I put the Vote, and I wish to draw the attention of hon. members to the fact that under this Vote they may also discuss Loan Vote A,—Miscellaneous Loans and Services, R175,925,000.

We do not often have to deal with this Vote quite so soon after the Budget debate. I am glad to see that the hon. the Minister has apparently recovered from the hammering that he got last week. I know that one has to be careful, in dealing with his Vote, not to appear to be indulging in another Budget debate. I assure you, Sir, that we have no intention of doing that, but there are a number of points involving the policy pursued by the Minister and his Department on which we would like to ask for some further information. When the hon. the Minister replied to the Budget debate and in defending himself on the grounds that circumstances had changed and that nobody could foresee what would happen, he quoted from the Reserve Bank quarterly report and I thought he rather gave the impression that he waited for the quarterly reports from the Reserve Bank to know what the Reserve Bank had to say or was thinking about. I cannot believe that he really meant that. What contact does the hon. the Minister actually have with the Reserve Bank? How often does he discuss matters with the Governor? We saw in the Press not long ago that a senior officer of the Reserve Bank was being seconded to the Treasury. It was not quite clear whether the Reserve Bank was seconding him to the Treasury to keep an eye on the Treasury, or whether the Treasury had asked for assistance from the Reserve Bank to help them in the problems they were having to deal with, or whether the Minister had asked for further expert advice in the things he had to tackle. One does not know what this rather unusual appointment really involves, and I would like the Minister to tell us whether we are to regard this as a permanent appointment, and what is the purpose of having a senior officer of the Reserve Bank attached to the Treasury. Has he direct access to the Minister? Is he there to act as liaison between the Minister and the Governor of the Reserve Bank, or what exactly are the functions he is performing?

There is another matter on which I think the House would like to have information from the Minister. There have been references in the Press recently to a gentleman named Popov in connection with the new aircraft industry at Kempton Park. Normally one would not raise the question, except of course that this new aircraft industry is a very large undertaking in which the Government is very much involved, partly through the I.D.C. and partly through the fact that the Government has, I understand, guaranteed a certain rate of interest to shareholders investing in one of the companies concerned in the undertaking. According to the Press, this gentleman has been in the country for two months and he is engaged on floating or financing a very big loan running into millions of rands to help finance the industry, and according to the Press he is likely to reap a very substantial commission himself for what he is doing.

I must say I think we are entitled to ask the Minister whether he knows anything about this, because this is a very big undertaking running into enormous financial commitments in which the Government has a major hand and it does seem to me rather strange that a quite unknown financier, according to the Press, should suddenly appear on the scene to undertake the financing of a substantial part of this undertaking. I think the Minister will be doing this Committee and the country a service if he makes the position quite clear, because the newspaper reports go so far as to say that this gentleman’s activities are being either approved or underwritten by the Reserve Bank. I am not at all in a position to say whether these reports are correct or not, and therefore I am giving the Minister the opportunity to refute them, or to tell us exactly what the position is, and I hope he will do so.

There is another point I should like to raise, and on which I should like to have some information. In the weekly Government propaganda sheet called the S.A. Digest there is reference to a new R60,000,000 gold mine to be established, and there has also been reference to it in the Press. It says—

Then the statement goes on to say that the Government will probably agree to a scheme which means foregoing R30,000,000 in taxes. It is not clear from the statement whether the Government has actually entered into this arrangement or whether it will probably enter into it. I must say that this proposal is one of the greatest possible importance for the future of the gold-mining industry, and I think one should know just exactly what is being proposed. The suggestion is, of course, that the gold-mining company, if it wants to start another gold mine in its vicinity, may apply under this scheme to have the new mine regarded as part of the old mine, and to develop it out of the profits earned by the old mine, and thereby escape taxation on the old mine. It seems to me that if that principle is going to be adopted, and I think there is a great deal to be said for it in an attempt to stimulate the development of new gold mines, I am not quite sure why it should be so near the existing gold mine. In this particular case there is going to be a tunnel under the river and a bridge across the river to connect the two so that they are not really on top of each other.

If the principle is going to be adopted that a gold mine may be allowed to develop a new mine out of the profits of the existing mine, then, as I say, I think there is a good deal to be said for it in the interests of developing the gold-mining industry, but I am not quite sure why it has to be so very close to the other mine, and if there is going to be a limit, what kind of limit is the Government going to set? It is said here that it may be possible to utilize the same method for financing other mines that are not too far distant from the parent mine. That is. very vague. The Treasury is obviously going to be affected because it will have to sacrifice some of the income-tax paid by the parent mine, and I think the Minister should tell the House whether they have adopted this new policy as a matter of principle and whether they propose to pursue it and just how far they propose to pursue it and what they regard as a mine not too far distant from the parent mine, and why, if the principle is sound, the exact mileage from the old mine is a matter of great importance.

I am in full sympathy with the Opposition and, to be specific, with the hon. member for Constantia, who has just sat down, because after the Opposition received such a sound drubbing as that which they received in the Budget debate that has just been concluded, it must be quite difficult to come up with something new under this Treasury Vote. I therefore say that I am in full sympathy with them, and one can therefore appreciate that the hon. member, who usually asks for the half-hour to introduce the Vote, did not ask for the customary half-hour this afternoon. One can therefore also understand why he brought up almost nothing here except the three questions he put to the Minister of Finance.

With regard to the first two, I shall leave him in the hands of the Minister altogether, but as regards the third matter he has just brought up, the establishment of a new gold mine, it was really quite unnecessary for him to come with these questions; because it is surely quite clear that this is an attempt on the part of the Government to assist the gold-mining industry, which is operating under very difficult circumstances, to develop new mines. As a result of the tremendous increase in costs we have had in the past number of years, and more specifically as a result of the fact that the gold price has now been fixed since 1937, the mines are caught between the pincers of rising costs and a fixed price for their product.

The Government has therefore in my opinion come UD with a most original scheme to assist the gold-mining industry to establish new mines. This one of which we have just heard will most certainly not be the last either, nor will it be the last within the foreseeable future; for as the hon. member may have seen in the Press, a second one is being planned, for which a name has already been chosen; but the announcement will be made shortly. Surely it is quite evident that this industry, which is of such importance to our country, must be assisted to cope with its tremendous problem of a fixed price on the one hand and rising costs on the other hand.

In the very short time at my disposal I want to address a few words to the hon. the Minister of Finance, and I want to tell him how much we appreciate these new bank notes we have just received. I want to offer him our hearty congratulations on these beautiful new notes, and I am not going to take the series out of my pocket now, because I do not have them, though I did manage to see them. To put it briefly, they are beautiful and of a very handy size. I am particularly glad to see that the R2 note will no longer be used.

Order! The hon. member must rather discuss that under Vote No. 9.

Thank you for your guidance, Sir. Then I should just like to say something about the principle applied by the Treasury in this Budget we have just had, namely to finance a large part of our capital expenditure from Revenue Account. There have often been objections to this principle, because it is said that we prejudice the taxpayer by employing this method of financing. But I want to point out that we are dealing here with a principle which is accepted throughout the financial world, and which is applied by private enterprise as well. If we consider what directorates of companies do, we find that they also make a rule of ploughing back a large portion of their profits instead of distributing it to the people who have a share in that company. If I look at the few I have in front of me, I see that there is one company which distributes only 250 cents out of its income of 722 cents to the people who have a share in it, while the rest is all ploughed back. Similarly, another company earns 199 cents and distributes only 100 cents to its shareholders, and puts the rest back on capital account. Another earns 227 cents and distributed only 130 cents. Another one earned 110 cents and distributed only 42 cents. Another one earned 12 cents and distributed only 7 cents. You will therefore see, Sir, that it is a very sound principle in the financing of private undertakings also. Of course there are material differences between the financing of companies and Government financing, but the principle is essentially the same, namely that one should not consume everything or spend everything every year, but that one should use part of one’s income to finance one’s capital account. We therefore want to express the hope that the Treasury will continue to apply this principle, but if we should again come to a slump period, we trust that that principle will not be applied so strictly, and that as much as possible will then be returned to the taxpayers in order that the economy may be stimulated and may get back into its stride.

The hon. member for Paarl should at least have made sure of his facts. He started off by saying that it is usual for this side of the House to claim the first half-hour, but of course if he looks back at the records of the House he will find that it is not usual to take the half-hour for the Finance Vote. I suggest that before coming into a debate of this kind he should have looked at the previous reports. Later on he referred to the question of the distribution of profits and of some profits being ploughed back. Surely he knows that there is an undistributed profits tax, and that if you accumulate too many profits the Minister has his remedy by means of this tax he imposes. So much for that hon. member, whose contribution, apart from his eulogies to the Minister, has not been very profound.

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the financial matters which have been raised in the past. I refer him to the Hansard of 28th March, 1957, when his predecessor announced the country’s investments in the International Finance Corporation. The country took shares in that corporation and I should like to know from the Minister whether he can give an indication as to whether we still hold those shares and what progress has been made since those days. Then again in 1958 we had the special concessions offered to the American South African Investment Trust Company Ltd. The Minister’s predecessor said it was the intention to provide a medium of investment by Americans in shares of companies operating in the Union, and the Minister then said that he believed this new venture would channel £10,000,000 of new overseas investments into the Union and that it was possible that it might ultimately reach even greater proportions. The Minister, when announcing that, indicated that he was going to give a special concession. The intention was to make provision in the Act so that each company would be treated on its merits but that they would be exempt from tax on their dealings on shares. I should like to know from the Minister what progress has been made and what has taken place over the years. It is true that he inherited both these matters from his predecessor, but I think the time has come for us to have a full report as to what the position is to-day. Are funds still being invested by the American companies in South Africa, and have funds been repatriated? Was the full £10,000,000 invested? A comprehensive report by the Minister will be appreciated.

There is another matter I should like to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister. We have already indicated the necessity for controlling and in some cases curtailing capital expenditure. I should now like to know from the Minister whether in curtailing or prohibiting capital expenditure there is any liaison with other departments—in other words, when the surgeon decides to use his knife does he leave it to someone else to mop up the blood? I ask this question because a very serious matter has been brought to my attention by persons in the city of Durban. The City Council applied for R4,477,000 for the financial year 1966-7 in respect of capital development at Umlazi. As the Minister probably knows, the development of Umlazi is being undertaken as a result of a Cabinet request through the Minister of Bantu Administration. Following directives by the State this amount was first reduced by R1,036,000 and then by a further amount of R1,490,000 leaving a final allocation of only R1,950,000. The total expenditure up to 31st July, 1966, was estimated to be R2,700,000, an over-expenditure of R749,000 which was reduced by the utilization of other financial resources to R149,000. The implications of these cuts are these. The value of uncompleted buildings at Umlazi is estimated to be R1,324,000. Are these buildings going to be allowed to remain half completed and has there been any collaboration between the Minister and his colleagues in respect of this matter? Have they made any representations to him about what should be done meanwhile? Capital charges in respect of these uncompleted structures amount to R105,920, the value of expendable stores amounts to R240,000 while the deterioration of idle plant and equipment is estimated to be R400,000. This is a serious matter, Mr. Chairman. A highly skilled organization has been built up, an organization consisting of 75 Whites and 2,457 non-Whites. What is more, these non-Whites are people who have been specially trained as building workers. At a request of the Department these have been specially trained and have been employed on the job for some time. They must now be disbanded and according to my information it will be impossible to reassemble them when building work is again resumed. Therefore, a new labour force will then have to be trained at a cost which is estimated to be R1,000,000 if they have to be trained to the same level of efficiency as those who have been disbanded. So these Bantu labourers now become unemployed and the question arises whether they will now be endorsed back to the homelands, whether they will be sent to farms, or whether their skills are going to be lost entirely. This is a serious matter because I am told that as a result of the disbandment of this labour force the economy of Umlazi will suffer to the extent of R100,000 per month. There are Bantu traders in that area with families dependent upon them. You can imagine what the effect of this decision will be on the people living in that area. I know the Minister has to make even harder decisions in cutting loan funds. What I should like to know, however, is whether the Treasury if they decide to cut consult the other Departments involved and whether they have been given any indication of what the effects of their decision will be. These matters have been brought to my attention by industrialists who have pointed out the seriousness of the matter. I should therefore like to know from the Minister whether he can give us any indication whether the Departments concerned are going to do anything about the effects of the decision which has been made.

Mr. Chairman, under this Vote I should like to discuss with the hon. the Minister the Borckenhagen Commission, which was appointed to inquire into the financial relations between the Central Government on the one hand and provincial administrations and local authorities on the other hand. Mr. Chai-man. I should like to know from you whether I may discuss this matter here.

Order! That does not fall under this Vote. The hon. member may discuss that under Vote No. 7.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to refer to the item “Control of Financial Institutions”. I have no intention of criticizing the institutions but should like to know from the Minister how this control operates. A very great responsibility rests upon the officers, and especially the senior officers of his Department in this matter and therefore I should like to know from the Minister how they in actual fact operate. There are banks, the stock exchange, insurance companies and various other financial institutions. How is the work of controlling these bodies organized. Are inspections held? In short, in what manner is the work carried out? I should say that the less investigation and inspection, the better in most cases.

The next item to which I should like to draw attention, is item G, “Compensation: Coin Operated Machines”, on page 16. Does this item relate to the new coinage system which we have introduced? Which machine companies have been compensated? Does this item merely refer to parking meters only or has it been extended beyond that? The amount involved is considerable. Last year it was R1,000,000 while this year it is R300,000. In view of this I should like to have this information from the hon. the Minister.

I should also like to query this item relating to compensation in respect of coin operated machines. The principle of compensating the owners of coin operated machines was accepted by this House and by the Government where, as a result of the change in our coinage, machines required modification or replacement. In the present Budget the Minister has created a similar situation, a situation to which I drew attention during the debate on the Budget. However, I got no reply. There are some thousands of cigarette slot machines operating on a 20c coin. Where necessary these machines supplied the change of one or two cents, as the case may be. As a result of the increase in the price of cigarettes by the Minister every one of these machines has become useless. The price of a packet of 20 cigarettes in future will be 21c or 22c. Now if these machines have to be operated by inserting two 20c coins, change of either 18 or 19 cents will have to be given. Even if a 5c coin is added to a 20c coin change of 3 or 4 cents, as the case may be. will have to be given. The service which these machines provided is of importance especially to people who work night shifts or others who have to work while the normal sources of supply are not open. Does the Minister intend giving any compensation to the owners of these slot machines or does he intend taking any steps to ensure that this service will continue. Will there be any compensation to those people who as a result of the Minister’s taxation now find themselves laden with useless machinery?

Order! While the hon. member for Paarl was addressing the Committee on the question of banknotes, I ruled that he could not raise that matter on this Vote. I have since investigated the matter further and have established that he was quite in order in raising it on this Vote.

I shall deal with the various points in the order in which they have been raised. The hon. member for Constantia asked a number of questions about our contact with the Reserve Bank. Well, I am in a position to inform him that our contact with the Reserve Bank is very intimate. This is a rather strange position especially in view of the fact that most of the central banks, for instance of the United Kingdom, of the U.S.A., of Canada and of Australia, are all State-owned while our Reserve Bank is not. It is true, however, that the Government has a majority of the directors because we appoint three directors in addition to the Governor and the two Deputy Governors. In matters of monetary import, however, there is always the closest collaboration between the Reserve Bank and the Treasury. That, I think, is to the advantage of the country as a whole because thereby we pool our knowledge and resources. As a matter of fact, it is a scheme which has worked very well and we have not had the unfortunate experience which they have had in Canada where there was a distinct breach between the Minister of Finance and the Governor of their Central Bank. We have avoided this sort of thing in the past and I hope we will also do so in future.

