Yesterday afternoon when the House adjourned I was replying to the hon. member for Umhlatuzana. The hon. member had stated that the United Party wanted an economically integrated community and added that if that were to happen there would be chaos in the country. Mr. Speaker, it is not the case that we on this side of the House want economic integration, it is simply an accomplished fact and particularly so in agriculture more than in any other sector of the economy of South Africa because there are no less than 3 million non—White persons in the agricultural industry. Why should economic integration result in chaos when it is applied in accordance with the economic requirements of this country? The hon. member for Umhlatuzana is dissatisfied with economic integration, but at the same time he is satisfied with the economic progress we have made. He is satisfied with the economic progress but dissatisfied with what has caused it. That I simply cannot understand—dissatisfied with economic integration but satisfied with its results. That is simply not possible to reconcile. If one ever wants chaos then one should get rid of non—White labour, particularly in agriculture, where practically the entire labour force consists of non—Whites. I want to issue this warning right now: Any interference with the labour force of the agricultural industry will prejudice our economy to a greater extent than interference with the labour pattern in any other sector of the economy. One can describe the agricultural industry to—day as a patient; the patient is already walking on crutches and we must not try and kick away those crutches because we will then have to drag or carry that patient. That is what the hon. member for Umhlatuzana proposes, i.e. that one of the main pillars of our economic development be removed. If that pillar, which I called a crutch in the case of the agricultural industry, is kicked away, then it will result in chaos.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition was never more right than when he accused the Ministers of Agriculture in this debate of incompetence and inefficiency. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the United Party are not alone in this respect. Even at National Party congresses during the past year and before that the accusation was levelled against them that they were incompetent and that they had little sympathy with the agricultural industry.

That is not true.

What happened last year at their congress in Bloemfontein? Here I have the clipping from the Beeld in front of me (translation)—

What did the other 299 say?

But this report is even more revealing—

When was that?

The hon. member knows that it was in 1964—’65. I shall quote further—

Let me tell the hon. Minister that the more chaos there is in our agricultual industry, the more chaos there will be at the meetings where they have to address their own supporters. So, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and we are not alone when we say that there is little sympathy and that the farmers have accused them of having little sympathy because in the last few years they nave adopted this attitude that they are simply going to ignore the requests made by farmers and try and dismiss those requests with a wave of the arm by saying that things are not going as badly with the farmers of South Africa as they are with the United Party. They tried to do that again at that congress when the hon. Minister said that the position of the farmers in South Africa was much better. But do you know, Sir, how the Minister proved that? He said that in 1936 there were 170,000 farmers in the country and that there were now 92,000, and that considering how the agricultural production had increased the individual farmer was better off therefore because there were at that stage fewer farmers in the country. Of course it is a simple sum. When the farmers contribute R800 million a year to the national income and that contribution is made by 92,000 farmers it would of course seem that the position of each farmer would be better than it would have been if there were a 170,000 farmers. But facts of the matter do not confirm the hon. Minister’s statement. What is the position? It is simply that almost three quarters, i.e. 80 per cent of the farmers of South Africa earn less than R3,000 per year. It is calculated that 80 per cent of our farmers produce but 20 per cent approximately of the agricultural products, while 20 per cent of the farmers produce 80 per cent of the agricultural production. I have here a statement made by Mr. Clark, managing director of Fisons. He says that these conditions, where the farmers have such a small annual income and where 80 per cent of them earn less than R3,000 per year, simply cannot continue; it is essential that farming be made attractive and profitable. But the Government continue to adhere to their viewpoint that the farmers are better off now than they were in the past. But if we glance at the report of the Agricultural Union, the following is stated on page 9—

This refers to Whites as well as non—Whites—

But the Minister sees his way clear to stating that the farmers are better off. The S.A. Agricultural Union has strong doubts whether things are going well with the farmers in the country. Mr. Chris Cilliers, the director, himself said a while ago, it was at the congress of the Agricultural Union last year, that the Government must stop peddling with lower prices for agricultural products. If things are going so well with these people why should we get this type of statement where it is said that an end should be made to the political peddling with lower prices which we are getting? In this way ample proof can be adduced that the farmers have never been in such a weak economic condition as they are to—day. Let me say that as long as the Government persist in their attitude that the farmers are well off, as long as those blinkers remain before the eyes of the Agricultural Ministers, there will be a lack of action on their part. We do not stand aloof from, neither are we unsympathetic towards the idea that the prolonged drought which is to—day still prevailing in large parts of the country did not have a detrimental effect on our agricultural industry, but we want to assert that even if we had had normal years as far as climatic conditions were concerned, the position would nevertheless, as a result of the policy which is being pursued by the Government, have remained an alarming one. Our charge is not only one of incompetence and inefficiency, it is one of general indifference towards agriculture. I said earlier that there has been no reaction to the requests coming from organized agriculture. Planning for agriculture is also being left in abeyance. I hope to be able to prove these two statements, the first one being that there is no reaction to the requests being made by organized agriculture. Once more I want to take my proof from the report of the S.A. Agricultural Union. They had the following to say about the price policy—

It is not the first time that such a resolution has been taken. This Government has never yet gone so far as to take the risk factor adequately into consideration in its price determination when stipulating its price policy.

The Government?

If the Government does not pay attention to the requests from our farmers, how can they try and disseminate the idea abroad that they are the representatives of those people and that those people are satisfied? The S.A. Agricultural Union stated emphatically that they wanted nothing to do with railway increases on agricultural products, but the iron, the Minister of Transport did not pay them the least heed. They pointed out that if that should happen it would increase the cost of production and cause the profit margin of the farmer to decline even further. But they were ignored entirely. I do not exactly know whether it was an improvement when the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services was replaced, because the new one is another example of lack of reaction to the requests of the farmers. I want to tell the hon. Minister that he has had the Verbeeck Report in his possession for a long time, for almost two years. All the farming concerns were requested to submit memorandums and express their views, whereupon the Government would give a ruling. But what is the position? The S.A. Agricultural Union’s report states that they welcome the fact that there has been such a thing as the Verbeeck Commission, and that they have already in the past had a committee on drought feeding, and that they expected that report to be forthcoming. Their opinions were asked and they submitted their opinions to the Minister, but what did the Minister do? The report states—

The date of this report is October, 1966. They have had that report in their possession for two years already. They must have had the opinion of the S.A. Agricultural Union for months already, and nevertheless there has not been any action on the part of the Government. Does the hon. the Minister want to tell us that they are competent and qualified to govern South Africa? I have had experience of certain of the Departments. It takes months before any reaction to the requests from members and from the public is forthcoming. That it should happen in the Department of Agricultural Technical Services is not surprising at all. If there had been capable and qualified Ministers in charge of these Departments, there would have been action by this time. The farmers want to know what the future holds for them when we are once again stricken by a drought, which will happen as surely as the sun will rise to-morrow morning. Those people must be given a reply.

The one disaster they will not have to experience is having a United Party Government.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell the hon. the Minister that if there should be a change in Government I have no doubt whatsoever that there would be a much quicker reaction to what the public of South Africa wants. That is precisely the difficulty. This Government has been in power too long. That is why they are ignoring the public. They think they cannot be ousted. [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Speaker, mention has been made of the ability and competence of this Government — “the Government of all the talents”. If there is one thing for which the farmer in South Africa is pleading every day, then it is that research results and information should one day come their way. In 1948 this Government inherited the Soil Conservation Act from the old United Party Government. They inherited the first plans to supply sufficient agricultural extension officers in South Africa. What happened then? A position arose, Sir, where even commerce and industry had to decide last year that they would help to supply the farmer with the necessary research and information. The Department of the hon. the Minister was also implicated in the conference which was held. It was said by everybody that it was something wonderful that this Institute was going to be established for the supplying of agricultural instruction. But, Sir, it was hardly over when a statement was made by the Government that research and instruction was really the prerogative of the State. Sir, commerce and industry wanted to be of assistance. The Government was present at that meeting where the first Institute of Agricultural Instruction was established. One would therefore have expected them to welcome it, for the more people one has to furnish the farmer in South Africa with agricultural instruction, the better. We realize that often when instruction is supplied by commercial companies…

When do you believe the S.A. Agricultural Union?

Sir, as far as I know the S.A. Agricultural Union made no objection to the fact that instruction would be given. What they did perhaps object to was the question of research. Sir, it is essential and the Government itself welcomed it by being present. The Government ought to welcome it to-day as well, but it is not prepared to do so. The hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services knows that his Department does not have the staff. His Department is not able to supply the necessary instruction in South Africa.

We train sufficient people but they are lured away.

Sir, the hon. the Minister says that they are being lured away. That has been going on for a long time, but the hon. the Minister also has the Report of the Rautenbach Commission in his possession. That report told them at the time what they should do to attract and keep the necessary people. Did it act in terms of that Report? Mr. Speaker, it is another example of incompetence. [Interjection.] The hon. member has been there six months already. He ought by this time to know who Dr. Rautenbach is.

The hon. the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing is also quite unaware —or they seem to create the impression that they are quite unaware—of the difficulties which are being experienced in regard to marketing. I just want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to a perishable product such as vegetables. Sir, we must not forget that there are a large number of market gardeners in South Africa who perform an essential service, particularly to those of us living in the cities. I have here before me a letter from a market gardener who delivered green beans in the Johannesburg Market one day. He had to be satisfied with 15 cents per pocket of between 28 and 30 lbs. When that farmer paid a visit to the nearest greengrocer he had to purchase beans there at 12½ cents per pound. Mr. Speaker, that does not apply to vegetables only. The meat producers and consumers all have precisely the same difficulty. This difficulty also exists in other fields of agriculture. Is the Government unaware of this? They have as yet done absolutely nothing to reduce the gap between what the consumer has to pay and what the producer gets for his product. Can those two hon. members tell us whether these are not examples of incompetence and inefficiency?

After the drought the hon. Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing also told us that we would in future have to render drought assistance on another basis. He said that that assistance would have to be based on achievement during the drought. I want to know from the hon. the Minister what achievements he is talking about after a man has endured a drought. Take the example of two farmers, each with 2,000 sheep. The one fed his stock, the other did not. The one who fed his stock incurred, as a result of indirect costs, as much expenditure as the man who did not feed his stock and who lost 200 or 300 sheep. On what basis will assistance then be rendered? [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Newton Park will forgive me if I do not go into his speech. Hon. members will also realize that, as I will soon be introducing a motion for a part appropriation bill, I do not to-day propose going into the matters which have been raised by my friends on the opposite side of the House in detail. Where technical matters are concerned which require figures and statistics, they will have to stand over until the next debate. However, I want to avail myself of this opportunity to try and furnish, in purely general terms, a reply in respect of some of the matters which my friends on the opposite side of the House have also touched upon in general terms. In this connection I want to state that the Opposition and their Leader have, in the past few days, done precisely those things in respect of inflation which one ought not to do if one really wants to counteract inflation. If one is really serious about combating the problem of inflation, then in the first place one may not discuss it in exaggerated and incorrect terms. In the second place one may not try and ridicule the measures introduced to combat inflation and in the third place one may not try and create the impression that those measures are ineffective—that they will have no effect and that inflation will therefore continue o prevail in future. That is precisely what hon. members on the opposite side of the House did. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his followers came forward here with an exaggerated picture of the inflationary conditions which they were supposed to have noted in this country. They exaggerated, magnified and almost wrested those conditions out of their context altogether. They saw those conditions as the sole and predominant factor in the economy of this country, which is not the case. In the second place they tried to raise doubts in respect of the effectiveness of the measures which the Government had introduced without producing any positive idea in respect of the combating of inflation.

That is untrue.

I shall return to that and then the hon. member will have to prove to me that it is untrue. They sowed doubt in respect of the effectiveness of the measures and the ability of the Government, and not only the Government, but the ability of South Africa, to combat inflation. They created the impression that the wave of inflation would simply continue to prevail for all time. Fortunately there are few people who have any faith in the predictions of the members on the opposite side of the House, but those of them who do have some faith in their predictions and in their accusations will perhaps think that price increases in South Africa will continue. They may perhaps be encouraged to take further steps in order to protect their interests and that will mean that they will, by their actions, accelerate the stream of inflation. That is not the way one fights inflation. Surely that is not the way a responsible Opposition acts and this Opposition has in the past and in this debate never done anything positive to combat inflation in South Africa. On the contrary, we know that there is such a thing as inflation which can feed on itself. Once people have gained the impression that there is nothing to be done to curb the stream of inflation and that it will continue they take all kinds of measures to protect themselves against the coming inflation and the inflation feeds, on and lives off itself. That is what will happen if the people believe what the Opposition has had to say here over the past few days. Fortunately it is not all who believe their stories. The public of South Africa in fact believes that the Government of this country will succeed in dealing a death-blow to the dragon of inflation, and that is precisely what will happen. If the present measures taken during the past few months do not succeed, then the public can be assured that the Government will take further steps at the right time.

Fortunately there are other people who hold other opinions in regard to this matter. I know of politicians, businessmen, industrialists, bankers, etc., who are complaining to us today that they are beginning to find the anti-inflationary measures taken by the Government onerous. I know of numerous plans for expansion or the establishment of new industries which have had to be shelved for the time being. We know that the cost of living index figure is for the time being beginning to remain more or less stable. We know that the liquidity in our finance is beginning to decrease and if the hon. the Leader of the Opposition does not believe me then he can glance at the Financial Mail of 13th January in an article under the heading “Less liquidity at last”. But I know something else. Ten days ago an article in this connection appeared in one of the most authoritative publications in the world in the sphere of finance. In the Financial Times of London there is an interesting report about South Africa. This report tells of a number of so-called “Oscar Awards” which the Financial Times have awarded to countries which have attained the greatest achievements in certain financial and economic fields during the past year. The writer here states: “I have pleasure in presenting the Lombard Column Advisory Committee’s list of Oscar Awards for what was outstanding in the world of economics and finance in 1966. Where appropriate the Committee’s findings have been computer checked to eliminate any remaining possibility of human error producing a wrong decision.” He then goes on to mention a few countries which made outstanding achievements, such as Japan for “the best all-round national performance”; Switzerland, “star of the currency year”. He then comes to the item, “Best and worst disinflation policies”. He states, “The award for the best goes to South Africa for grappling with a difficult inflation problem in particularly trying circumstances in a manner calculated to cause minimum interference with the flow of desirable economic activity”. This is an objective yardstick which is being applied by people who are not always friendly towards South Africa. It has been “computerized”, if my hon. friend wants to read it. The best prize in the world for the control of inflation goes to our country. The picture which hon. members on the opposite side have presented of the economy is a distorted one. If is a caricature of the truth and a one-sided view of South Africa, as if inflation was the only characteristic of our economy and there was no other positive characteristic in our economy. It has never occurred to those hon. members that to-day inflation is not only a characteristic of South Africa but that it is a world problem from which almost every developing country in the world is suffering. The figures indicate that they have had less success than we have had.

Like France.

Does that hon. member want to tell me that they know better how to keep inflation in check than do the governments of France, Italy, West Germany, Britain and the United States, which are all faced with that problem and have combated it with less success than we have?

With even more success.

I shall come to that. None of those countries have really succeeded in solving that problem without forcing their economy into a recession from which they were now struggling to extricate themselves. The only people who really know are the United Party, but the difficulty is that they do not want to tell us how. Mr. Speaker, looking at them as they sit there, can we really believe that what is sitting there is the world’s financial brains trust? They have all the economic wisdom. They know how to solve this world-wide problem but their knowledge is such a priceless gem that they have to lock it up in a safe and cannot reveal it to the world. During the past few weeks I have had the privilege of discussing this problem in Europe with some of the world’s most pre-eminent men and all of them admit that it is a world problem. One country on its own cannot solve it. All of them admit that they admire South Africa for the way in which she has in recent years built up her finances and economy. The hon. members on the opposite side of the House are making another major error in their analysis. They see South Africa to-day as a country with an economy which is characterized by one great characteristic, namely that of inflation. If one were to stand outside South Africa, regard it objectively and describe it, one would say that here there was a country bowed down under the yoke of inflation. But that is not so. That is not the true picture of South Africa; it is not the opinion the world has of our country. Ask someone, anyone who can view the matter retrospectively and who is able to obtain an objective view of our country to give a description of South Africa and he will not say that South Africa is a country with tremendous inflation, he will say South Africa is a country whose true characteristic is that of strong economic growth and tremendously rapid industrial development. That is the picture of our country which the outside world has. That is the picture which the Opposition will not see and will not acknowledge. But, Sir, that is the way the world sees us and that is the way we are.

Many countries of Europe and many publications see the economy of South Africa today as one of the wonders of modern times. [Interjection.] The hon. member there finds this amusing, but I can give him numerous proofs. Recently an article appeared in German on South Africa’s economy which labelled it the wonder of the South. Some time ago an article appeared in the Financial Times on that “unbelievable prosperity” in South Africa. So we are seen throughout the world as the country which is one of the 13 largest markets in the world, as the country which occupies 5 per cent of the surface area of Africa but which produces almost 50 per cent of its industrial production, which produces twice as much power, three times as much steel and four times as much coal as the rest of Africa. That is our strength, that is our power. As a result of this strength which our country has we have gained prestige throughout the world.

