I move as an unopposed motion—

I second.

Agreed to.

Clause 12 is a bit of very clumsy legislation, and will quite possibly get the hon. the Minister and this Corporation and its Board into some difficulty on occasion. This clause provides in sub-section (3) that this Corporation will be subject to the undistributed profits tax, and it seems to me quite extraordinary that the hon. Minister and a board of this nature when they are considering the question as to what amount should be put to reserve in the ordinary course of the company’s activities, should have to take into account the possibility of paying undistributed profits tax. I accept that the company has to pay taxes, but why the hon. the Minister should have to bend his mind in regard to this particular tax. is beyond my understanding.

As the Bill stands now, this corporation will have to pay income tax as well as undistributed tax. I think we had better leave it like that. There is a provision under the Income Tax Act, the Schedule to the Act, which provides for exemption of undistributed profits tax or income tax, and I think this Corporation might be dealt with under that section.

The C.S.I.R. is being dealt with in that way at the present moment and is being added to the list in the Schedule to the Income Tax Act. I think that is the way to deal with the matter.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 13,

I move as an amendment—

The intention of my amendment is clear. The intention of course is to remove the shadow of accountability to Parliament which the clause as it now stands provides and to replace it with the substance of accountability by placing the responsibility for the audit of the accounts of this corporate body in the hands of the Controller and Auditor-General. During the second reading debate, the hon. the Minister signified agreement with a speaker on this side of the House that it was desirable that there should be adequate parliamentary control over the finances of a body such as this. In other words, the hon. the Minister signified agreement that public moneys to be administered by a body such as this, which is being brought into being by Parliament to discharge certain functions, should be under the control of Parliament, and that accordingly there is a duty on Parliament to ensure that it can continue to carry out its own financial responsibilities of supervision through its Standing Select Committee on Public Accounts.

It is perfectly true that the hon. the Minister did qualify his agreement, by saying that it would be preferable that this sort of procedure should apply to other bodies of a somewhat similar nature. But I think the hon. the Minister rather overlooked the fact that more such bodies already fall within the rule of accountability than are exempted from that general rule. When the hon. the Minister spoke in the way he did, I am sure that he had in mind bodies such as the Industrial Development Corporation and the Iron and Steel Corporation. Now whether those bodies should or should not fall within the accountability rule need not be debated, because they are not comparable with this one at all. What is happening here is that although this body, which is about to be created, is a statutory corporate body, yet in plain business parlance it is of course a wholly owned subsidiary of the C.S.I.R. Sir, in this case responsibility for the administration of the Act is to fall on the same people. It is the council which is going to appoint the directors of this Corporation; it is the council that is going to second staff to the Corporation; and it is the council that is going to put funds available to this corporate body to discharge its functions. In fact, the objects of the Corporation are similar to those of the parent body, the C.S.I.R. What is being created here is not a new type of undertaking. What is being done is merely to extend to this new subsidiary the powers which are already being exercised by the C.S.I.R. In fact to all intents and purposes all this Bill does is to make this Corporation part and parcel of the parent body. As the hon. Minister knows, the accounts of the parent body (the C.S.I.R.) are audited by the Controller and Auditor-General. Section 13 of the principal Act provides that should be done. Logically therefore, and also for the sake of continuity of control, these accounts should also be subject to the audit of the Controller and Auditor-General. I say therefore that we are dealing here with a case that is in no way comparable with bodies such as the I.D.C. We are dealing here with a body which is unique to this extent that it is a subsidiary of an existing corporate body that complies with this rule of accountability to Parliament. I know that the clause goes on to provide that there should be a laying on the Table of information. Sir, as Parliament’s work has increased so has laying on the Table become a mere formality. It is to-day nothing but a shadow of whatever it might have been before. It is there only to keep Parliament informed, it is not there to help Parliament to exercise any form of supervisory control. As the hon. the Minister knows. Parliament carries out its financial functions at two stages: Firstly at the stage of proposal when Estimates are being considered and voted; and then at the stage of result, that is when accounts have been audited by the Controller and Auditor-General, when his report goes for examination to the Select Committee on Public Accounts, and that Committee then reports in due course to this House. So far as the first aspect is concerned, there is going to be that form of control because the funds of the C.S.I.R., the parent body, are voted by Parliament, either in the form of capital funds or of loan funds. When therefore capital funds are voted, Parliamentary control will be exercised at the stage of proposal to the extent that the responsible Minister will have to explain or have to answer questions as to what the money is for. But where the whole system of control will break down is that there will no longer be any control at the stage of results. The purpose of my amendment therefore is to give the Minister an opportunity to show his sincerity, the sincerity which he expressed in his views at the second reading. I say he can show his sincerity by adopting the amendment. You see, Sir, we are trying to prevent here that exceptions should continue to be made. I submit that my amendment should be adopted for all these reasons. It is true that the clause as it stands provides for audit by registered accountants and auditors. No harm will be done to them by adopting my amendment, because the Auditor-General is empowered to use the services of registered accountants and auditors, and in fact he does so if circumstances warrant it. I am not quite sure whether he does so in the case of the C.S.I.R., but he has power to do so, if he so desires, and he could do so in this case. As I have said, he has shown his ability to handle this type of audit, because the C.S.I.R. to-day is doing precisely what this body will do in future. It might do it to a greater extent, but it will do principally the same thing. The Auditor-General moreover is au fait with what has happened and there is every reason, both on grounds of logic and on grounds of continuity of audit, that the amendment should be adopted.

I should like to express myself strongly against the amendment of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) and the views he propounded here, and therefore I should like to put the matter a little more broadly than just within the narrow confines of the clause, but without going too far. The hon. member’s suggestion now is that the audit of this Development Corporation should be done by the Auditor-General because he says that the Auditor-General audits the C.S.I.R. and that this makes parliamentary control possible. My first real objection to this is that the audit carried out by the Auditor-General is not one which can be regarded as a functional audit in which he regards critically the economic operation of the institution, in the same way as a good private auditor does so to-day. No, it is merely a formal audit to ascertain whether the Treasury rules have been complied with. The whole modern tendency in auditing is to go further than the purely formal control of revenue and expenditure, and to couple with the formal control of revenue and expenditure a consideration as to what is economically practicable and desirable in the circumstances. Very often we find that it is the modern tendency for the auditor to advise the industry or the business. I think we must get away from this idea of auditing with the idea that it will provide parliamentary control. The really important audit is not to see whether a shilling or a sixpence has been formally spent in terms of parliamentary authorization and thereafter with the approval of the Treasury. The importance of an audit lies in taking a broad view to see whether that money has been spent not only in a formally correct way, but whether it has really been disbursed for the intended purpose. Therefore in the first place I want to oppose the idea that we should place these funds under the control of the Auditor-General. I would welcome an outside auditor, as is provided for here by the Bill.

For the rest, there is absolutely no substance in the argument that the Auditor-General of the State can do anything which the outside auditor would not do. The private auditor, just like the Auditor-General, must ascertain whether the funds have been spent in terms of a resolution of the board of directors of this Corporation, and he can undoubtedly also go further and see whether it was done in terms of the instructions of the C.S.I.R. The outside auditor can add to the functions of the Auditor-General but he cannot derogate from them. What the Auditor-General can do is the minimum that the outside auditor must do. But I particularly rose to point out that the C.S.I.R., as the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) correctly stated, is subjected to audit by the Auditor-General, and consequently that is one of the actual methods by which control terms of Treasury regulations is applied to the C.S.I.R., and a body like the C.S.I.R. and the Corporation have to be flexible in the performance of their duties and necessarily cannot work to set rules according to which a State official can always specify beforehand as to how the shilling or the sixpence or the £500 or the £1,000 should be spent. Therefore it is very undesirable that this organization should be permeated with the spirit that everything closely connected to the C.S.I.R. should be compelled to submit to a State audit. This Parliament will be satisfied if we know that the money has been spent according to the allocations made by the C.S.I.R. That is, after all, the only thing that we as a Parliament want to know, and this Bill provides how the C.S.I.R. in its turn can make funds available to the Corporation. I therefore want to express the hope that the Minister will not accept this amendment.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) has explained the difficulties so lucidly that it is scarcely necessary to add anything. The point I wish to make is that this is another example of control being taken away from Parliament to be put into the hands of bodies that are constituted by Parliament. We have for many years complained about this question of accountability to Parliament. The C.S.I.R. is accountable to Parliament because through the Auditor-General and our Public Accounts Committee there is a revision of their accounts. But now we have gone a step further. Now we have the C.S.I.R. controlled by Parliament through the Auditor-General and our Public Accounts Committee, but we say that a subsidiary of that company need not be controlled. I am sure that is a departure in the wrong direction. What the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) is suggesting is that the same system that is applied to the parent company should be extended to the subsidiary, and that this House, that Parliament, voting the money should have the opportunity of knowing how that money is being expended.

It is not a question of an audit of pointing out as my hon. friend said, that 1s. 6d. or 15c are not being accounted for. The question is how are the affairs of this company being conducted. The parent company is accountable to Parliament and any departure from this rule is to be regretted.