Then there is the question of Dr. de Kock’s appointment. I can give the assurance that there is nothing sinister about it. There is no question that he is the liaison between the Reserve Bank and the Treasury because without any officer in that capacity we have, as I have said, the closest contact with the Reserve Bank. The position is that Dr. de Kock has merely been seconded to help in the Treasury and not only that but also to give the Reserve Bank some insight into the facts of life. If there is not sufficient contact with political realities, they might be inclined to think that they are sitting in an ivory tower and thus it may arise that while they may be theoretically correct, they have not been in such close contact as the Treasury has been with the hard facts of political life. This is a reason why Dr. de Kock has been seconded for one year. We do not want to take him away too long. Under this arrangement he still does some work for the Reserve Bank although it is a type of work which is common to both. He helps, for instance, with the quarterly reports of the Reserve Bank as well as with its economic statements. In addition he helps us whenever we can make use of him. As I said. I think this is an arrangement which is to the mutual benefit really of the Reserve Bank as well as of the Treasury.

Another point raised by the hon. member for Constantia related to Mr. Popov. All that I know of this gentleman is that he offered to raise a loan of $15,000,000 for the Atlas company, a firm which, as hon. members know, is engaged in the manufacturing of aeroplanes in South Africa. Naturally the Government has a very great interest in this matter. I understand that the loan will be for ten years at a rate of interest of 5 per cent. These are very favourable terms. The subscription to the loan could be made in blocked rands. In view of the national importance of the Atlas company and the difficulty of obtaining other sources of finance for their necessary work the Reserve Bank agreed to the scheme in principle. The Reserve Bank will, as in such cases, guarantee the loan and will in turn be guaranteed by the Government. The scheme will mean that blocked rands which normally can be withdrawn after five years by investment in non-resident bonds or immediately through arbitrage dealings will now become transferable after ten years. If there are other funds apart from the blocked rands which they may want to use, funds, for example, of emigrants who cannot take their money away with them, they can draw those funds but then it will mean that over a period of ten years the money will be allowed to leave the country. That is all I know about the arrangements with Mr. Popov. Certain blocked funds which are normally not withdrawable after five years may, however, also be used but now it is ten years instead of five. If this scheme does eventuate it will be of great financial interest to South Africa and if it does not eventuate we cannot, as far as I can see, lose on it because for this arrangement to be finalized the amount of $15,000,000 must be handed over to us.

Who is Mr. Popov?

He is not a friend of mine. However, I did not consult the “who’s who”, which I could have done had I known that the hon. member would ask me such a question! The point I should like to bring home to hon. members is that there is no possible risk to the Government in this arrangement. The money must be delivered to us. If there is any risk that risk is Mr. Popov’s. [Interjections.] Well, you know another government may arrive …

Are you going to leave us with the baby?

Well, I do not think Mr. Popov will have any sleepless nights on that score, neither the hon. member for Transkei.

By whom is the R1,000,000 commission being paid?

As I understand this scheme, Mr. Popov gets his commission because he sells these certificates at R110 if they are marked R100 to these people with the blocked rands. They pay R110 and in that way Mr. Popov is compensated. We, therefore, do not pay him any commission. That is all that I know about him. That is all I know about it.

Then the hon. member raised the question of this new gold mine south of the Vaal. I want to say at once that there is no question of a tax concession. A certain proposition was put before the Treasury. It was put to the Treasury that here was a possibility of opening a new mine south of the Vaal; the cost of opening a new mine was so prohibitive that it could not be considered; there would be no money to finance it, but if it could be worked with another mine and if they could get rights from an intermediate financing company, then they would be able to work it with their own mine, and that would entail, at the beginning, a loss of taxation by the Government, but in the long run there would be a net gain, and I think the net gain is something of the order of R30,000,000 ultimately. The question was whether we should allow this new mine to be opened. The advice that we got from the Mines Department was that there was no hope of this new mine being opened unless some assistance of this nature was given. The assistance is not in the form of any tax concession; it takes the shape of allowing an established mine to begin with a new mine, and in that way there will be a loss of taxation for a number of years, but ultimately it will swing over to the other side and there will be a considerable gain for my successor in office.

Hear, hear!

That will be in about the year 1990! So in that respect, I can also say “hear, hear”. We want to extend the life of our gold mines as long as possible, and if this is allowed it will mean a considerable extension in the life of Vaal Reefs. The advice that we had from the Government Mining Engineer was definitely in favour of this. We laid down certain reservations, which were accepted by the Company, and I think in all the circumstances this is a good scheme. But there is no principle involved in this matter. Each case will have to be dealt with on its own merits. We are not going to say that this is open to every old company that wishes to start a new mine. We will have to consider the circumstances and weigh the advantages and disadvantages, and if the advantages to the country outweigh the disadvantages, then we will do so again. In this case we came to the conclusion that it was definitely to our advantage.

*The hon. member for Paarl spoke of the bank notes, and as he has now been ruled in order, I want to tell him that this is actually the finalization of the process we started with the coins. This is the other part which is now also being finalized. The R2, as he rightly said, is now falling away altogether, because we want our people to get away from the idea of pounds, shillings and pence. If they see a R2 note, they are in many cases still inclined to think of it as £1.

†The hon. member for Pinetown referred to the I.F.C. (International Finance Corporation). The position is that we had shares in it and we still have them. South Africa has received no loans from the I.F.C. It is not a question of the Government borrowing money from the I.F.C., but private organizations are entitled to borrow if they are able to satisfy the conditions imposed. So far no South African company has applied. No dividends have been declared and the I.F.C. falls directly under the World Bank. This is one of its subsidiaries, it is under the same aegis.

I think the next question raised by the hon. member for Pinetown was in regard to the American-South African Investment Corporation. The information which I am able to give him now is that the amount originally invested from abroad by Asaic, to give it its short title, was 33,000,000 dollars in 1958. Hon. members will remember that in 1958 we had a great shortage of foreign capital, and here an offer was made to introduce $33,000,000, subject to the condition that it will not be taken out again for a period of 10 years. Through capital appreciation and the ploughing back of dividends this amount has now grown to R47,000,000. At the time the Government gave certain concessions to this company about to be formed. The concession was that they would not have to pay the ordinary tax on acquiring these shares; they got them direct from the mining houses; they did not buy them on the Stock Exchange. Any tax which would otherwise have been paid was therefore not paid. On the other hand they also gave us a guarantee. We gave them a guarantee of repatriation of the capital, including capital appreciation, and we also gave them forward exchange cover for a period of five years. This was subsequently extended to 1968. The maximum amount for which guarantees would be given was limited to R48,000,000. The whole matter will come again for consideration and review in 1968. No South African is allowed to purchase those shares. They are a portfolio of South African shares held in America and sold there. South African residents do not purchase them, but naturally, as in the case of any open-end trust, they are allowed to sell and repurchase the shares to make up their portfolio. They have been ploughing back a lot of dividends which would otherwise have gone out of the country and raising their capital which has now grown by about $33,000,000. As I have said, the whole matter will come up again for consideration and review. It was passed by this House in 1958 and it will come up for review again in 1968.

The other point that the hon. member mentioned was the question of certain uncompleted buildings. He asked whether there was any collaboration between the Department and the Treasury in regard to the cutting down of expenditure on capital works. Yes, there is. We do not lay down a certain percentage and then tell each Department to cut down its expenditure by that percentage, but we first discuss the matter at departmental level and afterwards at Cabinet level. The matter is discussed and the Departments usually inform us that they are able to cut down their Votes by a certain amount, but naturally we do not know the precise details as to how they are going to try to cut down their expenditure. That will be putting too much of a burden on us, but if there are any new projects, then the priority to be given to those new projects is discussed and examined very closely by the Cabinet with a view to seeing whether or not we can approve of those new projects. Where provision has been made for an existing project, then all we can do, as we did last year, is to make a general appeal to the Departments to try to stretch out as far as possible any agreements that they have made involving capital expenditure during the present year.

The hon. member for Kensington asked me about financial institutions. I think a very onerous task rests on the officials dealing with financial institutions. A large proportion of the companies falling under their jurisdiction gives them no trouble but there are always certain companies which they have to observe very closely. I introduced a Bill into this House some time ago to give them the right of inspection, to increase their inspectorate. Hon. members will see that we now have a staff of six inspectors but we still make use, if necessary, of the services of external inspectors. I think on the whole I can say that the inspectorate works very well indeed and I have had no complaints about their work.

The hon. member also raised the question of the new coinage and of firms which have to be compensated, that is to say, compensation paid to firms which have had to have their automatic and adding machines altered as a result of our switching over to the decimal system. That is paid to all firms. Any firm which could satisfy the special committee that we appointed that they either had to get new machines or that alterations had to be made to their existing machines, were entitled to compensation and they were paid compensation. Naturally the bulk of it was paid out last year. Hon. members will see that this year we are only making provision for R300,000 whereas last year it was R1,000,000 for this purpose. It is still below the quota that we had in mind. The hon. member for Point has asked me whether this will also apply in the case of cigarette machines which have been adjusted for the sale of cigarettes at a certain price. Naturally not. It has never been done before. This is not the first time that the price of cigarettes has been increased either because of Government taxation or because of the price policy of the firm itself.

This is the first time it has ever gone over 20 cents.

There is a guarantee that the coin will not be changed. If there is a change in the size of the coin then we will pay compensation, but if there is a change in the price then naturally there can be no compensation and we do not propose to entertain that idea at all. I hope therefore that the hon. member will not ask me for this extra expenditure in view of the Opposition’s plea that the Government must cut down its own expenditure!

Arising out of the Minister’s reply, I want to refer him to what was said by his predecessor when this question of the American-South African Investment Trust Company was first mooted. The Minister’s predecessor in introducing it said this—

This organization was exempt from that under the proposals of the Minister’s predecessor. But in the same volume of Hansard the Minister’s predecessor said this—

The point is that it was clear from the whole tenor of the statement made by the Minister’s predecessor when he introduced this matter was that this was a five-year deal; the Minister now says it is ten years.

It has been extended.

Yes, I accept the Minister’s reply that it has been extended, but my submission is that the House gave this its blessing for a period of five years. Here is an organization which is making profits and which has increased its capital from R33,000,000 to R47,000,000 and it has been exempt from taxation. The period has now been extended for a further five years. Might I suggest to the Minister that if it is going to be further extended, he should come to the House. He came to the House in the first instance;, he then extended it once after five years and gave no information to the House, although he agreed at the time that it was a new departure and that it was a concession given to this specific organization. I submit that if the Minister is going to extend it again in 1968, he should come to this House. He has already done it once without referring to the House and without telling the House anything about it. Sir, this is a very major concession, and I suggest that if the Minister intends to extend the period or to give any further concessions, he should come to the House. That would be the proper way to do it.

Then I want to put a further question to the hon. the Minister with regard to Mr. Popov. Mr. Popov is getting a guarantee presumably from the Reserve Bank; he is taking no risks. The Minister admits that he will be making a profit on the commission. This man is making a profit out of South African blocked rand. If I buy and sell blocked rand as a matter of business I am taxed on my profit. Is the Minister going to tax Mr. Popov on the profit that he makes on blocked rand or is Mr. Popov going to get special exemption? If any bank in this country buys and sells foreign exchange it is taxed by the Minister on its profits. What special advantage is Mr. Popov bringing to South Africa which justifies this special concession? I would like to know from the Minister why the Reserve Bank cannot deal with this transaction, just as well as Mr. Popov can, thus retaining the profits in South Africa? I hope the Minister will give us some assurance because the House raised its eyebrows some ten years ago when this special concession was given to our American friends. I must say that our American friends have invested in South Africa and have done South African industry a tremendous amount of good. Sir, when special concessions are given to special people they must be brought out in the full light of day. The Minister’s predecessor brought out in the full light of day the concessions he was giving to this American company. He indicated to the House that it was for five years. It has been extended for five years without this fact being brought to the notice of the House. I hope that the Minister will now give us some further information with regard to this American-South African Investment Company and give us the assurance that if further conditions are imposed or introduced in 1968, the House will be given full information. I hope that the hon. the Minister will give us a satisfactory reply in regard to this new special kind of transaction which Mr. Popov is going to enter into. I should also like the hon. the Minister to tell us whether it is his intention to tax him on the commission he is making in selling South African currency and if not, why not.

Mr. Chairman. I should like to revert to this story of the American-South African Investment Corporation. These shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Although South Africans may not be shareholders, Americans may be shareholders. They trade under these very favourable conditions of not paying company income tax as other companies do. Not only that, but they have the right to withdraw that capital if the Security Exchange Commission says that it should be withdrawn. In other words, all the advantages are given to them. South Africa does not get all the advantages. They also have the option of withdrawing. I remember 1958 when the hon. the Minister of Finance of those days introduced this scheme. But he envisaged not only one company. He envisaged this form of investment being developed. Now, it has not been developed. I should like the hon. the Minister to tell us why it has not been extended and, when this company was given the privilege of extending for five years, when that was decided upon.

The next point I wish to make is this: I have received a number of letters, and I am sure the hon. the Minister has as well, asking why, in South Africa, advertisements for the sale of goods can be placed in pounds. I do not know what the hon. the Minister’s attitude is to that. People advertize a motor-car or a house or any other saleable goods in pounds. I do not know whether the hon. the Minister has received representations about a change. I have, and I should like to know in reply what the hon. the Minister’s attitude is.

Mr. Chairman, in the Income Tax Act provision is made for this agreement with the American South African Investment Corporation. No time limit was fixed. There was therefore no need for me to come to Parliament after the expiration of the period of five years. Parliament at the time gave the Minister of Finance permission in respect of an undefined period. In other words, it is now for the Minister to decide. Parliament has granted him that power. That is the reason why I did not come to Parliament when the period of five years expired. We were not prepared to do it on exactly the same terms. I think we made some alterations. It was not what they asked for. I think we gave them much less than they asked for. But on the whole it was inconvenient in 1963 to allow this money to be sent out of the country again. We have, in other words, their guarantee that they would not withdraw the money. If it were ordinary shares held in America, they could of course at any time have sold it on the market here and in due course taken their capital out of the country. Now we have tried to prevent that happening.

As far as Mr. Popov is concerned, I want to say that there is no remission of taxation whatsoever. No concession has been granted to him. He is liable to the ordinary taxation laws of the country. No exception has been given to him at all. Atlas is really a private company. We are only interested in it in the sense that we are guaranteeing this loan. It is not a direct loan to the Government. We would never dream of concluding a loan of this kind. It is a private company and all that we are involved in is the guaranteeing of that loan. They get the R15,000,000 and I say good luck to them.

I should now like to refer to the other point raised by the hon. member for Kensington. I am happy to say that I am in complete agreement with him. I think it is now five years that we have had the decimal system in existence. It is high time that the pound should now disappear. I have already made an appeal last year when I spoke at a Mint ceremony on the eve of the introduction into circulation of some of our new coins. I also repeated it afterwards. And I say again that there is no need for South Africa now after five years to make use of a currency which is no longer the currency of this country. If this goes on I shall have to consider—and I hope the hon. member will support me in this—whether legislation will not be necessary. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, I should like to explain that I have not expressed a view at all. I have not said that I think it should be changed. I said that I have received numerous letters on the subject from people saying that it should be changed. I have no strong views on the matter. I should, however, like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that we should try and get the public with us if he is contemplating a change. It might be necessary to quote in both currencies for a period. For example, if a motor-car is for sale at R1,600 it should be permitted to quote the figure of £800 in brackets as well. It might be necessary to have a transition period. I do not like forcing the public to accept. The public have been most co-operating in the introduction of decimal coinage. I think they have been wonderful. Perhaps this stage has been prolonged. But the point I raised with the Minister is this: I have received these requests from people.

And so did I.