South Africa is known throughout the world to-day as the country of apartheid in the first instance, and South Africa is also known as the country of tremendous economic strength. We have prestige, we have renown, we have won for ourselves a name throughout the world, not through inflation but through the strength of our economy. To-day, owing to the strength of our economy, everybody wants South Africa as a trading partner, and all the respectable nations would very much like to trade with us. Through the strength of our economy we are able to-day to build up our military forces and strengthen our military position. Owing to the strength of our economy we are in a position to-day to avert threatened sanctions against us. That is the picture which the world has of us.

The Opposition sees in South Africa something totally different from what it really is. Why must they always present this negative picture? The inflation which exists is not an expression of decline but is an expression of the growth of our nation. It is the faith, it is the confidence, it is the optimism which we cannot stop.

Hon. members on the opposite side of the House have accused us during the past few days that we as Government want to do too much in too short a time. But it is not only we who want to do too much in too short a time. It is the businessmen in the country, it is the entrepreneurs, it is the industrialists, it is all the numerous people who are so full of confidence in South Africa that we really cannot keep them in check or curb their eagerness. If we and the hon. members on that side had to choose to-day between a growing economy with increased employment and increased prices on the one hand and on the other a declining, stagnant economy, but one with decreasing prices, then I have no doubt that they would choose the first alternative.

Are those the only two alternatives there are?

But, of course, it was possible for the Government to introduce the measures which it did introduce and which tallied with the measures introduced by all countries to combat inflation earlier and to a greater extent, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition advocated. But with these delicate mechanisms, which finance and economy are, the result could have been that if action was taken too soon and too drastically the country could have been plunged into a recession from which it would not easily have been able to extricate itself. That is the position to-day in quite a number of countries in Europe, namely that they took steps which were perhaps taken too quickly or were too drastic, so that in most countries of Europe conditions of moderate recession are to be found from which they are with difficulty able to extricate themselves.

Of course, we could have applied the measures which we applied in December in June already, and the measures we put into operation in July we could have put into operation in 1965. [Interjections.] The hon. member is introducing nonsense into the debate again. The measures we introduced in 1965 had already begun to have results-—the hon. members know that—when there was a sudden, unexpected and tremendous inflow of capital from overseas, which upset all our calculations. Nobody could have foreseen it. Even the hon. members on the opposite side, with all their wisdom, would not have been able to foresee that we would during the past year or year and a half experience such a major inflow of capital from overseas. They are always predicting an outflow of capital. That inflowing capital to a great extent neutralized what had already been achieved by our measures, and new measures had to be taken.

Suppose, however, we had taken the 1966 measures in 1965 already, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition probably wanted, and there had been no inflow of capital, what would the position then have been and what would the Opposition then have said if they did not say that the Government had already taken too drastic steps and caused a recession? It redounds to the credit of the Government that it has each time and at the right time applied those measures which were the appropriate measures to take at that stage.

They did not help.

These measures did help, and if the hon. member who apparently is one of the covert financial experts on that side of the House will go into what these newspapers as well as the Financial Mail say, then he will find that if those measures had not been taken the liquidity in our country would perhaps have been R150 million more.

Do you accept the Financial Mail’s criticism of the last Budget?

No, I do not accept it. [Interjections.] But these are figures and facts, and there are opinions which differ and facts which differ. Of course the Government could have taken harsh measures; it could have interfered in the course of economic events; of course it could have imposed miscellaneous forms of control and placed the economy under a great measure of control as it were. If we were a socialistic state then we would have been able to do so and we might possibly have gone much further, but we are not a socialistic state. Our economy is still based on the principle of free enterprise which is something we do not want to stifle, it is something we want to preserve. It is for that reason that we have in recent years not even tried to impose price control on a large scale, because we do not believe in surrendering that element of freedom in our economy. But if we were to have done what hon. members on the opposite side wanted us to do we would have had to impose a greater degree of control and interfere in the economy; we would then have had to subjugate free enterprise and we would then have had to violate the principles to which we adhere. As long as we have a free economy in the country we will take boom fluctuations into account. Prosperity and depression, the rise and fall of the trade cycle, is the price we pay for free enterprise in our economy. If the Opposition is of the opinion that we should succeed in eliminating boom fluctuations altogether, then they must also be prepared to accept total control of the economy. Hon. members on the opposite side must not forget that in certain respects our economy differs completely from the economy of many other countries in the world. Whether or not we want to admit it, ours is a threatened country. We are aware of the boycotts, both official and unofficial, which are being imposed against us and with which we are being threatened. We are aware of the sanctions looming over us, of which so much mention has been made recently and which could possibly be imposed against us. We are aware of the military threats made by certain states—not that we take much notice of them—and we are aware of the fact that our so-called friends refuse to sell us weapons, even weapons of defence, while they sell weapons to those who are making military threats against us. In a certain sense we are a country which is being threatened. I do not think that those things will happen easily; I do not think that nations will readily resort to sanctions against South Africa, and I do not think that they will succeed if they should do so. But the Government must take it into account. We cannot take any risks with the life of a nation. Just as the neutral states in Europe must defend themselves in order to retain their neutrality, so we as the government of a threatened country are also compelled to take all possible steps in order to safeguard the future of our country and our people. We are compelled to safeguard ourselves from military attack. We are compelled to build up our defence force; we are compelled to establish industries which one would perhaps have second thoughts about establishing under more normal circumstances. We are compelled to strengthen ourselves industrially in order to safeguard ourselves against any attacks which may be made and if we do not do so and something were to happen the nation could justifiably reproach us with neglecting our duties. I want to ask my hon. friends on that side of the House to consider the following: The fact that we are a threatened country and the fact that we must build up an economy which will ensure us a measure of self-sufficiency in order to safeguard us in time of need is an element in the growth of our economy, but it is also an element in the inflation which is prevailing in the economy. We are saddled with an Opposition which does not furnish us with any replies to questions. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition mentioned a few things such as increased production, the manpower problem and a drastic reduction in State expenditure—general items which we have heard so much about already but in regard to which we have heard so few practical suggestions. Let me just deal with a few of those items in order to demonstrate to the House that hon. members on that side do not themselves know what they are talking about and that they contradict one another. Let us take the question of a reduction in State expenditure. Hon. members on that side have been challenged in every Budget debate, yesterday and the day before as well, to mention one example of real importance where Government expenditure should be cut down. Not one member has up to now come forward with a reply of any real significance. Look what happens. Yesterday the hon. member for Hillbrow gave us an interesting lecture on the gold-mining industry. The facts are known to the Government; the Government agrees with him in regard to the influence of inflation and the detrimental results of inflation on the gold-mining industry. We asked the hon. member what his solution to the problem of inflation was, and what was his solution? His solution, apart from an increase in the price of gold which does not lie in our hands, was less taxation and more subsidization. Just imagine, in a time of inflation when a Government must impose more taxes, spend less, and subsidize less, that hon. member, a member of a party which states that we should take anti-inflationary measures, comes forward and he proposes that an exception should be made in the case of the gold-mining industry, i.e., that less taxes should be imposed on the gold-mining industry and that it should be subsidized to a greater extent. That solution may perhaps help the gold-mining industry but the hon. member has still not offered any solution to the problem of inflation as such which is really the root of the trouble.

The great fear of the hon. member for Durban (Point) was that too few houses were being built in the country. He stated that more houses should be built. In other words, more money should be spent on housing which really means that he was advocating increased Government expenditure. Hon. members of the Opposition come forward here and speak about the increased Government expenditure, but every member who rises to speak asks for greater expenditure on the part of the Government and on the part of the public.

I said cheaper housing.

But the hon. member also asked for more housing. We are not opposed to supplying housing. But one member of the United Party states here that the Government should spend less and then the next speaker stands up to ask that the Government should spend more money on housing. That is the kind of inconsistency we are always experiencing from that side of the House.

The hon. member for Parktown is an intelligent member but he always astonishes me. Inter alia, he spoke about the many unnecessary things which the Government were supposed to be doing, and the hon. member for Constantia agreed with him. He asked, too, why we were purchasing tankers and wby we were searching for oil. Can you imagine two leading members of the United Party coming forward here in these times in which we are living and asking us why we are purchasing tankers and why we are searching for oil. They want to know whether we are not wasting money. The hon. member is shaking his head; I can hear it from where I stand. He asked why we are purchasing tankers. He asked whether South Africa could afford 50,000-ton tankers. [Interjections.] Was it perhaps the hon. member for Constantia who said that? One of them did say it. They both talked about oil. The hon. member for Parktown asked why we were searching for oil.

In the interior.

He said that you should search for oil in the sea—not in the interior.

The hon. member wants us to go and search for oil where it will cost the most. He wants us to save money and not to expend money on the search for oil. He wants us to search for oil in the sea where those costs are most expensive. I am prepared to join the hon. member on any platform in this country and discuss the search for oil in this critical time in which we are living and hear what the public reaction will be. I just want to say this to the hon. members on that side who asked why 50,000-ton tankers were now having to be purchased. Mr. Speaker, to-day a 50,000-tonner is a small tanker in comparison with tankers of 200,000 tons or more which are to-day sailing the oceans of the world. It is a minor item, but the purchase of a tanker is not inflationistic, the money leaves the country if one purchases a tanker. [Time expired.]

The other day I had the opportunity of congratulating the Minister on his promotion to Minister of Finance. Today I have the opportunity of sympathizing with him on the position in which he finds himself. Judging by what he has said this afternoon, there is no inflation. He suggested that we have over-stated the position in regard to inflation. Sir. what are we to believe? Are we to believe what he says to-day or what he said a few days ago? On 7th December, in a joint statement issued by him and his predecessor, the Minister said this—

We have criticized this growing inflation for some years past and our criticism has been that the Minister has allowed the position to deteriorate; his predecessor and the other Ministers have not taken sufficient steps to stop it. It is very much like driving a car downhill and putting on the brakes slightly and insufficiently, so that eventually when steps have to be taken the steps that are taken are too drastic. The Minister is in this difficulty that having talked about inflation he now talks about a free economy. Sir, the Minister and I came to this House at the same time. He has moved a long way since those days. In those days he did not talk about a free economy. I have in my desk here his maiden speech and it was very far away from a free economy. [Interjection.] I suggest that the Minister, having travelled around the world, has realized that the inflationary battle still has to be won. It was only the other year, in 1964, when his predecessor, casting himself here in the role of an angler, said that the angler must beware of the sharks of inflation that infest the economic seas and snap away the prosperity and stability which is on the hook; he must be wary of the undercurrents of boycotts and sanctions which threaten to carry his prize away; he should be able to sense jagged under-water rocks which endanger his reserves and he should apply skill. Sir, he has lost the lot, hook, line and sinker.

But he also said something about the economy.

Yes, but what did he do about it? That is the point. The position is that after three years of warnings given to the Government by the Opposition, little has been done. The Minister has even warned himself and no notice has been taken of those warnings. We have the position to-day where inflation is very serious indeed. It is true that steps have been taken, and the Government is priding itself on the steps it has taken. It prides itself by saying that things might have been a good deal worse if those steps had not been taken. We agree that things might have been a good deal worse if the Government had not taken steps, but I suggest that had the Government taken adequate steps things would have been a good deal better than they are to-day. That is the position. The timing was wrong and the steps were inadequate, and that is the reason why this Minister has inherited the difficulties he has to-day. You see, Sir, in the Minister’s own circles there are two schools of thought. There is one school of thought which wants to allow development to take place and wants to rely on physical control. The other school of thought wants monetary and fiscal measures only to be used to control the position, and there is some conflict between the two schools of thought. It is quite interesting to see the latest document, the economic development programme, issued by his colleague the Minister of Planning, to which the Minister referred with approval. What does this document say? Near the end it says this in regard to expenditure—

That is the Minister’s own document, or at least that of the Minister of Planning, and that is what has been happening during the last few years. That is the position we have been criticizing. The Minister has been criticized by his colleagues in the University of Stellenbosch. There has been a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Minister’s predecessor to take firm measures. You see, Sir, a Minister of Finance must not court popularity. This Minister of Finance, if he does his job properly, will not be popular. I do not think he expects to be popular if he does his job sincerely, because a Minister of Finance must take drastic steps and must not play politics. The trouble has been that in the past his predecessor has one eye on the electorate and his other eye on the economy. That is why we are in the difficulties we are in to-day. Drastic steps should have been taken in the past, but they were not taken; the timing has been wrong. Only last year in the Budget Debate the Leader of the Opposition said this—

The warnings were given last year. The Leader of the Opposition, when he took part in the debate, pointed out the difficulties the Minister would have. The hon. member for Constantia in past years has pointed out the difficulties with which the Government would be faced. Again, in the beginning of 1967, when we have before us this statement by the Ministers, in December, 1966, which illustrates the difference in thinking between the two schools, the Ministers admit in their joint statement that in 1966 they recognized that inflation was not yet under control; they appreciated the difficulties. They go on to suggest the remedies. They say in the first place the Government will have to keep expenditure down as low as possible. But when we suggest that expenditure should be kept as low as possible, the members of the Government criticize us for saying so. Yet the Government finds that that is essential if inflation is to be contained.

That was only a general statement.

Yes, I agree that it is a general statement, but the position is that the Government has all the information at its disposal and it has all the statistics. We do not have the statistics. We might have had the statistics if the Government had taken our advice. There was the Social and Economic Planning Council established in the United Party days and they issued reports.

They issued a report recommending that we should have statistical services. The Government ignored that. Years went by and here in this document an amazing new discovery has been made by the Minister of Planning, namely that it is essential if the Government is to control the position that there should be statistical services. These are the plans for the period 1966-’71. Nineteen years have been wasted. Nineteen years ago this Government had the recommendation from the Social and Economic Planning Council that statistics should be used as a guide to administration. The Government ignored that. They ignored it because it was a United Party suggestion. Now, in the 1966-’71 programme, they say that as an aid to Government they must have statistics. Now it has become a jolly good policy. That is one of the difficulties the Government has had. It has not been able to control inflation as effectively as it might because it does not have the figures or the statistics available. It has lacked the information and because it has lacked the information its steps have not been effective. We have seen the difficulties and we have warned them about the difficulties. But then politics have been played across the floor of the House.

The fact remains, Sir, that last year we told the Government that its budget was inflationary. The Minister of Finance has through the years adopted different roles. One can understand him adopting different roles. One year he was an angler, the next year a tailor, the next year a cook, and possibly another year a clown. This indicates the inconsistency of the policies. There has been day-to-day bookkeeping instead of long-term planning. Here when we have the first indication of some long-term planning in a volume which was given to us a couple of days ago. the same measures which are required in order to gauge the position are recommended in this document. These are measures which were recommended 19 years ago. Sir, while the Minister claims that inflation is better contained in this country than in some other countries of the world, he must admit too, as his colleague admitted yesterday, that there are some countries in the world where the inflation position is not as bad as it is in South Africa. His colleague, the Minister of Planning, said that yesterday.

What about the Financial Times?

Yes, the Financial Times from which the Minister quoted states its approval. But will the Minister quote some other Financial Times articles in which there has been criticism of the Minister? The position is not as good as it might be, Sir. If the Financial Times is right, then the Minister’s statement here is wrong. You cannot have it both ways. I should prefer to take the Minister’s criticism of himself rather than the approval of The Financial Times because the Minister is here and knows what is going on. The Minister has said quite clearly that the battle has not been won. We will accept that. I think the Minister would be the first to agree that the battle against inflation has not yet been won. So long as the inflationary battle has not been won, the Minister will have to take further steps. He may have to take drastic steps.

It has not yet been lost.

The Minister says that the battle has not been lost, but erosion is taking place. We warned of the erosion in 1964. The Minister’s predecessor, Dr. Dönges, said in 1964 that he recognized that inflation was there. The erosion has taken place in 1964, 1965 and 1966. The Minister says now that the battle has not yet been lost. Until such time as he can show us conclusively that he has arrested the erosion, the purchasing power of the rand will continue to be diminished. That is the trouble, Sir. I am surprised that an hon. member like the hon. member for Umhlatuzana only yesterday afternoon was playing politics in the House when he comes from a working class area. I know that area well. Years ago it used to be part of my constituency. All those people to-day say one after another: What can you do about the cost of living? They are concerned about the price of vegetables, the price of beef and all the items on their daily food list. They live with inflation every day.