I want to support the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South). Everything he said is correct, and it is not realized that although we continually talk about how parliamentary control of public funds is slipping out of our hands, how far that slipping has gone. The danger point, in my opinion, has been passed and a stop must be put to this process at some stage or another, and this is a particularly good place to put a stop to the practice, because, as has been said already, this is to all intents and purposes a subsidiary of the C.S.I.R., and whereas the C.S.I.R. is accountable to Parliament, so should this subsidiary company be. I hope the hon. Minister won’t say that this corporation is in the public interest and that this is the best way of handling it, and that the amount involved at the moment will only be R200,000. Because in my hand at the moment I hold the accounts of a few Government-controlled companies and their assets total approximately R260,000,000, quite a lot of money and none of it subject to parliamentary scrutiny. There are of course more of these funds. There is the Bantu Development Corporation and the Coloured Development Corporation and there are others. The Auditor-General in his Report for 1960-1 says—

On the same page (32) he says—

These so-called public utility companies’ assets must also be revenue-producing, and we have now reached the position where the handling of an amount of over 25 per cent of our real public debt is out of parliamentary scrutiny altogether. I am excluding the Railways of course, because the Railways are on their own. I can almost say, not with my tongue in my cheek, that we are fast reaching the position where most of the money voted by Parliament for investment will be completely outside parliamentary scrutiny and control, and I do suggest that this is a good time at which to stop this insidious movement. I know we are all tempted to do it. It sounds much more businesslike, but the fact remains that these funds should be under the control of Parliament and that difficulties should come to our notice timeously. So I do hope that the hon. the Minister will agree to give the audits to the Auditor-General.

I should like to say a few words on the subject. Hon. members opposite have made it quite clear why they do not want private firms and auditors to do this audit. If this House, as the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) put it, wants to know how the affairs of that undertaking are being conducted, surely that can be ascertained from the annual report, nor is it the Auditor-General who informs this House how the work is being done; it is properly audited, and the Auditor-General can only report whether the money has been properly spent and whether the regulations have been properly applied, and so forth. And as the hon. member for Kempton Park has already said, that can be done equally well by a private auditor. If hon. members feel that there is an undertaking in the country where a private auditor did not do the work properly, or where an auditor did not do his duty, we could perhaps say that a private firm of auditors did not do its work properly and that it should fall under the Auditor-General. If there are such cases we can say that this should be considered, but I am convinced that not a single case like that can be mentioned here. On the contrary, I want to emphasize it further and say that I am of opinion that where private firms of auditors have been appointed, the work has been done equally well, and then we still have the additional knowledge of the private auditors, so that I contend that in this case the audit can be better done by private auditors because in their profession their training has been such that in this specific case they can give better guidance to the directors in regard to these matters, much better than the staff of the Auditor-General is able to give. They have additional knowledge in regard to marketing and other problems which will be valuable in this regard, and it will be of more value to this House to have a private auditors’ firm taking care of these matters than to have the Controller and Auditor-General. I therefore hope that the hon. the Minister will not accede to these requests by the Opposition.

I think the hon. member for Sunnyside (Mr. van Zyl) missed the whole point. Nobody has queried the efficiency of public accountants or auditors. I think the hon. member for Sunnyside does not appreciate that if this work is done by the Auditor-General, the subsequent report will come before the Public Accounts Committee and will come before Parliament. If these accounts are audited by private accountants, however, there is no possibility of them coming before Parliament for debate. Nobody is querying the efficiency of public accountants, and as the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) said earlier on, the Auditor-General can appoint private accountants and firms of public accountants to do the work on his behalf. They then submit a report to the Auditor-General and the Auditor-General’s Report will come before Parliament. In Committee we have already passed Clause 10 which provides for the share capital of this company and this share capital will be paid out by the C.S.I.R., and the C.S.I.R. accounts are subject to audit by the Auditor-General, and yet this company which gets its money from the C.S.I.R. will not have accounts which can be debated in Parliament. The whole object of the amendment is to have the accounts audited by the Auditor-General so that they in turn can be dealt with by the Public Accounts Committee and can be debated in Parliament. Far from belittling the work done by public accountants, the whole object of the amendment is to ensure accountability to Parliament so that there can be adequate control of funds voted by Parliament and there can be debate in this House at an appropriate time and we can avoid the difficulties which we have experienced so far with many of these quasi Government companies whose accounts are not being tabled in this House and not debated here and where there is no adequate parliamentary control.

I wonder if the House could persuade the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van den Heever) to explain to us what he thinks of the new system proposed by the hon. member for Sunnyside (Mr. van Zyl). If the system of the hon. member for Sunnyside is pursued to its logical conclusion, we won’t need a Public Accounts Committee at all. We shall not need responsibility and accountability to Parliament. The hon. member for Sunnyside is perfectly content with the words “private auditors practising outside this House”. If that is so why should private auditors not examine the accounts of the hon. Minister of Social Welfare and assure the House that everything is in order? He would not have to trouble about 15 cents or 20 cents as the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) has said. We are emphasizing the fact, Mr. Chairman, as we have said, that we wish to have accountability to Parliament through the Auditor-General and our Public Accounts Committee. And when the hon. member for Sunnyside tells us that the work can be done as well by private auditors practising outside this House, he may be right. But that is not what we want. We want the accountability to be to us, not to the C.S.I.R.

The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) gave quite a wrong impression of the proposition stated by the hon. member for Sunnyside (Mr. van Zyl). The hon. member for Sunnyside referred to this specific institution. What happens here now? Parliament indirectly votes, by making an amount of money available to the C.S.I.R., the share capital of this Corporation. This Corporation then functions further with this share capital. with possible expansions via the C.S.I.R. Parliament does not vote funds for this Corporation year after year. It does not appear on our Estimates again. To-day we are debating and deciding as to the desirability of granting R200,000 to this specific undertaking. The argument of hon. members opposite now amounts to this, that the activities of this board of directors of the Corporation which is being established and which in future will operate in terms of the provision of this Bill, and which will not in future receive funds on the annual Estimates, should now be reported to the Public Accounts Committee. What is the function of the Public Accounts Committee? It is to correlate the Acts providing money for various objects with the Treasury regulations in regard to how those funds should be allocated in detail after the funds have been voted—to scrutinize that and to see whether the money has been properly spent, and if a mistake has slipped in, to report to this Parliament. What is the relationship between these two functions, if this board of directors operates an independent undertaking; what is the relationship between that financial activity and the voting of funds in this House every year? No, Mr. Chairman, we have here a very false argument. We cannot blame the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) for having a professional love for the functions of the Auditor-General. But he first advanced the argument, and other hon. members as well, that the parent company, the C.S.I.R., is audited by the Auditor-General and therefore it is logical that the subsidiary company should also be audited by the same Auditor-General. Why should that necessarily be so? It is often the most convenient practice, but it is not necessary that the auditor of the subsidiary company should be the same man as the auditor for the parent company. It is a question of convenient practice, but here it is being advanced as a logical argument.

And, finally, in regard to parliamentary control, I want to point out that these accounts and the report have to be tabled. If in the opinion of any hon. member something wrong has taken place in the running of this Corporation, it can be raised in the Budget debate, the first Budget debate after the report has been tabled. It can be discussed fully here. Other ways may even be found for discussing it if it is a serious matter, perhaps by means of a motion moved by a private member. But the matter can be discussed. Here we are not giving up any parliamentary control over funds voted by Parliament. We are simply dealing here with a rational arrangement for the further administration of an undertaking which had a specific object outside the ordinary course of State administration.

The hon. member who has just sat down rather indicated that the hon. member for Kensington had misunderstood the hon. member for Sunnyside. All I can say is that I think the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) has misunderstood the whole concept of public audit. We, Sir, are concerned here with the prerogative of Parliament. The hon. member for Kempton Park now reduces this prerogative of Parliament to less than a formality. He suggests that all the information that you want will be there and that the supervision and investigation which takes the Public Accounts Committee practically throughout the whole session, can be done in this House. If there was one wise rule it was the rule of practice that the Auditor-General’s report should not be discussed in this House. It is examined by a Select Committee which then reports to this House. Can you imagine the confusion that would arise, Sir, if the Auditor-General’s report had to be discussed and debated in this House. What we have had this afternoon indicates what a shambles it really would be. There is complete misunderstanding of the purpose of this audit. It is to preserve the prerogative of Parliament and nothing else. That is what it is for and to reduce it to this sort of formality, which both the hon. member for Sunnyside and the hon. member for Kempton Park are trying to do, is wrong. I hope the hon. the Minister will not be guided by them. The hon. the Minister has at least served as the chairman of a Public Accounts Committee and he at least knows the value of the spade work that is done by a Select Committee of this House. All we are asking is that same very wise arrangement should prevail and that the reports on the audit of these accounts should also go to that same body to be examined in the same way. That body is the agent of Parliament and they should examine those reports and bring to the notice of Parliament those aspects which should be brought to our notice. I hope the hon. the Minister will not be persuaded by his two colleagues

I cannot allow this important debate to die without saying a few words. It seems to me that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) is quite right in saying that hon. members opposite do not understand the underlying importance of what we are discussing now. This is not a case of the books of account of a subsidiary company being examined by one of two kinds of auditors. This goes to the very roots of the establishment of Parliament itself. Parliament was originally established so that it could control the Executive by having control of the expenditure of money. Any Executive, whether it be the King or the President (or through the President, the Cabinet), need moneys, supplies, to conduct the business of the State. We in turn say that we will not give them those moneys until they do this, that or the other. We impose conditions, and must see that they are observed. In our modern state the handling of finances has become increasingly complex and as a result, about half-way through the last century a parliamentary select committee was established which checked, on our behalf, the public expenditure of money voted by Parliament to the Executive. It does not, as the hon. member seems to suggest, examine in detail the whole expenditure of the State. That task would be beyond their capacity. So we have created another piece of machinery. We have an Auditor and Controller-General who reports. The Public Accounts Committee only examines those items and those expenditures which are brought to their attention by the Controller and Auditor-General. If this process were not followed the financial workings both of the Public Accounts Committee and this House would be quite impossible. We wish to preserve this. We say that if public money is voted, if we hand over, for expenditure, to any public body, moneys voted by this Parliament, the taxpayers’ money, some form of parliamentary control should be exercised. That control must be exercised by Parliament. Parliament’s usual instrument to exercise that control is the Public Accounts Committee. If those hon. gentlemen only realized that they were doing something to preserve the sovereignty of Parliament by keeping control by this House over the Executive through control of expenditure, then they would know what they were talking about. But the hon. member over there quite clearly does not understand the underlying principles of what he is arguing …

Why do you speak about elementary things that everybody knows?

