I move as an unopposed motion—

This House further resolves that its sincere sympathy be conveyed to the relatives of the deceased in their bereavement. Mr. Speaker, it is not customary for former members of the House of Assembly to be commemorated in this House when they pass away after having ceased to be members of this House, except in certain exceptional cases. Here we now have such an exceptional case. As far as I can recall, there have been only eight Speakers of this House since 1910, three of whom are still living, including yourself, Sir. In other words, this is the fifth of the Speakers of this House since 1910 to pass away. Mr. Conradie commenced his service to his fellow South Africans at an early stage in his life. He was a reasonably well-to-do person of independent means, and upon returning from his studies in Europe he immediately began to devote his energies more particularly to serving his fellow-men rather than to professional activities of his own. He became active in various spheres of cultural life, welfare work and political life in the service of his party. Be it in the capacity of chairman, secretary or co-worker, he always exerted himself, amongst other things and particularly in the interest of the Afrikaner people, to which he belonged. Upon being elected to the House of Assembly as the member for Gordonia, he dedicated himself wholeheartedly to furthering the interests of his constituents, so much so that on this sad occasion I have already received telegrams from his former constituency in which homage is paid to someone who did so much for the land-hungry farmers in that area that today there are many successful farmers who remember him with gratitude for the services he rendered to them.

We knew him here as Speaker of the House of Assembly in very difficult times. The zeal and earnestness with which he applied himself to that task often caused him to be in a state of great strain when dealing with the affairs of this House. That is an understandable state of mind in a person who adopted so serious and conscientious an attitude towards his duty. He served this House in that very high office to the best of his ability.

He was a person who interested himself on behalf of others. It is not known in how many cases he made it possible for young students to equip themselves for future careers. He was generous with his own money, but he avoided any mention of what he did in that respect. Thus in his personal life he set an example in his readiness to assist his fellow-men so that they might later serve their people, as he had done.

A long-standing ambition of his was fulfilled when he eventually became a Judge, although it meant that he had to go far away from the Cape, which was his first love. Once again, in going to South West Africa, he elected to perform a task in the service of his fellow-men, a task which it had been his ambition to be entrusted with.

We are today paying homage to a person who meant it well with his people, who gave his best in the many spheres in which he laboured, a person who is now remembered in sadness as one who has passed away, but whose life can be remembered with gladness as one crowned with success. On behalf of the House I wish to convey our sympathy to all those who were near to him.

On behalf of members on this side of the House I should like to associate myself with the words that have come from the hon. the Prime Minister concerning Johan Conradie. He was known to me for nearly 30 years and I think if there was one characteristic that one remembers of him it was his extreme kindliness, his generous nature and his public-spiritedness. I think he was a keen and very sincere politician, but he was perhaps a keener farmer because that was, after all, his first love and his hobby. It is perhaps not generally known that he was legal adviser to the K.W.V. for a number of years. He had a great knowledge of the growing and production of wines, and he was something of an expert in that field, apart from his political and legal knowledge. As a lawyer he had a very determined view of what the status of an advocate was and a very high standard in respect of what was expected of the Bench and its independence from both the Legislature and the Executive. He believed also that a Judge had an important position in the community and that it should be maintained both on and off the Bench. He exhibited a very sturdy independence also in his attitude to the Courts and his profession generally. In Parliament he was a controversial figure because he felt so strongly that sometimes it was difficult for him to contain his emotions. I think he was the first man in this House to suggest that the Coloureds should be removed from the common roll without a two-thirds majority, and he argued it with great sincerity and at some length. His time as Speaker was a difficult one, a time that caused him great emotional strain, but I think it was felt that he did his very best to maintain the dignity of that office. We on this side of the House will remember someone who, no matter how he differed from us—and he differed from us very much on many things—was nevertheless a kindly, sincere, generous and honest man doing his best in the interest of his country. I second.

On behalf of my colleagues I associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of South West Africa I should like to associate myself with this motion. I knew the late Mr. Justice Conradie when he was Speaker of this House, and after he had gone to South-West to become Judge-President there I was very closely associated with him. His most outstanding qualities were his sense of duty and his absolute sincerity. In the last years of his service he had already begun to suffer from ill-health. He was very ill at times, but he never neglected his duty, and although we sometimes thought that he should not go back to resume his work, he never failed to answer when duty called. South Africa joins his relatives in mourning his passing.

Motion agreed to unanimously, all the members standing.

I want to correct an impression which may have been created by the report over the radio this morning as to what happened in Parliament yesterday. The report created the impression that I had said that this measure was not adequate as a last resort for the farming community. I want to correct that because I was very careful to say that this was in my opinion the last resort for those members of the farming community who were hovering on the verge of bankruptcy; that we welcomed this legislation in that it provided for those cases and that it was designed and welcomed by the agricultural unions for that purpose. This is a consolidation of the measures taken before. The legislation is being streamlined and brought up to date. We therefore welcome this measure and we should be pleased to see it on the Statute Book. My point really was to ask the hon. the Minister whether this was all that organized agriculture had asked for when they asked for the establishment of a specific department of agricultural finance.

Yes.

The Minister says “yes”. The impression which I gained during the years that I was in organized agriculture was that they had asked for something more, something which would serve to bridge the gap between the commercial banks—and I perforce include the Land Bank although not a commercial bank, as a commercial bank for the purpose of the argument—and the provisions of this measure which are designed to rescue a farmer when he comes to the point where he has no other source from which credit can come except the board which is now being set up in this case. But my impression always was that the agricultural community wanted this department of finance to bridge that gap, to rescue the man who can see disaster coming but who has not yet reached the stage where he can apply for help under the terms of the Bill which we have before us to-day.

I had mentioned last night when the debate was adjourned, the case of the wattle industry, the people who through no fault of their own, through the fact that their markets, having enjoyed a period of boom, had come to a complete bust in a very short period of time, were now faced with the problem that they had to get rid of what was formerly their asset, which has now become a liability. I refer to the hundreds and thousands of acres of wattle trees that were planted in Natal during the boom period during 1954 and 1957, from which those farmers had not yet enjoyed any income at all. It is my contention and the contention of the party on this side of the House that that was what organized agriculture was asking for, that where you see a man heading towards disaster through no fault of his own he should be able to come to the State for aid to be granted to him to prevent him having to come to a desperate state in which he can only be rescued by the measures provided for in this Bill. Sir, I believe that this is a constructive contribution that this side of the House is making. I want to tell hon. members that the midlands of Natal are going to face a very serious position very shortly because, as I mentioned last night before the adjournment of this debate, those farmers in Natal had pulled out their wattle and had planted sugar. Sugar, as you know, Sir, has been the golden boy of agriculture in South Africa, and I think our people there were only too pleased to get out of the one industry which was failing, into another which looked as though it was set for boom times for ever. But I want to point out that those people have run into considerable difficulties due to unseasonable weather, frost where frost had never been known before and drought such as we have never known there before. People are now coming to the first cutting of their cane after having spent borrowed money on a frightening scale to switch over from the wattle industry to the sugar industry. It makes one’s hair stand on end to think that a man can borrow that much money to set up an industry, the market for which has collapsed to-day I believe that there is a very reasonable case to be made that there should be something more than what is contained in this Bill. From the part that I took in the activities of the S.A. Agricultural Union when this matter was discussed, I gained the impression that what organized agriculture wanted was something more, something which would bridge the gap between the commercial banks and the assistance provided for in this Bill. I do not want to affect in any way the normal relationship between the commercial banks and the farmer; it is a rewarding relationship to both parties in normal times, in normal circumstances, but I believe, as I said yesterday evening, that the farming industry in South Africa to-day is not a normal commercial risk. I look at my own case where my maize crop in three out of the past five years has been destroyed completely by hail. This year my induna approached me and said to me, “I want a rand from you”. I asked him what it was for and he said: “Well, all the labourers on the farm have got together and they have collected a certain sum of money; they want a rand from you; they are going to go to the witch doctor and he is going to put some muti down the boundaries of the farm to keep the hail away.” Mr. Speaker, I must tell you that the hail went down the boundaries of my farm! The rest of the district was devastated. The Minister will maintain that you can invest money at 8 per cent on that basis!

Must we in future provide for subsidies for witch doctors?

Sir, I am considering setting up an agency for a particular witch doctor. Quite seriously, however, I believe that the farming industry to-day is in need of something along the lines that we have proposed from this side of the House and I make an appeal to the Government to act along these lines; whether it is possible to do anything about it at this stage I do not know but I have always understood that this idea is something which has always been asked for by organized agriculture.

Tell us specifically what more you want; make some suggestions.

Sir, I have been speaking for very nearly 20 minutes on this subject. I think I had better take the hon. the Deputy Minister outside and tell him in language that he can understand what we are driving at. I do want to say that we feel that this legislation is welcome. This is something that the farming community have been wanting. We hoped for something more, however.

Then just one last remark. The hon. member for Harrismith was making a comparison last night between this side of the House and the other side and saying how they were the bees buzzing about the work of the farmers. Sir, I do not know; I have heard a lot of noise coming from that side but I am wondering whether they are not merely the drones.

I do not really intend following up what was said by the hon. member who has just resumed his seat. He expressed his concern over certain matters in Natal. We up there in the North are not so well-acquainted with the conditions in Natal which are worrying him and about which he feels so unhappy. However, I do want to say that I differ from the hon. member in one respect. He expressed the idea that the provisions of the Bill should go further so as to be able to cover those problems worrying the hon. member as well. I just want to point out that the board which will be appointed will have a discretionary power to consider and to deal with all such cases—as well as others which have up to now not been mentioned in this debate at all—on the basis of merit. That is my view and I think there is no reason for the hon. member to feel concerned about whether those problems which he described here could also be solved in terms of this measure.

I just want to refer briefly to a few Opposition speakers who participated in the debate yesterday afternoon, particularly the hon. member for East London City. We know that the hon. member is a person who usually tries to fish on dry ground. Yesterday he tried to do so again, but was unsuccessful. He spoke contemptuously of this Bill, a Bill which is something entirely new in the legislation of our country, a Bill which has been born out of the state of emergency prevailing as far as our farming industry and the country in general are concerned. In saying this I am thinking of the numerous meetings which I attended here myself, farmers’ group meetings of the National Party where the Minister and the heads of the Departments were present and where we pleaded for this legislation. That is how this measure has come into being over the years. This measure has been born out of the knowledge and experience, the weal and the woe, the joys and the sorrows of our farming community. Mr. Speaker, I represent one of the most important farming constituencies in the Republic, and it is my privilege this morning to compliment and congratulate both the Minister and the Deputy Minister on their having the privilege to deal with this Bill and to have it placed on the Statute Book of our country; it is a unique privilege. This measure contains a few provisions which are entirely unique in the history of agricultural legislation in this country. I know that the farmers in my own constituency, and even the United Party supporters there, sincerely welcome this Bill. I know that organized agriculture is also satisfied with this Bill. What right have we then to come and indulge in glib talk here in which nobody is interested and which serves no purpose? But that is the contribution the Opposition is trying to make here. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) did the same thing. He walked into one pitfail after another and in my opinion—and I think it is also the opinion of hon. members on his own side—he made no contribution to this debate. No, let us not be prejudiced. This legislation deserves the support of every agricultural representative sitting in this House. It earns the gratitude of every hon. member. The purpose of this Bill is to serve the farming community, and the measure of success with which the measure is applied in practice will depend on the contributions you and I make. It is not a measure which will necessarily stand on the Statute Book for all time without ever being amended. We shall be able to effect amendments and improvements at any time, but it represents a major step forward in our agricultural legislation and we ought to give the measure a reasonable chance and we ought, each one of us, to contribute our share to its successful administration.

I also see in this measure the fulfilment of a promise made by the hon. the Prime Minister to this House during the last session. What it amounted to was that he promised on behalf of the Government to make a general investigation into agricultural conditions in our country and to take all possible steps to heal the wounds which the farmers are licking and to help the farming community in general, where it had stumbled and fallen, to return to that eminence to which a good and diligent farmer in our country is entitled. This legislation is a fulfilment of part of that promise. The other part is the appointment of a commission of enquiry such as that which is now investigating the farming industry in all its facets. We are not only grateful for that—we expected it—but on this occasion we also want to thank the hon. the Prime Minister for its having come so quickly. We expect that many improvements will be made and that a great deal of assistance will be rendered in cases where assistance is asked for by the farmers. [Laughter.] Hon. members opposite laugh. Sir, they must remember that if they speak disparagingly of this measure, then they are at the same time speaking disparagingly of the farmers, because this is the farmers’ Act; this is an Act which is intended to assist farmers who, for one reason or another, have found themselves in financial distress, and if one laughs when a Bill such as this one is being discussed, one which was specially thought out and specially designed and which is now going to be applied in practice in order to render assistance to farmers where things have gone wrong, then one may just as well laugh at the farmers’ difficulties too and make a mockery of those difficulties. It was unwise of the Opposition speakers to adopt that attitude; it was childish.

As far as I am concerned, there is nothing more to say about this Bill. We are well-acquainted with its contents. We have already had, during the last session, a very good draft Bill and we knew what to expect and what would be born out of it. I just want to say that this is a measure which commands the respect of our entire nation. Even those who have no direct interest in the agricultural industry have a great respect for this legislation. We want to express the hope that, with the passing of this measure, many of the financial problems of the farmers will be solved. I want to express my personal joy at a few clauses in particular and before mentioning them I want to say that it is something quite unique in agricultural legislation that such things are being done. If there are certain minor matters which cannot yet be rectified, then we can do so in the years which lie ahead. I refer in the first place to Clause 14, which provides for the consolidation of all debts. Here the farmer is now being afforded the opportunity of consolidating his old debts to State Advances and to the Farmers’ Assistance Board with his later debts. The method of repayment—a single amount once a year—amounts to this, that a farmer, in terms of this legislation, if he makes use of it, will no longer have to pay off debts to several creditors. His debts can be consolidated and subsequently he will only have to make one payment per year, according to his capacity. That is a major concession. This permanent rate of interest of 5 per cent is also a very great concession, particularly in view of the increasing rates of interest.

Another unique provision is that contained in Clause 34, the registration of mortgage bonds by the Department free of charge. That is something for which no previous legislation has ever made provision. It is a very great concession to our farmers, and both the United Party supporters and the farming representatives on this side appreciate this extremely kind and generous gesture on the part of the State very much indeed.

The last clause to which I want to refer is Clause 45, which deals with the exemption from transfer duties on purchases of immovable property. That is also a unique provision in our agricultural legislation. I want to compliment the hon. the Minister and thank the Government once again for this major concession to our farmers, who have been having a hard time of it in recent years.

No doubt it will come as a surprise to the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Credit to hear me speak on this Bill. I admit that people do not normally do much farming in the constituency which I represent but nevertheless my constituents are very interested in the economics of agriculture insofar as they are affected as consumers by the marketing and economic use of agricultural products. I happen to know a little about this subject from my experience many years gone by in the halcyon days when I was not in this House but when I used to do a little lecturing on the subject of economics at the Witwatersrand University. Agricultural credit and cooperation happened to be one of the subjects which my students had to cover. I have made a study of the history of this particular branch of our development.

I want to congratulate the hon. the Deputy Minister on the speech he made yesterday. [Interjections.] Yes, it was a very good speech. I thought he tackled the subject from an objective point of view and I think the attitude which the Government is taking in this regard augurs well for the future of farming in South Africa and for our economy as a whole. Sir» I like the attitude that we must no longer subsidize uneconomic farming. I like the attitude that farmers who are unproductive and who are misusing the land of the country should in fact no longer be financed by the State. I think that is right. I do not take the attitude that we must simply consider the so-called de-population of the platteland as the important issue here. Depopulation of rural areas is a natural concommittant of industrial development and this country is going through precisely the same stages as other industrializing countries of a transferance of the utilization of its manpower resources from primary resources to secondary and tertiary activities, and that indeed is what has led to the wealth of this country and has led to the rising standard of living of all our people. It is a process which should be encouraged and not discouraged. I am glad to see that a realistic attitude is being adopted in this Bill which is a consolidating measure but which also introduces new principles of agricultural credit and the maintenance of efficient farming units in the country. Sir, long ago there was a system in this country which in fact was entrenched by law, the old system of the sub-division of land. If my memory serves me correctly I think it was the law of legitimate pass. Under that system the land had to be divided in equal shares among the children of the owner when he died. The result of that law was the highly uneconomic sub-division of land into small units which, in a country like South Africa which on the whole has poor resources of arable land and a low rainfall, was simply not an economic proposition. It is clearly good common sense to try to consolidate the land holdings into economic units. We felt the effects of sub-division very badly indeed in the twenties when the uneconomic units were hit by an economic depression and agricultural depression, where the prices of agricultural products dropped to rock bottom and a large number of people on the land were very gravely affected. As a result of that we had our poor White problem which caused so much distress. One of the attempts of the Government to solve this problem was a back-to-the-land movement, which was not a very wise thing. The other, of course, was the civilized labour policy, which I also do not think was very wise. The real solution of the poor White problem, of course, was industrialization in South Africa. The recovery which this country made in the thirties after we left the gold standard, and the further rise in the price of gold in the mid-1930s, enabled this country to recover economically and we then turned from primary production of agricultural products to secondary manufacturing industry. That is what solved the poor White problem—the absorption of our surplus population from the agricultural, rural areas in the urban, industrial areas. This is a process which must go on, Sir, so I am not distressed at this aspect of the depopulation of the platteland. I hope the Government is not going to be deterred by any political propaganda which may be made in this regard and that it will continue to encourage people who should not be on the land, who are farming uneconomically, to leave their occupation and to take up other occupations where they will not only earn a better living for themselves but where they will produce more and contribute more to the gross national product of our country. I think that is a very sensible attitude to take and I am glad indeed to see that the Government is thinking in terms of consolidation and of knocking out these uneconomic sub-divided units which can never produce efficiently. It means that we are keeping sub-marginal and marginal farmers on the land who should not be there and this generally puts up costs of production throughout the agricultural structure and means in turn that everybody is paying more than they should be paying for agricultural products if we were farming on an economic basis. As I say, I welcome this measure and I hope that the process of consolidation will be continued and that farming will be put on a proper economic basis in South Africa.

The hon. member for Houghton has told the hon. Minister that he must not be so terribly concerned about the depopulation of the rural districts since we have over the years developed from an agricultural country into an industrial country. She would not like it if there were to be people in the farming industry who were not suited to it. Of course this does not only apply to the farming industry. It applies to every sphere of life. You do not want people in industry who are not suited to it either. Our argument in respect of the depopulation of the rural areas is that there are people who ought to be there but who are no longer there to-day as a result of the fact that the farming industry is not being looked after.

The hon. member for Lichtenburg, who spoke just before the hon. member for Houghton, was boastful about the legislation which is now before the House. He described certain clauses as being unique, and said that we in this House ought to be thankful for those clauses. The hon. member made particular mention of the fact that it would now be possible to consolidate all the farmers’ debts and that it would be possible to register all of them in one mortgage bond. He also mentioned the fact that no more transfer duties or conveyance costs would in future have to be paid on the registration of a mortgage bond. I have here before me the report of State Advances for the year ending 31st March, 1946. In par. 9 of that report the following important assertion is made—

In other words, here it was already being contemplated. This legislation is therefore bringing nothing new. Even if the hon. Minister had not introduced this Bill, I am certain that there would have been amendments in any case to make provision for this type of thing for which provision is now being made in this measure. I cannot quite see why the hon. member mentioned this particular reason as being the reason for this Bill having to be regarded as something unique.

The hon. member for Winburg, who was one of the first to participate in this debate, said that we would have to hunt far afield in order to find justification for our argument that this Bill should not have been a Bill on agricultural credit, but a Bill on agricultural financing. He said we would have to hunt far afield to find arguments with which to justify this point of view of ours. But it is not necessary to hunt far afield. On 28th March, 1963, the then member for Cradock dealt with the matter in this House and stated what the resolutions of the farming group on the opposite side in that connection had been. From that it appeared that it was not only the South African Agricultural Union which had wanted an agricultural financing board to be created. Hon. members on the opposite side also wanted it. I suspect that the hon. member for Winburg was one of the members who had been in favour of the establishment of an Agricultural Financing Board. Now let us look for a moment at what the then member for Cradock said. According to Col. 3609 of Hansard of 28th March, 1963, the hon. member said that the Farmers’ Group of the National Party had made certain recommendations with regard to a possible long-term solution. These proposals included the following—

There you have it now, not so?

Surely the hon. member knows that this legislation we now have before us does not consolidate subsidies.

Not only that, but it is an enabling Act which embraces everything.

I shall have something to say about whether or not this is really an enabling Act. In view of what the then hon. member for Cradock said here, the fact that we on this side are now coming forward with the proposal that this should be a Department of Agricultural Financing, is nothing new. Hon. members on the opposite side themselves also proposed it. Why are they no longer in favour of it to-day? It is strange that while the proposed department is going to be called a Department of Agricultural Credit, all the hon. members on the opposite side have spoken in high-flown terms of financing. Somewhere there must be a mistake therefore. It seems to me that hon. members opposite see something in this legislation which in reality is not there. Why do they all talk of agricultural financing but are not prepared to accept the motion of the hon. member for Gadens, i.e. that this legislation ought to go further? Hon. members opposite are seeking for a long-term solution for the problem of our agriculture and we on this side are also seeking such a solution. However, they are deciding upon mere short-term ways in which to achieve that goal. Now I want to know how it is possible that this legislation will bring the farmers in South Africa into the land of Canaan if they are in future only to be assisted by means of already existing methods? Hon. members opposite all spoke of the wonderful future which would be created for the farmer, but the principles of this Bill can fundamentally be traced back to the Settlement Act, the Farmers’ Assistance Act and the State Advances Recoveries Act. Here there is therefore nothing new. It is only by way of exception that something new is being brought forward. How can the hon. members on the opposite side now maintain that this legislation is going to build a good and a sound future for the farmer of South Africa?

We on this side of the House know that South Africa has been experiencing tremendous industrial growth and that one of the principle causes for that happening was that an Industrial Development Corporation was established for that purpose. I am not now advocating something similar for our agriculture, but unless we have the same attitude as those people had in respect of the industrial development of South Africa, I see no reason why we can say that this legislation is going to create precisely that particular future for the farmer. I may say that there might be opposition to the agriculturalist in South Africa. Such opposition, however, is to be found only amongst the uninformed. Where agriculture benefits from something, the other sectors of our economy also benefit. After all, we are all mutually dependent upon one another. What this legislation amounts to fundamentally is that all existing aids on behalf of the farmer are being channelized, but we must welcome it nevertheless. One must be grateful for the small mercies one is granted from time to time, not so? Even if it is not what we on this side would have wanted, we must nevertheless welcome this legislation. We support it because we realize that the existing methods and aids cannot be rejected. But while I say that, I also want to point out that this legislation is only marking time. It does not go far enough. The vistas and visions of rich farmers, fat cattle, green wheatfields waving in the breeze and shimmering streams of water do not exist in this legislation. That is why I am sorry to have to say to hon. members opposite that their daydreams are going to be shattered by this.

