headings. The one is the fear that the White mineworkers will be actually dismissed or that they may lose their jobs with the implementation of the monthly salary schemes. This fear is to be respected and it is contrary to the policy of this side and of the Government and I am sure it is contrary to the policy of the Minister, but a firm reassurance by the Minister on this score would have alleviated much of the uncertainty.

Rumours concerning the strife are rife throughout the country. The type of rumour we hear is something like this. Some miners believe that the Government Mining Engineer has actually reported that under the proposed scheme, which is the subject of the experiment at present, one out of every three White mine-workers will be replaced by a Black worker. Surely the Minister should make some statement to allay fears like those. The second fear of the dissident group is that the safety of mineworkers will depend upon findings and determinations of semi-trained boss-boys or certified, non-scheduled persons. They point out that a White mineworker can only get a blasting certificate after two years of training, but the boss-boy will be qualified after only one month to do certain work which in the past could only be done by the holder of a blasting certificate. They refer to the carrying out of safety tests and clearing work in places of safety and being in control of working places for long hours every day without the presence or the supervision of a White mine-worker. They fear that mine workers such as surveyors, samplers, riggers, electricians, fitters, hoist-drivers, skipmen and learner miners will be dependent on these persons for their safety. Their fears and problems will have to be solved by the experiment now being conducted and the findings of the commission of inquiry appointed by the Minister. The Minister must now reassure the workers that the safety of personnel working underground remains of paramount consideration to the Government. It must be reiterated that no White miner will lose his job because a Bantu will replace him. Assurances on both these points have been given repeatedly by the Mineworkers’ Union and again in the latest issue of The Mineworker. In this issue the whole scheme was analysed in detail, but the Minister who alone has the authority to reassure the fearful group of miners remains silent. I do not know whether he has said anything to the various groups, but we in Parliament have not heard from him on this matter. It is not too late for the Minister even now to rectify this position. As far as the United Party is concerned, I want to repeat that we believe in industrial democracy and that these matters should be solved by negotiation between the employers and the trade union, but that does not mean that the Government is absolved from responsibility. Its major responsibility is to guarantee that no steps will be taken to undermine the security of any group of workers, especially the White workers. I now ask the Minister to make an immediate statement in regard to all these delicate matters, these conflicting opinions and misunderstandings.

Before replying in regard to this experiment, I want to refer to what was said here in connection with this Bill dealing with pneumoconiosis, and that it was introduced at such a late stage so that the Opposition has only got to know the contents of it now. I do not want to deal with what was done by previous Ministers. I want to point out, however, that this Bill of which we will give notice now deals with increased pensions only, and notice will be given of it to-morrow.

The question is: Why at this late stage? The reason for it is that it is closely connected with the Silke Commission. The terms of reference of that Commission were to investigate the proposals of the Chamber of Mines and of the Mineworkers’ Union in terms of which the control of pneumoconiosis and the pneumoconiosis fund should be handed over to them and taken away from the State. It was under the control of the State all these years and I can point out that previous commissions emphasized that it was the duty of the State to do so. In 1943 already there was the Stanford Commission, which came to the following conclusion—

It was always the standpoint that the Government was responsible for it, but because a new scheme was submitted, it was referred to the Silke Commission. We had hoped that this Commission would complete its report early this year already. Unfortunately that was not possible and the report of the Commission was signed only on 3 June and was then transmitted to this Department, and earlier this week it was submitted to the State President. It is being prepared for tabling, and the report will probably be released and made available to-morrow.

The unanimous finding of the Silke Commission is that this proposal should not be adopted. We therefore waited for this report. I do not wish to go into the merits of it now. We shall have an opportunity later when this legislation is discussed. But when it became evident that this was the effect of the report, the Government felt that it wanted to do something for the mineworker. The reason for it is that in regard to the increased pneumoconiosis compensation, the compensation was increased last in 1956. Before that there were increases in 1941, 1946 and in 1950. There were certain increases for the higher class of certifications in the 1962 Act, but there have been no general improvements for the mine-worker since 1956. Therefore when it became clear to us that this was the recommendation of the report, we submitted it to the Government and asked whether now was not a suitable time again to review the interests of the mineworker, and the Government approved the principle of increased awards approximately a fortnight ago. It is correct that we did not say what they were, and up to now we have not yet made public what was envisaged. The reason for it is that it lays a very great financial burden on the Government, in so far as its obligations in the future are concerned, and the Government has accepted that, but it also lays certain obligations on the 60 mines which are members of the Chamber of Mines, as well as on the other mines, which have been declared to be controlled mines. We also felt that we wanted to consult the various mineworkers’ unions, and not only the Mineworkers’ Union, about it. That consultation was therefore done after the Government had decided in principle on this course of action. The Chamber of Mines was consulted last week here in Cape Town, and thereafter the legislation was prepared. It is with the law advisers. We shall receive it to-day, and to-morrow notice will be given of it. Unfortunately the printers cannot complete it before Monday and therefore I consider it advisable at this late stage to make it available to the hon. member for Rosettenville so that he would know what it is about when this legislation is debated next week, and the report of the Commission will also be tabled before that time. I am sorry it is so late, but if it had not been for the fact that the whole matter was referred to the Silke Commission, which only submitted its report to us on 3 June, it would probably have been available much earlier.

Now in regard to this experiment on the mines, I think I should try to stick as nearly as possible to the reports submitted to me from time to time because then it will be clear how the matter was handled by the interested parties. This experiment was made by way of agreement between the Chamber of Mines and the Mineworkers’ Union and with the approval of the Government Mining Engineer. It was stated that the Minister of Mines had also agreed to it. I immediately want to set that right. I never agreed to it, nor my predecessor, nor was it necessary to do so, but I shall come back to this. I asked the Government Mining Engineer to give me a complete report on this experiment, and he did so on 24 February 1965. He says this—

The request of the Mineworkers’ Union to the mineworkers was that the experiment would originally be made on four mines. That consent was granted until the end of December, as from 6 June. It did not come into operation immediately on those four mines, nor did it apply to the whole mine; this experiment was made only in certain shafts, and there were certain exemptions, and let me now say what those examptions were. It was requested that certain exemptions from the regulations be granted for a period in a section of four of the mines, so that the effect of the proposed reorganization could be tested, and it is important for us to know this. The exemptions briefly amounted to this.

Who grants the exemptions?

The Government Mining Engineer. The exemptions he granted were that a trained Bantu boss-boy could inspect and safeguard a working place in which blasting was not done, so that the boss-boy stands under the supervision of a certified White miner who has to inspect the working place at least once per shift. A competent Bantu can be in control of the transportation of explosives and handle them provided they are in boxes which are not opened. A locomotive designed for a speed of at least ten miles an hour can be driven by a competent Bantu whilst it is used for the transportation of persons. A shift boss can inspect working places such as those mentioned above only once every two shifts. After careful consideration by the Government Mining Engineer and the inspectors, the desired exemptions were granted, subject to certain conditions and limitations, for a period of approximately six months. It is the considered opinion that these exemptions do not derogate from safety or health.

Now I should perhaps at this stage point out that the Mines Act contains certain limitations and provides that certain work cannot be done by non-Whites; that was the position in 1911 in the Mines Act and again in 1926, and it was also repeated in the 1956 Act. Throughout the years it was therefore one of the principles in the mining industry that Whites could do certain work and that Bantu could not do it. That was laid down in Section 12 (2) (a), which provides that in terms of para, (n) of sub-section (1) certificates of competency in any occupation likewise specified for any function, area or place mentioned therein may only be granted to persons belonging to the following classes, like White persons and persons born in the Union and who are ordinarily resident therein who are members of the class or race known as Cape Coloureds or Cape Malays.

The regulations may also limit certain work to certain persons and prescribe responsibilities in regard to it, and divide the work between them and other persons, and require such proof of competency as may be prescribed. But now the regulations further provide that the Government Mining Engineer, in regard to this limited work which must be done by Whites, may under certain circumstances grant exemptions; the regulations grant the Government Mining Engineer that power. It is Regulation 166 (1), which says (translation)—

It is in fact the Inspector of Mines who issues the certificate, but with the approval of the Government Mining Engineer. From this it is therefore clear that the Government Mining Engineer is responsible for the health and the safety of the mineworker. He is the person who can grant exemptions, and he did so on his own responsibility. He need not consult the Minister, and he in fact did not consult the Minister, and he acted within his powers. It was therefore within his power to grant consent for the conducting of this experiment for six months. This experiment on the four mines, according to the Government Mining Engineer, worked smoothly, and it was also applied to a section of a mine in the O.F.S. and to a section of the Boshoff Group. It was recently ascertained from the mineworkers and from the Chamber of Mines that both the workers and the mine managements were pleased with the reorganization, and inspectors carefully watched the position and the reports in regard to safety and health were favourable. In December, when this first six months’ period came to an end, the Government Mining Engineer was again approached with a request that the exemptions should be extended to another 11 mines, and the reason for this was chiefly because it was an experiment and they wanted all the mining groups to carry out such an experiment on one of their mines or in a section of the mine so that they could test its effect.

The Government Mining Engineer then said he would like to have these representations in writing, and that was done. The General Secretary of the Mineworkers’ Union wrote to the Government Mining Engineer on 4 December and referred to this experiment—

He then asks that it should apply up to 30 June. I want to point out that already on 4 December the Secretary of the Mineworkers’ Union pointed out that there was dissatisfaction in regard to certain proposals in connection with this experiment. He made that request and a similar request was also made by the Chamber of Mines to the Government Mining Engineer. They put the matter in writing in their letter of 9 December—

They also refer to which mines they want it to be extended to, but the names are not important. Then they continue in the concluding paragraph—

Here we therefore have the standpoint of the two groups. Both said that people would not be dismissed, but they pointed out that it would perhaps mean that people who are employed would not be replaced. This experiment was also coupled with a monthly wage system which would also lead to better pension benefits and leave facilities. I do not want to refer to it now, but it was in fact stated that we should not interfere. I want to indicate that the standpoint of the Government in this regard in the past has always been that as far as wages are concerned that is a matter for negotiation between the Mineworkers’ Union and the other trade unions, and the employers. In the past the Mineworkers’ Union strongly adopted the attitude that this was their affair and that the Government should not interfere in it. Although there have been representations in this regard in the past, it was stated clearly that this was the accepted standpoint of the Mineworkers’ Union, that it was there to negotiate wages. That is also the standpoint right throughout the Industrial Conciliation Act of 1956. This is not automatically applicable to the mineworkers, but only when a dispute arises and they ask for it to be applied. I want to say clearly that as far as wages are concerned, it has always been the Government’s standpoint that this is something they have to negotiate and in regard to which the Government does not interfere.

This experiment was in progress and then we received reports that people were being dismissed. The Department received letters and Members of Parliament reported that there were complaints that White workers were being dismissed. It was at that stage that I asked the Government Mining Engineer for a report, and I also asked the Chamber of Mines and the Mineworkers’ Union for reports.

To come back to the Government Mining Engineer, he then reported to me in regard to possible replacements, because it was something which was beginning to cause us concern, that there was unrest among the mineworkers, some of whom were subject to the experiment and others not. But the fear arose in the minds of some of them that they would be dismissed and, although in the opinion of the Government Mining Engineer, this experiment only had to do with the safety or health of the mineworker, the impression began to be gained that other aspects were also connected to it, viz. the replacement of Whites by Bantu, and that created unrest. Peace is of basic importance in this industry, and when it appeared that the workers were becoming worried we were obliged to take a closer look at this experiment, and therefore we asked for these reports. The Government Mining Engineer then submitted this further report to me—

Here hon. members therefore see that the Government Mining Engineer reported that there might be a saving in regard to shift bosses of possibly one out of five. The Chamber of Mines also reported to me in this regard on 22 February, and the President of the Chamber, accompanied by the Vice-President, interviewed me, and they stated the position as follows. I quote from their own report—

After that I also received a report from the Mineworkers’ Union in this regard. The position here is therefore that the assurance was given to the Mineworkers’ Union by the Chamber of Mines “that the normal wastage of men would not be replaced”. I then ascertained what the normal wastage was. The Government Mining Engineer indicated in a report to me what the position was in the years 1960 to 1963 I shall give the figures for 1963 to this Committee because there is not much difference. In this report the position is set out in regard to the number of mineworkers (daily-paid workers) who left the pension fund: 299 died, 320 were pensioned, 406 were incapacitated and there were 1,500 resignations, therefore making a total of 2,525 White mineworkers who left the mines during that year. The previous year the total was 2,522, and in 1961 it was 2,290. Here we have an indication of the “normal wastage”. The Government Mining Engineer says further—

The normal wastage is therefore between 1,000 and 1,200 per annum. There are 12,000 members of the Mineworkers’ Union. As I have already said, there will not be a replacement of the normal wastage. It can therefore bring about a loss of approximately 1,200 mine-workers per annum. At that stage letters were written in the Press regarding this experiment, particularly when it was applied to certain sections of the O.F.S. Mines. The experiment was not applied to the Far West Rand mines.

May I ask the hon. the Minister for how many years this non-replacement of people will continue? Surely it cannot continue indefinitely at the rate of 1,200 per annum.

The assurance was given that the normal wastage would not be replaced, but this is an experiment. I admit that it cannot continue indefinitely. I therefore do not want to create the impression that in eight or ten years’ time there will be no White mineworkers. I am going by the data submitted to me, and it was on the basis of these data that we felt that it was a matter which should receive attention, because if it is correct that 1,200 miners leave the industry who cannot be replaced, then it will create unrest. We received complaints that Whites who could still work were being dismissed, and it was at that stage that correspondence started appearing in the Press, and it was immediately said, as the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) also said here, that it was an experiment to which the Minister had agreed. When this correspondence started in the Rand Daily Mail on 4 March, it immediately wrote the following, inter alia —

I immediately pointed out in a Press statement that this was not correct. I then gave a short exposition of the facts as submitted to me by the Government Mining Engineer, and I also indicated that I had not approved of it; that it was not necessary, and that it did not have the approval of the previous Minister either, but I also added—

My standpoint therefore was that this experiment contained certain implications but that the Government would adopt an expectant attitude so as to give the experiment a true opportunity in order that we could receive reports in this regard. At that stage I asked the Chamber of Mines and the Mineworkers’ Union and the Department to try to let us have their conclusions before the end of May, in view of the fact that this experiment would run to 30 June. But in spite of this Press statement I issued, I found the following report in the Sunday Times the next week—

That was after I had issued that statement. I was then compelled to issue another statement, in which I pointed out that it was not correct that the experiment had the support of the Government, and I again emphasized—

Well, those were the developments up to that stage. After that we found that the mine-workers began organizing, those who were in favour of the scheme and those who were against it. There was even an announcement that on certain mines a referendum would be held so that the mineworkers could decide whether they wanted to be placed on a monthly wage system. This monthly wage system was coupled with this experiment. It was at that stage that the Mineworkers’ Union held a meeting and requested me to appoint a Commission of Inquiry, and the same representations were also made to me that day by members of this House, particularly because they could not ascertain what the true facts of the matter were. I immediately agreed to appoint a Commission of Inquiry to investigate this whole matter, with instructions “to investigate the nature and the objects of the experiments and the wage proposals coupled with it, the possible merits and demerits of it to employees in the mines and to the mining industry, and the economic, labour and other implications thereof.” This Commission is already sitting and is taking evidence. In view of the fact that this Commission is therefore investigating the facts, I have directed a request to all these dissatisfied parties to give evidence before the Commission.