It seems necessary because the hon. member obviously does not understand basic principles. He does not, apparently, know how elementary procedures work in practice. Has the hon. member ever sat on a Public Accounts Committee? The chairman of the committee walked out in disgust when he heard his arguments. Anyway, Sir, I think it was necessary to underline the principles which govern what we are trying to achieve by our amendment. I beg of these hon. members to have more respect for the sovereignty of Parliament and the sanctity of the powers of this House.

I should like to raise a few points in regard to this matter. The hon. member who has just sat down spoke about the control of this institution. It is an amount of R200,000, which is not a large amount. The expenditure incurred by this Corporation will be scrutinized by a private auditor. But the control about which they are so concerned is in fact eventually exercised by the parent body. I cannot see why those hon. members are so concerned about the expenditure, because the board of directors of the C.S.I.R. can also exercise control over the subsidiary company, and in that way they also indirectly control the finances. If the hon. members insist that it should resort under the Auditor-General, they should remember that this is not an annual expenditure. Why is the Opposition then not concerned about the other expenditures which are voted annually by this House in large amounts and which are not audited by the Auditor-General?

What?

There are amounts much larger than this. There are the I.D.C. and the subsidies paid to the Provincial Councils, which are further distributed to the local government bodies, etc. Why do they not suggest that the Auditor-General should also audit private businesses? Surely the revenue of the State is derived from private businesses. Here they are concerned about a small amount which is paid out only once, but they are not concerned about the globular revenue of the State, viz. businesses, the mines, etc., which have to provide that revenue. Why do they not suggest that the Auditor-General should audit those businesses also? Mr. Chairman, I think they want to take this matter too far. It is quite a good thing that the Auditor-General should have a finger in the pie in so far as State expenditure is concerned. We should just take care that we do not take the matter too far, and I feel that hon. members opposite seek to go too far.

Mr. Chairman, this matter of public or semi-public bodies being responsible to the Select Committee on Public Accounts has often been discussed in this House. We are familiar with these suggestions which come from the other side of the House every year, just as we also know that nobody has ever come along with a well-considered scheme which will satisfy everybody or which will solve all the problems in this regard. I therefore stand by what I said during the second reading of this Bill, that until we can find a general pattern into which all these semi-public bodies can fit, I am not prepared to make an exception in this particular case. I know that there is much merit in what hon. members opposite say, but neither I nor hon. members opposite have ever discovered a method by which all these private bodies or semi-State corporations can be included in one general rule in regard to auditing and responsibility to Parliament. If one day we can find a pattern which is satisfactory and which can solve all these problems, then we can throw them all into one basket. It is a fact that large institutions like the I.D.C., K.O.P., Foscor, Fiscor, and Sasol are all audited by private auditors. Their financial reports are tabled here every year, and those reports can be discussed in this House every year. In fact, they are discussed. They are not sent to the Public Accounts Committee, but are discussed here. Hon. members know very well how year after year there were lengthy discussions on Sasol, with reference to the accounts which Sasol tabled here. It is therefore not correct to say that Parliament has no control, because it has the right to discuss these public bodies. But what is the reason why the accounts of Sasol, Fiscor, Foscor and the K.O.P. can be audited by private auditors and that the accounts do not go to the Select Committee on Public Accounts? I think there must be a reason for it. I think the reason is that these bodies are quite different from those bodies for which Parliament votes money every year and which therefore appear in the revenue and expenditure accounts. Here we are dealing with business corporations in which the State has invested capital. It is not the same as in the case of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs or the Department of Public Works for which Parliament votes certain sums every year, various sums on various Votes, and where it is the duty of the auditor to see to it that the money voted for those Departments are spent in a certain way in that year by those Departments. It is quite a different matter when a capital amount is voted for an undertaking once only.

What about the parent company?

The C.S.I.R. receives a grant every year for its current and capital expenditure. It receives a grant from the State every year, and therefore its accounts are also audited annually. But this Corporation will receive a capital of R200,000, and there it remains. Later the Minister may decide to increase it. But it is a capital contribution which is made once only, and that is the end of it.

There is also another element. These bodies like Sasol, K.O.P., Fiscor and Foscor, etc., are business undertakings, and when one deals with business undertakings one is often dealing with matters of a confidential nature which cannot be discussed in the public forum of the House of Assembly, and not even in the Public Accounts Committee which has to report to this House. Because in a business corporation like this one is dealing with confidential information which cannot be divulged in Parliament.

What about the Railways? ²

I shall come to that point in a moment. In regard to these corporations, one has to do with possible competition. Take, for example, a body like Sasol, which is concerned with the chemical industry. Are there not many of its affairs which a competitor would like to know about?

What about Defence?

The Department of Defence is a Department of State which is directly represented in Parliament by a Minister. It is quite different from Iscor or Sasol. I say I think we should be quite satisfied that where a capital amount is granted once to a body, that body will more or less become a business body. In this case this body is going to work with patents which are often of a confidential nature.

What about the control boards?

The control boards are all bodies established by the State in terms of an Act passed by the State. This body will be a subsidiary body of another body, i.e. the C.S.I.R., which is controlled by the State. The C.S.I.R. is in fact controlled by the State. It is responsible to this Parliament. This body will be responsible to the C.S.I.R. and therefore the State, through the C.S.I.R., has access to the expenditure of its funds by that corporation. I think hon. members must agree that it is going too far to ask that this body should also be directly responsible to the Select Committee on Public Accounts, and therefore to Parliament. The annual reports will be tabled here and hon. members will have opportunity enough, if they so wish, to discuss those reports here. I eagerly look forward to the years that lie ahead and I should like to see in three, four or five years’ time how many times hon. members opposite make use of the opportunity to discuss this body in this House. I am sorry, but I cannot accept the amendment.

Question put: That all the words after “by” in line 19, to the end of sub-section (1), proposed to be omitted, stand part of the clause.

Upon which the Committee divided:

AYES—86: Bekker, H. T. van G.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Bootha, L. J. C.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Coertze, L. I.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; de Wet, C.; Diederich, N.; Dönges, T. E.; du Plessis, H. R. H.; Faurie, W. H.; Fouché, J. J. (Sr.); Fouché, J. J. (Jr.); Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Kotzé, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; le Roux, P. M. K.; Loots, J. J.; Luttig, H. G.; Marais, J. A.; Maree, G. de K.; Maree, W. A.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Nel, M. D. C. de W.; Niemand, F. J.; Otto, J. C.; Pelser, P. C.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Sadie N. C. van R.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Serfontein, J. J.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Eeden, F. J.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Nierop, P. J.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Wyk, G. H.; van Wyk, H. J.; van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Waring, F. W.

Tellers: D. J. Potgieter and P. S. van der Merwe.

NOES—42: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bowker, T. B.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H. C.; Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Henwood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Holland, M. W.; Lewis, H.; Malan, E. G.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moore, P. A.; Odell, H. G. O.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Russell, J. H.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: N. G. Eaton and A. Hopewell.

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment dropped.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

Remaining Clauses and Title of the Bill having been agreed to,

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

When this Bill came before the House earlier, I expressed regret that so little time had been given to us to consider it. I want once again to emphasize the fact that on a Bill like this, which is largely technical and which involves a great number of interests and a great number of people, and which also brings some degree of conflict or agreement to different professions both of whom are concerned with the life and the health of the people of the country, we should be given much more time to give consideration to this type of work and in order to try to avoid, if possible, any disagreement.