I have had certain suggestions from them and they have asked me whether anything is going to be done about it.

I should like to know what to reply to them. But now I know. I know now what the hon. the Minister’s views are and I can tell them what is being considered. But I myself have not advocated it. Should I be asked, my opinion would be that for a period both currencies should be quoted together as in the case of guineas.

I am surprised that the hon. member for Kensington can come along and tell us here that he has no strong views on this situation in South Africa. The hon. member served with us on the Committee in which we devised the new coinage system in South Africa by exchanging ideas and arguments. I think it is the hon. member’s duty to impress upon the public they should please get rid of this habit in future, and I hope he will carry out that duty. The hon. the Minister of Finance introduced this new coinage system and urged our people in speeches he made in public to accept this system. Mr. Chairman, I think it will be an evil day if the Opposition refuses to give its full co-operation to the Government in this respect and to advise their people as well to advertise in rands and cents instead of pounds, shillings and pennies. I do not believe legislation to be necessary in this connection. Everyone must only do his duty. I want to ask the hon. member to oppose this attitude strongly on public platforms and at public meetings wherever he goes. I think that is the least we can do. Will the hon. member for Kensington give an undertaking that he and his party will do that?

This has nothing to do with the party as such.

I am sorry that the hon. the Minister has seen fit to talk about legislating over a thing like this. I am afraid he has been keeping bad company. He is sitting too near the hon. the Minister of Justice at the moment. It is such a silly thing to talk about. The decimal system has been in operation for some years. I suppose the majority of our population—I will not say 50 per cent but nevertheless a very large percentage of the people in the country, especially the younger ones—know nothing else. The vast bulk of the people have fallen into the practice of talking about rands. It is only a modicum of people who are still talking about pounds. Occasionally one sees an advertisement in rands with the equivalent in pounds alongside in brackets, and I think this is largely due to the fact that we have kept the two-rand note going which is identical to the old pound note. And I think now that the two-rand note is disappearing that, in a matter of 12 months or so this whole question would be something of the past. I should like to urge the hon. the Minister not to start threatening people about what he is going to do if things do not come right. It will come right. And I think as a matter of fact that this whole switch-over to a decimal system has reflected the greatest possible credit on all concerned. This does not apply only to the authorities, but also to the people of the country. I think the whole population has taken to it very smoothly and has co-operated fully. I have no doubts that within a year or two the hon. the Minister’s letter bag containing complaints from the public will contain complaints about other matters. He will still have complaints, but I think that particular complaint will die away. He therefore need not worry about legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I want to disagree very strongly with the hon. member for Kensington, who asked that there should be a period of adaptation from pounds to rands. Have we not had five years of adaptation already? For the past five years we have given the public the opportunity to become familiar with the new system. Neither do I want to ask that legislation be introduced to get rid of this habit of advertising in pounds. If you had not ruled me out of order in the first place, Sir, I would have cleared up this matter from the start. I certainly think that the problem will be solved with the disappearance of the pound notes, or rather the two-rand notes, which are still nothing but pound notes to many people. But I want to submit to the hon. the Minister for his consideration that he should not wait until all these pound notes have become old and shabby. He must have them withdrawn from circulation quickly.

Mr. Chairman, there is another monetary unit which is not really a monetary unit and over which I know, however, the hon. the Minister of Finance has no control. I am, of course, referring to the guinea. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to make a serious appeal to the public to lay to rest the guinea once and for all. The guinea has no place in our coinage system. On the one hand, it has only snob value. Some people like to say that they bought a mink coat for 500 guineas. It is supposed to sound better than to say they bought it for R1,000. As a matter of fact, the guinea has nothing but snob value. On the other hand, some people, particularly auctioneers, try to get a little bit more from the pockets of the public, because, instead of using pounds and rands at auctions, they use guineas and gain another 5 per cent. This is nothing else but an underhand method of robbing the public. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to state clearly and seriously that we should get rid of these relics of the colonial period of former years once and for all.

Mr. Chairman, I trust that the hon. member for Paarl will forgive me if I do not follow his thought. It costs enough in any language and any coinage at the moment. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he would be good enough to clarify his policy on a matter which is becoming one of urgency, namely the financial relations between the Government and the Provinces. The hon. the Minister will be aware, I am sure, of the growing imbalance …

Order! The hon. member should discuss that under Vote 7.

With respect, Mr. Chairman, it is a question of the Minister’s policy in this regard and not the actual expenditure. That is why I brought it up under his Vote.

The hon. member can do it under Vote 7. He can discuss the Minister’s policy there.

Mr. Chairman, I surely hope they are not going to approach this problem, the hon. the Minister’s problem, in the spirit that was exemplified in the speech of the hon. member for Sunnyside. The hon. the Minister has been successful in persuading the public. And I think an appeal to the public on the lines that has been suggested would have the effect. I quite agree that a man selling goods will naturally try and make the price seem as low as possible. And if he is a buyer he will say that you are charging him a very high price. Now, Sir, if one travels abroad one finds in countries two or three systems in operation. They quote prices in dollars, in pounds, and in rands. They quote in whichever currency you like and they are all advertised. They tell you that you can travel at a certain price and they will give it to you in two or three currencies. And I think we in South Africa are still at a stage where the older people especially are thinking in terms of the old currency. I will try to assist the Minister in persuading people. But we have been so successful in persuasion, that to use compulsion would, I think, really be a great mistake.

Vote put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote 6.—“Public Debt,

R76,501,000”.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister, during the course of his Budget speech, announced that he had a new series of loans for Post Office savings. I should like to know from the hon. the Minister when the public could start taking advantage of those new Post Office savings bonds and when the necessary documents will be available at post offices. Inquiries already made have shown that there are none available and employees at certain post offices have indicated that there was no possibility of getting them for at least another two months.

I said in my Budget speech that they would be available from the 1st October.

Vote put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote 7,—“Provincial Administrations, R176,264,000”.

Mr. Chairman, as I tried to indicate a little earlier I wonder whether the hon. the Minister would be good enough to elaborate on the policy in regard to financial relations between the Central Government and the Provinces. He will be aware, Sir, that there is an increasing imbalance between revenue and expenditure at provincial level and that it has been more and more necessary over the last few years for the Provinces to utilize an increasing amount of revenue to finance capital works. This has been going on and it would seem that in spite of this being done the essential services that should be provided by the provinces are still not being provided at an adequate rate. There was a lot of talk during the last few days, Mr. Chairman, about the infra-structure of our economy. But in so far as any infra-structure of our provinces are concerned, there is a great deal to be done before one can feel that their finances are on a sound basis.

The Administrator of the Cape, as long ago as four years, in 1962, used these words in presenting his budget—

And then he went on to say, and I would remind you. Sir, that this was four years ago—

Well, four financial years have passed and we still find that the Cape Provincial Council is sitting at present with a budget—and this is more or less common to all the provinces—of approved and necessary capital expenditure of R170,000,000 to provide the essential services, in education, for roads, hospitals, etc. in the province, and it has available the sum of R17,000,000. What it means is that the province is going to take 10 or 12 years to catch up and to complete what is now needed. I put the question to the Minister during this Session as to whether he had received a report from the Schumann Commission, and the Minister in his reply of 5th August stated that he has had the report in his possession since February, 1964, i.e. for 2½ years. But we still do not know what is in that report. I wonder whether it is necessary to keep it on the secret list any longer. The Minister said he was waiting for the final report of the Borckenhagen Committee, but I do not think that that necessitates our continuing with the present unsatisfactory state of affairs as far as the financial relations between the Central Government and the provinces are concerned. Would the Minister perhaps indicate whether this matter has been dealt with by the Schumann Commission? Then there is another aspect which I am sure is dealt with in that report, or at least I hope so, because it is certainly vital to the Cape Province. That is the fact that we have the vast North Western Cape Area being developed. There is much mining activity and most of the companies operating there are registered in the Transvaal, with the result that their vehicle licence fees are paid to the Transvaal and the levy on their company tax is paid to the Transvaal and does not come to the Cape. They are using a vast network of roads which must be maintained by the Caoe and there is no financial benefit accruing to the Cape. These are matters which should be considered. Perhaps the Minister could tell us whether the Commission considered those matters and whether they made any recommendations. I know the difficulties. I know that the Minister has an annual call from each of the provinces in regard to finances, but I think it is generally accepted that the present arrangement is no longer the best. The time has come for something to be done either to implement the Schumann Report or to make some other satisfactory change in regard to those relations.

It will probably not happen frequently that I follow upon the hon. member for Green Point and agree with him on certain matters. I should also like to hear from the hon. the Minister what has become of the Borckenhagen Committee’s report, the committee which was appointed by the previous Minister of Finance to inquire into the financial relations between the Central Government, the Provinces and the local authorities. From time to time we, as members of this House, have received interim reports from the Borckenhagen Committee. Now I should like to know from the Minister whether he has received the final report of that Committee, and if so. whether the Minister will lay it upon the Table shortly. If the Minister has received the report, is he going to publish a White Paper in connection with it? I should also like to know whether any decisions have been taken with regard to these interim reports, which were made available to us from time to time, and whether any steps have been taken by the Central Government in connection with the recommendations of this Committee. If we look at the estimates before us—and this is where I may differ with my hon. friend—we find that the subsidies to be paid to the Provinces this vear show a net increase of R14,362,000, despite the fact that Coloured education and Indian education have been taken away from them, and that the Central Government has created much better facilities for commercial and technical education in the various cities in the country. But what causes me most concern is the tremendous over lapping between the Central Government, the provincial governments and the local authorities.

If we look at the third interim report of the Borckenhagen Committee, which deals with the financing of road works, we find that no fewer than four concerns are responsible for the network of roads in the Republic. There is the National Transport Commission, the Provincial Administrations, the Divisional Councils and the urban local authorities. Four concerns are responsible for the roads, and that has to cause overlapping. If we take health services, there is the Central Government, for whom the local authorities act as agents, and then there are the Provincial Administrations, which provide health services in the respective provinces. I want to submit that the worst overlapping occurs, in fact, in respect of the health of our people. In the past few days I read that as regards the larger City Councils, they are now going to provide special ambulance services at the larger urban hospitals. We find that the local authorities already have an ambulance service, and we find that more than one local authority has to provide an ambulance service to serve one hospital. If the Provincial Administration introduces a special ambulance service for special cases, there will be tremendous overlapping once again. I therefore want to make a plea to the Minister this afternoon to inform us as soon as possible what the findings of the Schumann Commission and of the Borckenhagen Committee have been. I am convinced that if we examine those findings thoroughly, we will find that there will be advantageous recommendations which will counter overlapping, and that will be to the advantage of the Central Government. the provincial governments and also the local authorities.

The position in regard to this very thorny problem of the financial relationships between the Central Government, the provincial authorities and the local authorities, has been receiving attention for some considerable time. We already have the reports of the Schumann Commission to hand and it has already been examined on a departmental level, but we cannot continue with it before we receive the final report of the Borckenhagen Committee because the Borckenhagen Committee again provides for the transference of certain sources of taxation from the Provincial Administration to the local authorities.

We have received the first part of the final report of the Borckenhagen Committee, but have not yet received the second part. It is obvious that we could not act on these interim reports; we had to see the picture as a whole. I just want to tell the hon. member for Green Point that the idea is that after it has been properly examined by the Cabinet they will pool their thoughts on the matter and draw up a White Paper, and they will then hold discussions with the Province. Subsequently a White Paper will be drawn up in regard to what the attitude of the Government is. But I am in complete agreement with the hon. member for Brakpan that there is tremendous overlapping. But now the reply one obtains is the following, if you ask the one man whether there is overlapping then he says that everything should be given to the Provincial Administration, while on the other hand the other one says that the entire service should be transferred to the Central Government.

It would really require the wisdom of Solomon to resolve the matter. In the meantime I can just say that the actual difficulty of the Provincial Administrations does not lie in their current expenditure, but in their capital loans. For current expenditure they have a formula which I think is very favourable for their work, so favourable that most of them have been able to build up capital funds. Out of those capital funds which they built up out of revenue, they have been able to accomplish many things for which they were unable to obtain loan capital from us. Apart from the fact that we make an annual allowance of 6 per cent under that formula, there is also something else, and that is the amount of almost R28,000,000 which you see here. We have said that if the Government makes any changes in salaries which also affect the Provinces then we shall pay 50 per cent of the Provinces’ expenditure.

You will see that what we have here now is the subsidy on expenditure incurred by the Provinces as a result of the 1958 and subsequent revision of salary scales, the consolidation of cost-of-living allowances, holiday savings bonuses, contributions to the widows’ pension fund in respect of provincial employees on a rand-for-rand basis, and increased allowances to provincial pensioners in terms of Act 38 of 1957. There you see a total amount of almost R28,000,000. That is over and above the normal formula. Therefore I do not think that their complaint is in connection with revenue, I think it is in connection with loans.

It is a fact that as in the case with all the Departments, in spite of what the Opposition says, we had to cut many of their essential services as well. We could not give them what they asked for, and just as in the case of the other Departments they also had to cut down expenses because we want to limit the expenditure of the Government as much as possible. But we cannot finalize this matter until such time as the final part of the report of the Borckenhagen Committee is available and we have had sufficient time to go into that matter. That is why I shall also ask in the Finance Act that the old formula should continue for another year.

Can the hon. the Minister tell us when he expects the final report?

That is a question which must be put to Mr. Borckenhagen, but I do not think it can be much longer now.

I wonder whether the Minister would not give some thought to making available a copy of the Schumann Commission’s Report. The terms of reference of that commission and some of the investigations which we know were carried out will have a long-term effect on planning of services and on various other matters where there is this overlapping at present. The Minister has had that report in his possession for over two years. I am sure it will do a lot of good if he would consider releasing it for consideration and study by those concerned with provincial administrations. I think the Minister would perhaps hesitate to give me an answer about that now, but I shall be glad if he would just indicate that he will think again along those lines.

Just as we as the Central Government can take certain steps to curb expenditure by the Provincial Councils, so the Provincial Councils too can surely exert their influence on the local authorities. If we notice that some of the local authorities pay a town clerk a salary of R14,500. I think it is time that we as the Central Government raised our voices if the Provincial Councils do not do so themselves. I wonder whether the Minister should not ascertain through the Provincial Councils what the position is, or what can be done to this state of affairs. I think it is preposterous that a town clerk should get a salary of R14,500. It is nearly the same salary as that of the Prime Minister. If the Provincial Councils cannot exert their influence on the local authorities, I think the Central Government should reduce their subsidy.

Vote put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote 9,—“South African Mint, R993,000”.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to raise what I believe to be a very serious matter in regard to the minting and sale of sets of South African coins by the South African Mint. Every year specimen or proof sets of these coins are minted, bearing the date of the year in which they are minted. They are arranged in attractive cases and offered for sale by the South African Mint. Some of these are called long sets (containing two gold coins) and some are the so-called short sets (containing only the silver, nickel and bronze coins). Basically it is a very good idea to make these collector’s pieces available in South Africa and abroad. I wish to deal to-day in particular with the sale of the short sets of coins. These sets are offered for sale by the Mint at R3.50 each. This represents a profit to the Mint of between 60 and 70 per cent per set. In 1964-5 the total profit on the sale of all sets amounted to approximately R37,500. As I have said this is basically a good idea, but as happens so often with this Government, a good idea can be transformed into something bad in practice. The Mint makes a tidy profit and the collector usually gets a good set of coins. There is, however, one fundamental requirement when making these sets of coins available to the public, namely that they must be available to the public in a reasonable quantity. Otherwise, there is a possibility of a highly undesirable and reprehensible black market arising which can only benefit the few. I believe that this requirement is being scandalously ignored by the Minister and the South African Mint to-day.