The question was asked why we did not take action sooner in regard to the strike there was on certain coal mines. The request was directed to us by the Mineworkers’ Union that this experiment should be extended to the coal mines. Our request to them was that they should not extend it, but that they should await the report of this Commission. Thereafter they, as they say, as the result of a Press report, went on strike. I did not have knowledge of it: it was their own decision, but I immediately appealed to them to resume their work and to await the report of the Commission. They agreed, and the strike was then averted. I also stated my standpoint in regard to this refusal to go underground. It was not a strike in terms of the Act. Some of their representatives came to see me and they had knowledge of the actual facts and circumstances. Therefore the Government’s standpoint is still that it wants to await this report. The Government was prepared to wait and only to adopt a standpoint when this experiment was terminated, and it is still prepared to wait until this report is issued. We hope that this Commission will be able to report, if it is in any way possible, before the end of June. I do not know when the report will be completed, but the Commission is in any case very active in that regard.

There has been reference to members of this House who began to adopt a standpoint. That is quite correct. One member wrote in the Press about it, and there was a report in the Press about another meeting he addressed, a report which the members concerned later said was not a correct report of what he had said. The standpoint of this side of the House was stated very clearly in a letter by the chairman and the secretary of the mining group which appeared in The Mineworker of 17 March, in which those two gentlemen said the following on behalf of Members of Parliament representing mining constituencies—

That was the standpoint of this side of the House, in spite of the fact that it was stated in some Press reports that this mining group adopted an attitude in regard to the matter. That is not correct. There we have the official standpoint of this side of the House. Now that this investigation is in progress and it is clear that it is a delicate matter and we are all keen on having industrial peace, I feel that the best thing to do is to wait until this Commission has issued its report before we judge as to the merits of this experiment. The Commission which was appointed was appointed by the State President, and in view of the fact that the Commission is now hearing evidence I do not think any good purpose will be served by anticipating the results of this experiment at this stage. Hon. members are at liberty to discuss the matter, but I want to make an appeal to them, in the interests of continued labour peace in the mining industry, not to discuss the merits of this matter here. I direct this appeal not only to hon. members opposite, but also to hon. members on my own side of the House.

I think both sides of the House are very grateful to the hon. the Minister for his detailed explanation of the experiment and of what has happened in that regard. I think this will give considerable clarity and dispel any disquiet which may have existed. I do not want to make any reproaches but I think it is a pity that we have not had such a statement earlier. It would perhaps have prevented some members of this House from acting in an irresponsible way and it may also perhaps have prevented any disquiet on the part of the mineworkers themselves. We are pleased to learn—and I wish to emphasize this—that the hon. the Minister agrees with the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) that while he is awaiting the results of the experiment with interest, he is not committed except in regard to certain principles one being that whatever conclusions may be come to as a result of the experiment, they will not be applied at the expense of the existing labour force on the mines; that they will not be carried out at the expense of either the White or non-White workers.

At the expense of the job reservation that exists there?

I think that question of the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) shows that he has no idea what this debate is all about. As I have said the principle is that the rights and privileges of the workers who are there at the moment will not be affected but that, on the contrary, if work which has hitherto been done by Whites were to some extent in future to be done by non-Whites, any results flowing from that must be to the benefit of all the workers concerned as well as to the industry. That is the object of the experiment and the hon. the Minister has given the assurance that he, mindful of that principle, will watch the position and be on his guard. In view of that assurance, which we accept, we gladly comply with the hon. Minister’s request not to discuss this matter any further at this stage and thereby perhaps raising it to the level of a political point of difference. Like the Minister we are anxiously and with interest awaiting the results of this experiment because whatever happens on the mines can naturally have an affect on the labour pattern of the whole of South Africa. It may perhaps bring relief to South Africa as far as the shortage of the people to do skilled and certain semi-skilled jobs is concerned. This is an experiment which does not only concern the mining industry but South Africa and, as I have told the Minister of Railways on a previous occasion, we are all watching the experiment with bated breath.

This is the first opportunity the Committee has had of discussing mining matters with this Minister in charge of the Mines Vote and I want to avail myself of this opportunity of congratulating him on his appointment as Minister of Mines. Not only do I want to congratulate him on his appointment as Minister of Mines but I think both sides of the House wish him strength in the task he has to perform as Minister of Mines, a task in which he will be dealing with the lives, prosperity and welfare of workers who sometimes have to work under very difficult conditions. I also want to express my appreciation to the hon. the Minister for the real interest he has thus far shown not only in the interests of the mineworkers but also in the mining industry as a whole. Sir, while I am speaking in this strain I also wish to express my sincere appreciation for and high regard of the mineworkers. I trust the Press will note that we appreciate the responsible way in which the mineworkers acted when an appeal was made to them at a time when the position was very inflammable and highly explosive. I wish to express my appreciation for the responsible attitude the mineworkers adopted in those circumstances . . . Where the mineworkers are sometimes incited by less responsible people. I repeat that we appreciate the responsible attitude they adopt. I am sorry, however, that certain newspapers in South Africa have adopted a less responsible attitude in that time of crisis and in times like those. In saying that I am not accusing the newspapers of any particular language group. I think there were various newspapers which unfortunately acted irresponsibly when the position was very delicate and when everybody was trying to create the greatest harmony possible. I also want to appeal to the Press to act responsibly in times like these. The mining industry is not there so that one or other political group can derive political benefit from it; it is a national asset of South Africa and we all want to do the best we possibly can for that industry. particularly for the workers who are called upon to lay bare the riches of South Africa in the way in which mineworkers are indeed doing”.

Like the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) I am very grateful to the hon. the Minister for the statement he has made here this afternoon. It is a pity that we did not have this report which envisages greater benefits to pneumoconiosis sufferers earlier. I want to ask that this report be made available to us at an earlier stage in future. I think I am speaking on behalf of every mineworker and the dependants of mineworkers when I say I am very grateful for the fact that greater benefits are held out in prospect to the pneumoconiosis sufferer and his dependants. We trust that they will be of such a nature that they will bring great relief to those people. Mr. Chairman, I do not want to raise false hopes nor do I want to say anything further about this difference of opinion which exists at the moment in the mineworkers’ trade union as far as this experiment is concerned. I do not want to say anything about that because a fact-finding commission has been appointed to report on the matter and that commission will go into all aspects of this matter. We are all prepared to wait for the report of that commission before we express any opinion because there has been some confusion and everybody is not sure as to what has actually happened or let me rather put it this way: We know what the developments have been up to the present but nobody here can say exactly what Che implications of this experiment may be and we must await the report of the commission which we are prepared to do, otherwise we may make a wrong decision. We also know that work has been done in the past in the mines contrary to certain regulations. Mineworkers were obviously allowed to do it and it was done in order to derive additional revenue. I know the State is doing everything in its power but I do want to make an appeal to the Chamber of Mines once again to act as sympathetically as possible in regard to the negotiations which are afoot at the moment between the mine-workers’ union and the Chamber of Mines. We do not want to interfere there but we on this side of the House want to raise our voice and appeal to the Chamber of Mines to improve the position of the mineworkers where it is at all possible to do so. The mineworker can hardly live on his basic wage; he cannot live on his pension at all and we must all try to get the mineworker to leave the mine at an earlier stage. I did, on occasion in this House, point out under what circumstances the mineworker did indeed work. That is all I want to say except to express the hope that, while awaiting the report of the commission, we will be very responsible in what we do henceforth and in what we say when discussing this Vote. Then just these final words: I wonder whether the powers conferred upon the Government Mining Engineer by way of regulations do not go too far. I do not want to condemn him for what he has done or for what he has not done but where such important and far-reaching decisions have to be taken I wonder whether these powers should not rest with the Minister. Had it been the Minister who had had to take those decisions we would not have been in the position in which we find ourselves at the moment.

It is perhaps because I agree with what the hon. member who has just sat down has said about not making our very important mining industry a political football that I stand up to talk. It might sound paradoxical but in fact that is so. I think the fact that this commission has been appointed should not deter people from discussing the important experiment which is taking place on the gold mines. The official Opposition has mentioned, through the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) that it believes in industrial democracy and therefore it is prepared to leave everything to the mineworkers and the employers themselves to work out things for themselves. Sir, all that would be fine if industrial democracy really meant in South Africa what it means in other countries, but unfortunately that is not so, because as we all know for the vast majority of workers in this country, industrial democracy does not in fact exist. The vast majority of industrial workers, be they employed in manufacturing industry or be they the 500,000 Africans employed on the mines, do not enjoy the right of joining recognized trade unions, and therefore industrial democracy, which is synonymous, of course, with the right of collective bargaining, does not in fact exist for the vast majority of workers in South Africa. This means that their conditions of work, their hours of work, the size of their pay packets and in fact any fringe benefits which they are able to enjoy, are completely outside any influence that they would be able to bring to bear if they did enjoy collective bargaining. Added to this disability, of course, is this statutory colour bar, job reservation, which exists in its most extreme form in South Africa on the mines by virtue of the Mines and Works Act, which was passed not by this Government but way back in 1911 and which has been continued by successive Governments, including the United Party Government when it was in power. Now, Sir, because of economic pressures a very interesting experiment is taking place on the mines. But surely this experiment is not as new as people would have us believe. Due to economic pressure and the fact that White miners are not to be found to replace the natural wastage and to perform all the essential jobs which were in fact reserved for White miners under the Mines and Works Act of 1911, which precluded many occupations from being carried on by non-Whites and in particular by Africans, this experiment has not only now been embarked upon. For a number of years, as everybody knows, many of the jobs which were supposed to be reserved by Statute for Whites have in fact been carried out on many of the mines by Africans. I think most people, if they are honest, will admit that this is so. The experiment in fact is really an attempt to legalize what has been going on in the mines for a number of years. It is an interesting experiment, of course, because it does imply, one hopes, eventual reclassification of some of the jobs on the mines, and it is being carried out jointly by the mineworkers themselves and the employers in the mining industry. Sir, I do not see why we should shy away from this question so nervously. I realize that a commission of inquiry has been appointed and nobody knows what the findings of that commission are going to be, but I think anybody who knows anything about the economics of the mining industry will surely admit that it is highly likely that the country as a whole will engaged in the experiment find that their status has in fact been raised and that their wages too have been increased. I am quite sure that in extending this experiment, it will not mean that White men will lose their jobs in the mining industry. It might mean their reclassification; it might mean that they shift from one job to another, but it does not mean that the men will be out of work, and that is surely an important thing. A natural wastage is taking place; the lower ranks will be filled in by the more experienced and the more able African workers. The lower levels of work will be filled in by the more competent African workers who presumably will get a rise in their wages as a result of this and everybody will shift to a higher category.

You are wrong.

What you know about mining is dangerous.

Sir, what that hon. member knows about anything is dangerous.

Let us try to argue on facts instead of on our opinion of each other’s ability because I have a lot to say about that hon. member who is seldom heard to make a speech but is very ready with his abusive interjections.

I have not been abusive.

I was talking about the hon. member behind you.

As I said earlier on, the Government was not unduly perturbed about this experiment and, in fact, went along with the experiment until there were signs of dissension among the White miners themselves. It was dissension which was exacerbated, I may add, by some Nationalist Party members of this House, and certainly exacerbated by the highly inciting speeches which were delivered at the meetings of the Mineworkers’ Union by one advocate L. J. Beyers who talked in very gory terms about this experiment. If ever I read of an inciting speech, Sir, there was an inciting speech. It would be a good thing if the Government sometimes took action against incitement in this sort of case as well as in other cases.

Where you there?

I saw the reports and they were not denied.

He did deny it.

If the hon. gentleman has denied it I of course accept what he says. But then, of course, there were other people who also made speeches about blood flowing. I presume those speeches did not take place either.

They were all intoxicated.

Whether the persons who delivered these speeches were intoxicated or not is really beside the point. I must say this is a fine excuse and I hope the Minister of Justice will consider incorporating intoxication as an excuse for inciting speeches delivered on other occasions.

They were befuddled.

Well, again, Sir, I am afraid “befuddlement” is, to the best of my knowledge, also no excuse for inciting speeches.

As I say, this commission of inquiry has been appointed and I think any intelligent person ought to encourage these important economic changes which are taking place in our most important industry, if only for one reason, that benefits to the mining industry always redound to the benefit of the whole of South Africa. White miners as well as African miners will share in the fruits o>f this experiment. South Africa as a whole will still have to rely on gold mining as the major cog in our economic machinery for a long time. It can only be to our benefit if the mining industry is able to reorganize its labour pattern in a way more in keeping with modern development and, I believe, more in keeping with the rational utilization of our labour force in South Africa.

The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) thinks she has the right to make belittling remarks about back-benchers of a large party. I want to give her the assurance that I definitely have a future in this House, but that her sun is fast setting. I further want to tell the hon. member that she is the last person who should challenge me to make a speech. I should like to make a speech against her every time, but unfortunately I do not always get the opportunity.

I should like to discuss with the hon. the Minister certain problems I am experiencing in my constituency. The first is this: In the Pneumoconiosis Act of 1962 this House increased from R50,000 to R 100,000 the amount for the education of the children of pneumoconiosis sufferers. The Pneumoconiosis Board may determine what courses these children may follow. The then Minister of Mines said very clearly in this House that he would consider whether the children receiving the education at colleges would also come into consideration for these educational grants. I want to ask what progress has been made in regard to that investigation.

Sir, all mineworkers do not have sons. I want to plead that the daughters of mine-workers who want to go to training colleges should receive the education they deserve. That amount was increased from R50,000 to R 100,000, and I ask that a serious investigation be instituted so that the daughters who will apply at the end of this year to go to training colleges will not be refused by the Board as happened last year.

Then I come to the second matter I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister. Examinations are set by the examination commissions appointed by the Government. In regard to the mine manager’s certificate, 454 candidates were examined in 1963; only 97 passed and 357 failed. In regard to the certificate for mine superintendents, 830 candidates wrote the examination; 139 passed and 691 failed. In regard to the mine surveyor’s certificate, 261 wrote, 36 passed and 225 failed. I want to put this question to the Minister very seriously: Are these candidates so weak, or is there something else wrong causing this high number of failures? I do not think there is any other industry in which the percentage of failures is as high as in this case. I want to ask the Minister pertinently: Is there not discrimination against these persons who sit for the examinations? Why are these persons kept in those positions if they do not know their subject?

My last question to the Minister is this: What role does the Royal School of Mining play to-day before a man can get promotion in the mining industry? The mining industry is one of the best assets of the country to-day, but I can assure the Minister that the mine-worker no longer encourages his son to enter that industry because he only reaches a certain stage and there he stays. I want to plead with the Minister that a thorough investigation should be made of this system of examinations. We want a report as to the reasons why so many candidates fail in the mining examinations. Unless we do something about it, we will find that no White man will in future be interested in mining, and that will be a great tragedy to the country.

My third point is this. A research unit has been established at the University of the Witwatersrand to investigate the socio-economic problems experienced when the marginal mines closed down. When can we expect that report? Is the Minister going to table that report? All the local authorities, particularly on the East and the West Rand, co-operated with this unit to see what could be done to keep these marginal mines going longer. Much speculation is now in progress in regard to this report. Is it true that some of the persons who assisted in this report had to flee the country because they took part in subversive activities at that university? Is it true that the Security Branch of the police often had to make investigations there whilst these people were working on the report? This report is very important to us on the Witwatersrand, and why cannot we get it? If it is true that persons who were working on this report took part in subversive activities, it is the duty of the Minister to tell us so, and also to tell us what amount of money the Government gave the University of the Witwatersrand to institute this investigation. When can we expect the report? Because the local municipalities have done everything in their power to have this report completed as soon as possible. But to this day we still do not know much about the contents and the recommendations of that report. I trust the Minister will enlighten us about these matters so that if the rumours which are circulating are not true they can be exposed and the report may see the light of day.

The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) authoritatively stated our attitude towards the Minister’s reply in connection with the experiment that is taking place in the mines. It is not our intention at all to pursue that matter any further, whereas the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) saw fit to do so; it is possibly a case of “fools rushing in where angels fear to trend”.

