as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Standing Select Committee on Provincial Affairs: Transvaal, dated 12 June 1987, as follows:

as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Standing Select Committee on Provincial Affairs: Cape Province, dated 12 June 1987, as follows:

1. 1. Your Committee deliberated on the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for the financial year ending 31 March 1988 read in conjunction with the Appropriation Bill [B 66—87 (GA)] on five days, heard evidence on the general policy motivating the proposals and received information from the Administrator, the members of the Executive Committee and officials in respect of the proposed expenditure and revenue to be levied. The Committee records its thanks to the Administrator, the members of the Executive Committee and the officials for their contribution.
2. 2. Your Committee considers that certain matters which are of consequence, including—
   1. 2.1 defining the ambit of the functions of the Provincial Administration, particularly in relation to those functions taken over from Government Departments;
   2. 2.2 the constitutional requirements in relation to those functions; and
   3. 2.3 Government policy in the application of those functions,

should be brought to the attention of the Minister concerned and considered by Parliament in order to provide clarity for the future conduct and deliberations of your Committee. To this end your Committee considers that certain matters should be reported upon and that certain recommendations should be made in this Report.

1. 3. The comments made in this Report are not intended to be comprehensive and represent only some of the matters arising out of the Estimates and which appear from the evidence.
2. 4. In the light of the afore going, your Committee wishes to make the following general recommendations for consideration:
   1. 4.1 Your Committee reiterates the Government’s policy to remove ail racial discrimination and notes with approval the progress made in this regard in the services rendered by the Provincial Administration.
   2. 4.2 Your Committee is optimistic that the upturn in the economy will result in greater income for the Central Government and requests Parliament to make more funds available, especially for roads and hospitals, from such increased income.
   3. 4.3 Your Committee notes with approval that it is the Administration’s policy to establish parity in respect of salaries and service benefits throughout the service on a non-racial basis, and requests the Central Government to make funds available as soon as possible to achieve parity in salaries.
   4. 4.4 Your Committee notes with approval that racially based medical aid schemes are being phased out in all the Administration’s departments.
   5. 4.5 Your Committee welcomes the Administrator’s assurance that a policy of language parity will be adhered to in regard to departmental circulars.
   6. 4.6 Your Committee notes the Administrator’s policy that no employee is discouraged from taking leave within the ambit of his terms of service.
3. 5. Your Committee wishes to make the following specific recommendations in connection with the various Budget Votes:
   1. 5.1 Your Committee notes with approval the funds made available for the Diaz and Huguenot festivals.
   2. 5.2 Your Committee notes with approval the Administrator’s assurance that all patients receive equal treatment in provincial hospitals irrespective of race, colour or creed.
   3. 5.3 Your Committee strongly recommends that all facilities and amenities for provincial staff be fully non-discriminatory.
   4. 5.4 Your Committee expresses its serious concern at the critical backlog which has developed during the past ten years in the funding of construction and maintenance works for roads in the province.
   5. 5.5 Your Committee takes the view that in principle provincial libraries and museums throughout the province should be open to all members of the public regardless of race.
   6. 5.6 Your Committee notes with approval that it has received the assurance that all the nature reserves of the province are open to all.
   7. 5.7 Your Committee considers that the fact that the use of beaches and other public amenities has been referred to the President’s Council for consideration, is proof that the Act governing these matters is not functional and your Committee accordingly requests the President’s Council to expedite its report.
   8. 5.8 Your Committee takes note of the activities of the monitoring committee of the De Hoop Nature Reserve and also notes that the recommendations of the Hey Commission in this regard are being followed.
   9. 5.9 Your Committee recommends that requests for grants-in-aid from private nature conservation bodies such as the Wildlife Association of Southern Africa and the Botanical Society of South Africa should be treated sympathetically.
   10. 5.10 Your Committee notes that the added responsibility for forestry areas, including the Cedarberg wilderness area, has now been given to the Provincial Administration.
   11. 5.11 Your Committee recommends that maximum use be made of honorary nature conservation officers and marine inspectors to support the activities of the Inspectorate Branch.
   12. 5.12 Your Committee notes with approval that the Administration has approved the majority of the applications handled by it under the Group Areas Act on the basis of humane considerations.
   13. 5.13 Your Committee recommends that housing for married persons in Black townships be provided to meet the need and overcome the backlog for such housing.
   14. 5.14 Your Committee considers that the funds allocated for the provision of amenities and essential services in Black township areas are most inadequate and requests that urgent attention be given to this matter by the Central Government and the private sector.
   15. 5.15 Your Committee recommends that Black social grants and pensions be paid out on a monthly basis and that urgent steps be taken to bring these into line with White social grants and pensions.
   16. 5.16 Your Committee requests the Administrator to negotiate with the Commission for Administration with a view to possibly creating a new post of “Senior Assistant Librarian” to allow for promotional opportunities in this field.
4. 6. Your Committee requests the Administration to furnish members of the Committee with copies of all provincial departmental reports as a matter of routine in the future and also requests that the Administration compile an orientation programme for the members of the Standing Committee to familiarize them with the structure and workings of the new, reorganized Provincial Administration.
5. 7. Your Committee recommends that the possibility of using the old Provincial Council Chamber for its future meetings be investigated as a matter of convenience. Such an arrangement will facilitate public sittings when the Committee is required to consider draft provincial proclamations.

Mr Chairman, when I participated in this debate on Friday, I raised several matters concerning agriculture, including the measures we have put into effect over the past few years to render assistance to farmers. My turn to speak came immediately after the hon the Minister of National Education had made a speech in which he dealt with certain political arguments that had been raised by hon members of the opposition parties. What was interesting of course was that when I raised facts regarding agricultural matters, particularly the allegation that the Government did not care very much for the farmers and did very little for them, hon members of the CP did not pay any attention to my exposition of what the Government had in fact done for the farmers. They were too interested in the political arguments of the hon the Minister of National Education. They sat in little groups over there, turned their backs on me in fact, and in that way simply pushed agriculture aside again. [Interjections.] Yes, they pushed agriculture aside again because politics is after all more important to them than the realities of agriculture, and they did this at a time when agriculture is experiencing serious problems.

You will find, Mr Chairman, that later today, after this discussion, we shall discuss agriculture again. Then politics and not the coherent facts will be at issue. Facts confuse the hon members of the CP. That is also why they do not want to work with new circumstances either. When I present them with the arguments, make the figures available in regard to how we have overcome difficult times, it is still said that not enough has been done, that more should still be done for the farmers. That refers to circumstances relating to the past. The history of the recent drought reveals one very interesting fact to us. It is that we find ourselves in new circumstances today. More aid to farmers and more schemes to help agriculture would only mean that we are trying to recreate the circumstances of the past. That, of course, is part of the solution. The further and biggest part of the solution is, however, to deal with the circumstances of today. There the hon members of the opposition parties have not given us any guidance at all. They have not told us what they regard as an alternative.

Of course, the same goes for their political policy. The greater the problems of the present are for them, the further they go back into the past to find a solution for them, while we today are dealing with realities that are future-oriented. This we really cannot change. We have to find solutions to these problems, and that is not a simple matter.

However, let me take it further. This view the CP has of agriculture aggravates the problems of agriculture because, to an increasing extent, we are having to decide what the future of agriculture is in the light of their political arguments. The more we politicise agriculture, the more difficult it is to solve the problems.

Let us identify the problems and the facts, let us work according to facts and let us utilise them. Then let us see if we can find a solution. Then we shall save agriculture. Then we shall be serving this country’, because agriculture is experiencing difficult circumstances. I appeal once again to hon members of the opposition. Let us confine ourselves to the facts and let us also remove the sting from the discussion on agriculture that is going to follow, because the entire farming population is saddled with a problem that we shall have to solve together.

I want to touch on one more aspect; the question of own affairs and general affairs as it affects agriculture. The further one distances oneself from any industry or country, the more everything is merely general. However, things grow so complicated when one comes closer, that after a while one no longer knows where they belong. Therefore, the further one is removed from a problem, the more general it appears. The closer one comes to it, the more one sees that there are a variety of factors that have an effect.

This also applies to agriculture. It is very easy to say in agriculture: But agriculture is entirely an own affair. How far does one now have to go to draw the line? If one takes a normal farming activity such as a farm, one can say that the activities on that farm are centred entirely around Whites only. However, when one looks at what is produced on the land and at the product that has to be sold, one realises that it is not only the Whites who buy it. In the production process it is not only the Whites who are involved. There are also people of colour involved, members of other population groups. So whatever the circumstances may be, one can never say that one affair belongs entirely to one population group. Therefore, because agriculture makes use of many production sectors, it is important that we examine this. We should try to identify as closely as possible what belongs to one group. However, this can never be absolute, because we should always take into account this other component in the production process, regardless of what decision we want to take. This also applies to the marketing process, and that is why we shall always have to create freedom of movement for agriculture, particularly as far as general affairs are concerned.

Although 95% of agricultural activities, as the hon the Minister indicated, are basically conducted by the Whites group, we cannot regard it as 100% because marketing, labour and a variety of other factors also have to be taken into account. Therefore, as far as agriculture is concerned we have allowed most activities to fall mainly under own affairs, but there are important activities that fall under general affairs which one cannot deal with insensitively. To bring about this liason in general is just as much in the interests of agriculture as this major component of own affairs over which we have complete control.

We could debate this aspect again, but let us receive contributions from all sides of the House on how to improve and extend the concept of own affairs so that what is within our decision-making sphere, continues to remain there, but also so that others are given a fair say in what they share with us.

I gladly support this Budget because it is based on facts and has relevance to the realities.

Mr Chairman, first of all I should also like to congratulate the hon member for Barberton on his enhanced status as the chief spokesman of the Official Opposition on financial matters. The hon member for Barberton is one of the competent hon members of the CP. He is also a reasonable and fair person, and although our differences are great, I think we shall be able to debate constructively. The hon member for Barberton succeeds the hon member for Yeoville as chief spokesman of the Official Opposition on financial matters, and it seems to me this has also had a very salutary effect on the hon member for Yeoville because he made a very constructive contribution to the debate on Friday. I shall come back to that hon member later.

He always does that.

Once again the debate was characterised by the vast difference in approach of the two opposition parties. Both criticised the Government and rejected the concept of own affairs governments, but did so from two completely different and irreconciliable points of view.

To hon members of the Official Opposition, through their spokesman the hon member for Barberton, the own affairs dispensation is merely a facade of integration, if one listened carefully to the arguments from that side, and ultimately, as the hon member for Brakpan almost said, it is a facade for Black government.

To the hon members of the PFP it is becoming a facade for apartheid. I can still understand the hon members rejecting the concept of own affairs government, because the hon members of the PFP reject any group-defined political or constitutional dispensation, but surely the CP accepts a group-differentiated constitutional dispensation for South Africa. In fact, the very thing they want to do is to take a group-defined constitutional dispensation to its extreme and most radical consequences by establishing own states for all peoples.

In principle the members of the Official Opposition ought not to object to a group-defined concept such as that of own affairs. The only objection they can lodge to own affairs government is that it does not go far enough and that adequate provision is not being made for the interests of the White population group. This is the only fundamental objection which those hon members ought in reality to be able to make. In fact, the hon member for Lichtenburg even went so far as to say that if the CP were to come into power, everything would be own affairs.

His Hansard of Friday reads:

In principle, therefore, the standpoint of the CP is that there should also be an own affairs government, The point on which we do differ—this is important—is how far the principle of own affairs government can be taken in view of the realities of our country, with its heterogeneous population structure. Because the concept of own affairs government, as embodied at present in the Constitution, does not comply with the idealistic vision of hon members of the CP, may throw the baby out with the bath-water and reject the entire concept.

In that respect they remind me of the ascetic religious movements of the Middle Ages. The world and everything in it was sinful and evil. Mankind and the human body with all its urges and desires were also evil; the world was a place to flee from, and all urges and desires had to be suppressed. It was a policy of withdrawal and flight. Life in its full reality and its full glow had to be rejected. Life itself was one long wait for a heaven for which the faithful prepared themselves. In that case it was at least a heaven which existed, but the CP also rejects the world with its realities and its complex, interwoven and heterogeneous population structure because they are preparing themselves for a political heaven in South Africa, which is simply not attainable. They reject the only practical and realistic way in which justice can be done to group interests in our complex country, because they do not want to accept the realities of our situation.

I want to admit at once that if partition and territorial separation were in any way a workable option, I would have supported them fully. It would have made our situation far easier and would have solved many problems. But surely, we are not living in a political heaven. We are simply living in this reality with all its complex challenges. We must try to find a workable constitutional solution within this reality of people of flesh and blood, with political claims and rights.

The present constitutional dispensation is not perfect. I concede at once that deficiencies exist in own affairs government. On the part of the Ministers’ Council and of the Administration: House of Assembly we are constantly trying to improve the system in that respect as well.

Surely we have not come to the end of the road. It is far better to build on what has already been achieved, on the successes already achieved, than simply to reject them in anticipation of a better system which is simply not attainable in practice.

In a previous debate I pointed out that partition in South Africa was not attainable on demographic grounds. It has already failed. On the basis of past experience it is clear that it is not a practicable policy.

I should briefly like to postulate three further criteria against which the practicability, the attainability of a policy of partition can be measured. In the first place, is the policy of partition going to bring homogeneous territorial areas or states into existence? If the policy of partition is not going to contribute to effecting a dramatic and drastic change to the population structure of South Africa then, with all due respect, the hon members of the CP are deceiving the voters.

Now I want to ask whether this Southernland or Boerestaat or White geographic territory over which Whites are going to govern is going to be White or whether there are also going to be thousands or millions of Blacks and Coloureds living and working there. If it is not going to be predominantly and homogeneously White, we shall in the long run not be able to withstand the legitimate political claims of the people living and working there.

There comes a stage in history when a specific matter reaches irretrievable fulfilment. For various reasons it acquires a specific momentum and it ultimately becomes inavertible. I believe we find ourselves in the historical era in which the end of White domination over other population groups has arrived, and the NP knows and accepts this. Not only does the NP accept it, but we are also creating political and constitutional structures which help to make it possible to effect these changes in such a way that South Africa is not plunged into chaos as a result.

I believe there are thinking members, too, in the ranks of the CP; perhaps not only represented here, but possibly also present here, who realise the inavertibility of this event. Nevertheless they believe that partition will be able to obviate it. Very well, they have every right to think so, but the question is whether partition, measured against the criterion of homogeneous geographical areas, will be able to make this possible. If that is not the case, the CP has not solved anything. Then the problem remains exactly as it is today.

The second criterion I think should be applied in all fairness is whether the territorial separation can take place on a fair and just basis. The hon member for Brakpan attacked me on Friday for making the statement that South Africa was not an exclusively White country. He said Whites had acquired South Africa through occupation and conquest. I want to remind the hon member of the fact that the Coloureds have lived in this country for more than 300 years. In fact, they are from this country.