This afternoon I wish to accuse the Government of, firstly, in the face of a vast and overwhelming demand for these sets of coins, particularly for the short sets, deliberately minting only a very small number—it is the right of the Government to decide how many will be printed—out of which unknown persons possibly can, and are, making vast profits; and secondly I wish to accuse the Government of deliberately keeping the list of people who are entitled to buy these sets of coins as exclusive as possible, thereby excluding the public at large.

Let us take the first accusation. In 1965, altogether 20,000 short sets were minted. Everyone was sold. The startling fact, however, is that, while 20,000 sets were minted, applications were received locally and from abroad for no less than 1,250,000 sets. The Government, knowing full well that there might be such a huge demand, only minted 20,000 sets.

It is quite clear that the supply did not even remotely approach the demand. The Government knew that there would be such a vast demand, because the previous year there had been a demand, for 750,000 such sets. One side effect of this policy of the Government is that it could only make a profit of R37,000, on the 20,000 sets it had sold, while it could have sold more than a million sets and made a profit of more than R1,500,000—one way, as I suggested to the hon. the Minister during the Budget debate, of reducing his deficit. It is also clear that the Government, far from changing its policy, intends deliberately following the policy of minting a limited number of these sets again this year. Knowing full well that there may be a demand in the zone of a million or more, the Government has already decided to print only 15,000 short sets.

It would be perfectly easy for the Mint once it sees the demand rising for instance to 100,000 or to 200,000, to mint additional sets. Why was that not done? It is unbelievable that this was not done. I am quite sure that someone or some people are making hundreds of thousands, if not millions of rand out of these sets of coins. The country is entitled to know who these people are and why the profit from the sale of these sets cannot accrue to the taxpayer himself.

Of course the Mint is deliberately keeping the number of sets minted low. It is deliberately avoiding making a larger profit for the taxpayer. But I believe that someone is making money. I mentioned earlier that the Mint is selling these short sets at R3.50 a set. Do you know that the lucky person who bought one of these sets for that amount last year can to-day get R40 for it, a profit of more than 1,100 per cent? In a reply to a question I put to him this Session, the Minister told me that he was aware of these profits. But, as in the case of the Prime Minister and the cost of living, he was merely watching the position and doing nothing about it.

My second accusation is that the ordinary public is deliberately being deprived of the right to buy these sets of coins. Not only were they in short supply, but there exists a special list of people who have priority over John Citizen when he wants to buy a set of coins. I asked the Minister about this. He was quite cagey. In his reply to me, he stated: “no priority is given to anyone in selling these sets of coins.” Such priority as there was, was “based on the order of receipts of applications.” That reply sounded innocent enough. However, I approached his Department and after some days received further particulars which they kindly furnished to me. It now appears, from a letter dated 29th August which I received from them, that there are several other disconcerting facts in regard to these lists. Firstly, the Department’s letter stated that the Mint kept a standing list of applicants, based on those who had applied for sets in the past. That standing list was rarely renewed. They were renewed only when people dropped out when they no longer wanted to buy sets. These people got priority. Only when their needs were satisfied was the person next in order on the waiting list put on this standing list. The ordinary collector’s chance of getting on this standing list is extremely small, if you take into account the limited number of sets minted, and the fact that the number of names on the waiting list for the short sets is in excess of 75,000. How long will it take to satisfy those people? And who would not like his name to go on such a list, knowing that he could make a profit of more than 1,000 per cent on a set of coins in one year? No date at all is announced in the Gazette as from when these coins are available. This is done in the case of penguin eggs and in the case of fish meal concessions. I can say a lot about concessions too. However, Sir, it is not done and I believe it should be done.

Who are the people on these standing lists? Surely they must be made to contribute something for that great privilege. These people on the standing list are assured of their supplies of this limited number of coins which is minted. Do you know, Sir, that a certain dealer, long before the Minister had decided how many sets were to be minted this year, had already stated in an advertisement that only 15,000 were to be minted this year? In the advertisement he also stated that it was quite possible that in the case of three of the coins a very limited amount would be minted. This was great value to collectors, and they could already start ordering their sets at R20 each. To-day, these 1966 sets, which might not yet even have been minted, are already being offered for sale at R30 each, while the Mint was selling them for R3.50 each. Some fortunates are going to make a cool half a million or more from the 1966 sets. The shocking fact is that the Minister admitted to me that he knew that these sets were already being offered for sale. When I asked him to comment on it, he had no comment whatsoever.

I therefore believe, Sir, that I am justified in asking fl) for an immediate inquiry, the results of which will be made public, into why (a) sets of coins are minted in such small numbers, equalling less than one-sixtieth of the demand; and (b) why the list of applicants is not based solely on priority for applications received from a certain date, which should be announced in the Gazette annually, thereby giving the ordinary coin collector a chance to buy these sets; (2) that in future sufficient sets to satisfy normal demand will be struck; and (3) that the inquiry should also trace the sale of those sets sold at such a high profit from the Mint.

Some time ago in America, a Kennedy dollar was printed. Millions of them were printed and they disappeared from the market. The United States Government realized that a black market might result. Not only once, but two or three times they reminted millions and millions of these Kennedy silver dollar sets, solely in order to prevent a black market in the sale of these coins.

Business interrupted to report progress.

The House proceeded to the consideration of private members’ business.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The motion I have moved, falls into two parts. The first part is a statement of the existence of a shortage of housing and a request to note it and the second part deals with the solution to that shortage. I submit, Sir, that my first premise, my first claim that there is in fact a shortage, is one which requires no argument. I call as my witness the hon. the Minister of Community Development himself, who this month, on the 7th August, granted an exclusive interview to a Sunday newspaper, in which he recognized the tremendous shortage, which he estimated at 90,000 houses. The Minister himself, therefore, recognizes a shortage of 90,000 houses, and he himself stated—

Therefore, as I have said, Sir, the hon. the Minister himself agrees with me. The facts themselves doubly prove the statement that there is a critical shortage of housing in the lower and middle income groups. This is particularly so in the case of pensioners. There are 139,000 White social pensioners alone in South Africa. Every one of those people has a maximum pension income of R40 per month. If they had a penny more than that, they would not be able to enjoy a social pension. 128,000 of them receive the full social pension, which means that they must comply with the means test and draw a pension from the Government of R40 per month, plus whatever few rand they are allowed under the means test. This aspect is one which another speaker on this side of the House will deal with in greater detail. I mention it as a background to the shortage and the need for housing. There is this vast group, an identifiable group of just on 140,000 Whites alone.

Then, Sir. there are the vast numbers, the hundreds of thousands, of working people in South Africa. We have pointed out in other debates that in the Railways alone there are 93,000 workers earning less than R200 per month. That, in terms of the amended figures which the hon. the Minister has recently announced, classifies them as being entitled to enjoy subsidized state housing. Therefore the Government and the Minister himself accepts that level as being a level at which the State is required to assist people. Having established the fact, with the support of the Minister, that this shortage of housing exists, I submit that the issue before us now is the second part of the motion, namely the question of a solution.

I have been concerned for a long time with this problem. I and other members in this House, year after year, in private interviews, in correspondence with the Department and in debate, have dealt with what to us is a serious and a dangerous social problem for South Africa. I hope it is parliamentary, Mr. Speaker, but I can think of no other term which adequately describes my feeling towards this problem than one of being plain bloody-minded.

Order! What did the hon. member say?

I say, Mr. Speaker, that it is a state of mind which is described as bloody-minded. If that is not parliamentary, I shall withdraw it. I shall withdraw it, Sir, but it is a state of frustration which is difficult to describe when one thinks of the human tragedy and the suffering of the people in South Africa of all races, as the result of their inability to house themselves at a level which they are able to afford. Year after year, Sir, we have had promises, statistics and figures. People cannot live on statistics. They cannot live on promises. They cannot live on gallons of printer’s ink. I have cutting after cutting here of the promises which have been made. The plans, the crash programmes, the emergency schemes, the thousands of houses that are going to be built to-morrow are all mentioned here. Here is a cutting from a Natal newspaper of this month. The headlines are: “70,000 new homes for Durban. Vast 7-year housing plan.” If one goes back, Sir, one finds that for three years we have had this constant reference to crash programmes and crash schemes. I have a letter here, dated 30th September, 1964, from the former Minister of Community Development. At that time he already acknowledged the critical shortage. He refers to the demand, accelerated by immigration. He states:

At that time, namely in September, 1964, I received a letter emphasizing the steps the Department had taken, the consultations it had had, with the municipality and the recognition of the urgency of the problem. Now, Sir, it is two years later and because they are comparable to the figures to which I have referred I take the figures for Durban. In Durban, in the last 2½ years, namely the whole of 1964, the whole of 1965 and 1966 to date, the State has provided 834 houses, and the local authority—the City Council—362.

Why only 300?

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that that interjection was made. I am not defending the local authority. I said, and I repeat, that I am sick and tired of the buck-passing, the Government blaming the Corporation, the City Council blaming the Government, and everybody passing the buck to one another. We are not interested in excuses. We are not interested in reasons. We are interested in houses that people can live in. Here are the cold, hard facts, Sir, namely that in Durban in two and a half years 1,196 houses have been provided by the State and the local authority. In the whole of South Africa in that period, 6,059 houses and flats—I am talking now of houses and flats, each flat counting as a unit, and not as a block—that is to say, total dwelling units, have been provided by the State and the local authorities with State funds. This figure includes 1964, 1965 and half of 1966. I refer to the figures provided by the hon. the Minister in reply to a question by me on the 12th August, this year. The Minister himself has accepted that there is a need of 18,000 houses per year for Europeans and 50,000 houses per year for non-Europeans. I have here the figures in regard to non-White housing, a question which will be dealt with by another speaker, but I should like to say that the Department and local authorities have provided between 26,000 and 28,000 houses per year over the last three years. In other words, just about half of the Minister’s own accepted requirement has been met by his own Department and by all local authorities. In regard to White housing, less than a third of the requirement has been provided.

These, Mr. Speaker, are the facts. It is not a question of politics. It is not a question of blaming one party or another. Quite honestly, I am not interested in what happened in 19-voetsak, or at any other time. I believe that we, when we were the Government, also perhaps did not carry out our full responsibilities. This is not a question of saying that the Nationalist Party or the United Party did this or that. This is a private member’s motion and I hope that this House, this whole Parliament, will answer the urgent cry from the people of South Africa and will answer that cry as the legislature of South Africa, recognizing their problem, recognizing their difficulty and answering that request.

You are losing your grip.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether some of these members treat this matter lightly. I have had the experience, when I was a young boy, of living in a single room with my parents. The whole family, four of us, were in one room. I have known what it is like. Those members can mock and joke about it. I have not forgotten what it is like to live under those conditions, to have to count pennies to buy a bottle of milk or a loaf of bread.

Most of us lived in shacks.

Some lived in shacks, I agree. But have they remembered it or have they forgotten it? What I am asking, Sir, is that those who have lived in shacks and those who have struggled as many of us have struggled, should remember the struggle, now when they no longer need to struggle. They should have sympathy for and should remember those who are not so fortunate. That is exactly the appeal which I am making.

The first suggestion I wish to make to the hon. the Minister is that, in order to encourage private home ownership, the ownership of a home be regarded as part of the social security of an individual. It is a matter for consultation with other departments, but a pension is regarded as social security for a person's future, for his old age. It is tax free. Provident funds are tax free. Insurance is a social security measure and is partially tax free. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that payments on a home occupied by the owner for his own personal residence should be regarded in the same light as contributions to a pension fund and that they should also be tax free. If we are to provide for our old age, surely the ownership of a bond-free, rent-free home is as important a social security measure as a pension fund from which you draw so much per month. To my mind, it is even more valuable because you are secure for the rest of your life. You have a home in which you can live. I believe that that would be a great encouragement for people to make an extra sacrifice to provide homes which they own themselves. This in itself would lift much of the burden and much of the responsibility from the State in regard to all those who are able to house themselves.

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to deal with masses of figures. They are all available. I do not think it is necessary, but there is one aspect which I think I must substantiate with figures. The hon. the Minister, through his Department, has provided a total of 4,250 houses over the past 21 years. Of those, more than a quarter, namely 1,250 fall in the price range of over R6,000, some of them being over R16,000. Mr. Speaker, surely people in this income group do not require the Department to build and to buy houses for them. 56 homes costing over R16,000 have been provided by the Department in the last 21 years. If you look at the rentals, you will find that about one-fifth of the homes provided—whether leased or sold—are in the class of either over R40 per month or over R6,000 in value. I believe that that field is a field for private enterprise. There I believe that private enterprise has played a major and a vital part in providing houses. I am not one of those who sees them as exploiters. There are exploiters. There are some people who exploit and who evade the Act. In the brief time at my disposal I have no time to deal with all the evasions, but I shall list them for the hon. the Minister’s information. He probably knows about them. There is the selling of flats to avoid rent control. There is the provision of bed and breakfast, the subletting of flats through a nominee or through a caretaker, who then gives notice and so gets rid of the tenant who is a sub-lessee. Furnishing has been dealt with. Then there is the question of holiday flats or hotels and demolition, which leads to flats being vacant month after month while the owner is emptying a building. These are the evils which flow either from frustration or the exploitation of the shortage by landlords. In both cases, the responsibility rests on the Government. I do not believe that freezing rents is the answer and that it is going to solve the problem. The mere freezing of rents is only going to stop the building of homes, because people are not going to invest money unless they can expect a reasonable return. After all, an investor is entitled to a reasonable return. The mere freezing of rents is merely going to force a greater group of people to resort to evasions such as I have mentioned, and to stop building.

I believe that the value of building plans have dropped from R58,000,000 to some R18,000,000 this year—a radical drop. In Durban alone, in the last two years, 3,500 flats alone have been provided by private enterprise, against 1,196 provided by the State and the Council. In the light of this, you will realize what a big part private enterprise has to play. Three homes have been provided by private enterprise for every one which the State and the Council have provided. The rents vary for a two-bedroomed flat from a minimum of R55 up to R80 per month, and single bedroom and lounge, from R45 to R60 per month. Those rents are above the means of the average working man, and it is for the lower income groups that I make my appeal. Private enterprise will care for the people who can afford to pay those rents. But then private enterprise must be given a chance. Exploitation must be prevented and those who exploit must be dealt with and I hope steps will be taken to close some of the loopholes which I have mentioned. There are, however, other ways in which the Minister can tackle this problem. In this connection I suggest that where there is a building which the owner wishes to demolish the Minister’s Department should buy that building and let it rather than try and build a new building at the higher building costs. Very often a perfectly good building is demolished simply because the owner cannot make enough out of it. Surely, he can provide far more housing by buying up existing buildings rather than trying to put up new buildings at the higher costs which are prevalent to-day. Alternatively, let us subsidize in order to keep the rent down but do not let us destroy cheap accommodation merely because we have to carry out a law. I suggest too, that the Minister should consider the question of housing associations, such as those existing in Britain. Literature is available on this. These are associations which can provide housing more or less on a utility company basis. I also suggest that he should consider the building society scheme which was recently announced. Unfortunately I do not have time to go into its details. There is prefabrication, something which I know the Minister is considering. My information is, however, that many prefabricated houses are more expensive than the conventional type of house. Let me quote as an example of this the housing scheme at the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam. There I believe the prefabricated houses cost much more than the ordinary conventional house. Then there are the present programmes which the Minister has at his disposal.

These are steps which I propose should be taken so that we can stop talking about this problem and deal with it. I think the time has passed when we could afford to make promises of houses to be built and satisfy ourselves with statistics instead of providing roofs over the heads of the people of South Africa.