If you ask them what inflation means they do not know what you are talking about. It wins no points in the political battle. If you talk to them about the cost of living and the difficulties they have, they will soon tell you about that. Until such time as this Minister stops losing the battle against inflation, so long will he be ineffective as Minister of Finance. He had great cheers from his colleagues when he finished this afternoon, but the only reason why he got them was because he was able to quote an English newspaper from England saying what a good fellow he was. But the hard facts are that this Minister has inherited a losing side as far as inflation is concerned. He has inherited a series of inflationary losses over the period 1964, 1965 and 1966 from his predecessor. Even he had to admit in December, 1966, that he was losing the battle against inflation and that it had not yet been won. And, Sir, they found various means of curing this state of affairs.

First of all there was the restriction on expenditure to which I have already referred. Then there was the sterilization of short-term funds with the Reserve Bank. He indicates that they were sterilizing short-term funds and the proceeds with the Reserve Bank, thereby withdrawing them from circulation. In addition, tax redemption certificates will be offered to companies and other tax-payers on favourable terms. Mr. Speaker, have you not heard of tax redemption certificates before? Did we not in our day have tax redemption certificates? Should not tax redemption certificates have been introduced in the last Budget? Why was it not done then? Would it not have prevented the growth of the “grey market”? The Minister has been concerned about the “grey market”. But all of us have known about this “grey market” for some years. The “grey market” has been growing. One of the reasons for this increase of liquidity in the banking sector is that in recent years there have been one or two commercial banks which did not exist 19 years ago which have been growing very rapidly, getting most of their funds from personal loans, from short-term loans. They had almost a mushroom growth, all with the approval of the Government and with its encouragement. There the Government had the opportunity of mopping up this liquidity and possibly of reducing the “grey market”, but it did not take it. But now, on the 6th December when the Minister admits that the battle had not yet been won, he now thinks of tax redemption certificates. It is a very good idea, but, Sir. why was it not thought of earlier? Then he talks about restrictions on bank credit. There is no great significance in this paragraph, Sir. It says: It is important to prevent bank credit to the private sector from increasing to any significant extent. At the end of September this credit was R177 million or nearly 10 per cent below the permissible level. In other words, Sir, the commercial banks have already played their part and have more than complied with the Government’s requirements. It is the intention to require that this figure be at least 7½ per cent lower by the end of September, and therefore there is no great hardship on the banks concerned.

He also refers to the earlier repayment of foreign loans. I think. Sir, that it is time that we had adequate statistics to show what foreign money was a permanent investment, what is short-term and what is long-term. I think the Minister will be the first to agree that we should have some measurement in order to determine how much of this money is genuine investment and how much of it is short-term money, over which we have very little control. If it is advisable to allow the remission of foreign capital, is there not a case for the re-examination of exchange control altogether? Or is it a question of who knows who and going to the right department to find out what funds you can send out of the country? Would it not be better to have the whole matter out in the open so that everybody will know exactly how they stand?

Then we have the relaxation of import control. This matter will take some time to discuss in detail. There may be some cases for relaxation of import control.

The next section we come to is price control. This is where we get the conflict, Sir. A certain part of the statement envisages monetary and fiscal control. Another part of the statement envisages direct control. It is quite clear that there are two schools of thought in the various departments. Both sections have been given a slice of the cake. Surely the Minister has read the documents on prospects for 1967 by his colleagues at Stellenbosch to see what they think of price control. The Minister has just given up the Department of Economic Affairs and has taken on the Ministry of Finance. He knows how strong that price control organization is of the Department of Economic Affairs. He knows what staff they have not got. He knows what tremendous costs are involved to get trained people to administer price control. Surely the Minister realizes that that is paying lip service to a control which in the long run cannot be adequately implemented because while he may control certain commodities, it is very difficult indeed to exercise control over services. If the hon. the Minister wants to know some of the difficulties of price control, I will refer him to my maiden speech in this House concerning price control. There were a tremendous amount of difficulties in those days and we knew how difficult it was to implement control. Then the Minister refers again to another means of control in regard to unsound trade practices. Surely if the hon. the Minister knows of unsound trade practices, he has the necessary facilities in his former department under the Monopolies Act regarding these unsound practices. If this warning is given is it his intention to follow it up? There are all the price agreements, cartels, etc. There is no need to go into detail about the various cartels which fix prices, mark-ups, and so on. What action has the Minister taken or does he find it extraordinarily difficult to find the necessary manpower. Then the hon. the Minister ends by saying: “The Government wishes to warn against the spirit of unsound speculation”. Can the Government come with clean hands and say that all its followers have not indulged in speculation? Is there not a certain amount of encouragement given to speculation by one of the Minister’s own departments, namely the Industrial Development Corporation. The Industrial Development Corporation is to-day quite a large spending body and to what extent is it being used to support and encourage secondary industry as against its present role of an instrument to implement Government policy. Economic considerations are not the uppermost. The Government’s ideological policy is given the uppermost consideration.

I suggest that if the hon. the Minister wants to deal with speculation and to discourage it he needs to look at some of his colleagues in his own party and the speculation that has been going on in past years in regard to diamond quotas, crawfish quotas, oil quotas, etc. The spirit of speculation is rampant in certain parts of the country and all the Government gives is a warning against unsound speculation. Does the hon. the Minister suggest to us that all the speculation in the past few years has been sound? I think that it is time that we defined our terms. The hon. the Minister’s statement goes on to say that the Government is taking these steps without hesitation because it is convinced that temporary inconvenience is preferable to protracted calamity which would result from unrestrained inflation. Mr. Speaker, none of us want calamity. The hon. the Minister bolstered up his case this afternoon by saying that the battle is not lost. What we are concerned about is that we have waited for three years and have watched each year how the battle was being lost. We have watched the inflation grow over three years. We have watched the purchasing power of the rand diminish for three years. We have watched the Government go slow in regard to cost of living matters and money matters at the time of an election and bringing up colour ideologies as the main plank at election time and immediately after the election we have seen the erosion going on further. We found the erosion going on during the last Budget and we have found the erosion continuing as late as December, 1966. We find the hon. the Minister himself subscribing to a statement indicating that the battle has not been won and then coming to this House this afternoon and trying to protest against the Opposition having warned the country against the dangers of inflation. Go to any householder in this country, any wage earner, any farmer or any businessman and you will find that inflation and the erosion of the purchasing power of the rand is something which concerns everyone of them. We have heard in the Minister’s own statement that the battle has not been won. How dare the hon. the Minister come to-day and suggest that all is well with the South African economy? All will not be well with the South African economy, all is not well with the South African economy until such time as the erosion has been arrested, until such time as the inflationary spiral has been stopped and until such time as the rand can purchase all the needs of the average wage earner, and so long as the purchasing power of the rand stands at a figure which will not enable the ordinary wage earner or farmer to buy the necessities of life.

What about the real per capita income?

The hon. the Minister says what about the real per capita income but you talk to the housewife in Salt River about real per capita income and she will tell you that it is all very well to talk to her about that but the fact is that she has to go out to work as well as her husband. The number of railway workers in Salt River who have wives who have to go out to work in the factories and who cannot afford what they need on their husband’s railway cheque even including overtime, confirm they cannot make ends meet. The wife has to go out to work. Over the years we have found an increase in the number of housewives who have had to go out to work and husbands having to work overtime in order to make ends meet. That is what the ordinary wage earner understands by inflation. They do not understand economic terms and it is not their business to understand economic terms. What they are mainly concerned with is how to meet the rising costs and they see every day these costs being uncontrolled and eating into their pay packet at the end of every month. Until such time as the hon. the Minister can tell us in this House that inflation is being controlled, so will we charge the Minister and this Government with neglect. The inflationary spiral has increased and has gone up for three successive years. For three successive years have the Ministers of Finance warned against the dangers of inflation and for three successive years have they not been able to contain it. I accept and agree that something has been done but my case is that insufficient has been done. Because insufficient has been done, the battle has not been won and that view is supported not only by everybody on this side of the House but by the Minister’s own statement.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just sat down once again affirmed that the nature of the major attack at this stage was that the State and the Government had not succeeded in putting a stop to the prevailing inflation. Before I discuss that further, I just want to say that for as long as I have known this House, it has been tradition that the first week of the Session should actually be placed at the disposal of the Opposition, and the contents of their motion is left to their judgment. For the past three sessions they started with a motion of no confidence or of censure, which amounts to the same thing. Once again the Opposition tried to show how wonderfully correct they had been through the years in respect of their predictions. When they moved the no confidence motion at the beginning of the session last year, we had another look at the predictions of the Opposition. Before the past election they came with another development, which is a healthy development in my opinion, namely that that myth of the Cabinet of all the talent has finally been destroyed. Nobody knows better than hon. members on the other side that they are approaching this election while they are being handicapped by their unpopularity and not the alleged tarnished reputation of many of the members of the Cabinet. What this motion of no confidence, this accusation of ineptitude and incompetence on the part of the Cabinet, amounts to, is that this House is being asked to corroborate the alleged incompetence and ineptitude of this Government. The way in which this debate was to be conducted was left in the hands of the Opposition, and it is conspicuous and strange that, although one could have expected this sort of motion before the general election, it must have placed the Opposition in a tremendously embarrassing position to decide what sort of motion they should move here just after the election, an election which proved that their prediction of the result was so wide of the mark. It must have been a tremendously difficult task for them and they must have had their doubts about what form their motion just after the election should take. In the end they came forward with a motion of censure.

Now, in this Session, we have a motion of no confidence again, and the important starting-point of this motion is that the Government has not succeeded in combating inflationary conditions, as they predicted, notwithstanding the various steps taken against them. In his speech the hon. the Leader of the Opposition made the accusation that this Government was extravagant and had not co-operated by curtailing State expenditure. The most important starting-point in the hon. the Leader’s attack was that the Government had not done its share and tried to combat inflation as regards State expenditure. At the same time he also dragged in agricultural problems by the hair, so to speak, and his attack in that regard was supplemented for them by the hon. member for Newton Park. But I want to refer to a few other matters before I return to what the hon. the Leader had said about the nonavailability of facilities for medium-term and short-term loans.

I am referring to a few quotations made by the hon. member for Newton Park and, just as he used the report of the S.A.A.U. in his attack on the Government, I also want to use this report to prove the opposite. As is said by the S.A.A.U., and as we all know, the agricultural sector has over the last few years probably experienced the most difficult period ever, owing to natural disasters which afflicted, our country. It was not only agriculture that was afflicted but also the urban population, and the State had to incur tremendous expenditure not only in respect of land, but also and particularly in respect of water conservation. That is why we find special amounts in the Loan Vote, which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition pointed out. Since 1961 the Loan Vote has increased to the enormous amount it is to-day. The Government found that it was essential to take these steps, namely the construction of enormous dams, dams such as the Orange River project, the Oppermansdrif Dam and other dams which were built to supply the country with water. Consequently the Loan Vote had to show a tremendous increase.

However, before I go further, I should like to refer to the remarks made by the hon. member for Newton Park when he criticized the Ministers of Agriculture so vehemently. He suggested that even at the congresses of the National Party, Nationalists criticized the Ministers. You see, Sir, the National Party differs tremendously from the United Party. The National Party does not restrict its members and is not afraid of criticism. That is one of the major principles on which the National Party was built, namely, that it forms its policy according to the needs and interests of the country, of the people of the country. This principle is also being upheld at our congresses, and that is why we do not conduct them behind closed doors. At our congresses freedom of speech is allowed. By way of contrast, I want to refer to the position we find with the Opposition. The Deputy Minister and I had the privilege of addressing a joint meeting in the Eastern Transvaal. It would appear to me that members of the Opposition are normally not permitted to attend meetings of the National Party. On the evening the meeting was held, it was conspicuous that every now and then somebody entered the hall and called a person outside. It was remarkable that this continued for quite a while. A number of people were called out of the meeting and they did not return. The next morning some of those people came to the office of the National Party and joined the National Party. They said, “Look, I have been a member of the United Party up to now, but I am not permitted to attend your meetings. Last night I was called out of that meeting by one of the big bugs of the United Party and I was forbidden to be present at or to take part in a meeting held by you Nationalists.”

You see, Sir, that is the difference between meetings of the National Party and meetings of the United Party. The National Party can only be kept right—and is being kept right— because its people enjoy freedom of speech. That is why the Leader of the Opposition in the Other Place recently exclaimed at a meeting that he simply could not understand the fact that the farmers attacked and criticized the Government, but when it came to polling day they all voted for the National Party! That is the difference, and I should like to tell the hon. member for Newton Park that they will meet the fundamental, major requirement for popularity if they permit freedom of speech at United Party Congresses and allow their supporters to take part in National Party meetings. Perhaps they will then know more about what is essential in respect of the interests of farmers.

Now I should like to furnish some proof. The hon. member for Newton Park and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition made use of the report of the S.A.A.U. It is strange and conspicuous that both hon. members referred to a certain matter in the report on which there was some difference of opinion—and that while they did not once quote from the main introduction to this report. I should like to quote from the introduction for which the managing board was responsible. Having thanked the Transvaal Agricultural Union for the assistance they had given in droughtstricken areas, and so forth, they said the following—

Throughout the report they say that “prices have been increased almost throughout”.

I still want to refer to another quotation and with that I shall conclude.

That is the gist of the S.A.A.U.’s report. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Newton Park read one of the minor sections of the report. Even there they did not give the gist of the whole report. There were quite a number of differences of opinion on this report. The economist who drafted this report was on the point of handing in his resignation, or threatened to do so. The hon. member referred to this gentleman’s report and he quoted the following—

This part of the report, the gist of the report, was not quoted by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, or by the hon. member for Newton Park. The Government has the co-operation of the South African Agricultural Union in connection with each measure taken by it. The hon. member knows that the Advisory Committee of the Minister of Agriculture is at present represented on the S.A. Agricultural Union. In other words, where one can wish to find more cordial co-operation than in this case? The hon. member makes the accusation that the Minister of Agriculture is indifferent to the agricultural unions and to the recommendations made by them; surely, that is not so. For instance, take the question of relief measures taken in the last few years. Has there ever been a time in which the State has gone so far out of its way to render assistance to farmers as it has during this period of drought? Hon. members on that side continually refer to the inflationary conditions and they point out that the cost of living is rising. It is for that very reason that the State has taken special measures. There is only one way, and that is to lower prices or else to subsidize. This Government has gone out of its way to subsidize food prices in the interests of the consumers of the country. I do not want to hold up the House with a lot of figures, but I just want to refer to the fact that in the past year agricultural products were subsidized in the interests of the consumers to an amount of almost R38 million, in order to keep food prices low. This considerable subsidy did not only keep food prices low for the consumers, but at the same time it also enabled farmers to produce at a price which afforded them a living. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition complained that there was no provision for short-term and medium-term credit. But is he correct? The hon. the Leader of the Opposition knows about the legislation passed in this House last year in regard to agricultural credit and that tremendous amounts have been spent this year. We thank the Almighty for the fact that, owing to timely rains, we have on our lands at present one of the finest crops we have ever had. The State went out of its way to make medium-term and short-term loans available to farmers and the fine crops we have on our lands to-day can be attributed to those relief measures. Those relief measures required tremendous amounts of money. I take off my hat to those farmers who have already repaid large amounts of those loans they were granted—I have the figures here. But the State has contributed R1 million to enable the farmers to produce the crop they have on their lands at present. If we are blessed with further rains, the agricultural industry will once again be able to render a tremendous contribution to our economy this year in the form of foreign exchange. The Land Bank in particular also played its part. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred to the increase in Land Bank loans. But. surely, it is sound practice that in these times farmers should go to the Land Bank for assistance instead of relying on private bodies and persons for credit. We know that Land Bank loans are granted in a conservative manner. We can only express our thanks towards the Land Bank and the State for the fact that steps were taken to provide in the needs of farmers. In view of the drought conditions which prevailed in the country, one can only express one’s amazement at the fact that the amounts outstanding are not bigger than they actually are. The arrears percentage is not at all as high as is often made out. But there are farmers who got into arrears with their instalments and as a result of the emergency conditions arrear instalments are increasing all the time. I expect that, because there has been general rain, steps will now be taken to consolidate the debts of farmers.

As a member of the National Part V I am grateful for the steps taken by the Government to help farmers in these difficult times, and I am convinced that this entire House— with the exception of the 39 U.P. members— and the people of South Africa are indebted to the Government for the various measures it has taken, not only in the interests of the farmers but also in that of the consumers.