The claims which Coloureds may have to South African citizenship and the rights that go with it are no different from any claims the hon member for Brakpan and I may have. Their claims are based on a few centuries of occupation and habitation; yes, that was the case before the hon member for Brakpan’s forebears were here.

I want to mention a few other interesting facts to the hon member for Brakpan. Does the hon member know—without going into the merits of the case; I am simply stating the facts—that the franchise was granted to Black people in the Cape Parliament in 1854, and that as long ago as 1887, 30 000 Black people were on the voters’ roll? At the National Convention franchise and parliamentary representation for specific Black groups, as well as Coloureds, were entrenched in sections of the South Africa Act of 1909. This legislation could only, as hon members know, be amended by a two-thirds majority at a joint meeting of the House of Assembly and the Senate.

Did that happen?

I am merely stating these facts to emphasize that the political rights of Whites, Blacks and Coloureds have been interwoven into this country for more than a century because—and this is the point—we mainly share the same territory with one another and have the same fatherland, and because we have the same sovereign state that exercises jurisdiction over us.

The standpoint of the hon member for Brakpan—and it seems to me this also expresses the feeling of the other hon members of the CP—is not only untrue, as the facts I have just mentioned indicate, but it is also a dangerous standpoint. Perhaps this is the worst aspect of this matter. It is also a dangerous standpoint, because it creates false views, views which—so it seems to me—are already firmly established among the hon members of the Official Opposition. It creates dangerous views and expectations among Whites. What is more, it contributes to a climate in which it becomes all the more difficult, and is going to become all the more difficult, to find peaceful solutions to South Africa’s problems. [Interjections.]

I do not think that hon members of the CP, who are protesting now, are deliberately promoting a climate of polarisation between Blacks and Whites. I shall not make such an allegation because I do not think it is true. It is nevertheless standpoints of this nature that unfortunately contribute to such polarisation.

An investigation carried out by the Intitute for Futures Research, at the University of Potchefstroom, led to a number of shocking findings. In an article published in Beeld on 15 May 1987 …

Like the results in Potchestroom.

Order! Interjections are being made which contribute nothing to the debate. The hon the Minister may proceed.

Sir, perhaps the hon member for Losberg would have less to say once he hears what these findings were. According to an article which appeared on 15 May 1987 in Beeld, the Institute for Futures Research at the University of Potchefstroom found that there was a generation of White children on the way that hated the Blacks. I quote:

I shall also quote from the following interesting report:

These findings are indeed shocking.

Of course we must not expect other findings if there are people who continue, through their political standpoints, to promote racial superiority in this country. We must not expect other findings if there are people, who through their policy statements, denounce the legitimate claims and rights of people in other population groups.

If the policy of partition had to be measured against the criterion of fairness and justness, I want to tell those hon members that if their standpoint is that they claim South Africa exclusively for the Whites, while they allocate the other population groups to those areas upon which they decide, they have already failed to measure up to this criterion.

The third criterion which I think can fairly be applied to the policy of partition is whether territorial separation complies with the test of negotiation. Is it the result of multilateral negotiation or of a unilateral decision? If it is the result of a unilateral decision, it is not partition; it is expulsion or banishment. It is not partition. Partition is only possible if it comes into existence on the basis of negotiation.

The hon member for Lichtenburg adopted the standpoint that 70% of all Black people would already be living in their own countries 10 to 15 years after the CP came into power.

It is obvious that this cannot take place by means of compulsion. Even with the greatest force we have at our disposal, it will not be possible to physically relocate millions of people in this way. [Interjections.] It therefore implies that millions of people will have to be prepared to enter into such an agreement. This indicates that massive, voluntarily migration will have to take place in South Africa. I do not think that any hon member, who has given serious thought to this mater, can be of the opinion that there are any Black population groups in this country that will agree to such a relocation.

Measured against all three of these criterions it is therefore clear that the policy of territorial partition simply cannot succeed. It is not possible to promote White interests by means of the policy of partition, because partition cannot be implemented. [Interjections.] These are the facts.

The NP adopts the standpoint that White interests and the interests of all the other groups must be protected. That is why we adopt the standpoint that a workable political and constitutional dispensation in South Africa, in which the Black population groups are also included, only has a chance of succeeding if the diversity of groups in our country can be accommodated to the greatest possible extent as groups in the political process.

This basis offers the possibility of negotiating on structures for power-sharing over general affairs in a way which is elevated above a power struggle over numbers or mere majority rule. This makes a dispensation possible in which, on the highest level, there may even be more Black representatives present on behalf of their various groups than Whites representing their group. This will happen without jeopardising the right of self-determination over own affairs of any group and without one group having to be dominated by another. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, may I put a question to the hon the Minister?

Yes, Sir, if there is time at the end of my speech. My time is limited.

Would you not like to hear what my question is?

Would the hon member not simply listen to what I have to say? [Interjections.] He should listen to it and think about it, in contrast to the unattainable partition proposals those hon members are making to us. [Interjections.]

If power-sharing proposals in South Africa do not make provision for the diversity of groups in this country, they can result in nothing but a system of ordinary majority rule, which is not an attainable democratic option in our times. These are the practical realities attainable in the times and circumstances in which we are living. [Interjections.]

The NP accepts that White political domination must be ended. Together with the other population groups we want to build a new dispensation based on reciprocal understanding and trust, and which is based on the principle of consensus. That is the difference. The consensus politics of the NP Government bears the stamp of reconciliation, while the partition politics of the Official Opposition bears the stamp of conflict. That is the difference.

That is not true!

Yes, it is absolutely true. [Interjections.]

In this debate the CP has rejected the principle of own affairs, but they do not have a workable alternative to offer. What is the hon member for Lictenburg—he has such a lot to say for himself now—going to do with own and general affairs if the CP were to come into power? At a meeting in Welkom the hon member for Lichtenburg said:

These are the petty little plans which are being formulated to address our difficult political problems in this country. We should quite simply have three departments with three Ministers of Police, three Ministers of Defence, three Ministers of Manpower, and so on. Imagine that! [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon the Minister a question?

No, I do not have the time to reply to a question now. The hon member for Lichtenburg will have to take his medicine now. [Interjections.]

Order! No, we cannot carry on like this. Hon members must please stop making interjections. The hon the Minister may proceed.

Mr Chairman, if hon members do not like the plan … [interjections.]

Order! What I have just told the CP and the other parties, applies equally to hon members on the Government side. The hon the Minister may proceed.

If hon members of the CP, or their supporters do not like that plan, and there are perhaps going to be too many Ministers and too many problems in that chaos, the hon member for Lichtenburg has another plan as well. At the same meeting he said:

[Interjections.] The hon member for Lichtenburg went on to say:

[Interjections.]

Interjections.]

If that attitude prevails, we may as well say: “Totsiens, Morena”!

[Interjections.]

I should like to come to another aspect which received a great deal of attention during the debate. This aspect is the formulae. In their speeches the hon members for Barberton, Yeoville and Pinetown devoted a great deal of attention to the formulae according to which statutory allocations are made to the respective administrations in terms of section 84 (a) of the Constitution. The hon member for Barberton even went so far as to move in his amendment that the Bill before this House be negatived because the formulae had not yet been made known.

†I should like to be frank with hon members. They have raised a number of valid points of criticism. I can understand their impatience and frustration. I am equally impatient and frustrated that we could not make more rapid progress in this regard. However, there are good reasons why we have not yet completed the exercise.

The hon member for Yeoville who, as I have said, made a very good contribution on Friday asked me to be forthright, formula or no formula, and to say whether any sacrifices would have to be made. He came to the conclusion that sacrifices would have to be made, and he was correct, of course.

Let me first explain, however, that the Revenue Accounts Financing Act, No 120 of 1984, was passed to provide the Treasury with an interim measure in terms of which the statutory amounts, ie the section 84 (a) amounts, could be allocated to the own affairs administrations while the formulae were being devised and finalised. The section 84 (a) statutory amounts are of very great significance to own affairs administrations. They not only represent the main source of income of the administrations but once embodied in legislation these formulae will also confirm the independent nature and autonomy of own affairs administrations. Section 84 (a) amounts and the formulae involved confirm the principle that revenue collected by the Treasury will be allocated to own affairs administrations on the basis of fixed and objective criteria which have been agreed upon and which can only be changed by mutual agreement.

The formal transfer of funds on this basis will enable Ministers of the Budget and the administrations and departments involved to plan ahead. This will contribute to sound planning and financial control.

I can therefore give hon members the assurance that the three Ministers’ Councils are anxious to conclude and finalise these matters. As a matter of fact we are trying to expedite matters as far as possible.

Next year?

No, before that. I will come to that, however. Fact is, Sir—the hon member for Yeoville should know it—that devising and finalising these formulae has proved to be a far more difficult, arduous and complex task than we expected. It is not only a question of calculating the numbers involved. The cost and relative weight of the various components of the services rendered have had to be calculated and are included in the formulae. The question of parity is a very important and very sensitive one. This and other sensitive matters had to be investigated. Consultations took place in relation to these and they will also be included in principle in these formulae.

Irrespective of the difficulties to which I have referred, good progress has been made. The hon the Minister of Finance, as hon members will recall, announced that the Ministers’ Councils and the Cabinet had approved the structures of the formulae. Further refining of certain details is, however, still taking place and we hope to complete it as soon as possible.

This brings me now to another question. It concerns the basis of the present Budget. The departmental budgets for 1987-88—the year under consideration at the moment—were not based on the formulae. The formulae served as a frame of reference but they have not yet acquired legal status. They are not yet formally part of the budgetary exercise. Several hon members criticised the fact that we had not made known the content of the formulae. The hon member for Barberton also referred to that matter. As I have said, the formulae are to become fixed elements of the budgetary process. Once they are finalised the hon the Minister of Finance, who is the responsible Minister, will have to give these formulae some form of legal status. At that time, I believe, the hon the Minister of Finance will publish the formulae for further discussion and debate. I should, however, caution hon members not to expect too much. These formulae are complex, and they are not a panacea for the budgetary process. They are technical and I am sure they are not going to excite hon members.

The hon member for Pinetown is nodding his head. He asked numerous questions in this House in relation to the formulae applying to education. The other day he informed us that he had a copy of the formulae. He is an educationist but he appeared to be quite placid about the content thereof. As I say, it is not going to excite hon members.

I am not placid at all!

The important point, Mr Chairman, is that the formulae were devised as budgetary instruments with a view, on the one hand, to maintaining present standards as far as possible at reasonable and responsible levels while, on the other hand, trying to reach parity among the services of the various population groups within the shortest affordable period. The latter is of course a most formidable and difficult task.

*The fact of the matter is that the funds which this country and the taxpayer can generate are limited. The hon the Minister of Finance has great trouble dividing up the available funds among all the deserving claims to those funds. The funds are far exceeded by the scope of the urgent and deserving claims and needs in various spheres. That is why the available funds must be spent as effectively as possible.

†The hon member for Yeoville is, of course, also correct. We must increase the cake, we must try to bake a bigger cake. We must grow in this country. Without that we are doomed. We must make the cake bigger. That is an imperative. Simultaneously, however, we will have to eliminate waste, we will have to improve productivity and efficiency, we must rationalise and we have to restrict expenditure to what is absolutely necessary.

The end-users of services will also have to make a bigger contribution to the cost of the services rendered to them. These are factual problems that we face and realities that we will have to deal with.

Coming back to the hon member for Yeoville, there is a premium to be paid if we wish to live in peace in this country and to retain our present standards. I believe a different attitude and approach is required in many fields.

We need seriously to consider how the scarce commodity of funds, how the available funds, can be utilised in the best and the most cost-effective way, while retaining acceptable standards. Innovative thinking and original planning is required in many fields.

The hon the Minister of Local Government, Housing and Works and I had a meeting with representatives of all the major welfare organisations to discuss these very problems. I would like to read to the House, and for the benefit of the hon member for Yeoville, a paragraph from my opening speech on that occasion.

I quote:

I shall deal with this matter during the discussion of the Welfare Vote.

*The hon member for Lichtenburg, who is not here at the moment, is wrong if he merely makes the allegation that standards have been lowered. He draws this inference simply because there was a growth of 8,8% in the Budget—the hon member for Barberton also made a brief reference to this matter—but this Budget was drawn up under the strictest instructions to economise, to save and to rationalise without in any way jeopardising the efficiency with which services would be rendered and functions discharged. This has been done, and instead of the hon member rising to his feet and thanking departmental heads and the personnel for what they had achieved in a difficult budget while there was a shortage of funds, he conjured up the spectre that we were simply sacrificing services and lowering standards over a broad front. In simple political terms this means that we are of course once again selling out the interests of the Whites for the sake of promoting the interests of the Blacks.

The hon member for Lichtenburg then produced a long argument in which he stated that if we accepted the principle of parity, there was no other way of achieving it but to lower and scale down drastically the standards of the Whites. The hon member pointed out that it would cost approximately half of the Main Budget simply to achieve parity in educational standards. The task facing us is an enormous one.

After the hon member had tried to stampede the voters by telling them how this Government was going to ruin their standards, he stated the CP standpoint at the end of his argument, as follows:

Very good! Standards will be maintained, and:

What is one to make of that? These are the wise words of the hon deputy leader of the CP. The spectre which is being conjured up is that the NP policy of parity is anathema to the Whites and White standards, but in the same speech the hon member says that the CP will achieve this for the other population groups. Without relinquishing White standards, they will raise the standards of the other population groups to the level of those of the Whites. No, Sir, in view of the serious problems in our country, we cannot make any progress with this kind of argument.

Cas, you are worried. Where are you going to find the money, my friend?

You believed in that with all your heart, Adriaan. [Interjections.]

Order!

I should like to reply to a few other hon members.

Since the hon member for Lichtenburg has returned, I want to refer first to the long explanation he furnished here, in which he tried to suggest that the Government was relinquishing everything—including group residential areas and rights. I had enquiries made on the matter to which he referred, and everything that happened there happened in terms of the provisions of the Group Areas Act. Everything that happened there consequently happened in terms of legislation he supported when he was on this side of the House. [Interjections.] Now the hon member is trying to make a big issue of it and arouse great emotions, as though this is symbolic of a government which simply does not care about the Whites. But the Voters have already passed judgement in this regard.

I should like to refer to a few other hon members. On Friday the hon member for Losberg threw aside his notes and tried to launch a holding action to protect the AWB. He asked whether we would negotiate with radicals. Now I want to know from him whether the CP will negotiate with radicals. After all, the hon member has all the answers.

No.

The hon member for Overvaal says no; then the hon member for Losberg probably says no as well. They will not negotiate with radicals. At least we now know where we stand with the CP.

I do not reply to what is self-explanatory.

They say no. At least the hon member for Overvaal is prepared to say that they do not negotiate with radicals.

The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition held a meeting at Zastron.

Which leader?

The present leader. No, the de jure leader. [Interjections.]