I do however want to take to task the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Mr. G. P. van den Berg). I think the hon. Minister should repudiate the statement and the allegation made by the hon. member for Wolmaransstad concerning the Government Mining Engineer. He cast a slur on that official in the insinuations he made regarding the Government Mining Engineer’s activities in regard to this matter. Whilst not approving or disapproving in any manner or form, of the Government Mining Engineer’s attitude and actions, I feel that the Minister must accept responsibility for any action and any decision taken by one of his senior and most highly placed officials. I do hope that the Minister will see fit, before the end of this debate, to re-instate the good reputation of the Government Mining Engineer. In passing I want to say that I do not believe that the hon. the Minister can absolve himself or his predecessor . . .

I accuse you of telling a deliberate lie in what you are saying there.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw those words.

I withdraw them, Sir; I just wanted to say it.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw them; and he must rise in his seat when he does so.

I withdraw the accusation, Sir.

The Minister referred to a new method of compensation that he intended introducing, at very short notice, in regard to pneumoconiosis. The very significant thing he said was that whatever actions and decisions taken in the past must now be disregarded. That is now a thing of the past.

In what respect?

As far as compensation in regard to pneumoconiosis is concerned.

I never said that.

Well, words to that effect. The hon. the Minister said that whatever decisions had been taken in the past, were decisions then taken, but now he is going to handle it on a different basis altogether.

I referred to the time of introducing legislation by previous Ministers. That is what I referred to.

Well, Sir, this is the very significant thing. I would like to refer the hon. Minister to the opening remarks of his predecessor when he introduced this legislation in 1962—

And since 1962, in every single year, the Minister of Mines has come up with amendments to this legislation. The hon. Minister himself has now said that he is going to move further amendments in order to improve the position still further. But the things that he is going to do by way of improvement, are things we pointed out to the Minister of Mines in 1962. The very legislation that he intends introducing now, was criticism that we levelled against the 1962 Act and which has now proved to be correct. I am satisfied it will be conceded that the legislation that was introduced in 1962, as far as pneumoconiosis is concerned, was the most retrogressive legislation ever passed since the inception of miners phthisis compensation.

In 1962 the then Minister of Mines stated that it was an “agreed measure”. The Cabinet now knows that it never was an agreed measure, and we have the authoritative confirmation by the Secretary of the Mineworkers’ Union and the past President of the Chamber of Mines in evidence before the Silke Commission—at which I was present—in which they said that it was never an agreed measure. The hon. Minister of Economic Affairs, who was then Minister of Mines, admitted this at a meeting at Carletonville of the Nationalist Party Branch.

The result of all this unsatisfactory legislation, has been that the miners are labouring under a strong sense of injustice, especially after it was found that in practice, as has now been proved by the Minister having been obliged to introduce legislation, that the operation of that Act differed substantially from the theoretical explanation offered by the Minister and Nationalist M.P.s who had to give explanations of the Act to their constituents. The present system, Sir, of giving compensation by means of a percentage based on disability in respect of cardio-respiratory functions, is a distinct retrogression from the 1956 Act. I frequently came into contact with pneumoconiosis’ pensioners and their dependants, and I want to tell the hon. the Minister that the pension paid to dependants, especially widows, does not inspire moderate language, if I can put it very modestly. The pittance of a pension in the case of a widow of a phthisis pensioner of R30 per month is a disgrace to the mining industry and a blot on the name of the Government which has graced the Statute Book with such an abomination.

Tell that to the Chamber of Mines.

I challenge the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Bezuidenhout) when he comes into contact with these people to satisfy them in this regard. He will not be able to explain it in any satisfactory manner. I appeal to the hon. Minister that he must give consideration to increasing the pension of widows far beyond the pittance of R30 per month.

The hon. member for Brakpan dealt with the danger that in years to come no White miner—no White employees—will want to go underground. I think there is a lot of substance in his contention. In a reply that the hon. Minister gave me at the beginning of this week, he stated that there was a shortage of 2,000 White mineworkers, on all the mines who are members of the Transvaal and Orange Free State Chamber of Mines. This is a startingly high number, Sir—2,000 White mineworkers—and we can assume that they are practically all underground workers!

White workers?

Yes, there is no shortage of non-White workers in the mines at present. I think it behoves us, and the hon. the Minister, to apply our minds to some new deal for the miners, some new approach, to encourage White people to take up mining as a career. I would like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that he gives consideration to a scheme whereby an underground miner after he has been employed—and given satisfactory proof of his work—for a period of say 20 years (I am not tied to the period of 20 years, you can extend it to 25 years, if you like), will be brought from underground and be given a technical training on the surface at the expense of the Government and Mining Indus-tiy without loss of salary, that will enable him to go out into another industry and take up work there.

The mining companies are to-day expanding into the industrial field to a great extent. Many of these mining companies are associated with engineering undertakings, and I can envisage with six months or possibly a year’s training, a miner brought up from underground, and who is already a skilled and an experienced worker, can be put through some form of technical training in that time. He can then leave the mine with a good pension—the mine pension scheme for a miner commencing work to-day is, undoubtedly a very satisfactory one—and that pension, allied with the salary he will now get as a technical man, will enable him to earn a good living in the years that lie ahead of him. [Time limit.]

You will remember, Sir, that I always recommended something to the hon. the Minister’s predecessor and also to his predecessor which I think is of the utmost importance, and therefore I was very glad last year to learn that for the first time in the history of this House and of the mining industry we will always have a practical man when I put questions in regard to the safety and the health of the underground miners. I refer to the dust readings. Sir, dust readings in the mines are of vital importance, and it is no use dust readings being taken in every mine on the Rand continually unless we get the results. Perhaps you will ask what I want. I want the safety measures against silicosis and pneumoconiosis to be applied more effectively. In so far as those regulations are concerned, the safety of the mineworker’s health is exclusively dependent on the amount of dust found in those mines. Surely there must be an object in taking dust readings. Why are they taken? And if one finds that these dust readings over the years, and one can almost say the decades, remain the same as in previous years, then one sometimes wonders what the use is of talking about taking precautions against silica dust if by means of that spraying they only do what they do in a Chinese civil war: Fight the enemy with the object that he should always exist. Now I want to ask the Minister again whether he is able to give me the various dust readings in the various mines which indicate that there is an improvement, in other words, that the incidence of dust in the mines is now less than ever before? Unless the Minister can give data indicating that, there will be no sense in answering such questions. Because it is my desire, and I think it is the desire of every right-thinking man in this House, that those measures should be effective. But if those dust readings remain the same after all these years, surely those measures are not effective, and surely then the regulations should be applied more strictly and something more should consistently be done in regard to wetting the dust and there should be a better distribution of air underground. Regulation 58 (2) (b) says that there must be 30 cubic feet of fresh air per minute for every person in the mine. Now it is easy to say that that amount of fresh air enters the mine, but everything depends on the distribution of that fresh air in the various sections of the mine; the air must reach the places where the people work. It is no use the air entering at one shaft and coming out at the other. That is one thing I should very much like to see, and if the Minister can give me that information on the authority of the Government Mining Engineer, I will he able for the first time to congratulate the Government Mining Engineer and his whole staff on having succeeded in successfully combating this dreaded silica dust in the mines. But if we cannot show that improvement, there is something very wrong in the methods of combating it, and then I think we should talk seriously to the people in authority there, and then the people in authority over the various mine managements should ask them why their dust readings to-day are the same as they have been for years. Sir, perhaps it is due to the fact that the taxation on the mines when they have to pay compensation for those diseases is not high enough. Because if effective action had been taken, if the levies on the mines had been so high as to compel them to apply effective measures, we would not have had all this trouble in preventing the incidence of dust in the mines. Because it can be combated in that way. I speak as a layman, but nevertheless I speak as a practical man. The incidence of dust in the mines can be combated in such a way that over the course of the years we will have an appreciable decrease in the incidence of phthisis. But as long as the dust readings always remain the same, we must not be surprised if the cases of silicosis continue as they have done over the years, sometimes a little less in one year, but then just as bad again for the next two or three years. It is with great seriousness that I wish to bring this matter to the notice of the Minister again.

It was refreshing to hear the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) making a constructive contribution, and I am sure the hon. Minister will give his remarks due consideration.

I wish to deal mainly with the assistance given to marginal mines under this Vote and under the Loan Vote. In the Revenue Vote this year R600.000 is provided as against R 1,000,000 in 1964-5 as assistance in respect of pumping costs of water flowing in from adjacent defunct mines. This amount is all right as a start, of course, but I am surprised that there has been such a large reduction of R400,000 in the amount, and I would like the hon. the Minister in reply to this debate to let us know whether he and the industry consider that this reduction is warranted. I have information, but it is information that I cannot accept completely, that this amount should not have been reduced, and I would like to hear what the hon. Minister has to say about it.

Mr. Chairman, the other more important item is Loan Vote R under which provision for marginal mines has been increased to R4.500.000 this year, last year’s figure having been R4,000,000, but here I definitely do not think that enough has been provided. In 1963-4 we managed to break through on this question of assistance to marginal mines, a question of importance for the gold production of this country, and the hon. Minister agreed to provide this assistance to those mines in regard to pumping of water flowing in from adjacent defunct mines, and then last year, he extended the assistance by way of loans to marginal mines to cover working losses up to 10 per cent and to meet certain improved capital expenditure.

I want to quote from a letter I received recently—

Unfortunately that is not the beginning and the end of the problem. The President of the Chamber of Mines in his last presidential address in lune 1964 pointed out that costs in the industry had increased in total in 1963 by approximately R26,500,000. Of course part of the increase related to additional production, but he also pointed out that the cost of stores to the industry was creeping up by 2 to 3 per cent a year, and the marginal mines are being very severely affected by this creeping inflation. This assistance to marginal mines is no open and shut matter. In the Financial Mail of 9 April 1965 there is a report on the City Deep, and it says among other things that Government assistance appears to have changed the life of the mine from short term to lower medium. Now this is very satisfactory and it is what was hoped for by those people who supported this assistance and in the case of the City Deep it has definitely succeeded and the life of that mine will now be prolonged. On the same page, however, there is a report on Crown Mines, which received R531,000 from the Government, but showed a working loss of R969.000, and according to this report it will not be surprising if mining ceases within the next year or two. This would be a tragedy. Quite a number of members of this House went over Crown Mines on one of these conducted tours and I forget what the manager told us was the quantity of gold still underground which they could get out with reasonable assistance, but it amounted to a large number of millions of rand. It really would be a tragedy if Crown Mines had to close down. I am stressing that the assistance to the City Deep has worked, but in the case of Crown Mines it has not worked. Another mine of which I hive knowledge informs me that there is considerable doubt as to whether this 10 per cent will cover a year’s losses, and in vet another case I am advised that the mine is more or less breaking even, but they tell me they fell that this assistance should not be pegged at 10 per cent, but that in many instances it would be wise to increase the loans to 15 per cent. After all, we went into this scheme with open eyes. If we are going to get an increase in the price of gold, the Government will get its money back and the mines will be kept in operation in the meantime. These people maintain that 15 per cent will be more realistic and justified. We cannot over-stress the value of gold to our economy. It was only last year or the year before that the Minister of Finance said that an increase of 25 cents per ton in the working costs would cost the country R287,500,000 in gold that would not be brought out of the ground. Costs are creeping up. The assistance to marginal mines came very late after damage had been done which should not have been done, but the scheme was well thought out, although it is not bringing entirely satisfactory results. I do not think when the scheme started the then Minister could have had in his mind that this was the be-all and the end-all. It was decided to give this assistance of 10 per cent and the approved loans, but it could not have been the be-all and the end-all; they must have decided to keep their eyes on the scheme and see whether it should be expanded or improved. I say it works on the City Deep but not on Crown Mines, and Crown Mines has by far more gold underground. I hope the Minister is investigating the matter of extending the aid where necessary, and that he will expand at some length on the subject in his reply, because it is of great importance to all of us.

One point I want to make is that this aid is not just thrown away. The mines are kept open and apart from the production of gold the Government gets taxes and the wages that are paid and it gets direct or indirect taxation on the stores purchased and the mining industry uses a colossal amount of stores. I hope the Minister will expand on this theme.

I would like to ask about one other matter, and that is our uranium production. A year or two ago it seemed as if the demand was dwindling rapidly and the selling arrangements were amended, but since then various quarters have suggested that there would be an increased demand. I have not seen any official statement on the matter. I do not know whether there is any definite hope in the mind of the Minister that the future of the uranium industry is promising. I hope he will tell us something about it.

There is one other matter I wish to raise in conclusion which is causing expense to the mines, and that is the question of having to cover the old slimes dumps with vegetation. It is essential to do this on the Rand and it seems to me to be becoming successful, but in some cases I am told that it has led to an expenditure by a mine of up to R50,000, and it is something I think the Minister ought to go into when it gets to marginal mines because it is usually the older mines which are hit. Perhaps the Minister will give us his views in that regard also.

I should just like to tell the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Taurog) that I think that he made a quite unfair accusation against the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Mr. G. P. van den Berg). I just cannot see where the hon. member for Wolmaransstad “cast a slur”, as the hon. member for Springs said, on the State Mining Engineer. I think that the intention of the hon. member was simply to ask that the State Mining Engineer should deem it advisable to consult the Minister in regard to a decision on an important matter such as this.

I should like to convey my congratulations to the hon. the Minister for having handled this very thorny problem in such a tactful manner, namely, the experiment which is being carried out on the mines at the moment. I think that we would certainly have harmed the cause of the mineworker by discussing this matter in this House, and it has been the tactful action of the hon. the Minister which has prevented this happening. We are very pleased that this is so.

I should like in association with the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) to air a few thoughts about the marginal profit mines. This is unfortunately also a problem which has raised its head in my constituency. This problem may be more involved than one thinks because certain assistance is given to the mines by the Government and that assistance has to be justified. Fundamental to the problem of the marginal profit mines is the increase in the gold price. There is every indication that the climate in the international sphere is becoming more and more favourable for an increase in the gold price, but this does in the long run remain an international monetary problem in regard to which the Government cannot do very much. A marginal profit mine is to my mind a mine which has large quantities of low-grade ore which cannot at the moment be worked profitably if no interim assistance is given or tax concessions made in order to keep the mine operating in anticipation of an increase in the gold price at some or other time. I maintain that the indirect benefits to the country as a whole must compensate for the assistance given. The evil exists that certain mining companies skim off the cream and make large profits and recover their capital investment and leave the unprofitable ore in the ground. It must be expected that the basic aim of making large investments in order to expose the gold reef must be to extract every ounce of gold in the ground. It is true that certain gold mines make very large profits and reach the stage where they have large reserves of low grade ore, when it is no longer profitable to operate the mine. I want to put the problem in a practical way. I have the figures of a specific gold mine. Originally. R2.000.000 was invested in this mine. Over the years since 1909 this mine has produced 39.000.000 ozs. of fine gold and has paid out R90,000,000 in dividends and R49.000.000 in taxes to the State. This mine is still operating and although its increased production costs are to some extent neutralized by better mining methods, operating expenses are curtailing its profits. But in spite of the fact that this mine has shown considerable losses over the past year, it still produced 290,600 ozs. of gold in 1963 which represented an amount of R7,300,000 to the State Treasury. About 1,090 Whites were employed and they earned R2,730,000 in salaries and other benefits. There were 10,000 Bantu employed and these were paid about R 1,305,000 in wages.

During the same year the mine bought supplies to the value of R2,152,700 and of which 93 per cent were manufactured in the Republic. It also used power costing R794,000. This mine showed large losses but this is a minor factor when compared with the advantages enjoyed by the community as a whole because the mine remained in production. This particular mine has at present about 17,000,000 tons of undeveloped ore reserves which could be worked very profitably if the gold price were to be increased. There is always the possibility that if the mine is kept operating it will be able to extract and process more gold-bearing ore by means of deep mine development. I think that it is in the interests of the economy of the country as a whole for certain marginal profit mines to be kept operating as long as possible. ¾ believe that this is a problem which we shall have to tackle on a national basis and temporary measures of assistance which the Government is taking in this respect at the moment must be welcomed. I am referring to measures of assistance in regard to the pumping out of water; to the advancing of certain loans and. as was again done this year, the non-application of the surcharge of 5 per cent as far as company income-tax was concerned, to the gold-mining companies. These are all concessions that have been made to the mining industry. But this task is not the task of the Government alone. The development of a mine on the part of the mine owner must in the first place be such that it ensures a good profit on the investment. In the second place exorbitant profits should not be made. In the third place care must be taken that the admixing of low-grade and high-grade ore is such that the life of the mine can be extended to its maximum so that it will be possible to extract every ounce of gold from the mine. [Time limit.]