This is a Bill which is particularly important because it introduces principles into the practice of pharmacy which did not exist before. It breaks new ground completely and I do not think these things should be accepted easily and without a good deal of consideration, nor should we carry on with a Bill like this without being given the opportunity of consulting those people who are affected by it. Personally, in this case I will deal only with one of the principles involved and leave the remainder to my colleagues. I want to deal particularly with the question of the admission to practice in this country of people who, in the ordinary course of events, would not be acceptable to the Pharmaceutical Board. This is a principle which, as I said before, is completely new and I think we must ask the Minister particularly to justify this complete volte face. A similar matter occurred before the Medical Council some years ago and presented great difficulty, but it was finally overcome. There were, however, in the case of the Medical Council, very definite reasons why this change was called for, and I find it difficult without further information to appreciate why this should be brought to pass also in the pharmaceutical profession. In the medical profession we have scientists who come out and wish to work in our institutions and they carry on scientific research, very often research which of great value to us. We have peculiar conditions here, like parasites which do not exist in other countries. We have a population which lends itself easily to research, and therefore we are sought after by other countries. But I would take a good deal of convincing that this is necessary in the case of the pharmaceutical profession. In the case of the medical profession, it became necessary to register these people because only registered medical men can have contact with patients. Any ordinary person who claims to be a doctor is committing an offence if he has to do with the public. Therefore under very strict precautions the Medical Council agreed that this should be done and persuaded the Legislature to give effect to it.

But the contact of the pharmaceutical profession with the public is limited more or less to the supply of drugs and I fail to see why under those circumstances this should be brought to pass. It is said in this Bill that these people will be brought in only for educational and scientific purposes. Let us take each separately.

In the educational field we have found that there has been a shortage of highly trained medical men to carry on the educational work of the country in medicine, but there is extraordinarily little educational work carried out in the pharmaceutical field which cannot be dealt with by the average pharmacist. There is not a great deal of it. The technical institutions and the universities already contain faculties or departments which work in this field and I cannot see that in the purely educational field there can be a great call for these people.

We come, therefore, to the scientific field. Now, in the scientific field there is some reason for appreciating that there might be highly trained people who cannot otherwise be brought to the country because they do not have registerable qualifications. But in the scientific field, in pharmacy, there can be no reason for not employing these people in universities. There is no tie-down on the universities or on the technical colleges. Everyone who has the knowledge can be employed, and there is no reason why he should be registered to supply drugs and chemicals to the public. It is said that these people will be required to handle habit-forming drugs, perhaps, which can only be handled by a chemist and pharmacist. That is a detail which can be easily overcome without giving these people the broad right to be registered as pharmacists and chemists.

Another factor which this brings into the picture is this point which worries me more than anything else, and that is that there is a habit among industrialists and commercial people in general, who work on a large scale, people like motor assemblers and those who have engineering works, to bring into the country as their head man, as their managing director or as their chairman, people from foreign countries. Now I see no reason why they should not do it if they wish to in ordinary commerce, but there are now establishing themselves in this country pharmaceutical manufacturers, people who are really bottlers more than anything else, and this, I believe, could be used as a backdoor for replacing our people, our own qualified men and women by foreigners in positions of responsibility. Therefore I would like to ask the Minister particularly to give us some information as to the safeguards he is going to apply.

Lastly, I ask myself, although I do not wish to mix in colour problems, whether this is perhaps not another backdoor for the supply op pharmacists and chemists to the non-White areas. It is very easy to stretch the description of a scientific institution. It is even easy at times to speak of an educational institution, and there is a grave shortage, and in fact a complete absence, of pharmacists in 90 per cent of the non-White areas. Is this not a backdoor by which our people will again he pushed out of their profession, and this is not an easy profession to which to gain entrance? Our people may be unemployed, while others, to suit the purposes of different people, could be employed. This is not a clause which I think we should accept without a great deal of reserve and without very clear information from the Minister as to how he is going to safeguard our own people.

The hon. member who has spoken is himself a member of the Medical and Dental Council, and there is no doubt that he has done a great deal in past years to raise the standard of medicine in South Africa, and one of the ways that the Council undoubtedly use is to exercise control over people who come to South Africa to practise here. I can understand therefore why he feels so strongly that in pharmacy, too. in which the standard is particularly high to-day in comparison with other countries, we must make sure that the opportunity is not created for persons to come and practise in South Africa as chemists and druggists when they have not undergone the requisite training and, secondly, that they do not perhaps endanger the position of our chemists and druggists. I share the hon. member’s view that, as he put it, we should not open a backdoor for such people. But I do not think he is entirely right in his interpretation of the intention of this clause. This amendment in Clause 2 states perfectly clearly that can only happen on the recommendation of the Pharmacy Board. The Pharmacy Board are the very people who watch over the interests of the chemists and druggists, and under this clause no person will be able to come to South Africa in the future except on the recommendation of the Pharmacy Board, and it is only thereafter that the State President will be able to make it possible for that person to come. But the matter does not end there either. There is a whole series of provisos whereby this legislation, and we as a Parliament, seek to ensure that we do not open a backdoor here. Not only does the Board make a recommendation to the State President, but after that recommendation has been made, certain regulations are prescribed and promulgated by the State President in respect of such persons; and apart from that it is specifically provided in this clause that such persons may only practise as chemists and druggists under certain circumstances. The clause contains four provisions. The first is that such persons can only practise for an initial period not exceeding five years, and thereafter for such period or periods as the Board may decide, and the body which looks after the interests of chemists and druggists is the Pharmacy Board. In other words, such persons are not given the right to come to South Africa and to practise here for the rest of their lives. The period is limited to five years and thereafter the matter will come up for review from time to time by the Pharmacy Board. Secondly, they are limited to an area or areas and, thirdly, they are also limited in respect of their professional activities. It is perfectly clear to me that it was felt that it was essential to introduce this clause by reason of the fact that there are people who, while they cannot be registered as chemists and druggists in South Africa, can nevertheless be a great asset in the training of chemists and druggists. This clause really makes provision for a method whereby the standard of pharmacy can be raised in South Africa and the number of available chemists and druggists increased, and I really feel that in this clause we have so many provisos and that we are laying down so many requirements that there is not the slightest possibility that a person will be able to come and practise as a chemist and druggist in South Africa unless the Board and the State President are convinced that it is a special case for which provision should be made in the interest of pharmacy. I just want to emphasize again that we go even further and that we do not leave this in the hands of the Pharmacy Board only but that we have three specific provisos in this clause in respect of the period and the area and the professional activities. I do feel therefore that this clause does not contain the dangers visualized by the hon. member. I say again that I fully share his concern about lowering the standards of chemists and druggists in South Africa, and I shall always endorse his attitude that we must not lower the standards, but I do not think that there is anything in this clause that will have the effect of lowering the standard of pharmacy. On the contrary, I think it is intended as an aid to make people available for the training of chemists and druggists, people who can raise the standard, and unless this clause is on the Statute Book it will not be possible for them to render those services.

But, Mr. Speaker, I really rose to talk about a different aspect of this Bill, and that is the clause which deals with Section 56bis of the principal Act. It deals mainly with potentially harmful drugs. This is an intricate matter. and although this is a short Bill it is a very important matter, not only as far as the medical profession or pharmacy is concerned, but also as far as the public is concerned. You will therefore permit me, Sir, to say a word or two to show what this really deals with. One must be very careful here not to confuse the various drugs which can only be obtained on prescription by a medical practitioner. It is in the interests of the public to place certain restrictions on the sale of certain drugs. Let me mention just three types of drugs to emphasize the distinction as far as this clause is concerned. This clause deals with poisonous drugs, habit-forming drugs and potentially harmful drugs.

No argument has been advanced in this debate in respect of poisonous drugs as such, because it stands to reason that they must be controlled, and as far as habit-forming drugs are concerned we all agree that it may create a great problem if the public is allowed to obtain these drugs without any restrictions. It would create not only moral and social problems but also serious health problems. But when it comes to potentially harmful drugs, then we are dealing with a rather different matter. This is also proved by the fact that it was not originally visualized in the legislation of 1928. The first time that a provision in this regard was inserted in the Act was in 1954, in Act No. 29. which was later amended by Act No. 11 of 1957, to which I shall come back later. Potentially harmful drugs are those drugs which are not normally harmful but which may have undesirable physical effects in unusual circumstances or when taken in excessive quantities. Usually these drugs have no harmful effect but they may have a very harmful effect when taken in unusual health circumstances or in large quantities. If it were possible to obtain these drugs without prescription it would definitely be a great danger to the public, but that would apply only to a small group of persons. Generally speaking people would be able to use these drugs without any harmful effects, but it is this small group of people that we have to consider. When this legislation was introduced in 1954 we provided for this in Section 56bis. We made very sure that people who needed these drugs every day would not be restricted, and this was stated very clearly in Section 4 particularly. Restrictions were placed on the acquisition of potentially harmful drugs as far as the public was concerned, but it was stated perfectly clearly that no prescription would be needed by a medical practitioner, dentist, authorized veterinarian or chemist and druggist, or anybody trading outside the Union as a wholesale chemist and druggist, or a responsible medical officer of a hospital or other institution used exclusively for the admission of sick persons. In other words, no restrictions are placed on persons who should not be subject to restrictions. Similarly in 1957 a fourth group of persons was added, persons or organizations who have been authorized in writing by the Secretary for Health to obtain such medicine for scientific, research or educational purposes. I say again that no restrictions apply to persons who find it necessary to use these drugs; the restrictions apply only to the general public. But these restrictions were imposed together with fairly stringent instructions. Such a drug cannot be given to a person except on prescription from a medical practitioner but that prescription must set out a whole series of things such as the date, the person’s name and address, the name of the medical practitioner, his signature and his qualifications. In practice it has been found that this causes very many problems, and this legislation is designed to make it easier in practice to make these drugs available, but without losing control over the supply of these drugs. We have now had these provisions for seven years, and it would appear that to a certain extent some of these provisions have operated unfairly. One is faced with this problem that quite a number of chemists and druggists have had charges preferred against them. These are not imaginary problems. In the second half of 1960 the prescriptions for potentially harmful drugs, which are kept in custody by chemists and druggists, were examined and the chemists and druggists concerned were charged because of defects in those prescriptions. If there is any defect in such a prescription, the chemist and druggist is held responsible for it, and he can be charged and sentenced for it. We find that admissions of guilt were signed involving fines of more than R1,200 in certain cases, and I understand that there are various cases of this kind which are still pending. Since that is the position, I want to point out—and I do this because I think it is necessary that this House should go into this matter thoroughly and that we should have a reply from the Minister—that a prosecution instituted against a chemist and druggist creates enormous problems for him. I want to quote just one paragraph from the Bill that we have before us, or let me rather read out the original section first. It is stated very clearly in Act 29 of 1954 that a potentially harmful drug can only be supplied on a prescription presented to the chemist and druggist, provided there appears on it the date of issue of the prescription. the name and address of the patient or, in the case of a prescription given by an authorized veterinarian, the name and address of the person to whom the drug is to be supplied; thirdly, the name and quantity of the drug to be supplied, the number of times and the intervals at which the prescription may be dispensed and, except in the case of a preparation intended for internal use, the amount and frequency of each dose to be taken; and, fourthly, the usual signature, address and professional qualifications of the person who issued the prescription. In this clause which we now have before us a certain amount of relief is given by the insertion of the following words—