At the meeting he said he sympathised with the conservatives and rightwingers. In all fairness I must say that the meeting was held on 25 April 1981, but he held it nevertheless. Those hon members who, under the direction of their hon leader, do not negotiate with radicals, must listen to this. He said he sympathised with the conservatives and rightwingers, because he himself was conservative and of the right.

Well done!

The hon member for Lichtenburg says that was well done. I shall continue, however, and quote what the hon the leader of the CP said:

I was given to understand that hon members do not negotiate with extremists and radicals. [Interjections.] It is with this kind of verbal confusion that hon members of the CP venture into the country to confuse the voters. [Interjections.] Now a radical is simply being equated with a communist.

I have known the hon member for Losberg since his student days, and I do not know what has gotten into him or what has gone wrong. [Interjections.] I now want to give the hon member a tip for extricating himself from this verbal confusion.

He is a garrulous person (losbek). [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, on a point of order: May an hon member refer to another hon member as “a garrulous person”?

Order! Which hon member said that?

I did, Sir. I apologise and I withdraw it. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, I cannot deliver any erudite papers now, but as a friend I can give the hon member a tip for eliminating the verbal confusion in regard to radical and radicals. He ought to know that the word “radical” is derived from “radis”, which in Latin means “root”. [Interjections.] Radical thinking is therefore fundamental thinking or thinking which goes to the root of the matter. I consulted HAT just to make quite sure what “radikaal” meant. Under “radikaal” we find the following clear definition …

Have a look to see what your policy is as well.

Order! That interjection contributed nothing to the debate.

It is the first one I made, Sir. [Interjections.]

Order! I have never doubted the hon member’s ability to count. Interjections are the salt of debate and we can continue to make them, but the fact remains that we must not make interjections which contribute nothing to the debate. This is simply an unnecessary waste of time, as well as interference in a speech. The hon the Minister may proceed.

Mr Chairman, under “radikaal” HAT indicates two possible meanings. The first is:

The second meaning is:

[Inaudible.]

I want to tell the hon member for Losberg that their policy is also radical; it is drastic. They want to reconstruct South Africa drastically. Why should they intimidate and frighten people, simply for the sake of verbal confusion?

†The hon member for Pinelands rejected every aspect of an own affairs government. He regarded it as apartheid and as entrenched racial discrimination. I would like to recommend to the hon member to take a leaf out of the book of the hon member for Yeoville, who is equally against the present Constitution; he said so in his speech on Friday. However, he also said that whether he liked it or not, this was the system and if he wished to make a contribution he had to do so within the system. I believe that is the correct attitude.

The hon member for Parktown concentrated on health services and hospitals. The hon the Minister of Health Services has indicated that he will deal with those matters during the debate on his Vote.

The hon member for Pinetown dealt extensively with formulae and I have responded to most of the points raised by him. His questions and observations regarding education and health will be dealt with under the relevant Votes. I would like to thank him because at least he was frank enough to concede that there was a shortage of funds and that we would have to face this reality and cut our coat according to our cloth. He raised one question that I would briefly like to respond to. He asked whether a standing committee similar to the standing committees for the provinces could not be established to look after the regional aspects of the House of Assembly. I am not convinced that there exists a need for such a committee but I will discuss it with the hon the Chairman of the Ministers’ Council. If the hon member will furnish me with more reasons for the appointment of such a committee I will gladly take the matter further.

*There was a fine crop of maiden speeches. We were privileged to listen to five excellent contributions from new members. I should like to refer briefly to these hon members.

The hon member for Kuruman is a newcomer to this House, but he is an old, hardened politician. By peacefully recounting to us the story of his formative years on the border, the hon member exposed to us the reality of South Africa. There on the border, as part of his daily life and association and interaction with the Tswanas, the hon member discovered—and in fact conveyed to us—that general and own affairs were deeply rooted features of our co-existence with other population groups in this country.

The hon member is a front-bencher, but when I cast a rugby player’s eye over him … Speaking of rugby, I must say that the greatest form of loyalty one can display is to wear one’s Western Province tie today! [Interjections.]

You must wear a Free State tie!

At least our captain was on his feet when the final whistle blew! [Interjections.]

Looking at the hon member for Kuruman, I would have no hesitation in selecting him for my front row. I think he is going to scrum down often in the front row for the NP. We wish him everything of the best.

The hon member for Kimberley North spoke in a fine spirit of humility, dependence and great modesty, and emphasised in that way to what extent all of us in this esteemed Chamber are not really capable of doing anything of our own accord. He made an interesting contribution on education and training. In the fine, philosophical image with which he concluded his contribution, he conveyed to us once again the truth that through our decisions in this House we hold the answer in our hands; we hold the decision over people’s lives in our hands. This is indeed a very great responsibility.

The hon member for Bloemfontein East took us on a very interesting journey through his constituency. He spoke with warmth, enthusiasm and goodwill about the people and institutions in his constituency. I could just tell the hon member that my experience in this House has been that things go well with hon members who look after their constituencies. With a person who speaks with such warmth and conviction about his constituency things will go well in this House.

The hon member for Umhlatuzana, associating himself with the people of Natal, pointed out that we must realise our ideals in this country within the bounds of reality; otherwise they are not ideals, but dreams that we are dealing with. The hon member spoke with self-confidence and conviction, and left us with a few stimulating ideas and I want to tell him to carry on the way he started.

The hon member for Brits made a very eloquent and well-argued plea for small schools. I accept that the political struggle in Brits during the election was a fierce one, but it was significant that the hon member thanked his opponent for the good spirit in which that election struggle had been waged.

If the hon member continues to prepare, and deliver, his contributions here with so much thoroughness, and he carries on in that spirit of goodwill … [Interjections.] I shall come to the matter of his AWB membership later. If he continues in this vein, the hon member will find that despite great differences, including the differences we on this side of the House have with those hon members regarding the AWB—we shall come to that later— there will be respect for people who have respect for other people.

Finally I should also like to emphasise the four excellent contributions made by the older members of the NP, if I may say that. The hon member for Caledon made an excellent contribution and reacted very effectively to several of the remarks the hon member for Barberton had made. I thank him for doing so.

The hon member for Fauresmith had the CP on the run. They should read his speech again. The hon member asked several pertinent questions which have not yet been replied to. The hon members of the Official Opposition are in trouble over the AWB. [Interjections.] They can laugh if they like, but we are going to come back to that subject after this debate.

The hon member for Klip River contributed further to confounding the CP; I almost want to say to confounding them on the question of maps, with reference to his questions about the map for Natal. I can see that the hon member has, within a few months, fought two elections against the CP and he is CP fit. He knows their weak points and located them unerringly.

The hon member for Umhlanga apologised for not being able to be here today. He emphasised a very important aspect of local government and presented it in the perspective of constitutional development. It was a very important contribution, and I thank him for it.

In conclusion I want to thank my colleagues in the Ministers’ Council for their excellent contributions to this debate. Indeed they not only replied to various questions and arguments, they also contributed to the debate being conducted on a very high level.

Mr Chairman, if I heard the hon the Minister correctly, he said earlier during the debate that Black people could even be represented by a majority of members in Parliament. Now I want to ask him if it is possible, seen against that background, whether they can also have a majority in the electoral college.

The hon member must not put words in my mouth. [Interjections.] No, but the hon member said I referred to Parliament. I did not use the word “Parliament”. The hon member must read my observations in that connection. I shall gladly reply to his questions in this connection again, but he must read what I said about representation on the highest level. There is a big difference. [Interjections.] I discussed the NP vision for a new South Africa, and the constitutional dispensation necessary for that. On that basis I made an observation about the representation of Black groups by their representatives. The hon member must not and may not equate it with representation in this Parliament, because that would be a complete distortion of my words.

Question put: That all the words after “That” stand part of the Question,

Upon which the House divided:

Mr Chairman, I move the motion printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows:

On Friday afternoon we received the report of the State President’s Economic Advisory Council on the reconstruction of agriculture. Firstly, I want to say that I think it is a fine report. With a few exceptions, we are able to support the recommendations made in this report.

The report deals with the large group of farmers who fall between those who are facing sequestration, and the small group of farmers who are able to go ahead with their farming under their own steam. The report therefore discusses short-term measures to keep those people in production. At this stage that is the important problem. The important question is to what extent the Government is going to implement the recommendations of this report.

The report deals with a few important matters. Firstly it points out the importance of agriculture in the national economy. The report indicates that despite a contribution of only 5% to the gross domestic product, agriculture is of far greater importance than this percentage indicates. It shows that agriculture has a tremendous influence on the economy because of its forward and backward connections. For example, the report points out that 58% of the value of agricultural production is supplied to factories. This represents 12,6% of the added value of factory production. By processing agricultural products, those factories provide work for 185 000 people.

Secondly, I want to say that agriculture supplies products, but it also uses products supplied by factories. We ourselves know that the farmers have suffered during the drought, but the companies that manufacture tractors and farm implements in the PWV area and the metropolitan areas have also experienced financial problems.

Furthermore, the report points out that agriculture is the second largest exporter in South Africa, and that in 1979 it was responsible for 20% of South Africa’s exports. The report also points out that agriculture is the largest employer, in that 1,3 million people are being accomodated in agriculture and between 5 million and 6 million people make a living from agriculture.

It is also pointed out that agriculture has performed its primary function as a supplier of food and fibre in an excellent way: Production has grown faster than the population, so that each agriculturist fed 425 people in 1970 and this figure increased to 899 in 1985. According to the report, agriculture also fulfils a very important community function. In 1984 5 477 primary farm schools provided education for 460 000 Black children on the farms. That is 30% of the total Black school-going population. Agriculture is largely responsible for footing the bill for this.

The report points out the importance of agriculture as far as decentralisation, the safeguarding of boarder areas, and so on are concerned. The conclusion arrived at here is that agriculture is of cardinal and fundamental importance to South Africa’s economy.

The report deals with the financial position of agriculture, and it indicates that we have already passed the critical point, and that agriculture in South Africa is facing ruin. The critical debt burden proportion is 25,8%, and we were already at that point in 1985.

The report goes on to show that the financial situation of farmers differs in the various regions. Certain irrigation areas— North-Western Transvaal, the Western Transvaal, the Western Free State and the Northern Cape—are the worst off financially. Farmers over 50 years of age are better off than young farmers. The Eastern Cape is in a better financial position, and the financial position of the wool farmers, pelt and Angora farmers is not all that bad.

However, the report also says that 25,8% is the critical point, and we have already passed that point. In certain areas like the North-Western Transvaal the proportion of the debt burden was already 32% in 1985, whilst the critical proportion of the debt burden for cattle farming is 10,2%, according to the report. In the Northern Cape the proportion of the debt burden was already 33% in 1985.

The report indicates very clearly that the net income and cash flow in agriculture has dropped dramatically. In 1980 the gross income of farmers was R5,8 billion. In 1985 it was R9,7 billion. In contrast, the interest and working costs was R3,1 billion in 1980, which rose to R7 billion in 1985. However, the net cash flow was R2,70 billion in 1980, and R2,69 billion in 1985. That means that the net cash flow dropped over those five years, and in real terms it dropped alarmingly.

The report shows that the net income of farmers in the Western Transvaal was R46 per hectare in 1978-79, and R9 in 1984-85. The producers of summer crops had only 7c available for every R1 operating costs in 1983. They therefore had to go and borrow 93c of every rand in order to produce in 1983. In 1984 the net income of farmers in the Western Transvaal was only 74c per R100 capital, in other words, the capital proceeds were 0,74%.

This means that farmers had to go and borrow money and had to live on their capital in order to produce food for South Africa. They farmed at tremendous losses, and this caused the debt in agriculture to increase alarmingly. In 1980 it was R3,8 billion, and in 1985 it was R11 billion. I have worked out that if the debt increased from then on at the same percentage of 19,1%, as it did over the past 10 years, the farmers will owe R14,4 billion on 30 June 1987. It will be R15,7 billion by the end of the year. The interest alone on the R14,4 billion amounts to R2,1 billion. The harsh fact we have to face today, is that that debt cannot be farmed away. It is impossible. We have therefore reached the point where 3 500 farmers are already facing sequestration.

The report also gives us the causes of this situation in which agriculture has found itself. Inflation was responsible for 46,8% of the increase in debt since 1980. Interest was responsible for R2,3 billion, or 31%. The drought was responsible for R1,6 billion, or 21,7%. No-one has control over drought, but the Government has control over inflation and interest. These two are jointly responsible for 77% of the financial predicament in which the farmers find themselves. I want to tell the Minister that although this is the worst drought we have experienced this century, the Government has hit us three times harder than the drought.

The report points to another very important phenomenon. It says that because we have fallen behind with research and education, because we have neglected them, South Africa is not capable of dealing with the problem in time. That is a tremendous accusation, Sir. As far as analysing the report is concerned, and as far as the causes are concerned, it contains nothing new. This report contains nothing new. Everything in it has been said over and over again by the agricultural unions and by various scientists. This report also says that this situation has not just begun. This situation began in 1981. As far back as 1981 economists warned that things were starting to go wrong in South Africa. This has been said repeatedly since then. It has also been dicussed a number of times in this House. We discussed a motion in this regard in 1983 or 1984. In budget debates at that time and since, we have pointed out to various Ministers that things were going wrong and that we were going to reach a point at which there was going to be a collapse.

I maintain that this report contains the greatest accusation that has ever been levelled at this Government. It is the greatest accusation ever levelled at the Government, because this report was drawn up by a prestigious committee. Now it seems that since this report has made its appearance, the Government is at least coming to life a little. The question now arises as to whether the Government is beginning to listen because it is the Economic Advisory Council saying these things, whilst they did not listen to all the others who discussed the matter before. Or is it perhaps the result of the general election that is causing the Government to come to life a little?

Now hon members on the Government side expect us to thank the Government for what is being done. Do they know what they want us to thank them for, Sir? The Government has acted like someone who has neglected his children, and now that some of them have died, he offers to arrange the funeral and to take the sick children to hospital. Then the Government really still expects us to say that it has made a praiseworthy effort. It has simply neglected agriculture all these years, however.

It is true that the Government was warned over and over again that things were going wrong in agriculture. It is also true that all these warnings and pleas fell on deaf ears and that nothing at all happened. Now of course there are certain recommendations in this report as well, Sir. We can agree with most of them because they are short-term recommendations. However, the hon the Minister himself announced that the 3 500 farmers facing sequestration were going to be given assistance. He said that R400 million was being made available for aid to those farmers. According to the hon the Minister, it will be possible to assist 2 000 of those farmers in this way. This means that it will be possible to assist 57% of the farmers facing sequestration. Consequently, this means that 1 500 of these farmers are going to go under. The hon the Minister also said that those who re-established themselves or for whom it is going to be possible to continue, must be able to do so on an economic unit.