The hon. member for Christiana, who has just resumed his seat, made big play here of quotations from the annual reports of the S.A. Agricultural Union, to the effect that the Union had thanked the Ministers for price increases. What he did not tell the House is that year after year in the past the Union and the Boards have made representations for price increases to the Ministers, which have sometimes been granted in part, but usually it was a case of too little and too late. Nor did the hon. member mention a single word about costs which, in this inflationary situation, which has arisen under this Government, are eroding the value of the prices the farmers are getting. He did not mention a single word about their costs being controlled. I think this is symptomatic of the way in which hon. members opposite attack these problems. We are here in an inflationary position, where there is too much money in the country chasing too few goods. The solutions for such a situation are two-fold. In the first place one can stop the supply of money, which this Government has endeavoured to do either by fiscal or financial measures which have collectively become known as the “credit squeeze”; and, secondly, we can attack the inflationary situation by increasing the supply of goods. That the Government has done to some extent by relaxing import control. But what we accuse this Government of is that it has seriously neglected the possibilities which exist in our country for increasing the supply of goods by training our people properly and making them more productive; by increasing the productivity not only of our secondary industry but also of our agriculture. It is not necessary for me to recapitulate here all the measures the Government has taken to cut our monetary supplies, but the monetary weapon is not one which is easy to apply on a selective basis. Despite the declared intention of the then Minister of Finance two years ago to direct the Reserve Bank to ensure that the commercial banks would be allowed to advance money to farmers for production purposes, the farming community has in fact been very hard hit by these measures, at a time when, due to the disastrous drought and the low profitability of the industry relative to other industries, they were poorly equipped to withstand any further economic pressures. The hon. member for Christiana himself has said that this was one of the worst years that the farmers have gone through. As my hon. Leader said, this was due very largely to the unwillingness of the commercial banks, despite that directive, to advance money to the farmers because of the very high risk factor involved in farming where the gap between cost and prices is so small as to allow only a very low profit margin. The president of the S.A. Agricultural Union said this at their last congress—

Sir, let us please note the words “the overheated economy, which was certainly not of the making of the agricultural sector”. How true that was, because it was hardly the farming community which had money to burn and it was hardly the farmers who were bidding for these scarce factors of production. Sir, we have a new Minister of Finance to-day. I am sorry that he is not in his seat, but I also want to add my congratulations to those of my hon. colleagues who have wished him well during the course of this debate. I notice in the Burger of Tuesday, in the column “Van Alle Kante”, that it is said that he is “ ’n boerseun”, and he could be expected to be sympathetic towards the farmers. But there is one thing which has been most marked about this debate this afternoon, namely that the Minister of Finance, when he spoke, did not make a single reference to the agricultural industry which still contributes something like 10 per cent to our gross domestic product. I say that despite the fact that the hon. the Minister of Finance completely chose to disregard the problems of agriculture this afternoon, the farmers will nevertheless hope and pray that their expectations may be fulfilled in some respects.

You are being unfriendly now.

I think it was very unfriendly of the hon. the Minister of Finance completely to ignore the speech of the hon. member for Newton Park when he was dealing with important matters. But the Minister will have to show by his actions that he realizes that here is indeed an industry which is of supreme importance to our country at all times, but is of vital strategic importance in these troubled times of international stress when there is talk of boycott and sanctions, to which the hon. gentleman himself referred. But we listened in vain to any indication that the hon. the Minister realizes that these are strategic products which our industry produces. We have heard talk of the stockpiling of other products, but not a single word about any plan for stockpiling agricultural products in time of international sanctions. [Interjections.] The hon. member asks why we should stockpile instead of selling our products. I want to ask him whether he is not prepared to look ahead at the possibility of stockpiling a few commodities like butter.

Should not the surpluses be exported?

There is a new situation arising and it is up to the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing to try to keep abreast with the times in these matters. One hopes particularly that the new Minister of Finance will realize that agriculture has problems of its own which are peculiar to it and which do indeed demand special treatment, particularly the problems referred to by my Leader, the problems of production finance and credit. Despite what the hon. member for Christiana has said, there are still sections of the industry where the existing credit facilities are inadequate to ensure optimum production of products which are in short supply and for which the demand is strong. I refer particularly here to the meat industry, where the production cycle is a long one, and which needs production credit for periods of anything up to 18 months.

The hon. member for Christiana mentioned the wonderful rains that portions of the country have had, and we are all grateful for that, but I want to remind him that there are still very large areas of our country where drought is maintaining its grip as fiercely as ever before. This applies particularly to the Karoo and to the Eastern Province, which are the main wool-producing areas of the country. The wool producers there, in this time of credit squeeze, have been attempting to keep their stock alive for more than a year by paying amounts, for individual farmers, of anything up to R1,000 or R2,000 a month, in order to keep their stock alive. These people exhausted their supplies of bank credit last year and then they also had to get advances from their wool brokers. This year their supplies of bank credit are completely exhausted and when they go to their wool brokers they find that they do not get the same advance as last year because, due to the credit squeeze, the brokers themselves are being cut down on the advances which they are given by the commercial banks. The position of these people is absolutely desperate and they are being forced off the land in increasing numbers and at a time when other sectors of the economy are still flourishing, at a time when it is possible for consumers in other sectors of the economy to buy for example motor cars and other durable consumer goods like hot cakes. Their rehabilitation is going to be a major operation. The hon. member for Christiana referred to “noodhulpmaatreëls” and these are going to be necessary. But this is not going to be the long-term solution and this is the trouble with this Government. We do not accuse them of not assisting the farmer in an emergency. What we do accuse them of is not allowing him to assist himself during good times. These people, like other self-respecting citizens, do not want charity and in this regard the hon. the Minister of Finance should abandon the attitude taken by his predecessors in answer to pleas made year after year from this side of the House that there should be a review of our present system of taxation as applied to agriculture which has its wide swings of profit and taxable income from year to year. These swings are due to factors such as climatic conditions which are entirely beyond the control of the farmer. If the South African farmer is to listen to the call which was made to him by the hon. Minister for Agricultural Economics and Marketing when he opened a meeting of the South African Agricultural Union in Port Elizabeth—the newspaper headlines in the Oosterlig at that time read as follows: “Uys sê boere moet spaar in volop tye”—if the farmers are to listen to that advice then his colleague the hon. Minister of Finance should revise the income-tax system so that the farmer can equalize his income over a period of years, and can indeed in the good years save for the bad years that will inevitably come. If costs are to be cut and productivity is to be increased in agriculture as a means of combating inflation, then the Government itself must not lever up the whole cost structure by its own actions.

This is indeed what has happened during the past year and the agricultural industry did not deserve the severe treatment meted out to it last year by the hon. the Minister of Railways when he increased rates on a selective range of agricultural produce to the extent of no less than R2,400,000, quite apart from the increases he made on production requisites such as cement, petrol, diesel oil and other items, and that at a time when he had over R40 million in the Rates Equalization Fund to fall back on. We warned the hon. the Minister at the time that these increases could not be borne by agriculture and that they would give rise to hardship in the agricultural industry or that they would lead to spiralling costs.

I wonder whether the hon. the Minister of Transport realizes what he has done to certain sectors of agriculture. I wonder if he realizes what he has done to the citrus industry for example. A spokesman for the citrus exchange, Mr. Brunette, has said that citrus exports are suffering under the new tariffs and that what is happening is that it is no longer profitable under the new tariffs to export some of the lower grades of fruit. This is at a time when competition in our overseas markets is getting fiercer and fiercer. The new tariffs have made it uneconomical to export not only some of the smaller grades but also to divert fruit to other ports when shipping is in short supply at certain ports. They have got to be diverted to the home market which is already flooded in the flush season when they have to be sold at a loss.

Does the hon. the Minister realize what he has done to the sugar industry which was mentioned here by my hon. Leader. Mr. R. F. Cameron of the South African Sugar Association has this to say: “Railage on longer hauls has been increased by up to 38 per cent.” I might add that it has been increased an even greater amount on short hauls. He went on to say: “The increased railage on cane and sugar would cost the producer about P. 1,200,000 a year extra. Producers at a certain mill will have to pay as much as R90,000 in railage alone.” Mr. Speaker, he proposed that increase at a time when the overseas price of sugar was dropping from its former price of over £100 a ton to a post-war low of £12 a ton. When this matter was raised by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, I think it was the hon. the Minister of Planning who said that the price of sugar has been increased. But this is exactly what we warned the Government about when the hon. the Minister of Transport introduced his Budget, namely that it would either bring hardship upon the primary producer or would lead to an inflationary cost spiral. Perhaps the unkindest cut of all which has been inflicted upon the agricultural community was when the hon. the Minister of Railways made the small consignment charge applicable to consignments of under 250 lbs. in weight instead of consignments under 25 lbs. in weight, as had been the case in the past. In other words, he raised the minimum railing weight ten times.

This Government sheds crocodile tears over the depopulation of the platteland but here is a measure which is directly discriminatory against the rural consumer. The country people are having to pay very heavily indeed on the mass of small consignments they receive from their trade suppliers. This is a very real hardship to them. The hon. the Minister withdrew some of those small consignment charges very soon after his Budget. He did it in regard to cream and we were grateful for that but it is an indication of with how little care and with how great haste the hon. the Minister prepared his Budget, that certain of these measures became unworkable soon after its presentation.

Mr. Speaker, it is small wonder that the President of the South African Agricultural Union in his same presidential report used these words in opening the conference—

These actions of the hon. the Minister of Transport are perhaps what one should have been led to expect from this Government because they spring from a basically wrong approach, a fundamentally wrong view of the role of agriculture in our country in the 1960s and 1970s. This is a Government which having neglected the proper technical training of our people, now looks for a partial solution of the manpower shortage in the country to a flow of Europeans from the platteland areas to the big cities. When the hon. member for Brakpan made his speech yesterday afternoon he said that there would be chaos if Europeans are replaced by non-White workers in industry. But what is the position in the agricultural industry? The figures, for example, for the number of Whites employed in agriculture together with the target figures as contained in the latest economic development programme are most disturbing to say the least.

I quote these figures in round thousands as shown in the Financial Mail of the 20th of this month. Whereas in 1963 we had 115,000 Whites employed in agriculture, in 1965 the figure was down to 110,000. The target figure for 1971 is 96,000. In other words, in the eight years between 1963 and 1971, it is anticipated that there will be a decrease of 19,000 Whites employed in agriculture. But what about the non-Whites employed in agriculture? In 1963 there were 1,680,000. It is anticipated that by 1971 there will be 1,915,000, an increase over eight years of no less than 235,000.

Sir, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and if replacement in other industries caused chaos when Europeans were replaced by non-Europeans, what has the hon. member for Brakpan to say when Europeans are replaced on that scale by non-Europeans in agriculture? As far as our agricultural labour is concerned, the Government is giving us quantity and not quality, because it is doing nothing, literally nothing, and I have said this before in this House, to train and fit for its task the overwhelming proportion of that non-White labour force which is comprised of Bantu labour. Where are we going under this Government, Mr. Speaker? Is our food supply going to be increasingly dependent on an uneducated, untrained, unskilled Black labour force?

The hon. member does not know what is going on in the country.

Mr. Speaker, I challenge the hon. the Deputy Minister to give us one example of training of agricultural labour for use outside the so-called Bantu homelands.

We will not do that.

Yes, there is the answer. Mr. Speaker, they can have technical training schools in the big cities for Bantu but not for the farming population of the country. We have had the answer now from the hon. the Deputy Minister. Last session the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services in answer to a plea by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) for the training of Bantu labourers said by way of interjection “I cannot train Bantu”. Sir, I was going to ask the hon. the Minister this afternoon if he could not train them whether he had at any stage approached the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration to train them in their homelands, if they wish to do so, for use in European areas. It seems, Sir, from the reply we have had across the floor from the hon. the Deputy Minister that I need not put the question.

Not in the White areas.

Yes, he says not in the White areas. How long are we going to go on like this with an increasingly large labour force which is not being trained to meet the technical requirements of the industry as it changes to mechanization? The hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services should help the farmers in this respect. He should help us to try to cut our production costs by ensuring that the State shoulders its responsibility in this regard so that we can lever up the level of our agricultural labour force which to-day is supposed to be approximately at the level at which the American labour force was in 1930. We should lever it up to a level where we can produce food more cheaply than we can to-day.

Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that we cannot expect very much sympathy from the Minister’s colleague, the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing as far as the White depopulation of the platteland is concerned. His attitude may be summed up in the words quoted here this afternoon by the hon. member for Newton Park, the words which were reported in the Burger of the 26th October, 1966. He was referring to the White farmers leaving the platteland. He said—

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon the hon. member for Newton Park has produced figures to show that that has not been the case. And even if the hon. the Minister still doubts it, I suggest that he goes and asks the farmers of the country whether their net income over the last few years has actually increased. Besides that, the hon. the Minister’s argument that if there are less people they will enjoy a higher income entirely ignores one of the disastrous side-effects of this depopulation, namely that it has set in chain a process of decline and decay in many other small platteland towns, which is well on the way to killing those towns. Of course, Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister nowadays has the privilege of support in these matters from his Deputy Minister. We on the Opposition side have been accused during this debate of suggesting no way in which Government expenditure could fruitfully be cut. I should now immediately like to suggest one way. We could fruitfully do without this new growth of hon. Deputy Ministers, as a beginning, to cut Government expenditure. Mr. Speaker, this Deputy Minister of Agriculture, unlike the hon. the Prime Minister, has not shown a modesty about lack of knowledge of the economic facts of life. He runs around the country giving the farmers little homilies and little lessons on economics. As long ago as 1964 he told the South African Agricultural Union Congress that agriculture must realize that it is subject to the same economic laws as other industries. This is hardly an earth-shattering announcement because we all know that agriculture is subject to those laws. But if the hon. the Deputy Minister will delve a little more deeply—a little less superficially—into the mysteries of economics he will learn that these laws have in many cases a much more severe impact on agriculture than upon many other industries. The farmer has a small business unit which has to buy retail and sell wholesale, unlike the manufacturer who can buy wholesale and sell retail, or who at least in many cases can dictate the price of his product through retail price maintenance. The manufacturer again can tailor production fairly quickly to meet changes in demand; not so the farmer whose volume of production very often depends more upon natural factors such as the weather than upon his own conscious planning. It is for these and other reasons, Mr. Speaker, that the bargaining power of the farmer is weak and the return on his capital low. If agriculture is to be assured of reasonable stability of income and at the same time be in a position to provide the full requirements of our nation for such basic foodstuffs as wheat and dairy products (which we may not be able to import if we are embroiled in an international crisis one day) then the farmer will have to be sure of much more sympathetic treatment when it comes to price fixing than he has hitherto received from the present Minister.

Mr. Speaker, we want a little less of this prattling about supply and demand factors and a little more cognisance of the long-term need of the industry and of the country. The farmer will have to be sure of a long-term price policy, which is something which has been asked for by the South African Agricultural Union, and the proper co-ordination of prices between crop and animal products—a policy which this Government has hitherto failed signally to produce and has in fact refused to consider.

Sir, there are people who think that perhaps the solution might be to have a change in the Ministers. But, Sir, no reshuffle of the hon. gentlemen opposite will help us to get away from the situation created by this Government which regards agriculture as just another industry. On the contrary, it is a strategic industry just as the Railways or the armaments industry to which supply and demand theories can be made to apply in the long term but which must be judged by other criteria as well in the short term, for example, the health and the prevention of disease among our people, when it comes to price fixing in the dairy industry, or again, the necessity for guarding against dependence on foreign sources of supply (which may one day be hostile sources of supply) when it comes to fixing the price for home-grown wheat.

Mr. Speaker, in the time left at my disposal, I should like to address a few remarks to the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services. The hon. gentleman has put a lot of things right which had been wrong in the Department of Defence and we welcomed his appointment as one of our Ministers of Agriculture because we knew that his predecessor, the present Minister of the Interior, had left him a very sad legacy of neglect and that he would have a great deal to do in attempting to remedy the deficiencies in his new Department. There were deficiencies partly in regard to the shortage of staff, which has done so much to hamper the progress and development of agriculture. [Time limit.]

Mr. Speaker, I should like to reply to the allegations made by the hon. member for Albany. I know him as a very honest person who takes a great deal of interest in agriculture. That I must admit. I was somewhat amazed this afternoon when he acted so sneeringly and offensively by raising objections to the appointment of deputy ministers as though money could be saved in that manner. I really think he ought to be ashamed of himself for saying such a thing. I think this is in fact proof of this Government’s zeal in that they appoint a deputy minister when they feel that some Minister or other is not able to manage his portfolio by himself, so that such a deputy minister may then help and assist him.

What sort of assistance?

Let me tell the hon. member for Albany this: these Deputy Ministers are actually worse off financially than he and I. They do not receive session allowances. Let me tell the hon. member that there is one Deputy Minister whose income decreased by two thirds because he had to relinquish all his directorships in order to become a deputy minister. I think one should appreciate these people because they are nevertheless prepared to serve in that capacity.

Now I come to the next point, namely the point made by the hon. member for Albany when he appealed to the Minister of Agriculture in question to approach the matter of fixing prices more sympathetically. I am astonished at the hon. member for Albany. I think he is a member of organized agriculture. If he is not, then I think he ought to be ashamed of himself and ought to become a member of organized agriculture as soon as possible. Does he not know that we have a Marketing Act and that we as farmers can approach the Minister concerned and ask him to place a certain product under control. We cannot do so individually, but we can do so by means of organized agriculture. In that way we farmers can approach the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing with the request that we want our maize industry to be placed under a board of control. Then the Minister asks organized agriculture to furnish him with the names of farmers who will serve on that board of control. The vast majority of the members serving on that board are farmers.