I want to refer briefly to the position in the asbestos mines and the great danger which this particular type of mine carries with it to the lives and the health of the workers, both on the mine and in the neighbourhood of the mine. About two years ago the Pneumoconiosis Commissioner reported that he reckoned that seven years was about the average working time of a miner working in an asbestos mine before he developed pneumonoconiosis. Later we discovered that there was also a grave condition of cancerous growth, which is almost invariably associated with asbestos. There was an international conference in New York in 1964, and the figures revealed a terrible position. We find that the Ministry of Labour in Great Britain reported that of 584 deaths amongst asbestos workers, over 50 per cent showed a malignant tumour. We find that of 1,522 workers in asbestos work in New York during the years 1942 to 1962, 307 have died by August 1964 and of those 307, 124 had cancer and five are alive but are known to have cancer, so there were 129 cases of cancer out of 307 deaths. There is a long delay before the development of cancer and that is why we have not heard much about this before, the reason being that most of the asbestos workers died of some malady of their lungs before they had time to develop cancer. The development of cancer is long delayed, and with the employment of antibiotics which control pneumonia and diseases of that nature, these men are living longer and the percentage of deaths from cancer is rising very steeply. There has also been investigation to discover which particular industries induced the highest percentage of deaths and it is established beyond doubt that—though common in other industries—the greatest number comes from mining. Last year I asked the hon. the Minister what was being done about this. He said that they were hoping to have only closed crushing, which prevents the finely ground asbestos polluting the atmosphere. I would like to hear from him to-day what progress has been made and what progress has been made in particular with the Cape Blue, which is the worst of all. I do not think we can afford as a civilized nation the loss of human life in this particular industry. Although it may involve a considerable loss of money, the money is not worth it if we have to pay this price. This is a matter which the Department of Mines—and other Departments as well, but for the moment we are discussing the Department of Mines—must take up because this state of affairs simply cannot be allowed to continue. I do not want to be too damning for there has been one bright spot on the horizon and that is the apparent cure of a case of malignant mesothelioma in Pretoria. It was a proved case of mesothelioma. The man was certainly beyond any surgical relief: he was given X-ray treatment unsuccessfully and then one of the new drugs was used on him with fantastic success. We do not know how long the arrest of this disease will last, but I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister and his Department to this because I think they should pursue this matter. It would perhaps pay them to encourage the Department of Radiotherapy at the University of Pretoria to carry on with this work.

Then I want to refer to another medical aspect of mining and its effect on the human chest. About ten years or more ago one of the companies in Canada which had a very high rate of silicotic pneumoconiosis thought of means of preventing it other than by means of the engineering methods which are so well developed in this country and to attempt to prevent it by using aluminium. I know that there has been an unsatisfactory report to the Minister of Mines in this country from a mission which he sent over; I know too that the director of the bureau states quite clearly that he regards aluminium as of no value in arresting the disease; he did not say that it was of no value in preventing the disease. I do not think anybody has made a serious claim that the breathing in of aluminium metal in fine dust has been able to cure the disease, but there is a great deal of evidence that it does have a strong preventive action. The evidence is not conclusive; it not only comes from the Canadian mines, it comes from places like ceramic works; it comes from iron foundries in Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh, Bochem in Germany and generally speaking there is a good deal of evidence that aluminium has a quite definite action in preventing the development of pneumoconiosis, or if it does not prevent it, at least delaying it. Nobody could possibly question the advances that have been made in the engineering control of dust in this country. I am not going to say that we are in advance of other countries, because they are learning too, but we have broken new ground. The engineers in dust control in this country are outstanding, but the time has come to look to other methods of preventing or delaying the development of this disease. I do not say that the hon. the Minister must discard the advice of his medical men but they could be asked to reconsider their apparent objection to aluminium. [Time limit.]

Because this is the first time that I am speaking on this subject in this House this year, I should like to make use of this opportunity to-day to say a few words about the great problem of sinkholes in the dolomitic areas in the far West Rand mining areas. It is a tragic thing and an occurrence which moves one to see a sinkhole into which a family has disappeared. Not only is this one of the most tragic experiences which one could have but there is certainly nothing which moves the public more than this does. Thirdly, I am sure that there is nothing which requires as much courage as an occurrence of this nature. Mr. Chairman, I take off my hat to my voters and to the people living in those areas who have the courage and bravery to continue living there in spite of the fact that they live in constant danger of being swallowed up by a sinkhole at any time. I take off my hat to them. I have often said that I do not see my way clear to live there, but they do. In saying this I want to mention the praiseworthy way in which the Department of Mines, the chamber of Mines and other public bodies have co-operated and diligently tried to get to the root of this problem.

Business suspended at 6.30 p.m. and resumed at 8.05 p.m.

Evening Sitting

When business was suspended I was discussing the incidence of sinkholes in the far West Rand mining area. I said that one of the most moving scenes I have ever experienced was on the morning when I stood near the large sinkhole into which the Oosthuizen family had disappeared. I must say that there is a very great contrast. We usually regard the work of the miner as rough work, work involving great risks. But as I stood there that morning, all that hardness disappeared and big men, hard men, tough men, became soft. Personally, I shall never forget it. Because this is the first opportunity I have had to speak on this matter in this House I want to make use of this occasion in order to say a few words in this regard. I think that I am speaking on behalf of everyone in this House when I say that we want to express our deepest sympathy to the relatives of the Oosthuizen family who lost their loved ones in such a tragic manner.

I must also pay tribute to the people living in that area for not having become panic-stricken. I can speak only with appreciation of the self-control and the calmness with which the public in that vicinity viewed the tragedy. Consider what happened, Mr. Chairman. Everything was disrupted; the roads were unsafe and had to be deviated; railway lines had to be deviated; commerce was disrupted; the property market collapsed; labour was difficult to come by; some people became afraid and left and schools had to be closed. There is a school in Blyvooruitsig which is still closed. One group of children goes to school in the mornings and another group goes to school in the afternoon. But in spite of all this people have remained level-headed. They have not become panic-stricken.

In saying this Mr. Chairman, it is also my duty to testify to the excellent way in which the Department of Mines and all its officials as well as the Chamber of Mines have acquitted themselves of their task as far as the handling of this matter is concerned. The Department of Mines, in co-operation with the Chamber of Mines, left no stone unturned in tackling the problem as soon as possible in a scientific way and in obtaining information in regard to the nature of the problem. I must say this evening that as a result of this inquiry and as a result of the efforts made by this body, those people remained quiet and calm. I think that I can say with every justification—I think it is necessary to say this—that a large measure of stability has now been reached as far as these subsidences are concerned. I personally believe that the era of large sinkholes is steadily disappearing. This matter is becoming stabilized. Hundreds of boreholes have been drilled, and they are still drilling. Thousands upon thousands of rand have been spent in order to discover subterranean cracks and weaknesses. Where these have been discovered the people living in that area have been evacuated immediately. It is a very pleasant task for me to express my deepest gratitude to all the authorities connected with this matter.

Mr. Chairman, the Department, in cooperation with the Chamber of Mines, went further and established a fund called the Far Zest Rand Dolomitic Water Association Fund for assisting people who have suffered physical †damage. That fund is controlled by the five mines involved through the medium of the Chamber of Mines and the Department also has a representative on the Board of Directors of that fund. In this connection too we want to express our deepest gratitude to these authorities for the fact that they were prepared to establish a fund in order to compensate those people who had suffered damage.

In discussing these matters, one has always to see them against the background of the importance of our mining industry. A study was recently made by a certain Mr. Smith, and this study appeared in Volkshandel. When one reads what is said by those people who have made a study of these things, one is impressed by the vast riches which lie under our soil and by the vast riches with which Providence has endowed our country. I should like to give a few examples in this regard. Our gold reserves still in the ground are estimated at R 14,000,000,000; our coal reserves are estimated at between 80,000,000 and 100.000. 000.000 tons, and at the present rate of production this is sufficient to meet South Africa’s requirements for the next 2,000 years. Our copper ore reserves are estimated at 13.000. 000 tons and the chrome ore reserves, low and medium grade, are estimated at 200.000. 000 tons. South Africa’s iron ore reserves at present amount to 122,000,000 tons of high grade ore and 6,000,000,000 tons of medium grade ore. With the exception of Russia which owns about two-thirds of the world’s recognized manganese reserves, South Africa’s reserves are probably the most important in the world and are estimated at 50,000,000 tons.

Just these few figures make one realize involuntarily the riches with which our country is endowed. When one considers the future one can come to no other conclusion than that we have the necessary basic requirements for a mighty State. And not only a mighty State, Mr. Chairman; I want to go so far as to say that there are assets and reserves in our country which can make South Africa the giant of the earth.

I want to mention another aspect of this matter, namely, the tremendous labour market which this fact creates. I am rather concerned —the position will probably right itself in due course—that there are at the moment 45,033 Whites employed in the mining industry as against 362,733 non-Whites. This was the position last year. But of these 362,733 non-Whites, 21 per cent are from the three Protectorates and 41 per cent are from Portuguese East Africa. This means that 62 per cent of the Bantu labour on our mines comes from areas beyond the borders of the Republic, while 38 per cent is provided by the Republic itself. I mention this fact merely to show the tremendous labour market which these mineral riches, which the Creator has given us, will provide for us in the future. It also shows us the great strategic importance of our country. I do not want to discuss politics this evening. [Laughter.]

You are weakening.

I want to tell the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) that in discussing a future picture of this nature, the United Party becomes nebulous; I cannot associate them with the future. [Time limit.]

I think the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) has done this House a service in raising the, question of the sinkholes and the great problem that confronts the mining industry, and indeed the whole country, in this regard. We on this side of the House also wish to convey our sympathy to all those people who have been affected by this unusual catastrophe of nature. Whilst the hon. member for Ventersdorp has mentioned the Oosthuizen family in particular, it is necessary to remember that 42 lives have already been lost in this manner.

I was really referring to everybody.

I, however, want to approach this matter with the hon. the Minister from possibly another angle to that discussed by the hon. member for Ventersdorp. The hon. member has made two statements which are contradicted by authoritative persons. He said that boreholes were positive means whereby these cavities can be located. I want to quote the evidence of Mr. Irving, Consulting Engineer of Rand Mines, given at the inquest of the Oosthuizen family. On page 36 of the inquest proceedings he states—

The hon. member also said he felt satisfied that this problem was already overcome and that there might not be any further subsidences.

I said there was more stability.

I hope that is the position, but I would like to quote a very authoritative scientist who on 6 August 1964 said the following—

I accept that this is no fault of the Government’s; that it is no fault of the mining industry—to whom I think we must all pay tribute for having exerted itself by every possible means at its disposal to overcome and solve this problem. But we as a responsible body in this House have to set the public’s mind at rest. There is a definite difference of opinion as to whether the policy being pursued by the Department of Mines in changing its previous policy of allowing the water to be pumped back into the mine and now de-watering all these compartments, is correct. There is a strong body of opinion in the mining industry that maintains this policy is wrong and that the compartments should not be de-watered.

[Inaudible.]

If the hon. member for Ventersdorp thinks that I am not speaking with some knowledge, I would once again like to quote some evidence from this commission of inquiry. On page 35 we have this opinion by the consulting engineer of the Rand Mines—

and this is the important part—

Then he goes on to say—

That is, the practice of de-watering the compartments. I can also quote the evidence of Dr. Knight, a senior lecturer in civil engineering soil movements at the Witwatersrand University. On page 24 he says—

The manager of the mine, Mr. L. J. Prins, says on page 34—

These are the opinions of highly qualified people, and opposed to that we have the recent departure from the previous policy on the part of the Department of Mines. The Department maintains that it is in the interest of that area to dehydrate the ground and not allow the water to be pumped back but to be led away. This has been going on since 1963. I am not saying that the Department may not be right in its opinion; they may be perfectly correct in their approach. However, we also have the opposite point of view, and I don’t know whether they are right or wrong. But one thing I do know. With the opposing points of view being put forward by the two parties, the public’s mind has to be set at rest and public dissatisfaction has to be allayed. I would like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that the only way to do it, in view of the blank wall that he is up against in coming to the correct decision, is to appoint a commission of inquiry to lay bare all the facts of the sinkhole areas and in that way set the public’s mind at rest. The need for a greater sense of urgency is obvious, as the West Rand is not the only area affected. I will admit, however, that it is by far the worst affected.

We know that as far back as April 1963 the then Minister of Mines said—

Since then, Sir, we have had the further tragedies of Blyvooruitsig; we have had the recent tragedy at Venterspost; numerous other sinkholes have developed to the east of the Oberholzer compartment and the Bank compartment. It is obvious that we do not know just where these subsidences will stop. We don’t know sufficiently well what is taking place underground. I do feel, under those circumstances, that the Minister should make a clear statement as to the difference of opinion that exists between authorities on the matter. The Minister should appoint a commission of inquiry so that they can authoritatively determine whatever the position is. It affects residential areas; it affects the mining industry; it affects the Railways and it affects the public roads. [Time limit.]

A good proposal always deserves a seconder and in the light of this fact I want to associate myself with what was said by the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Mr. G. P. van den Berg) in congratulating the hon. the Minister on his appointment and in expressing the hope that the hon. the Minister will have a very long and happy term of office. I want to give him the assurance that that is the hope of all of us.

In pursuance of what the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) has said I want to say that I agree with him. It is of course necessary for us always to try to provide our underground miners with more fresh air. I want to express our appreciation to the Department and to the mining industry for the fact that it is very evident from the annual report of the Department that the Department is continuing to give its attention to this matter and that it has made a point of ensuring that the workers are supplied with as much fresh air as possible. The report states that in each case in which there was a break in the supply of air, the mining industry repaired the break as soon as possible. It is interesting to note that the total amount of fresh air provided on the large goldmines was 4 per cent higher than in the previous year. In volume per person this represented an increase of 8 per cent. If besides this we consider that 60 per cent more air samples were taken this year than in the previous year, it is an indication that this matter is enjoying the careful attention of the Department. We must continually try to improve results. When I say that 60 per cent more samples were taken this year than in the previous year, it may perhaps be necessary to add that this does not mean that there was any laxity in the previous year. The large increase in the number of samples is due to the fact that the staff increased and that junior inspectors were appointed.

In dealing with this matter it is of course interesting for me, as a representative of a Free State constituency, to note that the total volume of fresh air supplied in the Free State increased by 7.9 per cent. In 1960 there were 161 cubic feet of air per person per minute and in 1963 this rose to 215 cubic feet. These figures show that in comparison with the air supplies on the Witwatersrand, the Free State mines are reasonably well supplied. In 1962 the supply in the case of the Witwatersrand was 136 cubic feet while it was 205 cubic feet in the Free State. I mention this fact with appreciation because it shows us that the mining industry and the Department very definitely have their finger on the pulse of this matter.

It is also pleasing to note that the mine air research division under the State Mining Engineer was enlarged and that better equipment was obtained. This must result in the fact that better equipment was obtained. This .must result in the fact that the position will gradually improve. While discussing this matter I should also like to say a word or two in connection with the research which is being done in regard to dust diseases. Experts say that research in connection with dust deseases, research which is being done here in South Africa, is the most intensive and the most concentrated research in this regard in the world. I fully accept this. Anybody who has seen the work that is being done will be amazed at the careful tests which are made on various animals for various purposes. The causes of the disease are determined; the progress of the disease is determined and efforts are made at better diagnoses and so forth. They ascertain to what extent the patient has been affected by dust and to what extent his condition is due to other factors. It is pleasing to see how carefully this research is done.