The hon the Minister received a memorandum and a submission from the North-Western Co-operative, in which they make certain proposals based on these principles. I have processed those figures a little further, and I found that of the 600 farmers in the area of the North-Western Co-operative, there are 250 who will drop out. There are 350 who will be able to obtain assistance. Now when we consider the farmers who drop out, and the surplus land above the economic unit, there will be approximately 200 units available on which people will have to be settled again and which will have to be dealt with in some way. That is 200 such units in the area of the North-Western Co-operative. For the entire summer grain-producing area, because the North-Western Co-operative produces 20% of the maize production, we could argue that 1 000 such farms are probably going to become available as economic units in South Africa.

Now I want to know the following from the hon the Minister. What is to become of those 1 500 farmers who are dropping out? There is no longer such a thing as a bad farmer in South Africa. That selection process has already taken place. Those 1 500 farmers also include the young men of 35 years and younger. This report shows that. They are mainly the ones in trouble—men who had to purchase their land at very high prices and subject to tremendously high interest rates; men who had to begin producing under murderous inflationary conditions. These are young men.

I think the hon the Minster will agree with the statement I am now going to make. When one drives around amongst the best farmers in America, one finds that they have fine farmers there. However, I think the hon the Minister will agree with me that America’s farmers are not better than the farmers in South Africa. The farms of American farmers are not neater than ours. They do not farm any better or more scientifically than South African farmers. Nor are they more energetic farmers than ours.

I say that South Africa’s farmers need not take second place for any farmer in the world. We must also bear in mind—this report says so, too—that South Africa’s farmers do not produce under the most favourable circumstances in the world, in comparison with the six or seven large countries in the world which export food. Then, too, South Africa’s soil is the poorest and its climate the most change able of all those countries, but our farmers export and produce nevertheless. I therefore want to ask that when a decision has to be made about those 1 000 farms, those 1 500 farmers be considered first.

Secondly, I want to ask that measures be taken to prevent those people from being sequestrated. Their names must remain untarnished. It was circumstances beyond their control that caused this.

Thirdly, I want to request that those people do not lose their household requisites, their furniture, etc. Steps must be taken to train those who cannot be accommodated in agriculture, and to employ them in the rest of the economy. This is not going to be easy because there is unemployment.

The Government will have to change its priorities. Today I am asking the Government to combat inflation, since inflation is the most important cause of the predicament in which the farmers find themselves. If this is not done, and we just go on in the same way for the next five years, and the prices of the means of production continue to go up, and the price of the product increases as slowly as it has been doing recently, within five years we will be in a position where, even if one gets the land for nothing, it will not pay one to produce. Then we will not be able to produce. I say that priorities must be changed. The State will have to spend less in order to combat inflation. Then I say that whilst spending less, it will have to spend more on agriculture. This advisory council says:

This report indicates very clearly that State money spent in this way, is not spent to the benefit of the agriculturalist in the first instance. He enjoys the benefit for a very short period. The advantage lies in the fact that because prices are lower than they would have been, the entire population enjoys the benefit. In this Budget the Government does not yet show any serious signs of changing its priorities. In Programme 6, relating to Agricultural Financing: Own affairs, it budgeted R240 million in 1987-88, as opposed to the R253 million last year. Already that is less. Here in Programme 6 of the General Affairs Budget it does have an increase, but in West Germany, which is a highly industrialised state, and which also maintains that market orientation and freedom are healthy, while state support should be restricted to the minimum, 8,5% of its budget went to agriculture in 1985. In 1986 it was 8,9%, and this year it is expected to be 9,4% of its budget. The circumstances under which those people produce are not nearly as unfavourable as in South Africa. Agriculture is worth it to them, however. In the USA $25,3 billion are being spent to stabilise farm income this year. As far as maize is concerned, $135 per hectare is being spent to stabilise farm income. That is R270 per hectare.

This Government’s priorities are different. When we were here at the beginning of the year, it budgeted R320 million to pay for the arrears in water, electricity and house rental in the Black townships. There is R600 million in this Budget for aid to Black local authorities. This will be mainly for electricity and water. Meanwhile the UDF is collecting the taxes the Government is unable to collect. I ask: What is the highest priority? That water and electricity must be cut off so that those people can start paying, and priorities must be worked out so that provision can be made for food, thus enabling people to live. As far as the reconstruction is concerned, we say that it is right to diversify, but that potential is not great; it is limited. Yet, we must do this as far as possible.

Now R400 million is being spent here at the end point to save farmers from ruin, but if that money were spent at the starting point, where the inputs are made, it would have a much greater effect. In the long term, when agriculture is reconstructed, we must consider bringing down the input or production costs of the agriculturalist at the starting point, so that he can produce more cheaply and the population can afford the products. The money we spend must therefore not be spent at the end point, but at the starting point so that it can have a greater effect.

I shall conclude by saying that things are bad for the agriculturalist. He is ruined financially, but we will not stop farming, no matter how bad things are, because we are farmers. It is a characteristic of agriculture that our farmers carry on, and I ask the Government not to abuse that characteristic of the farmer. The Government knows we will not stop; we will carry on, and when we stop, it will be because we are no longer able to do so.

Things will improve. The rain will come, and things will be better. We will also get a better government in South Africa, and then things will go very well for agriculture.

Mr Chairman, I should like to start by congratulating the hon member for Lichtenburg on the largest part of his speech. One could see he was drawing on knowledge and experience and was a man who knew what he was talking about. He has my congratulations for this but I want to tell him I regret there is a small portion of the speech which he could have omitted as he was inclined to indulge a little politicking. I shall forgive him because the temptation was there but I consider it unworthy of that hon member as I know him.

I have to agree with the hon member that times are hard in South African agriculture; in fact, things are going badly, as he said. This tendency began to manifest itself as early as the seventies, however; we just did not interpret all the signs correctly. At the beginning of the ’eighties this process was of course hastened enormously as a result of quite a number of events. They are common knowledge but I think one should summarise them again.

The north, but the largest portion of the country as well, is experiencing one of the most devastating droughts ever. Our rate of exchange, as we all know, is deteriorating dramatically and someone hit on the idea that agriculture should pay a market-related interest rate, but at the same time interest rates soared. I contend that these two factors alone were among the most serious and important which contributed to causing agriculture to find itself in this dilemma. At the same time our inflation rate rose and remained high and, taking everything into account, it is true that the effect of these factors on the farmer’s input costs is simply strangling him. I also wish to say in passing that the farmer is permitted to deduct his capital purchases for tax purposes in the year of purchase. Taken together, all these things left the farmer completely vulnerable and without anything to cushion the blow at the very moment the trouble originated.

Incidentally I wish to request that we pay very earnest attention to this concession. My personal belief is that we should withdraw it but on condition that a farmer may invest part of his surplus with the Land Bank in a good year and pay tax on it only in the year of withdrawal. This is in line with what the Jacobs Committee recommended.

In the light of all these negative factors which affected the farmer’s finances, it was logical that the Government should pitch in with aid. Surely this is true to the saying we know, which is that a wise government cares for its agriculture. Now the Government has stepped in with massive aid and one sees what has been done if one pages through this document. I shall leave it to the hon the Minister to speak on this but in any man’s language a recent amount of R4 million, which makes up a total of R1 billion, is not petty cash. We now understand that the Government is being reproached for not providing sufficient aid to agriculture. In fact, the statement is being made that the Government does not really care about the farmer. If we examine these documents, we see a contradiction of such rash statements. We know this Government has always been sympathetic towards the farmer throughout the years and will continue to be so in future.

I have to agree with the hon member for Lichtenburg that the aid is inadequate. Now the next question arises and we have to ask one another in all fairness what is adequate. I should like subsequent speakers to rise in the sight of South African taxpayers and answer this question for me. Added to this, such a critic must also say whether he believes it is the duty of the State to keep all farmers on the land. The hon member for Lichtenburg mentioned 1 500 farmers on the verge of collapse. My question—I am asking it in all fairness and without any politicking—is whether it is justifiable and fair to the taxpayer to keep every single farmer on the land. If that is to be the attitude, we shall have to spell out to one another where the money is to come from and how much aid is to be provided and then we shall have to urge our financial spokesmen, especially from the opposition ranks, rather to keep quiet when taxes and especially reduction in tax are being discussed.

I think the hon member for Lichtenburg and I would be of one mind that it would be preferable for us to agree that more aid should be given and that any government should act in a responsible way at all times and care for its agriculture, but that it should also spare a thought for its taxpayer. Consequently such a government should always strike a well-considered balance. I would call it irresponsible if we were to appeal for money simply to be pumped into a bottomless pit. I believe our taxpayers in this country are reasonable people who agree that the agricultural industry has to be assisted and saved but that it will always have to be done in reasonable way. The taxpayer is reasonable but I cannot accept that anybody in this country will be satisfied if we merely keep on providing and gave a person a fish without giving him the rod and teaching him how to catch fish.

When we take note of all the aid given by the State, I am convinced that every farmer receiving assistance must do so in a spirit of gratitude. No person will contend that further assistance is unnecessary but in the meanwhile I believe we should at least have the basic decency to thank the Government for what has been given. In addition, we can express our sincere appreciation to the hon the State President for his interest, positive approach and aid in this regard.

For this reason I would wish to move the motion on behalf of this side of the House as I originally placed it on the Order Paper. I therefore move as an amendment:

In this way we shall ultimately be able to give agriculture that fishing rod.

To revert to the idea or concept of self-sufficiency, I want to say the hon the State President appointed this special committee for the restructuring of agriculture with this point of departure:

Note the words “as many as possible”. It continues:

I believe this is a good starting point. Together with this it would be fitting to thank the hon the Minister, the department, the SA Agricultural Union and the Jacobs Committee for their unflagging zeal. My plea is that we stop reproaching one another in this process and rather plan together to save agriculture from this dilemma.

I cannot entertain the thought for a moment that my fellow-farmers are people who wish to humiliate themselves by being permanently dependent on the Government. I would consider it insulting to want to regard the farmer as a destitute type living on Government favours—actually the taxpayer’s money. We must begin in all earnest to put our heads together, abandon reproaches and see how we can help agriculture in future with meaningful aid measures. Speaking of aid, I want to add that more than mere monetary assistance is required. I believe this will be the only way in which we shall make agriculture in South Africa a proud and independent occupation again; the only way to re-establish a farming class of which this country may be proud.

Mr Chairman, I listened with interest to the speech by the hon member for Wellington. He quite rightly said that R400 million out of the taxpayer’s pocket is not petty cash. However, regrettably even that considerable sum of money is going to go nowhere at all when it comes to really pulling the farmers of South Africa out of the serious difficulties in which they find themselves. I regret in a way that much of what has been said in the very informative speech of the hon member for Lichtenburg and in the speech of the hon member for Wellington only had to do with money. I think other action has to be taken in terms of our approach to the agricultural industry in South Africa. This motion calls upon the Government “to put into operation extraordinary measures forthwith” to remedy the critical financial position in which agriculture finds itself. I would think that it is common cause in this House that major efforts will have to be made to improve the situation of the farming community.

I can remember that as far back as 1981 when I was in the House and last discussed the situation of the farmers, they at that stage were in a very serious situation indeed with regard to debt, the debt burden and that kind of thing. Farming even then was out of control and, as the hon member for Lichtenburg says, there is no way in which farmers will be able to farm their way out of this trouble. Farmers were leaving the land then and altogether agriculture was in a very bad state indeed. One thing that can be said without any fear of contradiction is that bad as the situation was then, it is far worse today. Their financial situation is appalling, many more farmers have already been forced off the land, many more are likely to follow, and any problems that existed have been compounded. We have reached the point where the ability of a large section of the agricultural community even to be able to fight their way out of trouble as far as the debt that they presently labour under looks very unlikely indeed. There is also a serious situation because much agricultural land is deteriorating because farmers cannot really afford to maintain their land as needed; they just do not have the money available.

I believe that it is necessary for us to take a long, hard, objective look at to why agriculture finds itself in this terrible state. We can apply palliatives in terms of money to help the farmers out of the situation they are in but that is obviously not enough. We have to look at other things as well. We know of course that South Africa’s climatic conditions are so unstable as regards rain that this factor cannot be relied upon in any particular year. The devastating drought conditions of the past few years have accelerated the downward path of many of our farmers who were already in trouble without the added burden of drought to contend with. Much of that trouble existed before the drought, and I believe that we have to probe very much deeper indeed before we will be able to diagnose the basic flaws in the way that the industry is organised in South Africa.

I agree with the hon member for Lichtenburg that South African farmers need stand back for nobody in this world as to their efficiency as farmers. They are very fine farmers. However, I would like to address myself to the hon the Minister and I want him to ask himself a question. I want him to ask himself why the CP gained such success on the Transvaal platteland and appears to have gained support in agricultural areas all over the country. I do not believe that the voters voted for that party because they are all very conservative and they believe implicitly in what the CP stands for. [Interjections.] I believe that they voted for that reactionary party and for those reactionary hon members on the far right purely and simply because they are fed up to the back teeth with Government. They are bitter and frustrated because they are unable to make a decent living from their land. For years Government policy on agriculture has operated within certain defined parameters and around a particular marketing theme.

I believe that until this Government learns a lesson and gets away completely from these ideas, these sacred cows, they will have no hope of ever getting the farmers to vote for them.

The hon the Minister personally was told in no uncertain manner by the voters in his constituency that they were sick and tired of being unable to make a secure living from the land. I can only hope that this personal defeat is going to force him to step back—I say this with the best possible motive; I want him to step back—and ask himself if the Government’s agricultural policies are correct? Are these things being approached in the correct manner?

I do not believe for one moment that the support for the CP indicates that farmers are all verkramp. I believe that by voting Conservative they were saying they are tired of living as they are on the brink of a precipice. They are tired of living with huge debts hanging over their heads. They are tired of being unable to see any light at the end of the tunnel. They are tired of having to go cap in hand to the bank manager for further assistance which only makes the crippling burden worse because of the size of the interest burden. They are tired of having to plead with the Government for hand-outs. They are tired of being forced to pay more and more for their requirements to run their farms while their income does not increase proportionately to inflation. They are tired of the constant humiliation they are subjected to every day. The farmers of South Africa are being subjected to humiliation through no fault of their own. All those farmers expressed their disillusionment and their frustration by voting for the CP. I believe that the hon the Minister is going to have to do some very hard thinking if he is ever going to have the faintest chance of winning their support again.

Over the years I believe that the approach to agricultural marketing has been blinkered. The thought processes of the Government have been limited by certain sacred cows that have restricted and limited any possibility of departing from policies that I believe have patently and obviously failed. They have failed miserably.

To illustrate what I am saying, I want to look at the maize industry and specifically at what a controlled price and a one channel marketing system have achieved. Regrettably the literally hundreds of commissions, symposiums, conferences and meetings that have reported or operated over many years have never addressed the real problems. Over the years the Government has encouraged the farming of marginal land by setting an artificial price based on a cost-plus formula which has of course been influenced by consumer subsidies. In the good years this enabled the good and efficient farmer on good, suitable land to do well while the farmer on marginal land was able to get by in—good years when there was no drought; so much so, that the final result was overproduction.