For the hon. Deputy Minister of Agriculture to maintain that this is only an enabling legislation, is also not entirely correct either. I shall tell you why. The Farmers’ Assistance Act and the Settlement Act were also enabling Acts and so was the State Advances Recoveries Act. By means of these Acts certain powers were given to certain boards to take certain steps in order to assist farmers. These Acts, too, were therefore only enabling Acts. But in spite of that the problems of the farmers could not be solved, i.e. in spite of the powers which the Farmers’ Assistance Board and the Land Board already had.

The hon. Deputy Minister, as well as the Lon. member for Lichtenburg, boasted of the fact that, according to Clause 14 of this Bill, it would be possible to consolidate the various debts of the farmer. Now I must say that it is better to have one loan of R1,000 than ten loans of R100 each. Of course it will facilitate administration for the farmer as well as for the Department. But the point I want to emphasize is that the consolidation of debts in itself does not make the farmer more solvent. Surely it does not make him more solvent than he was under the various loans which he was able to obtain from the other bodies? The farmer will not in future be able to obtain very much more than what he was able to obtain previously.

Are you against that?

No; but the attitude of hon. members on the opposite side is that, because this is now going to happen, the farmers will be able to lay claim to a greater measure of assistance.

The hon. Deputy Minister asked us on this side to say whether or not we are against the consolidation of uneconomic units. But I do not believe the hon. Deputy Minister can say that he has ever known us on this side balk against the consolidation of uneconomic units on settlements. To-day it is possible to consolidate uneconomic units on settlements.

And outside of settlements?

State-owned land, etc., of course, yes. Land was distributed in, for example, the Kalahari, land which was subsequently found to be too small. They were then granted larger units. This side of the House has never balked at that. It is nothing new neither; it is something which already exists. We also say that if a farm is too small and it is possible with State-assistance to consolidate that farm with a neighbouring unit, then it must be done.

But surely by doing that you are decreasing the number of farmers!

The hon. Deputy Minister also brought a charge against the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District). He asked the hon. member whether we on this side now wanted debts to be written off. As if it was such a bad thing! Let me tell the hon. Minister now already that this new Department of his will also have to do so.

Of course.

Precisely. In the past this has already been done. What the hon. member was asking is therefore nothing new.

Do you want it to be stated thus in the Bill?

I asked the hon. Deputy Minister whether the Farmers’ Assistance Board had ever written off debts. To that the hon. Deputy Minister replied that they had never written off debts. He subsequently accused the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) of not having done his homework. But the hon. Deputy Minister has not only neglected to do his homework, he does not do his day work either. If he had read the reports of his Department he would have known that according to the report of 1964 no less than R4,373,000 had been written off. Yet the hon. Deputy Minister is prepared to attack a new member here and accuse him of not having done his homework. The hon. Deputy Minister knew all along that this is still taking place. That is why the Farmers’ Assistance Board was established. How is it possible that the Farmers’ Assistance Board is the only body in South Africa which does not have bad debts?

Mr. Speaker, for a long time much thought and discussion has gone into this measure. The process of its creation was a long one and its coming was awaited with great tension. Three years ago the then hon. member for Cradock already held out the prospect of this measure. However, there is no doubt about it that there are people to-day who are disappointed with this measure as it stands to-day. For some it will be a case of “the mountain which conceived and brought forth a mouse”. I cannot see why this Government should be afraid to take active steps in regard to our agriculture. It seems to me they do not believe there is really anything wrong. Apparently they do not yet believe that it is essential that rapid action be taken in order to save agriculture. Chapter 2 of this measure is practically the same as that for which provision is made in the Farmers’ Assistance Act. The provision being made in this Bill is to such an extent the same as that which already exists. In fact, we cannot get away from the conclusion that that which is being provided for in this measure is nothing else but the Farmers’ Assistance Board in an altered form. In this measure it is being painted and powdered a little but in essence it remains the same. In my opinion this measure will not help much unless the Government also adopts the attitude that those farmers to whom the hon. member for Gardens referred, should also be assisted. Unless this is done not only the small and the average farmer in South Africa, but the big farmer as well will go to rack and ruin.

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that we have general satisfaction over this measure. It astonishes me, however, that the Opposition, while on the one hand supporting the measure, see on the other hand a whole lot of things which cannot be done under this Bill. What they are really seeing is spectres. The hon. member who has just resumed his seat said that they expected an agricultural development corporation which would be cast in the mould of the Industrial Development Corporation. The hon. member is a stranger in South Africa. For many years now we have already had an agricultural development corporation in South Africa, for what is the function of the Land Bank in agriculture other than that of the Industrial Corporation in industry? Long before it was even thought of establishing an Industrial Development Corporation, the Land Bank was established to exercise with regard to agriculture the function which the Industrial Development Corporation is exercising to-day in the field of industries. But the hon. member still comes along and asks that an Agricultural Development Corporation be established.

I did not put it like that.

Apparently that hon. member does not know what is going on, and that is why it is no wonder either that he does not know what the real objectives of this measure are. He says that they expected much more from this legislation. They wanted the name of the Bill to be “Agricultural Financing” instead of “Agricultural Credit”. Did the hon. member give one good reason for his attitude?

Why did you decide in favour of “Agricultural Credit”?

This measure does not deal only with the financing of agriculture. Its most important purpose is to provide credit. Why are all existing credit corporations not then called financing corporations? I want to tell the hon. member that it will not only be lend money to farmers it will also provide farmers with land on credit. The Government is also going to provide them with land on credit. But even further steps will be taken and requirements for the farmer will also be purchased. They are not going to be given the money to purchase those requirements, those requirements are going to be purchased for them. Commodities such as seed and fertilizer will be purchased for the farmer and then given to him as the means with which he must produce. The Department will then have first claim to the crop of that farmer. That is why I think that the title “Agricultural Financing” will do less justice to the actual functions of that Department than the title “Agricultural Credit”. But I cannot see why the hon. members on the opposite side should be making such a great fuss about this point. Does it make any difference to the hon. member if he goes to a credit or to a financing corporation when he wants to borrow money? Is there a stigma attached to the one which is not attached to the other? I want to repeat that the title “Agricultural Credit” is more appropriate to this Department than the title “Agricultural Financing”.

Another matter which hon. members on the opposite side made a fuss of is the constitution of the Agricultural Credit Board. The hon. member for East London (City), for example, asked that it should be provided in the legislation that four members of this Agricultural Credit Board be appointed by the South African Agricultural Union. But this legislation is before Parliament and Parliament entrusts the implementation of this measure to a Minister. He in turn is responsible to Parliament. There is no public institution, in respect of which a Minister is held accountable to Parliament, of which the members are appointed from outside. Because the Minister is responsible for the actions of that body he must of course have the right to appoint its members. But agricultural unions, where they are acknowledged as being the organized mouthpiece of agriculture, will of course be consulted when members are being appointed. However, the Minister cannot allow himself to be dictated to in regard to which members must serve on that body. Suppose for argument’s sake this proposed board has six farmers amongst its members. Would the Transvaal or the Free State agricultural unions be satisfied if three of those six members happened to be Cane men. or vice versa? There are bodies to which agricultural unions nominate members. One of the most important questions at issue to-day is the fact that farmers are very dissatisfied with the representatives which the Agricultural Union appointed to the Mealie Board. If this is so in the case of the Mealie Board, what extremes could it not reach in the case of this proposed Board? I regard the request of the hon. member therefore as totally unpractical and impossible. I want to tell the hon. member that he has a much better chance of becoming a member of that Board if I as Minister appoint those members than he would have if the South African Agricultural Union were to appoint them.

Another argument raised by members on the opposite side was that the powers contained in this measure were only existing powers and did not go far enough. However, they failed to say what other powers they would have liked to see in this legislation. Do they want to see powers in this legislation in terms of which all financing and credit provision to the farmer is concentrated in the hands of the Government? Is that what they want? Do they want the Government to create a body which would concentrate all credit provision and financing of agriculture in the hands of the Government? Surely that was never the intention? The premise of this measure is that the usual sources of credit provision, such as banks and other credit institutions, must be able to continue fulfilling that task. That this should be so, is a very sound principle. Suppose all credit provision and financing were to be based on valuations made by the State then it would perhaps have been a good thing with which to counteract the high prices of land, but it would also be depriving the farmer of his freedom to decide himself whether he should pay more or pay less for land. In anything which he would want to do in regard to land, he would be bound to a Government Department which would be able to prescribe to him how far he could go and what he could or could not do. It is not the intention either to take over credit provision and financing in general with this measure. The Bill is actually intended to help those people who are normally unable to obtain any credit and who need assistance in order to continue with their farming operations.

That is already being done.

Ever since the conception of this legislation steps have been taken to apply in practice certain of the things which are now being defined in this Bill. I have already referred to it—the permanent provision of loans by State Advances and loans from the Farmers’ Assistance Board. I repeat that the aim with this measure is not to create normal credit facilities for the farmer. The real aim is to be able to cope with extraordinary circumstances.

It is certainly not the aim of this measure to co-ordinate and consolidate injudicious prices which have been paid for land either. Let me give hon. members an example. Suppose a person pays a certain price for a piece of land, a price which is much higher than the real value of the land. Suppose, too, he can only pay a portion of the purchase sum, while the balance is held in mortgage by the seller. Suppose then the amount of the mortgage bond were even more than the intrinsic value of the land. If the Government were now to take over the liabilities of that person, it would really be doing nothing more than compensating the seller. If the Government does that, it would only be helping to force up the injudicious prices of land. When he spoke the hon. member for East London (City) mentioned a few examples, examples which could all be covered by this legislation, although that will not necessarily be the case. The Agricultural Credit Board and its committees have a discretion in such a matter. Suppose there were two farmers in the same financial position and both of them made application for assistance in terms of this measure. Suppose further that one of them had begun with little but had succeeded in building up his farm over the years and had then begun to experience hardships as a result of unforeseen setbacks. Suppose the other one had started off with an inherited farm which was worth R40,000. R50,000 or even R100,000 to him, but found himself in the same position as the first owing to other circumstances. Do hon. members now think that the Agricultural Credit Board should deal with both these farmers in one and the same way? In this legislation the Agricultural Credit Board is being granted the discretion to decide not only on the position of a farmer, but on the case as well. It is essential that one must have this, and that those powers must be as wide as they are. We speak so often of an economic farming unit. What is an uneconomic unit? It is not necessarily a small piece of land. It may be a big farm with a tremendous mortgage and managed by a bad farmer, and it may be more uneconomic than a small piece of land. That is why I say it is not a question of determining the size of pieces of land, or of determining what or may not be produced in each region. The evaluation which the Board must attach to that piece of land is whether, with the mortgage on it, it can provide the man farming there with a reasonable livelihood. One cannot say that in a particular region so many morgen comprises an economic unit, and anything less, does not. One could have the biggest farm in the world and it could still be uneconomic. In that case one cannot finance it through this Department. That is why I say that it is not the intention of this legislation to participate in the spiral of increasing land prices, but to enable the farmer who is really in trouble for reasons beyond his control, to remain on the land as a good farmer.

The hon. member says there is nothing new in this legislation. This legislation does not only consolidate, it also extends the powers which the various Departments had.

If one has a good farmer and the prices are against him, it is still an economic unit if he goes under?

He can of course be assisted. If he can be rehabilitated with the assistance which can be given him under this legislation, it can be done. But once he is bankrupt one cannot help him. The bankrupt farmer does not qualify under this legislation. This Bill is precisely intended to prevent his going bankrupt.

But I say that very broad provision is also being made in this legislation. At the present moment, as the legislation now stands, a farmer having a unit of land and in a catastrophe he loses a considerable part of his land as a result of flood, can apply to Farmers’ Assistance in order to have his debts consolidated, so as to try and keep him on the land if he has lost a major portion of his land through a disaster having struck him. If, for example, he lost very good ground adjacent to a river as a result of a flood. But then his introduction potential has disappeared completely because his land has been washed away. In terms of the legislation in its present form, one cannot take that farmer and put him on another piece of land, because the Settlement Act provides for a lot of things which have to be done before you can put him on that land. But in terms of the new legislation the Board can decide that that man is a good farmer, and the Board can take that land from him at a price and it can put him in another place, on State-owned land and upon certain conditions. One can achieve this within a month or so, and then one can take his previous land and consolidate it with other land, if that is possible. I do not want to explain the entire functioning of the Bill in that respect now, but all these things are possible. If a farmer to-day has a small farm and the Board thinks he ought to have more land, the State can under the new Act purchase land for him from another private owner next to him and give the farmer a mortgage bond on that land. The land can therefore be given to him while he still retains his status as a farmer. That is why it is essential that this Act be an enabling Act and that the Board should have the greatest degree of discretion. because the reasons why farmers find themselves in trouble vary. One farmer finds himself in that position because he did something rash, but the other finds himself in that position because circumstances forced him into it. That is why the Board has to be able to exercise a discretion about whom it is going to help and whom it is not going to help. I want to mention a simple example. I know of a prominent case where land was sold to a person for at least 40 per cent more than its value. In order to get that land sold and to get a big mortgage on it, the owner said that if the purchaser would pay off so much, he would give him the balance on a mortgage bond. But even the bond which the owner gave him, was more than the value, and the owner pocketed one fifth of the purchase sum and now that man has found himself in financial difficulties. Must one now pay to the seller the full amount of his debt and enable him to obtain 40 per cent more for his land than what it is worth? Then the seller is left with the money and the buyer is still in the same financial position where he cannot make a living. That is why I say that this Board should have this discretion which it is being given by the legislation.

It is being said that this legislation only comes into operation when the farmer has reached the end of his tether, but surely that is not true? Production loans can be granted under this Act, as well as loans for other purposes, not to farmers who can readily obtain credit somewhere else, but to those people who are still in a reasonably good financial position. Hon. members on both sides of the House can testify to the fact that it has been done in the past. But let us be realistic. If this Board must undertake credit provision for solvent farmers, have hon. members ever considered to what extent it would have to be done and what amounts the Government would have to make available annually on Loan Account in order to do so? And what is going to happen to the Agricultural Organizations which are fulfilling those functions to-day? What will be the position of the co-operatives if this Department and not they undertakes the financing of their members? No, that is why the Government would rather be prepared to assist the cooperatives to undertake financing through the Land Bank. It is not the aim of the legislation to take over that kind of financing.

But hon. members say we are not doing enough. If they say that they must at least tell us what we ought to do, but I have not yet heard any one of the hon. members opposite say how far they are prepared to go. The hon. member said that debts were not being written off under this Bill. Of course not. This Bill does not contain the principle of write-offs. The principle is that financing must be done on an economic basis, and if money is subsequently lost because the man went bankrupt you must of course write it off. That is obvious, but the principle of writing-off is not contained in this Bill. The principle is that as long as an applicant can meet his obligations, he must pay. Do the hon. members want to introduce the principle here that with every loan granted a certain percentage must be written off? What was the attitude which the hon. member adopted then? We cannot make out what his attitude was. The hon. member accused the Deputy Minister of the fact that no provision is being made for write-offs, but the principle of writing-off is not contained in this Bill. That principle comes into play only when the man goes bankrupt; then one has to write off his debts.

The hon. member also spoke about the wattle farmers at Mooi River, but there is nothing in this Bill to keep a wattle farmer who found himself in financial difficulties from being assisted. But this Bill contains no general principle that each farmer who is under economic stress qualifies for this assistance. If one does that this Government would on many occasions have to assist big syndicates which are well provided with capital. One would then have to help them with public money. But where a person is in difficulties and he cannot be assisted through the usual channels, he can ask for assistance. The Land Bank has already introduced schemes to assist such people. But what has happened now is that these wattle farmers who were in difficulties three years ago have received larger quotas. There is nothing in the Bill to say that any one of them who cannot meet their obligations cannot receive assistance. All that must take place is that the Board must be convinced that the man cannot receive assistance through the other channels.

The hon. member for Karoo spoke about the provision which stipulates that only Whites qualify for assistance. The old Farmers’ Assistance Act also contained an identical provision. But the word “Whites” has been purposely inserted here because one is able to render assistance to Coloured and Indian farmers who are in difficulties through the Departments of Coloured Affairs and Indian Affairs. The reason for doing so is that those Departments render certain services to those groups in question. Because that is so, we feel that any assistance to farmers of those groups should also be rendered by the Departments in question and that they should be excluded from the provision of this legislation.

To the hon. member for Lichtenburg I just want to say that he is apparently labouring under a wrong impression. This legislation provides for exemption from transfer duties in certain cases, and from exemption from mortgage bond costs. The hon. member was apparently under the impression that it is a general exemption, but the exemption in terms of this Bill only relates to the activities which take place under this legislation, and does not apply to normal business.

The principal objection of hon. members on the opposite side is that the powers do not go far enough. This legislation contains powers which enables one to deal according to his merits with each farmer who is deserving and who has a financial problem. Where the man’s unit is uneconomic and he makes application for more land, it has the power to consolidate that land and give him a more economic unit, as well as to finance him fully and give him a mortgage bond. This legislation has the power to grant State-owned land to people on an economic basis without having to go through the whole pattern of applications to Land Boards and investigations, etc., which one had to go through previously. If one wants to place a person on State-owned land, the Board can examine his position and assist him. It has the power to provide people who previously had nothing to do with agriculture and who now want to farm, i.e. young farmers, with land and financial aid, just as the old Farmers’ Assistance Act or the old Settlement Act did, but it is no longer necessary for every person acquiring State-owned land to be made into a settler; he can remain an independent farmer. Thus the powers which are being granted under this legislation are tremendously wide. The policy which is going to be applied will, of course, be determined to a large extent by the Minister and the Board, but I say again that the determination of the policy will take place on the basic principle of economic financing in the first place, and in the second on the principle of the efficiency and the capacity of the farmer himself, according to his ability and his finances. In the third place we will get away from the idea that State land must be used for the purpose of rehabilitating people. We would rather use it for the rehabilitation of farmers who are already engaged in farming activities. This Bill gives us all those powers.

In spite of all the objections of hon. members on the opposite side to the effect that the legislation does not go far enough, I am convinced that this legislation, in. the same way that much of other legslation in the past has done, will be of great benefit for the farmers, and will meet the requirements to an even greater extent, particularly during this period of tremendous droughts which we are now experiencing. This legislation will be the means by which our farmers will be kept on the land who would otherwise have gone to rack and ruin.

Bill read a Second Time.

It being 12 o’clock noon, the House proceeded to the consideration of private members’ business.

Mr. Speaker, I can think of no other Government in the history of our country, elected by a substantial majority, which in the short period of four months has been so completely and helplessly exposed for its utter futility and incompetence as this present one. It is plagued by internal dissension. Its economy is on iron rations. Its transport system is shivering from the shock it had two days ago, and it is now floundering in the face of what can prove to be the most serious water crisis in the history of the country. In view of the urgency of the matter, I wish to move the following motion—

I wish to stress that the important words in this motion are “years of inaction and delay” and “the need for the utmost urgency”. The picture presented to us is of a puny Government struggling helplessly in the grip of the forces of nature. This is not confined to one province or one area of the country. It stretches from the Northern Transvaal to the Cape, from the Northern Transvaal where the great Loskop Dam is only full to the extent of one-eighth of its capacity and the Hartebeespoort Dam has only one-tenth of its water supply left. It stretches down to the Cape where the chairman of the K.W.V., Mr. Andre du Toit, a mere fortnight ago told the Government straight out, as reported in the Landbou-weekblad, that the State had neglected its duty in regard to the water supplies in the Western Cape.

Vast problems remain to be solved. There is the huge Tugela basin with its great watershed where action is hanging fire at the moment, and why? Simply because of the muddle-headed Bantustan policies. The problem stretches from there to the Orange River, where the Minister of Finance is already contemplating cutting the Estimates of this gargantuan scheme on this country’s Nile introduced by this country’s Supreme Leader. I believe that both the Tugela and the Orange are proving too big for this puny Government to handle.

This afternoon we have a Deputy Minister holding the Government’s brief. I fully appreciate the reason why the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs cannot be here, but why has he left us with such a substitute as we have here to-day? I have here a pamphlet issued during the last election by a certain Mr. Herman Martins, which says this—

You see, modesty is not one of the failings of the hon. the Deputy Minister. I took the trouble yesterday to check what the actual designation of the Deputy Minister is. He is only the Deputy Minister of Agricultural and Water Affairs.

To come to the serious nature of this problem, I believe that it is nowhere in the country more serious than in the great Transvaal triangle, the great industrial heart of South Africa, with its great cities stretching from Vereeniging to Pretoria, and from Randfontein to Springs and beyond, and containing the great metropolis of Johannesburg. This area of the Vaal basin contains one-fifth of the country’s population, produces 60 per cent of the country’s national income and gives employment to 50 per cent of our skilled labour. It contains the country’s largest industries, five of the largest electric power stations on the continent of Africa, and it contains the gold capital of the world, Johannesburg. Yet this Government’s lack of planning may result in a disaster striking this area in the next six months, and all through the terrible threat to the water supplies of the Vaal Dam, which may collapse.

The huge Vaal complex, gets all its water supplies from the Vaal Dam which, as we know, was built by a far-seeing United Party Government in 1934, and it more than sufficed for longer than 20 years. That is an example of looking ahead. The Department of Water Affairs controls the outflow from the Vaal Dam. Fifty to 60 miles lower down there is the Vereeniging Barrage erected, I think, in 1903 by the Botha Government. This Vaal Barrage is under the control of the Rand Water Board, which is responsible for dividing its allocation from the Vaal Dam amongst all the municipalities, the industries and the mines of this great heartland. It is interesting to note that the ultimate lord and master of the Rand Water Board is not the Minister of Water Affairs but for some reason the Minister of Health. When he introduced the Bill for the Rand Water Board in this House in 1934, he gained the power to nominate all the members of the board in future, but I shall say more about that later. First you have the Vaal Dam and then the Barrage, and lower down the Vaal this frantic activity at the Oppermandrift Dam, and still lower down you reach the great Vaalharts Irrigation Scheme.

To-day this water of the whole area has been cut by 30 per cent. The upper reaches of the Vaal River are dry, and jeeps are driving along the bed of the river. In Johannesburg, to take a typical day, an order goes out that there should be no watering of gardens except between two and three o’clock in the afternoon, and then only with watering cans and buckets. Germiston, realizing how desperate the position is, has even asked for greater rationing. Pretoria, hard hit by the drop in income from the water sold to the ratepayers, has put up the price of water by 7½ cents per 1,000 gallons. One wonders what the effect will be on living costs in future.