A completely new system was put into operation in 1955 in regard to X-ray procedure. We are assured that the method which is used is at least ten years ahead of the rest of the world. On the Witwatersrand, 800 persons can be photographed per hour and the film can be developed, analysed and classified. I am assured that this does not take place as an exception but as the rule. I have been told that 3,400 Bantu have been given an X-ray examination before lunch, and that the films have been developed, classified and recorded. I can understand therefore that people say that we are ten years ahead of the world in this respect. We are very pleased to be able to state that there is particularly good co-operation between the Mining Industry, the Department of Mines, the C.S.I.R. and the South African Institute for Medical Research. We are all proud of this fact.

There is one thing that bothers me in connection with this matter. We have this wonderful research in connection with the cause of this disease and its diagnosis but I find that very little, if any, research is done in regard to the treatment and rehabilitation of the patient after he has contracted the disease. This is a very sad fact to my mind. We have very good hospitals on the Rand, in Klerksdorp and also in the Free State. There are very good doctors who have a knowledge of this type of disease. I feel that every one of these hospitals ought to have a special section where research can be done in regard to the treatment and the rehabilitation of the patient and where the patient can also be treated. At the moment the patient receives very little treatment. I am sure that we should concentrate far more in that direction. The hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) mentioned the fact that patients in other countries are treated with aluminium. It is quite true that they have obtained good results there but it is contended here in our country that these results have not been so good. But that is no reason why we should stop . . .

May I ask a question?

Yes, if it is not too involved.

No, it is not. I just want to ask whether the hon. member is satisfied that aluminium has been given a reasonable chance in this country.

That is exactly what I was about to say. They say that we have not obtained the same good results in this country but that does not mean to say that we must stop these tests altogether. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, we associate ourselves of course with the plea made by the hon. member in connection with dust diseases but I wonder whether he can appeal to the Government with any confidence when we consider how the latest pneumoconiosis amendments were effected. This was done so badly that a year later the hon. the Minister had to introduce an amending Bill. The mineworkers had virtually rebelled in this regard. I cannot understand how anyone can with confidence ask the Government to do anything for the mineworkers because their record in this connection is such a bad one; so much so, that after having been in office for 17 years, they have not even carried out their first promise to the mineworkers. What became of the promise to the mineworkers of a 40-hour working week? What became of the promise that the mineworker would share in the profits of the mines? What became of the promises of 17, 18 and 20 years ago made by hon. members on that side that the mine-worker would only work underground for 15 years and that he would then be given work on the surface? Before they ask the hon. the Minister to do anything they must consider -their own past. I ask why their first promises have not even been carried out. No, Mr. Chairman, the true friends of the mineworker are on this side of the House.

I want to come back to this thorny and important question of subsidences on the far West Rand. I listened with great attention to the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Taurog). After having listened to him I was even more concerned about the position there. Apparently it is true that the experts cannot agree in regard to what should be done with the water which is pumped out of the mines. Should it be allowed -to seep- back into the holes or not? I understand that the Government has now decided that it will be to no avail to allow that water to seep back. This is an important decision and I hope that it is not a dangerous one. I have here a leading article of the Financial Mail in which they say the following—

Let me say immediately that the responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of the Government and of the hon. -the Minister. A state of affairs is developing on the far West Rand which gives me cause for great concern. There are schools which are empty or half empty. In the whole of the West Rand where there are 13 schools, one or two of them are in danger and the children have had to be evacuated. The danger of subsidences covers a surface area of 92 square miles. The Venterspost, Lebanon, West Driefontein, Western Deep, Blyvoor and Stilfontein mines are all in the danger area. A large part of Westonaria, Venterspost West and Carltonville is in the danger area. When I asked the hon. the Minister a question shortly after the subsidence at Venterspost, he told me that the drilling programme had already been planned when this subsidence took place. But is that enough? The programme has been planned, but how much of it has been carried out?

In the reply which -the hon. the Minister gave me after the Venterspost tragedy, he told me that the mining inspector had been there and noticed nothing abnormal on the surface. A few days -later this great and tragic subsidence took place in that area. The hon. the Minister told me about drilling programmes which had been tackled, that there were 13 of these drilling programmes in the danger area, but only a few weeks ago he admitted in this House in reply to a question that eight of them had not yet been completed. The hon. member opposite spoke about the areas which have reached stability, but the hon. the Minister himself told me on the 11th May that the total size of the area which has not yet reached stability has not been determined. Those areas have not yet been determined. The danger is still there.

Although a great deal is being done, I ask myself whether a great deal more cannot be done in this connection. I feel that we should rather do too much than too little on the far West Rand because we -must do everything possible to prevent another tragedy. That is why I support the idea that there should be a far more intensive commission of inquiry, particularly because of the fact that there is apparently this great difference of opinion in regard to the correct methods which should be followed to make the West Rand safe. Our every sympathy is extended to the victims. Our admiration for the courage of those remaining in that area is unbounded. But they need more than sympathy and admiration. They need what we call a crash programme to make those areas safe. I am not convinced that drilling alone will solve the problem. I am not convinced, no matter how much hard work is done, that the correct methods are being followed in all cases. There is a heavy responsibility on the hon. the Minister in this regard. We shall support him in all the correct steps he takes but we ask him to act forcefully. I think hon. members opposite know what the word “forcefully” means because they use it so often from their political platforms. Let them show that forcefulness and let them ensure that the safety of a hardworking and a prosperous community in South Africa will be protected in the future.

We have again had the opportunity of listening to the hon. member -for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan). We have become so used to his not being able to stand -up without starting a kind of civil war. He is always trying -to do this, and never succeeding. He makes me think of a person suffering from a chronical political appendicitis. He is always full of pain and expresses himself very painfully!

I should like to -bring the question of the granting of land to the alluvial diggers in Namaqualand to the attention of the hon. the Minister. I want to say in advance that I know that the hon. the Minister is very well acquainted with this matter. Both he and I have received letters in connection with the matter which I want to raise. When the memorandum was published by the Department of Mines, it was envisaged that one large diggers’ company would be established. I understand now from my diggers’ advisory board that two companies have already been established and that my diggers on the Lichtenburg diamond fields also intend establishing a company. I should like a statement from the hon. the Minister in this connection. I want to say for the information of the hon. the Minister that the position of the Lichtenburg diggers is critical. These people have no money at all to buy shares in such a company. I have attended a few of their meetings; the diggers’ advisory board have come to see me about the matter on a few occasions and they have decided, with a view to the fact that two other companies have already been established, or are to be established, to form their own company with the idea of approaching financial bodies for financial assistance. I just want to repeat that if the Lichtenburg diggers have to buy shares in a company they will simply fall away and disappear. They do not have the money to buy shares, and the first purchase of shares will probably not be the last. There will be more from time to time, just as is the case with any share company. With this in mind I have been asked specially by the diggers’ advisory board at Lichtenburg to bring this position to the attention of the hon. the Minister and to ask him for an explanation so that they will know what they have to do.

I want to take this opportunity of discussing with the hon. the Minister the question of diamonds in Namaqualand. The hon. Minister knows that I have taken a very keen interest in what has been going on in Namaqualand, in regard to the allocation of concessions, and my interest has been to promote, if I can, the interests of Coloured diggers in the Cape Province, whom we all thought were going to get a fair share of what was going, in Namaqualand. It has been a well-known fact for years, that there are diamonds in Namaqualand, on a number of farms, and as the hon. Minister knows from correspondence, which has passed between us, I have been deeply concerned at the shabby deal that was handed to Coloured diggers in the Cape Province. The Coloured diggers are honourable men; they are men who have worked on the alluvial diamond diggings for years; they have co-operated with White diggers, many of whom have sponsored them, and there has been a long and satisfactory arrangement between the White diggers and the Coloured diggers for many years.

What concerns the Coloured diggers, Mr. Chairman, is this. I want to give the history. Some time ago a concession was given to a certain group of people to prospect for base minerals, and the metal which was mentioned to me is titanium. The group of people con-concerned did not find titanium; they did not find, so I understand, one pound of it, but, they discovered diamonds. The Minister at that time decided in a kind of cavalier gesture, that having found diamonds, he could not throw them away. Naturally. So this company got a concession to work those diamond diggings, with great profit to the persons concerned, on State land. Let it be said that the law was altered and that subsequently a succession of Ministers of Mines found it expedient to apply their minds to the best way of working the Namaqualand deposits. Now, Coloured people who are precluded in many directions from sharing in the tremendous wealth, which this particular industry offers, thought that this was going to be the great opportunity for them to make some money, and perhaps become millionaires, like other well-known personalities, who have occupied themselves in the diamond business. But that was not to be, because the hon. Minister appointed a committee and the committee eventually came to some findings—that is after four or five attempts by the Department to find some way of getting a satisfactory solution to the problem of how to allocate the land in Namaqualand fairly and squarely.

I want now to place on record, Mr. Chairman, that the Coloured community, and the Coloured diggers in particular, are dissatisfied and deeply disappointed, that the best solution that the Department could find in collaboration with this commission (which, I said at the time, was not in my opinion, with the exception of two men, competent to decide), was embodied in the public statement by the hon. the Minister, to whom these concessions would go. I have no quarrel with those concessionaires, who were successful in getting the concessions in the White areas. In terms of Government policy that would be fair and equitable, but I cannot for the life of me understand, Mr. Chairman, how White companies should be permitted to work the deposits, which let me say, are well known to exist, in the Coloured areas. I quote them for the record: Komaggas, Leliefontein, Pella, Concordia, Steinkopf and Bontekoei. These places are Coloured areas, Coloured settlements, and I say here this evening, that had there been no diamonds discovered in these Coloured areas, we might have found ourselves with a Coloured homeland. But, when diamonds were discovered in Namaqualand and were known to exist, then of course, some other steps had to be taken.

It is rather extraordinary that where the Minister has given concessions in the Coloured areas to the Coloured Development Corporation, and who in the report were admitted not to have either the knowledge, or the machinery, nor the wherewithal to develop these deposits, three diggers selected by the Diggers’ Committee in the Barkly West area, are going to prospect these properties. If diamonds are discovered, the diggers themselves, among the Coloureds will not be permitted to dig on their own account or to recover the diamonds and make the profit for themselves. Now, Sir, when diamonds are discovered, if any, the matter will be handled by a White company.

I would like the hon. Minister to explain how this is in line with the Government’s policy of giving to the Coloured man the things that are Coloured, and to hand out areas, zones and settlements, which let it be said, many people contend, with some knowledge of the subject, are loaded with diamonds, to White companies and that the Coloured Development Corporation will get 5 per cent for the benefit of the Coloureds—a sort of blanket qualification. I say that this is a new procedure, and a new trend in Government undertakings whereby an industry, which is the diamond industry in this instance, in this area, is going to bear a levy of 5 per cent on a commission basis, for the benefit of the Coloured people as a whole. What most people do not understand is, how is it that a gentleman, Professor Samuels of a company known as Samuels, Bekker and Viljoen of Bloemfontein, and presently of Kimberley— how he got an instruction to float a company and invite Coloured diggers to participate by buying shares. Then rumour has it that these people cannot raise the money and that prospecting will be done on the farm Leliefontein and that that having been done, the Development Corporation will find the rest of the money.

These things sound very nice, and they sound very fine, to people who do not know what the fundamentals are of alluvial diggings. The hon. member for Lichtenburg has just mentioned that the diggers of Lichtenburg are in a serious state, and that they have no money to float a company. On the radio, last year, on 25 November, came an announcement that 250 Cape diggers and 250 Transvaal diggers, all Whites, were floating a company of R100,000 to prospect Spektakel, a Coloured area. I put it to the hon. Minister that the Coloured community has had a very poor deal from the Government and from this Minister in particular. They are competent people; they are honest men; they are men of integrity, and those of us who know how diamonds are prospected, know that any company in the diamond business will advance funds for prospecting. Such companies will lend money at a rate of interest, which is quite low. [Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just sat down will not resent the fact if I overlook him and look rather at the place where the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) has apparently disappeared into a sinkhole. The hon. member can never stand up in this House and talk about any matter at all without making a number of wild allegations. He attacked the hon. the Minister and the Department of Mines without knowing what he was talking about. I could almost say to him what was said by one old lady: “My dear boy, you know as little about this matter as a goose does about lightning.” Is the hon. member not aware of the fact that thousands of holes have been drilled in order to make sure about the formation in the area in which these sinkholes have appeared, and that the Department of Mines and the Chamber of Mines have a strong team of technicians and geologists, the best in the world, who are continually doing research in this connection? The hon. member wishes to criticize and says that no attention is given to criticism and advice in connection with this matter although human lives are at stake.

I should like to discuss a matter of national importance. When so many years ago a person stood up here and spoke about Iscor and Sasol, it was a matter of national importance. This was not a person who discussed a local matter. I want this evening to discuss the question of Ellisras where so many of the millions of tons of coal about which the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) spoke, are to be found. To the best of my knowledge there are no less than 10,000,000,000 tons of coal under the ground at Ellisras. This therefore is a matter of national importance. There are other mineral resources as well. We think of coal and anthracite and also of the phosphate deposits that are there. The geological survey division has all the details. Those coalfields and phosphate deposits are some of the largest in South Africa. We know that this matter continues to enjoy the attention of the Government but I want to put this matter pertinently this evening once again. As you know, Sasol and Iscor have bought numbers of farms there and only recently Sasol appointed a Nylstroom firm of surveyors to plot about 100 points where drilling should be carried out in order to investigate the area further. From this point of view too therefore there is the necessary interest and action in this regard.

As far as the decentralization of industries is concerned, a movement which is gathering pace in our country, that area has the necessary raw material, the water potential, the labour and the necessary transport potential. I just want to point out that as far as raw materials are concerned, I have already told the House that there is everything there that is required. Only 50 short miles from this area there is the Thabazimbi iron ore mine, one of the richest in the world. As far as the water potential is concerned, I have been told that once the planned industries are operating there, they will require water in quantities of multiples of 10,000,000 gallons per day and this water can be made available by a dam in the Magol River which flows through that area. Mr. Chairman, I suppose mining and industrial projects must first be planned in detail so that we can be told what the water requirements of those projects will be before we can tackle the water scheme, and the priority which the mining for minerals does apparently enjoy in that area at the moment over the question of water conservation must serve as an incentive not to delay matters but to go ahead with them so that that project of so-called secondary importance, which is of the greatest importance as far as the mining of coal is concerned, namely, water, can be made available in this regard without in any way hampering the agricultural development which is possible and urgently necessary there. Because the mining and industrial projects will determine the capacity of that dam, it is necessary that a start be made as soon as possible on the development there.

As far as transport is concerned, it is only 50 short miles over level terrain to Thabazimbi, and the railway line can be built easily. A double section will cost less than a single section over mountainous ground with all its turns and twists, excavations and fillings. The tarred road from Nylstroom down to Ellisras is more than half completed and this work could be completed immediately, while the question of road transport between Ellisras and Thabazimbi will present only a minor problem. Labour is also available there. Block 24 in the Potgietersrust area, to the east of the Palala River, is the area from which labour can be drawn for these purposes.

From the point of view of national security as well, decentralization of industry is of the greatest importance in time of war and about 30 or 40 miles from the Bechuanaland border there is an area where the manufacture not only of farming implements and vehicles but also of arms and ammunition, and I would almost say aircraft as well, can be undertaken. This area can become the Ysterplaat of the North. We already have a radar station on top of the Tafelkoppe with Ellisras as the town in which the staff live. This can become a second Sasol, particularly too because it is so strategically situated, and, as I have already said, because the raw materials, water, labour and transport possibilities are available there. If, for example, an oil embargo were to be imposed on us, we would be sorry that we had not long ago started with the development there. When it is too late, it is too late.