In the bad years the efficient farmer on good land gets by, but those farmers who are less efficient or who are cultivating maize on marginal land just cannot survive. The financial crisis which results for the industry, is what we see today.

I do not believe this would have happened if an artificial price structure had not encouraged a farmer on marginal land to cultivate maize instead of sticking to crops and livestock that suited his particular land and his particular climatic conditions. Farmers were tempted into cultivating maize because the fixed price seemed to give them some sort of security. In good years the net result was tremendous overproduction which had to be exported at a loss.

To cover that loss the Maize Board has to levy producers, as we know. World prices for maize have virtually collapsed and, according to Mr Piet Gouws, the General Manager of Nampo, it will cost at least R100 per ton right now to cover export costs. This R100 per ton has to be paid for by the consumer. The more we overproduce the more the consumer has to pay.

As the hon the Minister knows, the biggest consumers of maize are in fact the farmers themselves. The price of maize has a tremendous effect on chicken farmers, dairy farmers, pig farmers, feedlot operators and cattle farmers. The fact that we have tended to overproduce on a grand scale has resulted in a rise in price of many other foodstuffs.

Maize is of course also a basic foodstuff for a large section of our population, and though a consumer subsidy exists, inevitably there is a limit to how much the country can afford to subsidize, and therefore, particularly the underprivileged sections of our community are having to pay more than they would if the Maize Board did not have to cover export losses.

Many maize users resent having to pay the Maize Board levy and inevitably illegal “over the fence” buying and selling of maize takes place. By selling direct instead of through the board, as they should do by law, sellers tend to get better prices and buyers pay less. The Chairman of the Maize Board, Dr H P de Jager, says that rumours are reaching the board almost daily about contraventions and proposed contraventions in relation to maize transactions in the controlled areas. Indeed, I understand that a major prosecution is pending in Natal and that further prosecutions are likely to follow.

We are told that this sacred cow of one-channel marketing brings orderliness and stability into maize marketing. I want to say to the hon the Minister that it is time we did something about the whole concept of one-channel marketing and artificial fixed prices which have brought about the chaos and disorder we see about us, because that is what we have in the industry. I see the Maize Board as a major barrier to the free market system and I see control boards as an enemy of stability in agriculture. I am the last person to suggest that certain control mechanisms in agriculture are not a necessity, because they are necessary, but I believe that as operated in South Africa, they are an absolute disaster.

We encourage overproduction of maize in that chicken, stock and pig farmers are forced into growing their own maize to feed their birds or stock because by doing so they avoid having to pay the levy. If one farms it on one’s own land, one can feed the maize to one’s own stock at the price one can produce it at, without having to pay the levy. If they do not do so they are unlikely to survive against competitors who do grow their own maize. By producing their own they place more maize into the general pool of maize which exceeds our requirements in South Africa and greater surpluses are created. Really, the average chicken or pig farmer today who wants to survive either has to grow his own maize which helps towards the grand surplus, or he has to buy over the fence illegally. Otherwise he is just not going to survive.

I believe that if price fixing were abolished and normal supply and demand conditions were allowed to exist, farmers on marginal land would not be tempted into growing maize. The price has always been geared to the lowest common denominator, that is the farmer whose land is marginal land, and in good seasons that price is made artificially too high. There is much land in South Africa where maize can be and is being produced for not much more than half the controlled price, but normal market mechanisms are not allowed to operate and consumers do not benefit in that situation. In years of oversupply prices should fall, and in bad years higher prices should prevail.

The point I am trying to make to the hon the Minister is that this sort of control distorts and eventually destroys the whole industry. It does not apply only to the maize-growers, but everybody around them too. I must ask the hon the Minister to look around and ask himself: Is our marketing process really working? I do not believe that anybody in his right mind, looking at the situation of the farmers at the moment, can say that it is.

Let us take a look at another sector of agriculture, the meat industry, and the distorting controls which exist there. Again the Government and this hon Minister have never been able to look beyond the Meat Board and the control exercised by them. The claim is made, of course, that the Meat Board operates at only 11 out of something like 294 abattoirs and in only 9 centres in South Africa, but one must be realistic and agree that these are where the bulk of our meat has to be slaughtered for the chief markets in South Africa. Permits are required before a farmer is allowed to slaughter and the granting of these permits at the whim of board officials is inevitably unfair to some. I have heard all sorts of explanations as to how the granting of permits comes about, but I have never been satisfied and there are many farmers who are also not satisfied.

To illustrate what I am saying, I would like to tell hon members about the recent experience of a small farmer near Johannesburg. This mirrors the experience of many, many farmers all over the country. Round about June last year he requested a permit to slaughter some of his cattle round about November or thereafter when his cattle would be in prime condition. No permits were forthcoming at all at that time, and to date, a year later, he has still not received permits to slaughter.

Having watched his cattle eat their heads off at considerable cost to him for some months, he was eventually forced to sell them to a speculator who somehow or other was able to obtain the necessary slaughter permit. Obviously, to cover costs when cattle are waiting to be slaughtered, the farmer requires a higher price; thus this control, in the way it is being exercised at the moment, is in itself inflationary. Also with the introduction of a middleman, in this case a speculator, a further price hike to the consumer occurs.

Over the years, inflationary factors in the marketing of meat have escalated the price to the extent that the consumption of meat has dropped and buyers of red meat have diminished in number. Alternative protein sources such as chicken have taken over. Again, farmers have suffered because of controls that do not benefit them.

I want to say that the answers for the agricultural industry do not lie in increasing the size of handouts, although they are at present vitally necessary because of the mess this government and the hon the Minister have created.

The problems are not going to be solved by making more and more money available from the central Treasury for aid to all farmers. The answer lies in breaking away from the traditional marketing structures which have existed for so long in South Africa and have brought the farmers to the disastrous situation they find themselves in today. This is going to need a fair amount of courage and imagination from the hon the Minister but spurred on by his party’s election reverses and indeed his own rejection in his constituency, I believe he has no alternative.

If he is going to win back the farmers’ vote for his party, he is going to have to do a lot better than he is doing at present, and this can only be done with massive reorganization. Right now, it is the responsibility of the Government to get the farmers out of the mess created by Government policy. At the moment we see no signs of really radical re-thinking taking place. Control boards are not the answer. If they are such wonderful, essential and efficient marketing mechanisms, why do other countries not use them to market their agricultural produce? The only other countries where similar controls exist are the countries behind the Iron Curtain, where they have proved equally disastrous. Soviet Russia has never been able to match the agricultural capacity of a country such as the United States.

The motion before us calls on the Government to put into operation extraordinary measures to remedy the situation. The measures which are required are not so much extraordinary but, I believe, dictated by ordinary, downright common sense. I cannot support the amendment of the hon member for Wellington. I believe the Government has to act and act now.

Mr Chairman, I should just like to make two remarks to the hon member for Bryanston before coming to my actual speech. The first is that the artificially high maize prices to which he referred were specifically expected of us by the maize farmers. When we were unable to continue with them, the maize farmers for the most part turned against us.

I want to tell him something even more important. I want to say to him that we on this side of the House are not attuned to the voice of the farmers so much as we are interested in keeping the farmers on the farms and in establishing the farmers’ interests on their farms. That is what we prefer to do.

Before my time has expired I should like to make a few brief remarks about several matters. In the first place, there is no country in the world where agriculture is prospering at present. I challenge the hon member to show me a country in which agriculture is prospering.

The second point I want to make to the hon member relates to America; America has been referred to several times here today. In comparison with America, our debt/value ratio is not even half; on the contrary, our ratio is one third of that of America.

In the third place, the hon member must think back to what the situation was during the previous great drought in 1933. What percentage of farmers went bankrupt then? What percentage is bankrupt today, in contrast to the percentage at that time? The hon member should give this some thought. In 1933 three out of every four farmers disappeared from our farms. If my statistics are not mistaken, the number of bankrupt farmers in the drought-stricken areas has to date not reached 500.

Another point I want to make refers to the report of the Economic Advisory Council. They state that the drought was only responsible for 23% of the problems, while interest rates created approximately 36% of the problems. Let us be honest with one another. If this Government had allowed the farmers to go bankrupt as the debts built up, then surely that interest factor would not have existed! After all, we cannot analyse the situation as the hon member for Lichtenburg did. That is not how it works, Sir. If the farmers had been permitted to go under, that interest factor would not have existed at all.

There is another factual statement I wish to make. The debt borne by the farmers in this country has never been greater than after the biggest maize harvest the farmers have ever had in South Africa. In 1981, after the biggest harvest ever, the debt, too, was the biggest ever. We must bear these things in mind before …

You are talking nonsense now, man.

Sir, the man who is talking nonsense, is the man who talks politics and not agriculture.

Where else in the world do they charge 31% on farmers’ …

Sir, that hon member knows nothing about agriculture. [Interjections.]

I know how interest rates work.

I almost said something offensive to the hon member now.

I wish to say today that our experience in this House is that the CP gets up here and scores political points in agricultural debates. It is evident from the remarks made by the hon member for Bryanston to the hon the Minister that they are interested in the farmers’ votes. They do not look after the interests of the farmers; it is the votes that matter to that party. That is what I want to put to that party today.

Let us take a look at what has gone on in this House in the past. Two years ago, in 1985, the hon members for Barberton and Lichtenburg got up here and defended a maize price—it included a fertilizer component— that proposed a target harvest of 6,5 tons per hectare per annum for South Africa, whereas over the past three years our average harvest has not even been two tons per hectare. What did they do when we pointed out to them that that was wrong? The hon member would do well to refer to it in Hansard. They told us: “The maize farmers will settle accounts with you”—and that only because we dared to be honest. That was their approach.

The maize farmers did indeed settle accounts with the NP. We felt it; indeed, I myself felt the effects. [Interjections.] However, what did the poor maize farmers get, thanks to having settled accounts with the NP? All they achieved was that people were placed there who want to use the farmer for political purposes, but who do not care two hoots for the farmers themselves. [Interjections.]

Let us just take another look at the situation in 1985, which dealt our farmers such a terrible blow, when we said that we simply could not support a price aimed at yielding a harvest of 6,5 tons per hectare. Do hon members know what the primary cause was that gave rise to that? It was what certain farmers and certain hon members wanted us to endorse. Had we done that, it would surely have destroyed our credibility completely. How can any authority or official believe a farmer who dishes up such rubbish to him, and then even gets angry when one does not believe him?

Do you know what was far worse, Sir? That behaviour of the CP was one of the factors that was directly responsible for our having a maize boycott. I want to make the statement that that maize boycott hurt us more than anything else that I can think of. To tell the truth, we are still trying to get away from that image that was created of us as farmers.

I want to come back to the statement I made with reference to the CP members of Parliament who are supposed to represent the farmers here. The first point I want to make relates to the debate on grain sorghum that we conducted here the other day. After I had conveyed the opinion of the National Grain Sorghum Board—they asked that the privatisation of the grain sorghum beer industry be expedited—those hon members got up in this House and opposed it. Not only did they oppose it; they called for a division.

I want to go into this further. The point of view of the CP implied that the co-operatives would not even have been able to obtain a share in the grain sorghum beer industry. Who has a greater interest in the grain sorghum beer industry than the farmers producing the grain sorghum? In whose best interests is it that that beer be sold? However, those hon members cared little about that. They voted against the Bill. Who did they consult in that regard? They did not consult the farmers, the National Grain Sorghum Board or the co-operatives. On what basis do they pretend to speak on behalf of the farmers? I also want to ask what those hon CP members sitting there did when the hon the Deputy Minister spoke here last Friday about the aid schemes that would be announced this year. What did they do? They turned their backs to him and sat and gossiped amongst themselves. They were unconcerned about what he said. I want to say to the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition and the hon member for Soutpansberg that they might as well listen to what he said in the agricultural debates. They need not speak to the people behind them. They are sent here by farmers, just as I am. They must see to it that the interests of the farmers who sent them here are looked after.

In the areas represented by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition and the hon member for Soutpansberg, a special loan of R8 million was granted to the Northern Transvaal Co-operative this year to allow it to pay its interest. This loan was granted over and above the assistance received from the Government by those farmers.

When one listens to the accusations made by the CP that the Government’s aid is inadequate, it is necessary to examine the aid from a different point of view as well. I want to cast an interesting light on it. As regards the aid provided to agriculture up to this year, subsidies to the value of R1 076 million have been paid to the farmers. The amount of the State guarantee scheme is already R800 million this year. If one adds these amounts together one arrives at the incredible amount of R2 billion. The maize farmers’ share of that aid that is provided comes to R1 000 million. If one makes that calculation and one accepts Nampo’s statement that there are only 8 000 maize farmers, one is startled by the amount of money that every maize farmer costs the State. Therefore we do not always know what we are talking about when we contend that the farmers are not being assisted.

However I also wish to refer briefly to another matter. In order to safeguard the future of the farmers in this country in the long term, not only monetary measures, but also fiscal measures are required. I want to draw the attention of hon members to the fact that there are import restrictions in the form of import tariffs and limits in this country. To the best of my knowledge these tariffs are constantly being revised. They are revised by the officials of Customs and Excise and the officials of Trade and Industry. No agricultural interests are represented in those departments. My request is that we consider having agricultural representatives on the body of review in question. As long as those tariff walls are so high that there is insufficient competition from abroad, we shall be caught in a limited market and there will be no question of a free market in South Africa.

Mr Chairman, I hope the hon member for Heilbron will not hold it against me if I do not follow up in the style of his speech owing to the low level of debating and the politicking here in what is an agricultural debate. [Interjections.]

Order!

I shall try to confine myself to the subject under discussion and to make a positive contribution.

At the outset I wish to thank the hon the Minister very sincerely from our side for the R400 million scheme recently announced. I believe it will save several of the farmers in our area who are faced with sequestration. We are very grateful for the assistance announced.

I should like to draw hon members’ attention to a few quotations from the Report of an Investigation into the Restructuring of Agriculture of the State President’s Economic Advisory Council. I do not think all hon members have had the opportunity of seeing this report. On page 11, under the heading “View on the Role and Importance of Agriculture” the following is stated, inter alia:

Agriculture’s primary role as supplier of food and fibre is of the utmost importance especially considering the demands that a growing population will make in future and the uncertainties that imminent sanctions hold for the country. In terms of its contribution to the GDP agriculture is not one of the largest sectors in the national economy although its forward and backward linkages place its actual contribution to economic activity in perspective. Add to this the fact that the agricultural sector is the second largest net earner of foreign exchange and the largest employer in rural areas. The role of agriculture in the decentralization of economic activity and this sector’s important societal function in that it has been supplying housing and school buildings—largely at farmers’ own expense—to farm workers and their dependants, is in the national interest …

The report continues:

Secondly, I should like to quote to the House the council’s statement of principle on the necessity of special measures aimed at the restructuring of agriculture. I shall quote from 69 of the report:

I wish to end by quoting from the statement on what is being done about the priority that should be accorded to the restructuring of agriculture with regard to Government spending. I shall quote from page 97:

Because the report refers largely to short-term aspects of agriculture—short-term bottlenecks that have to be dealt with on a short-term basis—for purposes of my speech I should like to emphasise a few of these bottlenecks for the information of the hon the Minister. First there is the problem of interest, which is one of the greatest in the agricultural sector at the moment. This interest consists of overdue, accumulated and capitalised components and according to the report it comprises 31% of farmers’ total debt. There is an agricultural co-operative in my constituency with 60% of its members having to pay as much or more interest per annum as such a farmer’s total production debt on his farm. The hon the Minister and all of us may well imagine the depressing effect this must have on the farmer.