I move—

1. (1) encourage and induce local authorities to provide housing schemes for the lower and middle income groups;
2. (2) meet housing needs on an ever-increasing scale itself by increasing the funds available to the National Housing Commission; and
3. (3) provide additional housing through the Community Development Board and various Government Departments such as Railways and Harbours, Forestry and Public Works.

In this debate which was opened by the hon. member for Durban (Point) and in which he posed as a pious and non-political champion of the underprivileged, we have once again met with the same performance we had in the Budget debate, namely that the hon. hon. member advocates one thing while the other advocates the opposite. Last week we heard criticism to the effect that the deflationary measures of the Government were having a detrimental effect on the lower income groups in this sense that rates of interest had been increased and that consequently it was impossible for that group to build houses. In the same debate, however, another member asked the hon. the Minister why he had not allowed an increase in the rates of interest last year already. Why was the hon. the Minister introducing control of rates of interest at this time? That is what another member wanted to know. Last week we were given to understand that it was the expenditure of the Government in particular which was promoting inflation, but is Government expenditure on housing not one of its major items of expenditure? No less than R56,000,000 is being budgeted for on loan account for the Department of Community Development alone this year, i.e. approximately R6.500,000 more than last year. To that must be added approximately R2,700,000 from revenue account. Is the provision of housing not part of the infrastructure which we heard so much about during the Budget debate? Is the provision of housing on a large scale not part of an ambitious attempt on the part of the Government to encourage the development of our country by providing housing for our people where houses are necessary? But now hon. members come along, amongst them the hon. member for Durban (Point) who objected last week to the amount of Government expenditure, and say that the Government is not spending enough on housing.

When we discuss housing, we must get a clear reply to the question of whose respondibility it is to provide housing for the less well-to-do section of our population. Of course the ideal situation is that each family, regardless of what its income is, should have its own home, because by possessing their own home many of the evils which we hear so much about are eliminated. Being bound to the soil, in other words the possession of a piece of land and a home of his own, is one of the greatest ideals of every person no matter how undeveloped or how highly developed he is or how small or how large his income. But apart from that, by possessing their own house on which they pay off a small portion each month our people are being encouraged to do what they were asked to do in the Budget last week, namely to save. This is a form of saving which stretches over practically the whole lifespan of a person. Besides, I cannot conceive of any better or more sensible form of saving than this, which goes hand in hand with the possession of one’s own house. Of course I will concede that there are certain of our people who, from the nature of their circumstances, cannot possess their own house. There is in the first place the lowest income groups and then there are those people who are transferred from one post to another, there are inter alia certain Government officials who are transferred quite often. But that does not mean that they cannot save in some other way with the purpose of ultimately possessing a home of their own.

The question is: “Whose responsibility is it to take care of these people”? I maintain that it is not the task of the Government to accept full responsibility for these people. If we have to arrange things in such a way that the State must provide everyone with a house, then we are on the road to socialism. By doing so we deprive the man in the street of his initiative to save on his own accord, to nurture his own ideals and to work for the realization of those ideals. What the Government can do, is to give encouragement. The Government can also supply guidance and assistance. But it is not the primary duty of the Government to see to it that everyone does in fact have a house. Hon. members can also contribute a great deal in this respect, so too can that hon. member who made a plea here this afternoon for those people who were suffering hardships and were not able to own a house. He can, as the Government is doing, bring home to those people the advantage of investing money correctly. He can try and create in them the ideal of saving up in order to own their own houses. But he must not go on before shouting that the Government does not see to it that everyone has a house. I said that the Government could be of assistance. It is already doing so by making loans available, and this is being done to an ever-increasing extent. I have already mentioned what the Government has made available this year to the Department of Community Development for this purpose. The Government makes loans available to individuals in the first place for the building of houses, and in the second to local authorities for the establishment of housing schemes. Then it also makes loans available to utility companies at low rates of interest for that purpose, and in addition also subsidizes sub-economic schemes. In fact, there has been no mention of the Government not being prepared to play its part in this connection.

But if the Government is prepared to make these loans and subsidies available, then the responsibility of other bodies also comes. to the fore. In this connection I am thinking particularly of the responsibility of local communities and of local authorities towards the underprivileged part of our population. This responsibility has up to now not been properly realized. I believe that local communities should accept responsibility for the care, even if it is with the aid of loans by the State, for the elderly people of that community. These elderly people served that community during their lifetime, and now it is the task of that community to look after them in turn. Before our people began to become urban-dwellers, our elderly people had no problem as far as housing was concerned because they were established in their own communities even if it was in unpretentious little houses. There they were happy. To-day, however, we are living in a time of increasing industrialization and our people are moving from the rural areas to the cities. In the cities most of them are themselves immigrants without a roof over their heads. At the same time we are drawing immigrants at a rate of 30,000 per year. Of course I am not finding fault with this. In fact, it is to be welcomed. However, the consequence is that the pressure of housing requirements in concentrated areas is becoming so much greater.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) has said that there is a housing shortage at the moment. I do not want to pretend that there are no people who are experiencing a housing shortage at the moment, but let us examine to what an extent other circumstances than those which I have already mentioned have contributed to the creation of that shortage. During the past four to five years we have been experiencing the greatest drought which our country has ever known and that has compelled thousands of people who were previously resident in the rural areas to forsake the soil, even if it is just temporarily, and go and seek a refuge in the cities. That has been the cause of thousands of houses standing empty at the moment, houses which cannot be occupied by others because one cannot settle that group which the hon. member spoke about there in the rural areas. The occupants and owners of those houses are now competing for accommodation in the cities and that is something which aggravates the shortage even more. Now I say, Mr. Speaker, that this is where the duty of local communities and local authorities comes in. In the past local authorities had building regulations which stood in the way of cheaper and faster building work which would have provided accommodation in this very category. Since the hon. member has sketched this situation here to-day, I want to paint another picture now. Arising from the amendment which I moved, I want to say that this Government in particular is deserving of every praise for the way in which it has tackled our housing problem. I want to pay tribute today to the former Minister of Community Development. He realized that we were being faced with a problem here, and he also realized that the problem could only be solved by taking positive and rapid action. That is why I want to call him the father of pre-constructed building in this country. This building system has come to stay and will help us to solve our housing problems more rapidly. I also want to pay tribute to the present Minister of Community Development. Since he accepted that post he has indicated that he intends carrying on in the same way as his predecessor and thinking on a grand scale. If we see that from 1920 to 1948, that is to say over a period of 28 years, only 22,301 houses for Whites were built in South Africa at a cost of R54,000,000, while from 1948 to 1965 no less than 43,305 houses were built by means of funds from the National Housing Commission in South Africa at a cost of R177,723,000, then we see how this task is really being tackled. From 1960 to 1965 almost 10,000 houses have been built for Whites at a cost of approximately R42,000,000. If one adds to that houses which have been built by other Government Departments, such as the Railways and others which I have mentioned for example, then one finds that a total of 73,483 houses have been built at a cost of R350,000,000 since this Government accepted office in 1948.

I have said, Mr. Speaker, that the Government has displayed its willingness to make the funds available. The Government has indicated that it thinks on a grand scale and that it is prepared to lend a hand itself where people do not want to act quickly enough. If one looks at the history of the struggle which the Department of Community Development and the hon. the Minister has had with local authorities to get them to at least make a start, while they knew very well that the necessary funds were at their disposal, then I say we must take off our hats to the hon. the Minister and the officials of that Department. They had an ungrateful task to perform. Mr. Speaker, there was not only unwillingness to take action. In many cases there was even resistance. There was also the feeling—as the hon. member for Durban (Point) has also stated here—that it was the duty of the Government to provide houses for those people. That was the view which prevailed. Now I say that this Government has succeeded in activating local authorities. The Department of Community Development even placed plans at their disposal and they were told that the necessary funds were available. They were encouraged to take the bull by the horns and make a start with construction work, particularly for the underprivileged group. Provision is specifically being made for our elderly people to whom the hon. member referred. In 1953 there were only 36 old-age homes which accommodated about 2,000 people. This year there are 122 old-age homes which can accommodate almost 6,500 people. Another 47 are under construction or will shortly be begun. They will be able to accommodate a further 3,000 elderly people. It has already been announced that the per capita allowance for such homes will be increased from R10 per person to R17.50 per month starting from October this year. We then come to the schemes which are being subsidized by the Department. There the income limit has been raised from R60 to R100 per month. People earning R100 per month can now go and live in these sub-economic houses. These houses are made available to them at a rate of interest of £ per cent. In respect of a White family with two children the income limit has been raised from R160 per month to R225 per month. That means that people earning up to R225 per month can now go and live in that type of house. For people with more than two children the income limit has been raised from R250 to R300 per month. This differentiated rental scale which I mentioned in my amendment provides in the case of new schemes that people in the income group R101 to R130 per month can occupy houses at a rental scale of 3 per cent on the capital investment. The rental scale of those falling in the income group of R131 to R160 per month is 5 per cent. So the amount moves up until the group earning more than R180 per month will have to pay 8 per cent. They will be benefited in this way however that they will be occupying houses in new schemes, houses which we believe it will be possible to construct by means of the preconstructed system at a lower cost than has been the case up to new. While we are discussing these matters, Mr. Speaker, and we are pointing out the duties of certain sections of our society and all that the Government is prepared to do, I cannot omit to point out that there is another section of our community which is also able to make a contribution. I am referring to our industries. I am referring to the major employers of those people who are being drawn to our cities. I want to make an appeal to our industrialists to make an investment contribution from their side in respect of the provision of houses for the people which they employ and which they draw to their industries and I feel that the time has come when this should be done. That is why I believe that the view which the hon. member for Durban (Point) has of the problem is not the correct one. I prefer to believe that by making correct use of the means at our disposal, South Africa is on the way to solving its housing problem.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the hon. member for Stellenbosch with interest, and I have listened to the amendment which he has moved. However, there are certain aspects in regard to this important matter which the hon. member for Stellenbosch did not cover. That was in regard to the urgent steps that must be taken to overcome the present shortage. The hon. member for Durban (Point) has indicated that the shortage does exist, a very serious shortage of some 90,000 dwelling units throughout the Republic. As recently as February, 1966, the hon. the Minister of Community Development showed that there was a shortage of 98,950 dwelling units throughout the Republic of South Africa.

Now, Sir, the point is that the shortage still exists. The hon. the Minister seems to be faced with a problem of having to overcome a substantial backlog and at the same time try to keep pace with an ever-increasing demand for housing. We can appreciate the difficulties that must be facing the hon. the Minister in tackling this task. There is the question of the industrialization of the country and a shift to the cities. After all, Sir, that is where the serious shortage does exist. In a large city such as Durban, which has shown a phenomenal industrial growth and a population growth, there is a severe shortage of housing in that area. The specific group which the hon. member for Durban (Point) specifically brought fo the notice of this House is the lower income group and the pensioner group. We know that persons moving into a city are invariably faced with grave difficulties in finding suitable accommodation.

The persons mentioned in the motion moved by the hon. member for Durban (Point) refers to the pensioners and the lower income groups, the people who are unable, in normal circumstances, due to their financial position, to afford the facilities which are available from private enterprise for the purchase of a house. They can therefore only look for assistance either to the local authority or the Department of Community Development. Sir, I recently had a case in my own constituency where a person, who had been transferred to Durban, was unable to bring his wife and four children with him due to the shortage of accommodation. This difficulty arose in the course of the last three months. This person had to live in a caravan until such time as he could find suitable accommodation for his wife and family to join him in Durban where he had been transferred on business. He was informed that it would take at least two and a half years before he would be able to obtain a house through the local authority. He then approached the Department of Community Development and they too were unable to assist him immediately with the result that he had to resign his job and take up employment in another town where he could get accommodation and be joined by his family. Sir, this leads me to one of the important statements contained in the report of the Committee of Inquiry into family allowances. This committee, which is known as the Piek Committee, brought out its report in 1961. The committee stated in its report at page 72 under “Housing” that housing was of primary importance in considering family life. In paragraph 263 the committee says—

Sir, this is a social problem, and without propounding any policy of socialism, as suggested by the hon. member for Stellenbosch, we believe that it is in the interests of this group in our community who require assistance that proper housing within the means of the head of the family should be available to them, and we believe this on the grounds of realism rather than socialism. These people have no alternative but to look for assistance either to the Government or to the local authority, and in pleading for assistance for these people we are certainly not advocating a socialistic State.

I believe that a country can be judged by the way in which it looks after needy, deserving sections of the community. I feel that the present shortage of housing in South Africa is interfering with what should be the normal way of family life. We appreciate that the Minister is faced with difficulties. If there had been no housing shortage, surely the previous Minister would not have embarked on a crash programme in an attempt to alleviate the housing shortage. I hope that when the Minister of Community Development participates in this debate he will be able to give us some idea as to what degree of success he has had in implementing his crash programme. Sir, there are certain other aspects of this whole problem which affect the family man and which affect him very greatly indeed, and I hope that the Minister will also give some indication as to his views with regard to the use of prefabricated or preconstructed buildings. We had the opportunity of reading the Louw report which was submitted during 1964 and which made some very interesting observations with regard to non-conventional methods of construction that will result in the saving of both labour and material.

However, certain doubts have been expressed in various quarters as to whether this is in fact the answer to the problem. The answer appears to be that the Minister must take urgent steps to reduce the backlog and thereafter endeavour to keep pace with the demand. We know that that demand has been further aggravated by immigration, and we also know that it has become impossible for many families, as a result of the increased cost of living, to obtain suitable accommodation at rentals within their means. There are often cases where people have to move from homes which are demolished in order to make way for progress. There is nothing wrong, of course, with the demolition of houses to make way for progress, but there is something wrong when there is no alternative accommodation available for these families when they are required to move. Sir, I have another case here which I would like to mention to the House because I think it illustrates the degree of the problem.

In this case a family, also consisting of husband and wife and four children, was compelled to move due to the fact that the house in which they were living was to be demolished. The only accommodation which was offered to them was a house at R75 per month, which was beyond their means. They were offered this accommodation by the Department of Community Development. Similarly the local authority informed them that it would be at least two years before they could be assisted. In this letter of complaint from this constituent of mine there is one paragraph which may be of interest to the House and in which this mother writes—

Sir, this whole problem is affecting the family life of the lower income groups and of those people who, because of their financial position, are unable to obtain accommodation through private enterprise.

Then I want to deal for a moment with the position of the social pensioners. We know that we have over 500,000 social pensioners of all races in this country at the present time We do not expect the State or welfare organizations to provide accommodation in homes for the aged for such a large number ol people. These people much prefer to be independent and to have some corner of their own rather than be accommodated in a large home for the aged. We must therefore find ways and means of assisting this group of persons, and I believe that one of the ways in which we can assist them is by ensuring that all our housing schemes provide a certain amount of accommodation for social, civil or railway pensioners whose income is below a certain level. I believe that at least 10 per cent of the dwelling units in every housing scheme should consist of semi-detached cottages for this group of persons so that the capital expense will not be as great. In this way these people would be retained in the community, which I believe is a far better way of accommodating them than to accommodate them in large homes for the aged.

I think it is imperative that such homes should be erected in order to overcome the enormous backlog that has arisen in the past few years. These people, whom I regard as the pioneers of South Africa, contributed a great deal towards the economic growth and prosperity of South Africa, and I believe that the fact that many of them have to live bleak lives in the back streets of our cities, is a blot upon the conscience of South Africa. I believe that we should make every effort to rectify and improve the position. I think that if this type of accommodation can be made available for social and civil pensioners it will go a long way towards assisting this group of people who in many cases are unable to find suitable accommodation, particularly where old buildings in which they have lived for perhaps a lifetime have to be demolished in order to make way for progress.