Do we realize that to-day the Vaal Dam stands at only 39 per cent of its capacity? Some optimists say the position might improve soon. I hope they are right, but let us see what happened last year. In the last six months of last year Vaal Dam lost 32 per cent of its capacity. To-day it has only 39 per cent of its capacity. If during the latter six months of this year we lose a further 32 per cent, in six months’ time the capacity of the Vaal Dam will stand at 7 per cent. In this position, we are entitled to ask what the authorities are doing. The answer is a miserable tale involving at least three major factors: Firstly, delay upon delay; secondly, fumbling; and, thirdly, ideological bedevilment of the country.

In regard to delays I wish to stress that this Government has had access to the main facts in regard to the water shortage for at least 15 years, yet it has procrastinated and vacillated in a way that is unbelievable to behold. Bantustans and Broderbonds occupied most of their waking hours. There was no over-all plan. They had the facts. As long ago as 1950 the Hall Commission and the Natural Resources Development Council gave them the facts. The Rand Water Board regularly indicates things which they believe should be done; the C.S.I.R. has a vigorous National Institute for Water Research under an able director. Years ago the Institute had worked out plans for the re-use of water by industry, and private enterprise has made use of it in many instances, but the Government has lacked this over-all plan that I have been speaking about. As far as central planning by the Government was concerned the reports and files need hardly have existed until a few months ago when they were suddenly dusted off in hasty panic. Sir, they knew the danger. In 1957 the then Minister of Lands, Mr. Sauer, warned the country of the danger of disaster. Would that he had warned himself, and at least taken some important steps in that direction!

Important meetings and conference on the Vaal water supply were held regularly during the past two decades. I am thinking for instance of the important symposium on the Vaal River catchment area in 1961. Belatedly, a ministry of planning was established and. as a minor concession, a hydrological committee was appointed to draw up a long-term plan, but so minor is this body that I do not even find it mentioned by name in the Estimates, and I presume that with the new water committee that has been appointed, this hydrological committee will probably disappear too.

At last, Sir, a commission was appointed, the Water Commission, but this commission has a strange history, and its history is a condemnation of this Government. As early as January this year the Prime Minister promised the country that such a commission would be appointed. February passed, March passed; there were more important things to this Government than the life and the death of the industrial heartland of South Africa. There was an election, Sir, and the great hunt for votes was on. Why worry about the Vaal Dam? It had always rained in the past and would do so again. And nothing was done. The election passed—and still no commission. April passed into May and May into June and then finally, on the 23rd June, the Prime Minister again announced that he was now going to appoint the commission, and a week later the appointment of the commission was Gazetted. The Vaal Dam’s supply had dropped from 58 per cent to 47 per cent and the panic was really on.

Sir, I have looked at the names of the members of this commission. There are able men serving on it and I wish them good luck On it I see the names of men who in the past warned in vain of the danger. Sir, I wonder what bureaucratic delays, red-tape and ministerial rivalries and jealousies have been responsible for the fact that this commission only held its first and inaugural meeting as late as Tuesday, three days ago, eight months after the Prime Minister had promised to appoint this Water Commission. The commission needs the Government’s green light. Let them have it!

Take a further example of delay. For how long has the Ox-bow scheme, the great scheme for a series of huge dams in Basutoland, not been mooted! Surely there where the waters of the Caledon and the Orange Rivers originate it should be within the capabilities of this Government to devise some form of supranational authority to control the waters. The St. Lawrence Seaway has one. The presence of Mr. G. P. Jooste, past-secretary for Foreign Affairs, on the commission may indicate a renewed interest in the scheme. Basutoland’s Jonathan is willing, we hope that our country’s David will also be prepared.

I now want to mention another example of unforgivable delay in planning for the future. Everyone knows that, decentralization or not, no human power can stop the expansion of the Vaal triangle and its growing need for water. By the year 2000 the Vaal Dam may have to care for 12,000,000 people, 1978 and all that notwithstanding. It is my firm conviction that the Vaal Dam can and will be able to cater for all those people provided: (1) dams along the lines of the Oppermansdrift project are built between Vereeniging and Vaalharts to care for the latter area and make it possible to release more water for the Vaal complex from the Vaal Dam higher up and (2) of vital importance, the level of the Vaal Dam wall should be raised. Experts are unanimous that if these measures are taken one can increase the capacity of the Vaal Dam threefold, from an output of 600,000,000 gallons per day to 1,800,000,000 gallons per day.

We were reassured when we were told many months ago that the Government definitely intended raising the height of the Vaal Dam wall by 10 feet. Then, Sir, three days ago in this House, we heard the bitter truth. The Minister stated that far from the raising of the wall of the Vaal Dam being vigorously proceeded with the preliminary plans were at such an early stage that in the Estimates which will be coming before this House he would not be asking for a single cent for the raising of the Vaal Dam wall. He does not know when the work will begin. He tells the House that he has not even prepared an estimate of the cost in these critical, dangerous times. What a bitter disappointment to the country this statement by the Minister has been! This is another example of the delays that I have mentioned.

The second of the three unfortunate characteristics of the Government’s so-called water policy, is the bungling for which it has been responsible. Was there ever a more ridiculous series of events in regard to the Rand water crisis than those that took place before water rationing was announced on the Reef and in Johannesburg earlier this year? On the 28th of December last year we on the Rand were greeted in the morning with banner headlines stating that the water supplies of Johannesburg and the Vaal triangle were to be cut from the 1st January, within three days, by no less than 25 per cent. This order came from the then Minister of Water Affairs, Mr. P. M. K. le Roux, from where I believe he was sunning himself on the Natal South Coast.

There was consternation everywhere. Die Transvaler, the Nationalist newspaper, spoke of the “sudden shock news” and “huge confusion”. Sir, why was this? Simply because the then Minister of Water Affairs had forgotten two very simple, elementary facts. Firstly he had forgotten to consult with a single municipality on the Reef or in Pretoria; he had forgotten to consult Iscor, Sasol or the Rand Water Board, which was responsible for distributing 250,000,000 gallons every day in the Vaal triangle. I believe that the first the flabbergasted chairman of the Rand Water Board, Dr. A. J. Bruwer, knew about the Minister’s order was when he read about it in the newspaper that afternoon! The second factor which the Minister failed to take into account was that his deadline for the water cut was set for January 1st, New Year’s Day. How can you expect all your municipal offices and industrial organizations which are closed on New Year’s Day and very often the day before and the day thereafter, to start such a vast scheme of 25 per cent rationing?

Two days later a very crestfallen Minister announced that the order would be withdrawn, that he would consult with the interested parties and that the date of rationing would be extended to January 12th. I do not know whether he broke off his Natal holiday or whether he left the question of rationing in the hands of his officials, but one thing we do know: A few short weeks later he had been sacked and replaced by the present incumbent, Sir, his departure left no vacuum.

Instead of admitting its bungling the Government is covering up by crying: “Do you blame us for the drought?” No, I do not blame them for the drought but I blame them for an utter, complete lack of proper preparation. Let us remember this cardinal fact: The Vaal Dam is at such a low level to-day not as the result of three or four years of drought as in the period from 1927 to 1931. A bare 18 months ago, in February, 1965, the Vaal Dam was full to the brim, and this near-disastrous state of affairs has resulted in the short time of 18 months.

The third fact that I want to mention in regard to this Government’s policy or lack of policy in planning our water supplies, is that all its plans suffer from ideological bedevilment. On the Witwatersrand it appears in the guise of forcing industry away from the Southern Transvaal to some uneconomic border area, of hoping against hope that a pistol held against the head of the people of the Transvaal would lead to a flow-back to the reserves by 1978. Three Ministers, as well as the Prime Minister, have so far this year threatened the industrial heartland with intolerable restrictions, for spurious reasons and sinister motives. The Minister of Bantu Administration, the Minister of Planning, the Minister of Economic Affairs uttered such threats and all these threats were compounded by a statement made by the Prime Minister himself at Meyerton in March this year in which he said that the industrial development in the Vaal triangle must be limited. The first reason given by him was the need to ease the strain on our water resources. I concede, Sir, that there is at the present moment such a strain—but largely because of the Government’s lack of policy. The Prime Minister’s remedy is worse than the disease and his aim—back to 1948 by 2000 via 1978—is the worst of all.

Let me say clearly that I am not against the decentralization of industry based on economic principles. I welcome it. And decentralization, planned with enlightenment, need not mean stagnation and ruin for the Southern Transvaal. It is quite possible for Johannesburg, Pretoria and the whole Reef to enjoy a solid, substantial growth during the next 40 years while areas with great economic potential, such as the Tugela basin, grow along with it. One development does not exclude the other. Sir, where is this Government’s vision? Where is its faith in the future of all South Africa? Where are its guts? Why adopt measures which may cripple the great Rand complex, the area which will have to supply the capital for nearly all expansion elsewhere?

Sir, let me deal with some misconceptions of those Government members who are duped by their own ideologies. The first is the Cabinet’s sorry view that we have nearly come to the limit of our water resources from the Vaal Dam. The reply is that within five years a vigorous Government can build dams in the lower Vaal and raise the height of the Vaal Dam which will in time treble the available water. This could be supplemented by a much greater re-use of water and sewage effluent. Recently no less a person than Dr. S. Meiring Naude, chairman of the C.S.I.R., told the Congress of Municipal Engineers, as reported in Die Vaderland—

The second canard of which the Government is guilty is that the home-owners, the municipalities and industries of the Witwatersrand are huge and wasteful consumers of water. Nothing is further from the truth. Let us look at the facts. The Vaal Dam releases 600,000,000 gallons a day for use. How is this consumed? Very roughly we can say that of every ten gallons drawn from the Vaal, only two gallons go to the municipalities on the whole of the Reef, Pretoria and Vereeniging, including all their private industries and the mines. Another two gallons go to Escom, Sasol, Iscor and other areas served by the Rand Water Board, including even Kinross and Western Transvaal; five gallons go to agriculture or are lost in evaporation between the Vereeniging Barrage and Vaalharts, and at least one gallon returns to the river area.

Few people realize that the municipalities of the whole Vereeniging-Rand-Pretoria complex and their industries take only one-fifth of the net draw-off of the Vaal Dam. Most of the water used by Johannesburg actually goes back to the rivers and the catchment area—it is the water used for washing, bathing, toilets, cooling towers, etc. Vaalharts and the other irrigation schemes use twice as much water as the whole of the Witwatersrand. I am not advocating the curtailment of vital irrigation projects. They are necessary. The nation has to eat. It may well be that the time has come when larger use will have to be made, for instance, of the sprinkler system to water appropriate crops. Here too, the Department of Agriculture has the facts available. Is anything being done about it?

I also reject the uninformed charges that Johannesburg and Reef towns are wasting water on gardens and swimming pools. On the contrary the patriotic citizens of all those towns, including Pretoria, are to be congratulated on the public-spirited and cheerful way in which they have co-operated in rationing water to meet this crisis which was not of their making. They have placed the national interests before selfish interests, without having to be patrolled by police or forced by the courts. It was and is a magnificent effort of which South Africa can be proud.

If you take into account, Sir, that 75 per cent of the water used by Johannesburg EuroDean homes returns to the rivers via the purification works, it means that the European ratepayers and citizens of Johannesburg use less than 1 per cent, less than one gallon out of 100, of the daily draw-off of the Vaal River for their homes and gardens. Why, Sir, it means that of each Vaal Dam gallon of water, Johannesburg’s homes and gardens use only the amount held by a single little tot measure. Withered gardens are not so much a mark of patriotism as suggested by the Minister of Water Affairs as a monument to Government ineptitude. I am not blaming the primary industries either. I agree that Sasol and Iscor are playing their part. Some industries re-use water to-day as much as 12 times or more. It is not the citizens of Pretoria or Johannesburg or Vereeniging or the farmers of Vaalharts who are guilty, but the Government.

I am asked, “What solutions do you advocate?” I have indicated some obvious ones which the Government is applying terrifyingly late or only vaguely contemplating—the Oppermansdrift Dam, raising the Vaal Dam wall and so on. Other schemes have been mentioned. There is talk of reticulation, bringing water from one river area to another, reinvestigating the famous Schwarz Kalahari Scheme, using the dolomite formations as huge storage tanks or utilizing atomic energy to desalt sea water. Sir, it is not for me, a nonexpert, to say which of these schemes are practical and which are hare-brained. The all-important point is that the Government should by now have known the answers and acted on them. It has the experts, it knew of the dangers, it had the facts, and it should not have been necessary, with disaster practically at our doorstep, to appoint this commission so belatedly. Such a commission should have been appointed years ago and to-day the Government should already have been acting on its report.

In conclusion let me say this: I wish this Water Commission well. May we have its first interim reports very soon. And if it cannot repair all the damage done by the Government, and return to fertility all the parched lands and make the withered gardens bloom again this year, may it at least stave off the major disaster facing vast areas of our great country and pave the way for enlightened, practical, all-embracing planning of our water resources which will serve all our country and all its peoples for the whole of the next century.

Mr. Speaker, you have just listened to a ridiculous speech made by a ridiculous man on a ridiculous motion.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the latter two repetitions of “ridiculous”.

I shall withdraw the repetitions, but I cannot but think that it was a very ridiculous speech. Let me mention an example. The hon. member has made a vehement attack on the present Government on the allocation of water from the Vaal Dam. He insinuates that all the municipalities and consumers on the Rand are using a very small quantity of water as against the large quantity which is supposedly being used by the farmers of the Vaalharts settlement.

I did not say that.

Let me remind that hon. member of this: Who is responsible for the allocation from that Dam? Was it not his Government that did it? Was it not this Government which brought about a change in that state of affairs? I shall return to that in a moment. The hon. member quoted no figures whatever to support his motion.

Let us pause for a while at his accusation of “inaction” on the part of the Government. I want to mention a few figures to refute his accusation of “years of inaction”. Over a period of 38 years, since Union in 1910 until 1948 when the present Government came to power, 51 dams have been placed on the Estimates. The total capacity of these 51 dams is 1,210,097 morgen-feet. Of these 51 dams this Government has completed no fewer than 11 since 1948; the Allemanskraal Dam, the Armenia Dam, the Sterk River Dam, the Erfenis Dam, the Kalkfontein Dam, the Leeuwbosch Dam, the Moordkuil Dam, the Njelele Dam, the Rietspruit and the Rooikraal Dam and the Voelvlei Dam. Of the 51 dams this Government completed these 11 dams with a total capacity of 335,767 morgen-feet, more than 27 per cent of the total capacity of the 51 dams which previous Governments placed on their Estimates. And then the hon. member talks about “years of inaction”. However, this Government does not boast of that which other Governments have planned or budgeted for, nor does it boast of that which it has merely completed. No, it boasts of that which it itself has planned and placed on the Estimates. Let me furnish the hon. member with a few other figures: In contrast with the 51 schemes over the 38 years which preceded 1948, the present Government has in its 18 years of rule planned and placed on the Estimates no fewer than 70 dams, and, what is more, the capacity of these 70 dams is not merely 1,210,000 morgen-feet, but 6,213,190 morgen-feet—a capacity five times or 500 per cent more than the 51 dams planned and budgeted for by previous governments over a period of 38 years. Am I therefore not correct in saying that the hon. member’s speech was a ridiculous speech? These figures refute the hon. member’s accusation of “years of inaction”. Let us, to use the hon. member’s words, “come down to tin tacks”—let us get away from these fine little words he used. I want to point out that the capacity of only one single dam this Government is planning, the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam, will be twice as much as that of the 51 dams planned by all previous governments over a period of 38 years. Then there is also the Van Der Kloof Dam with a capacity of 1,220,000 morgen-feet more than that of those 51 dams. However, I also want to mention the following. This Government has also planned and made provision in the Estimates for the following very important dams: the Pongola Poort Dam, with a capacity of 955,000 morgen-feet, twice as large as the Vaal Dam which was planned during the régime of the United Party Government in 1934 and which would merely have had a capacity of 412,000 morgen-feet; then there is the Oppermansdrift Dam with a capacity of 500,000 morgen-feet; the Midmar Dam, which has almost been completed, with a capacity of 61,000 morgen-feet; the Cougha Dam at Patensie (50,708 morgen-feet), and the Nooit-gedacht Dam at Carolina (31,213 morgen-feet). Then there is the reconstruction of the Smartt Dam which was washed away a few years ago, with a capacity of 37,000 morgen-feet, and the Rustfontein Dam in the Free State with a capacity of approximately 30,000 morgen-feet.

Let us look at the record of the United Party. I am not talking about previous governments since 1948, but about the United Party during the period 1939 until 1948. Let us see what its record is. By 1939 three dams had already been placed on the Estimates, and they were the three dams which were completed by the United Party Government, but they were not placed on the Estimates by the United Party Government; the late General Hertzog was the one who had placed them on the Estimates. I am referring to the Longmore Dam, the Lindley’s Poort Dam and the Shijal-ongubu Dam. Those three dams, with a very small capacity, were placed on the Estimates by General Hertzog. The United Party Government merely completed them. What did they do from 1939 until 1948? They did not place on the Estimates a single dam in the country, nor did they complete any. This Government placed on the Estimates a total of 70 dams which will cost a total of R181,000,000.

I shall now come back to the allocation of water. The hon. member was crying ever so much over “tots” of water. I think that he had something else in those “tots” which he mentioned a moment ago ! The allocation of water from the Vaal Dam was started by General Hertzog’s Government in 1934 with a capacity of approximately 400,000 morgen-feet. That water was intended in the first place for both the Rand and the Vaalharts settlement. However, it was the late Advocate Strijdom who, when he was Minister of Irrigation, introduced a new Water Act in terms of which a new allocation of water in South Africa was made possible. Before that time water had to be utilized in the first place for primary purposes, i.e. for human and animal consumption, and then for secondary purposes, i.e. irrigation, and thirdly for industrial purposes. It was as a result of that Act passed under the auspices of the late Advocate Strijdom—and I may add that I am proud to have been a member of the Select Committee which dealt with that water legislation at that time—that a new allocation of water was introduced which made both irrigation and the use of water by industries possible to an equal extent. As a result of that legislation a better allocation of water was introduced.

Let us now look at the manner in which the various government schemes came about and how water is being utilized. I am now talking about dams that have been built by this Government since it came to power and how that water is being utilized. Let us pause for a while at the Voelvlei Dam, just beyond Rie-beeck West. It provides water to no fewer than 10 fish-canning factories. These factories have a turnover of R25,000,000 per annum. In addition there is the cement factory at De Hoek and Riebeeck West which is also being supplied with water from the Voelvlei Dam. There is the Phalaborwa Water Board. Let me give you the figures in respect of that complex. The Phalaborwa Water Board has to divide the water among the fertilizer industry, the copper industry and the subsidiary industries of Phalaborwa. It is a water scheme of R9.5 million and the Government contributes R1.6 million in the form of a subsidy to make those industries possible there. In addition there are the meat-canning industries at Estcourt which are being supplied from the Wagendrift Dam which was built by this Government. Then there are the steel industries of Newcastle which are being supplied from a dam built by this Government at a cost of almost R1,000,000. Then there is the Sasol industry which is being supplied with water from the Vaal Dam.

Let us pause for a moment at what happened in regard to the Vaal Dam. It was this Government which saw to it that the wall of the Vaal Dam was raised with the result that its capacity was more than doubled. In 1934 the United Party constructed the Vaal Dam with a capacity of 40,000 morgen-feet, but after the wall of the Vaal Dam had been raised, its capacity was increased to 906,000 morgen-feet and as a result of that it has become possible to supply all the industries on the Rand, as well as Sasol, with water from the Vaal Dam. In terms of the new Water Amendment Act Sasol receives a daily allocation of 15,000,000 gallons of water from the Vaal Dam.

Next we come to the Rand industries which receive a daily allocation of 270,000,000 gallons of water from the Vaal Dam. And now the hon. member starts nagging about the fact that the Vaal Dam was full in February, 1965, but that it is almost empty in 1966. This situation came to pass as a result of the normal use of water from the Vaal Dam and the waterlevel has never been as low as it is to-day, but is it this Government’s fault that there has been a drought and that water did not flow into the dam as it normally does every year? Now the hon. member makes this ridiculous speech and says that it is this Government which did not foresee it. Could this Government have foreseen that a drought of this nature, which occurs once every 30 years perhaps, would prevail? And I repeat that it is in fact the present Government which erected that wall so that it was possible to supply all those industries from February, 1965, up to the present.

However, that is not all the industries have received as a result of this Government’s policy in respect of water. I also want to mention the following water schemes which are in the interests of border industries, because we have to provide for the decentralization of industries, and a fundamental part of the Government’s policy for establishing border industries is in fact the very decentralization of industries in South Africa. It is after all true that we cannot concentrate all our industries on the Rand.

Let us mention the Rooikrantz Dam, for instance, which was completed in 1951 and supplies water to the Good Hope Textile factory at King William’s Town where 3,000 Bantu are employed. It was this Government which laid a pipeline to that factory.

And what about Hammersdale in Natal? There the department is supplying a dozen factories and the Bantu township, Elangeni, with purified water. A dam was built there, the Sterkspruit Dam, which cost R1,500,000. At present the department is constructing a R31 million extension to the Umgeni scheme to supplement the water supply to industrial areas in Natal. Then there is the Cyril Lord Textile factory at East London which will be supplied with water from a dam which is being built in the Nahoon River, together with a pumping-station, a scheme which will cost R1½ million.

Next we come to the Pretoria industrial complex and the Bantu township, Garankua. The Klipvoor Dam is being built there at a cost of R1,800,000 and it will probably be completed this year. It will be able to meet the water requirements of those industries.

Then there is the tea project of which the hon. member probably does not know. He does not drink tea, he only drinks “tots”. It is a tea project at Tzaneen. The department constructed a pipeline from the Debenegni River to supply the farm Grenshoek with water. Two dams will be built there, the Vergelegen and the Turks-vygbult Dams which will meet the requirements there and which will cost R1,000,000. Those dams will meet the requirements of the tea industry at Tzaneen.

Then there is the Pietersburg water supply scheme. I have here a large number of places in industrial border areas where the Government is supplying water at tremendous cost through the construction of pipelines.

In conclusion I want to mention one more example and that is the gold-mining industry of South Africa. That hon. member completely forgot that by causing the wall of the Vaal Dam to be raised this Government made it possible that water could be provided to the Free State gold mines at a cost of R18,000,000 spent by this Government since 1948 to undertake that grand scheme for supplying the gold mines with water. As a result of the wall of the Vaal Dam being raised, 48,000,000 gallons a day are being supplied to the Free State gold mines. Then we have the Transvaal gold mines. The hon. member has also forgotten that as a result of the wall of the Vaal Dam being raised, the West Transvaal gold mines can be supplied with water. This was not the case before that time. Then there are also the De Beers diamond mines at Kimberley which will be supplied with water from the Oppermansdrift Dam which is under construction at present and which will possibly be completed next year.

Then there is the Vaal-Gamagara Dam—I am convinced that the hon. member does not even know where it is. It is being built at a cost of R2,800,000 to supply, the diamond mine, the asbestos and manganese mines and the iron-ore mining works at, inter alia, Sishen and Hotazel with water. Then there are the platinum mines at Rustenburg which are being supplied with water from the Elands River scheme at a cost of R1,300,000.