What are the functions of a board of control? In the first place it is the function of a board of control to see to it that the marketing of that product takes place in an orderly manner. The second important function is that that board of control should recommend a price to the Minister of Agriculture, a price which, in their opinion, is a fair one. Then, if the price they recommend, if every item of that price is sound and justifiable, the Minister accepts that price. That has been the case every time. I can take the price of maize this year. They recommended an adjustment of 281 cent as a result of the drought and the small crop, and the Minister accepted that. In this way I can mention you many examples. Now I challenge the hon. member to tell me in how many cases the price recommended by the board of control in question was not accepted. Come, I am challenging the hon. member now.

Many times with the Meat Board.

“Many” is not an answer. “Many” is not proof. Whenever the price is sound and justifiable—and the Minister can justify it to the Cabinet—he will accept it. I want to tell the hon. member for Albany that he reminds me of that new organization, SAMPI; he does and so does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. During the election the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said at a certain meeting that farmers should get R5 per bag of maize. Thereupon I asked him on what basis that price should be paid. That Drice was merely a figment of his imagination. I think he should resign as Leader of the Opposition and become chairman of the new movement SAMPI, because they, too, want a price for maize for no particular reason, a price of R4.25 per bag, I am told. Then I shall become a millionaire. The people in Viljoenskroon and those parts who harvest 100,000 and 200,000 bags of maize at that price-—do you know what will happen then? The rural areas will then be depopulated even more rapidly. Pay me R4.25 per bag for the crop I have on my lands to-day and I, shall buy out all those small farmers arourid me. That is the danger.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question?

The hon. member for Durban (Point) does not know a thing about agriculture. There are only two things he nows of and they are that he eats well and enjoys drinking milk.

I should like to deal with the last point made by the hon. member, and that is his appeal to the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services to the effect that we should train Bantu, that we should virtually give them vocational training for the purpose of working on our farms in the White areas. In other words, it is integration in our agriculture. Then exactly the same thing will happen as when some of the Bantu working in the mines are made mine captains, for instance. The same thing will happen. It is exactly what will happen if a Bantu is the engine driver, a Coloured the fireman and a White person the ticket examiner while the guard is a Coloured. As long as the National Party is in existence, that will not happen, for we believe in separate development. If the hon. member is at all a farmer—and I am a farmer, too—then he can, provided that he is a good farmer, train his Bantu on his own farm, without giving them vocational training, without their having to deprive White technicians of their livelihood, in such a manner that they can really help him to manage his farm much more cheaply than they are doing at present.

Let me tell the hon. member for Albany something this afternoon. On my farm there is a harvest of anything between 6,000 and 10,000 bags of wheat. My son handles his entire wheat harvest with five Bantu only. One of them strips the lands with a bulk-handling combine, another brings the damp wheat—he has his own drying apparatus—another operates the drying apparatus while the remaining two convey the wheat to the elevator on a bulk-handling lorry. He uses only five Bantu.

I am in full agreement with the hon. member when he says that there are far too many Bantu on our farms. In that regard I blame the farmer for keeping an unnecessarily large number of Bantu sometimes. I want to mention an example. When they had had good rains and the maize had to be treated with D.D.T. against stalk-borers, the hybrid kaffircorn had to be hoed and the deviations had to be weeded out, my son came to me and told me that he did not have enough labourers. Then I told him to go the principal of the Bantu school—it was during the holidays—and to ask him whether every Bantu pupil, boys and girls, above the age of eight could work for him on the lands the next day. And, Sir, they did that work as well as any big, fat, grown-up Bantu woman could do it, and the work cost much less that way.

That is child labour.

Let me tell the hon. member for Durban (Point) that he does not know a thing about agriculture and that he should, therefore, rather keep quiet. Every farmer here will agree with me when I say that during the holidays it is our great problem that those Bantu children who are then not at school, having nothing to do and merely wander about doing mischief. But in this case they are taken into employment, they get paid for their work and receive a ration of mealie-meal in the evening. At the end of the week, when they get their money, they feel proud. In that way one helps tha.t Bantu child to cultivate some self-respect and pride. I would suggest that hon. members pay a little more attention to that aspect.

But I want to deal with another point, and that is the charge made here by both the hon. member for Albany and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in regard to the increased Railway tariffs and how they affect the farmers. It is true that Railway tariffs were increased and it is a pity that it had to be done, but, surely, hon. members do realize that the Railways closed their financial year with a deficit of RIO million. I have the Schumann Report before me. The director of the S.A. Agricultural Union served on this committee, and the committee made certain recommendations. The Minister did not accept those recommendations. He did in fact increase the tariffs in respect of agriculture by R2.4 million. The director of the S.A. Agricultural Union signed the report of this committee; his name appears on it, but he says that he did not sign the report in his private capacity. The committee’s recommendation was that the tariff on fertilizer had to be increased by 24 per cent. What happened? It was not increased by a single cent. They recommended that the tariff on stock transported over a distance of 300 miles should be increased by 35 per cent, and that the tariff should be increased by 55 per cent when stock was transported over a distance of more than 300 miles. In other words, they recommended that the tariff on cattle transported from South West Africa to Johannesburg and Cape Town should be increased by 55 per cent. That tariff was not increased by a single cent. I think hon. members ought to appreciate that. I want to go further. This committee recommended that the tariff on vegetables should be increased by 100 per cent, and what did the Minister do? He increased the tariff by 15 per cent—only 15 per cent, not 100 per cent. The committee recommended that tariff 11, under which potatoes are transported, should be increased by 80 per cent. The Minister increased tariff 11 by 15 per cent. In other words, I think that we can be nothing but grateful to the Minister of Transport for treating the farmers so sympathetically. He did that because he himself had been a farmer. He is the son of a farmer and he knows what is the position in the country; he knows that a tremendous drought prevails in the country. Instead of being grateful, hon. members of the Opposition come here and make an attack on the Government. As I have already said, there was a deficit of R10 million and that money had to be found; that is why the tariffs were increased. The hon. the Minister treated our farmers sympathetically and, on behalf of the farmers of South Africa, I want to thank him for what he has done for the farmers.

The hon. member for Albany said here that, when the curtailment of credit had been announced, the President of the Reserve Bank as well as the Minister of Finance had said that it would not apply to agriculture, and it did not apply to agriculture. It is obvious that, if the hon. member for Durban (Point) had been a farmer—he would have been a bad farmer—his bank manager would not have advanced him a single cent for production purposes because he would not have been in good credit. I am not aware of a single case where a solvent farmer’s credit was curtailed. I can mention you this example: In the northern Free State last year farmers lost 70 per cent of their wheat crop. 70 per cent of their wheat crop, on 150,000 morgen, was destroyed by frost. I myself lost 7,000 to 8,000 bags. I know of cases where farmers went to their bank managers explaining to them what had happened. They asked that their credit facilities had to be doubled, and their requests were granted immediately. They obtained loans for production purposes. Perhaps the hon. member has a U.P. bank manager or he may be at the wrong bank, but if he has an account with the right bank, I am convinced that he would not have experienced any difficulty.

Irrespective of whether he was in good credit or not?

I am coming back to the hon. member for Newton Park who came here with the ridiculous story that the farmers of the Free State were very dissatisfied. The hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services is the leader of the National Party in the Free State. I think that, if his lips had not been sore, he would certainly have laughed. One farmer complained at the congress of the National Party—only one farmer. After the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing had put the Department’s case, there was unanimous applause. Hon. members who attended that congress with me, will bear me out. But I want to go further with the hon. member for Newton Park. He intimated here that the Ministers of Agriculture were really hostile to organized agriculture. But that is not true, surely. Does he know so little about organized agriculture that he does not even know that the managing board of organized agriculture is at present the officially recognized advisory council of the Minister of Agriculture? The managing board of organized agriculture is recognized by all Ministers as the official advisory council to the Ministers of Agriculture. They have access to all information concerning agriculture in any State Department, and if they feel that the farmers are being wronged, they are free to approach the Ministers, and if there are no holes to Dick in their arguments, their request is granted. The hon. member for Christiana has already referred to the drought relief measures taken by the Government. I have here a list before me. I think I should give this list to the hon. member for Newton Park, to the Leader of the Opposition and to every member of the Opposition; then they will see how much assistance the Government has given the farmers over the past years. I would have been ashamed if I had been a member of the Opposition; not one of them said thank you for these measures. On behalf of the farmers I should like to thank the Ministers for what they have actually done for the farmers. Enormous sums of money were spent. I have a list here of all the relief measures and I shall give it to the hon. member for Newton Park.

I have the list myself.

Then the hon. member should show that list to his colleagues. Many of these relief measures which were introduced by the Minister of Agriculture and State Advances, were devised in conjunction with the S.A. Agricultural Union. The S.A. Agricultural Union advanced these proposals. The hon. member for Pretoria District is sitting over there; he is the person who was charged with the fodder scheme the Government subsidized. If one looks at this list of relief measures, it is almost incredible that the Government could have spent so much money on helping our farmers, but hon. members of the Opposition do not appreciate that.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition intimated here that the farmers had not shared in the prosperity of the country over the past five years. He is generalizing by including all farmers. I should like to hear from him whether he includes the farmers of the Western Cape, the fruit farmers, the wine farmers, the export farmers.

The farmers who export fruit are doing well for themselves. Well, but why? They are doing well for themselves because conditions are normal. They were not affected by droughts and disasters. The hon. member for South Coast is looking at me askance. Does he not believe that? Those farmers are doing well. But why are farmers struggling in general? They are struggling because of the unprecedented drought. Hon. members of the Opposition are continually coming with the plea that producers’ prices are too low. The hon. member for Durban (Point) will tell me that, if the price of maize is R6 per bag and that of wheat RIO per bag and he has no harvest, he makes a great deal of money, but I do not say so because, if the price of maize is R6 per bag and that of wheat RIO and I have no harvest, then I am bankrupt.

But are you satisfied with the price?

I am satisfied—quite satisfied. The price of wheat went up from R5.99 to R6.30 this year. Ask any wheat farmer whether he is satisfied. We are satisfied, but we are affected by natural disasters. I want to mention the example of a very intimate friend of mine. Four years ago he just came out square. In the following year he made a profit of R8,000; in the year after that he made a profit of R 17,000; the next year his profit was R21,300 and in the fifth year he lost 8,000 bags of wheat and his farm showed a loss of R9,000. That is the risk attached to farming. But the Government goes further. At the moment the Government is considering a pilot scheme, an insurance scheme.

As regards wheat a comprehensive crop insurance scheme already exists, and the same company which introduced that scheme is at present also engaged in a private scheme for maize. The Government is sympathetic towards that scheme. This company is prepared to bear all administrative costs and I hear that the Government is also prepared to grant them a loan; whether that is correct I do not know. This comprehensive crop insurance scheme will be expanded and the premiums will gradually become less, with the result that the risk factor attached to agriculture will gradually become smaller. Our problem is the risk factor, not the price of our produce. Mr. Speaker, I am in full sympathy with the consumer; I know that the cost of living has risen. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition pointed out to us how the cost of living had risen, and he wanted to know why. The price of food went up. I simply fail to understand hon. members of the Opposition. They plead for high prices for the farmer and at the same time they plead for a decrease in the cost of living, in other words, for more subsidies. Butter is being subsidized at present: maize was subsidized to the amount of R10 million last year—this year it is being subsidized to the amount of R20 million. The subsidy on wheat was also virtually doubled. Although the price of wheat increased by 30 cent, the price of brown bread is still 8c and that of white bread is 10c. The Government is paying a subsidy to enable the consumer to buy bread at the same price and to enable me as a farmer to get a price which affords me a living. Some time ago there were no potatoes; the price went sky-high—up to more than R2 per bag. After all, if we want to keep the cost of living low, we must subsidize all those items; meat must be subsidized: vegetables and potatoes must be subsidized. We must subsidize the price of food but we may not increase taxes. How does one reconcile bigger subsidies with reduced taxation? Mr. Speaker, I do not want to go further. I really think the Opposition failed in their task of proving their allegation that the Ministers of Agriculture had not served the agricultural industry to the best of their ability. We on this side want to convey our appreciation and gratitude to them.

Before replying to the hon. member for Bethlehem, I should just like to respond to a remark made by the hon. the Minister of Finance. It is a pity that he is not in the House at the moment. He said the Opposition was following just the wrong kind of policy if they were trying to help to combat inflation: their method was quite wrong. He said that in the first place they had criticized the Government on the measures it had taken to curb inflation, and that was the wrong method because that would not be curbing it. Secondly, they had criticized the measures as such and bad said that they were not effective, and consequently they had taken the wrong steps in that regard: one should not do that if one wanted to combat inflation. Now. measured by the same yardstick. I suppose we should not criticize the Government on the measures it has taken in agriculture, because we would then be making the same mistake as that referred to by the Minister of Finance.

But I should like to come back to what the hon. member for Bethlehem said when he attacked the hon. member for Albany about the remark he had made as regards technical training of Bantu as farm labourers, which drew a response from the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration, who said that that would never happen. I am surprised at the attitude of such a party, as stated by the Deputy Minister; that there are still Whites left in the country who would dare to say that the Bantu employed in agriculture should not enjoy technical training inside the White areas. Someone on the opposite side should get up and tell me whether it would not be better if the Bantu driving a tractor knew something about its mechanics, and if the Bantu handling an animal knew something about its insides. To my mind, the Bantu who drives a tractor and knows something about its mechanism is a much better worker if he can do something himself when something goes wrong during the long hours of the night. If a Bantu can diagnose in my absence that an animal has the red water and can give it an injection, he is of much greater value to agriculture than an ignorant worker. Training in agriculture is of crucial importance but now we hear a political ideology from that side which holds that the Bantu emnloved in agriculture should not receive technical training even if they are in the proportion of 3.000.000 to 100,000 farmers in the rural areas. No I fail to understand such a point of view. Did we ask for technical training in the context of his competing with Whites as an artisan, or did the hon. member for Albany point out that we were dealing with a mass of Bantu labourers? But the hon. member for Bethlehem calls it integration if one wants to give them technical training. He used the word “integrasie”. He said it was integration if one wanted to train a labourer to have a better technical knowledge of farm work. The hon. member for Bethlehem went further and tried repeatedly as he did in previous years, to prove that the farmers were sharing in the prosperity. and in order to support his contention he mentioned the wine farmers and the fruit farmers in the Western Cane, [Interjections.] He referred to that small section of the farmers who were in fact prosperous and who might have been able to contribute their share towards the national economy. The report of the South African Agricultural Union was quoted repeatedly today. and I want to do so too. They say—

I do not want to read the rest of the paragraph. [Interjections.] I should gladly read the rest—

That is the paragraph. I should like to read the paragraph that relates to that in the economic development programme, which I must take to be a correct statement of the statistics. They say the following—

That refers to the five years from 1966 to 1971. It is anticipated that there will be a growth-rate of 5.8 per cent, but in the course of the past five years the growth was nil. and in the preceding five years it was 3.9 per cent, [Interjections.] The Minister says I do not know what I am reading. Let me have my say first, and then he can prove to me that I am wrong. If it remained constant, surely it would not grow at 3.9 per cent. [Interjections.]

The production remained constant.