It follows from the interest situation, which is a result of the accumulated debts of farmers, that many of our farmers, even with a good year or a record harvest in prospect, cannot succeed in significantly decreasing their debt after such a good year. This is simply the result of the enormous amounts of interest they have to pay. This checkmate situation in which farmers find themselves has a depressing effect on their motivation and we all know that a farmer who does not farm with confidence is one who cannot farm effectively. This problem will therefore have to be addressed very clearly and drastically. The farmers are also negatively orientated in spirit as a result of the depressing factor of interest in the agricultural sector.

For this reason, we on this side of the House wish to propose to the hon the Minister that the Government institute an interest standstill of five years in respect of all production carry-over debts at agricultural co-operatives, the Land Bank and ACL. We should like to hear the hon the Minister’s reply to this. Secondly, we wish to suggest that the Government impose a three-year interest standstill in respect of private commercial banks and financial institutions to allow the farmer scope for recovery. If we cannot eliminate the psychological factor of interest from the farmer’s immediate short-term approach to the industry, I am afraid many farmers are going to be lost to agriculture. It is only when a farmer can apply his profits over production costs to decrease his debt, in the absence of interest, that any hope can be held out for the recovery of many farmers.

I should also like to draw the hon the Minister’s attention to an enormous bottleneck which did not emerge all that clearly in the report but which is now of fundamental and cardinal importance in maize-producing areas, especially in the Western Transvaal, where my constituency is. At present farmers are struggling with the problem that almost all their tractors—the one absolutely indispensable implement on the farm—are now between six and 10 years old. The condition of these tractors has deteriorated to the level of not really being worth keeping in operation. Many of my constituents have already brought this problem to my attention. Certain farmers cannot succeed in reaping the small harvest which is on the land with the old, worn-out tractors at their disposal. I think the hon the Minister can appreciate the problem.

I wish to appeal to the hon the Minister and his department to apply themselves intensively to this matter. We wish to suggest from this side that a Land Bank financing scheme be instituted via agricultural co-operatives to enable farmers to have their tractors rebuilt. We are not requesting finance for new tractors. They are simply too expensive and no farmer in any way financially embarrassed even thinks about a new tractor, simply in consequence of the exorbitantly high prices of new tractors. The advantage of the rebuilding of tractors, however, is that a farmer may again expect the same work from his tractors as from a new one. The same guarantees are also given as those which accompany a new tractor at a cost of 50% less than that of a new one. We should like the hon the Minister to attend to this important matter.

Thirdly, I should like to draw the hon the Minister’s attention to a comprehensive, compulsory State-subsidised crop insurance scheme against production costs plus 10% management fee so that those enormous risk factors may be eliminated from the agricultural sector. We are aware that such a scheme can only succeed if there is a large State subsidy but we have to ask ourselves whether the time has not come for that insurance scheme to be put into operation.

The fourth aspect is the effect of inflation on input costs. According to the report the contribution of various factors to the increase in the total farming debt between 1980 and 1985 was: Interest—R2,393 billion; drought—R1,657 billion; effect of inflation on inputs—R3,566 billion or 46%. The effect of inflation on production costs is the greatest bottleneck in agriculture and should be combated by means of drastic Government measures. Effective price control and/or subsidisation of production cost factors appears to me to be the only solution.

In conclusion, I wish to refer briefly to a further very important problem and that is the 1 500 farmers whom it is not possible to accommodate and who—as the hon member for Lichtenburg said—will be lost to agriculture in the process. In association with what the hon member for Lichtenburg said, I want to mention that all poor, inefficient or ineffectual farmers have already fallen out. Farmers capable of surviving six years of drought while their debts were accumulating are all farmers to the core, whom we need in our agricultural sector. Consequently I wish to request the hon the Minister to ensure that aid schemes in agriculture are operated in such a way that all sequestrations are terminated if the farmer co-operates in a voluntary liquidation of his assets. Such a farmer should not be faced with the additional humiliation of sequestration. Allow him to retain his personal possessions such as his motor car, furniture, lorry and firearm and permit him to be first to qualify when new agricultural units are allocated for occupation in terms of this R400 million scheme announced by the hon the Minister.

I wish to conclude by saying the Government will have to spend a great deal of money to cause agriculture to recover; this is an incontrovertible fact. Piecemeal methods are simply not good enough any more; drastic auxiliary measures are imperative now in the national interest.

Mr Chairman, I think the hon member for Schweizer-Reneke made a very good point at the end of his speech with which I would like to associate myself. I agree with him that financial assistance rendered for the purchase of motor vehicles and certain movables should be reviewed until such time as the crisis situation which is facing agriculture has more or less returned to normal.

I have listened with considerable interest to the speeches thus far. I want to make it clear that I am certainly not going to play party politics with so important an issue as this. I want to point out too that the problems that are being experienced in agriculture today have been highlighted for all too long without the required attention having been given to them. I can still recall my first speech in Parliament in 1981 when I spoke on agricultural matters and pointed out that agriculture then was in a crisis situation. I can remember the abrupt response that I received from the then Minister of Agriculture as if to indicate: What the devil does he know about it?

If one were to look back at the Hansards over the past six years, one would see that the hon member for Barberton, the hon member for Lichtenburg and others in the opposition benches including myself, have repeatedly warned the Government that an impending crisis in agriculture was developing. I am not going to say that the Government has not at last woken up to the realities of the crisis situation. It has, but I am afraid agriculture has slid into a situation from which it is going to be almost impossible to extricate it. I have sadly to repeat the words of the President of the South African Agricultural Union who stated in regard to the financial assistance announced by the hon the Minister early in March, that it was a case of too little too late.

I believe we have to realise that there are also a number of farmers who carry their own debt load, and in many cases they do so with great hardship. Therefore I would ask that consideration be given to them as well.

We have heard numerous speeches so far today that centre around the “mielieboere” for whom I have great sympathy. I have a great understanding for their problems too. I want to make it very clear to this House, however, that the financial problems in the agricultural sector go right across the board of agriculture. They are not confined to those cropping areas in the summer rainfall areas of the Transvaal or the Free State. They cover a wide range throughout the country, and this is an issue which we must not lose sight of. That is also why the conditions appertaining to the financial assistance which were announced only last week for those farmers who are facing sequestration are so important.

I could not believe it, Sir, when I was advised by Pretoria that they were not sure whether this assistance was going to apply to the whole country or not. If it is only going to be confined to certain areas, I can assure you, Mr Chairman, that it can only be seen as reflecting a lack of understanding of the true position. I may, however, be wrong in assuming that. That, as I have said, was the impression which I gained from direct contact with Pretoria.

I realise of course that the Government is in a difficult situation. I realise too that the hon the Minister, in spite of what some of the hon gentlemen on the benches of the CP have to say about him, has the interests of the farmers at heart. Yes, I am indeed satisfied that he has the interests of the farmers at heart.

Hear, hear!

At the same time, however, I realise that he has inherited an almost insoluble legacy. He now has to show his true colours by dealing effectively with the problems that confront the industry. We have reached the stage—and it cannot be disputed—where the agricultural sector is trying to solve its long-term problems with short-term measures. Until that situation is rectified, we will never be able to restructure the economy of agriculture.

One of the questions that has to be tackled now, to which the Government and the hon the Minister must give immediate attention, is an in-depth investigation to assess the effects of the financial assistance that has already been provided and to ascertain whether this financial assistance has met with the desired results. If it has not, then a rethink on this whole question is urgently required. I want to put this question: Has it been a case of pouring good money after bad? Far be it from me to say that it has. I feel that we have got to realise—and this is a point that the hon member for Lichtenburg made—that the drought that everybody on the Government benches is blaming for the critical situation of the farmer is not the real root cause of the financial problems of the farmer. I accept that it contributed to their problems but it is not the root cause.

May I say that I think we have got to be looking at long-term issues; consideration has to be given to financing or providing financial assistance in the long term. May I also suggest that in the phase of the restructuring of the agricultural industry a completely new concept of thinking must come into being.

I can recall when I was associated with organised agriculture that the attention of the then Minister of Agriculture was drawn time and again to the concern that existed among farmers with regard to the protective tariffs that were being applied to protect manufacturers of so many of our locally produced inputs. This was also referred to by the hon member for Heilbron.

I am sad to say that my time has run out, but may I leave just one other thought. In the rebuilding, the restructuring of agriculture, we have got to be looking at this on a regional basis as a start. In other words, I want to stress that agricultural practices must be carried out in conformity with the ecology of particular areas. One of the reasons we are having to pay such a high price now to stabilise the agricultural industry is that financial assistance has to be given to farmers in marginal production areas who have little hope—and I say this in all honesty—of ever being able to repay their commitments.

When it comes to assistance for capital development, I think this is an area to which further attention must be given. Capital development in order to reduce the risk factor in farming is one of the first essentials required in agriculture today.

Finally, let me warn that if the country is to survive the present crisis in agriculture, it will have to take extraordinary measures and rethink its whole agricultural policy. However, what must not be forgotten is that the enormous agricultural debt not only has to be financed but has also to be repaid. When one thinks about repaying any debt, one can only do so if one is making a profit, because it is this profit that puts one in a position to meet one’s capital and servicing commitments.

Mr Chairman, I want to focus my attention exclusively on the Northern Transvaal. That is the area stretching from Church Street in Pretoria northwards up to Messina, and it is one of the best-known and most established agricultural regions in the Transvaal. All spheres of agriculture are involved, because there is cattle-farming and crop-farming, vegetables are being cultivated and fruit grown.

Generally speaking, the situation in that area is critical owing to factors beyond the control of the farmers. The farmers could not have foreseen the situation, because that area is now experiencing the eighth consecutive year of drought since 1979. The Northern Transvaal Co-operative states that since 1979 there has not been a single normal crop. One year it was 70% of the normal yield, and indications for 1987 are that the crop will be 30% of the normal yield. Normally the Northern Transvaal Co-operative’s farmers’ debt is approximately R18 million; now it is approximately R140 million. That co-operative normally had a daily cash-flow of R100 000. At present it is not even R10 000 per day. In January 1987 there were more sequestrations in that region than in the regions of all the other co-operatives put together. In one area it is envisaged that only about four out of 24 farmers will survive. At this stage the estimate is that only 4% of the farmers in that co-operative’s region can help themselves, that 12% of the farmers will be able to carry on farming with marginal economic assistance and that the position of the remaining 84% is critical and precarious.

A great fuss is made of the assistance available to farmers and granted to them in the designated areas in terms of the Promotion of the Density of Population in Designated Areas. Act. I am not saying the following in any negative sense, but I want to know whether it really is assistance, because it is still being granted to the farmers on a credit basis. Whether it is credit to purchase a farm or equipment or to consolidate debt, no financial assistance is given to the farmers except in the form of a loan on which they have to pay interest and which they eventually have to repay.

In the process of granting assistance to some of those farmers, mistakes have been made— I am not saying this by way of criticism— either in regard to the nature of the assistance or in ascertaining their security, and then when they request additional assistance when they have had their first or second setback, they no longer qualify for that “assistance” because they no longer have any credit standing. That is a mistake which is going to create future problems.

The second matter I specifically want to broach, relates to the question of the territorial allowance. The allowance of R500 payable to bona fide farmers was a welcome one, and even though one cannot do much with that amount, it nevertheless did help. When one weighs up this kind of assistance against other forms of assistance, it is perhaps really valuable assistance and one could consider increasing the amount. This assistance is meant exclusively for bona fide farmers, but many problems have arisen in regard to the classification of bona fide farmers and the question of who qualifies and who does not. I want to give the hon the Minister relevant examples.

People have been told that they cannot be classified as bona fide farmers, even though they have qualified for other agricultural finance assistance. Some farmers received R500 each month during the first three months, but thereafter the payments were stopped without warning or any reasons being furnished. It is said that some do not qualify, but others in precisely the same position do in fact qualify. Those are problems that create dissatisfaction and uneasiness. I want to address the specific instance of a farmer, who is a bona fide farmer, having to take on part-time employment to finance his farming. Sometimes he has been working on a part-time basis for years, and in other instances for a shorter period. Those farmers are told that they do not qualify. Sometimes the size of the farm is used as a criterion, and if it is too small, the farmers do not qualify, even though there are some of them who make a good living there. There are other instances of bona fide farmers having been told that they did not qualify because they drew a pension. I therefore want to suggest that the applicable rules be examined in depth. They should perhaps be considered in consultation with organised agriculture so as to allow some room for movement within the ambit of the rules. The rules can then be published and used as a criterion in future. If the State can give assistance, let it do so in a way which makes it seem that it is deriving some pleasure from doing so, rather than doing it reluctantly. That is often the feeling the farmers have.

The hon member for Wellington asked whether it was fair to the taxpayer, in regard to certain farming matters, to pour money into a bottomless pit. He himself is a farmer, and I think we both know that we farmers are proud people and that there is no farmer who constantly wants a handout. To tell the truth, they are striving towards the day—dreaming of it—when they can again stand entirely on their own two feet and arrange their financing through ordinary commercial banks. We must tell those taxpayers who are not farmers, however, that as far as they are concerned the farmers also play an important role. Farmers supply us with food and buy their fertilizer, tractors and livestock requirements from us. What is more, they establish a settlement in the sparsely populated parts of the country. These areas are far removed from the glittering lights and conveniences of urban life. In that connection, as members of a commando or as police reservists, they play an indispensable role. If the Defence Force itself had to do the job—so it is said—that a hundred farmers do for the Defence Force in safeguarding the designated and adjacent areas, it would cost the Defence Force R157 million over a period of 30 years. In my view the farmers, particularly in the border areas and in the designated areas, are an indispensable, integral part of the SA Defence Force. We can put it to the taxpayer, the non-farming taxpayer, that he should simply be prepared to have a premium paid to South Africa’s farmers.

My colleague, the hon member for Lichtenburg, referred to the social consequences. We shall have to give that our urgent attention and address the issue, because it is a matter with multiple facets. Firstly we have the farmers and their families who are going to face a crisis if they lose their farms.

I think that the State and organised agriculture should look into this matter. The first possible solution that should be sought for the problem involves the rehabilitation of those farmers within the farming context.

Secondly we have the thinning out of the rural population. As a result of farmers moving away from those areas, there are ripple effects; the church, the school, shops, the post office, the railways and all kinds of similar secondary sectors are affected. In my opinion there are, in particular, two aspects of the present situation that have to be examined. The hon the Minister has already written to me about that, but I nevertheless think that one should examine the debt standstill concept. I am told that this is not possible in practice, but as the saying goes: “’n Boer maak mos ’n plan.” The hon the Minister is a farmer and he must therefore devise a plan.