Does that look like “years of inaction” of a “puny Government” which can think and act on such a grand scale?

The hon. member for Heilbron began by referring to the speech of the hon. member for Orange Grove as a “verspotte toespraak”. Mr. Speaker, if ever that reference was applicable to a speech in this House, it was to the hon. member for Heilbron’s own speech. Amongst other things the speech of that hon. member showed, in my opinion, a complete disregard for the plight of the persons in the Southern Transvaal complex who are affected as a result of the present water shortage, through the neglect of this Government. The hon. member, instead of dealing with the arguments advanced in this House by the hon. member for Orange Grove, decided to misrepresent what the hon. member in fact said. He suggested that the hon. member had pleaded for a re-allocation of water as between the Vaalhartz farmers and the users in the Southern Transvaal complex. That was not the argument advanced by the hon. member at all, and the hon. member for Heilbron, if he was listening, ought to know that. On the contrary, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Orange Grove made the point very clearly and, in my view, very effectively, that if the full resources of the Vaal triangle had been developed properly by this Government, there would be ample water for everyone, without having to suffer the restrictions and the hardships which have now come about.

Mr. Speaker, this Government must face the issue squarely. They have had warning after warning over at least the past five years, from the Rand Water Board, from the Vaal River Catchment Association and from all sorts of other bodies, warning them that there was trouble ahead unless steps were taken to improve the water position in the Vaal triangle. And what has this Government done? It has, as usual, arrogantly ignored all these warnings and has done nothing. Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Heilbron then thought to make some political capital out of the United Party by suggesting that during the war years and the years just after the war up to 1948, the Government of the day built comparatively few dams. Mr. Speaker, this is an extremely childish argument to use and the hon. member for Heilbron ought to have known better. I would ask the hon. member what government in time of war is able fully to develop its country’s resources. Mr. Speaker, the suggestion is so ridiculous that it does not warrant any further attention. I am dealing with it merely in passing.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I wish to come to the main topic which I want to discuss this afternoon, and that is the Tugela Basin in Natal. Mr. Speaker, if there is a region, other than the Vaal triangle, which shows the many years of inaction and delay on the part of this Government to conserve and use the country’s water resources, it is the Tugela Basin in Natal. This basin has vast water resources and many other natural advantages, and these together (the water resources and the natural advantages) give the Tugela Basin a potential second to no other region in South Africa. The potential of the Tugela Basin is so vast that if it were fully developed it would benefit not only the Tugela region itself, but it would have a chain reaction throughout the Province of Natal right down to Durban and the coastal region of Natal; to such an extent, Mr. Speaker, that it could turn the Province of Natal into the leading province of South Africa, with industries as extensive as those in the Transvaal, with vastly improved and extended agriculture, husbandry and forestry, and with the new port of Richard’s Bay, when it is constructed, becoming in the space of a few years the third or fourth largest traffic-handling harbour in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the key to this exciting and stimulating future for Natal lies in the proper harnessing and conservation and use of the resources of the Tugela Basin—not the Pongola scheme to which the hon. member for Heilbron referred.

Why not?

Not at all. The key lies in the development of the Tugela Basin to its full potential.

Why not the Pongola scheme?

What has the Nationalist Government done in the 18 years it has been in power to develop the water resources of the Tugela Basin? Practically nothing, despite the fact that through the initiative and foresight of the Natal Provincial Administration, which has for years been administered by the United Party, the Tugela Basin has been the subject of intensive investigation commencing as far back as 1951.

HON. MEMBERS: By whom?

So much so that it is to-day the best documented region in South Africa, and probably even the best documented in the whole of Africa.

I would like to quote some facts to this House to substantiate the statements I have made; first of all some facts about the region and its water resources. The extent of the Tugela Basin is approximately 11,200 square miles; it comprises no less than one-third of the entire area of the Province of Natal. Through the Tugela Basin flow a number of rivers, some large and some small, and of these no less than eight can be harnessed for development. The major river, of course, is the Tugela, and it is this river that would provide the heart of the water resources of the region. The next biggest river is the Buffalo, and the other important rivers in the Basin are the Mooi, the Bushmans, the Klip, the Sundays, the Ngagane, and the Little Tugela. This, Mr. Speaker, amounts to an enormous volume of water flowing through the catchment area annually. It is, in fact, estimated that at least 4,000,000 acre feet of water flow down the Tugela to the sea annually, and this amounts to a flow of 3,000,000,000 gallons a day. By way of comparison, to give the House some idea of what this really means, this compares with 350,000,000 gallons per day consumed by the entire Southern Transvaal industrial and mining complex. I suggest that this fact alone shows the shocking waste of vast quantities of water flowing to the sea annually, in a country which badly needs water for its full development.

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest, furthermore, to hon. members who have been so keen to make interjections while I have been speaking, that it needs little imagination to realize what vast potential this huge quantity of water has if properly conserved, harnessed and used.

I turn now to examine what information is available at the present time, and I want to show, Mr. Speaker, that the Tugela Region has been extensively investigated and planned over a period of years, to the extent that it is to-day, as I have suggested, the best planned and documented region in South Africa. But despite that, Mr. Speaker, what has the Government done to develop the water potential of this region and to put an end to the tremendous waste of water flowing into the sea from this catchment area? As I said before, practically nothing, and it would appear that even that fact is of no concern to some of the hon. members on the opposite side of the House. They are not really concerned, many of these members, unfortunately, with the proper and full development of the potential of this land of ours.

You are talking nonsense.

Through the initiative of the Natal Provincial Administration and its Town and Regional Planning Commission, the study and planning of the Tugela Region was commenced as far back as 1951, and to-day it is so well documented that it enables regional planning and development, in the broadest sense, to be undertaken at present with assurance. At present!

I wish to pay tribute to the Natal Provincial Administration for the fine work that it has done in this regard, and I would also pay tribute to two gentlemen, in particular, and their staffs, Mr. E. Thorrington-Smith, the head of the Natal Town and Regional Planning Commission, and Professor O. P. F. Horwood. These two gentlemen and their staffs have done most for the study and documentation of this region.

I now wish to mention to the House what, as a result of these studies, has been achieved, so that the House will be enabled to judge for itself what stage has been reached in the planning; and I would suggest that this region is so well documented and investigated that a start should have been made long ago in this region; and I want to refer presently to an answer which I have received from the hon. the Minister for Water Affairs to a question which I put to him a few weeks ago in this regard. Investigations have been undertaken into the following matters: (1) The biological and chemical quality of the water in the various reaches of the rivers at different times of the year, which will enable the purity of the water in these rivers to be protected; (2) the building of additional gauging weirs has enabled the resources of the rivers to be measured with greater accuracy; (3) the hydroelectric potential of the rivers has been investigated; (4) problems associated with the marine disposal of industrial effluents have been probed; (5) an agro-ecological survey of the entire region enables the agricultural potential of its various parts to be assessed; (6) areas of donga and sheet erosion have been pinpointed through some 7,000 aerial photographs; (7) soil surveys have been undertaken, which enable systems of farm management to be determined to reduce the silt in the rivers and save the soil for productive agriculture; (8) the effect of the Railway rating system on the development of the area has been systematically studied, as well as the types of industry for which the region appears to be best suited; (9) the demands of industry and irrigation have been correlated with the water available in the rivers; and finally, (10) a preliminary assessment of the hydro-electric potential of the river shows that the introduction of hydro-plants would be both economic and technically feasible.

An interesting sidelight to this is that the hydro-electric plants envisaged could take care of the entire estimated increased demand for electric power in Natal for the next 12 years.

Mr. Speaker, the report of these investigations also draws attention to the several other advantages of the area, in addition to its advantages of water. Those other advantages are that the region is centrally situated between the markets of the Southern Transvaal, the Free State and Durban; that it is conveniently placed for the import and export of goods through the port of Durban, and the port of Richard’s Bay when that is established; that it is traversed by tarred national roads, by the main Johannesburg-Durban electric railway, and by the Electricity Supply Commission’s main powerlines; that the Bantu Reserves in the region accommodate a population of 250,000 who are at present under-employed and therefore a potential source of labour supply; that the whole of the Natal coalfield, South Africa’s principal source of coking coal, and an important supplier of bituminous and anthracitic coal, is either within or adjoining the region; and sixthly, that the Kranskop-Greytown-Pietermaritzburg timber belt with 100,000 acres of standing timber and ample possibilities for extension, is just over the watershed.

Another interesting feature, and possibly the most interesting which has been shown by these surveys, is that, with storage, the water resources of the Tugela system could support six cities the size of Johannesburg, six the size of Cape Town, four the size of Pretoria four the size of Durban, and still leave a flow at the Tugela Mouth sufficient to support a metropolis the size of Greater London. Sir, what a tremendous potential this Basin has, not only for itself but for the whole of Natal right down to the coast. The Government has known about this potential for years, but what did I get in answer to a question from the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs in which I asked whether the Government intended to develop the water resources of the Tugela Basin? The reply was “yes”, but the corollary was that “the Department of Water Affairs is engaged on the collection of hydrological data and the investigation of possible dam sites as well as on the completion of comprehensive soil surveys”. Sir, these have been done—the investigations show the ideal dam sites—soil surveys have been done already. The second part of the answer was that “upon completion of the investigations it will be decided, in the light of circumstances prevailing in the country as a whole, what measure of priority can be allotted to the construction of further development projects in the Tugela Basin, over and above the three major projects which already exist in the Tugela Basin; only then will it be possible to announce which projects will be constructed”.

Sir, I predict that as long as this Government remains in power the only development we will get in the Tugela Basin will be no more than token development. It will be nothing in comparison with the development there could be of this tremendous potential. It will be much like the new Durban Railway Station which has been promised by this Government ever since it came into power in 1948, and we are still waiting for it to-day.

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to be able to take part in this debate, seeing that I am representing a constituency through which lies the course of the Vaal, which is at present a broad, dry sloot. The hon. member for Heilbron gave us certain information on what has been done in respect of water conservation in recent times. Allow me to add to that what has been done during the last few years as regards supplying water to Escom for the generation of electricity. I shall only mention four dams to you. One of them is the Jericho Dam at the Camden power-station which will cost R9,200,000 and is still under construction; the second one is the Nooitgedacht Dam at the Komati power-station which was built for R3,500,000 and completed in 1961; the third one is the Ingagane Dam at the Newcastle power-station which was built at R1,600,000 and completed in 1961, and the fourth one is the Bronkhorstspruit Dam at the Wilge power-station at a cost of R450,000. That is as far as Escom is concerned. Then I am also pleased to be able to mention that during the past few years 36,000 morgen has been brought under irrigation in the Transvaal only at a cost of R19,000,000. I am pleased to mention that at the moment 16 dams with a capacity of 1,153,500 morgen-feet are under construction, and that plans have recently been approved for the construction of ten dams which will ultimately have a capacity of 557,025 morgen-feet. We are not thinking of the Orange River Scheme only; we are not obsessed by it. I am pleased to be able to say that greater things are being undertaken for the future. One has always felt uncomfortable, and one still feels that way at times, when one travels through the Kruger National Park and sees the Sabi, the Letaba and the Olifants Rivers and realizes that the water is flowing away. However, I sometimes feel that this tremendous drought we are experiencing is perhaps a blessing in disguise, because from now on everybody in this country will treat water with greater respect.

However, what is nearest to my heart is not merely the construction of dams. We should not regard that as our only problem. The question is what is one’s attitude as a private individual towards the conservation of water. What is happening 300 or 400 miles above the dam? We have only discussed dams to that extent. All over the world it is the case in agriculture that price-adjustments occur a season or two after the occurrence of increases in the normal means of production. That is obvious. If the price of petrol is increased by 1 cent a gallon to-day, there will not be an immediate increase in the price of the farmer’s product, and all over the world it results in farmers having to produce more to be able to show a temporary profit. In this country we have increased our production tremendously by better seed, fertilizer and better methods of processing and more agricultural guidance, but I maintain that this profit is only temporary because we have applied exploitational methods; and I am not reproaching anybody because I myself have done that. In our eagerness to make ends meet we ploughed up our valleys. We damaged the sponges which have to feed these natural water courses in our country. We are taking out more and putting back less. We sing that we shall live and die for this country with its bush, its green valleys and its grassy plains, but I ask myself whether we really are in earnest. This matter should be examined. We are not applying the Soil Conservation Act as it should be applied. We are partly unable to do so because we have not foreseen the droughts of the past few years, but we must take note of that. I am grateful for the commission of enquiry into agricultural conditions and I shall be glad if they will pay specific attention to these matters, such as starting plantations in those areas which normally, without our having been aware of it, conserved water in the past, the valleys and the mountain slopes. I shall also be glad if they will pay attention to the fact that we are ploughing mountain slopes, places where our water should actually have been conserved. I am also grateful to read in the report of the Department of Bantu Administration that in order to protect water resources of the Bantu, the latter are being moved from the mountain areas, and that the Department intends to apply this method more positively in the future.

Then there is another matter which should also be given attention, and that is the contamination of water by mining activities and even industries, particularly in times of drought. I am only mentioning that in passing so that it might also be investigated in due course. There are so many matters to which we should give attention in this regard, but I should like our people to see the matter in its right perspective and to treat the soil with greater respect and thus to improve water conservation. We always have the idea that there are only 16 per cent Whites on the farms. We forget that there are more than 70 per cent non-Whites who make their living exclusively out of agriculture, be it on the farms of Whites or in the Bantu homelands. But the entire nation js involved in this matter of water.

I want to conclude. We are a faithful people and I am grateful to be able to say that the farmer in this country is like the diamonddigger. While we are finding ourselves at present in the grips of a drought, every farmer believes that we are going to pick up the big stone this year, and when the summer rain starts in October everything will be fine once again and conditions will be as they were in the past. Even now I am taking pleasure at the thought that the newspapers will write that the Vaal has overflowed its banks and that the houses in the old part of Standerton are two feet under water.

Mr. Speaker, allow me in the first place to thank the hon. member for Standerton very much, and also to congratulate him on his maiden speech. I can assure you that because he is my neighbour and because we are also kindred spirits in many other fields, I was particularly struck by the fact that he concentrated to-day on those things which are dear to the hearts of all of us.

The House will realize, of course, that when I prepared my speech I did not know what the other hon. members were going to say. My primary consideration was to confine myself to the motion. I am not suggesting that they have said what I was really wanting to say, but the position is that I should like to confine myself to the facts. In the first place I want to say that as I was listening to the introduction of the motion, I could hardly believe that such a motion could be introduced, but I thought that because I am deaf in one ear, it was playing me a trick, and until I saw it in writing I had made a point of looking for facts that would relate to this motion. Because I come from Natal, I should like to talk about water only. Well, we were told that we should not be contentious, Sir, but when one talks about water one is already being contentious, and if one talks about water in Natal one is being even more contentious. In any event, the water in Natal flows from the north, from the foot of the Drakensberg, to the sea, and water has the peculiar quality that if one looks at it from the banks, it flows past one all the time and in due course one becomes so used to it that one does not notice that it is flowing past, unless it perhaps causes one damage or reappears in other places, and that has now happened in the case of the water of Northern Natal, which reappeared in Durban, and I take it that the water of the Eastern Province reappeared in Port Elizabeth, and some of it is right here in Cape Town.

What I have to get certainty about is whether I am convinced in my soul that something has been done in Natal—and I want to confine myself to Natal and to the water of Natal—to justify this motion. I may tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I was simply amazed when I examined the figures. I want to make it quite clear that I am going to confine myself to the position since 1948. I come from Natal, and I grew up there. Before 1948 the only dam worth mentioning in which the State had an interest was the weir on the Pongola River. Since 1948 that weir has been altered at a cost of R2,640,000 in order to meet the changed conditions, and to make it possible to cultivate sugar in that region. I also want to refer to the Tugela River Basin, to which a previous hon. member has already referred. In order to get clarity on this matter, I just want to say that planning started only after 1948. That planning was made possible only because at that time every provincial council’s funds were subsidized by the State on a pound for pound basis. That planning in the Tugela Basin was carried out in co-operation with the Departments of Water Affairs and of Agricultural Technical Services, the entomologists of the Department and many other departments which were actually Government Departments and which were paid by the Government. The data were then collated by the Provincial Administration in Pietermaritzburg. I do not want to belittle or speak disparagingly of the work done by Professor Thorrington-Smith. I want to say to his credit that he recorded his work in such a way that the particulars contained therein—but bear in mind that it is nevertheless planning undertaken by this Government—were so compiled and mapped that at present they serve as textbooks on planning at the universities of certain Western countries, among them America and England. But, Mr. Speaker, I also ascertained what the further plans were. I felt that I could not make random statements in this House without supporting them by facts. I found that in the Tugela Basin alone plans had been drawn up for more than 30 dam sites which are at present being investigated by the State. I should like to mention them. There is the Spioenkop site; the Gorge site, three weir sites on the Upper Tugela; a site near Colenso; three dam sites on the Sand River; two dam sites on the Klip River near Ladysmith; two dam sites on the Tugela at its confluence with the Klip River; a dam site on the Tugela north-east of Colenso; and four dam sites on the Bushman’s River. The rivers I am mentioning now are all in the Tugela Valley. Then there are two further dam sites on the Mooi River; one on the farm Harlston and another one 16 miles further downstream; one dam site on the Buffels River on the farm SDookmill; two dam sites on the Slang River above Volksrust; five dam sites on the Buffels River between Volksrust and Dundee; and two dam sites about 20 miles north-east of Greytown. That makes a total of 30 dam sites which are now being investigated with a view to future planning. But that is not all. Outside the Tugela Basin three dam sites on the Pnaan are being investigated; three on the Black Umfolozi; two on the Umkuze River; one on the Umsiduze; and several other sites on the Pongola above the weir. The Pongola-Assegai-Usutu confluence in the Republic is also being investigated. In addition there is the provision for the dams as such. As regards the dams in Natal, I, as one who spent my boyhood there, know that the following dams were not built before 1948: We have the Hluhluwe dam, which cost R1,800,000, has a capacity of 11,000 morgen feet and made 6,333 acres of agricultural land available; the Ngagane dam which cost R1,600,000, which has a capacity of 17,000 morgen feet, and from which 17,000,000 gallons of water can be taken daily for industrial development; the Mnyamvubu dam on the Tugela, or the Craigieburn dam, as it is generally known, which cost R850,000, has a capacity of 9,377 morgen feet, and makes 4,222 acres irrigable; the Midmar dam, which cost R3,750,000, with a capacity of 67,800 morgen feet, and from which 37,000,000 gallons can be taken per day; the Wagendrift dam on the Boesmans River at Estcourt, which cost R1,710,000, with a capacity of 22,860 morgen feet, which puts 2,111 morgen under irrigation, and from which 1,000,000 gallons of water can be taken every day; the Hammersdale dam, which cost R1,000,000—I have heard it mentioned that its cost was R1,500,000, but that is not so important. The Pongolapoort dam, which will cost R36,000,000 on completion—it is 46 per cent complete even at this stage—with a capacity of 955,000 morgen feet, and which will make 136,111 acres irrigable. All these things have been done in the past 16 to 18 years. In Natal alone the State has therefore spent an amount of R49,350,000, by means of which it has made 1,083,152 morgen feet of water available, while the land which has been put under irrigation since that time, or will be put under irrigation, totals 160,388 acres. By comparison, the Vaal dam his only 905,000 morgen feet of water. Now I want to point out that I morgen foot is equal to 25.61 cusec hours, while a cusec in its turn is equal to 22,464 gallons per hour. The above-mentioned dams therefore make 29,600 billion gallons of water available in Natal. Natal covers 33,600 square miles and represents 7½ per cent of the surface area of the Republic. It has a population of 3,333,000, which in its turn represents 20 per cent of the population of the Republic. That means that the water consumption of the population of Natal totals more or less 186,648,000 gallons per day and the water consumption by animals 34,360,302 gallons per day. That means that the daily consumption of water in Natal totals 121,008,302 gallons. If these 121,000,000 gallons are now taken from the grand total of 29,600 billion gallons available, one gets some idea of what the Government has done during the past 18 years with a view to the provision of water for farming and industrial development in Natal. And for that reason I agree with one of the previous speakers who invited the industrialists of the country to come and establish their industries in Natal. We have water there, we have the coal, the power, the labour and the potential. They are cordially invited to come there.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to congratulate the last two hon. members. They have both spent a good deal of time in going into the details and statistics which underlie the problems which we are discussing this afternoon. And I think, Sir, that we can look forward to their continued presence and work in this House. They both appear to be hardworking men, they are concerned about the welfare of our country and I can imagine nothing, Sir, which is more suitable on which to have made their maiden speeches than the subject concerning the question of water supplies. In this connection my mind goes back approximately 19 years when I also made my maiden speech in this House on the question of water supplies. I therefore have a certain special sympathy for them. Sir, I wish them well. I think that hon. members have perhaps tended to misunderstand the import of the motion which is before us. The motion before us does not deal specifically with dams. Hon. members, Sir, do seem to have tended to look upon this question of water supplies as being a matter of dams, in other words the holding of water. The notice of motion actually makes no reference to dams. It talks about the conservation of water, water resources and water supplies. Hon. members may laugh and may think that the conservation of water only deals with the’ question of dams. The conservation of water does not deal with the question of dams at all. The best conservation in the world would be if we could keep our water in the ground. Then there would be no need to have any dams at all. If we could have all our rivers and streams running regularly throughout the year without any need to have dams, this would be a very fine country to live in. Unfortunately our climatic conditions are such that we have got to have dams. But I want to look at it from another angle for a moment. And I want to say, Sir, in connection with the commission that has been appointed by the hon. the Prime Minister with a view to looking into our water resources, that to my mind one of our troubles in this country is the number of State Departments and Ministers that are involved in this question of water. I think I am correct in saying that the hon. member for Standerton who made his maiden speech, said that the Vaal River was a wide, dry, sandy sloot. That, Sir, is part of the problem that we have to face in South Africa. Because of our years of drought, our lack of rainfall, and so forth, we find ourselves in that particular difficulty in regard to areas where water is needed, and needed very badly. But I said, Sir, that I think that one of the added complexities is the number of Cabinet Ministers that are involved in this question. [Interjections.] Yes, there must be complex people. I agree with the hon. member for the Transkei. Let us look for a moment at the position as we find it to-day. We have, Sir, the Prime Minister who has appointed this commission. We have the Minister of Water Affairs. One would think, Sir, that he was the man who would be dealing with this problem in its various aspects. No, no. You find that the Minister of Agriculture comes into it. The Minister of Lands comes into it. Then there is the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, the Minister of Planning and last but by no means least, the Minister of Forestry, Sport and Recreation. That means seven Cabinet Ministers and seven Departments, all directly interested and concerned with some aspect of water conservation. But, Sir, I do not wish to beat the empty air this afternoon. I want to come to a point with which I hope hon. members opposite will be able to assist me. It concerns the S.A.B.C. broadcast at 1.15 this afternoon in respect of a speech made by the Minister of Water Affairs at some function in the Western Transvaal. I see the Deputy Minister of Agricultural and Water Affairs is smiling. I hope he heard it.