Ministerial statements have been made from time to time in connection with that area, and this is a very good thing, but from the nature of the case Ministerial statements in this connection are rather cautious and conservative. But in the meantime we have all sorts of irresponsible newspaper reports. It is understandable that a Minister will be conservative in his statements having regard to possible speculation and the injudicious revelation of the State’s potential strength, but am sure that it is a good thing for our enemies to know sufficient not to want to burn their fingers, because once an enemy has burnt his fingers, he will already have provoked one to action which one was not anxious to take. These newspaper reports are probably well meant but in some cases, of course, not deliberately, they are misleading, harmful, speculative and unreliable and they cause unrest and uncertainty among the people. That is why I want to ask the hon. the Minister to make a statement to put the matter in its proper perspective.

I have two further remarks to make: There is a place; its name is Ellisras. There is a time, and that time is now!

I rise to reply to a remark made by the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Taurog) earlier in the debate, before we adjourned for supper. The hon. member for Springs accused me of having cast a slur upon the good name of the State Mining Engineer.

Well, did you not?

No, I did not. I have already denied having done so and I deny it again. It is only people who have no ability to judge who will interpret my remarks in this way. I just want to say that I deprecate the method which is being used here to give this impression to the public outside and I think that the whole House deprecates this sort of action on the part of any hon. member in this House. The method used by the hon. member for Springs to make this accusation in connection with something which does not exist is a reprehensible one, a pernicious one.

What does the Hansard report say?

I shall tell the hon. member in my own good time what the Hansard report of my speech states, and then I shall ask him to judge whether I cast a slur on the good name of the State Mining Engineer or not. I know what the task and functions of the State Mining Engineer are. His task is to supervise the working conditions which can affect the health and safety of the mineworkers and, with the assistance of his mining inspectors, he carries out this task in a very capable fashion. I want to say that I have the greatest respect for the work of the State Mining Engineer and I have the greatest respect for the present State Mining Engineer Mr. Tommy Gibbs. I want to quote what I said and I leave it to the good and sound judgment of right-thinking hon. members in this Committee to judge whether I cast a slur upon the good name of the State Mining Engineer. I quote (translation)—

Those are the words I used as reported by Hansard and I do not think that I gave offence either to the position or to the person of the State Mining Engineer. I did not say it in so many words but what I meant was that where a decision has to be made, the State Mining Engineer acts within his powers, but if there are other implications as a result of that decision which he makes, the hon. the Minister must accept responsibility for it although he has done nothing to create that position. That is what I meant and I repeat that I take the strangest exception to the reprehensible and pernicious method followed by the hon. member to try to give the outside world the impression that I cast a slur upon the name of the State Mining Engineer.

In the first place I want to express my appreciation to the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) for having agreed to refrain from commenting on the merits of this particular matter, this experiment, and that being the position, I myself shall adhere to the terms of the appeal which I made to the Mine workers’ Union and the Action Committees that they should also await this finding. However, the hon member blamed me for not making a statement setting out these facts at an earlier stage, but I want to point out to the hon. member that I did make such a statement, on 5 March, after I had received the Government Mining Engineer’s Report and after the Chamber of Mines and the mineworkers had reported to me on the matter. I then issued a statement to the Press in which I briefly set out the facts. I could not have done that at an earlier stage. The facts were only brought to my notice at that time.

The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Mr. G. P. van den Berg) referred to the Government Mining Engineer and asked whether the Government Mining Engineer had not gone too far. It is obvious that that question of his does not refer to the safety or health of the mineworkers, but that he was thinking of cases where relaxation of regulations had other implications. Let me make it clear, therefore, that our attitude is that when the safety or health of the mineworkers is involved, it is a matter for the Government Mining Engineer, but it is obvious that this particular relaxation of regulations may possibly have other implications as well, and consequently I wrote a letter to the Government Mining Engineer and pointed out to him that he did have certain powers as far as the safety and health of the mineworkers were concerned, but that when it appeared that he was granting exemptions in terms of those regulations and the exemptions also had implications other than the health and the safety of the mineworkers. I should like to be consulted in respect of those other implications. That letter was addressed to him.

Quite a number of pleas on behalf of the mineworkers have been made here, and we are taking cognisance of them—we know that the interests of the mineworkers are very near to the hearts of many members.

The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) told me that she would be unable to be present here. She said that if the labour pattern were changed, increased production and greater profits and benefits would result. We know her approach in this regard, but we believe as firmly that if the policy advocated by her were to be applied consistently, it would lead to industrial unrest, and industrial peace would be destroyed.

The hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Bezuidenhout) asked whether it was not possible to grant increased forms of assistance to the survivors of deceased mineworkers. For example, girls wanting to go to teachers’ colleges could be assisted. Now, the nature and scale of the assistance granted for training purposes are determined by the General Pneumoconiosis Compensation Board, and as the mining industry is the main contributor to those funds, they have the largest say in the matter, and since those funds are limited they feel that they would like to allocate those funds for survivors of deceased mine-workers to persons who can be trained as engineers or in certain scientific fields or in medicine, in such a way that the mining industry might subsequently get the benefit of their services.

He was talking about the girls.

Yes, but I am explaining what the position is with the limited funds. The girls are not trained in the fields which I have mentioned, and in the past the attitude has been that if money is spent on education, for example, it was not something which was directly connected with the mining industry, and that the limited funds should not be used for such a purpose, but should be used for the purposes I have mentioned. The attitude has also been supported by the trade unions in the past. The hon. member also referred to the examination commissions and the large number of failures. The high percentage of failures is really alarming. We know, of course, that a very high standard is required of these inspectors and these people in the mines, as the safety of other people is in their hands. A very high standard is therefore required. But I must say that the percentage of failures seems to me to be very high, and the alternative question is whether, if the standard set by the examination commissions is the right one, there is not something wrong with the training, in view of the fact that there are so many failures. That is a matter to which we shall pay attention, and we shall see what can be done in this regard to prevent there being so many failures, while at the same time seeing to it that the high standards are maintained. The hon. member also asked what had become of the socioeconomic report. The investigation concerned was instituted by the University of the Witwatersrand, and funds were contributed for the purpose. I must add at once that funds were also provided by the State, but that those funds were contributed by the Department of Education, Arts and Science. Accordingly the matter does not fall directly under this Department. My information is that this investigation was not very successful at all, and I do not think it had any really positive result. However, this matter really falls under the other Department which has been mentioned.

The hon. member for Springs (Mr. Taurog) asked why this pneumoconiosis legislation was being brought forward at this stage, and why changes were being made every year. When the Minister introduced this legislation in 1962, he said that the legislation was not perfect in all respects, but that in important respects it was better than the then existing position. There have been minor amendments, as was anticipated by the Minister. But this year’s amendment has nothing to do with the Act as such. It deals with certain general increases in compensation, and nothing more. The Bill only deals with certain general increases, and I want to emphasize once again that the reason for the late introduction of this measure is that we waited for the Silke Report, which will be made available to hon. members when the Bill is discussed. I also want to point out, however that if we did not introduce this legislation at this stage, it would mean that the mineworkers would not get the benefit of those increases this year already. They would have to stand over until next year. The Government felt that in view of the period which has elapsed since the last award, it was advisable to introduce the measure even at this late stage and to see to it that the mine-workers could receive the benefits this year already, and not to wait until next year.

The hon. member also referred to certain steps to increase the supply of mineworkers. I want to point out that it has always been the attitude that the wages, retirement privileges and pensions of mineworkers are matters which must be arranged on a mutual basis. A proposal which would combine pensions and pneumoconiosis benefits was made by the Department a few years !ago, but both the Chamber of Mines and the Mineworkers’ Union were not in favour of it, and consequently nothing came of it. The hon. member also said, “The Minister must accept responsibility for everything.” I must accept responsibility for what has been done by the Government Mining Engineer. I just want to point out that after the Marais Report in connection with Coalbrooke he himself, I think, blamed the Minister because, as was pointed out in that Report, the Minister had, at the instance of the mineworkers, intervened in a dispute between the Mineworkers’ Union and the Government Mining Engineer, and the attitude which he himself adopted at that time was that the Minister should not interfere with the Government Mining Engineer in matters involving the safety or health of the mine-workers. That was his attitude at that time, and I think he should not say now that I must accept responsibility for this experiment to which the Government Mining Engineer agreed.

You did not want to accept that idea.

My attitude was that when there were complaints, as in that case, and they led to industrial unrest and strikes were threatening, the Minister had to intervene and had to take certain steps.

The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) referred to the dust counts, and subsequently the hon. member for Odendaalsrus (Dr. Meyer) also pointed out that the dust counts had increased. It is quite true that the dust counts have increased considerably. They increased by 4,800 to 34,000 during the previous year, and the Government Mining Engineer has come to the conclusion that, judging by the average results of the limited number of specimens taken during routine inspections, dust conditions in mines are not really deteriorating. I must say that the report is not a very encouraging one, but continual steps are still being taken to expand those investigations and to improve dust conditions.

The hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) referred to assistance granted to mines and asked why certain amounts had been reduced. I can only refer to the actual expenditure. It is true that we are now making provision for R 1,000,000 in respect of the pumping-out of surplus water, but according to the particulars at our disposal the total amount granted in respect of the pumping-out of water was R838,000 as at the end of February, so that the amount which is now available is sufficient to grant assistance in all those cases in which it has been requested. In connection with the other form of assistance, namely Government loans, provision has been made for R4,000,000. It appears from the applications we have received that this amount is a little more than will be required, so that it will be possible to deal with all the applications. The hon. member pointed out that the 10 per cent was perhaps too low a percentage. If it appears that there is money availbale, and the persons concerned put their case to the Government Mining Engineer, as is done in all these cases, it can be considered in consultation with the Minister of Finance. I also want to point out, however, that that is not the only assistance that is granted, because concessions have been made this year as far as the gold mines are concerned; the loan levy of 5 per cent which has been imposed on companies has not been imposed on gold mines. That represents a concession to gold mines which pay tax. [Interjection.] Nor has the income tax surcharge been imposed on gold mines. As far as the gold mines are concerned, certain concessions have been made which are of assistance to them. I am speaking of those mines which do pay tax.

The hon. member for Welkom (Mr. Van Wyk) also referred to certain conditions existing in the Free State gold area. I want to point out that the Government has in the past adopted a very sympathetic attitude towards those mines that were going down. The matter was dealt with on an ad hoc basis, and therefore I think that other cases which were mentioned here by the hon. member for Benoni are by no means excluded. The Government has been approached from time to time for assistance in those forms, and I may just mention that as far as the gold areas are concerned, a portion of Harmony’s quota was allotted to Merriespruit and Virginia in 1963. That extended the life of Virginia, and the estimated loss of direct revenue to the State was R 3,000,000. The estimated loss in respect of the extension of Virginia’s mining area and Merriespruit was R2,000,000. The State suffered a loss of R2,000,000 as a result of the takeover of the quotas of West Driefontein, Doornfontein and Free State Saaiplaas by Virginia and the extension of the life of Virginia and Free State Saaiplaas. The takeover of Blyvooruitzicht’s quota by Harmony in 1964 resulted in a loss of R2,000,000 to the State. Then, also as far as gold is concerned, the cessions of Areas A and B of Harmony to Virginia in 1961 resulted in a loss of more than R4,000,000, the amalgamation of Riebeeck and Lorraine in 1958 resulted in a loss of R20,000,000, the sale of Freddie’s to Free State Geduld in 1955 resulted in a loss of R2,000,000, and the joint crushing scheme between Free State Geduld, Western Holdings and Freddie’s, R 12,000,000. There are also certain proposals which may affect another mine in this area which may perhaps be treated on a similar basis, but I do not want to mention them here now. I mention these things to indicate that, apart from the other forms of assistance, loans are also granted to the mines, and that assistance is also granted on an ad hoc basis in some cases, particularly when the closing-down of a particular mine can have a serious effect on a certain area, as would be the case in Odendaalsrus, Welkom and other areas there. The Government is therefore aware of the problem which has been mentioned in connection with the gold area.

The hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) referred to asbestosis and mesothlium and asked what was being done in that connection. He tried to make a very positive contribution and suggested what could be done to combat this danger. I may just mention that the Government has already made available an amount of R60,000 per annum for a period of five years commencing on 1 April, 1964, for the purposes of starting a research programme. Half of the cost will be borne by the mines themselves. The research will be under the direction of the C.S.I.R. and the programme is known as the Asbestosis Research Project. It has three main facets, namely, dust prevention and control, clinical and radiological work, and pathological research. The dust research aspect is integrated with the Mine Air Research Section of the Government Mining Engineer and falls directly under his control, although he will be assisted by an advisory committee of the asbestos mining industry. The expenditure in connection with dust research will not be met out of the R60,000, but will be met directly by the State itself. The primary object with dust research is to combat the formation of dust and effectively to remove dust from working-places and particularly from the asbestos mills. The asbestos mine owners have been compelled to modernize the asbestos mines and to make use of proper dust extraction installations. Quite a number of improvements have been introduced as a result of stricter control in that connection and very intensive and effective inspections are being carried out in connection with asbestos mines. Then, as far as clinical and radiological research is concerned, they are trying to detect the diseases at an earlier stage. The industrial history and the origin of the disease are determined, and then preventive measures are taken accordingly. This work falls mainly under the Medical Bureau for Mineworkers. It has also been decided to open a branch of the Bureau at Kuruman. The Public Service Commission has already granted authority for that. The Department is now trying to find a suitable building to accommodate this Bureau and steps are being taken to appoint a physician. The physician will first be trained by the Bureau in Johannesburg and will then be transferred to Kuruman to devote his attention to this problem. Considerable steps have also been taken as far as pathological research is concerned, and important work is being done in this regard. I have already referred to the congress in New York, where our own representatives made a major contribution. The experiment at the laboratory of the pneumoconiosis research unit is being continued, and very good progress is being made. I am therefore of the opinion that, although all the aspects of this industry are not yet known, a great deal of progress has been made in this field, particularly in the recent past, and we are doing everything in our power to grant the necessary assistance in this regard as well.

The hon. member for Venterstad (Mr. Greyling) referred to the sinkholes and what happened there. We want to associate ourselves with the sympathy which has been expressed with the unfortunate people there. We regret that something like that should have happened. The hon. member also referred to the calmness and the perseverance displayed by those people under extremely difficult circumstances, and to the fact that people in that area have now regained a measure of confidence. A tremendous amount has been done. When one listens to the two speakers on the other side of the House who referred to this problem, one almost gets the impression that very little has been done, but let me tell them that this Department, in collaboration with the Department of Water Affairs and the C.S.I.R., has been paying active attention to this problem ever since 1960 in an endeavour to find out what should be done. Various reports were submitted, and after very careful consideration it has been decided to drain the Ventersdorp and Oberholzer compartments. There are also other compartments in that area which have not been drained. There are four others. Let me just explain that a compartment is a closed unit, and that when it has been drained, water from adjoining compartments does not flow into it. The first step that was taken was to try to establish the limits of those compartments, because if one knew what those limits were, one could determine the danger areas. However, sink-holes are not something new in that area. The mountain range there, the Gatsrand derived its name from the presence of sinkholes in that area. Sink-holes were already present in that area when the first people moved in there, long before there were any mines. Consequently it is not a problem which has been caused by draining in itself, but this draining can cause subsidences of larger areas —not sink-holes—and that can lead to the formation of sink-holes. I must not say too much in this regard, but in the first place I want to say that, as regards this research and the opinion expressed by Mr. Irving and others, I asked the Government Co-ordinating Committee, together with the Government Mining Engineer, last year, after Mr. Irving had expressed that opinion, to re-investigate this possibility, because we know more about the problem now than we did in 1963, when the Commission submitted its report, and I asked them to see whether they still adhered to the same opinion. This Committee again went into the matter last year and again established what the views of those people were. But after they had heard those views, they declared that they adhered to their first recommendation that those compartments be drained.