The next point that must not be lost sight of is that those farmers who have proved themselves, and who are now experiencing problems, should also be rehabilitated on their farms, within the agricultural set-up.

In the Northern Transvaal region organised agriculture itself, with its chairman at the helm, is tackling the problem. Together with the Jacobs Committee, with the assistance of the Defence Force, which has made 21 agricultural economists available from the ranks of its national servicemen, and with the support obtained from one of the major motor vehicle manufacturers and a petrol company, they are devising plans to save the situation, to assist the farmers and evaluate their position so that, with help, they may carry on.

This is an example of agriculture and organised agriculture now tackling this problem themselves, determined as they are to see what they themselves can do as an adjunct to any possible contribution by the State.

Mr Chairman, I hope the hon member for Soutpansberg and the two speakers preceding him will not hold it against me if I do not, owing to a lack of time, react to their speeches directly. Nevertheless I shall try to refer to them in the course of my speech.

I see the hon member for Lichtenburg is leaving; I should like to be far more positive than he was. In the first place the hon member started talking about a large group of farmers faced with sequestration and in the next sentence he said there was a small group still capable of continuing.

You did not hear correctly.

No, Sir, that is what he said.

I said …

A while later the hon member said there were 3 500 farmers facing sequestration. According to my calculations, there are almost 68 000 farmers in this country.

You were not listening properly.

The hon member had better read his Hansard.

Order!

I merely want to say that none of the aid schemes instituted by the State are intended to extinguish or redeem farmers’ debts. There is no such thing. In the first place, aid schemes are introduced in the short term to give farmers the opportunity to get their breath back and survive and to effect certain long-term adjustments and structural changes. We must assess the existing schemes only on this basis and not on their political consequences.

We should also guard against merely devising aid schemes and not addressing the actual causes of the problem. We have no control over certain of these causes, such as the drought, and reference has already been made to this. With a few exceptions, the drought was not the entire cause of the problem but, as the hon member for Mooi River said, the contributory cause to farmers’ problems.

I am aware that there are farmers who have not had a harvest for six years and I pity them. I am also convinced that the hon the Minister will take good care of them under his new scheme. We appreciate their problem and are not indifferent to their plight but the accusation has been levelled that we have done too little too late. Meanwhile the hon members for Lichtenburg and Schweizer-Reneke rose and produced a report compiled on the instructions of the hon the State President. More than a year ago he requested his Economic Advisory Council to conduct an investigation into agriculture and to report to him. Arising from information in this report the hon the State President and the hon the Minister appointed a committee, which they called the Agricultural Restructuring Committee, under the chairmanship of Dr Jacobs of the Reserve Bank. They appointed people like Messrs Hendrik Schoeman, Andries Scholtz, Fanie Hugo, Fourie Kritzinger, Jan van Vuuren and Johan Rademeyer to serve on this committee to deal with this entire matter. Almost a year ago the chief executive of the NP in the Free State appointed a committee for the purpose of making an input for the restructuring of agriculture as well. This committee, of which I am a member, has already held various interviews with agricultural co-operatives and the Free State Agricultural Union.

The NP is concerned about farmers because they are the Government’s responsibility; we cannot abuse them merely for the sake of their votes—as the Official Opposition is doing. In the past election the CP succeeded brilliantly in making our farmers dissatisfied and unhappy. It is a fact that only dissatisfied and unhappy people can vote for the Official Opposition.

That is true.

The Government has to act in a responsible way toward farmers and cannot, like the CP, tell farmers without qualification that their debt will be written off—as the CP promised voters in numerous constituencies if it should come to power. That is true. I have evidence in this regard which I can disclose. [Interjections.] Yes, that is true. The hon member for Lichtenburg was one of those.

The NP cannot use the maize price to frighten farmers. If there were two factors through which the Official Opposition very subtly achieved great success in the past election, they were firstly the decision of the general Synod of the Ned Geref Kerk—I do not wish to express an opinion on this; hon members will know to what I am referring—and the second was the maize price.

And disinformation.

That was the second time the Official Opposition used the maize price so recklessly. During the by-election in Harrismith in 1985 a reduced maize price was announced a week or so before the election. I can tell hon members what the consequence of this was. That night just before the polling station closed I encountered a lady who supported the Opposition. She said to me: “Oh, the poor little mealies! What do you have to say now about the poor little mealies?” The CP was obviously sure it would win that election. It expected to win aided by the question of the maize price.

The Official Opposition succeeded in masterly fashion in sowing suspicion of the Government among farmers—the very farmers who had been the recipients of vast amounts of aid and sympathy from this Government for some years. I want to warn the Official Opposition today not to cause our farmers—I am one too—to lose the sympathy of the consumer and the taxpayer in this country. I think we are well on our way to that situation.

Why did hon CP members not rise to their feet today and also say that farmers’ debts should be written off? If they had wanted to say this, they should have added how to do it. Perhaps they find it just as simple to write off farming debts as to curb inflation. The CP used a poster in the election which read: “Stop inflation and vote for the CP”. But how does one curb inflation? At the beginning of this session the AHI presented a symposium on inflation here to which all were invited— the Official Opposition too. Not one of them turned up, however, to be informed of the real problem of inflation. Now the hon member for Lichtenburg comes here and makes the most peculiar statement I have ever heard in my life. On the one hand he said the Government was in control of inflation and now he must not say that I did not hear him correctly again. In the same breath, however, he said that the Government should spend less to end inflation but more on agriculture. I now want to ask the hon member whose money the Government must bestow on agriculture? One’s chances of stopping inflation and providing an answer to this are as slim as those of writing off farmers’ debts. The CP cannot stop inflation but it had a poster during the election reading “Stop inflation”.

What about own residential areas?

If it is true that they have those solutions and if they are the great patriots they purport to be, why does one of those hon members not rise in this House and tell us how to do this? How does one stop inflation? They told farmers, however, that the announced maize price was the Government’s price. Perhaps it was the Government maize price because in terms of an agreement entered into with the Maize Board a year ago—quite a number of them are CP supporters—according to which they would shoulder full responsibility for the maize price, and calculated on a harvest forecast made in February this year, the maize price they were to announce—I checked this last week—would have been only R155,83 per ton for yellow maize and R167,83 for white. As the hon the State President said at Lichtenburg, however, the NP will not leave farmers in the lurch. The Government had made R134 million available to underpin the maize price so that the price of white maize would be at least R212 per ton and that of yellow R200 per ton.

That R134 million is an amount additional to the R175 million already voted, of which R80 million is earmarked for certain marketing costs incurred by that board and the other R95 million for the payment of interest and settlement of certain shortfalls in the stabilisation fund of the board. What I therefore want to say is that the Government’s contribution to the maize industry amounted to R309 million this year, and then hon members say too little is being done.

How much are you spending for Soweto?

For Soweto? Sir, if the hon member had been listening yesterday, he would have heard that those people paid a premium of R68 per ton on the domestic price of maize and this formed part of a contribution to producers.

Does this represent the message of gratitude from Transvaal maize farmers in returning a lot of CP representatives to this House? [Interjections.] If that is the message, I want to tell Transvaal farmers today they have not succeeded because all they have done is to permit themselves to be misled by CP stories.

Yes, insult the farmers!

I am not insulting the farmers; on the contrary, the farmers had better come and see for themselves what figures their representatives cut in this House. [Interjections.]

The NP will continue to fulfil its responsibility to farmers. I said we should not merely devise programmes without also solving problems. If there is a single serious problem which has come to the fore in agriculture over the past two years, it is our farmers’ inability to practise financial management. The hon member for Lichtenburg said we should spend money at the starting point and not at the finishing post. I want to request the hon the Minister today to spend money at the starting point. I wish to add that, if we do not co-ordinate extension services properly in this country, an even greater fiasco awaits us. Much of our farmers’ distress has its source in the fact that every second pedlar has now become and extension officer who tells farmers stories which they accept as gospel. We shall have to pay serious attention to this matter.

It may also be true, and the hon member for Wellington referred to this, that certain sections of the Income Tax Act made it attractive to farmers not to pay tax and not to save. Instead of their applying their finance properly as reserve capital at that stage, they bought equipment. In addition, they did not pay cash for the equipment; they even went as far as buying it on hire-purchase. One of the greatest problems in particular is that farmers—this applies to farmers in my constituency—fell behind with payments and interest on overdue instalments was capitalised. I could cite numerous examples of farmers who are in great trouble. I have to close as my time as almost expired. [Interjections.]

Order!

I do not believe we should write off our farmers. I wish to take the opportunity today of thanking the hon the State President, the hon the Minister of Agriculture and the Government heartily for the aid given to our farmers over the years. I can assure them that our farmers, aided by their determination and excellent Government aid, will survive. With these words I take pleasure in supporting the amendment moved by the hon member for Wellington.

Mr Chairman, I would not say that this has been an interesting debate … [Interjections.]

Order!

I just briefly want to associate myself with the very fine contribution made by the hon member for Mooi River to this debate, a speech in which he said that short-term measures could not serve as a solution to long-term problems. I shall be returning to this aspect at a later stage.

I want to refer briefly to the contribution by the hon member for Bethlehem who devoted virtually his entire speech to an attack on the CP, and in particular to the non-contribution by the hon member for Heilbron. His figures and facts were in a complete muddle and he levelled accusations at the CP which were simply not true.

They are true!

The hon member made the blatant allegation here that in past debates we on this side of the House, and I in particular, had made a political issue of agriculture.

That is true!

He says it is true. He further alleged that the hon member for Lichtenburg and I had adopted the astounding attitude of wanting to encourage the maize farmers of South Africa to produce 6,5 tons of maize per hectare.

I said that you endorsed that price.

Sir, since I did not interrupt that hon member, I trust he will now give me an opportunity to make my speech. [Interjections.]

Order!

I am reminded that more than three years ago we moved a similar motion in this House. It read as follows (Hansard, vol 112, col 2671):

That was more than three years ago. On that occasion I personally advocated that our farmers should shelve the idea of optimal production, because that was not necessarily optimal production from an economic point of view. I argued that research should be done in this country and that extension work should be done with our farmers with a view to achieving optimal production from an economic point of view. Now that hon member comes along with a lot of nonsense here this afternoon. [Interjections.]

It is the truth!

The hon member says it is the truth. So much for that hon member.

Since we are talking politics now, there is just something I want to say. Is it not strange that the last time an NP private member’s motion concerning White farmers was introduced in this House was in 1978?

That is not true! We have just introduced one.

Not for discussion; not for the White farmers. It was not for the White farmers, but for the non-White farmers.

I still remember very clearly that in 1978 the motion was introduced by the present hon Minister of Environment Affairs, but since then it has been left to the Official Opposition to act, in this House, as a mouthpiece for agriculture.

Do you people now want to talk politics?

I did not intend to do so, but if we are being blatantly and unjustly accused …

It is the truth!

… of not having the interests of the farmers of South Africa at heart, just wanting to use those farmers as voting stock, I reject it with contempt. [Interjections.] One can then discern a further hidden threat in the words of the hon member for Bethlehem, one directed at the farmers of the Transvaal.

They are CPs!

He says the farmers of the Transvaal are CPs. Many farmers in the Transvaal are CPs. That is true, but unfortunately there are still many of them who have not yet seen the light. [Interjections.]

Order! Far too many comments are being made here. The hon member may proceed.

So much for those hon members…

We all know what the chief reasons are for the economic dilemma in which our farmers find themselves, but I want to add one more. If hon members look at the report “Statistical/Economic Review” which we were given together with the Estimates of the hon the Minister of Finance, they will see the following on page 21:

Then we come to the important reason for the financial dilemma of the farming industry:

[Inaudible.]

I know, but in quoting these facts we see that although the major part of farming inputs increased by 20% or more, the farmers on the receiving end obtained a price increase of less than 10%. One surely does not have to be a genius to draw the inevitable conclusion that in such a situation one would not, in the long term, be able to make the grade.

That is why the CP is not saying no thank you to the R400 million in additional assistance now being granted to the farming industry. I have, however, read the hon the Minister’s Press statement in full—if I have made a mistake, he must correct me—and as I understand it, this R400 million is now specifically being set aside for those farmers who could possibly, with some assistance, still survive. I understand that this assistance is now intended to secure them against sequestration.

Three years ago, however, I argued in a debate, not for a macro-investigation into agriculture, but for an investigation, from one farm to the next, to see which farmers could still survive economically. If it has now been ascertained that a certain number of farmers can no longer survive and should now simply fall by the wayside, as the hon member for Lichtenburg has said, I want to know from the hon the Minister what the Government envisages doing to prevent the only remaining security asset of the farmers decreasing in value as a result of forced sales if a number of farms now have to be forced onto the commercial market. Is the State going to intervene in the marketing mechanism when it comes to the purchasing of those farms which are now going to be sold by compulsory auction?

What worries me is that the Land Bank has not sold many farms in the past year and a half. According to their latest report, in 1986 the Land Bank had to sell 48 farms by compulsory auction, and only 21 of those farms fetched a high enough price to redeem the bank’s mortage. The other 27 farms had to be sold by the bank at prices less than the value of the existing mortgage bond. From the beginning of this year the Land Bank held 27 compulsory auctions, and in only 10 instances did the auctions yield a sufficient amount to cover the Land Bank mortgage.

What concerns me is that we know that the Land Bank is conservative when it comes to granting loans and that the loans are not granted on the market-value of that land, but on its agricultural and production value. The present situation is such that in only 10 of the 27 compulsory auctions could the land’s agricultural and production value be realised. In 17 cases the agricultural and production value was not realised, and this indicates that there are further problems in the offing. This represents but a small portion of the compulsory sequestrations. For that reason my submission to the Government is that the State should ensure, at all compulsory auctions of agricultural land, that land prices in South Africa do not collapse altogether. This would bring numerous fanners who are still solvent today, as a result of their assets, face to face with the problem of sequestration.

There is another problem that vexes me. The hon the Minister and I are perhaps fortunate in farming in a part of the country in which the rainfall is more consistent and in which there is a greater diversity of farming, the majority of us farming on a diversified basis. It has been loudly proclaimed, however, that the solution for the maize industry, for farmers chiefly cultivating maize, lies in the inclusion of livestock, particularly small stock and sheep. I do not want to disagree with that; I think that is the long-term answer. Experience has taught me, however—I myself am a stock-farmer—that stock-farmers are not made, but are born.

I want to warn against our injudiciously encouraging people who already have financial problems, to include small stock-farming in their existing maize-farming activities, with the exorbitant prices being asked for breeding stock, without those people being properly informed of what small-stock farming actually entails. I am deeply concerned, because in recent times, in my part of the world, I have seen people obtaining loans from co-operatives for the purchase of breeding stock and having to pay alarming prices for that stock. Experience has taught me that the loans those farmers obtained would only increase their difficulties. An experienced stock-farmer knows that the prices they are now paying for that livestock are altogether uneconomic. I therefore want to issue a warning: In this connection we should proceed with caution. That is, however, a part of the solution.