I listened in to it.

That is right, Mr. Speaker. The hon. the Deputy Minister listened in to it.

And I agree wholeheartedly with him too.

Now, Sir, that being so, I would say that there was no need for anybody on this side of the House, Sir, to have made any speeches in regard to this motion. We should simply have left it to the Minister of Water Affairs and let him make a speech for us as he has done in the Transvaal this very day. I am doing no violence to the truth if I paraphrase what he has said in these terms. He said: It is time for us to get down to long-distance planning in connection with water supplies in South Africa.

The hon. the Minister referred to the long-distance scientific use of water.

The long-distance what?

Scientific use of water.

Long-distance planning and scientific use of water, and that the haphazard planning of the past must cease. I say, Sir, that I am doing no violence to the truth.

Do not substitute; paraphrase.

No, no. The S.A.B.C. is only a friend of my Party, Sir, on those days of the week that have a “Z” in them. And there is no “Z” in the day of the week to-day. I would like to suggest to the hon. the Deputy Minister, Sir, that he gets a transcript of the Minister’s speech. It is easy, Sir, he ought to be able to get it from his private secretary. I challenge him, Sir. We will be having a debate on the estimates dealing with water affairs in due course.

I will meet you there.

And let us then have that speech, Sir, which could be made available to me to read out. If the undue modesty of the hon. the Deputy Minister prevents him from reading it out, I would spare his blushes. If he has the courage to read it out, let him get up and read out the unexpurgated speech of the Minister of Water Affairs made this very day where he dealt with the question of the planned scientific use and the long-term planning to conserve our water resources in South Africa. It is the very thing we are pleading for. And there was the Minister in the Transvaal, Sir, pleading our case for us with far more authority and with far greater weight. The very man, Sir! We need have looked for nobody else other than perhaps the Prime Minister himself to have come out so strongly on our side in support of the motion we have here. If this motion is put to the vote, I hope we will find nobody on the other side voting against it, because that would be tantamount to a vote of no confidence in the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs. Because that will be the position, Sir, if they vote against this motion after the speech of the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs to-day.

You are just trying to score a debating point, that is all. [Interjections.]

Order!

I want to say, Sir, that I believe the hon. the Minister was serious when he was at this function up in the Transvaal and that nobody would say that he was animated by a spirit of levity or that he was trying to score a point when he made that important speech. And, Sir, I want to say that it was in fact an important speech. I regret, Sir, that even in this House the question of water and the water resources of South Africa for years past has never received that attention and care which it deserved. And I am now not only referring to the Government, but also to other quarters in this House. The very existence of our civilization depends on our being able to conserve our water resources. Nothing is static, Sir, not even in nature. And nothing is static in regard to the water resources of South Africa. Commission after commission has reported upon the encroachment of the Karoo into fertile areas. This encroachment is taking place year by year. Water supplies are drying up. The hon. member for Standerton said in regard to the Vaal that it is but a dry, sandy sloot. And that is true. That is the latest report that has come to hand. So what is the position? What steps are being taken? It is no good hon. members opposite coming with sets of figures to show the amount of money spent on dams. That is not what is facing us in South Africa. We want something much bigger than that. We want something much deeper than that, more far-reaching than that. This is where a dedicated Minister could apply himself to try and provide water for South Africa. It is just that. There are many ways of increasing our immediate supply, such as raising the wall of the Vaal Dam, the reuse of water and the desalination of water. There are all sorts of things. They are all good and they will help us. But they do not supply the answer.

You should have briefed him. He would have made a much better speech had you briefed him.

The hon. the Minister is talking nonsense.

Mr. Speaker, this is not the answer. These things do give us a breathing space. We have been warned before and surely, Sir, now in 1966 we have been warned again that we should take time by the forelock. With the resources that are available to us in terms of money and so forth, we must get down to proper planning. I want to bring a case home to the hon. the Deputy Minister and to show him, Sir, where this overlapping between one Minister and another comes into the picture and what adverse consequences it can have. Reference has been made by various speakers, I think from both sides of the House, to what is called the Pongolapoort Dam or the Josini Dam. It does not matter what it is called; the hon. member knows where it is. It is up in the Pongolapoort where the Pongola River flows through the Bombo Mountains. Mr. Speaker, I do not know how many million rands will eventually be spent on that dam. The Department of Water Affairs under plans prepared and properly put forward, have come with their workmen plant and equipment, and work is being done there and the dam will be built. They are not concerned with what happens to the water after that, Sir. But now the Department of Agriculture comes into the picture. And I say, Sir,—and I challenge the hon. the Deputy Minister to deny it—that the Government does not know what it is going to use the water for once the Pongola Dam is built.

That is nonsense.

They do not know what they are going to use the water for. The hon. the Deputy Minister does not know. The hon. member sitting at the back there, Sir, who keeps on saying that it is nonsense, is an expert on nonsense. I bow to his knowledge of nonsense, but I wish he would not keep thrusting it on us when we are debating a serious matter.

Hear, hear!

The Government have now established an experimental station below the dam—the hon. the Deputy Minister knows that—in which experiments are being carried out with various kinds of plants to see what will grow there and what can be grown advantageously, so that they can know what kind of crops to go in for when the dam is completed. But whilst the dam is being constructed nobody at this moment knows what to grow below that dam or what to use that water for. That is why they are having an experimental station at the moment. Anybody can see it there, Sir. There is no secret about it. That is where this overlapping takes place. This is the type of thing where there has been a complete lack of planning, a complete lack of understanding between the two Departments. The dam is being built at great cost—it is a huge dam, a wonderful dam and workmanship, etc., is of the best—but when it is completed they would not know what to use it for. At this stage nobody knows, and they have been working on it for approximately three years.

Mr. Speaker, there is a further point I should like to deal with in regard to this question of overlapping. And that, Sir, concerns the Department of Bantu Administration and Development. We are getting no help from the Department of Bantu Administration which is really worth talking about when it comes to the question of the conservation of water supplies. Dam after dam gets silted up or partially silted up as a result of run-off and silt from Native areas. We want a much more practical application of the principle of soil and water conservation. Water and soil conservation bodies are established, committees are established, but when they come up against the boundary of a Native area they and their authorities stop. That is the end of it. It does not matter what the farmers on this side of the fence do. On the other side, that is the Native area, none of the tenets of conservation which are applicable to this sort of conservation area, are put into force. Overgrazing is prevalent as well as all the evils that go with it. There is no contour ploughing. With heavy rains top soil is washed away. Gravel and sand is being washed down the hillside into the rivers. They all become sand rivers. I am particularly talking about my province at the moment. The sources of the rivers dry up because there is no attempt whatsoever to conserve the head waters where those rivers spring from. The Department of Bantu Administration and Development should be one of those most vitally interested in co-operating, not only with the Department of Agriculture, but also with the Department of Water Affairs. There should not be a question of standing on their own, Sir, and holding the position as though they were completely isolated from the rest of South Africa in regard to the control of this matter within their areas. They should be looking to the Department of Water Affairs and the Department of Agriculture to help them along to see that the best use is made of the water, not only within their own areas, but also elsewhere for the benefit of the whole of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, bearing in mind the difficulty we are up against now, I wonder, Sir, whether the time has not come—if we are going to have forward planning and look well ahead—to have another look at the so-called Schwarz Kalahari Scheme. It has been said in the past that it is such a big scheme that people were afraid of it. They did not want to touch it. I think that the late Senator Conroy on one occasion took members of this House to the Kunene, Okavango, and so forth. Other reports have been received in this connection indicating—I believe in one or two cases—that it was virtually impracticable to proceed with that scheme. Mr. Speaker, I do not know, and far be it from me to venture any kind of an opinion. I merely say that the people that have supported the scheme have not been people of no consequence, of no standing. They have been people. Sir, who had both feet firmly on the ground. The point I would like to make to-day is that a full scientific investigation by our own people—bearing in mind the new implements, the new tools and the new techniques that have been devised in South Africa over the last 15 to 20 years—be made to see whether we cannot do something in regard to the Schwarz Kalahari Scheme. It may well be that that could be the solution at any rate to at least one aspect of this tremendous problem with which we are faced in South Africa. I should like to suggest to the hon. the Deputy Minister that this matter be investigated. I do not wish to keep the House any longer on the question of the Schwarz Kalahari Scheme for the simple reason that I do not know whether in fact it is liketly to be a practical scheme or not. I am not sure whether it can be done in stages or not. I realize, Sir, that it would bring us into contact with our neighbours and that there would have to be negotiations with our neighbours to the north of us. But, Sir, in regard to one of our neighbours to the north of us, we have found no difficulty in coming to a satisfactory agreement in regard to the use of the waters of the Okavango. And I, therefor, do not foresee any great difficulty in coming to an agreement with them in regard to waters of other rivers when such an agreement could be to the benefit of all parties concerned. But of one thing, Sir, I am certain. If we are going to rely on the building of dams to solve the water problems of South Africa and to call that the conservation of our water resources, then White civilization as we know it and our White population is doomed. Because our White population and White civilization can only continue to exist on an adequate domestic supply of pure water. And this will not be forthcoming if we are going to rely entirely on dams to the detriment of all the other measures that can be taken to augment our water supplies.

Mr. Speaker, I like to listen to the hon. member for South Coast, particularly when he is talking about agricultural matters. And he said certain things here to-day which are correct and with which I automatically agree. He said one thing here which I now want to relate to the hon. member for Orange Gove. He said we should make no mistake about realizing that water conservation entailed more than the construction of dams.

Hear, hear!

The accusation brought by that hon. member who said “Hear, hear!” was that an insufficient number of dams had been constructed, that the wall of the Vaal Dam had not been constructed high enough, etc. In that the hon. member is quite correct, but it was unnecessary for him to say so. The hon. member for Standerton said so before he did. That hon. member said that one’s sponges had to be conserved, that one’s mountains had to be conserved, and that soil conservation measures had to be applied in order to prevent one’s dams from silting up, something about which the hon. member for South Coast is so concerned. In other words, the hon. member could merely have risen in his seat and said: Mr. Speaker, I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Standerton, I agree wholeheartedly with his entire speech. The hon. member said exactly the same things, only he did so in different words. The hon. member then quoted from Minister Fouche’s opening address at Phalaborwa and he found it wrong that the Minister should have said that the time had arrived that we should use water more scientifically on a basis of long-term planning.

He did not say he was wrong; he said it was quite correct.

Very well. I support what the hon. the Minister said. That is not a confession that there is no long-term planning; it is a reprimand to all industries in South Africa that they too should undertake the necessary investigations and research in order to ascertain to what extent the more scientific and better use and re-use of their own water will be possible on a long-term basis. That is all the Minister said. That cannot be taken as justification of the hon. member’s motion. But now the hon. member comes along with something else. He said that there was a research station at the Pongola Poort Dam and that the Government did not know what should be cultivated there and what the water was to be used for, and that we should do what the United Party Government did when it established the previous Pongola Poort scheme and for a period of ten years made guinea-pigs of the settlers by encouraging them to produce potatoes and peas and what have you, only to discover eventually that it was a sugar area. Or does the hon. member want this Government to establish an experimental station beforehand so that one may know, before placing settlers there, what kinds of products can be produced there and what the problems are? That is planning in advance. No, we are not following the course that poor Party followed.

The hon. member is terribly concerned about erosion in the Bantu areas, and he alleges that that erosion is causing all our dams to silt up. Does the hon. member know what the Transkei looked like when we came into power? Does the hon. member know what the Bantu areas looked like—the Opkoms area and the Weenen area which we inherited from the United Party Government? Why does he not inform this House about the steps which have been taken by the Department of Bantu Administration in connection with soil conservation in order to prevent further erosion in those areas? The Department has done a great deal of good work. All the work has not been finalized, because it is impossible to solve the problems which we inherited from the United Party Government within such a short period.

Mr. Speaker, I now come to the hon. member’s motion. Because the hon. member had no case, he indulged in personalities and abusive language. Like a Don Quixote he set up his own puppets and then tried to knock them down. I want to mention one example. He thought it fit to use my election manifesto in this motion of his and he wanted to imply that I had brought the public under a wrong impression with regard to my appointment. I invite him to consult Hansard of 1965 where the Ministerial designations are given. There the designation is expressly given as Deputy Minister of Agricultural Technical Services, of Water Affairs, of Agricultural Economics and Marketing and of Lands. Now the hon. member wants to dispute that in a motion such as this. I think it is simply an example of extreme bankruptcy.

The hon. member tried to make out his entire case on the basis of a disaster resulting from drought, namely the fact that the content of the Vaal Dam was only 39 per cent, and alleged that that was why we had such a problem in South Africa. He regarded that as proof of a complete lack of planning. I shall come to the planning of the Vaal Dam at a later stage, but it is typical of the hon. member that he should prey on a disaster resulting from the drought in an attempt to gain some political advantage. Why did he not rather follow the example of the hon. member for Musgrave by saying: “Here is a potential I want to bring to the attention of the House”? But then he could have worded his motion differently; then he could have moved that which the hon. member for Musgrave really advocated, namely that the potential of the Tugela area should be investigated. No, a motion which could have been very interesting, meant to him splashing about in Bantustan mud, splashing about in all kinds of politicking. He even dragged in the Broederbond. It seems to me that thing got stuck in his brain. Now that a commission has been appointed to investigate water affairs throughout South Africa, he wants to divorce a single item from that, namely the Oxbow scheme. He wants to inflate the Oxbow scheme and make out that that was the reason for the appointment of this commission. Let me tell the hon. member very plainly that the Oxbow scheme is only one of the possible schemes which are being investigated in South Africa. He should not try to anticipate the findings of the commission. He should not complain here that too much water has been allocated to the agricultural industry. I want him to remember that; it will appear in the records.

Where did I complain?

The hon. member quoted statistics to illustrate the division of water for purposes of human consumption, urban use, municipal use and the Vaalharts. He did so merely because the Leader of the United Party in the Transvaal Provincial Council, a certain Oberholzer, has said in anticipation: “Cut off all water from the Vaalharts settlement; give all water to the Pretoria-Johannesburg-Vereeniging complex.” The hon. member is echoing the words of Mr. Oberholzer.

Mr. Speaker, this motion has two legs. In the first place the hon. member is complaining about the Government’s so-called lack of action over many years, and in the second place about its delay in appointing the commission. In the first place I want this House to realize that this commission has not been appointed because of any lack of action. This commission has not been appointed because there has been no planning. The contrary is true and I am going to illustrate to you what planning and action there have been over the years. This committee has been appointed to ascertain the needs of all the bodies just mentioned by the hon. member for South Coast, to ascertain the needs of all facets of our political economy and to draw up a long-range plan for future development in which all will receive a rightful quantity of water. It has also been appointed for the purpose of determining priorities. In other words, one’s entire political economy and all its facets are centralized so that one will not be benefited at the expense of another. This commission has a tremendous scientific task and that is why I maintain that this motion comes rather late in the day. Has he not read in the Government Gazette what this investigation includes? Not a single aspect is omitted. All aspects are included in this investigation. The hon. member may read the Government Gazette himself. It is No. 1033 of 1st July, 1966. Never before has there been a commission of inquiry with such wide terms of reference—a commission of inquiry whose terms of reference included every facet of water conservation, of the use of water, of the re-use of water, of the desalination of water, of water reticulation, of the settlement of industries, of agricultural development and of socio-economic development. No previous Government has ever appointed a similar commission. It is only a government with vision which will appoint a commission such as this.

I come to the hon. member’s second accusation, namely that of a lack of action over many years. The hon. member for Heilbron has pointed out that we constructed 70 dams in a period of 18 years as against only 51 not constructed but planned by the United Party Government over a period of 38 years. I am not going to bore this House with those figures any longer. However, let us consider that funds have been spent on water planning and water conservation. I am not even going to mention the figures in respect of soil conservation although soil conservation is also water conservation, as has been mentioned by the hon. member for South Coast. From 1910 to 1948, a period of 38 years, an amount of R49,020,197 was spent on Government water schemes, irrigation board schemes, boring services and water provision. In the subsequent 18 years during which this Government has been in power an amount of R244,371,076 was spent on those four facets. In other words, one cannot even compare the figures. Hon. members opposite make the excuse that they were fighting a war, but no country in the world fights a war and allows its people to go hungry without undertaking advance planning at the same time. It is no excuse to say that because we were fighting a war we have done nothing over a period of 38 years. No, the electorate will not accept that as an excuse. If I were a member of the United Party, I would have been ashamed to speak about water provision in this House. I think the only water about which the United Party may speak, is the tears it shed over the hiding inflicted on it by the National Party.

Let us examine the position as regards planning in the past. You will know, Mr. Speaker, that we amended the Water Act in 1956. Prior to that, as has been pointed out, that Act provided that drinking-water for human consumption was of primary importance, that water for agricultural and irrigation purposes was of secondary importance and that water for industrial and economic development was only of tertiary importance. The Act has been amended in such a way that water may be allocated on merit. But what is of more importance is that one had no proper control before the Act was amended. For all practical purposes no planned, purposeful control was possible. Industries or cities had to become riparian owners before they could obtain water. That has now been eliminated. Riparian owners virtually withdrew water at will unmindful of whatever happened to the man lower down or of whatever harm might be caused to development lower down. The process of obtaining a water court award was a protracted, cumbersome, expensive one. Today one has proper control under the Water Act. For the purposes of making an award, one has a formula which can readily be applied and which is in the hands of the Minister and his Department. One has control over subterranean water, which the hon. member says should remain subterranean water. That party opposed the Bill in which we wanted to assume control over subterranean water. They did not want to assist us in that. They fought that Bill clause by clause. Today one has control over dolomitic water. One also has control, in terms of this Act, over the water pumped from mines. One has control over pollution; one has the power to stop water pollution and to compel industrialists to purify water so that it can be re-used. One has control over compulsory re-use, especially by industries. Is that not planning? But what is important is the following. Under this Act water is treated as a national asset and is conserved, controlled, allocated and divided by the Minister and the Government according to the merits of the over-all development of South Africa, and that is the position as a result of an Act placed on the Statute Book by this Government. This Act, Act No. 54 of 1956, provided that particulars of irrigation board works exceeding a cost of R60,000 and of Government water works exceeding a cost of R200,000 had to be tabled in the House of Assembly in the form of White Papers. The hon. member accuses the Government of a lack of planning in the past. Why do he and his colleagues not do some homework and check on the number of White Papers which have been tabled since 1957? Then they will see what planning has really been done. Since this Act has been amended, since 1957, 117 White Papers on water planning have been tabled in this House. Is that not concrete proof that there has been real, sustained planning? Let us for a moment examine the planning in connection with water affairs. Those schemes made provision for irrigation, for the use of water for urban purposes, for domestic purposes, for industrial purposes, for the generation of power, for the settlement of border industries, for future development and for the reservation of water, with the result that we always have a clear picture before us. What has been tabled in this House? I have already said that 117 White Papers have been tabled. As regards irrigation projects alone, provision has been made for 15 dams which at present irrigate 79,095 morgen, but a further 109,236 morgen will be brought under irrigation at a total cost of R147,100,000; for urban and domestic use: 16 dams which supply an average of 184,710,000,000 gallons per day at a cost of R26,950,000; for industrial development: six dams which supply an average of 33,800,000,000 gallons per day at a cost of R7,616,000. As regards the generation of electricity to which the hon. member has referred: three dams which supply 43,000,000 gallons per day at a cost of R13,600,000. I want to ask whether that is not planning. Is that not keeping abreast of the economic development of South Africa? The hon. member referred to the Vaal River, and I should now like to analyse the plan for the development of the Vaal River. Before coming to that, I want to emphasize that in this planning we make provision for the consolidation of existing development, which covers 79,095 morgen. The figure for new development is 109,236 morgen. As I have already mentioned, the urban water provision is 184,710,000,000 gallons per day which is available for industrial and other purposes. All the White Papers which have been tabled, have been accompanied by complete diagrams, plans, and the necessary technical data. Consequently there has been a comprehensive record of planning in connection with the country’s water resources for a period stretching far into the future. Do hon. members opposite want to pretend that that is not planning? Sir, the hon. member really did not know what he was talking about.

I want to come to the plan for the development of the Vaal River. Does the hon. member know that under this Government the Department of Water Affairs has drawn up a plan for the development of the Vaal River in various stages? The first stage relates to the Vaal Dam in its present form. The catchment area above the Vaal Dam is 14,328 square miles in extent. This dam’s present storage capacity is 906,000 morgen-feet with an annual supply capacity of 407,000 morgen-feet. The existing storage works on the Vaal River consequently have an assured supply capacity of 511,000 morgen-feet per annum. And now the hon. member comes along and asks whether that is sufficient! The Government and the Department have not been asleep. A thorough investigation has been made and it has been ascertained that we shall require 509,000 morgen-feet in 1966. In 1975 we shall require 674,000 morgen-feet. In 1985 we shall require 1,004,000 morgen-feet. We have already begun the necessary planning.

The figures I have just mentioned do not even make allowance for increased re-use of water, and may even decrease according as a higher re-use figure can be achieved. The hon. the Minister referred to that earlier on to-day. It is our duty and our task to encourage our industries and other persons and bodies to employ scientific methods for making the reuse of water possible so that we can make the maximum use of that water. Because, Mr. Speaker, water is our Achilles heel. That is why the C.S.I.R. is actively engaged on research and planning in that direction, and in particular I want to mention the name of Dr. G. J. Stander, one of the committee members who is doing excellent work in this connection.

Mr. Speaker, I now come to the second stage, namely the construction of the Oppermansdrift Dam. The cost of that dam is R9,050,000. The dam is expected to be completed by 1968, and will then have a storage capacity of 500,000 morgen-feet. Its catchment area below the Vaal Dam is 25,203 square miles in extent. In other words, it will not be dependent upon the catchment area of 14,328 square miles above the Vaal Dam. The Oppermansdrift Dam has a run-off of 750,000 morgen-feet per annum. Because of this development the following figures represent an assured supply. The Vaal Dam has 407,000 morgen-feet per annum. The figure for the Rand Water Board with its lock-weir is 56,000 morgen-feet. And then there is this dam together with Vaalharts with 152,000 morgen-feet, which gives us a total figure of 615,000 morgen-feet per annum. That covers the second stage. We believe that it will become necessary to get water from an external source for the Vaal Dam. Now the hon. member links the Oxbow Dam to his motion. Is he not aware that water which may be in the Oxbow Dam will in any case come to the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam without it being necessary for us to buy that water? An investigation has been instituted in this connection. Let me quote one example. There is the Tugela River, which has its origin at Mont-aux-Sources at a height of 11,000 feet. There are also the dams which the hon. member has mentioned, namely Spioenkop and Gorge at Harrismith. It is possible to divert as much as 350,000,000 gallons per day from the Tugela without decreasing the potential of the Tugela or injuring future development in any way.