In other words, where the medical practitioner has omitted to write in the name of the patient the chemist and druggist may do so. Now, as far as the date is concerned, I wonder whether the hon. the Minister will not perhaps give his attention to the question of allowing the date to be inserted also, because it can very easily happen that the medical practitioner omits to fill in the date on such a prescription. The chemist and druggist has the right to fill in the address of the person himself, but if the date does not appear on it he has to send the prescription back to the medical practitioner and this, of course, raises the whole question of principle of the function of the chemist and druggist vis-à-vis the medical practitioner. As the legislation now reads, the chemist and druggist practically has to sit in judgment on the medical practitioner. I do not want to go into the question as to whether that is right or wrong, but it does create practical problems. What happens in practice is this: the patient comes to the chemist and druggist with his prescription; the chemist and druggist now has to tell the patient that the medical practitioner has given him a wrong prescription although the only defect may be the absence of the date; and since we are bringing about this very good change here that the address may now be written in by the chemist and druggist, it may perhaps also be advisable to consider whether he should not also be allowed to enter the date on the prescription as well as the address.

Then I want to refer to one further point, and that is that we are now putting it very clearly in this new proposed section that where a prescription has been issued for a potentially harmful drug, it will only be valid for a single issue of that potentially harmful drug. But it is also laid down in the original legislation that all prescriptions which are presented to the chemist and druggist must be retained for at least three years. Section 20 of the principal Act provides in sub-section 3—

In other words, all these prescriptions—and there are thousands of them must be retained for three years by the chemist and druggist who dispensed the prescription. In practice it works this way that chemists and druggists usually have to submit these prescriptions, particularly to sick funds, etc., in order to receive payment, and the chemist and druggist is obliged therefore to make a copy of every prescription presented to him. The object iin fact is to have as few as possible of these copies because these things may lie about and if they fall into the hands of patients they can get as many potential harmful drugs as they like. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether it is not possible to bring about a change here because the fact of the matter is that it creates an enormous problem for the chemist and druggist when he is required to make a copy of each of these prescriptions and to retain them for three years. There are other stipulations under which the chemist and druggist has to keep a record of prescriptions, and I was wondering whether it would not result in an improvement in the practice if we amended this clause in some way or another in the Committee Stage. I feel that here we are placing a burden on the shoulders of the chemist and druggist and that perhaps we could relieve him of this burden. I am very grateful for the fact that we have this legislation before us, because I think you will agree with me, Sir, that this Bill shows very clearly that the hon. the Minister is making a very serious attempt to remove these minor practical difficulties which confront both the chemist and druggist and the medical profession. This to no easy task. We have had seven years’ experience of this and I think many years will still have to elapse before we will be able to iron out every difficulty. but this is definitely a very great improvement in comparison with the situation as we have known it over the past seven years.

It would appear to me in going through this Medical, Dental and Pharmacy Amendment Bill that the theme underlying this Bill is to provide for the shortages in personnel which have arisen in our country over the years. We find throughout the Bill, a tendency to attempt to ease the present situation and secondly to bring into the profession of pharmacy unqualified people who have not been recognized previously. It seems to me that the introduction of these people is motivated by one reason only, and that is to overcome the difficulties that have arisen in providing sufficient personnel throughout the country and also to combat the accidents of prescription-writing which occur due to rush.

Sir, I have gone through this Bill and I find that there are one or two things which need very careful probing before I can agree to the second reading, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give us a very satisfactory reply on these points. I feel that in introducing this Bill he is acting sincerely, after due consultation, but those of us who have not had the opportunity of consulting with other people find these amendments a little difficult to understand. Firstly, I want to say immediately that the apprentice pharmacist who we knew in the old days, the man who used to come into the profession and start his education with the chemist, complete his apprenticeship with the chemist and augment his practical knowledge by theory taught at university or a technical college, should have full recognition. Then I am a little mystified about new terms which are used in the Bill. We find that we are now going to recognize unqualified assistants and pharmaceutical technicians. I have gone through the Act as it stands, and the definition of “unqualified assistant” is still a little vague to me. Perhaps I do not understand it properly. I would like to know whether “unqualified assistant” means a person who has passed, say, one or two examinations but not his final examination, or does it mean a person who has worked for a pharmacist or a druggist behind the counter for a number of years and has never become qualified? Those are two different things and they are both unqualified assistants. The one has made an attempt to become qualified and the other one has not made an attempt to qualify. They both stand behind the counter; neither of them has a degree, and I do not know which of these two groups is going to be accepted. Is the girl who stands behind the counter and sells cosmetics or helps to wrap medicines going to be classified as an unqualified assistant; is the period of her service in the chemist shop going to be recognized; or does “unqualified assistant” mean a person who is a duly registered apprentice who may or may not have passed his examination over a period of years and who still works for the chemist without any qualification? Not only do I want to know to which of these two groups the term “unqualified assistant” refers but I should also like to know what type of work this unqualified assistant is going to be allowed to do. It is terribly important …

Surely not prescriptions.

Exactly. It is terribly important because if this unqualified assistant is going to be allowed the right to dispense, then obviously it becomes unnecessary for him to qualify, and the owner of the chemist shop will then naturally be able to get the services of an unqualified assistant to help him to do the dispensing at a much lower rate of pay than he would have to pay to a qualified assistant. I would like to know whether or not these unqualified assistants, when they are recognized, are going to be entitled to do certain types of work and whether the Minister in consultation with the Pharmacy Board is going to prescribe by regulation what an unqualified assistant may do and what he may not do, and how he is going to indicate to the lay person who is an unqualified assistant and who is not an unqualified assistant.

Then we come to the pharmaceutical technician and here we have a term being used which again is not defined. The Minister has given us no definition of a “pharmaceutical technician ”, nor has he set out, either in a White Paper or any second reading speech, what type of work a pharmaceutical technician is going to do. If he is going to work in a factory and pull the lever of a machine that dispenses pills, then I do not see any reason for registering that type of person, but if he is going to measure out very carefully, dangerous drugs, then it may be necessary to have these people registered and placed under some form of control. But as the Bill reads we are going to accept a series of terms which are quite meaningless. There is no definition of those terms in this Bill or in the Act, and I would like the Minister to tell us this afternoon when he replies what he means by an “unqualified assistant” and by a “pharmaceutical technician” and what work these people are going to be allowed to do in the pharmaceutical profession.