You said just now that draining caused subsidences.

I did say that draining caused subsidences. Let us have clarity about this matter. I tried to explain here that there was a difference between a sink-hole and a subsidence. A sink-hole is that particular hole which is formed. A subsidence is when an entire area sinks to a lower level, and the rate at which that takes place has been accelerated by this draining. Sink-holes occur mainly along the edges. But those areas have already been determined as far as the scientists have been able to do so, and the people in those areas are being moved out. The Government is responsible for a part of that, but the mining authorities are responsible for a major part of it. I think that if I give an indication of what has been done, you will realize that this is not something which has been taken lightly by either the mining authorities or the Government or the local authority. By way of summing up I may say that 1,870 boreholes were sunk in the five compartments concerned. Those are the deep bore-holes. The number of shallow holes sunk is 8.181. Depth-marks were installed in 6,800 of those bore-holes in order to determine whether subsidences were taking place in them. Then, in order to determine whether gradual subsidences were taking place over a larger area, 7,000 regulation points and 55,000 gravitation stations were put up. The quantity of cement pumped in to form foundations in this area is 1.4 million tons, costing R4,500,000. At present 72 Whites and 165 Bantu are employed on a full-time basis and 67 Whites and 94 Bantu are employed on a part-time basis in connection with the determination of sink-holes. You will see, therefore, that at the moment 230 persons are employed fulltime and 160 are employed part-time in connection with this problem of determining sinkholes and for carrying out continual inspections in certain areas. A large number of people and a large organization are therefore helping to determine those areas by means of various modern instruments, so that they can see to it that those areas are evacuated when there is any sign of danger. In the opinion of the large number of scientists whose services have been employed and of other advisers of the mining industry there is no reason to institute a further investigation at this stage. I feel that what is humanly possible is being done. I think I must also say that there has been some uncertainty among the inhabitants of that area, but I have had quite a number of interviews with people in that vicinity, and those people now have confidence in the steps which the various bodies have taken. That does not mean to say that something like that cannot happen again. It is absolutely impossible to give that assurance, but particularly where the areas have been defined and a constant watch is being kept and continual inspections are being carried out, and where steps are being taken as far as is humanly and scientifically possible, confidence is being restored. In an interview which we had with those people and the representatives of the municipalities and other authorities, they also assured us that they wanted steps to be taken so that they could continue. They could not get any loans from building societies, and to a large extent there is more panic among people outside that area who are seeking sensation, than there is a lack of confidence amongst those people themselves. As far as the scientists are concerned and as far as these subsidences are concerned, I think a certain measure of stability has entered into the matter. Although they find that there are areas which are constantly subsiding, they think that some stability has entered into the matter, and I may also say that the inhabitants there have gained a larger measure of confidence, and I really do not think it is necessary at this stage to create further panic amongst those unfortunate people.

Can the Minister tell us on what grounds he has changed his policy of pumping out the water?

I have stated very clearly that the recommendation made by the Departmental Committee was that the holes had to be cleared and that after considering that report, the Government decided that that was the proper course to adopt. That was after we had had the best advice, and that was what was recommended in the main. It is no use to accept the opinion of a few that other action would be better. The authorities quoted by the hon. member are in the minority. The Department was advised by a large number of authorities, and that decision was taken in the light of their advice.

The hon. member for Lichtenburg (Mr. M. C. van Niekerk) referred to the digger group. I quite appreciate his problem in that certain concession areas have have been allocated to diggers and they have to form a company. I explained that to him. I am sorry that they cannot reach agreement. Apparently there are also differences between the various groups of diggers on matters of procedure. That is a pity, because we had actually wanted to leave it to them to try and find a solution themselves. They also sent a telegram to me recently in which they said that they wanted to come and see me. Pending the discussion of my Vote I asked them to wait a little, and I have agreed to meet them in Pretoria to find out what the problem is. But I think the basic idea is that everyone must contribute a capital amount of R25. That amount has been set at low figure, but such a company must have some funds after all. I can only say, however, that we do not think that those diggers now have to go and form a company and then have to get companies or other financiers to take a share in the undertaking, because the basic idea of the concession to the diggers was to give the diggers themselves an interest in those diggings so that they would have a share in it. If that had to happen, it would constitute a departure from that basic idea, but I am prepared to meet them.

The hon. member for Karoo (Mr. Eden) said that the Coloured were not getting their rightful share in these concessions, and he blamed me in particular for that, because I made those concessions. I gave the hon. member all the information which I could from time to time. What strikes me now is the fact that the hon. member holds me responsible for their getting nothing, or almost nothing. I can briefly explain what the position was, and that this committee made no recommendation in respect of the Coloured diggers. That was one of the changes made by the Government itself, in spite of the recommendations made by that committee. The Government went out of its way and did allocate the one area to the Coloured diggers. So that when he speaks about that and wants to lay blame, he must in the first instance not lay the blame on us, but must lay it on the committee, and then he should at least be grateful that the Government looked after the diggers and allocated Leliefontein to them. Let me just point out that Leliefontein itself is no small area. I think it is approximately 220,000 morgen or 225.000 morgen in extent. The area which has been allocated to them is therefore a large one. This committee considered the applications, and I have to point out that one of the conditions attaching to the applications was that the applicants had to have enough money to prospect. They had to show that they could do so satisfactorily and that they had the necessary capital at their disposal, and they had to furnish considerable details in regard to the way in which they were going to work, and so forth, because that is a statutory obligation resting on the Minister when awarding such a mining lease. It appeared that not all the applicants satisfied those requirements, and consequently the then Minister of Mines issued a further statement in which he pointed out that they had to see to it that the applications submitted were complete in all respects and that they furnished all those particulars. As far as the applications submitted by Coloured persons are concerned, it appeared, after the committee had consulted the Barkly West Diggers’ Committee, that the 150 Coloured diggers could not raise more than R237, and with that capital . . .

May I ask a question?

No.

But the Minister is prepared to reply to it.

the hon. member must resume his seat.

Consequently they did not make a recommendation. As far as those Coloured diggers are concerned, however, the Government then made a further provision in order to grant assistance to those Coloured persons, and stipulated that they could get the capital from the Coloured People’s Development Corporation. Any suggestion that they have to make a contribution is therefore not correct, because the Coloured People’s Development Corporation is prepared to provide that financial assistance to them. The hon. member apparently takes the view that the Coloured people should have got the concessions in Coloured areas. I want to reply to the hon. member, but if he continues with his conversations there is no point in my doing so. The hon. member for Karoo apparently takes the view that the Coloured people should have got concessions and the digging rights in the Coloured areas. I now want to ask the hon. member this: Is the other side of the matter then not correct too, namely, that the Whites in the White areas round Barkly West should get the concessions and the rights there, and not the Coloured diggers?

That is beside the point.

That is a fundamental question, as our legislation did not provide that mineral rights in Coloured areas should be given to Coloured persons only. And if the attitude is adopted that the mineral rights in the Coloured areas can only be granted to Coloured diggers, it is understandable that the next reaction on the part of the more than 400 White diggers will be that Coloured diggers should in future have no share in White land, and then they are going to have the bad end of the stick. Therefore I think it is correct that I should not accept the attitude that those rights should only be granted to them. What did happen was that the Coloured Corporaion granted all these concessions in the Coloured areas. They are the holders thereof, and they appointed certain parties to do the work of these applicants for them. In that way the Coloured Corporation would then get a reward from it for the benefit of the Coloured people in the area. I may refer you to the applications which were submitted. It is very obvious that very few of these individual applications by Coloured persons did not have Whites behind them, and that those Whites used the Coloureds to make the applications. The hon. member was particularly interested in one of the applicants, Fortune. There were a few single individuals, but no concession was granted to single individuals. Fortune is a digger and he can have a share in that company. When enquiries were made about his financial resources, however, it was stated that “regarding finance, Mr. Fortune assured me, and I have no reason to doubt his word, that adequate funds are available to him”. It was not stated what the capital was, and in terms of the request by the Commission they had to provide certain proofs that they possessed the necessary capital, but nothing further was said as far as he himself was concerned. I can give the full details regarding each of these applicants, but in the case of virtually all of them it appeared that there were other people behind the matter and that they had not submitted all the facts to this Committee.

The hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. Heystek) made representations in connection with Ellisras. He emphasized that that was the right place and that the time was ripe now. According to my knowledge of Ellisras with its coal and the possibility of its obtaining water from the Mogela River it is a place which has possibilities, and the concerns which are making investigations there certainly have the technical knowledge to make a detailed assessment of the economic potential of that place, and probably they will also have the necessary influence to exert further pressure, because the provision of water and railways and other aids is really a matter which falls under other Departments. However, I think the hon. member has succeeded in drawing attention to the mining potential of Ellisras.

The hon. member for Odendaalsrus (Dr. Meyer) also referred to after-care and said that more had to be done in that connection. I may just say that the previous Minister already sent a mission abroad in 1963 which consisted of Professor Oosthuizen, Dr. Cremer and Mr. Snyman and which had to make investigations regarding the rehabilitation and the medical care of pneumoconiosis sufferers. The report of that commission is available and the publication thereof, or of certain aspects thereof, has been delayed on account of this investigation by the Silke Commission. But I think the time has perhaps arrived now to examine those recommendations further. The recommendations in the main amounted to this, that relief should be provided to the chronic bronchitis and emphysema sufferers and that more effective after-care should be provided for them. They recommended, for example, that the clinic for mine-workers in Johannesburg which is at present being maintained by the Chamber of Mines should be integrated with the Medical Bureau for Mineworkers and should be expanded, and that further clinics should be established under the Bureau at other places such as Krugersdorp, Springs, Carletonville, Klerksdorp, Witbank, Welkom and Tambi. There are quite a number of other recommendations which amount to rehabilitation and better care and, in particular, better after-care as far as these sufferers are concerned. I feel that I shall take steps to make these recommendations available and to follow them up further.

I just want to answer the question the Minister has put to me as to whether I advocate that Coloured diggers in Coloured areas—that is that Coloured settlements should be confined to Coloured diggers, and if so, why are there Coloured diggers in the “White” areas at Barkly West. The areas in Namaqualand are proclaimed Coloured settlements and have been so for donkey’s years. In Barkly West there are proclaimed public diggings. They are not declared “White areas”, but “proclaimed public diggings” on which anybody is entitled to dig.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Revenue Vote No. 50—“Planning”, R 12,974,000,

Mr. Chairman, when this new Department was formed there was a good deal of speculation as to its purpose. When the Department began to function speculation was increased as a result of its activities. People who came into contact with a Department found themselves being pushed around from one Department to another, eventually ending up with the Department of Planning. And up to this day it is not quite clear in the minds of the public just what function the Department is performing. The other day the hon. member for Orange Grove put a couple of questions to the hon. the Minister, and the hon. the Minister in the course of his reply gave a rather long account of the activities of his Department. From that reply it would appear that the Minister has already gathered under his umbrella a number of Government activities. There is economic planning, which includes the Economic Planning Council of the hon. the Prime Minister, I take it, and the committee responsible for the economic development plan. There is the Group Areas Board; there is the Natural Resources Development Council; there is the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research; and there is the Statistics Bureau. All these Government offices now all fall under the Department of Planning. All these bodies existed before this Department was created, however, and they all seem to have functioned very well before being allocated to the Department of Planning. There has been one new development though, and this is the appointment of a scientific adviser with a small staff under him. When the hon. the Minister was asked what the duties of this adviser were, he told us that the gentleman concerned—Dr. Mönnig—had been scientific adviser to the hon. the Prime Minister before appointed to his present post. If one considers that this Department has not existed for very long, and bearing in mind that Parkinson’s Law takes a little time to get into operation, it would appear that the scientific adviser is doing his best to get things moving, as it were. Because, Mr. Chairman, apparently his first function was the submission of a report which, according to the reply of the hon. the Minister, recommended the establishing of four more boards. He recommended that there be established a board for physics, one for biological research, one for scientists, and an atomic energy board. Of course all four boards would require staff and the establishing of research institutions. Now, this report has been studied by a special committee of the Scientific Advisory Council. Having been studied by a special committee of the S.A.C. it is now going to be studied by the council itself. Well, Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that at the present time we are in danger of being overwhelmed by planners in this country. Because, no matter where you walk, you cannot avoid putting your foot on some planner or other, busily planning what somebody else has got to do. When one bears in mind that under this hon. the Minister there already falls the Natural Resources Development Council, a body which has been functioning on very definite lines and which has been doing very involved and detailed research work on our natural resources for many years; and when one remembers that we also have the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in respect of which we are contributing something over R6,000,000 per year, one but wonders whether it is really necessary to have in addition another scientific adviser. This adviser will report to a special committee of the Scientific Research Institute, who in turn will consider the special committee’s views on the report of the special scientific adviser! I must say, Sir, that from replies we have had from the hon. the Minister, the doubt has by no means been removed from my mind as to whether this Department of Planning is really necessary at all. One is invariably reminded of the words of that old song, “Why was he born so beautiful, why was he born at all?”!

It is quite possible that the hon. the Minister may prove between now and 10.30 p.m. how wrong I am in the views which I have expressed. Nevertheless I am of the opinion that this infectious passion for appointing planners and committees all over the show and on every possible occasion is really overwhelming this country. I feel, Sir, that it would be far better to get on with the job rather than to formulate plans in regard to what other people should or should not be doing.

Do you not think it is important whether the plans be good or bad?

The hon. member for Vereeniging has interjected and asked whether it is not important to consider whether the plans are good or bad. He implied, of course, that if there are indeed bad plans, they originate in other departments, and it is the duty and function of this Department to rectify them. As I understand the function of the hon. the Minister, Mr. Chairman, it is to act as a co-ordinating link between various Government Departments and to eliminate any friction that may exist between the departments. If ever a Minister of State had an opportunity of demontrating how his Department was functioning, this hon. Minister recently had such an opportunity. And, Mr. Chairman, he did not make use of it. I refer to the occasion quite recently when the hon. the Minister of Transport announced that certain developments were to take place at Richard’s Bay. But some months before that date the hon. the Minister had denied that anything was afoot in Richard’s Bay. Of course, I am not criticizing the Department of the hon. the Minister for issuing the denial. But, Mr. Chairman, subsequent to that denial the Minister announced that Richard’s Bay was in fact going to be developed. Now, I do not intend going into details as regards the projects in Richard’s Bay. But early last week the hon. the Minister of Planning published a Notice to the effect that the whole of the Richard’s Bay area was going to be a controlled area. Now, surely this Notice should have been published simultaneously with the Notice of the hon. the Minister of Transport. Because if an area of the nature of Richard’s Bay is going to be developed, and the development— according to the report—will be on an imaginative basis of a long-erm project, then I feel that the Minister of Planning should ensure that the necessary planning Notice is done at the same time as the Minister makes his announcement. In other words, Sir—and I hope I can have the attention of the hon. the Minister—the proclamation should be made at the same time as the Minister of Transport’s Notice is published. Because otherwise it will afford people an opportunity, it will open the way for speculation and the formulation of various schemes during the interval between the publication of the Notice of the Minister of Transport and the announcement by the hon. the Minister—both in the Gazette and the newspapers—that the area in question is going to be a controlled area.

As I understand the position, the function of the hon. the Minister is to cover physical, economic and scientific planning. In the nature of things he must have various boards functioning under him. I wish to deal with physical planning, and in particular with group areas. As I understand the position the hon. the Minister is responsible for group areas up to the time of proclamation. Thereafter the matter is handed over to whatever Department deals with the specific case. Whatever other Department deals with group areas—be it the Department of Community Development, the Department of Coloured Affairs, or the Department of Indian Affairs—that Department only comes into the picture once a proclamation has been made. Mr. Chairman, many of us have repeatedly over a long period been trying to find out when many specific group areas are going to be declared. Recently we were optimistic enough to think that we were making some headway in this direction, but then the creation of this Department was announced, and so there is still further delay. About a year ago a special hearing by the Department of Community Development took place in my own constituency. Evidence was given by various witnesses; several municipalities concerned submitted evidence; and counsel were employed. But recently when I made inquiries from the hon. the Minister’s Department I was told that the matter is now in the hands of the Administrator of Natal. Now, whether the delay is the fault of the Department of Planning, or the Department of Community Development, or the Administrator, I can assure the hon. the Minister that the public are getting heartily tired because of the unconscionable delays in the declaration of group areas. Because, Sir, development inevitably comes to a stand-still.