Is that your plan?

Now the hon. member asks whether that is my plan. Does the hon. member want this representative commission, which is investigating all these matters, to be told in advance what to do? Why then appoint a commission?

In other words, you do not know what you are going to do.

Oh, no. We know very well what we want to do, but we shall see to it that South Africa will have the best planning as regards the future. If water is dammed up in the Buffalo River at Volksrust and diverted from there, it may be possible to get 250,000,000 gallons per day. But one has to investigate to what extent such a project would effect the Buffalo River flats and the Buffalo River potential in respect of its border industries at Newcastle. That is why it is not possible to say summarily that this and that will be done. The entire network has to be examined thoroughly.

You have the questions but not the answers.

The hon. member …

Order! Hon. members have already made their speeches.

The third stage is the further raising of the Vaal Dam by ten feet. The storage capacity will be increased by an additional 489,000 morgen-feet per annum. The joint supply of all the projects will then be 652,000 morgen-feet per annum, which, according to the experts, will be quite sufficient for that period.

The fourth stage includes the construction of a third major storage dam on the Vaal River, between the Vaal Dam and the Oppermansdrift Dam, which represents an additional storage capacity of 850,000 morgen-feet. The joint storage capacity of the three major storage units on the Vaal River will amount to a total of 2,646,000 morgen-feet.

But there is also a fifth stage, Mr. Speaker. This stage includes the creation of additional storage on the Vaal River below the Vaal Dam in order to bring the total storage capacity of the river to 3,700,000 morgen-feet. The total joint assured supply capacity at the sluices of the storage dams will then amount to 890,000 morgen-feet per annum. That represents the maximum assured supply which can be drawn from the Vaal River economically. Because we realize that 890,000 morgen-feet per annum is the maximum assured supply which can be drawn from the Vaal River economically, we are not concentrating solely on the Vaal River to the exclusion of everything else. Neither are we concentrating on the Tugela to the exclusion of everything else. On the contrary. We are engaged on a thorough investigation and that is why this commission, about which I shall say a few words shortly, has been appointed. Nevertheless the hon. member alleges that there has been no planning. According to him the Government and the Department have been idle over the years and have done nothing about the matter. Now, Mr. Speaker, is this hon. member a stranger? Is his Party a stranger in Jerusalem? Is that side unaware that we intensified the investigation in respect of the Orange River Project in 1959 and that an important announcement on that gigantic undertaking was made here on 23rd March, 1962? Is that side unaware that an amount of R85,000,000 was appropriated during the 1962 session for the first phase of the project? Is that side unaware of the fact that a further R45,000,000 was approved for the first phase during the 1964 session? Mr. Speaker, the first phase, which is at present being constructed, will provide assured supplementary water resources to 68,100 morgen of land, situate in the Riet River, Lower Orange, Great Fish River and Sundays River valleys, which at present have inadequate water supplies. This Government—not the United Party—is responsible for the fact that this first phase will bring 35,000 morgen of new land under irrigation. The first phase of the project will also supply the city of Bloemfontein with an additional water supply of 15,000,000 gallons per day. The hon. member for Standerton referred trenchantly to the generation of hydro-electric power. This first phase will generate 902,000,000 units of electricity per annum at the Hendrik Verwoerd and Van der Kloof Dams, which will be supplied to Escom for distribution. In other words, Sir, with this realistic planning an electrical network will be created supplying power by cable to numerous places in South Africa. This means that if one turns on a tap in an ordinary village the water will flow, and if one presses a switch the power will be turned on. The tremendous benefit of electricity will be experienced throughout South Africa. And that will be attributable to the visionary planning of this Government and not to those people who are wise after the event.

Mr. Speaker, the final project, when fully completed, will make provision for the irrigation of 360,000 morgen of land by means of new or additional irrigation. It will also make provision for supplementary water for the cities of Bloemfontein, Kimberley and Port Elizabeth as well as for a large number of villages. An amount of R30,000,000 has been spent on the first phase of the project. The preliminary works at the two main dams and at the Orange-Fish tunnel have virtually been completed. That is how this Government is planning.

Let me tell the hon. member for Transkei that I regard this motion as being so ridiculous that I will not condescend to move an amendment. The motion should really be ignored, because the steps asked for in the final part of the motion are matters which are already receiving the attention of the commission and in respect of which certain instructions have already been given. [Time limit.]

Mr. Speaker, it was very interesting to see the hon. the Deputy Minister floundering about here in regard to what his Minister had had to say about water conservation. He will hear a great deal about his Minister’s speech yet.

Do not flounder about even more.

The fact that the hon. the Minister made that speech does give us some hope that there is at last somebody in the Nationalist Party who has a little more foresight than those who were entrusted with these matters in the past. We wish him every success in this matter.

The hon. the Deputy Minister also boasted about soil conservation work in the Transkei. I cannot argue with him in this regard, except to wonder whether the soil conservation work in the Transkei has been more successful than similar efforts elsewhere in the Republic? If better work is not being done in the Transkei then we accuse the Government of having neglected its duty in the sphere of soil conservation as well. The hon. the Deputy Minister spoke for nearly half-an-hour and mentioned figures to indicate how many dams have already been built. He referred to the amount of money that has already been spent on dams, to the planning which is continuing to be done, to the number of White Papers that have been issued up to the present, and so forth. Well, if the information that has been given here is correct, it appears to me as though all this time and energy have simply been wasted because, Sir where is the water? I ask, Sir, where is the water?

Yes, where ds the water?

When we see the tragedy that is staring those of us in the Transvaal in the face, then we say that apparently no good has come of spending these vast sums of money. The hon. gentleman offered excuses for all the delays that have taken place; he said that the necessary empowering legislation to give effect to the plans did not exist. But this Government has been in power now for 18 years. Why was legislation not introduced sooner in order to overcome these difficulties? The hon. the Deputy Minister advanced a rather strange argument in regard to the Oxbow scheme. He wanted to know why it would be necessary to buy water from the Oxbow Dam when we could get it for nothing at a later stage once it had flowed into the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam? It appears to me, however, that there will be sufficient water for both the Oxbow Dam and the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam. But apart from this, Sir, how will the water in the Verwoerd Dam be able to assist the Transvaal? That is where the trouble is, not in the lower reaches of the Orange River.

I want to come back now to a few remarks made by the hon. member for Heilbron. It is a great pity that he is not here now. He was, of course, very disappointed because the hon. member for Orange Grove did not suggest that the Vaalharts farmers should be deprived of their water. The hon. member spoke about the quantity of water that is used there, but he did not suggest that the farmers there should make do with less water. If the Government and the hon. member for Heil-bron think that the Vaalharts settlement is using too much water—something for which they blame the United Party because this is the party which established that settlement—then all I can say is that they have had the opportunity for many years to rectify the position. That side of the House must not expect us to suggest that that water should be cut off.

As so often happens, the hon. member for Heilbron once again made one of his strange statements and asked whether the Government could have foreseen the drought, for which it is blamed by this side. Well, Sir, any South African Government which is worth its salt will know that our country is one which is prone to droughts. It is an open secret that we will experience droughts in the future just as we have experienced them in the past. A wise and practical Government will plan in advance not for the good years but rather for the years of drought. If its plans for the years of drought are successful, those plans will always see that Government through. Our charge against this Government is that there has been inadequate planning for the periods of drought which we so regularly experience.

I should like to say a few words in regard to the difficulties on the Witwatersrand. As everybody knows, water restrictions have been in operation there for some time now, and the shoe is starting to pinch; in fact, it is still winter there. Once the summer comes along with its hot days the position will become far worse. We have to deal there not only with industries and farming operations in the vicinity of the Witwatersrand, but also with a large surface area down along the Vaal River. The water shortage does not affect only the people there one may say that it affects one-third of the country The introduction of water restrictions is, of course, a very good thing and these water restrictions must be obeyed. However, these restrictions have resulted in such a small saving that they are hardly worthwhile. It is estimated that the amount of water used on Johannesburg gardens prior to the restrictions was 6,000,000 gallons of water per day, while the restrictions have resulted in this quantity of water being reduced to 3,000,000 gallons per day. That is a very small quantity. It appears to me, Sir, as though the remedies which it is now sought to apply in an effort to conserve water are nothing but patchwork.

Debate having continued for 2 1/2 hours, the motion lapsed in terms of Standing Order No. 32.

I move the motion printed in my name—

Last year, when I moved an almost similar motion in this House, the Minister stood up immediately afterwards and announced that he had great pleasure in stating that he had in fact decided to appoint such a commission of experts to inquire into this matter. We come here this afternoon to express our gratitude for what has been done on the part of the State in respect of these children, or even adults, the mental defectives, and particularly in view of what has been done through the establishment of such an important commission.

When we speak of mental defectives, we should in the first place get clarity as to what group of persons that actually denotes, and as to whether it is a large group of the population; in other words, what the scope of the problem is. If we have to define that specific group of people we say, if we speak in terms of the intellectual capacity of people, that those are the people in the group with an I.Q. of 50 and lower. But in its turn that group can be divided in two, because we speak of those in the high grade and those in the low grade. The usual technical terms which are used for these grades and which are generally known to the public, are that those in the high grade are denoted as imbeciles and those in the low grades as idiots. Those in the low grade are persons with an I.Q. of below 20. If someone asked what the scope of this problem was, I would have to say at once that great difficulties are experienced in ascertaining just how great this problem is in our country. Various surveys have been carried out, but in general it virtually amounts to conjecture. If we consult the literature of overseas countries on this matter, we find that they are generally of the opinion that it amounts to approximately 4 per 1,000 of the population. In our own country there are educationists who express doubts as to whether the local ratio is in fact so high. It is suggested that it may be lower here, but I think the reason why it has until now been found to be lower, is that in the past, if there was a mental defective in the family, many people have concealed that child as the ugly duckling of whom the community should not become aware, and for that reason it has been very difficult to obtain accurate statistics. But let us accept for argument’s sake that the ratio is 4 per 1,000 of our school-going population. There will then be from 2,000 to 3,000 mentally deficient children as regards our Whites alone. If we ask why we should pay special attention to the mental defectives—are they not people who are actually of no value to the community?—then I reply, “Yes, that has been the argument in the past. In the past the attitude was adopted that not too much should be done in this field, because such work is in actual fact unproductive; those people cannot be trained to be of any value to the community. They cannot become wage earners and they cannot produce anything.” Now I maintain that we should reject that argument very firmly as an extremely short-sighted and selfish argument which has no place in a Christian civilization.

I say that it is an extremely short-sighted argument, because anyone who goes to some of the day centres where this type of child is treated at present, will see that it is not true that such children are completely unproductive. In fact, some go as far as to claim that the high-grade mental defective can achieve a productivity of up to 60 per cent. Perhaps that claim is extravagant; we do not know, but what we do say is that anyone who goes to the day centres will see that that type of child can be taught to do something. He is not educable, but he is in fact trainable, and there are clear-cut and irrefutable proofs of that.

To go further, I maintain that not only is it a short-sighted argument, but it should be remembered that the productivity of families is hampered by the presence of such children in their homes. No pen can describe the oppressive effect it has on the minds of parents of families and the disruption it causes if there is such a child who cannot be properly cared for; whom the parents do not know how to cope with. The parent’s heart bleeds for that child, but he cannot really do anything for him. He is in despair, and the whole life of that family is disrupted and hampered as a result of the fact that there is such a child. I maintain that it is not only a short-sighted, but also an extremely selfish argument. It is said that the strength of a chain is measured by its weakest link, and I think we can say that the actual strength of our Christian civilization can be measured by the extent to which we are able to do something for those children. I therefore say that it is only when we are extremely selfish that we adopt the attitude that that child is not really any concern of ours.

But this motion states that we should express our gratitude and appreciation towards the Government for what it is doing, and for the important commission it has appointed. Now people may suggest that the commission has done nothing yet, and may ask why we should express our gratitude so soon. I therefore submit that the time has come for us to take cognizance of this commission and of its activities and that we should express our gratitude and appreciation, because this commission has come at a very opportune moment. Our country has never seen an era in which the public conscience was so enlightened that it could adopt a sober and objective attitude towards this problem, in which it did not try to run away from it or suppress it, but tried to face it, so that even the parents of that type of child came forward and sought advice and guidance in greater numbers than ever before. The waiting lists of the existing centres for this type of child, and even the waiting lists of the State institutions that take care of this type of child, show that there is an increase in the number of people with such children who are seeking a solution to the problem, a solution which will be valid not only for the present, but which will cover the life of that child from infancy to death; because he will never be able to compete on the open market. The greatest concern to the parent of such a child, is what will become of his child the day he dies; where will it go? Now this commission has come, and the public has the greatest expectations of this commission. Numerous questions occupy the minds of the public in respect of this problem, questions on which they want clarity. There is at present a considerable number of these institutions or centres that take this type of child, but do you know, Sir, that the greatest problem here is that if one inquires into the matter, one will find that each of these centres is the product of some man or woman who was filled with inspiration for the cause and around whom an institution grew up. In many cases these were parents who themselves had such a child, who denied themselves everything and brought their lives to the altar. We want to pay tribute to every man and woman in the country who is at the head of one of these centres to-day. But the problem is this: What will become of that centre if that particular man or woman passes away? There is no particular training scheme—we still know too little about the problem—according to which these people can be trained so that a successor may readily be found. We foresee that many of these centres will have a tremendous problem once those idealists are no longer there.

But if we study this work we find, furthermore, that there is a large number of those institutions, but that there is no liaison between them. They cannot exchange information or their experience with each other. They cannot compare their findings with each other. There is no co-ordination. Each one is on its own. They receive some assistance from the State; 25 cents per child per day for each day of its attendance, and for the few that may have the facilities, R20 per month is given to each licensed home on condition that if the parent can pay something, that is deducted from the R20 and the State pays the balance I shall later come back to this figure.

But I want to go further and say why the public appreciates the appointment of this commission so highly. It is because people entertain numerous questions to which no answer has as yet been found. There is, for example, the question: What type of person should work in these institutions; under whose guidance should he be; should it be a psychiatrist or a psychologist, or should it be an educationist? Because this problem has its two sides. It has a medical side, but it also has a psychological and educational side. The general public believes that this commission will give it a clear reply to this question, about which much uncertainty prevails at present. The question is in everybody’s mind: What is the basic cause of mental deficiency? Is it simply hereditary, or are there other factors which can also be responsible for it? Then there is one question which is of great importance, in particular to the educationists and people who handle these children, and that is: What is our criterion for mental deficiency? What kind of tests do we apply? It goes without saying that one cannot apply the ordinary intelligence tests for this type of child. Should not research be carried out to produce more appropriate tests, that can be used as a more accurate measure in these cases? Furthermore, should not more regular inspections be carried out so that those children may be tested and retested? Sir, I can take you to-day to institutions where there are children who are so-called mental defectives, but who actually belong in schools where mentally retarded children are educated. They were put there by error as mental defectives, and are they to stay there all their lives? Should not a procedure be introduced whereby they can be re-tested and re-assigned from time to time, with thorough tests which can be valid in such circumstances? One matter that has called for some very serious thinking from the public in recent times is the question: Cannot something also be done to take these mentally deficient children and to design interest tests and aptitude tests for them too, no matter how simple they may be? I have been to some of these centres and have seen the children do knitting, for example. If one asks the heads of the institutions whether all the children are equally proficient in knitting, their reply is usually in the negative, and they then add that one little boy is more at home with a bit of machinery, another in farming, where he can look after cattle, etc. Surely that indicates a diversity of aptitudes. Why should the child be forced into the same institution as all the others merely because he is mentally deficient? Because all of them have to follow the same syllabus. We should try to classify these children according to their individual aptitudes and interests, so that each of them may be treated equitably. The public insists on a proper syllabus. If one asks experts what can be done for this type of child, some of them claim that they can teach such a child fantastic things. The public feels that such a child should be taught to manage on his own. He should be taught to dress himself and to look after himself. He should be taught the simple and elementary principles of tidiness and cleanliness. He should receive speech training so that he can speak properly to other people and pronounce his words correctly. He should be taught to mix with people—the socialization process. He should be taught to adjust to the community, when to cross a street, where the different toilet rooms are, i.e. those for men and those for women, what the inside of a shop looks like and what money is—all these innocent little things with which he is faced every day of his existence. But in particular he should be trained to keep himself occupied in some way or other. These are matters on which the general public expects an answer, and it is for that reason that they are grateful that the Government has taken the important step of appointing this commission of inquiry.

Then we still have to find a solution to the problem of what becomes of that child the day he leaves the institution. Where must he go then? He cannot go and work because he will keep his particular deficiency as long as he lives. What should be done with him? We should provide for some form of after-care so that these children can be cared for. I think many will agree if I say that I hope this inquiry will reveal that sheltered employment does not necessarily mean that people work from morning to night under one roof in some large building, making harnesses, for example. I hope the commission will find that that is something which can be discarded by the community. Minor vacancies, for example at mines, can be modified so that these people can work and live in a community. This kind of child may perhaps not be able to perform delicate work with his hands, but he may be able to keep a street clean, or to clean a window, or to do some painting, etc. Sheltered employment for this type of child should be discarded by the community, a community in which he will be cared for and in which he will even have his own cemetery. At the end of his life he can then breathe his last in that particular community while his family knows that even his funeral need not cause them any concern. The parents of that child will know that if their child is in that community, he will be cared for as long as he lives.

While I am dealing with this aspect I also want to say that we should undertake research as regards buildings and accommodation. So far I have dealt mainly with mental defectives of a higher grade. But go to the institution at Alexandra, and at Umgeni, at Witrand, and others, and see the deplorable conditions under which mental defectives of a lower grade are kept; then we will be justified in saying that all we are doing for them at present is to put a roof over their heads. If you saw the conditions in which these children have to live, you would say that if it had to be your fate to have such a child and he found himself in such circumstances, you would never sleep at night. But I can also take you to institutions where everything is very hygienic, and where the staff have experimented with the most suitable types of carpets, tables and even chairs. Here conditions are much better, and if you had a child there, you would thank God for that. I maintain that we should undertake research as regards the care of the lower grade mental defectives. For them, too, we should give the best, and I think the public expects this commission to clear up this particular aspect. The terms of reference of this commission are wide enough for that, and we are grateful to the Minister for having phrased the terms of reference so widely. We are also glad that the hon. the Minister has even gone so far as to instruct two of the members of the commission to go overseas and to study what is done in this regard in overseas countries. We are sincerely grateful to him for that. The hon. the Minister has already proved that he wants to be a friend of the unfortunate, in other words, those who are mentally deficient and mentally deranged. A new approach is already evident in our mental hospitals, and for that the public will always be grateful to him. I want to ask him to continue with this good work and to give us further guidance in this regard.

My time has virtually run out. and therefore I just want to ask the hon. the Minister something in conclusion. Can something not be done to bring financial relief to the staff of those institutions until such time as the commission reports? They receive 25 cents per child for each school day on which that child attends. They get nothing if the child is absent or away on vacation. At the moment the amount is fixed at R20,000. Cannot this amount be increased? There should not be a ceiling. Then there are the licensed homes which have to serve as hostels for children from the rural areas. Here the allowance is only R20 per child per month. Now I want to ask the Minister if it is not possible not to reduce that R20 per month in cases where parents contribute something. That allowance is, in addition, not applicable to vacations. Surely the institution has to carry on; the staff has to be paid, whether or not it is vacation time. From my experience of one institution in my constituency I know that those people find it terribly hard to make ends meet. They have to work at a deficit of R10 per child per month, and if there are 60 children in that institution an extra R600 has to be found. Those people are already sacrificing everything, and life is hard. Cannot something be done in the meantime, that is, until such time as the report of the commission becomes available, to enable these people to offer the cup of cold water with some grace? It is after all for those who are least in the community that we shall be doing that.

Mr. Speaker, there is little in the speech of the hon. member with which I can agree. However, I should like to second his appeal to the hon. the Minister to increase the allowance payable to the institutions caring for mentally deficient children. It must be difficult for the people administering these homes to come out on what they get and thus I agree with the hon member that they should be provided with more funds. But. otherwise, I find little in his statements with which I can agree. Accordingly, I should like to move as an amendment—

I think the hon. member’s motion is most irresponsible and incomprehensible. It is difficult to understand how he can thank the hon. the Minister for the effort he has made and for the commission which he has appointed. The appointment of this commission was, I feel, most necessary. Much good should come out of its investigations but we must remember that this Government has been in power for a long time.

Too long.

In any event, this Government has done little to advance the care of these unfortunate children and adults. The old clock went on and still goes on. The only sign of an awakening has been the appointment of a younger commissioner for mental hygiene, somebody who attempts to change the old methods inherited from days of Union. He is the first young commissioner for mental hygiene to be appointed by any Government of this country. At last we have used up the heads of departments inherited from Union-Now newer ideas are beginning to take root. But although those gentlemen may have been elderly, that does not mean they did not know their jobs. As a matter of fact, I am sure that they must time and time again have drawn the attention of the various ministers of health to the fact that great advances were being made in the care, diagnosis and treatment of mentally deficient people. Yet, Sir, literally nothing has been done. There exist these three institutions established at various times and there it rests. Not even modernization of these three.

As I have said, I think this is a most irresponsible motion, irresponsible insofar as thanking the Minister is concerned. I certainly hope that the outcome of the commission’s inquiry will be that the Minister will be able to carry out great modern reforms and establish the same quality in this field as in the other fields of our public work. This is a field in which great advances have been made. The whole world is awakening and the conscience of the world is beginning to take note and to realize that mental deficiency is not a disease, but that it is a failure to develop.

Before I go further, we must know about whom we are speaking. The hon. member who has just sat down connected all the decisions and diagnoses to the intelligence quotient. I will not go so far as to say that this is a completely outdated system but it certainly is not a modern or reliable test. There are many mentally deficient people and many delinquents and even some geniuses who are not normal mentally, but who have an extremely high intelligence quotent. It is possible to find mentally deficient people who are able to recite a whole play from Shakespeare from memory and do so even backwards. I have heard of a village idiot who could tell you who died in that village over the past 34 years, who the parson was who officiated at each burial, who the mourners were and how many seconds each one had lived. One cannot accept that a person like that has an intelligence quotient in the region of about 50. It is not a sign of lunacy or of mental deficiency. There are other stigma which are marked today and which those who work in this field recognize as important.

This motion covers a field which includes all grades of mental deficiency, from the idiot upwards. The idiot is so much lacking in brains that he is totally incapable of receiving any training whatever, not even to keep himself clean. I know of a child in the Umgeni institution who does not know enough to take a spoon to feed himself. Accordingly, he has to be fed by someone else. It is not possible to apply intelligence quotient tests to him because he has no intelligence at all. Then there is the imbecile who can be trained to do a few routine tasks, things like washing himself, feeding himself and brushing his teeth if he is given a toothbrush. He has the intelligence of a child between 3 and 7 years of age. Then there is the feeble-minded or high grade moron possessing intelligence of a child up to 12 years of age. He can be trained and fitted into life to a certain extent.