The other aspect on which I want to touch is the question of assistance that the State can give to welfare organizations to enable them to build more homes for the aged. Sir, the shortage of accommodation for pensioners is high-lighted almost every year in the annual report of the S.A. National Council for the Welfare of the Aged. I do not intend to quote from these reports, but they indicate that this is an acute problem in all the large cities of South Africa, and here I am referring to accommodation not only for pensioners but especially accommodation for the aged, frail and infirm type who require special assistance and in some cases special nursing. It is a great pity that many of these people who are physically frail and infirm, have no alternative but to turn to private nursing homes and private places of care, and it is an acknowledged fact that there have been cases where these unfortunate people have been exploited. It is a great tragedy, I think, that these people are exploited in this way in the twilight of their lives. The question of financial assistance to these welfare organizations is of vital importance. It has been accepted by the Government and by this House that welfare services should not be run solely by the State. It is an important facet of our welfare set-up in South Africa that the welfare organizations and the churches play a major part in providing welfare services. Many of these people have reached a stage of life where they can only look for assistance to the welfare organizations.

Sir, in the 1964 Budget debate a very important announcement was made in this House with regard to the allocation of R750,000 to assist welfare organizations and to encourage them to provide homes for the aged. Sir, I feel that there must be something wrong with the public relations set-up between the Government and the welfare organizations because the welfare organizations do not appear to have been aware that these funds were available. I say that because of the R750,000 which was made available in 1964-5 not a single cent was in fact spent. The amount spent was nil according to a reply given by the Minister of Social Welfare in this House on the 9th August, 1966. A sum of R300,000 was re-voted for the year 1965-6 and of that amount only R75,881 has been spent. We have the position therefore that an overall figure of over R1,000,000 has been allocated for this purpose but in actual fact only R75,881 has been spent.

I believe that if these funds are not serving the purpose for which they were intended the scope of the field in which they can be used should be extended to assist the welfare organizations to a greater degree in furnishing and equipping such homes for the aged. We know that a sub-committee of the Minister’s has reported on the whole question of homes for the aged, and we eagerly await the report to see if it will result in the building of a greater number of homes for the aged. I am not suggesting that homes for the aged are not being built. As a matter of fact, the building programme in this regard has been accelerated over the past year but the fact still remains that we have a large backlog which still has to be eliminated before we can keep pace with the demand.

We know that many of the welfare organizations have felt that they have been restricted in planning homes for the aged because the Department has asked that these people should be accommodated in double rooms. We know that it is a difficult problem in homes for the aged to try to accommodate them in double rooms. They prefer single rooms because they naturally like a certain amount of privacy. They feel more independent and they feel that they are far better served in a single room. I am pleased that the Minister has increased the per capita allowance from R1,100 to R1.475 in respect of Whites and I hope that this will encourage the welfare organizations to proceed with the establishment of more homes for the aged on the basis of the subsidies that they can get and the loans that they can get through their local authorities. I feel that a great opportunity has been lost in that R750,000 voted in 1964-5 was in fact not utilized for the establishment of a greater number of homes for the aged. As I have already said, I believe that the scope of the use of the funds specially allotted for the building of homes should be extended to assist the welfare organizations to furnish and equip homes.

According to the formula laid down by the Government these welfare organizations are entitled to a subsidy in connection with the cost of furnishing and equipping these homes; they are entitled to a subsidy of 75 per cent of the cost of the furniture and equipment, subject to a maximum of R90 per subsidizable inmate. However, with the rising costs, not only of building homes but also the rising cost of equipping homes for the aged, it has been found almost impossible to keep within the limits laid down by the Government. I believe that greater assistance should be given to welfare organizations not only for the building of homes but especially to enable them to furnish and equip these homes. I understand that in special circumstances the Government has been prepared to increase the maximum of R90 per subsidizable inmate and I do hope that the Minister will be prepared to assist these welfare organizations to a greater extent to finance the establishment of these homes.

On the question of welfare organizations trying to establish more homes for the aged, I would like also to mention to the hon. the Minister the difficulties that these organizations experience in establishing themselves, the long delays that take place before they are registered as welfare organizations. In Durban an association has been formed, the Home for Retired Durban Citizens, the aim of which is to build a large home for the elderly citizens of the city sometime during the course of next year provided they can get the necessary financial assistance from the Government and from the community as a whole. This association was formed as far back as 1963 and they are only now beginning to show a little progress.

Order! Is the hon. member not drifting too far away from the motion?

With respect, Sir, I am trying to indicate the great shortage of accommodation that exists for pensioners. The motion moved by the hon. member for Durban (Point) refers to the urgent necessity of providing accommodation for pensioners, and I am trying to indicate that the shortage of accommodation has necessitated the building of very large institutions. The welfare organizations are having to build large institutions which I believe is not really the best way of providing suitable accommodation for these people. For instance, this organization is now having to build a home that will cater for 464 pensioners, and it is going to cost in the region of R1,000,000.

These dedicated people are also faced with the difficulty of having to raise R25,000 towards the cost of equipping this proposed institution. This whole effort has been slowed down to a certain extent because of lack of financial assistance. I believe that the enormous shortage of accommodation for social pensioners is a very vital problem for the people of South Africa and particularly for this type of person who has to depend entirely on his pension for his livelihood and who has no alternative but to turn to welfare organizations which in turn have to turn to the Government for financial assistance. I do hope that the Minister of Community Development will give us some indication as to what urgent steps he intends taking to try to alleviate the plight of these people.

All in all I do not have much fault to find with the statements of the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) and the requests which he has made. However I think that the person who will want to criticize him will be the hon. member who moved this motion, i.e. the hon. member for Durban (Point) because the hon. member for Umbilo, as was apparent from the fact that he was called to order, by no means spoke in support of the motion of the hon. member for Durban (Point). I shall not therefore go any further into what he said.

I am really rising to support the amendment moved by my colleague, the hon. member for Stellenbosch, and since I am doing that I want to say in the first place that I do not deny the need which exists for more and better housing. I admit that readily, but I want to add immediately that if the need for more and better housing does not exist, and this is something which applies to any country in the world, it is an unmistakable sign of stagnation and deterioration.

This motion of the hon. member for Durban (Point) contains certain points of criticism in regard to the action and the policy of the Government. He accuses the Government of not having the necessary insight, of its planning being defective in many ways, and of not taking action rapidly enough. We must also see this matter in the light of other assertions made in this House. The hon. member for Newton Park referred in the Censure Motion to a crisis which had allegedly arisen in regard to housing, and he asked why we always wait until a crisis has arisen before we take action. Last year the hon. member for Rosettenville also criticized the achievements of the Government in regard to housing. I can also mention the hon. member for Umlazi, who still has to serve out his court sentence in this House. He also came forward with criticism of the Government’s housing policy. I maintain that this attack of the hon. member for Durban (Point) seems to me one which can quite readily be compared to the attack made by Don Quixote on the windmills. You will agree with me that when we consider the hon. member for Durban (Point) and we take his good grooming into account, then he does not really fit into the role of that lean and hungry old knight of former days; and if we look at the hon. member for Umbilo, who had to support him but who left him in the lurch, then we cannot place him in the role of the old squire Sancho Pancho either. But the fact remains that the attack from that side of the House on the housing policy of the Government can quite readily be compared to the attack of Don Quixote on the windmills. When one talks about such a matter surely one must try to take the true background of the problem into consideration, and one must place one’s problem and one’s solution in the correct perspective. Otherwise one cannot arrive at a real solution. I do not therefore want to compare the hon. member for Durban (Point) with Don Quixote, but I do want to say that he and his supporters on that side are really political Rip van Winkels.

You would rather play at politics than provide housing.

The hon. members are fast asleep, not only because it is late in the afternoon, but because they have been fast asleep since 1948. Apparently they do not know what has been happening in regard to housing since 1948. I want to contend that no Government before 1948, and that includes previous Nationalist Governments, has done as much in regard to housing as this Government has done. No Government has a prouder record in regard to housing than this one has. The achievements of this Government in regard to housing do not only compare favourably with those of any previous Government, and even with all those governments put together, it also compares favourably with the best in the word. But what I want to charge the Opposition with is this, that no other Opposition which this country has ever had, has acted in such a negative way as this very Opposition which we have in this House to-day. The Hansards are full of their obstructionist tactics. I need only to refer to certain acts which we have amended, such as the Slums Act, and I can refer to the Housing Act and the Community Development Act. I ask you, Sir, have we not listened ad nauseum to phrases such as, “bypassing parliamentary control”, “overriding the powers of the Minister”, “infringing upon the rights of local authorities”, and similar phrases which they have used in those debates? I say that the Opposition have during this whole period been a handicap to a determined and purposeful Government as far as housing is concerned.

In the form this motion before us takes, no mention is made whether it relates to Whites only or whether it also relates to non-Whites. The hon. member said that one of his speakers would in fact talk about non-White housing, and that is why I want to refer to it only in passing. The National Party Government made provision not only for the non-Whites but also for the Whites. It inherited post-war conditions, conditions which we all remember, where there was over-population in every back-yard as far as Whites were concerned and where slum areas and shanty towns had sprung up around our cities. Those problems were almost unsolvable. For the United Party of that time they were unsolvable. One of the esteemed city councillors of Johannesburg, Mr. Patrick Lewis, wrote—

Who supplied the solution? Not the United Party with insight and its preparatory work. The solution was supplied by the National Party who came forward with three measures in particular to cope with those conditions. I am referring to the Native Building Workers Act of 1951, which made it possible for non-Whites to be trained so that they could build houses for their own people in their own areas. I am referring, in the second place, to the Native Services Levy Act of 1952. Sir, can you remember what complaints went up from the Opposition and how they held it up as an injustice which was being perpetrated? The third measure I want to refer to was the plot and service scheme which came into operation under the direction of Dr. Verwoerd. Can you remember how ridiculous they tried to make that measure seem and how they tried to pretend that it was a useless measure which would give rise to further-slums? What were the results of those measures? The result was that it became possible to clear all the slums surrounding our urban areas and re-establish those people in proper houses. And what is more, and this is actually the bitter irony of life, those hon. members opposite find great pleasure to-day in showing overseas visitors that which has been achieved as a result of the resourcefulness and energy of the National Party Government and pretending that it is all their own doing. However, we wish them joy with that. It is the legacy of all of us in South Africa. I have a book here which was published by the Johannesburg City Council, a beautifully illustrated brochure, and in this book is set out the way in which these major problems were solved. No mention is made of the fact that the resourcefulness and the brains behind all those schemes actually came from this Government, but we wish them joy, because we are grateful to have solved the problem. The Republic of South Africa is indeed—and I defy anybody to prove the opposite—a world leader in the field of housing, and particularly of low-cost housing for the Bantu. A number of the standard plans of the Department of Housing are on display in the United Nations Building in New York and they are recommended for world use. Although South Africa is no longer a member of the C.C.T.A., the committee for technical cooperation in Africa, that committee still consults South Africa in regard to housing problems because they acknowledge that we are their superiors.

I have said that the Nationalist Government has not only taken care of the non-Whites, it has also taken care of the Whites. What has it done in regard to the housing question? I want to mention a few small matters quickly. With the consolidation of the Housing Act in 1957 the Government reinforced the State’s housing task and introduced central control over all Government-supported housing. It went even further than that. As a result of that legislation the National Housing Fund and the National Housing Commission, and subsequently also the Bantu Housing Board were established. In November, 1961, this spadework led to an independent Department of Housing. The other day we heard about lack of foresight. Does that testify to lack of foresight? In 1964 the Community Development Board was added to the Department of Community Development, which is now carrying out the housing policy of this Government. We have not forgotten that that side of the House opposed all these organizational steps which were necessary to cope with this problem. But now those hon. members come along and presume to criticize the planning and farsightedness of the Government.

Is there a shortage of houses?

If the hon. member had not been fast asleep, he would have remembered that I said right at the outset that I conceded that there was a great need for houses, but I also said that if such a need had not existed, it would have been proof that we are stagnating and deteriorating.

This side of the House has accomplished other achievements as well. With the help of its experts it undertook research and it has accomplished the proud achievement that, in spite of rising costs of materials and wages since 1948, it has made possible a decrease of 20 to 25 per cent in the construction costs of houses for Whites. The task of this Department has been to help local authorities to provide housing for the lower income groups in particular. In addition its task was to undertake schemes and development work itself where necessary—and that side of the House has been up in arms about that. What did the Government do? In 1962 the hon. the Minister—and he must bear in mind, Sir, that we are being criticized for lack of foresight—had a circular sent out by the housing commission to all local authorities in South Africa. He asked them to make a survey of their requirements as far as houses for Whites were concerned. He stated emphatically in the letter that he was satisfied that enough was being done for non-Whites. They had to make a survey of the needs in regard to housing for Whites and they had then to consider to what extent they could utilize the money from the housing commission for both economic and sub-economic housing. Unfortunately the reaction on the part of many local authorities to this well-intended appeal was very poor. Now it is unfortunately the case that the United Party has for many years not been in office in this country and have no hope either of taking over the government. That is why, if we wish to draw a comparison, we must draw a comparison in regard to the places where they are in fact in office. Do you know what the reply of the Johannesburg City Council to that appeal by the Minister was? I shall paraphrase a passage from what they wrote to the Minister at that time. That was in 1963, and now I want those hon. members who had so much to say about lack of foresight, to listen very carefully. They wrote to the hon. the Minister informing him that the Council was fully aware of the need for accommodation for the various income groups in Johannesburg and were convinced that sufficient accommodation could be provided in the existing dilapidated areas by establishing families in the various groups receiving low incomes there without tackling new schemes in areas situated far away from the city centre. We have here in our midst a former mayor of Johannesburg, the hon. member for Johannesburg (North), and he will be able to confirm this, as he was implicated in that decision. It is a pity that his two predecessors are not here at the moment. I hope the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) realizes now what a devastating effect this place can have on a man if he has been a former mayor of Johannesburg. At the same time the Government began with the development of the old Sophia-town which subsequently became known as Triumph, and let me say this in honour of the hon. the Minister and his Department, that there are already almost 800 houses in Triumph to-day out of the contemplated 1,200 and all of them are occupied by people who are happy and satisfied to stay there. There are a great many people who are endeavouring to get in there. It stands as one of the show monuments of the Government, and the hon. member for Johannesburg (North), whom I know as a fair man, will admit it.

Sir, do you know what the criticism of the Johannesburg City Council in regard to that undertaking of the Government was when it made a start with Triumph? I want to paraphrase it for you. They said they could not understand why Sophiatown and Martindale should be developed immediately. They wrote further that it was very possible that the provision of additional accommodation in Sophiatown could come to grief in the long run. That was the foresight displayed by the United Party. Those were the kind of preparations they made for coping with the housing problem, and now we are being reproached and called upon to consider the advisability of considering what can be done to solve the problem. This Government has already done everything the hon. member for Durban (Point) is asking for. What has the hon. the Minister’s predecessor, he himself and his Department already done? My colleague from Stellenbosch has already mentioned the particulars. He neglected to mention the particulars dealing with the Department’s achievements in collaboration with the building societies, and he has further neglected to mention the figures dealing with what the Railways had achieved in collaboration with the building societies. If he had not omitted to do so, the picture would have been that from 1948 more than 100,000 houses had been built with public money to the value of more than R400,000,000. I defy any of the speakers after me to refute that figure. In 1966-7, in this Budget which has been before us, we found that out of the housing fund and the development fund jointly no less than R67,000,000 will be spent. Now I ask the hon. member, who maintains that more should be done, where the money must come from? He made no proposals in that respect. He complained last week about excessive capital spending by the Government; now he is asking for more money for housing. I want to ask him where he thinks all the workers must come from to assimilate in a productive way all that extra money he wants.