My time is almost up, but I just want to say in conclusion that there was a time in our people’s history when we bore the proud name of being “die Boerevolk”. I hope it will not be our fate, in the foreseeable future, to be a people without any farmers.

Mr Chairman, in spite of the biting criticism for which the hon member for Lichtenburg is well-known—I have learnt to accept it, as I have learnt to accept it from day to day in the field of agriculture—I nevertheless firstly want to thank him for a motion which has elicited a profitable discussion here and which can profitably be looked at. Of course I cannot, in the time available to me here, reply to all the divergent standpoints put forward here.

I want to begin at once, however, with the hon member for Barberton and, in making the following statement, give it some emphasis. I have already done so in a previous debate. Ninety five percent or more of market-orientated agriculture in South Africa lies with the White farmers of South Africa. That is historically the case. In evaluating agriculture, as has in fact been done by this report, it is the Government’s task, and specifically that of the own affairs department, to assist White agriculture to solve its problems. That is my function. I have committed myself to that. The hon member need not be concerned about our neglecting the White farmers in the process. They are experiencing tremendous problems as a result of greater capital intensity prevalent amongst White farmers. For many years now I—and the hon member for Lichtenburg too—have worked in the field of Black agriculture, the developing sector of agriculture, subsistence agriculture. Subsistence agriculture is in the process of development, and for the sake of the country’s economy, as the report states, it is necessary to stabilise this agricultural sector.

The hon member for Barberton asked me another question which, I think, is an important one, ie whether the R400 million is destined for specific areas and farmers. If the hon member had read my statement carefully, he would have seen that it stated clearly that it was for crop-farmers, irrigation farmers and farmers in the livestock-grazing regions. If one has laid down a specific norm in terms of which the farmers must qualify for this rehabilitation scheme—let me cal! it that—and a farmer in one area does qualify, but a farmer in another area does not, one has no right to discriminate in this way. This R400 million is therefore for all farmers, including irrigation farmers who have also been through a difficult period owing to the problems being experienced by our country.

I do not know whether the hon member has studied the report, but the report makes it abundantly clear that there are basically two elements in the restructuring of agriculture, and they are its short-term and long-term restructuring. In a moment I shall say something about the long-term restructuring of agriculture, but that is a lengthier and more complex process. We are therefore now in a phase in which we must see to what extent we can save those farmers who are in danger of being sequestrated. We do, however, only have limited finance. Like all other Ministers, I have to negotiate for finance with the Treasury, which also has other priorities.

I want to tell hon members that I am beginning to have problems, not with the Government, but with the private sector. People tell me, day in and day out, that the farmers are being indoctrinated, and small business undertakings have as many problems. Day in and day out I try to protect the position of the farmers. The Government’s standpoint is that the farmers are the primary producers, the entrepreneurs, in this industry. They are therefore an essential element and we must look after them. Here it is a question of resettlement and the restructuring of an industry, something which is in the interests of all the other sectors of our economy, as indicated by the report.

Consumers are loaded with levies amounting to hundreds of millions of rand, and in the past five years in which I have been involved in this, I have daily received representations from influential consumer organisations about food prices. We must therefore be very careful about how we deal with the situation.

The hon member for Lichtenburg asked to what extent we were going to accept the recommendations of this report. We have accepted a substantial number of these recommendations, but some of the recommendations of the Economic Advisory Council are already out of date. In certain categories we have already made more funds available than those recommended by the Economic Advisory Council because the situation has since changed. There is a continual process of change in this old industry of ours, because it is extremely dynamic; today one is right, but tomorrow one is wrong. A good old neighbour of mine told me that what a farmer says today, he contradicts tomorrow, because he does not know what the weather will be like tomorrow. That is the agricultural industry. It is important to note that this Economic Advisory Committee’s report was specifically the result of the Departments of Agriculture and the organised agricultural industry continually pinpointing the problems in the agricultural industry. We have been doing so for years now.

There have already been numerous investigations into agriculture. Piles of reports lie gathering dust on the shelves. So we know what the problems are—over and above the drought, that is. They have been identified. In his wisdom the hon the State President has decided that the time is ripe for having the position of agriculture in our national economy referred to this august body for investigation. I am calling it an august body because its members are drawn from commerce, industry and the world of finance. My departments are also making the necessary contributions in conjunction with the SAAU. The advisory council—I think my friend, the hon member for Schweizer-Reneke, quoted from page 10 of the report—came to the conclusion that it was essential for this country to rehabilitate agriculture.

In my opinion there is also a second aspect of significance which is tremendously important. The function of shifting agriculture into a restructuring phase is not a function to be performed by the Government alone. There are surely other sectors as deeply involved in the vicissitudes of agriculture. In this report it has been pointed out that agriculture is a generator of revenue, a provider of raw materials for many of the secondary industries in the country and the second largest earner of foreign exchange. Thus we could continue. It is therefore also essential for financial institutions and those making a contribution to take a look at agriculture. It must not simply be thought that it is only the farmers who complain and the Minister who continually has to negotiate for funds; it is in the country’s interest for everyone, in some way or other, to become involved in the agricultural restructuring programmes. In this connection we are engaged in discussions with organised agriculture, and soon quite extensive discussions will have to take place. I do not think that our investigations into input costs last year had the desired effect. My criticism of that report can be read in the Press statement I made. We are in the process of re-examining this aspect.

We have to confront the major suppliers of basic input goods in agriculture with certain facts we are gleaning at present.

We shall also have to examine the financing system. Discussions about that are in progress too.

What I am therefore saying is that it is not so much the recommendations of the report which are of importance to me, but rather its findings. The findings confirm us in our belief and endorse our arguments over the past five or six years in which we have encountered this problem.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon the Minister whether, in regard to the four recommendations in this report dealing with the Land Bank scheme that interest be frozen—I am referring to the six-year and ten-year schemes, and the recommendations in regard to the commercial banks—he can indicate whether it can be implemented or not.

We have had a look at those recommendations. The Land Bank has again extended its 20 plus two-year scheme. I think it now ends next year, in 1988, whereas it was to have ended in March of this year. Farmers have been granted a further opportunity of applying for an extension. I think that the amount on the Land Bank’s account for this sort of assistance since we introduced it in 1983 is R680 million for 7 700 loans. This system is now going to be expanded further for the purposes of debt consolidation.

Over and above that, we decided in March of this year, after the Jacobs Committee had investigated certain recommendations contained in the report, that this interest would also be subsidised by a figure of as little as 5% or 6%—an absolute minimum. [Interjections.] The hon member says it is 4%, but I cannot remember at this moment what the precise interest rate is. It is, in any event, being financed at a tremendously low interest rate. That is something we are going to put into operation.

At present discussions are also being held with the commercial banks with a view to not having carry-over debt as far as we are concerned. The relevant debt relief measure will still remain within the province of the co-operatives. We are, however, going so far as to have farmers’ current accounts with commercial banks, as far as their production inputs are concerned, financed and the relative interest rates subsidised, too. There will be certain conditions attached, ie that the banks may not have interest rates more than 2% higher than the prime rate. I know that some of the banks, as a result of the risk involved, place too heavy a burden on the farmers. Some farmers tell me that they pay up to 20% to 22% interest, which is of course altogether too much.

There is a question that comes to mind, as far as we are concerned, and it concerns the very gist of the hon member’s motion. He says that agriculture is in a “critical financial position”. I think the hon member would concede that that statement is a slight exaggeration. I want to agree with him that in the summer-grain regions there are certain areas—though not all of them—in which the position is indeed critical. Naturally, with the assistance we are going to furnish with the R400 million, we shall chiefly have to concentrate on that area. The 3 500 farmers whom we think face sequestration are chiefly localised in the western grain areas, and if those farmers were sequestrated on a localised basis, the ripple effect will extend very far into the rural social structure in that area, including the schools, shops, etc.

I therefore want to tell the hon member for Barberton that from the very nature of the case the R400 million will, to a very large extent, be spent on the farmers in the areas where the major problems exist.

I also want to say that I think that the debt-ratio position and the capital-intensiveness of these grain farmers far exceed those in the Northern Transvaal or the North-Western Cape areas. One needs a great deal more money to make it possible to rehabilitate these farmers.

The question is whether one can ever do enough for agriculture. It is a very difficult question to evaluate. Since we commenced with these schemes for granting assistance four years ago, they have been adapted on several occasions to the particular circumstances, as the situation deteriorated. These conditions were completely beyond the control of agriculture. Now I am not speaking about the drought; I am speaking about inflation and the exchange rate of the rand. All the grain farmers are also, to a very large extent, dependent on countries abroad for their capital goods. The prices of imported tractors have also increased astronomically. One can therefore say one is also dealing with inflation that is imported on a large scale. Agriculture does not have any control over these factors.

There has also been a complete collapse in the grain market. The problems that South African agriculture are struggling with at the moment are not merely confined to South Africa. These problems are found throughout the world. It seems as if agriculture does not always adapt to the economic systems in other Western countries. That is the problem. It is a problem of the Western World that we are dealing with, because agriculture’s economic set-up is unique. I am referring to the non-elasticity when it comes to supply and demand.

I now come to the hon member for Bryanston. He spoke of market-orientated systems. If one left agriculture solely to the dictates of supply and demand, one would starve to death one year because one would not be able to afford to buy anything, and the following year not know what to do with all the food. [Interjections.] So the hon member must not come and tell me stories; he has had too long an absence from Parliament to know what has happened. Does he not know that at present we are examining all our control schemes with a view to making them more market-orientated? Does he know that this year, for the first time, we have amended the maize scheme to make it more market-orientated? Does the hon member know that?

So why are you making such a fuss if you say it should be market-orientated?

We are moving towards a greater degree of market-orientation, Sir. We cannot, however, permit a completely free marketing set-up in agriculture, a “free-for-all” system. Agriculture simply does not work that way, not in the USA or in the EEC. In the USA there are continual intervention prices and schemes when it comes to the payment of shortages. If it is good for the USA, it could also be good for South Africa. It therefore seems to me as if it has been quite some time since the hon member was last here. [Interjections.]

The aid programmes have been intensified as the drought situation and the interest-rate problems increased in severity. Hon members were right in saying that today the interest account is so high that agriculture virtually cannot keep pace.

I want to say a few things about campaigns we have to launch in the long term. I want to point out—hon members asked me about this—that we estimate that we shall be able to rehabilitate approximately 2 000 of the 3 500 farmers. It depends on the finances one has at one’s disposal, and what norms one lays down. If the norms are set higher, one needs less finance, and if there is greater flexibility in regard to the norms, one needs more finance. The availability of finance therefore also plays a tremendously large role. Negotiations are being conducted at present, with several financial institutions, about the R400 million the Government has at its disposal, in order to ascertain to what extent we can succeed in bringing about the rehabilitation by way of voluntary compromise proposals. I am saying voluntary compromise proposals because the agricultural industry is extremely sensitive about this. We cannot bring the agricultural industry to a complete standstill. The Agricultural Credit Act does, in fact, make provision for compromise proposals. By way of certain campaigns we are going to introduce locally, we can advise local agricultural credit committees and farmers, after we have held discussions with local creditors such as the banks, the co-operatives and perhaps the chemist, etc. They can hold advance discussions with these people in an affort to determine what compromise proposals can be made. The assistance, however, will chiefly have to be granted on an individual basis. The hon member is right about that. One will virtually have to go from farm to farm in order to determine exactly what the situation is. That is the short-term campaign.

There is also a long-term campaign, ie the question of changing the structure. Agriculture in South Africa will have to be made more adaptable as far as its resources are concerned. Let us be frank about that. There are large areas in South Africa where the resources and the rainfall are not such that one can take a chance on the production of certain commodities. The risk is too great. In this connection the department will have to lead the way, overhauling its operating structure as far as its extension services are concerned. We are agreed on that. The advisory council said as much in its report.

I now come to the 1 500 farmers to whom the hon member for Schweizer-Reneke referred. I want to tell hon members that one will have to conduct certain tests with a view to rehabilitating individuals. If they do not pass this test, we shall unfortunately not be able to help them. There is a large percentage of farmers—and I do not mean only farmers in the Western Transvaal, but farmers throughout the country—whose farming systems are so structured that they cannot be granted assistance. Perhaps their units are too small— for other farmers, again, they may be too big—by they will have to comply with certain norms. If they cannot do so, it is perhaps a good thing for agriculture, because that sector of our farmers is costing agriculture money and making agricultural products more expensive. We shall most probably have to examine schemes aimed not only at keeping farmers in the agricultural sector, but also at helping them out of it. I know that that is a drastic statement on my part, but this is one of the basic problems of agriculture in South Africa.

We want to keep farmers on the land, and in the past we have succeeded in doing so. I have the figures here, and they indicate that in the past five or six years we have lost only about 2 500 farmers. We have succeeded, by way of our aid schemes, in keeping farmers on the land. The present-day question, however, is: How efficient are the farmers one is keeping on the land? We shall have to examine that and introduce extension services. We shall have to amend our whole service structure to agriculture and co-ordinate everything. We shall have to co-operate with the private sector, with banks and with the co-operatives to see what we can do in this regard.

I am afraid the time has passed for having just one extension officer telling a farmer what he should do. Today one needs integrated economic and technical services that we should provide for our modern-day farmers. That is why the department is investigating centres of expertise—we can argue this point further in the Appropriation debate—which should at least be set up and developed in the sub-regions. Thus one could offer assistance and extension services on a broad front, on the basis that farmers should be given assistance in helping themselves. That is very important, and it has always been the philosophy underlying agricultural assistance in South Africa. Farmers must be assisted in helping themselves. Accordingly we shall have to structure an extension service and become much more sophisticated. Managerial leadership will have to be given and proper computer systems will have to be installed with a view to building up data banks on a wide variety of facets. So we will also have to operate much more scientifically in regard to our management systems in agriculture. One would then be able to solve the problem my friend, the hon member for Mooi River, mentioned. One would then not be throwing good money after bad, because productivity and the utilisation of the resources of this country, which are so essential, will be increased. Those who cannot slot in, cannot expect us to use taxpayers’ money to allow them simply to go on the way they have been doing. That is not possible.

I therefore want to conclude by saying that the age of the seventies was the golden age in our agriculture, because we had too good a time of it. In one of those years the production in the Western Transvaal exceeded four tons per hectare. That was the highest in the Republic of South Africa, but since then that area has had the worst track record of all owing to circumstances beyond its control. We experienced good times. The period of the eighties is a period of rehabilitation, but at the same time it is a period in which we should re-examine our agriculture from scratch, because the drought, inflation, the exchange rate, etc, have taught us a great deal. Let me predict today that in the nineties the picture in agriculture will be a little different to what it is today.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No 30 and motion and amendment lapsed.