We must bear in mind that mental deficiency is not a disease. It is not an illness. It is a failure of part of the brain, or the whole of it, to develop. At some point in life the brain stops developing. In some individuals only parts of the brain stop developing but unless they are individual wholes and unless they have been normal in their development, they are, at least eccentric and it is this eccentricity and the failure to take part in the life of the community, which draws attention to them making it difficult to live an ordinary life. On the whole these people are born in this state, generally as a result of diseases which developed congenitally. There are, for instance, the hydrocephalics, the microcephalics and the anencephalics, mongols, birth injuries and spastics. In some cases mental deficiency is not congenital but has been caused by measles, scarlet fever or perhaps by the child being dropped or a disease such as meningitis. Lastly we come to the most trying and most difficult mentally deficient, namely the epileptic. This is the most serious and subtle form of mental deficiency. These then are the types of mentally deficients with whom we have to deal.

I hope that the committee which has been appointed is a suitable one. The Minister certainly has some first-class men. There are others who while they are no doubt interested, kindly disposed and well-intentioned people, are, nevertheless, not likely to make much contribution to what is almost entirely a scientific problem. Personally I should like to have seen more scientists on this committee, and not only medical scientists but social scientists and educational scientists as well. These mentally deficient people have to be found. The hon. member who introduced this motion also referred to this fact and said that people were inclined to hide children who are mentally deficient. They do so because they feel that a mentally deficient child in the family is a disgrace to that family. In the case of daughters, particularly, they look upon it as a disgrace on the one hand and on the other hand as interfering with the matrimonial prospects of their other offspring. Now, it is only right that these children should be found. Usually it is the mother who suffers the most. She may, for instance, have developed a guilt complex because she feels that it was her fault and that something she did was wrong and a mentally deficient child is an affliction which God has inflicted upon her on that account. All these factors lead to a disturbance of the family life in general. Either the brothers and sisters look after the mentally deficient child to the detriment of their own recreation or they reject him and the child’s already unhappy life is made more unhappy thereby. It is matters such as these with which the committee should deal.

There is no doubt that the number of mentally deficient children is increasing. That is so, firstly, because our population is increasing and. secondly, mentally deficients are being cared for socially and medically under good conditions. The most important factor is, however, heredity. Because this is so, I regret to see that there are no geneticists on this committee, unless, perhaps, it is Dr. van Wyk. Heredity, as I said, is the greatest single cause of mental deficiency. There is the case of an American, John Ishmail. He married a half-witted halfbreed and within 50 years 5,000 degenerate descendants stemmed from this marriage. There is another instance where in 50 years 12,000 degenerate descendants stemmed from the marriage of 5 sisters. By their marriage they perpetuated alcoholism, idiocy, crime and prostitution. On the other hand there is the history of the American divine, Jonathan Edwards. His progeny included 13 presidents of universities, 63 professors, 180 judges, 100 clergy, 60 doctors. 60 authors and senators and 9 governors of state. Apparently there was no black sheep amongst the lot.

This serves to show how serious is the problem of heredity. It gives value to the saying that “No child can be too careful in choosing its parents”. The transmission of mental defects is the most subtle, the most persistent and pernicious of degenerate forces, ft is important that we must realize that it will inevitably reappear. Though it may miss 4 or 5 generations. ultimately it will reappear and not necessarily in the same form. The epileptic of one generation may be deaf and blind in the next; the deaf of one generation may reappear as an idiot in the next.

Another cause of mental deficiency is the privation of some of the senses. A child at the age of 3 may, for instance, get meningitis, a thing which is quite common, and when it recovers from the disease its mentality fails to develop any further. This does, of course, not always happen. Take, for instance, the case of the late Helen Keller, who at one time visited this House in company with Dr. Bremer. She lost her sight and hearing at about the age of 3. Despite this she managed at the age of 19 to obtain a degree at Harvard university and became world famous. Another cause of mental deficiency is parental neglect. I mention this because it is here that we have to bear in mind the need for our social workers to go out amongst the people in order to find such children and for the courts to have the power to take such children away from their parents whenever such a course is justified. Another cause of mental deficiency is due to alcohol. In Norway it has been estimated that when the duty on spirits was removed the incidence of idiocy increased by 150 per cent. Lastly, we come to our old enemy syphilis as a cause of mental deficiency. We are already doing our best to treat this disease and prevent it. But the result of all these causes is delinquency, idiocy and moral imbecility and, ultimately, a degeneracy in the race. These factors are the most important cause of race degeneracy. Owing to the way in which we keep alive degenerates and the way we care for them the race becomes weaker and less perfect. The human race in its inheritance is weaker than any other species, wild or domestic. These latter rely on the survival of the fittest. What can we do to prevent a continuance of this? We can instil the idea in the minds of people that they must choose their partners in marriage carefully, not for money but for love. But, it is wise to love in a healthy family. The slightest suspicion of a degenerate in the ancestors of a young should frighten any wise young woman away and vice versa. Secondly—and I approach this with some diffidence—we should realize the importance of illness in the mother. We can appreciate what has happened to children born of mothers who have had either measles or any of the other infectious viral disease during the first two or three months of pregnancy. The prospects of children born of these mothers are such that some 50% will be deaf or dumb or blind or mentally deficient. We must seriously consider whether we should not legally permit abortion in these cases. Knowing that the mother has had measles in the second or third month of her pregnancy can we expect to permit the mother to continue another seven or eight months with the child in her womb, waiting to see what the child will be like? That is one of the other things. Can we not also do some research into genetics. We know now that the high-grade moron or even low-grade mongol can be foreseen in genetics; its genes can be recognized. Properly trained men can tell you that this woman is going to have a mentally deficient child because of its heredity, because the genes have changed. These are matters which should be investigated and it is a pity that the Minister has not seen fit to put on his committee some well-known geneticists even though we may not have them available, although I think there are.

Lastly the hon. the Minister should take a great interest in the existence of these psychotrophic drugs, the drugs which alter the character of the individual. I know that he has a drug control committee which is slowly coming into action. So far as I know it has not met to date. If it has met it has done very little. These matters are much more serious than giving additional money to the various institutions. Furthermore, the Minister must co-operate with the Departments of Education and of Social Welfare. This problem is too great for it to be handled by one Government Department, powerful though that may be. We must look to the good of the race. We must try to find out how to so educate people that they will not marry and give birth to degenerate children and we must let it be known that we encourage asexualisation of both female and male in cases where it is known that the heredity factor will produce a degenerate.

Mr. Speaker, when you noticed me, I was actually on my way to the Secretary to ask him whether I could not hand in my speech to Hansard instead. However, the die is cast and I suppose I shall have to see it through. Neither do I have the privilege some of my fellow new colleagues have to elaborate for a few moments on their predecessors while they are trying to find their feet. I am in the unfortunate position that I do not have a predecessor here, and if I were to survive this afternoon, I trust that I shall not have a successor here soon.

I find it a particular privilege to associate myself to-day with this motion of the hon. member for Kimberley (South) and to identify myself completely with the motion he has placed on the Order Paper. In doing that I do not want to suggest that I have by any manner of means expert knowledge in this regard. I am merely doing this because this matter concerns so many of us personally. For that reason it is a heart-felt need of mine to take part in the discussion on this matter, and in the light of this you will probably forgive me if I should be guilty of certain misconceptions. In the past the attitude adopted by the community in respect of this problem was unsympathetic and cold. Frequently it was even mentally cruel towards those who were up against it. It speaks volumes for us that a new attitude towards this problem is noticeable in our society at present, that even a welcome understanding is noticeable in our society and that there is enthusiasm to assist in solving this problem and bringing relief. I would go as far as to say that this adult approach did not come about by itself. I feel that I am entitled to say that this was to a large extent the result of the sympathetic interest and the constructive steps taken by the hon. the Minister of Health in this regard. We want to pay tribute to him to-day for what he has done in this regard. The details of that which has already been done in this field for these unfortunate children, the thorough inquiry which is in progress at the moment, these have already been presented to us by the hon. member for Kimberley (South). In a striking manner he illustrated to us the work done in that field. Nobody will dispute the fact that a great deal more can be done in that field. I believe that the hon. the Minister himself would do a great deal more in this field if it were merely a matter of his pushing a button and, lo and behold, all his problems are solved: he would have sufficient training facilities, he would have sufficient staff and all the other obstacles with which he may be contending at present would be removed just like that. It is therefore in this spirit that we do not only thank the Government for what has already been done, but also feel at liberty to-day to plead for more. Mr. Speaker, you will permit me to link up this matter with the first annual report of the National Advisory Council for Education in which I took note of one particular paragraph. That paragraph reads as follows [Translation!—

I want to agree that although this statement probably applies more particularly to normal secondary education, it is nevertheless as important for primary education and it is particularly important for pupils in the lower intelligence groups. In determining education policy and education methods it is inevitable that one should constantly guard against overspecialization, but, on the other hand, it is nevertheless a fact that there are groups—and in particular these groups with limited intellectual potential—which are alarmingly handicapped for want of specialization or specialized instruction. The statement I want to make is this, namely that apart from other resultant problems, this group, although limited in its potential, is also being eliminated as man-power for the future. You will permit me, Sir, to deal briefly with such a group, namely those with an intelligence quotient of between 50 and 65. Lest I be accused of labouring under a serious misconception, I would readily admit that it is probable that this group betwen 50 and 65 does not entirely fall under that which we normally consider to be mentally deficient children. I also want to admit that the intelligence quotient, or rather, to associate myself with the words of the hon. member for Durban (Central) the interpretation of it, is under certain circumstances not an infallible norm, but at this stage it nevertheless remains the most acceptable basis on which grouping can be applied properly. It has been explained to you that in practice there are cases with an I.Q. of less than 50, and such cases are once again divided into idiots and imbeciles. A percentage of them can in fact be trained, although they cannot be educated academically. By way of illustration I can point out that such a group of children is being cared for in State institutions such as the Alexandra Institution in our immediate vicinity; in addition there are day centres in our vicinity such as the Oasis in Claremont, Alta du Toit at Bellville, the Rudolf Steiner School at Hermanus, and so forth. What I am trying to convey is that the weal and woe and the training and care of these unfortunate children are at present being looked after to a greater extent. As the hon. member for Kimberley (South) has indicated, day centres are at present being subsidized to a certain extent. Although such subsidizing is certainly not adequate at this stage, we are sincerely grateful for it. In addition we find institutions such as the Alta du Toit Centre at Bellville, which has not yet been registered and which, in other words, has to be maintained at this stage purely through church and charitable organizations and a small consideration from the parents. With 41 children in its care, the annual budget for running costs only is approximately R8,500 or R210 per child per annum. However, their requirements have increased in the meantime. The need for extension has increased there. The waiting list is getting longer every day. Initially building a hostel at this institution was nothing but an ideal, but if one were to look at the waiting list of applicants from the platteland, one would see that it has become an absolute necessity to-day. To demonstrate the need in that regard I can tell you that the parents of such a child recently sold their farm in South West Africa and moved to Bellville in order to be able to have their child cared for at that centre. However, in spite of the need that exists in this regard, a great deal is in fact being done for children in this intellectual group, and we trust that with the aid of the recommendations which will be made by the hon. the Minister’s committee after the inquiry, we shall be able to do a great deal more for those children. That then is the position of the children with an I.Q. of under 50. Then we have another group, the pupil group, with an I.Q. of 65 to 80, children who are mentally retarded, but who neither fall within the scope of this motion, nor within the scope of the functions of the hon. the Minister. Provision is made for them on a provincial level. A tremendous amount is being done for the mentally retarded child in the provinces, and I think in particular of the Cape Province to which my knowledge is limited. Provision has been made for them in respect of special instruction. They are divided into small classes not exceeding 15 in number so that they may receive individual instruction. Then there are also a limited number of special secondary schools such as the Westcliffe Special Secondary School at Bellville, where children, according to their abilities, receive a certain amount of vocational training.

As regards the after-care of this group and their entry into the labour market, we find that as the result of their specialized training, these children are able to compete freely in our labour market. Should there be weaker ones who are unable to compete, they can in fact render productive service under our present sheltered employment system.

To sum up therefore, Mr. Speaker, the position is that thorough provision has in fact been made by the State for the under 50 group. Ample provision is being made by the provinces for the group with an I.Q. of between 65 and 80. However, that is not the end of the story, because a vacuum has now resulted between these two groups. I am referring to the group of children with an I.Q. of between 50 and 65. In our grouping of the lower intellectual groups and those who are mentally retarded, this group of children has fallen between the two stools. And it is about this very group that I want to say a few things to-day. Intellectually they are not bright enough to be able to benifit by our special instruction at special schools. They cannot sustain progress. The result is that the province does not really regard them as its responsibility. On the other hand they are too mentally retarded to be able to benefit properly by attending one of the day centres. They are unable to benefit in the sense that, apart from their trainability they are nevertheless also academically educable to a certain extent. For all practicable purposes this excludes them from day schools and these institutions. There is simply no future for that group of children. Nothing but a bleak future filled with boredom and frustration is in store for those children. We know that this frustration quite often manifests itself in the form of other deviations. You cannot imagine, Mr. Speaker, the sorrow and concern experienced by us as parents of such children. While they are small, we are able to handle the situation. We are able to do so because the retardation in such children is not very obvious to the laymen in the sense that it is easily noticeable in the facial characteristics, and so on. We can keep them occupied although they require constant attention. But then the eternal question looms up: what about the future? What will happen when that child of mine grows up one day? Surely, I cannot employ my own daughter as a servant in my house in order to save her from boredom and frustration. Should I deprive her of a private life and should I rob her of an identity while she is still able to play a useful role in our society? For that reason I want to make an earnest plea to-day that an inquiry be made into specific vocational training for this group according to their ability. They are able to perform certain routine work, work for which we are at present using our existing manpower of higher potential. If we could only give them specific training, we could use them for that routine work. However, we could not dare leave this matter at specific vocational training, seeing that these children, Sir, will never be able to compete in their own right in the open labour market. For that reason it will be of cardinal importance that specific vocational possibilities should be created for these children, vocational possibilities which will differ from our existing sheltered employment. As far as existing sheltered employment is concerned, productivity of 50 per cent is to-day the “open sesame”. Mr. Speaker, we shall have to do that because their needs are after all the same as those encountered in sheltered employment. It is merely a question of a difference in ability. In order to ensure that, it is from the nature of the case of the greatest importance to establish an effective liaison in respect of training on the one hand, and employment on the other. Only the State can take the lead in this regard, seeing that it is the only body which is able to ensure that co-ordination and which is able to create those vocational possibilities. That can be done because our experience is that there are at present in the motor industry certain State concessions for local content. There are concessions in respect of border industries to encourage entrepreneurs to establish their industries in the border areas. In other words, the State is the only body which is in a position to encourage by means of concessions to certain industries, the employment of these children, even if they had to do so in forceful competition. I am thinking here of work such as the making of button-holes in our clothing industry. I am thinking of routine assembling work in our manufacturing industry, and the sowing and planting of plants, and so forth, in our Department of Forestry and our nurseries.

We realize only too well that these things will cost a great deal of money. We know that the establishment of training facilities, but more particularly the establishment of vocational possibilities, will entail tremendous expense. However, on the other hand it will be a rich investment for the South African people, because that which would have been a burden on the community, which would have caused great sorrow to the hearts of many a parent, will now be converted into a productive asset in the community. The manner in which a people looks after its weaker ones, is after all the test of the level of civilization attained by such a people. We as a people boast of having high moral values. For that reason we dare not ignore this sacred duty of ours towards this group of children. While we are thanking the Government for what has already been done in this field, Sir, I want to plead in all earnest that the hon. the Minister should consider the nomination of a committee of experts to inquire into and make practical suggestions for the training and especially the after-care of this intelligence group. Such a committee can, if needs be, carry out its terms of reference in conjunction with the committee which is already functioning by order of the hon. the Minister. However, if it should be more practical, the terms of reference of the existing committee could be extended further so as to cover this field as well. Mr. Speaker, if the time has ever been ripe for such an inquiry, it is now, because our planning in respect of mentally deficient children can never be complete without that. The planning can never be adequate if this group of children is not included in the inquiry. If not, we shall be doing constant patchwork in the future. If anything should be born out of the request I am making to-day, I shall certainly regard it as the realization of one of my greatest ideals. For that reason I thank you for your willingness to listen to me.

Mr. Speaker, I am particularly honoured to be able to congratulate the hon. member for Tygervallei on his first speech in this House. I say that for several reasons. In the first place, of course, he is a new member. In the second place, he represents a new constituency. And in the third place it is quite clear to me that he is deeply interested in a subject which I also hold dear. Of course a great deal of ignorance prevails as regards this important subject. If one can make any deduction from the number of people present in this House at the moment, there are not many members who know enough about this matter to be particularly interested in it. In fact, when I told an hon. member in the lobby a few minutes ago that I wanted to go into the House because I wanted to take part in this debate, his reply was, “Oh, is that the debate about the lunatics?” Such a remark gives me a good idea of the lack of knowledge and sympathy that prevails in respect of this particular subject. For that reason I want to congratulate the hon. member who has just sat down on his valuable contribution, and I trust his future contributions will be of the same quality.

I listened with close attention to the hon. member for Kimberley (South), who had this motion put on the Order Paper. As we know, welfare work is pre-eminently the subject in which he is interested. That has been the case through all the years ever since he made his maiden speech in this House in 1958. Judging by what he said here to-day, it is also clear that this branch of welfare work is very dear to his heart and that he has a thorough knowledge of it.

The hon. member for Durban (Central) also made a very interesting contribution. In a scientific way the hon. member set out the many facets of this serious problem which we encounter in our midst so often and which calls for urgent and serious attention.

Sir, I decided for various reasons to bring up a few points in this debate. As one of the Coloured representatives I am actively involved in the problem of our mentally retarded children. I shall demonstrate that shortly. From 1946 to 1949 my wife was the secretary of the Mental Health Society in Cape Town, and inevitably I developed an intense interest in this subject. Another reason originated in 1958, when the then hon. member for Pretoria (Central) spoke on the Bill that dealt with the transfer of special education for Coloureds to the Department of Coloured Affairs. Amongst other things, he said that very few people had any real knowledge of this matter, and that as a rule they could only be regarded as lay-men until a case occured in their families which necessitated special education. Well, at that time I did not know that that hon. member’s word would be validated in my own case. Because in my own home a boy was born of whom I had to hear from a psychiatrist that at the age of three he was unteachable. But I am grateful to say that now, at the age of seven, he has achieved above-normal results in intelligence tests. I shall perhaps never forget the fear, anxiety and tension, and the uncertainty as to whether our child would be a burden and a source of concern to the community, which my wife and I had to suffer in those 3½ years. I therefore speak with feeling on this matter, Mr. Speaker.

Now, the hon. member for Durban (Central) analysed the scientific aspects of this problem. The hon. member for Kimberley (South) approached the matter from the viewpoint of his sound knowledge of it, but the reason why I cannot associate myself wholeheartedly with the hon. member’s motion, is that he does not include the Coloureds in his motion. For if he had sought to draw our Coloureds into his motion too, it would certainly have had a different aspect. I say that with the greatest respect, Mr. Speaker.

Now, Sir, in 1949 there was not a single institution for mentally deficient or mentally retarded Coloured children in the whole of South Africa. In 1958 the position was still the same, and year after year I pleaded regularly with the hon. the Minister in this regard. After I had pleaded for four years the Minister got up in this House immediately after me and said that as he was speaking, workmen were arranging a part of the Alexandra Institution in Maitland for the accommodation of Coloured children. That was the first institution of its kind in South Africa. Since then that institution has been moved to Westlake, and it remains the only one of its kind in South Africa. 450 Mentally retarded Coloured children are at present accommodated in that institution. Although many more should be admitted to it, there is no room for more. If we consider that there are If million Coloureds in our country, then it is very clear that our facilities are quite inadequate compared with the facilities for retarded White children. At the moment extensions are being made which, it is hoped, will provide accommodation for an additional 150 to 200 Coloured children. According to my information the waiting list at this institution—and that is apart from the waiting list of welfare organizations—already comprises 150 names. I should like to mention the good work done by the superintendent of that institution, Mr. Speaker. He is a certain Dr. Blumberg, a person who used to be at Fort Beaufort. I have never had the privilege of meeting him but the hon. the Minister will know him. Now, Dr. Blumberg has already had 40 years’ experience of this problem. Unfortunately there is in his family also a case receiving special treatment. I have heard from various quarters that he is a dedicated man, a man who can even be compared with the late Dr. Albert Schweizer.

Sir, the work at this institution is carried out under very difficult conditions. Westlake institution was converted from unoccupied barracks dating from the war years. As such, it is not a planned institution, and in addition experiences a chronic staff shortage. It is clear to me why there is a shortage of staff. People working in such an institution, with such children, have to be specially trained and are selected by virtue of their well-balanced temperaments. They also have to be very patient, because they handle children aged 7, 8, 9, 10 years, and older, who cannot manage on their own in respect of the normal physical functions. I therefore want to plead that the hon. the Minister should give attention to better remuneration for those who have to do this kind of work, so that the right type of person may be found.

I acknowledge with gratitude what the Government and various organizations have done through the years as regards this problem. But in particular I want to mention the name of the Cape Mental Health Society, which later developed into the National Mental Health Society. All the people of South Africa—White, Coloured and Bantu—owe this society a great deal of gratitude. The Cape Mental Health Society was founded on 13th July, 1913, and is apparently the oldest society of its kind in the world. Through the years this organization has led a waning existence because there has been a great shortage of funds. Between 1946 and 1949, however, there were considerable developments, and in 1949 its establishment grew to five. At present the Society has an establishment of 14. Between 1946 and 1949 a part-time guidance clinic—the Child Guidance Clinic—was established. Since then it has been taken over by the University of Cape Town, and is operated on a full-time basis by that University. In any event, this organization at present runs a guidance clinic for Coloured children, actually for non-White children, and also employs a part-time psychologist. The Society itself established this clinic and also operates it on its own. Because there is only one institution for mentally deficient or mentally retarded Coloured children in South Africa, the Society itself founded two institutions by means of its own funds and the meagre subsidy it receives. One of these is the Garden Home for children here in Cape Town, which accommodated 30 children and which is now full. Boys of 2 to 10 years and girls of 2 to 18 years are admitted. Then there is the Torrence Home, which is now also full. This institution has 55 children, all boys from 10 to 18 years old. In addition, the Society runs a day centre for Coloured children. This centre has room for 22 children and is also quite full.

As the hon. member for Kimberley (South) rightly pointed out, the day centres are of tremendous importance. Not only is the establishment of such centres, particularly in the larger cities where many cases occur, inexpensive to the State, but these centres also provide for cases where parents would like to have their children with them and are themselves in a position to put them up, but where the mother cannot give the child the necessary attention and care at home because she has to work in order to make ends meet. It may also happen that a mother of a large family is burdened with so many duties at home that she has to leave the child elsewhere during the day while she performs her domestic chores.