As regards agriculture, the report states—

Then the report states the following, and here we come to the production, or the value—

And then they say that in 1960 it amounted to R590 million and in 1965 to R680 million. The percentage of the total national income contributed by agriculture was 12.3 per cent in 1960 and 9.6 per cent in 1965. [Interjections.] I quoted these figures to demonstrate that agriculture is not enjoying its fair share in the prosperity of the country, because its share in the national income decreased from 12 per cent to 9 per cent. I want to nut it to you that there is a lack of price stability, as far as agriculture is concerned, which has endured for years and which this Government has been unable to correct. I want to quote from the report of the National Marketing Council, which states—

I want to know, in all modesty, if in its latest report the National Marketing Council has that to say as far as the lack of price stability is concerned, of what use will it be to quote other authorities? Surely this is the board under which all the other control boards fall. It has already been mentioned by the hon. member for Albany that as far as price determination under the marketing council is concerned, the representatives of the interests of many other elements serve together on the councils, among others people who are not only consumers but who also supply the required agricultural production means. It is an extraordinary state of affairs that those people should be with us when we deliberate on the price determinations of our produce, but when it comes to the profits they have to take when they supply the farmer with his production requirements, we never have any insight on how they calculate those profit margins. It is an extraordinary state of affairs that we have in this country, that it is provided in the constitution of all marketing councils under the Marketing Act that other interested parties should always be with us to hear us argue and to see how we arrive at the prices we ask the Minister to determine, whereas in the determination of prices for farming requirements and of the profit margins concerned, whether of fertilizer or spare parts—I am not excluding anything—agriculture is not given an opportunity to participate. That is why the price of agricultural produce, which is so unstable, is determined according to a formula which was adopted long ago, and in terms of which the prices should cover the cost of production and also ensure a living to the farmer, and yet we never know what the prices of agricultural requirements are going to be. despite the fact that they are increasing continually while it is necessary to keep the prices of agricultural requirements as stable as possible. Then, too, we never know whether the same formula is applied as far as our requirements are concerned. In addition, we are in the quandary that the prices of agricultural requirements are increasing continually, out of all proportion. And the production costs are increasing continually despite the fact that as far as we can see it may be necessary, in these times in which we live, to keep the prices of agricultural produce as stable as possible. Mr. Speaker, it was said this afternoon, and I think also by the hon. member for Bethlehem—it is a pity that he left so soon, because I was still replying to him—that this side of the House never expressed any gratitude for measures taken by the Government during 1966, a year of drought such as this country had never experienced. That was an unfair accusation. The individual farmer and this party as such have always been grateful for the measures taken by this Government to bring relief. One would be an ingrate not to be thankful for the assistance rendered. But we should remember that a drowning man clutches at a straw and is grateful for it. Now I want to suggest a few things to the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing this afternoon, and I should like him to give consideration to them. I want to suggest that as far as assistance at any particular moment was concerned, it may be true that the Government did its best during the drought crisis. The subsidy measures, transport measures, measures with regard to the provision of fodder and other measures did indeed prove a great boon to people who were in difficulties. But now I want to put it to you that nothing was done by the Department of Agriculture or by the hon. the Minister as such to give any indication of how the man who had gone under in farming or who had almost gone under would be rehabilitated, apart from what was done by the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure. I repeat that nothing was done by this Government or by the Department of Agriculture to indicate how the man who had lost all his sheep, or who lost all his cattle, or the man whose stock had been destroyed by the drought, stock on which he had already spent thousands of rands, was to be rehabilitated or where he was to get the funds to buy new stock. This afternoon we heard the hon. member for Bethlehem say that in his region there was a man—and he told us what his crop is like and what was happening there—who after a bad harvest went to a commercial bank and said that he wanted his limits doubled, and that the bank manager acceded at once. I want to put it to you that a man has to be credit-worthy before a bank or any financial institution, including the Land Bank, will double his limits without more ado because he has had a bad harvest. There is nothing extraordinary about their doing it if he is creditworthy. But there are people who are not credit-worthy. There are people in the Northern Transvaal who lost virtually all their cattle in the drought. What has been done to indicate to them how they are to be rehabilitated? Can they be rehabilitated in any other way than to grant them a loan at a reasonable rate of interest on a long-term basis, and for the State as such to do so? Are we afraid of looking at a neighbouring state where as regards the rehabilitation of their stock they are prepared to grant a loan of £10,000 or 450 cattle, whichever is the lowest, to an individual who has the grazing, fencing and water—a loan which is extended over a long period and which is repayable when he has sold some of the stock, and which carries a rate of interest of 6 per cent? Are we afraid of devising a scheme for the rehabilitation of the Karoo? I wonder whether any of the members on the opposite side—and there must be some of them—who derive from those regions know what is going on there. From the grasslands up to the West Coast, a distance of more than 600 miles, and from the coast as far as Bloemfontein, a distance of 400 miles—I am speaking of an area of 600 miles by 400 miles—there is a region where, with the exception of strips here and there, the land is being incinerated by the drought. Anybody who flies from north to south and who looks down over Williston and Fraserburg must really be filled with sorrow to think that the land can come to such a pass. What those people could not sell they have lost, and what they did not lose they are feeding on expensive fodder. And I know of innumerable cases in which they can no longer do any feeding. Not because they cannot get the fodder—they can still get it—but because they no longer have the financial means to do so. I know of particular cases where people used 30,000 bales of lucerne and more than a thousand bags of maize as fodder. They have now given up. Now they are roaming the north in search of grazing for the stock, whether in a heart water area or not. They are trying to rail the stock there at 70c per sheep. That is the position in which those people find themselves. There is no way of rehabilitating them if they cannot be assisted financially.

Are we to buy them sheep now?

Mr. Speaker, I find it so strange that the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing should sometimes be deliberately stupid. How can one buy them sheep as long as the drought continues?

It was not deliberate.

I beg his pardon if it was not deliberate. How can one finance them and buy them stock as long as the drought continues? Of course not. But one day it will rain there, as it has rained in the Transvaal. I want to ask the hon. the Minister a question, and when he rises to speak he can reply in this regard. Up in the Transvaal the veld is finer than I have seen it for many years. But it so happens that it did not rain cattle. It rained only grass; grass was all that appeared. There are numerous people who have to be rehabilitated and who have to buy new stock. I want to go further. If this Department of Agriculture had any planning, if this Department of Agriculture had a scheme whereby they wanted to rehabilitate those people who have virtually gone under, they would go much further. They would have used extension officers to inspect the land. They would have assisted the farmer with advice in an attempt to rehabilitate him and would have told him how much stock to put on his land, so that he would not overgraze again. I see the hon. the Deputy Minister shaking his head. Does he not know that that is being done in a neighbouring state?

You do not know what is happening in your own country. You are a stranger here.

*Dr. J. H. MOOLMAN: The hon. the

Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing is a stranger among his farmers. I may tell him that. [Interjections.]

Order!

It is no use speaking of isolated cases where the extension services tell someone what to stock his land with, and not to overgraze. We all know very well that it is not being done on a large scale. Where would the Department of Agricultural Technical Services find the officials to do that on a large scale? They are simply not there. [Interjections.]

Order!

I should just like to come back to an item I mentioned a while ago, namely the increase in the cost of agricultural requirements. I quote from the report of the National Woolgrowers’ Association of South Africa, which said the following in its recommendations to the South African Agricultural Union—

Then I want to repeat that as long as agriculture is exposed to a system such as that referred to a moment ago by the hon. member for Albany, i.e. that it has to buy at retail prices and market at wholesale prices whereas people in commerce buy at wholesale prices and market at retail prices, we shall remain in this quandary and have all the difficulty in the world to produce profitably, the more so because our production costs are not merely keeping up with us but are overtaking us continually. I do not know what is going to become of the prices of maize this year. We will all be grateful if the crops on the land can be saved and if there is more rain. And all of us will be sincerely grateful if we harvest 80 to 85 million bags, because then we would once again have a produc which would fetch us foreign exchange. The wool-growers are having enough difficulties nowadays, what with prices going down and production shrinking all the time. And we all know that the foreign exchange to be earned through our wool will be much less this year than last year. Not only was there the recent decrease in prices, but the production is much smaller. I should like to know what impact this drought had on the large sheep-farming areas, a drought which at this stage is still hanging over our country. What effect will it have on next year’s clip? I would not hazard a prediction, Sir. It is general knowledge that the sheep population in those large Karoo areas is not even two-thirds of what it was a year ago. People sold their sheep and are still selling out. The markets are actually flooded with sheep. That is not the case as far as cattle is concerned, because the farmers are holding them back. As long as agriculture is in such a state, I would not only suggest that this Government is not systematic in its effort to rehabilitate agriculture. but even that it has no plans in that regard. There is no advance planning in an attempt to rehabilitate people, people who have been suffering through die drought for so long that they are no longer in a financial position to rehabilitate themselves. That is clear to us on this side of the House, Sir. We on this side of the House are grateful for the measures taken to assist the farmers, particularly during this drought. We are grateful for the means provided to enable the co-operations to continue granting crop loans to farmers. We are grateful for the loans the co-operations are able to grant the farmers for as long as 12 months, at a reasonably low rate of interest, in an attempt to finance them. Nevertheless we maintain that as far as a long-term agricultural policy is concerned, as far as planning is concerned to free agriculture from the quandary it finds itself in, as far as an attempt is concerned to give agriculture its rightful position in this country, where it would not only share in the prosperity of the country but would also contribute its proportionate share to the economy of the country, this Government has no solution. Nor will there be any solution as long as they are on those benches.

Mr.

Speaker, as long as the United Party continues to come to light in this House with such inaccuracies and so many stupidities, the United Party will never have a representative who represents a rural constituency in the House of Assembly. No wonder that that hon. member has had to seek a seat in East London (City). One after another those hon. members have had to go to urban constituencies which have no connection with agriculture and which have no knowledge of agriculture. That is happening because that type of speech is made.

I want to ask that hon. member a number of questions. The hon. member said that there was no assistance for the farmers. The farmers of the Northern Transvaal and the North-Western Transvaal and all the crop farmers of the mealie areas are now emerging from the severest drought known is the history of South Africa. From where have they received that assistance which makes it possible for us to expect 80 million bags of mealies this year? Is that not because this Government has seen to the necessary legislation being placed on the Statute Book in terms of which financing is available in various ways? Is that hon. member a stranger in Jerusalem? When the rains came, this gift of life from the Creator, it was possible for the farmer, as a result of the Government’s policy, to use that gift to produce mealies. This is the case to such an extent that we are even instituting an investigation in that direction. In order to produce 80 million bags of mealies one needs 1,418,400 tons of plant food in the form of fertilizers, etc. This Government sees to it that the farmers are financed so as to enable them to acquire the fertilizers, etc. Now, (the hon. member asks the Minister: “What policy do you have with regard to the Northern Transvaal and the drought-stricken sheep areas?” Because sheep is not being purchased at this stage, he wants to charge the Government with not rendering assistance. Does the hon. member not know that we have made a proper survey in the Northern Transvaal and that we have determined what the carrying capacity should be and how much time will be required for restoring that veld and for obtaining proper grazing? Does the hon. member not know that we have a Department, the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure, at which the farmer may obtain a loan if other concerns, such as the Land Bank or ordinary banks, no longer want to help him because they no longer regard his credit standing as being sufficient? This Department grants the farmer a long-term loan, a term as long as in our neighbouring states, at a cheaper rate of interest. The rate of interest in the neighbouring states is 6 per cent and this Department grants loans at 5 per cent. The hon. member does not know what he is talking about. It seems to me he was not present here last year. It is a long time since I have come across such a scratching about, like a fowl on a dunghill, as I have experienced to-day in this debate. It was like a fowl scratching on a dunghill and not knowing that a tractor does not have intestines but that it is an animal that has intestines. He told us that a Bantu working for a farmer should know what the intestines of a tractor looked like. The hon. member possibly wants to remove the appendix. If he has not removed the appendix he must get the other thing with which he cuts.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member took it amiss of the Minister for having reprimanded the Opposition about its criticism of inflation. The Minister has never deprived them of the right to criticize. However, the hon. the Minister pointed out very clearly that it was irresponsible of that party to spread doubt about these measures and to create suspicion about these measures and their success. It is that which he takes amiss of them. The hon. member expressed surprise because Bantu were not being trained. All that my colleague said was that we cannot use the Bantu as artisans in the trades, but it is precisely the policy of this party to get away from this system of squatters and to try to have continuous labour on the farms. That ensures that the Bantu will be trained to operate a tractor and to remain where he can render the best service. The hon. member made use of the report of the South African Agricultural Union. Every part of the report which he quoted here to advance his argument was in actual fact an expression of gratitude for what the Government had done and clearly illustrated the satisfaction of the South African Agricultural Union with the services rendered by this Government. The hon. member wanted to express the economic growth in terms of volume. The hon. member should read the entire report. It is stated very clearly that the growth has remained constant, in other words there has been constant growth. Since 1947 up to the present time our average population increase has been 2.7 per cent per annum. Our production has increased by 4.7 per cent annually, in other words, far more rapidly than the population increase. As a result of the policy implemented by this Government to close the gap between the buying capacity of the consumer and the productive capacity of the producer, it has been possible to absorb the greater increase in production. Consequently we have not been saddled with excessive overproduction. I shall take last year as an example. Last year the subsidy which was paid so as to enable the consumer to buy the farmer’s products amounted to R37.779.000 in respect of mealies, wheat, dairy products and kaffir corn only. That was done because this Government is combating inflation. We cannot allow salaries to soar to the high heavens. We have to see to it that the farmer will receive a price for his produce at which he can at least make an existence. For that reason we are paying subsidies so as to make it possible for the consumer, whose salary is insufficient to allow him to buy the farmer’s product, to pay those prices. Yet charges are levelled against these Ministers!

The hon. member also used another example. He said that agriculture’s contribution to the economic growth, expressed as a ratio, was 12.3 per cent in 1960 whereas it was 9.6 per cent in 1965. On that basis he tried to advance the argument that agriculture had not received its rightful share and also that it had not kept abreast of the economic development. But is he a stranger in Jerusalem? Does he not know that income from agriculture, expressed as a percentage of a country’s total income, shows a decrease in all countries where large, new industrial developments are being established? If he examines the position in America he will find that in that country income from agriculture has decreased by 4.6 per cent over a recent period whereas it has decreased by less that 2.8 per cent in this country over the same period. Does the hon. member not know that we experienced phenomenal industrial development in South Africa from 1960 to 1965? Income from agriculture, expressed as a percentage, inevitably had to show a decrease. Why does the hon. member not admit that the gross production value of our agriculture was R376.2 million in 1947 whereas it was R1,044.000.655 in 1966? This represents an increase of 260 per cent. This is the increase in the value of agriculture during that period, and now he wants to make out that agriculture has lagged behind. He was simply speaking from ignorance.

The hon. member also alleged that there was a lack of stability in prices. He wanted to suggest that other bodies and persons listened when our control boards determined the price structure of our controlled agricultural products. I shall come to that shortly but first I want to ask him a question. Why did the hon. member not treat this House honestly while he was quoting from the report of the Marketing Council by pointing out that the report of the Council dealt with uncontrolled products? It does not deal with products controlled by the Council. In this connection wool is an uncontrolled product. We do not determine the price of wool. We try to support its price. However, the hon. member used the quotation and tried to deceive this House with that report of the Marketing Council. [Interjection.] I say once more to the hon. member that his presentation of that report to this House was deceiving.

The hon. member proceeded by alleging that the production costs of farmers were not taken into account. Let us examine what the position is in respect of fertilizers, for instance, which do not fall under the Marketing Council. The then hon. Minister of Economic Affairs expressly told companies manufacturing fertilizers that he could not allow certain costs to be included in the price structure of fertilizers. I shall mention them, Mr. Speaker. Those costs included capital redemption to the value of R 177.836; maintenance of machinery to the value of R68.500: stock to the value of R 119,000: depreciation to the value of R34.000; provision for bad debts. R410.000, as well as expenditure in respect of process research, development and engineering research, basic and applied fuel research. In other words, expenditure on research was also not taken into account in the price structure and research came to an amount of R546.000. In that way the hon. the Minister ensured that an amount of R 1.363.847 would not be taken into account in calculating the price the farmer was going to be charged for his fertilizers. Yet. the hon. member wanted to give this House to understand that the farmer was not being protected as far as his production costs were concerned.

But his production costs are nevertheless increasing.

That is owing to a variety of other things. Protective measures are in fact being applied. This Government is keeping a watchful eye on all aspects, but it cannot simply say that prices may not be increased under any circumstances thereby forcing companies manufacturing fertilizers to go bankrupt, because then the farmer will again come off worst.

It is the task and duty of this Government to see to it that the economy moves along without its balance being disturbed: to see to it that the person manufacturing essential products for retaining the fertility of the soil, for replacing the plant food which has been removed from the soil, will be able to do so without the farmer being exploited. That is why the Government is taking these steps. Mr. Speaker, I can arrive at one conclusion only and that is that the hon. member is ignorant about agricultural affairs.

I said on a previous occasion, and I want to repeat it, that as regards agriculture the Ministers of Agriculture have the same responsibility in respect of the economic structure as in respect of other aspects. Success in agriculture is dependent in the first place, on the right knowledge—knowledge for the farmer to enable him to produce in the right way, knowledge for the farmer to know how to treat his soil, knowledge for the farmer to know with what kind of livestock he should farm, so that he may know how to achieve the greatest measure of efficiency and maximum production. No past Government in this country and, if one examines the position, very few governments in other countries have done more than this Government to impart knowledge to the farmer free of charge. Let me tell you what this Government did in this connection in 1964-65. In respect of the dissemination of information alone this Government spent an amount of R21,l 11,955 on agriculture. This amount is not recoverable; the farmer does not refund it. It was spent on research and extension services. The hon. member alleged that the results of such research did not become available to the farmers. Every farmer who would like to know these results may approach agricultural colleges and our universities with faculties of agriculture. What is more, however, this Government has not simply established agricultural study groups where farmers are brought together, where they can exchange knowledge and where our best technicians are available to impart that knowledge, it has also trained a large number of technicians for imparting knowledge to the farmer by means of the extension services we have established. As I have said, the figure in this connection is R21,l 11,955, which represents the amount spent in this respect only.