To come to paragraph (2), here we are going to deal with people who come to us from overseas. They will either come here by invitation or because of desire on their own part to settle in this country. I understand that they will have to be assured of work before they come here. On the face of it, it would seem that the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. A. Radford) is quite right when he says that these people will be imported primarily by industrialists for their own technical work. But the Bill also says that they may be brought in for educational and scientific research and they will be allowed to work in these institutions. Sir, if a man is entitled to teach pharmacy, if he knows how to demonstrate all the intricacies of pharmacy, if he knows how to lecture in a university, why should he not be able to dispense in his own shop? If he is unqualified to do these things in a shop, how can he be said to be qualified to do it in a university or a technical college? I do not follow the logic of this at all. I do not know why a man should be allowed to go to, say, Stellenbosch University and teach students how to be good pharmacists and yet not be allowed to be a pharmacist himself if he so wishes. But these people are being brought into the country and I say that they must be given an opportunity to remain in this country to work here. I should hate to see them stay here for five years and then leave us, especially if they are good people. I say that we must make provision for these people to be given the opportunity of attaining the necessary qualifications in this country. The whole thing seems topsy-turvy to me if we are going to ask these people to attain qualifications which they in turn are teaching students to attain. [Interjection.] Sir, I am not concerned whether they are teaching one subject or a complete course. If people are specialists in one particular course in pharmacy, then surely they have already taken the course in pharmacy. On the other hand I do not expect a man who has a B.Sc. and who knows organic chemistry only to be recognized as a pharmacist, but I say that if he has been a pharmacist overseas and has come here and is teaching a subject in pharmacy at one of our universities, he should be given the opportunity to attain those standards which we require for registration in this country. Sir, we have a terrible shortage of personnel throughout the pharmacy world in South Africa. We have not got enough personnel in the towns; we have not got enough personnel in the universities; we have not got enough personnel in the technical colleges, and outside of the towns pharmacists are almost non-existent. During the last Budget debate I pointed out that we did not have a single pharmacist in some of the reserves, and I am hoping that perhaps by this means we will be able to attract some people to come and work for us in those areas which are not attractive to our own South Africans. I do not know why that should be so, but we do find that there is a lack of attraction in the reserves for qualified people. I know the difficulties that have arisen in the past. Chemists have told me that they cannot make a living in the reserves because of the practice of the doctors there to dispense their own medicine. That happens in many cases. But I feel that if we did have the opportunity of establishing proper clinics—not the type of clinic that I read about to-day; 300 clinics in reserves which are manned by medical aids, with an occasional district surgeon visiting them; I do not mean that sort of thing; I mean proper medical clinics in the reserves—those clinics will have to be built in such a way that they have proper dispensaries attached to them, and it is there that these people will have an opportunity of practising the dispensing part of pharmacy.

I want to say a word or two about the difficulties that have arisen in the prescribing of medicine by doctors and the difficulties that chemists have with prescriptions that they receive from medical practitioners. In terms of this Bill it is not going to be as necessary in the future as it was in the past to take certain precautions. These precautions have been provided for for two purposes, firstly, to protect a chemist who dispenses the prescription and secondly to protect the patient. The difficulty of a date on the prescription can easily be overcome. I think it should be obligatory for every prescription to be date-stamped by the chemist on the date of dispensing. If the date of dispensing is stamped on that prescription by the chemist, then it is not always necessary for the doctor to have to receive the prescription back for the purpose of putting a date on it. But I think the name and address of the doctor must be indicated on the prescription. If it is too much trouble to write out a long address on the prescription, then I think the telephone number of the doctor should always be put on the prescription. These are difficulties which I think can easily be overcome, but I do feel that they need sorting out.

Now I want to say a word about the dispensing by doctors of samples which are given to them by companies. One of the things in my opinion that causes the price of medicines to soar is the almost unnatural dispensing of samples to doctors. Every day we have literally tens of representatives of chemical companies visiting doctors who give the doctors extravagant hand-outs of drugs. Some of these drugs, such as antibiotics and cortisone, are very expensive. It has been said that some of the doctors sell these samples to the patients. I have never seen it happen but I have heard about it. I do know, however, what does happen, and that is that very often the doctor hands the package unmarked to a patient and tells him to use it. The directions on these packages are not always clear—and here I refer to the amendment which deals with labelling. I have seen packages marked, say, “250 milligrams three times a day”. The drug is put up in a capsule containing 250 milligrams. The patient does not know that a capsule contains 200 milligrams, and I have known a patient to go back to the doctor and say, “doctor, you told me to take 250 milligrams three times a day ”, thinking that each capsule is only 1 milligram, “but there are only six in the bottle; what do I do? Do I just take the six that you have given me?”

Perhaps he has already taken them.

I can tell you that because of that accidents have already taken place. It happens time and again that a doctor will hand a patient a bottle of unmarked drugs, and I think that if the hand-out has to come from the doctor, then that sample should be properly marked and properly labelled. Some of the companies are putting on a label at the moment, a label which can be attached to the bottle, but this rarely happens. I want to ask the Minister to be particularly careful to see that samples are properly marked when they are handed out for dispensing and handed out to the patient.

Lastly I want to say a word about repeat prescriptions. I feel that here we should be careful when it comes to habit-forming drugs. I think the Minister should lay down that no habit-forming drugs shall be repeated more than once on a prescription and that a fresh prescription should be handed to the patient by the doctor if it becomes necessary.

On a point of order, is the hon. member referring to potentially harmful drugs or to habit-forming drugs?

That is not a point of order.

I said that I was dealing with habit-forming drugs. I have known drug addicts to come to a doctor, get a prescription, go to a chemist, have the medicine dispensed, go to another doctor on the same day, get another prescription, go to another chemist and get the medicine dispensed. These people make a full round of chemists in the district to get a series of prescriptions dispensed from different doctors, and then they return a few days later and do the same thing all over again. Once that has happened and they think they are under suspicion they start having prescriptions dispensed in different districts. These people pay anything for a prescription; they go to all sorts of extremes to get these prescriptions dispensed. I feel that no doctor should give a prescription and order it to be repeated more than once. If it should come back again, then the doctor will immediately know that there is something suspicious and he could then investigate the matter on his own.

I do not want to keep the House any longer but I want to say to the Minister that we put forward these criticisms in a spirit of cooperation. I feel that this Bill, although it appears to be a simple one, is riddled with practical difficulties, and I hope that he will be able to deal with the suggestions we have made to him this afternoon and give us an adequate reply.

I think we are making this Bill unnecessarily complicated. The hon. member who has just sat down, has referred to people who themselves are not qualified chemists and druggists training others as chemists and druggists in the one or other direction. That happens daily. He says he thinks it improbable that people will work in educational institutions who are not qualified chemists and druggists and he asks how they can be allowed to practise at a later stage. He says it is peculiar that they are able to train people as chemists and druggists and that they only have the opportunity after that to practise. It sounds illogical to him that people who themselves are not chemists and druggists are used to train chemists and druggists. I want to tell him that I think he is making it unnecessarily complicated, because that happens in all professions. It even happens in his own profession. There are people who train doctors who themselves are not doctors and who would not be allowed to practise as doctors because they are not qualified. It happens in the medical profession and it happens in every profession. It happens in the engineering profession, for example. It is not necessarily only engineers who train other engineers. It happens in the chemical profession and it happens daily in the pharmacy profession. In order to qualify chemists and druggists have to take many courses at a university which are not pharmacy courses. I am thinking of chemistry, for example. The person who lectures on chemistry at a university to people who are being trained as chemists and druggists, is not necessarily a chemist and druggist, because usually a chemist and druggist does not know sufficient chemistry to lecture on it. With the result that you often find a person giving lectures to students on chemistry at a university, although he himself cannot practise as a chemist and druggist, because he is not a trained chemist and druggist. Neither should he be given that opportunity nor would he care to have the opportunity to qualify as a chemist and druggist at a later stage because he has a profession of his own. You should not think, therefore, that because somebody trains chemists and druggists, that should entitle him to qualify as a chemist and druggist. That is the one point. The other point I want to touch upon is that raised by the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford), which also appeared to me to have been somewhat unnecessarily complicated. His argument is that persons who have come to this country and who have done certain work here, research work or work at institutions, should not of necessity be allowed to register as chemists and druggists. He mentioned certain types of persons, assistants etc. and he posed the question whether we would care to have them as chemists and druggists or not. One of his objections against the Bill is that those people are perhaps not capable and ought never to become members of the profession. In this connection I also want to say that the matter is not as complicated as all that. It has already happened in the medical profession that certain people who are not as well qualified as our South African medical practitioners have been allowed, on the recommendation of the Medical Board, to register in South Africa as medical practitioners. The hon. member for Durban (North) shakes his head, but I can even give him the names of certain people, if he wants to have them. It rests with the Medical Board and it is the profession, therefore, that supervises that and the profession will ensure that nobody is registered who is not sufficiently qualified to practise as a medical practitioner or a doctor in our country. As far as these people are concerned who are now supposedly applying after having served for years in the pharmaceutical industry and who may perhaps have had the opportunity of doing pharmacy work for years, possibly in hospitals, as is often the case, I feel that when those people apply for registration on the strength of the knowledge that they have acquired, they should be given the opportunity to do so. It is not the State President who has to decide whether such a person may become a chemist and druggist and may be registered as such. His name, together with his qualifications, his experience and all the details in respect of what he has done, are first of all submitted to the Pharmacy Board and the members of the Pharmacy Board are professional people capable of deciding whether such a person should be allowed to register. In that case, too, it seems to me that the profession is so clearly and adequately protected. as in the case of the medical profession, that there is no danger of anything going wrong. In that event we have this advantage in present-day circumstances that people enter the country who can assist us in developing our pharmacy industry in this country, whilst the profession remains protected. Those people will not necessarily ever become chemists and druggists, or if they do, we can be sure that they would be capable because the Pharmacy Board would seed them carefully. If no doubt exists as to their qualifications, the Board may say that they are sufficiently qualified to become registered as chemists and druggists.