I want to conclude by saying that this hon. Minister as well as his predecessor have succeeded in persuading and convincing the larger municipalities of the great need to make the best use of the finances at their disposal. At the same time they have been brought so far as to realize the need for co-operation, because without co-operation this problem is made even more difficult. Here I want to say that the Johannesburg Town Council has now asked for and received R2,600,000 from the Housing Commission, Benoni R1,700,000, Alberton R1,400,000 Boksburg R570,000 and Elsburg R500,000. I can also mention a number of others but I am limiting myself here to the Witwatersrand because that is the area which I know best. As far as housing is concerned, the Nationalist Government has a service record which is far better than that of all the Governments before it put together. In addition I am convinced that the Nationalist Government will go from strength to strength. We will even remove the problems and the spectres which hon. Members on the opposite side think they see, as we have had to do in the past.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with a great deal of interest to the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) and I must say that I am surprised that a politician of his experience should fall into the trap of mentioning Bantu housing as far as the Johannesburg City Council is concerned. I believe that the record of the United Party City Council of Johannesburg in respect of Bantu housing is something which we can be proud of. The hon. member conveniently omitted to mention that the success of the Resettlement Board in Johannesburg was to a very large extent due to the co-operation of the Johannesburg City Council in so far as the provision of services is concerned.

Why then was it necessary to create the Resettlement Board?

I have only a short time allocated to me for this speech and as the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) said so little I do not think I should devote more of my time to it.

In all enlightened countries it is an accepted principle to-day that the eradication of slums and the provision of good housing at a price which the people can afford to pay is the soundest investment that cities and indeed the country itself can make. Because of the effect which good and properly organized housing has on the character and moral fibre of the nation the provision of such housing is justified, I think, at almost any price. It is therefore with a deep sense of dismay that one learns that this year there is a drop of R47,000,000 in building plans in South Africa. This news comes at a time when there is the most urgent need for housing for all sections of our population and should be coupled with the fact that the Government is making every effort to attract large numbers of immigrants to our country. These factors cause one to doubt seriously whether this serious problem of housing is receiving the attention of the Government which it deserves. When the Government introduced building control in 1964 it was obviously done to encourage and assist the building of homes for the lower income group and naturally local authorities saw in that the green light and, in fact, accepted the challenge to build as many houses in the shortest time possible. Can one, in the circumstances, imagine anything more likely to dampen the enthusiasm of local authorities in overcoming the serious backlog of housing than a circular which was sent out by the Department of Community Development on 12th August, 1966? It is a circular which was addressed to all Town Clerks and Secretaries of Divisional Councils and is headed “Conservative Handling of Capital Expenditure on Housing Schemes”. It reads—

One can well imagine the embarrassing and difficult situation in which the Johannesburg City Council, for instance, finds itself as a result of this ill-timed circular. Having embarked on a sound five-year R30,000,000 plan for essential White and Coloured housing and having over a period of 18 months prepared the necessary plans, having negotiated the purchase of land and having obtained the loans and holding tenders of more than R5,000,000, it now finds that as a result of this slowing down process all their plans are being affected. Can one imagine the reaction of the 4,000 odd White families in Johannesburg who need houses desperately when they opened the Star and read—

When we look at the position of Coloured housing the position is equally alarming. Indications are that there is a need for 7,150 houses for Coloureds in the metropolitan area of Johannesburg. If to this is added that 550 houses will be needed annually to cater for the natural increase in the Coloured population, it is apparent that unless there is complete rethinking on the part of the Department of Community Development the already serious housing position in the Johannesburg complex will grow even worse.

I realize of course that the problem of housing is a national one but on account of the limited time at my disposal I can only touch on certain aspects of the problem. By confining myself to the housing shortage in the metropolitan area of Johannesburg I am not being parochial in my approach but only motivated by the fact that I have an intimate knowledge of this problem in this particular area. Evidence is mounting that the standard set by the Department of Community Development in its housing code is far too low. Let me quote an example. In terms of the code a three-bedroomed house may be 605 sq. ft., that is for a family of from five to six. This standard is startling if one compares it with the Parker Morris standard in England, namely 810 sq. ft. plus 50 sq. ft. for storage.

To illustrate the gravity of the housing position in Johannesburg, I have drawn up the following schedule reflecting an analysis of 1,713 families falling within the economic group on the waiting list for houses of the City Council of Johannesburg. In the income group R81 to R150 per month there are 975 applicants on the waiting list, i.e. 56.9 per cent of the total. In the salary group R151 to R180 there are 657 on the waiting list, or 28.3 per cent of the total whereas in the income group R180 to R250 per month there are 81 on the waiting list, or 4.8 of the total. On the basis of this analysis it appears that the City Council of Johannesburg is virtually unable to house some 60 per cent of its population. Taking an area of 850 sq. ft. for a family of five, the cost of building the house, plus the cost of the services and of the land, will be to the order of some R4,700 to R4,800, or a rental of approximately R40 to R42 per month. Such a rental is from 28 per cent to 50 per cent of the earnings of the group earning R80 to R150 per month. Obviously, rentals of this magnitude can only lead to non-payment of rentals and other social upsets.

The present ceiling set for housing for the physically fit aged also needs the urgent attention of the Government. Despite the fact that the per capita cost per unit was raised in January, 1966, from R1,100 to R1,475 the Johannesburg City Council finds that it cannot build a satisfactory old-age unit for letting to a single old-age person. This position is serious if regard is had to the fact that there are about 12 single persons for every couple requiring this form of accommodation. At present approximately 1,134 persons require some form of accommodation and if these are to be properly housed the commission should urgently reconsider its per capita ceiling for single persons. It is surprising that although sociologists are agreed that it is virtually impossible to place two aged physically fit people in a double room, this, in fact, is the solution which the Department of Community Development has suggested. The fallacy of fixing a per capita charge is apparent when it is realized that it requires only about 30 to 40 sq. ft. of extra space to make it suitable for a couple and that the cost of this extra space is only between R120 and R180.

The motion by the hon. member for Durban (Point) which is now before the House has come at a very opportune time. In my mind there is no doubt that the urgent need for housing which he stated there was, does in actual fact exist. I can only hope that as a result of this debate to-day the Government will take note of the position and that something will be done very shortly to overcome the very very serious housing crisis.

Let me say at once that I am very well aware of the fact that there is in South Africa a shortage of housing for all race groups. There are various reasons for that and that is why various measures are taken from time to time to meet the position. It would have been much better if we had had more time than we have at our disposal in this debate for going into this problem more thoroughly. In the limited time at my disposal—in terms of the agreement between the parties I only have 30 minutes at my disposal—I find it impossible, for instance, to deal at all fully with all the aspects mentioned here to-day. Under these circumstances hon. members will perhaps allow me to speak for slightly more than 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, is the hon. member for Umhlatuzana entitled to read a newspaper while his provincial leader is speaking?

Order! The hon. the Minister may continue.

I am also thoroughly aware of the social problems arising from the shortage of housing, because it has been our experience that where proper housing has been provided there is a considerable decrease in the incidence of social maladjustment. That has been our experience as regards all population groups. The ideal we are therefore aiming at is to be able to provide all sections of the population with sufficient housing. But now the question arises whether it is in the first instance the duty of the Central Government to provide fully in those needs. Everybody will agree that it is in fact the duty of the Government to assist in the provision of housing.

However, under no circumstances should the impression take root in the public mind that the provision of houses is the duty of the State alone. It is essential that every person should aim at obtaining his own house, without the mediation of the State. What the State does in fact do, is to assist him and thus make it easier for him to obtain a house. In the first instance, however, it ought to be the wish of every head of a family to obtain a house on his initiative. Under no circumstances should he be under the impression that he should simply leave it to the State to assist him. The suggestion made by the hon. member for Durban (Point) that instalments which are being paid off on housing loans should be taken into consideration when such a person’s income-tax is being assessed, I shall convey to my colleague, the Minister of Finance.

Then I am of the opinion that it is also the duty of the employer to assist in the provision of housing for his workers, particularly where new industries are being established. That is happening in the mining industry and I think that new industries should likewise accept responsibility for providing proper housing for the people who take up employment there. That will have the effect that they will have at their disposal a more settled and stable and reliable labour community.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) referred to the large number of railway officials who fall in the category of people who ought to be able to obtain houses of the type provided by the National Housing Commission. Let me point out to the hon. member that the South African Railways Administration is in fact one of the bodies which accepts its responsibility towards its officials. Since the 1st April, 1948 until the 31st December, 1965, the S.A. Railways Administration provided its officials with a total of 20,682 houses at a cost of R137,500,000.

That is under the various schemes.

Yes, that is under the various schemes. For that reason, Mr. Speaker, I say that the Railways is accepting its responsibility. The mines are accepting their responsibility. The State is accepting its responsibility, since it is increasingly providing its officials with housing, where other housing is not available. That is why I think it is essential that industrialists, too, should to a greater extent than has perhaps been the case up to now, assist in the provision of housing for their employees.

We admit that we have this backlog in housing, a backlog which developed as a result of various circumstances. There is the influx of immigrants. There is, as the hon. member for Stellenbosch said, the temporary influx of inhabitants from rural areas, of inhabitants of farms, to the cities, where they have to find a temporary refuge until better conditions prevail in the rural areas once again, until it has rained once again. These things cause a temporary congestion in urban areas. But there is also the tremendous industrial development in our country, which is making tremendous demands on the building industry. New factories are being erected. Owing to the increase in population there are new schools, hospitals, office buildings, churches, and so forth.

We have in South Africa an appreciable, a considerable and a very serious manpower shortage, not only in the field of the building industry, but also in all other fields. No matter what measures one may take, one always encounters the problem that one cannot do more than one is in a position to do with the available manpower in South Africa. If we consider that approximately 150,000 artisans are employed in the building industry in South Africa and that the unemployment figure remains roughly between 200 and 300 at any time, it is clear that those are only the people who become unemployed through their own doing. We know that there are such people in every group and in every community. There is therefore virtually full employment as far as the building industry is concerned. I am concerned about the fact that, apparently, insufficient numbers of young Whites are entering the various trades in the building industry as apprentices. I am concerned about that, because it can aggravate our problems in the future very seriously. What are we doing to meet this problem?

In the first instance steps have been taken in the building industry itself in that they paid higher wages to their artisans. Higher wages were paid to obtain the services of artisans and to encourage young people to take up those trades. But as a result of the higher wages, building costs have increased. As a result of rising building costs, one can build fewer houses with the same money and once again one has to contend with the eternal vicious circle. In the second place the State intervened. My predecessor took the initiative and the State actively encouraged pre-constructed building methods for the very purpose of being able to provide more housing with less skilled labour. The hon. member for Durban (Point) complained that factory-constructed houses, pre-constructed houses were more expensive than conventional houses. He referred to the scheme at the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam in particular. That is an isolated scheme, but if those houses were built under the same circumstances as conventional houses, I doubt whether they would be more expensive. We must remember, Sir, that material has to be transported there over long distances, and that is why material is more expensive at that particular scheme than at other places. If somebody in the conventional trade had to erect those houses, he would also have had to transport his material over the same long distances. He would have to pay his artisans housing or board and lodging allowances while they were being employed there. That would also have sent his costs soaring. In other words, conventional houses would also have been more expensive there than they normally are at other places. The pre-constructed houses there cannot be compared with conventional houses elsewhere. Conventional and pre-constructed houses should be compared with each other when they are in the same surroundings and where the same circumstances are found. In that regard it has been our experience that pre-constructed houses tend to bring down the cost structure of housing. Up to now it has not succeeded in doing so to a large extent, because we must remember, Mr. Speaker, that factory-constructed or pre-constructed housing is still in its infancy. It still has to go through a period of growth. It still has to adapt itself to our circumstances. It still has to find its way. But even at present it can compete with conventional methods on an equal footing. Even at this stage it can do that. Where tenders are called for, the builders of pre-constructed houses are the people who get the contracts purely on the basis of price competition. We are therefore making progress in that direction. In that respect the State has taken a tremendous step forward. But the State has also taken a further step and that was to introduce building control. Buildings to the value of R62,000,000 have been postponed for one to two years. That caused a delay in the erection of other kinds of buildings. We have therefore given attention to all those problems.

Mr. Speaker, the first part of the motion deals with the aged. As the hon. member for Umbilo said, it is primarily the duty of welfare organizations to see to that. I do not want to go into the details. On a previous occasion, namely on 5th August, I furnished figures to show how there has been an increase in the provision of old-age homes. I do not have the time now to go into that matter in detail again. I just want to refer to the question of the hon. member for Umbilo who wanted to know why such a golden opportunity was lost in that the R750,000 which had been voted as a donation for the purpose of accommodating welfare organizations, was not used. The reason for that is obvious. In every case the welfare organization has to plan its scheme first. The planning must reach a certain stage, and so forth, before it can obtain that amount. That is why the withdrawals made since that amount was made available were very small initially. However, the amount is still available. Up to now only R185,000 has been withdrawn. We find that applications are coming in faster now that people are getting ready to avail themselves of that money. With any scheme it happens that when it is introduced, it takes time before the organizations which can make use of it, are attuned to it, and we are now beginning to reach that stage. With the aid of this measure I therefore anticipate that the problems experienced by private welfare organizations in the past, will be made fewer, and that we shall be able to make available more old-age homes at an increased rate. I also agree wholeheartedly with the hon. member that we should not only place the aged in old-age homes, but that we should in actual fact build a cheaper type of house in each housing scheme so that the lower income groups, inter alia, the pensioners, may live in the community itself. That is the policy of my Department. Where the National Housing Commission undertakes schemes, it sees to it that a certain percentage of the houses in that scheme falls in the sub-economic group. That has the effect that the inhabitants of sub-economic houses can be scattered among the economic group, so that one does not build up separate economic or sub-economic communities, but one integrated community. Not only does that apply to pensioners, but also to the very lowest income groups which we, for social reasons, do not want to place separately, but integrate in the community. That is why the National Housing Commission follows that method.

In respect of housing for the lower income groups where the State grants assistance, and where the State grants assistance through the National Housing Commission’s assistance to local authorities in the first instance, we are now indirectly being accused that the State has neglected its duty in this regard. But what is the position? Mr. Speaker, I do not want to occupy the time of the House with a long list of data. I have a very great deal of very illuminating data here. But I just want to point out to you that in 1962-3 the housing commission had to pay back to the Treasury more than R4,000,000 of the funds it had available, since local authorities had not taken it up. In 1963-4 R10,750,000 of the available funds was not taken up by local authorities to start schemes of this nature. It was as a result of the very fact that the State had voted funds for this purpose, but that local authorities did not accept their responsibility and carry out their share of the task, that the State started singling out special officials for the purpose of approaching municipalities one by one and to activate them in this direction. They were asked: “Please start these schemes: they are your responsibility. The State is helping you with them.” That is why it was possible to show an improvement from 1964-5. But even in 1964-5 R2,750,000 which was available, was paid back. Last year, for the first time, the amount used exceeded the estimate by R2,750,000. By means of virement it was possible to supplement that from other sources.