In the second place, the success of agriculture is dependent on the farmer having means. During the period mentioned by me before, R 15,904,000 was advanced to the farmer. It is in fact loan capital which is recoverable. It is the type of capital about which the hon. member for East London (City) is so concerned and in respect of which he wanted to give us to understand that our neighbouring states provided such money on a long-term basis at a rate of interest of 6 per cent. Large amounts of this money were advanced at 5 per cent on a term longer than that of our neighbouring states.

Mortgage loans, yes.

No. not only mortgage loans. There are also loans for purchasing stock, loans for purchasing machinery and implements, even loans for the consolidation of debts. The hon. member does not know about these things. He is a stranger in Jerusalem, Mr. Speaker. He does not know what is happening. However, apart from these items an amount of R49 million, money which is not recoverable, has been made available to farmers in the form of subsidies. I want to mention one example of these subsidies for the information of the hon. member seeing that he was singing the praises of our neighbouring states to such an extent. As regards rebates in respect of the transport of livestock, the transport of feeds for stock in the drought-stricken areas and the transport of fertilizers, together with the subsidies in respect of fertilizers and feeds for livestock, we made an amount of R 12,979,000 available to the farmer during that period in order to place the farmer on an economically sound basis. It will not help the hon. member to say that “other countries”—to use his phrase—realize that agriculture should be kept on a sound basis, that agricultural economics should be kept structurally sound.

I was reading from the economic report of your Government.

Very well. The Government meets the requirements of that report as has been shown by the figures I have quoted. I can furnish the hon. member with the figures relating to other countries. I have here a report relating to Canada which states the following:

I can continue reading from this report. The hon. member is always keen to blacken the name of South Africa. He wants to brand South Africa as the country where the farmer cannot make a living, as the country where the farmer is starving. Other countries, however, he wants to hold up as being farmers’ paradises, as being gardens of Eden. But that is typical of the behaviour of a member of the United Party; a member of the United Party always belittles his own country and presents another country as being the better country. That is typical of the behaviour of a member of the United Party. He refuses to take a realistic look at matters and to recognize the good points of his own country. He refuses to see how his own country’s Government is keeping the economic structure balanced so that the farmer too may receive his share. I can quote other examples but it is not necessary to do so. I just want to add the following. We have been listening to speeches on the agricultural industry made here by a number of hon. members opposite. The hon. member for Albany intimated that the Government would save money if I was dismissed. I shall remember that. I want to tell that hon. member that the members of the United Party are being dismissed one after another at every election; they are progressively becoming fewer in number, something which is not happening to this Party. The United Party states that it has no confidence in this Government but what has happened at elections? At every election the electorate and the farmers of South Africa, these farmers who, according to the Opposition, do not receive their rightful share of the country’s prosperity, say ‘We trust you, the National Party Government, you are doing good work.’ Simply look at the election results.

I just want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether he used the word “skarrel” (rummage) a few moments ago?

No. I said the hon. member “scratched” (skrop) like a fowl on a dunghill.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said one thing in connection with agriculture and that was that the Government had not succeeded in keeping increasing production costs at a lower level; that the Government had failed in that connection. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition never referred to agricultural products and he did not do so because in his speech against inflation he objected to a possible increase in salaries. He knew that he could not reconcile these two points because if he objected to an increase in salaries and wages he knew the salary-earner and the artisan would tell him, “You cannot ask for higher prices for agricultural products because I cannot pay them”, and for that reason he confined himself to the increasing production costs. Let me put it as follows to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. Labour forms a large portion of the increasing production costs. Does he want to intimate that less should be paid for labour in this country? Does he want to tell this House and the country that the artisan who repairs the tractor and the farm implements and the labourer who must do the work on the farm should receive lower wages so that production costs may be kept at a low level? Or does he want to tell this House that the manufacturer of ploughs and implements should pay his artisans and other staff less so that such implements and tools may be made available to the farmer more cheaply? I put that question to him because in the speech he made here he was indeed fighting a city council election. I want to ask him whether the artisans working in factories on the Witwatersrand complex should work at lower wages so that cheaper implements may be made available in order to keep the increasing production costs in the agricultural industry on a lower level? The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his supporters should tell us what steps should be taken for decreasing production costs. Then I want to ask him a second question. “Does he want the price of agricultural land to be pegged?” The price of agricultural land affects production costs. Does he want prices for agricultural land to be pegged? The hon. member should not bring accusations without substantiating them. He must tell us what steps he would take.

May I ask you a question?

No. The hon. member has had his turn to speak and he has not put it to good use. I want to point out that the capital cost of land forms part of production costs. Increased labour costs form part of one’s production costs and if one wants to peg production costs one gets a chain reaction. The only way of dealing with this matter is to try to arrest inflation, as the hon. the Minister of Finance is doing, and then to make the necessary adjustments as regards production costs and the prices of products, either by means of subsidies in the case of products where it is possible for one to control the price locally in this way or by means of other auxiliary measures where one has no control over the price of the product as in the case of wool, etc., where long-term loans are granted to the farmers. There is no other method.

Do you approve of a profit margin of 100 per cent on spare parts?

The hon. member knows that a commission of inquiry investigated the prices of spare parts. The report of that commission was tabled in this House and I want to ask the hon. member the following question. After that report had been tabled did any member opposite suggest that such and such measures should be applied in order to peg the prices of spare parts? No, they did not make any move.

Mr. Speaker. I conclude by saying the following As far as agricultural matters are concerned, we have had three United Party speakers in this debate and one displayed less knowledge of agriculture than the other; one did not even know how control boards were constituted under the Marketing Act. He objected to the fact that consumers were represented on the Marketing Council. He objected to other people who were not concerned with production, learning how prices were determined.

I did not say that.

Those are the very words the hon. member used. The hon. member made the further objection that production costs were taken into account in the determinatior of prices without further ado and without there being any control. I have already indicated what steps are being taken. No, I think that if the farmers of South Africa ever had reason to have confidence in the Ministers of Agriculture they have reason to have confidence in them to-day because of the way they have looked after the farmers’ interests. I am not going to burden this House again with statistical data in order to indicate how they have tried to provide in the farmers’ water and other requirements. We did that last year and for that reason hon. members of the Opposition have not levelled the charge again that the Government has failed as regards the provision of water.

Mr. Speaker, one wonders, after the speech by the hon. The Deputy Minister, whether he was in the House when my hon. leader moved his motion. The Deputy Minister asked whether he wanted to reduce the artisans’ pay, and do we want to reduce salaries? But what was the whole tenor of my leader’s address? It was an attack on the Government for not being able to combat inflation, for taking no steps to halt inflation. What is the effect of inflation? It is to make the value of the money which that artisan earns worth less and less. That is the attack on this Government, that it is doing nothing to combat inflation or, if it is doing something, that it is having no effect. If one listens to the Deputy Minister one would gain the impression that all is well in the farming world and that they have no complaints.

That is not what he said.

I do not blame that hon. member for not having listened to his Deputy Minister. The effect of it was that all was well with the farmers. If the Government looks after the interests of the farmers so well, why is it necessary now for the Government to take steps to rehabilitate the farmer? Why must the Government now put the farmer on his feet? Why did not the Government keep the farmer on his feet? It is all very well reading extracts about the farmers in Canada and saying that the return on their capital is not comparable with that in other countries, because the Minister did not tell us what that return was. He will not pretend that the return on capital invested in agriculture is anything near the return on capital invested in the fishing industry or the diamond industry. The Minister also says there are no platteland members left in the United Party, but that is untrue, as are so many other statements. What am I? I represent the platteland. I represent some of the most progressive farmers in the country, who do not have to come and beg for assistance from the Government, farmers who are on their feet because they have a good member of Parliament. We have the hon. member for Albany and the hon. members for King William’s Town and Mooi River. They all come from the platteland and the Government wishes they are not here to badger them on behalf of their constituents. The Deputy Minister praised the Government for its efforts. I need only think back to 1947. I remember in 1948 reading resolutions moved by the then Opposition, by Mr. Eric Louw and others, calling for fodder banks. Where are those fodder banks? They called for “koel-kamers”. Where are they? This Government has let the farmer down in the same way that it has let down the rest of the country. It is only the richness of this country in natural resources that has kept this Government going.

In what respect did they let the farmers down?

In every respect. Why are more and more farmers leaving the countryside every year, and why do more and more non-Whites have to go to the platteland every year to keep the farms going?

But my leader’s motion is one deploring the incompetence and inefficiency of the Cabinet generally, and I want to deal with four Departments especially this afternoon. I say that the Ministers responsible for those Departments must take the blame. I regret, however, that it is only because of the tragedy we witnessed in this House last year that we have been able to get the information as to exactly what is happening in certain departments and how inefficiently they are being run. Two days ago we received the Report of the Van Wyk Commission after the inquiry into the death of the late Prime Minister, and it is incredible that there could have been so many slips and so much incompetence in dealing with one man, Tsafendas. The country was amazed to read the evidence given in the Court trial of the history of Tsafendas, of his expulsion from one country after another, and yet to hear that he was allowed to live permanently in South Africa. It is not as though we knew nothing about him, because he had been trying, according to this report, from 17th January, 1938, to become a resident of this country. There is a long record of applications for entry and of refusals, from 1938 right up to May, 1959, over twenty years. The reasons appeared in his file. Amongst others, it was that he was actively engaged in Communism. What is worse is that he made an illegal entry after his second application to enter South Africa had been turned down, and the Police subsequently caught up with him and he was convicted under the Aliens Act. The Police therefore had a record of this man; they had a record of his conviction and the Department of the Interior also had this record on his file, that he had entered the country illegally and had been convicted. They also had a record that after his conviction he applied to go to the United Kingdom, but the United Kingdom would not have him there, and when steps were taken here to deport him to Portugal, because the Portuguese had admitted that he was a Portuguese subject, it was found that he had left the country on an American ship. All this was on record and yet he was allowed to enter the country in 1963 on a temporary permit, and was subsequently granted a permit for permanent residence. His whole record was so well known that in 1959 his name was put on the black list, the list of names prepared by the Department of the Interior of people who had to be watched to ensure that they did not enter the country. His name was put on the stop list, and what is more, the Department received two warnings, one from Lisbon and one from Mozambique, that he had threatened to enter the country illegally. So they had that on record, too. The official who granted the temporary permit for him to enter from Lourenço Marques did so without spotting that his name appeared on the stop list. It is human to err, and we all know that mistakes do happen. The error of Mr. Van der Berg may be excused as a mistake with terrible consequences, but he explained that it happened under pressure of work because on that day he had to deal with 64 permits. It was a Saturday and it slipped through, and he also gave the excuse that he looked under “S” instead of under “T”. But Sir, that was one man handling this application to enter the country on a temporary permit—that was only a temporary permit and not one for permanent residence. But what happened after that? The Immigrant Selection Board actually granted him a permit for permanent residence. There was no pressure on the Board. There was no haste in considering this application for permanent residence. The passport officer in Lourenço Marques handled 64 applications. He was one man but he might be excused for making an error. The Selection Board however took a whole month to deal with the matter. What is more, Sir, is that they asked for certain information. They did not get the information so they ignored the request for information and proceeded with the matter and granted this permit for permanent residence. The Judge deals fully with the Board’s various acts of negligence as there was not only one act of negligence but several. I do not intend going through them all. The Judge found that this Board and its officials had been inefficient. I say that had this Board merely abided by its own regulations, it would have been spotted that Tsafendas was an unwanted citizen. His whole record would have come out and he would have been deported. The hon. the Minister of Immigration is responsible for this Immigrant Selection Board. The Commissioner explained that there was some confusion between the departments. I am sorry that the ex-Minister of the Interior, Senator De Klerk, is not here because I think that he is the Minister who must take most of the blame because it was his Department’s fault. In the Government of any other country he would have resigned after what happened. He re-organized the Department of the Interior and established a separate Department of Immigration. Yet they kept the files of the Department of the Interior and there was no instruction apparently, according to the Judge, to refer to or to note cross-references on these files. It is a most amazing thing that two of the officials discussed the matter with each other, one official from the Department of Immigration and another from the Department of the Interior. The official of the Department of Immigration, the Department which granted the permanent residence permit, actually had Tsafendas’ name in which he had originally applied to enter this country. There was some suggestion that the officials were confused because of his two names. The immigration official however had the original name and he says that he told the Department of the Interior about it. The Department of the Interior official of course denies this and says that he cannot remember it. But this Minister of Immigration was responsible for the re-organization and the separate branch being established. What has he been doing since then to see that his Department is properly organized, to see that his Department has complete files on everybody who applies to come to this country? One of the officials of the Department of Immigration suggests that they are overworked because of the influx of immigrants. If that is the case and they are not able to do their duty properly, if they are overworked and are slipping up and allowing undesirables to enter this country, then they must get additional staff or take some steps to see that they control the entry of immigrants. Had this department done its work properly at that time, Tsafendas would not have been in the country but would have been deported. One wonders how many others have come into the country illegally, how many others who should not be here. We saw recently the cases in the Transvaal of criminals coming from Britain and other countries. I wonder how many international crooks are running wild in this country. One remembers that Tsafendas, who was thrown out from country after country, even Rhodesia, was allowed to roam about this country at will after he had got his permanent residence here. After that there was another unfortunate slip by a lady clerk in the Department of the Interior who issued a return visa to Tsafendas when he wanted to go on a holiday to Rhodesia and Mocambique. Then there was a further slip-up by four immigration officials who failed to stop him when he returned to South Africa by boat and landed at Durban. These four officials say that they do not know who checked the stop lists. There are four of these officials. The Commissioner rightly found that they were inefficient and negligent in doing their work but there were four officials who should have spotted him and again he was allowed to enter the country by boat.

Then finally, Sir. we get the crowning piece of negligence and ineptitude. Tsafendas was himself responsible for the authorities taking a closer look at him and eventually getting on his track when he applied to be re-classified as a Coloured. That is where he made his mistake. Up to that stage it might still be contended that there was some excuse for the errors because the original files bore the name Tsafendakis although, as I pointed out earlier, Tsafendas himself had given the other name to the Immigration Department when he applied for permanent residence. But in the Cape Town office of the Department of the Interior there was a file which gave his original name and the fact that he had entered this country illegally and that file was actually under both names. Tsafendas and Tsafendakis, and it was used in November, 1965. On his application for reclassification, the regional representative of the Department (who knew of part of his record because his record of leanings toward Communism and the fact that he had been convicted of illegal entry were in that file) wrote to the Registrar in Pretoria in December, 1965, to the effect that Tsafendas was an undesirable inhabitant and recommended his deportation. A new file was then opened and that was sent backwards and forwards between the different branches of the Department until after eight months, from December, 1965, to August, 1966. it ultimately reached the Secretary for the Interior who sent a removal order to the Minister for signature. The Minister is unfortunately not here and I am sorry that he is not here because I wanted him to tell us what happened to the removal order. We know that the hon. the Minister signed it on the 9th August. We know that a letter to the police was typed on the 1st September asking them to carry out the order but we are not told what happened between the 9th August and 1st September. Where was that removal order? Who was dealing with that removal order? If the Secretary took only four days to get the file to the Minister after he had received it on 4th August, and the hon. the Minister signed it on the following day, apparently considering it urgent, what happened to it then? By 6th September, it was still in his office and had not been delivered to the police. The Judge does not know what happened to it and makes no reference to it after that, besides saying that there was an unreasonable delay between the 9th August and 6th September, almost one month. Why was that removal order not dealt with? Why were the police not instructed to remove Tsafendas? The Commissioner finds that there was neglect on the part of a large number of officers. The Commissioner ends by recommending a work study investigation into organization. This Report is a terrible reflection on the departments and no one can possibly excuse the reflections which are made by the Commissioner in this Report. No Minister can, Sir. I say it is a terrible reflection of inefficiency on the Department. The present Minister may be excused because he was not responsible for the re-organization. He only took over shortly before this unfortunate incident happened. The previous Minister must take all the blame. The Minister of Immigration must take some blame. The ex-Minister, or the present Minister, or the Minister of Immigration may say that they had no idea of what was happening in the Department. They had no idea of how inefficiently it was being run. But they cannot say that, because the present Minister, Mr. P. M. K. le Roux, has told the Press that three years ago they appointed a commission on the lines suggested by the Commissioner. Three years ago the Minister realized that there was incompetence and inefficiency, that there was something wrong in the Department. Three years ago the commission was appointed. I ask the Minister of Immigration if he knows anything about it. Can he tell us what has happened? Surely it does not take three years to find out that a department is being inefficiently run? This work study investigation must have been initiated because of inefficiency. What has been done after three years? That is a worse reflection on the competence of the Minister. Surely he should have taken steps by now to see that he got a report and to see to the re-organization of the Department. Can he tell us now? I hope he will enter the debate tomorrow and tell us what steps he has taken to re-organize the Department of the Interior, because it is a most important department. It is as responsible for our security as the Security Police.