I can give the Minister another example. The people of Thornville Junction have been trying for years and years to ascertain whether a certain Indian township there is going to remain as a slum or whether it is going to be developed in a different direction, and whether the unhygienic conditions obtaining in that area are going to be allowed to continue.

Then we have the Midmar Dam that has been built. People are still trying to find out whether the main line of the water supply from Midmar Dam will pass through Thornville Junction. They have inquired from the Department of Water Affairs, but the reply received was that the matter is now the concern of a new Department, namely the Department of Planning.

Mr. Chairman, I support the hon. member for Constantia in the views expressed by him regarding this matter. In Natal we have a provincial regional planning organization, and they have informed us that planning is now taking place at Government level. But when we approach various Departments which to our mind should deal with certain matters, they merely disclaim all responsibility for the absence of finality in these matters and tell us that the matters in question are being dealt with and co-ordinated by the Minister of Planning. I can well see that in future whenever an hon. member has occasion to inquire from a Department what progress is being made as regards this or that, he will receive the stock reply, “See the Minister of Planning”. But the hon. the Minister of Planning will turn around and say, “I am sorry but I do not do any planning, I only do co-ordinating and I am waiting for this matter to be referred to me by the other Department ”.

Mr. Chairman, if this Department is going to function properly at all, then at some early date we must have some tangible indication that not only is the Minister planning but that he is also getting on with the job. Because in many areas in the country, including my own constituency, development is being retarded because the parties involved are waiting to receive Government assistance. And the stock answer received to inquiries is that the matter is now the responsibility of the Department of Planning. I wish to emphasize, Sir, that I am not complaining about the treatment I have received from the staff of this Department. On the contrary, when I have had occasion to deal with members of the staff I have received nothing but the utmost courtesy and the utmost co-operation. What we are complaining about, Mr. Chairman, is that development is standing still and there is a large measure of uncertainty. The best evidence the hon. the Minister can give to show that he is functioning properly in this job is to let us see things moving from the planning stage to the production stage . . .

And not pass the buck.

. . . instead of merely passing the buck, as the hon. member has so correctly said. I hope the hon the Minister will furnish us with a more extensive report on the activities of his Department. I know that limited time is available for this debate, but the hon. the Minister is responsible for many very important aspects of Government policy —inter alia for the planning of group areas, of schemes envisaged by the Natural Resources Development Board, and of certain aspects of border areas, etc.—and though he may by force of circumstances have no alternative but to delay certain matters, he nevertheless has ample authority and a great opportunity for bringing many schemes which have been held up for many years to a speedy completion. [Time limit].

The hon. member who has just sat down, already gave some indication in his speech of the attitude which they are going to adopt towards the Minister and the new Department of Planning, and it is an attitude in which they will resort to the accusation that the Minister will continually hide behind the excuse that his Department does not plan, but merely co-ordinates.

This is the first opportunity we have to wish the Minister and his new Department every success in building up that Department, a Department which is going to play a major part in the development of South Africa. I want to say to the Minister that the indications we have had so far, on the basis of the initial work which has been undertaken, are satisfactory indications. We are grateful for that. We already have a study before us which gives some indication of the basis on which planning will be undertaken. On various occasions the Minister has also given an indication of the form which this planning will take, namely scientific, economic and physical planning. If that is to be the position. I am sure that we shall already reap the benefits of that within the next few years. In the first place I anticipate that we shall have less wastage of manpower, and also that it will be possible for a master-plan for the economic development of South Africa to be drawn up in a much shorter space of time.

There is one aspect which I want to deal with on this occasion. It concerns one of the sources of production of the country, namely water. We need a master-plan in that regard. We know that the hon. the Minister is busy with the Orange River Scheme at the moment, but it is said from time to time—and this is in fact an essential need—that south Africa, as far as its meagre but nevertheless essential water resources are concerned, needs a master-plan which will take into account the requirements in respect of the development in the large metropolitan areas and the necessity to make the maximum use of our water resources. considering the droughts we have experienced during recent years. We need a master-plan for the development and conservation of this important resource, namely water. The Department of Water Affairs has already done much good work in this regard. I do not want to belittle that good work by any means. With the manpower available the Department of Water Affairs has done its best to keep abreast of the requirements, but the fact of the matter is that those requirements are increasing to such an extent that it is simply not possible for that Department to keep pace with them. That applies particularly in cases where we are hit by natural disasters and there is a tremendous increase in the demand for water.

I now want to ask the Minister whether provision has been made in the planning setup of his Department for the necessity to consider the water resources of the Republic as a whole with the object of drawing up a master plan for the country. If that is already the intention I also want to ask the Minister to indicate whether there is any special plan to make provision for those areas which have suffered most through droughts in the past. I am not referring specifically to the drought existing at the moment, but I am referring to those areas where droughts are virtually a normal occurrence. Can the hon. the Minister give an indication, at the earliest possible opportunity, of the progress which is being made in drawing up such a master plan? Our present circumstances make it essential for us to know what such a master. plan will comprise. As we know, the Minister of Finance last year had to set aside an amount out of the surplus in respect of the financial year for the raising of dam walls in the Northern Transvaal as a result of the serious droughts which prevailed there. But to me it does not seem good enough that we only build dams from time to time without those dams forming part of a master plan for the entire country.

It seems to me that there is a great need for such a master plan in the country at the moment. If it is not possible for such a plan to be submitted in detail now, we should at least get some indication of the steps which are being contemplated. Perhaps it is not posisible for the Minister to reply fully to that at the present moment, but perhaps he can undertake to give us an indication at an early stage next session of what plans exist for meeting our needs in this connection.

When one thinks of a department of planning, one usually has an impression or order and co-ordination. My short experience with the hon. the Minister’s department, however, leads me to believe that neither of these two criteria applies to his department.

During the time available to me to-night, I want to speak of the little town Verulam, a town which may not be well known to many hon. members of this House, but is a town which is the second oldest municipality in Natal. There is an old established White population dating back to about the middle of the last century. In addition there is also a sizeable Asiatic population, a population which has come and grown up there from about the turn of the century. Now, it so happened that last year the Asiatic community, as is usual in these matters, first heard that Verulam was to be declared Asiatic by the hon. the Minister. They thereupon approached the White town board about it. The upshot of it was that the town board asked me to lead a deputation to the hon. the Minister in order to plead for the settled White community of the town. I was glad to be able to lead that deputation. The Minister on his part gave us a very patient hearing. Because the town board—like so many other people—believed that if you had a prominent Nationalist on your side, your interests would be safeguarded by the Government, they decided to invite a prominent and senior Nationalist senator to go along with us so that he too could plead the cause of the White community.

Well, some weeks after the patient hearing which the hon. the Minister gave us, a proclamation appeared declaring the whole of this old established White town to be an Asiatic town. The result of this is that the White community there must now move out within a period of 12 months, unless, of course, they can obtain a permit to stay longer. But the difficulty which now confronts the Whites of this town is the fact that the planning of the area is such that there is no adjacent area to which the White people can move, an area in which they will be able to settle and in respect of which they will be satisfied is a declared White area. I have approached the hon. the Minister and his Department in an effort to obtain an assurance that the land adjacent to this town—a town which is the administrative and magisterial centre of a large magisterial district—will remain White to enable the people who are being displaced in Verulam to have a place to go to where they can rebuild their lives. But I regret to say that I failed in my efforts. Because neither the Department nor the regional representative in Natal is prepared to give an assurance that the adjacent land will in fact remain White. We can also not obtain an assurance that an area situated near this town, where the people have their jobs and their businesses, will be declared White and that the White people can move there.

But the story does not end there. I have pleaded with the hon. the Minister and his Department for the whole of the North Coast to be planned on a regional basis. I have pleaded for the discontinuing of a procedure whereby ad hoc declarations are made to the effect that one area will be Asiatic, another area Bantu, and a third area will be White, without any apparent co-ordination. I have asked that this be stopped until the whole region is planned as a region, so that people who have to move—be they White, Asiatic or Bantu—will know where they have to move to and re-establish themselves. But I have also failed in this regard. The Natal Provincial Council, which is, of course, a United Party body, has done an excellent and detailed survey of the whole of the North Coast, a survey which the hon. the Minister could use. But the Minister has declined to make use of it. The town of Verulam which is to-day declared wholly Asiatic, is surrounded by by old-established and highly productive White farming districts, and we just cannot obtain an assurance from the Minister’s Department that those areas will remain White. Neither are we able to obtain an assurance, or even an indication—official that is, as opposed to unofficial rumours and suggestions—to which area these people can move and settle down. I should like the hon. the Minister to make a public declaration that the White farming area between the Umhloti and the Tongaat rivers will remain White, with the exception of the township of Tongaat. But I am quite satisfied the hon. the Minister will not make such a statement. I issue another invitation to the Minister. I ask him to declare publicly to-night that the township of Umhloti Beach will remain White. He may reply to this invitation.

There are certain matters in this regard, certain happenings, Sir, which I think can be described as most deplorable. Of the numerous sworn appraisers in the town of Verulam, people who are all members of the Institute of Valuers, people who are capable of valuing the properties concerned, not a single one has been appointed by the Minister’s Department to do the valuing. The only man who has been appointed is a gentleman who—need it be said—supports the Party occupying that side of the House, and who is the only valuer in the town who has been refused membership of the Institute of Valuers because he lacks the necessary qualifications.

There is something else I should like to tell this House about. The proclamation declaring this town to be an Asiatic town was first heard of in Verulam when the 1.00 p.m. news was broadcast on the day the proclamation was issued. But an unknown estate agent, an agent unknown to the town of Verulam, was moving about in the town busily taking up options on the various properties to be involved at 8.00 o’clock that morning! He was energetically moving about the town and taking up options hours before the announcement was made!

Here we have the position that the Indian population knew of the move long before the town board knew about it, and an unknown estate agent was around taking up options on these properties about six hours before the proclamation was made. And the person appointed by the Minister’s Department to do the valuations is the only valuator in the town who is not a qualified valuator in the sense that he was refused admission to the Institute of Valuators.

They are appointed by the Department of Community Development. You yourself said that only after proclamation does the area concerned fall under my Department.

Well, even if they are appointed by that Department, surely the Minister responsible for that Department can be persuaded by the hon. the Minister to appoint properly qualified people to do this job?

I have nothing to do with that.

But apart from this aspect, Mr. Chairman, surely it is more than a plain coincidence that the only unqualified man in town to be appointed is also the only agent in the town who is a supporter of the Nationalist Party! Mr. Chairman, I believe that this town of Verulam has revealed certain irregularities in the Department of this hon. Minister, irregularities which are in their very nature nothing short of a public scandal. I believe it is wrong and most unfair to approach and to eulogize the planning of a situation in which decisions are made resulting in an established community, an old-established White community, just not knowing where to go in order to establish themselves anew. There are civil servants involved. Verulam is a magisterial centre. Many Provincial Council servants also live there. These are not wealthy people. Many of them do not possess cars. There is no public transport to and from the town. Yet they will have to move perhaps ten or 12 or even more miles from this place in order to re-establish themselves, and not even knowing that those areas will for the future remain White. How are these people, having moved to the outlying districts, to reach the town of Verulam to do their jobs?

I regret to say, Sir, that this is a deplorable beginning by a new Department, and I hope the hon. the Minister will tell us to-night that for a start things will be better organized.

Mr. Chairman, now I no longer know what to say!

You are quite right!

Now I no longer know what to say; in fact, I am left speechless. The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) comes along here and makes a terrible attack on the Minister because a certain little place by the name of Verulam—a place which I do not know; I only drove past there the other day— has not been declared a White area. But only a few days ago hon. members on the other side made a vicious attack on the Minister because he wanted to keep Wynberg White and because he wanted White areas here in Cape Town. There is the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson), for example.

You will not get away with that.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout came along and made a terrible attack on the Minister because the Minister had stipulated that Coloured persons could only attend cinemas in certain areas, and in any case not in White areas. Is that not so? The hon. member for Bezuidenhout, of course, is only present in this House when he wants to make a speech, so that he can hear himself. Hon. members on the other side accuse the Minister of moving only the Coloureds or only the Indians. But now the accusation made by the hon. member for Zululand, again, is that the Minister is moving Whites!

Must they hear about it over the radio for the first time?

The accusation which the hon. member now makes against the Minister is that he, that is to say, the Minister, does not want to declare the area of Verulam a White area.

Tell me whether my facts are wrong.

I cannot say whether the hon. member’s facts are right or not—ten to one they are wrong ! I do not know the area of Verulam. I am talking about the whole principle of the thing.

You are drawing a red herring across the trail.

Planning is a very important matter. Besides, the Department has only been established very recently. When it suits hon. members on the other side, they come along and complain against the Minister because he does not want to keep a certain area for Whites only. At other times, again, they blame the Minister because he wants to keep certain areas for Whites only! Then the hon. member for Bezuidenhout came along and asked on what grounds a particular area could be said to be a purely White area. There was no such thing, he said, because the Coloureds who worked for people there form part of the population of that area. Therefore they should also get their recreation in that area.

We have already become so accustomed to this opportunism on the part of the Opposition. Why is the hon. member for Zululand all of a sudden beginning to plead for the Whites now? Is it because his seat is in danger? Is it because Hugh Tracey is pushing him out there? Is that why he is all of a sudden concerned about the Whites of Verulam now? However, when they come to the Cape Province, where they are afraid of the Progressive Party, they attack the Minister because he wants to keep certain areas White.

I now come to the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson), who is shaking his head over there. His main objection seems to be that we are now being overwhelmed by planners. I have a great affection for the hon. member as well as a high regard for him in certain respects—as a matter of fact, in all respects, except in so far as his political convictions are concerned. But the hon. member is generally very old-fashioned.

But you have never been in any sort of fashion!

There was a time when that hon. member was in fashion in Vereeniging, but he is out of fashion there now . . . In any case, the hon. member for Constantia says he is afraid that we shall now be overwhelmed by planners. But can he not realize that under the present economic conditions it is simply impossible to carry on with the “hit and miss” methods of the past? Can he not realize that the laissez-faire methods of the past can no longer be applied to-day? Does he not realize the position in which we have landed in South Africa? Let us just look at the past few years to see how the Government has made it its business to plan our economic life. After Sharpeville and those happenings we experienced an economic recession in South Africa and a state of economic stagnation gradually developed. The Government was obliged to start planning in order to save our economy from that stagnation.

Then the Prime Minister appointed an economic advisory council, and that step has yielded great benefits. What has been the result of the advice which that advisory council gave to the Minister of Economic Affairs? What has been the result of the planning suggested by them? The result has been that, contrary to all the predictions made by hon. members on the other side, we have had a period of great economic prosperity in South Africa. We are still reaping the benefits of that. The hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) wanted to know why we did not proceed to action. We should not only plan, he said. But the other day they complained that there was too much action and that as a result we were experiencing a shortage of manpower!

We are again busy planning at the moment, this time from another direction. Now that our economic prosperity is becoming overheated, we must plan to ensure that it does not become too much overheated and that serious inflationary tendencies do not develop. But then the hon. member for Constantia comes along and says that we undertake far too much planning in this country. But that is what we need— we need planning. If I may offer the hon. member a word of advice, I want to say to him that he should see to it that, instead of a department of propaganda for his Party under the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn), they establish a department of planning under the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) !

Business interrupted to report progress.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.