The final point I want to make is in respect of the remarks of the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark (Dr. de Wet). There too, in terms of the provisions of the Act, the medical practitioner has to do certain things when he issues a prescription. We are now told that if they do not comply with those requirements, the chemist and druggist should be allowed to fill in certain things. Nobody finds fault with the few examples which he gave, but he advanced a peculiar argument, namely that if the chemist and druggist dispensed a prescription which was incomplete, the chemist and druggist was responsible for it and the chemist and druggist was the person who would have to pay if damages were claimed. If you want to change the law, Sir, change it in such a way that the chemist and druggist will be able to recover the money from the doctor, because he is the person who originally made the mistake. But if the information that has to appear on the prescription is essential in terms of the requirements of the Medical Council, I do not think the position of the doctor should be made easy in that he may omit to comply with those requirements and that the chemist and druggist should then correct it.

The chemist and druggist is always responsible for the prescription that he dispenses.

The hon. member was not here when the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark spoke. His argument was that if the chemist and druggist were allowed to make the correction, it seemed as though the chemist and druggist was more important than the doctor. I agree with that argument. In that case it seems as though the chemist and druggist is controlling what the doctor has done. The hon. member said that he was not anxious to have that and that was why in the case that he mentioned the chemist and druggist also had to pay the damages claimed, I think £600. The point I want to make is this: That if he is not satisfied with that, we should ensure that the doctor complies with the requirements of the law, and if he fails to do so, the chemist and druggist should either not dispense it or he should be allowed to dispense it and then recover the costs from the medical practitioner who had failed to comply with the requirements.

I did not say that.

First of all, I should like to express my appreciation to the hon. the Minister in that he has made provision for this Bill to come before Parliament at such an early stage during this Session. In his speech at the second reading, the hon. the Minister referred to the fact that the Bill had been brought forward as a result of certain recommendations which had been placed before him by the South African Pharmacy Board. I am sorry in one respect, namely that certain recommendations which have been on the stocks, as it were, for many years and which the pharmaceutical profession was of the opinion required amendment, do not appear under this particular heading. But the Minister has given his reasons which in my humble opinion are valid reasons, and I will not deal with that aspect of the amendments.

But I feel in the first place that I should make it quite clear that in so far as Section 65bis is concerned, a section which deals with potentially harmful drugs, a certain background to the history of this particular section would be of value to hon. members. I would like to tell hon. members that as far back as 1947, the Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa, after due consideration, came to the conclusion that there was a certain class of drugs which was not catered for by the existing Schedule but which left uncontrolled, would result in a threat to the public, and purely in the interest of the public a resolution was passed, requesting the Pharmacy Board and those bodies intimately concerned with the administration of the Medical, Dental and Pharmacy Act, to institute some form of control over these particular preparations which could be bought, possibly on signature, and some of which could be bought without any restriction at all. I believe that Act 29 of 1954, to which an hon. member has already referred this afternoon, was the direct outcome of the representation initiated as far back as 1947. I believe still that the experience of the administration of that Act during the intervening years has shown that there are many aspects which no longer are necessary in the interest of the public and which could well be amended in such a way as in no manner to interfere with the welfare of the public but which would relieve many irksome restrictions which exist in so far as the chemists and druggists themselves are concerned.

Before I proceed to deal with that section, I would like to refer briefly to other aspects of the Bill, particularly in regard to Clause 2. There have been discussions on the possible dangers which might eventuate if Clause 2 became a part of the Act. I believe that the South African Pharmacy Board is extremely jealous of the qualifications and of the standard of education which it demands before a chemist and druggist can be registered and can practise in South Africa. That standard has been maintained for many years, but this particular amendment, I am sure, has been brought forward by the hon. the Minister on the representation of the Pharmacy Board, and I would like to stress one particular point. There is a very eminent man who fulfils a very important educational post in the Potchefstroom University. He holds the degree of a chemist and druggist which is not registerable in South Africa because there is no reciprocity between South Africa and the country from which he comes. That man in his very important capacity and the very important function he fulfils in the education and training of our chemists and druggists, is extremely highly qualified. As I see it, however, he is unable to perform the acts of a chemist and druggist and in such a way teach students the acts of a chemist and druggist and the art of pharmacy, because, by virtue of the fact that he is not registerable in this country, he cannot perform those acts according to law. I believe that the shortage of adequately trained lecturers in pharmacy is so acute that every encouragement should be given to allow people who are suitably qualified to perform such acts, and I want to say that I believe that Clauses 1, 2 and 3 and a provision of Clause 4 are a perfect and full guarantee that the individuals whom we have in mind will in no way be registered unless they can comply with the most stringent conditions.

At 4.45 p.m. the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with the resolution adopted by the House to-day.

Mr. Speaker, as announced by the State President in his Opening Speech to both Houses of Parliament on 19 January 1962 discussions are being held regarding the future relationships between the Republic of South Africa and the United Kingdom, and also between the Republic and the High Commission Territories.

These discussions, which are still being continued, cover the whole range of the relationship between the two countries and between the Republic and the High Commission Territories. They therefore cover a very wide field. The discussions have not yet been finalized, and full information about certain aspects cannot yet be made available.

A Bill has already been presented in the British House of Commons relating to those matters which require legislation by the United Kingdom. The Second Reading debate on the British bill commences this afternoon when the Minister concerned will furnish information regarding certain matters which have been under discussion. This statement is intended to make information available to the House about the progress of the negotiations.

As the Republic is no longer a member of the Commonwealth, citizens of the Republic will in future be regarded as aliens in the United Kingdom, as well as in the High Commission Territories. Citizens of the United Kingdom and the High Commission Territories will henceforth be aliens in the Republic. (This is the legal position resulting from South Africa’s withdrawal from the Commonwealth, and it must be accepted as such).

Arrangements or relationships which exist only between Commonwealth countries will no longer continue. Nor was it the intention of the Government that such relations should be retained.

It is nonetheless the desire of both Governments to maintain the traditional bonds of friendship which have existed between the United Kingdom and the Republic, although they will now be bonds of friendship between foreign states and territories. This spirit of mutual goodwill prevailed throughout the discussions. It is the desire, as far as possible, to promote still further, good relations with the United Kingdom in regard to all matters of common concern.

It is not my intention to go into detail this afternoon, but I can state that agreement has been reached on a considerable number of subjects which are of interest to both parties. I mention the following examples:

Maintenance Orders

The present arrangements for the reciprocal enforcement of existing and future maintenance orders will be retained.

In terms of the United Kingdom “Naval Forces (Enforcement of Maintenance Liabilities) Act, 1947” the British Admiralty is empowered to enforce maintenance liabilities by means of deductions from the pay of British seamen in the Republic. The South African Government have agreed to the continuance of this arrangement.

Deceased Estates

The present arrangements for the reciprocal recognition of letters of administration in respect of deceased estates will continue.

Double Taxation

The Hon. the Minister of Finance informed the House on the 23rd January that a draft Agreement for the Avoidance of Double Taxation had been initialled, on 15 January by officials of the Governments of the Republic and of the United Kingdom.

Medical and Dental Qualifications and Registration of Veterinary Surgeons

The existing arrangements whereby medical and dental practitioners with South African qualifications can register in the United Kingdom, on a basis of reciprocity, will be continued. The only change will be that such practitioners will henceforth be registered on the “Foreign” list in the United Kingdom instead of on the “ Commonwealth ” list, as has been the case heretofore. The present arrangements whereby veterinary surgeons with South African qualifications can register in the United Kingdom on a basis of reciprocity, will be continued. Here also the only change is that such veterinary surgeons will henceforth be registered on the “Foreign” list in the United Kingdom and not on the “Colonial” list as has been the case up to the present.

Matrimonial Matters

There will be mutual recognition in our respective countries of orders issued in respect of certain matrimonial matters.

Pensions

The existing arrangements whereby medical services are rendered to disabled ex-Servicemen, on a basis of reciprocity, will continue.

The South African Government will, as in the past, act without charge, as agents for the British Ministries concerned, for payment in the Republic of British military, social and other pensions.

As regards the granting of South African Old Age Pensions, United Kingdom citizens will henceforth have to comply with a residential requirement of 25 out of the 30 years immediately preceding the date of application, as is the case with other foreigners. United Kingdom citizens already receiving South African old age pensions, or to whom such pensions have been granted before the termination of the “standstill”, are not affected by the increased residential qualification.

The Blind Persons Act, 1936, and the Disability Grants Act, 1946, as amended, lay down the lower residential qualification, for all foreigners in the Republic, of 10 out of the last 15 years.

Defence

As regards defence, a great measure of cooperation existed in the past between the Republic and the United Kingdom. This cooperation did not stem from the common Commonwealth connection, but from mutual defence interests. Now that we have left the Commonwealth, these needs have in no way diminished and it was felt that the co-operation of the past should continue, subject, of course, to such amendments and modifications as the changed constitutional position might call for. With this object in mind, discussions took place in London last year between our Minister of Defence and the United Kingdom Minister of Defence. Since then, related matters have also been discussed at other levels. All that I can say at this stage, is that there will be no departure of any consequence from the existing pattern of our defence relations with the United Kingdom.

Trade and Customs Relations

South Africa’s special relations with the United Kingdom and certain British dependent territories in regard to trade are based on the Ottawa Agreement of 1932, the validity of which is not affected by South Africa’s withdrawal from the Commonwealth. This is a matter which also is not affected by the present negotiations, and the parties concerned will remain bound by the contractual obligations of the Agreement, which can only be terminated in accordance with the provisions contained in the Agreement.