The Department of Immigration is a most important one too. We want to know: Are these departments going to be more efficiently managed now? I cannot understand how the Prime Minister could possibly have said during the debate the other day that he had full confidence in his Cabinet. After reading a report of this nature, he said that he was satisfied with his Ministers. He cannot possibly be satisfied with what is happening.

We have only come to know of this inefficiency because of the investigation into the case of one man. How are we to know that there are not many other cases like this? This is the only one which has been investigated. And not only one mistake was made, Sir. Blunder upon blunder was made by one official after another and by the Classification Board. It was not just one single official who made a mistake. The Commissioner did not find any occasion to criticize the police. He does not in so many words ascribe negligence to the police, because he says that no reports were called for from the police except one by the Marine Diamond Corporation. He mentioned the fact that the police did in fact have a file on Tsafendas, although they did not know it. But, Sir, he did not examine the file aspect because he says no reports had been asked for by any department, and only if the police had given a misleading report, because two files were destroyed and one could not be found, would a further inquiry have been essential. With all due respect to the Commissioner, Sir, I think he was too easily satisfied with the conduct of the police. If the police had kept their files properly they would have had a report on Tsafendas when the Marine Diamond Corporation called for a report when he applied to them for a job. Their report was favourable. What investigations did they make before giving a favourable report to the Marine Diamond Corporation? The Security Police, in fact, had a report on Tsafendas in the very building they were occupying. Could it have been in a more convenient place for them? They had a copy of the stop list which was given to them in 1964. They had a copy of the stop list with Tsafendas’s name on it. Did it occur to them to check that list? If they had, Sir, they would have found Tsafendas’s name and they would then have taken the matter up with the Department of the Interior and found out why he was on the stop list. His whole history would then have been exposed. They also, according to the Commissioner, destroyed a report without authority to do so.

Besides the question of the Report, there is evidence of negligence. On page 27 of the Report the Commissioner says that Gen. Van den Bergh testified that the Security Police were responsible for the safety of the Prime Minister, and he admitted frankly that the possibility of any inadequacy in security in the House of Assembly never struck him. He was aware that Major Venter, who had formerly been attached to the Security Police, was responsible for the protection of the Assembly, and assumed that everything was in order. I say that the head of the Security Police had no right to assume that everything was in order. Why did he not check up with Major Venter and find out whether everything was in order? What steps did he ever take to find out from Major Venter whether everything was in order? After all, he himself says that the Security Police are responsible for the safety of the Prime Minister. He admitted too that the police had a copy of the stop list since 1964. Dealing with the question of security in the House, the Commissioner says on page 24 of the Report, that Major Venter asked for a list of all the permanent parliamentary employees in 1963, and this was given to him without hesitation. Major Venter asserts that he asked for a list of all parliamentary employees who had access to Marks Buildings. He did in fact screen all the persons on the list furnished to him. It is not possible to establish which version is the correct one, but evidently—this the Judge found—no objection was made in 1963 to supplying a list. Incidentally. it may be mentioned that no list of additions to the staff of the House of Assembly was asked for after 1963. Why did the Major not do anything after 1963? (Time limit).

Mr. Speaker, I find myself in agreement with a great deal of what was said by the hon. member for Transkei; it is a most remarkable flow of events which accompanied Tsafendas’s admission to South Africa and his wanderings here until that fateful day of 6th September. I would not say I agree with his criticism of all those people, but the evidence in the Report of the Commissioner is disquieting. There is another aspect of those events which is also mentioned in the Report. I just want to refer to it briefly in pursuance of what was said by the hon. member for Transkei. It is the remark made by the Commissioner that there were also factors which probably moved Tsafendas to the perpetration of this deed; things written in newspapers and remarks made in South Africa. Now it so happens that when this was said last year by other people, it caused a great commotion in the Opposition, and they pretended that it was the most impossible and most outrageous thing to say. There are people who are not in the position of the Government and of the National Party in South Africa and who, strangely enough, say virtually the same—and say it very clearly. Here I have an issue of the British periodical Punch dated 14th September, 1966, i.e. eight days after the assassination of Dr. Verwoerd. I want to quote from it—

Take note—“the unstable”—

That is not what we say, that is what Punch said, a periodical which could have had only an objective interest in those events, and not the profound emotional involvement we had in them. If hon. members consider it a disqualification that this is the objective view of a British periodical against the background of those events, and if they find it strange, then there is a great deal we shall find strange about them.

Much more can be said about this matter, but it is not my intention to elaborate on it. I want to come back to something else, and that is the absolute strangeness of the United Party motion before the House at the moment, a motion of no confidence in the Government on account of alleged incompetence and ineptitude. We adjourned only four months ago. There had been ample opportunity then to discuss the entire administration of this country. But what happened when the Budget Committee was in progress in this House? I have been in this House for eight years, and if I remember correctly that was the first year that went by without the Opposition introducing a motion of no confidence in any Minister, by way of a motion for reduction in his salary. In previous years there was always something of that kind, but last year there were no such motions. Now, four months later, they allege virtually total incompetence on the part of the Government. On what grounds? What happened to bring about this change? Virtually all that happened on the Government’s side was that the confidence in the Government was confirmed. Nothing whatsoever happened that may serve to explain the changed attitude on the part of the United Party. But on the United Party’s side there have in fact been developments which may explain this changed attitude. A good deal came to light in the past four months, phenomena which may explain that. Here I have one to which I shall not attach so much value, but which is nevertheless noteworthy. I quote from the Star, which refers to a “New ginger group for United Party”. I trust the hon. member for Durban (Point) will take note of it. Perhaps he has not taken note of it, because it is in Johannesburg. The report reads—

What is the United Party engaged in at the moment if those are the “basic issues”? The report continues—

The report concluded with the words—

So that is their thinking machine created there in Johanesburg, a machine founded at Oxford. I also want to tell you about their methods of action, Mr. Speaker. The report reads—

So that is the “Flying Squad”, which is holding house meetings and discussion groups.

Has it got you worried?

I can see very clearly who is worried, and I can well understand why the hon. member is worried. Perhaps the attitude of the United Party in this debate should be explained as one of the first signs of the new thinking, the “stimulus” emanating from that group. The hon. member for Von Brandis also made such a voluble start at the beginning of the session. You may recall, Sir, that when the hon. the Prime Minister made his announcement the other day, the hon. member was on his feet immediately. It seems to me he was also stimulated by the group up there, the “Flying Squad”.

During the past recess there were also other signs of new thinking in the United Party. That loyal organ of the United Party, the Sunday Times, had a report on 20th November, 1966, under the caption “Major changes in U.P. policy—Coloureds to send Coloureds to Parliament: no independence for Bantustans”. Now hon. members must listen—

Do you believe everything you read in the Press?

There is a question I should like to ask the hon. member for Durban (Point), and I am glad he is here. Is it true that those policy changes were made?

Do you believe it?

I shall not pretend to be an authority, to be someone who knows what is happening in the inner sanctuaries of the United Party. I am now asking a question in the public interest: Is it true that those policy changes were made?

But you believe the newspaper.

No. I want to know whether I should believe it. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker. I am asking this in the public interest. Here we have the official Opposition of South Africa. This is a front page report in a newspaper which is known as a loyal supporter of the United Party. I am now-asking a simple question in the public interest: Is it (true that the United Party made these policy changes? Do you see the reaction of the United Party, Sir? [Interjections.] The report continues—

which is this debate—

That is what the Sunday Times says.

I am pleased to hear from the hon. member for Rosettenville that the Sunday Times is a newspaper to which one need not pay any attention; the Sunday Times publishes lies. Is that so? Is that what the hon. member for Rosettenville is saying?

You are saying that. [Interjections.]

Hon. members claim that it is not true that the United Party discarded its race federation plan and has now adopted a federation plan. That is where we stand at present. But we know where some of the members of the United Party are standing. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is supposed to be openly in favour of discarding the race federation plan and adopting a pure federation plan. Is that not true? Here it is written. I can produce evidence; I can quote him at least four places in Hansard, and he knows that. During last year’s session the hon. member for Bezuidenhout openly advocated a federation instead of a race federation. Here is the Sunday Chronicle of 11th April, 1965, which contains a report reading—

It is not a “race federation”; the report says “a staunch supporter of a federation”.

Over there you have the hon. member for Hillbrow, the hon. member who spoke yesterday. Before the election he and three other people, i.e. Dr. Hudson, Dr. Biesheuvel and Dr. Jacobs, published a document which they claimed was a survey they had made of how people were feeling about matters in South Africa, and which then offered a recipe for how the policy was to be implemented in South Africa. They say—

I ask you! What a qualification!

… political systems yet devised.

The Sunday Times summary of the document continued and said that its authors, among them the hon. member for Hillbrow, were openly advocating that federation, geographical federation, should be adopted as the most acceptable policy for South Africa. [Interjections.] And what happened at the Transvaal congress? The United Party then designated the hon. member for Hillbrow as their main speaker on race affairs. Here it is prominently reported in the Sunday Times that at the congress the hon. member for Bezuidenhout as well as the hon. member for Hillbrow deliberately—I quote from the newspaper—avoided the term “race federation”. In fact, throughout the congress the term “race federation” was never used, only the term “federation”. It is reported repeatedly in that newspaper.

Now if they tell me that the United Party has not changed its policy, while hon. members such as the hon. members for Bezuidenhout and Hillbrow reject the United Party race federation plan openly and advocate federation, then there is only one conclusion, and that is that there is a serious rift within the United Party about this matter. [Interjections.] That is why the Leader of the Opposition did not make an announcement. [Interjections.] What did the hon. member for Durban (Point) mean when he said the following at the Cape congress, according to the Rand Daily Mail of 30th November, 1966—

and now his own words—

What does that mean?

Or from the Nationalist Party.

No, that is not written there. Mr. Speaker. [Interjections.] The hon. member said, “from without or within”. I can now name the hon. member two gentlemen who are exerting “pressure from within”, and they are the hon. members for Hillbrow and Bezuidenhout. They are exerting that pressure and that is why the United Party is now unable to make an announcement about its policy. I challenge the hon. member for Durban (Point): Is your policy still race federation? Is the policy of the United Party still race federation? [Interjections.] For years they had the country buzzing and said that they had a race federation plan, and now he dare not say that their policy is race federation.

You know our policy perfectly well.

The hon. member may tell me that he knows what the policy is, but he is afraid of stating it in public. But the hon. members for Hillbrow and Bezuidenhout are not afraid of stating in public where they stand. The hon. member, on the other hand, is afraid of saying where he stands. [Interjections.] Then who is calling the tune in the United Party?

We will not have you prescribe to us what our policy should be.

All the hon. member for Durban (Point) can say is that they will not have it prescribed to them “either from without or within”.

That is correct—particularly not by you.

Here we have an extraordinary situation. We do not know what the United Party’s policy is. The hon. member for Durban (Point) dare not say what the United Party’s policy is. And yet we are being told most touchingly that here in South Africa the Nationalist Party and the United Party have a “bi-partisan policy”. They themselves do not know what their policy is; we do not know what it is, but we have a “bipartisan policy”! No, Mr. Speaker, if that is what “bi-partisan” means, I can understand why they use such a word. What is the origin of that word which suddenly cropped up in our politics last year? It is an American term; it is something which had previously never been used in South African politics, but since October it has been cropping up everywhere. Look who is commending it. Even the Rand Daily Mail, the organ of the Progressive Party, wrote an editorial on 16th November to the effect that it was so wonderful that the United Party and the National Party now had a “bipartisan approach to foreign policy”, and that things were so easy because there were now so few differences, and the differences that existed were actually only in emphasis, and were becoming fewer and fewer, they said. The Rand Daily Mail has also become one of those who tell us that we have a bi-partisan policy. In the same issue of the Mail Mr. Lief Egeland—I am sure all the hon. members know who he is—said that—

That is the praise we receive from Mr. Egeland.

Do you not want that?

What does it mean if an organ of the Progressive Party such as the Rand Daily Mail—a newspaper which only in 1965 published prison stories about South Africa which, as subsequently appeared from the evidence, were hatched in prison as a plot to misrepresent conditions in South Africa—commend this kind of thing between the United Party and the National Party so highly?

Do you not want a bi-partisan policy?

That same Rand Daily Mail, which bemoaned the fact that we did not have a Martin Luther King in South Africa to lead “freedom riding” in South Africa, is the kind of concern which is now, as I said, deeply stirred by these things.

But what does it mean, Sir? That is the question on which I should like to have clarity. Last year the hon. member for Yeoville told Mr. Stanley Uys—according to a report in the Sunday Times—that the “parliamentary dialogue” was a source of hope to many people. If one wants to conduct a “dialogue” one should at least know what it is all about. If they speak of a bi-partisan policy, I should like to know what they mean by that. The hon. member for Yeoville had an interview with Mr. Stanley Uys, and I presume he gave his replies to Mr. Uys in writing. According to the Sunday Times the hon. member said the following—

The Government should therefore consult them and convince them of its wisdom, and then there will be a bi-partisan policy. But now. we are not told that we shall get it; they say we have it already. It is presumed, if that is the interpretation, if that is the definition. that such consultation has already taken place. I refer to what Mr. Egeland said. Here is his definition of bi-partisanship. The following report appeared in the Rand Daily Mail of 10th November—

Do you agree with that?

I now want to know what the hon. member for Yeoville means? [Interjections.] That is not at issue now. I shall tell the hon. member in a moment. I just want to know first what the hon. member means when he refers to a bi-partisan policy. This is what “bi-partisan” means, according to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout—

I ask you! We are to come together with the United Party and formulate a new joint policy. [Interjections.] They do not know what their policy is. I must tell the hon. member for Yeoville in all sincerity that if that is the kind of definition they give, they do not know what it is all about either. And we most certainly do not know what they are talking about. If those are the definitions of bi-partisan policy, definitions given by the Opposition, on what grounds can it be said that we have a bipartisan policy? Has there been any of the consultations referred to by Mr. Egeland? Has there been any such consultation, as the hon. member for Yeoville says? Have the Government and the Opposition come together, as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout says? Surely those things have not happened.

Have there been no consultations between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition?

When a term such as this is hawked about, one has to ascertain what the motive behind it is. I think the motion of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the current debate actually confirm that the motive is to create the impression that the policy differences between the United Party and the National Party have become insignificant. They have become mere “side issues”. So we need not discuss that. It is a way of reducing the distrust of the United Party which is current among the public. It was the hon. member for Durban (Point) who said some years ago that there were two “labels” which the United Party had to get rid of. The first was that it was un-South African and the other that it could not be entrusted with the interests of the White man in South Africa.

Yes, false labels.

What better recipe can they get than to tell the world that now—according to those definitions—there is consultation between the Government and the Opposition, that we now have a bi-partisan policy, that we no longer differ on serious issues, and that we now discuss nothing but economic affairs and the pressure of inflation on the people? That is supposed to be the only difference that exists in South Africa. The voters may trust the United Party because the Government agrees with its policy. That is the sole motive behind everything, and the United Party thinks it will get away with that. The hon. member for Yeoville wrote in the Cape Argus that nothing new had happened to bring about the present situation in South Africa; he said it had always been so. That patriotic attitude on the part of the United Party towards the world abroad had always been there. He said that the danger from abroad had now become so grave that the patriotic attitude of the United Party had suddenly become newsworthy, and that was why the newspapers were writing about it. In the Cape Argus of 20th January, 1967, the following appeared—

[Interjections.] Where was the United Party in the years 1960 and 1961? Where were they in 1960 when the Sharpeville incident occurred and the USA sent us a note “to deplore”, when the Security Council was convened and America voted against us? Where was the United Party then? Did it then, when those dramatic events occurred, adopt such an attitude in South Africa that it was also newsworthy? No, what was newsworthy about the United Party at that time was that it brought the charge against the Government that the Government was responsible for that hostility abroad. That party justified the hostility abroad on the grounds that the Government was to blame for it. Why was that the newsworthiness then?

Where was the United Party in 1961 when the demands of the Afro-Asiatics at the Commonwealth conference were much more clamant than now, much more pressing, and much more threatening? What was the attitude of the United Party when Dr. Verwoerd returned from the Commonwealth conference and they pinned him down here in his Vote for a full week? What was their attitude then?

Why not go back to 1939?

Mr. Speaker, we need not take them back as far as all that. What was the attitude of the United Party three weeks after the judgment of the International Court of Justice in August last year? Was it not the hon. member for Durban (North) who got up here and launched an attack on the hon. the Prime Minister, who was then the Minister of Justice, and asked him the question: “What is the difference between the Minister of Justice and Mandela?” (Time limit.)

Mr. Speaker, for the first 25 minutes of the hon. member’s speech we on this side of the House were amused. We were amused at his irresponsibility, at the desperate attempt he made to try and distract attention from the real issues in this debate. But I must say that during the last five minutes we were indeed shocked. Because we can remember that at the time of Sharpeville this party stood up and offered the government of the day full support for any measures that were necessary. And this is the gratitude we get.