But, Mr. Speaker, what is the position this year? The position this year is that according to the estimates of the local authorities and the Housing Commission in regard to schemes they felt themselves prepared to commence, a total of R8,500,000 more than last year was made available to the Housing Commission and the Community Development Fund. That is the additional appropriation plus the larger amount which revert to the two funds. That means that a total amount of R73,000,000 is available for housing in the two funds this year. That is considerably more than ever before, Sir. Now for the first time we find ourselves in the position—and now I come to the argument of the hon. member for Johannesburg (North)—that local authorities are drawing much more rapidly against the fund than they have ever done in the past. That could not have been foreseen in advance. In the past and now again they have entered into contracts with contractors to hand over schemes over a period of 18 months or two years. The Department provided them with money on that basis, but instead of completing the scheme over a period of 18 months or two years, the completion has now suddenly been accelerated and withdrawals against the fund are taking place more rapidly than anticipated in terms of the estimates of both the local authorities and the National Housing Commission. If we should allow matters to continue in that manner, we shall be heading for a deficit of some R8,000,000, and with the condition of our economy in general it is simply not possible to increase the allocated amount of R73,000,000 with an additional R8,000,000 in this financial year. We were, therefore, faced with this problem that where one had to urge people on previously, where we begged them year after year to do the work, they suddenly started to work faster this year than had been anticipated both by them and by us, and the result is that we are faced with this problem this year. I am very unhappy about this situation and wherever it is possible we shall try to economize on schemes which are not intended for the lower income groups. As far as it is possible we are trying to make the money available to the lower income groups instead. Let me also reply to the hon. member for Durban (Point) who said that among the number of houses made available by the Department, there is a considerable number which falls in a higher category than the category for which we should in actual fact make provision, houses which are more expensive than those which should be provided for the lower income groups. Mr. Speaker, that is quite a different matter; those are houses which the Community Development Board has to buy up from unauthorized persons in group areas to assist those unauthorized persons to establish themselves in their own areas. Those properties which have been purchased, which fall in the higher category, have to be repaired and renovated and then sold to members of the authorized group.

Half of them were built by the Department.

Where the Department builds houses of that nature, it is to be able to resettle people and it is for that purpose that that money is voted, and that is why it is a separate fund. The Community Development Fund is not the fund from which houses should be provided exclusively for the lower income groups; it is for all groups. One has to help a certain number of people with their resettlement; that is what it can be attributed to, but that has no effect on the amount we make available or can make available for the lower income groups. Allow me to show hon. members in the light of these figures, what progress we have made during the last few years. Between the years 1960 and 1966, i.e. over a period of six years, 7,700 living units have been provided by local authorities with the aid of housing funds—I am talking about Whites; it will take too long to furnish data for other races. In other words, a little more than 1,000 houses per annum. That is the figure for the entire Republic. Hon. members will realize how tremendously slow the rate has been. It is estimated that in this year, 1966-7 3,325 will be provided by local authorities with the aid of National Housing Funds. In other words, we have almost trebled the rate. Since local authorities went too slowly, the National Housing Commission itself had to step in with its crash building programme and up to last year 2,481 houses were completed, and a further 1,857 living units are being planned. That is over and above those which are being provided by the local authorities. I can furnish the hon. member with particulars in regard to every city and every town, but if I am to go into all those particulars, it will take too long. Let it be sufficient to say that we are dealing with a situation in which there was initially a measure of sluggishness on the part of the municipalities, as the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) has quite rightly said here. Two to three years ago municipalities said, “We cannot build, because if we do we shall incur losses; we shall not be able to let all those houses.” They said there was no demand for houses. We had to beg them to build, and it is only since last year really that we have succeeded in speeding up the rate. Hon. members may perhaps ask me why we have not speeded up the schemes undertaken by the National Housing Commission. Apart from the shortage of material and manpower, we were faced with a considerable number of additional problems.

The National Housing Commission does not own land; it had to obtain land in the areas of the various local authorities; it had to provide services there or it had to negotiate with the local authorities for the provision of the necessary services. It had to overcome restrictive provisions in respect of the type of house one was allowed to build there. We had to introduce special legislation in this House to meet those problems, and all those things had a retarding effect on the plans and the planning of the Housing Commission, where the Commission itself had to step in. Those are problems which the local authorities do not have, or where there are in fact problems, they are problems which they themselves can quite easily overcome. As a result of these problems, the crash building programme of the National Housing Commission was hampered considerably. We are overcoming those problems; we are obtaining land for building purposes everywhere and we are engaged in various schemes all over the country.

At the moment there are areas in the country where the National Building Commission has more living units under construction than the particular local authority for those areas. I do not want to mention the names of the areas; I do not want to compare areas tonight, but there are such large urban areas where the National Housing Commission has more living units under construction than the particular local authority. We are overcoming these problems. A tremendous deal of work has already been done and we shall continue along those lines.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) made certain suggestions. I have already dealt with two of them. He said that the pegging of rentals would have a discouraging effect on the provision of new housing, but, Mr. Speaker, there is no question of pegging rentals. I want to make it clear that hon. members and also members of the public are under the misunderstanding that, in terms of my announcement of the 5th August, rentals will remain pegged at what they were on the 31st May. That is not a correct interpretation of my announcement. It only means that as soon as the necessary legislation has been passed and the necessary proclamation has been issued, rentals which were in force as at the 31st May, will be the valid rents until such time as the Rent Board determines other rents. There is therefore no pegging of rentals; there is merely rent control, and that is why I believe that it will not deter investors from making further investments in that field. I should rather say more about that at a later, more suitable opportunity.

The hon. member also referred to the problem that existing housing is often destroyed in that a building is demolished, and he asked that my Department should rather buy such a building instead of allowing it to be demolished. The hon. member is probably aware of the fact that the Department has the right to forbid the demolishing of any building which provides living accommodation. We are doing that in numerous cases. We do not allow a building, of which the living accommodation is of a reasonable standard, to be demolished unless the owner of that building is able to provide alternative housing for the inhabitants of such a building. [Time limit.]

Sir, I should just like to have clarity in connection with a question asked by the hon. member for Durban (Point) while you were not in the Chair. He asked whether it was in order for me to read a newspaper. I have a report here, the heading of which reads, “Indian Housing Scheme”. I should just like your ruling as to whether I may read this report.

Order!

In spite of all the impressive statistics given here this afternoon by the hon. the Minister in reply to the debate the fact remains that he admitted himself—he was quite objective and fair about it—that he had said in an interview given to the newspapers that there was a shortage of 90,000 houses in South Africa at the present time, 50,000 for Whites, Indians and Coloureds and 40,000 for Africans. Sir, you can try your best to talk this away but that is a practical fact and the hon. the Minister has admitted it himself.

The hon. the Minister asked whether it was the task of the State to provide housing for all. Of course, I agree with him that we do not want to find ourselves in that position. But, with respect, this Government has been in power for nearly 20 years. Why have they not done anything about improving the earning capacity of our working class people so that they can contribute more to the cost of the housing which the State is attempting to subsidize? Sir, it goes right back to the schools, to the question of vocational training and to the shortage of apprentices in the building industry as the hon. the Minister has admitted himself. The hon. the Minister went on to say that industrialists must play a greater part than they are playing to-day. Might I remind the Minister that a few years ago Mr. Harry Oppenheimer donated something in the nature of £3,000,000 to the Johannesburg City Council for the purpose of subsidizing sub-economic housing in that urban area? Sir, what about the mining industry? The mining industry houses its employees at no cost at all to the State.

I said that industrialists should do what the mining industry does.

I accept that, but there are other industries in this country too, as the hon. the Minister knows, which do quite a lot to subsidize the housing of their employees. Sir, how can the hon. the Minister come here and make a plea about the shortage of trained manpower when his colleague, the Minister of Railways, got up in this House ten days ago and told the House, in reply to a question, that there were 23,000 White men working on the Railways earning less than R100 a month? Can you tell me why, Sir? I will tell you why. It is because they have no qualifications to enable them to earn a higher salary. Why are they not skilled people? Because this Government has failed not only in the field of housing but in the field of education, in the field of agriculture, social welfare and in every other field.

We inherited these people from the United Party Government.

When the hon. the Minister talks about this vicious circle, I would like to know who created it? The fact of the matter is that all the excuses the Minister made this afternoon are simply part and parcel of the general inefficiency and maladministration of this Nationalist Government, and it is no good the Minister saying that the Budget produced by the Minister of Finance has made life more difficult for him and his Department. Now, on 1st February this year the then Minister of Community Development told the House that there was no shortage of housing in the sense that no families were without roofs over their heads, but he went on to admit that there was overcrowding and housing of poor quality and he gave us some of the figures. When the Minister’s predecessor stated that everyone at least had a roof over his head, one wonders whether he realized the sordid and appalling conditions in which so many people, including Whites, are living in South Africa to-day. I have seen them in our big cities while canvassing during elections. You would be shocked, Sir, if you went into those homes. There are thousands of non-Whites also living in outhouses, garages, cellars, pondoks, in wood and tin shacks, without any power and with primitive communal toilets and washing facilities, and living in conditions which can only be described as a health hazard to the rest of the country. I have seen some of these houses occupied by Whites in which the floor-boards are so rotten that in places you could not step on them: houses with cement floors which are as cold as charity, and with water running down the walls.

And is that all this Government’s fault?

In these houses there are many children who are always ailing because of these conditions. I have come across, in my own immediate vicinity, families who are paying from R12 to R20 a month for the privilege of living in a three-roomed wood and tin shack, a mother, father and eight children. I am quite aware that the Minister’s Department has made and is making genuine efforts to catch up with this very large backlog, but we accuse the Government of shortsightedness in not handling this practical matter and making plans for the future when they first came into office. They planned the boom, but this maladministration and lack of efficiency is typical in so many fields.

This Government is only too happy when there is a debate on colour, but when it comes to housing it is not so keen. Apart from inefficiency, the same lack of planning is apparent in other fields as well as housing. We are faced in South Africa with a situation in which many countries overseas have found themselves, namely that private enterprise has now virtually ceased to provide houses for the lower-income groups and the general mass of the people. The reason for that is that the demand for housing is too great and building costs have gone up and it does not pay a private contractor to erect houses of the simpler kind for the lower-income groups. That is generally accepted and it is nothing new in South Africa, nor is it “socialism” to assist the lower-income groups in regard to housing. But how is the Government handling the matter?

I want to make an entirely different point here from the ones made during this debate to-day. I would say that unfortunately most of the housing schemes sponsored by this Government suffer from fundamental defects caused by the financial limits and the restrictions imposed by the Central Government upon this Minister and his Department. Of course we do not expect him to build palaces, but what is happening is that townships with poor building standards are erected, and within a period of years they are in danger of deteriorating into slum areas. This is what is happening and it will prove to have been false economy, it will defeat the Government’s own ends. We consider that it is high time for the Department of Community Development to take steps to raise the standards of accommodation for all races.

This Minister, within the last few weeks, has raised the qualifying income limits for sub-economic units. In these assisted schemes we consider that the Minister should give serious consideration also to a further reduction in the interest rates on housing loans initiated through his Department. I hope the Minister will give that matter some consideration. Many homes are being built to-day with Government assistance, but right from the beginning they often prove to be too small for the families occupying them.

This is one of the problems and flat-life, as the Minister will agree, has always been inimical to a free and happy family life, particularly when there are children. In urban areas many people engaged in private enterprise have assisted the housing problem considerably in that they have concentrated on the erection, especially in the poorer areas, of increasingly large numbers of warren-like blocks of flats. The conditions of existence in many of these flats are anything but healthy. There are often too many children, and before you know where you are there is not enough living and playing space and these flats rapidly deteriorate into slums. Unfortunately this happens only too rapidly and I wonder whether the Department does enough to control it.

The situation among the Whites in the heart of our urban areas is very pitiful in many cases. The hon. members for some of the Port Elizabeth constituencies will agree with me here. In many cases families of eight and ten people live in two rooms. I wonder whether I may raise another issue. Why does the Government not use its imagination and initiative to subsidize young married couples who are trying to acquire their own homes? They could inaugurate some sort of scheme, and this is very important when you consider that one of our objects in South Africa is to increase the White birth-rate. There is no encouragement to young couples to increase their families if all they can afford to live in is only two small rooms or a small flat.

The Minister said that people themselves should do as much as they could to acquire their own houses. Of course he is perfectly right, but what about the credit squeeze? Does the Minister not know that for the past 12 months or more the building societies have been refusing loans to people of undoubted integrity and reasonable financial standing, people holding good jobs, but with no surplus capital with which to buy a house? They have asked the building societies for loans but they have repeatedly been refused on the grounds that the Government’s credit squeeze forbids them to lend any further money for housing.

Surely this is to be deplored. The majority of salaried people who are willing to assume the responsibility of acquiring their own homes, without any assistance from the State, cannot do so, but if they were able to the burden on the Minister’s Department would be lessened and obviously more funds would then be available for the subsidization of sub-economic housing. The willingness and the capacity to buy a house out of one’s own income is surely one of the best ways of doing two things, of saving money by putting it into fixed property, and of keeping money out of circulation in a very good cause in a time of inflation. It seems to me that the Government has lacked imagination altogether by not having thought out some scheme whereby the building societies might have been permitted to handle their funds in a rather more generous fashion for housing purposes, a scheme which need not have impinged in any way upon the Government’s subsidized plans for housing for the lower-income groups and the sub-economic groups. We have been told so often that this Government planned the boom, but could they not really have foreseen that this housing shortage was likely to happen?

That is why we begged the municipalities to start with their schemes.

Could the Minister not have foreseen that we would, before long, land ourselves in a crisis in regard to housing for our employees in an expanding industry? It is a universal problem, but this Government was too busy with its ideological schemes to deal with it. [Interjection.] The unfortunate thing is that the Minister talks about the municipalities and tries to put the blame on them for the shortage of housing. Good heavens, Mr. Speaker, the Provincial Administrations have the power to exert pressure upon the municipalities and the Minister has the power to bring pressure to bear upon the provinces. There is nothing to stop him. Look at the pressure that is being brought to bear in various quarters right at this moment. So he cannot blame the municipalities. But the unfortunate part of the situation is this, that according to the Minister in 1965, whereas R3,000,000 was set aside by his Department over the past two years to enable South Africans in the R180-R200 a month income bracket to obtain housing loans, only about half that money was taken up. The basic down payment for a Government house of this kind is R200. The hard fact of the matter is that the average worker earning up to R250 a month simply does not have enough money to pay that initial R200 out of his monthly pay-packet. The extra taxation now being imposed on all householders in terms of this Budget and the phenomenal rise in the cost of living over the past 12 months will make the position even worse. Those unfortunate people in the middle income group, of whom thousands have bonds on their properties, hope to pay them off before they retire, but now they will have to pay 81 per cent interest on their bonds, which means that they will take two or three years to pay if off. Many of them will be pensioned off at a given time just like that in terms of existing legislation, members of the Public Service and others. What will they do then? Out of their pensions they will have to go on paying 81 per cent interest on their bond for another few years. This will hit them very hard indeed. It will mean an extra R1,000 or R1,500 added on to their bonds. As far as the Cape Province is concerned, according to the Minister’s statement, there is a shortage of 42,700 houses for people of all races, and of course the largest backlog is for Coloureds, 21,200. In the municipal area of Cape Town alone there is a shortage of about 11,000 houses and over 8,000 Coloured families have put their names down on the waiting-list of the City Housing Manager. The Government has just gone and built a second railway station in Cape Town costing R2,000,000 for the non-Whites, who all have to use the expensive new concourse and end up by getting into different carriages on the same train. What could you not do in the way of housing with an extra R2,000,000? That is the sort of thing which I we consider to be absolutely ridiculous. [Interjections.] For hundreds of years people have gone to their respective coaches and there has been no trouble, but this is the sort of example of a wastage of money, when they all go up the concourse through this beautiful concrete building and end up in the same trains but only in different carriages. Sir, I think they should appoint a woman as Minister of Housing. She would be more able to cope with these things than the Minister. May I say that the Mayor of Stellenbosch, who is no doubt a friend of the Minister, addressed a meeting in June of the local mayors, officials and educationists. He said that more than 23,000 living units were still needed for Coloured people in the Western Cape, and he stated that in 1937 it was found that only 5 per cent of all Coloured people were housed satisfactorily. Twenty-five years later the Secretary for Housing estimates that there is still a shortage of 50,000 houses for Coloured people.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 32 and motion and amendment lapsed.