The hon. member for Kimberley (South) also pleaded for an increase in the subsidy of 25 cents per day which is paid to the day centres at present. He also asked that the centres should remain open during vacations as well. I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. member. In Cape Town, which has the strongest concentration of Coloureds, there is only one such a day centre for Coloureds, and that is run by the Cape Mental Health Society. No subsidy for the maintenance of that centre is received from the State. The centre already has 22 children and is full. Anyone who walked up Adderley Street to-day would have noticed a small stall in front of Cleghorn’s building. Sundry little articles are sold there for the very purpose of maintaining this one particular day centre.

These day centres are very important, Sir. I therefore want to appeal to the hon. the Minister and his Department to inquire as soon as possible into the possibility of a subsidy for our Coloured day centre too. I also want to ask that the granting of a subsidy for the expansion of existing day centres should be investigated. The Society is convinced that a day centre should be started without delay in the great Heideveld-Bonteheuwel complex, in the Athlone complex and also in the Steenberg complex. The day centre which is in Cape Town at present has to be moved elsewhere because it is situated in a White area. In addition, it is much too small. They have already obtained land in Heideveld from the Cape Town Municipality. Sir, hon. members will appreciate that it is impossible to run a day centre on the proceeds of sales at a street stall. I therefore feel that not only should the subsidy of the Coloured institutions be the same as that in respect of the Whites, but that the subsidy for Whites should even be increased considerably, and that for Coloureds should be the same. Because the expenses involved in nursing such a child, the education, the training and the guidance of all such children, are surely the same.

The hon. member for Kimberley (South) touched on a further aspect. At the day centres the child is encouraged to produce the little it is capable of. In many cases the child can be taught and trained in such a way that he will eventually become independent. Many such cases have already been recorded.

The Society’s waiting list at day centres for Coloured children totals from 250 to 300. But there is only that one centre in Chapel Street, which has 22 children. In many regions in the Cape Province we have large concentrations of Coloureds. I am thinking, for example, of the great Western Province complex, the South Western Districts—which fall within my constituency, of course, and which I know like the palm of my hand—and a city like Port Elizabeth.

I also want to say a few words about spastic children and epileptics. In such children one frequently also finds varying degrees of mental deficiency. There is absolutely no institution available for mentally retarded spastic Coloured children. For epileptics there is only one institution, namely that at Worcester. It is a private institution which receives a subsidy from the Department of Coloured Affairs, and which was established by the Dutch Reformed Church, to whom we are eternally grateful for it.

The position is then as follows, Mr. Speaker: The Torrence Home has 55 children and is full. The Garden Home has 30 children and is also full. As I have said, that home has to be moved because it falls inside a White group area. In addition, it is much too small. The institution has to move to Heideveld, but the great problem is: Where is the money to be found to build the institution there? The waiting list in respect of the Torrence Home and the Garden Home runs to 200 to 250. Westlake is the only State institution for mentally retarded Coloured children. There is a waiting list at the Red Cross Hospital. There is a waiting list at the Child Welfare Society. I had no time to collect figures in respect of other organizations—I hope to be able to furnish them when the Vote of the hon. the Minister is under discussion—but the waiting list at the Mental Health Society alone is 360, of which 125 are noted as extremely urgent.

Mr. Speaker, another aspect of this matter I now want to mention is not my responsibility, of course. Because there is nowhere else for Bantu children to go, the Society’s waiting list for Bantu children is at present round about 60. If one considers the number of Bantu families in Cape Town, one can imagine how many such cases occur elsewhere in our country where much larger concentrations of Bantu families are found. Can one imagine the position in the homelands, where the families of the thousands and thousands of Bantu men who work in the cities and in and around Cape Town, live? As far as I know, Sir, there is only one institution of this kind for Bantu children in the Eastern Province. I believe the Conradie Hospital has one ward that treats cases of this nature. I am not aware of any other institutions of this kind in our country, except the one in the Eastern Province.

Mr. Speaker, the object of my participation in the discussion of this motion is of a twofold nature. Firstly, as one of the Coloured representatives I regard it as my duty, in view of the history of the Society which I have portrayed briefly and of the facts I have quoted, to record the gratitude of the Coloured group towards that Society for the good work it has been doing since 1913. But I maintain in all fairness and sincerity that it should not be my duty to thank a private organization here for that essential work which has to be done. I have expressed my gratitude and appreciation for the fact that four years ago an institution for mentally retarded Coloured children was established for the first time in history. I think that I have quite succeeded in establishing, through the figures I have quoted, that it is inadequate, although it is remarkably well-run under the circumstances. I feel it should not be my duty to thank private organizations here, and to thank that small group of ladies who spent hours on their feet in Adderley Street this morning to sell a tin of jam and a few biscuits in order to collect money to keep that important centre going. I feel I should be in a position to come here as a representative of the Coloureds and to thank the State and the Government for what has been done to provide for the care of that unfortunate group of children among the Coloured population. My second object is therefore to appeal to the Minister to regard it as a first step to give serious consideration to, and to take positive action for the provision of, an adequate subsidy to the organizations that fill this breach at present, to enable them to maintain and extend the work they are now doing and the institutions they are operating on a small scale, in order that the tremendous need that prevails at present may be met until the State has found the money required to erect the necessary buildings and to take over this service altogether, which, I am convinced, is the duty of the State.

Mr. Speaker, sometimes it is really strange to see the metamorphosis some people can undergo. I am particularly shocked by the tone of the speech made by the hon. member for Outeniqua this afternoon. A year ago he got up here and acknowledged with great gratitude that this Government was the first government that had gone out of its way to help and to accommodate Coloured mental defectives. Today he comes along here with an attack on the Government to the effect that it has deliberately set aside old corrugated iron buildings for that purpose.

On a point of order, Sir, I think the Minister is doing me a great injustice. I never mentioned old tin buildings or old barracks. I said that old barracks were being used at the moment, and I made a plea for the future.

The hon. member spoke of old barracks and created the impression that the Government was doing nothing for the Coloureds. That was the tone of his entire speech. We have gone out of our way to do what no previous government has ever done. We took a military hospital which had previously been used by Whites for tuberculosis cases and converted it at great expense. It is not corrugated iron; the walls are of brick.

I admit that.

It is a beautiful place. We converted it into a fine place where up to 420 Coloureds were admitted for the first time, where previously there had been no provision. But to-day the Government is only being reproached, instead of being thanked.

But I did thank the Minister for that.

Then the hon. member has a very strange way of thanking. Reproaches are not thanks. At the moment the same hospital is being extended and improved even further, so that, as the hon. member himself admitted, an extra 150 or 200 Coloureds can be admitted. I can quite understand that the hon. member would like to tell his voters that he is asking and demanding many things for them, and that this inept Government is doing nothing for them, but has the hon. member never considered that in recent times there has been a change in the entire approach to mentally deficient children—not on the part of the Government, but on the part of the parents? It was not so long ago that parents would not give up a mentally deficient child, for the reasons mentioned by the hon. member for Kimberley (South) I shall deal with the entire problem in a moment. As a result of that there was never a demand for assistance for such children in the past. It is only in the last number of years, and particularly in the last 10 years, that this change has come about. Where formerly one had to convince the parents that it was in their own interest and in the interest of those children that the State should take care of the children, a change has now come about, so that the parents themselves are asking for assistance. Surely it is quite unreasonable to expect the Government to deal with that accumulation of mental defectives, calculated at 4 per 1,000 by the hon. member for Kimberley (South), which means that there are 12,000 among the Whites alone. It is inconceivable that a government can simply find the money somewhere to build and establish everything that is needed. But what is more, when people live in a small town like Bonteheuwel, is it really necessary for the hon. member to make great demands to the effect that day centres should be established there too? Must we always provide the very utmost in facilities for everybody, at the price of imposing a burden on all? Is not the obvious solution we have always used that if we want to go out at night we ask a kind neighbour to look after the child in the meantime? Do we all ask for day centres? Surely that is not a fair request, and surely it is not fair to level those reproaches at the Government? Of course I want to give the assurance that the Government will continue to make more and more money available.

Let me come to the hon. member for Durban (Central). He was equally unreasonable. He said that this Government had done nothing as yet for the mental defectives, and that there was nothing for which to praise the Government. What are the facts? Do you know, Sir, that in 1928 the first National Party Government established something in respect of which South Africa is perhaps taking the lead in the world, and that is the special schools? There the National Party Government introduced the principle that one should divide the mentally deficient children into two groups, the higher and the lower group, and that one should not lump them together as is done in most parts of the world. The National Party Government introduced special schools, and it separated the higher grade pupils and the lower grade pupils and gave the higher grade pupils the opportunity to learn trades so that they might be able to fend for themselves to a certain extent, and to be happy and not frustrated people. When the United Party came into power, those special schools were neglected, and it was this Government which again developed that principle of special schools until it became the excellent institution it is at present. What has been the result? Only the other day there were some visitors from America here who were surprised to see that we had something in South Africa which was really outstanding. They said that there was one other country in the world that could compete with us, and that was Israel. Surely one must be realistic and fair?

Let me further examine these two classes of people, those of the higher grade and those of the lower grade. For those in the higher grade, one goes out of one’s way to try to educate them to be able to do something in life, but what can one do for the poor child who belongs to the lower grade? One can only take care of him. They have no intelligence or knowledge of how to behave. How should one act towards them? But there has been a gradual improvement as far as adopting a humane attitude in this matter is concerned. In the past the whole world thought that all one should do for these children was to see to their physical needs, to see to it that they were kept clean and had accommodation and were properly fed, and to help them to play with each other and to amuse themselves. The new approach adopted over the past 10 or 15 years has been to concentrate on seeing whether one can not bring those children happiness in an intensive way; to apply new methods in order to make them happy. That is the only change there has been. It is not that the Government was so terribly backward. One can go to the large institutions where those children are kept, and one will find that everything possible is being done to make life pleasant for them.

Then the hon. member for Durban (Central) made another reproach: not that we are not caring adequately for the physical well-being of the children, but that we should now use new poisonous drugs which can change the personalities of these people. Do you know, Sir, I really could not believe that a responsible member of this House could actually make such a suggestion. Last year we brought in an Act because we appreciated the tremendous danger of these new drugs. They are so dangerous that we dare not allow them to be used without thorough research and control. We established a Drug Control Board comprised of the best brains in the country. The hon. member said derisively that they had not even met. That only proves that if one merely wants to abuse, one does not care what one is saying. That Board met and started with its activities a long time ago, but it cannot begin to sift and control the drugs until the necessary machinery has been created. It has already appointed its chief official and its entire machinery is being put into operation, but that takes time. There is no procrastination about it. Can the hon. member come along now and suggest that the work is proceeding too slowly and that the Government should therefore intervene with these poisonous drugs? Surely it would be atrociously irresponsible to administer poisonous drugs of which one does not know the after-effects to those poor mental defectives? Could anyone in the world call us a civilized people if we dared do such a thing?

I want to extend my sincere congratulations to the hon. member for Tygerberg on his maiden speech (“ontgroeningstoespraak”). In Afrikaans I prefer the word “ontgroeningstoespraak” to the Anglicism “nooienstoespraak.” It was a fine speech, made by someone who spoke with feeling, someone who understands the problem and adopts a constructive attitude. I want to assure him that if he continues in this fine manner, and I know he will, he will have a great future in this House.

The hon. member for Outeniqua asked that this commission of enquiry into mental defectives should also enquire into the problem of after-care. In the case of mental defectives after-care is a problem of such great importance that I have always been under the impression that it was in fact included in the terms of reference. I have looked up the terms of reference and it seems to me that I was not mistaken; that it was in fact included in certain of the terms of reference. I can assure the hon. member that if there are any doubts about that, we shall take steps to ensure that such doubts are removed.

I now come to the essential problem facing us. As the hon. member for Kimberley (South) said, the figure which is at present accepted in the world as regards mental defectives, or let me rather say retarded children, children of the standard we are dealing with to-day, i.e. with an I.Q. of below 50, is approximately four per 1,000. That means that in South Africa, with our White population of 3,000,000, there are approximately 12,000. If one considers that provision has already been made in our institutions for between 4,000 and 6,000, for a third to half, we cannot be as far behind as hon. members have suggested. We know that the problem, in that respect is that the parents are only now waking up to the realization that children are better-off in such an institution than at the homes of their parents. We know that parents are most reluctant to give up those children, but despite that between a third and half of those children have already been admitted. It should therefore be clear to everybody that the position in South Africa cannot be so bad. We also know that the parents have many problems as regards these children, problems that are changing continually. There is one problem in particular which is much more serious at present than formerly and which stems from the life expectancy of the low-grade retarded children. In former times mental retardment was usually accompanied by physical defects and defects in the children’s organs, with the result that the life expectancy of those low-grade children was usually very short. But as a result of new medical knowledge and the new drugs at our disposal, we have succeeded in extending the life expectancy of these children considerably. Now the problem of age arises; the problem that when these children become older and their parents pass away, they are children who cannot manage on their own, who need help and who then have to be admitted to an institution, is arising on a larger scale. In other words, one then has the problem that an older child who has already formed his habits in life, who has already made his friends in life, at that stage has to adapt himself to completely different and strange circumstances. In this instance I want to remind the House that it is not only the child himself for whom problems arise: the parents have great problems; the other children have problems and the entire community as such has problems. If one examines, firstly, the burden on the parent himself, one finds that it is a burden which in some cases can really be tremendous. It is a tremendous burden in the case of under-privileged people, people who find themselves in economic circumstances which compel them to live in a small house or a flat or a few rooms where children and parents have to sleep and eat and live together, and where, in addition, the mother frequently also has to find an additional means of income. Moreover, because these children are inevitably not clean by nature as they do not have the necessary intelligence, a burden is imposed on the mother and on the family in particular, a burden which, if it is a large family, is a tremendous one and which eventually results not only in those parents neglecting those children, but also in the mother sometimes even losing her health through despair. If in addition the mother is ill as a result of the tensions in the family, it eventually has the result that that whole family becomes unhygienic and underfed. It is in the first instance a great problem if one has a mentally deficient child in one’s family. It causes tensions in the family which may bring about the deterioration and even the disruption of the entire family.

We now return to that same problem which has already been dealt with from various angles here, namely the fact that the parents, particularly the mother, are often unwilling to give up that child, perhaps for psychological reasons. They are under the impression that as soon as you give up a child to an institution for mental defectives or mentally diseased persons you admit that that child is mentally deficient or mentally diseased, and that as soon as you admit that, the aspersion is suddenly cast upon you that you yourself may have something of that same mental deficiency in you. Not only do you have a feeling of guilt, but you may have a sense of inferiority for that very reason. We must appreciate that refusal to give up those mentally deficient children is a defence mechanism. It is a defence of your own self-respect, because the moment you have done that your child is branded as mentally deficient, and then the boomerang comes back at you that you probably also have some of that mental deficiency in you. Not that that is scientifically correct. Scientifically it is probably quite incorrect, but that is the way that those parents see it, and that is why we get this tremendous resistance on the part of the parents. Since we started trying to persuade parents to give up a little child so that that child could be happier in one of our institutions, it has happened not once but repeatedly that the child had barely been admitted to the institution before appeals were made to the Minister to ask that the child should be allowed to return to the family, so great was the resistance of the mother or the father against sending that mentally deficient or retarded child to an institution, despite all the consequences involved for that family in keeping the child at home. One so frequently forgets that the fact that there is a mentally deficient child in the family also has an effect on the other children. If the mentally deficient child is an older child, the younger children who come after him so easily imitate his habits, his ways of doing things, his behaviour. One then finds a serious deterioration among the younger children in that family. But sometimes one also finds the opposite, the wonderful cases where the other children, when they realize the circumstances in their own family, go out of their way to lighten the burden on their parents and to help that mentally deficient or retarded child. One then finds people who become prominent in society as noble people, as examples to the whole of society. Our great problem with children to-day is not only that the retarded child that one admits to an institution is much happier there than he is in his own home, much happier because that child probably feels, partly by intuition (because he does not have the intelligence of the normal person), that among other retarded people he is not inferior, but that when those parents pass away some day after having refused to give up their child to an institution, the problems arise which I outlined just now, the problems for that child who has to adapt himself anew to completely new conditions. I think it will be conceded by all that the present development, that parents are more willing to give up their children is the right one. It is the right development that those children should be admitted to institutions provided by the State and other organizations. It is the right solution, and parents should be encouraged to give up such children. Then we must never forget either that we, as a State, are simply unable to supply at one stroke all the facilities, conveniences and accommodation needed to provide for the entire retarded population of South Africa.

The hon. member for Outeniqua pointed out that the day-centres were established with the very object of helping parents to overcome that feeling until they are in fact prepared to give up their child. When a mother gives up a retarded child to such a day-centre, she comes to realize that that child is happier among its companions than at home. She learns to separate herself gradually from the child, and eventually, when the conviction dawns upon her, she is willing to give up the child altogether. I candidly admit that there are not enough day-centres yet, because the need is growing so tremendously. It is only in the past number of years that women have gone out to work, and that they have to leave their retarded children somewhere. I want to assure hon. members that the State will continue to assist in meeting this need. For many years the mentally deficient or low-grade retarded children were admitted to our institutions for mentally diseased persons. Later on we established special institutions for mental defectives, such as those at Alexandra and Witrand, and Umgeni-Waterval, but the accommodation for children in those same places is continually being increased. In fact, at the moment provision is being made in the major works programme for extensions at Umgeni and Witrand. New sections are already being planned at those institutions, and at the same time the State is subsidizing private organizations to enable them to admit mentally deficient children to their institutions in cases where the State itself cannot provide institutions. As I told this House two or three years ago, we established the Westlake Institution for Coloureds. For the Bantu, provision is made at the Umgeni-Waterval and Witrand institutions. We are now planning an entire series of additional hospitals for mentally diseased persons. One after another is being built in the Bantu homelands. In each of the new mental hospitals provision is being made for Bantu mental defectives. It is intended that those hospitals will also be training hospitals. It is essential that people trained in such a training hospital should have knowledge of both mental defectives and mentally diseased persons. For that reason we have also set aside 200 beds for mental defectives at the Tower Hospital in Fort Beaufort. The Tower Hospital is at present being used as a training centre for the Bantu who will eventually staff other Bantu hospitals. The nursing staff now being trained at the Tower Hospital will be ready to take over at the new Bantu hospitals when they are established.

The commission of inquiry, referred to by the hon. member for Kimberley (South) was appointed last year. It was an inquiry into all aspects relating to retarded children. Its object was to inquire into the extent of the problem and, at the same time, to advise the Government regarding all aspects of the policy which was desirable in South Africa in this respect. It even inquired into the responsibilities to be assigned to the various departments, and also into the part to be played by private institutions in connection with these problems. As the hon. member for Kimberley (South) said, that commission of inquiry has already made a great deal of progress with its activities. It will shortly send two of its prominent members overseas to carry out a further study of the treatment of mental defectives. We in South Africa are not so far behind in our treatment of retarded children. Two of our experts are now going to Europe, but that is exactly what America is also doing. America has also discovered that its experts could go and learn in England and in Europe. America has also sent experts to go and learn in European countries. [Time limit.]

Mr. Speaker, we have listened to the hon. the Minister with interest during his participation in the debate. We hoped that he would express the hope that more could be done in this very important field of caring for mentally deficient children and persons suffering from mental disorders. We on this side of the House are pleased that a committee of inquiry has been appointed to investigate the various aspects that the Minister has referred to in regard to this particular problem. We expected the hon. the Minister to devote more time to replying to some of the charges that were made by the hon. member for Durban (Central). We feel that the hon. the Minister could have taken the opportunity to give to this House more information in regard to the work of his Department in this particular field. I say this, Mr. Speaker, because it is very difficult for a member of this House to follow closely the activities of his Department in this particular aspect. When a member of this House tries to obtain information in regard to the Department of Health, one finds that the latest available annual report of the Department of Health, is for the year ending 31st December, 1959. We find that the latest available annual report of the Commissioner for Mental Health is for the year ending 31st December, 1962. However, these reports indicate in no uncertain manner the backlog which has to be made up in regard to the provision of adequate accommodation for these people. I think that the amendment moved for the hon. member for Durban (Central) aimed at highlighting this particular aspect of the work that remained to be done in this field, which we and many other persons interested in the welfare of these people, feel has been neglected in the past, or which should have at least received greater attention.

Listening to the proposer of this motion, the hon. member for Kimberley (South), my mind was taken back to 1964 when he made a very strong plea on the Vote of the Minister of Health for the establishment of such a commission of inquiry and also brought to the notice of the House the various shortcomings in the existing system of dealing with these unfortunate people. I can therefore understand the hon. member’s gratification in knowing that a commission has been established to consider these various problems which have arisen. However, Sir, looking at the terms of reference of this commission of inquiry, it appears that there is an enormous field to be covered. It is to be hoped that every effort will be made to bring into the orbit of this inquiry the other departments concerned, the private institutions which are rendering services to this type of person and the various other welfare organizations which are connected with this particular work. I feel that one does not really appreciate the enormous difficulties which confront parents of a child who is unfortunately mentally deficient until one has some personal experience of such a case. Two or three years ago I was approached by a constituent in regard to the difficulty of having a young girl taken in by the Umgeni Waterfall Institution. This brought home to me the urgent necessity for greater efforts in the establishment of more adequate accommodation and better provision for this type of person. I should like to mention this case, because it is one which illustrates the shortage which has developed and the necessity for urgent steps to be taken by the Government in this field. In this case a certain woman who had a mentally deficient child remained at home, as a good mother should, and devoted her attention to the upbringing of this child while her husband as the breadwinner had to work. Unfortunately, her husband died very suddenly. She was placed in a very difficult financial position. She had to find employment. Some place had to be found for the care of this mentally deficient child. It came as a shock to this mother to find that it was impossible to obtain accommodation for her child unless she went to a private institution, which wanted to charge R60 per month for the care of the child. This was completely beyond her means. That is when I took the trouble to travel to Howick to visit the Umgeni Waterfall Institution to see whether accommodation could be found for the unfortunate young girl. I was confronted with the news that there was a long waiting list and that the facilities which existed there could not possibly cope. I took the opportunity of looking over this institution and was struck by the shortage of accommodation and the shortage of staff which existed there. I know that these are items which the Minister says will receive attention and are receiving attention. However, I believe that this was an instance which showed that our system was unable to cope with an emergency such as this. Were it not for the generosity of her husband’s former colleagues, this woman would have been placed in a most difficult financial position. These people rallied to her assistance and helped her to find accommodation temporarily until she could find accommodation for the child at a State institution.

One could cover a wide field in regard to this particular problem. Other organizations can be used to assist the State and the State can in turn assist them with greater financial subsidies so that more institutions and places of care can be established to cater for this type of patient. I do not, however, wish to traverse at this stage the wide field which exists in regard to the care of the mentally deficient and the whole question of the care of mentally disordered persons, and I therefore move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

Agreed to.