As part of this traditional pattern of trade, the United Kingdom Government have agreed to continue the arrangement relating to the Multiple Content requirement for Commonwealth preference in respect of:

1. (i) South African goods exported to a Commonwealth country other than the United Kingdom for final processing and subsequent export to the United Kingdom; and
2. (ii) goods imported from a Commonwealth country into South Africa for final processing and subsequent export to the United Kingdom.

The present arrangements in relation to certain matters concerning the maintenance of branch registers of companies which are registered in the other country, will be continued.

There are certain arrangements which existed in the past, and which will now lapse as a result of the changed position, as for example:

Civil Aviation

In terms of British legislation, it will in future no longer be possible for South African citizens (unless they are also United Kingdom citizens) and bodies incorporated in South Africa to own a legal or beneficial interest in aircraft registered in the United Kingdom or in any of its colonies.

As regards sea-mail and telecommunication tariffs, the position will be as follows:

As a member of the Commonwealth, South Africa was entitled to Commonwealth preferential sea-mail and telecommunication tariffs. As a result of the changed constitutional position, it has become necessary for both countries to apply the higher international rates on sea-mail and telecommunication traffic between them. The two Postal Administrations are already engaged in negotiations to arrange the details administratively.

Extradition

A new extradition treaty between the Republic and the United Kingdom will have to be concluded. Similar treaties will also have to be concluded between the Republic and each of the High Commission territories. In the case of these territories, new machinery will have to be created to replace the arrangements which existed under the British “Fugitive Offenders Act, 1881”. These matters are at present receiving attention.

High Commission Territories

As to the future relations between the Republic and the High Commission Territories, it has been agreed in principle that special customs relations between the three territories and the Republic will be maintained in the form of new agreements between the Republic and each of the territories concerned. This is a matter which is receiving attention. Until such time as the new agreements are concluded, the existing arrangements will remain in force. In the new arrangements, provision will have to be made, inter alia, for a suitable formula which will guard against any possible action, arising from the marketing of a product of one of the parties, which will be unduly detrimental to the interests of the other party. Furthermore, a periodic review of the marketing arrangements for agricultural produce by the Republic and the High Commission territories is envisaged. The South African Government feels that the present proportion of percentages of the Customs and Excise revenue, payable to each of the three High Commission territories, should be reviewed and incorporated in the proposed separate agreements, that is to say, it is not envisaged that the aggregate of the proportions of Customs and Excise revenue be adjusted, but merely the proportion of revenue, payable to each of the individual territories.

As regards the admission to and employment in the Republic, of inhabitants of the three High Commission territories, the Government will still be prepared to make available, opportunities for employment to the inhabitants of the three territories, subject, however, to the employment needs of the Republic’s own citizens.

In this connection I should, however, point out that, as hon. members are aware, a Commission has been appointed by the House to inquire into the whole question of foreign Bantu in the Republic. At this stage I can say no more than that future employment opportunities for inhabitants of the three territories will have to be determined in the light of the labour requirements of the Republic’s own citizens. Provision will therefore have to be made for the application of some form of influx control and/or employment control.

Citizenship

A matter which is still receiving the attention of the South African authorities concerned, is citizenship. As I have already pointed out, citizens of the United Kongdom and the High Commission territories will henceforth be aliens in the Republic. However, consideration is being given to the manner in which they will be treated and I would rather not expand on this matter at this stage. Amending legislation will be necessary, and when it is introduced, full particulars will of course be given to the House by the Minister concerned.

Finally I would like to repeat that the foregoing should not be regarded as an exhaustive list of all the questions which were discussed and on which agreement was reached. There are certain matters on which negotiations are continuing and others which require special arrangements, such as, for instance, the provision of consular services abroad. In this connection I might add that the arrangements which obtained while South Africa was a member of the Commonwealth and according to which the United Kingdom representatives in many countries acted on our behalf, will henceforth have to be replaced in certain countries by the appointment of our own consular representatives.

In some of the cases mentioned, amending legislation will be necessary during the present session of Parliament. Full details will be given when legislation is introduced.

The information furnished by me to-day serves more specifically to give hon. members an indication of the general trend of the discussions and, in broad outline, what has so far been accomplished.

Mr. Speaker, I was dealing with Clause 2 of the Bill in relation to the registration of certain types of chemists and druggists purely on the ground of their educational qualifications. I have referred to the three clauses which would appear to provide ample protection to ensure that chemists and druggists registered under this particular class would in fact only be able to exercise the functions for which they were registered.

Carrying on to Clause 3 of the Bill there has been some discussion on the terms “unqualified assistant” and “pharmaceutical technician”. I believe that the “unqualified assistant” is merely taking the place of the definition which appears in the Act which says that “an ‘unregistered assistant’ for the purposes of Sections 37, 50 and 55 means a person who has completed any one of the periods of apprenticeship or service with a chemist or druggist as prescribed in Section 27”. So that instead of reading “unregistered assistant” it now reads “unqualified assistant” and there will therefore be certain consequential amendments in other clauses of the Bill. But I feel that this change is purely a change in terminology and has no other implications and that in so far as the description of an “unqualified assistant” is concerned, the definition that is laid down in the Bill will always be the accepted definition. In so far as “pharmaceutical technicians” is concerned, I would like to refer, in order to clarify this position, to wording which has been forwarded from the Registrar of the Pharmacy Board. I want to read this in order to give hon. members an idea of what the Pharmacy Board had in mind when they requested the hon. the Minister to make this necessary amendment. It is the opinion of the Board as expressed by the Registrar in a telegram, that—

So I feel, Mr. Speaker, that while the Bill is merely seeking provision to establish a register for this particular type of person, that if and when the time comes for this register to be established, the definition of “pharmaceutical technician” will be framed along these lines and should under no circumstances cause anxiety that a new form of unqualified dispenser will operate. Because it is made quite clear here that it is not the intention that this particular type of individual would come in contact with the public neither will he be able to dispense medicines, because that right is reserved for chemists and druggists, for apprentices registered under the Act and for those who will now be “unqualified assistants To my mind there is no doubt about that, Sir.

Before returning to Section 65bis, I wish to refer briefly to Clause 8. This particular clause, I know, chemists and druggists will find very welcome indeed. It merely provides that methylated spirits should be packed in clear-glass bottles. The necessity for that provision is a very practical one because there are no bottles of the size required by law which are distinguishable by touch. They are not made in this country. So we welcome this provision as chemists and druggists who carry the responsibility of selling methylated spirits.

Now I should like to revert to Section 65bis and to say at the outset that though various changes have been made, with respect, Sir, they do not represent the considered opinion of the conjoint committee of the Medical Council and the Pharmacy Board. These opinions have been forwarded to the Minister and the recommendations therein went a good deal further than is suggested in this amendment. I say with complete earnestness, Mr. Speaker, that the recommendations will, in my opinion, not in any way affect the safety of the public. But if these recommendations which have been forwarded on behalf of the two professions, recommendations on which they have agreed, with the exception of one point with which I shall deal later, were accepted, the safety of the public would still be maintained but many irritating and irksome processes with which chemists and druggists find it necessary to comply, in order to keep on the right side of this particular section of the Act, would be removed. I would like to elaborate briefly on a point of difference which did exist. That point of difference relates to the issuing of repeat prescriptions. I believe that the amendment put forward here in Clause 7 (a) and (b) makes provision for adequate safeguards in respect of the issue of repeat prescriptions of potentially harmful drugs. Here I differentiate between the restrictions in respect of “potentially harmful drugs” and those in respect of “habit-forming drugs” which are dealt with in Section 65 of the Act. I would like to quote some information on the question of “potentially harmful drugs” which I hope will clarify the position in the minds of hon. members, because there is a distinct difference between a “habitforming drug” and a “potentially harmful drug”. I quote from a publication issued by the S.A. Pharmaceutical Society which says—

I feel too, that I should emphasize that the distribution of potentially harmful drugs is not the sole prerogative of the chemists and druggists. There are other professional people and other individuals who are part of this system of distribution. I would refer, in the first instance, to the medical profession. One of the hon. members has already made reference to that form of distribution. But Section 65bis of the Act makes it quite clear that “general practitioners, particularly those who do their own dispensing have certain responsibilities under this Act, almost to the same extent as the chemist and druggist has”. But, Sir, as far as distribution is concerned, there is another big weakness which seems to me to make the position of the chemist even more anomalous, and that is in regard to certain potentially harmful drugs which are exempted from the provisions of the Schedule by virtue of the fact that they fall under the control of the Farm Feeds, Seeds and Fertilizers Act. I would like to read, Sir, a brief excerpt from a memorandum published by the S.A. Pharmacy Board on the subject of poisons and dealing particularly with this aspect. The memorandum says—

That, Sir, is a big gap in the control of these potentially harmful drugs.

Then, Sir, my mind goes back to what seems to me to be a very quaint anomaly. Because in this House last year there was an amendment to certain sections of the Medical, Dental and Pharmacy Act. By virtue of one amendment the power was given to create regulations which had the effect of enabling lay people not only “to acquire, to use but also to administer habit-forming drugs …” I am referring to the power that was given for regulations to be promulgated which would allow captains of aircraft, midwives, of all races, and masters of ships to have in their possession habit-forming drugs, to acquire them and to administer them. To me, Sir, it seems paradoxical that a chemist and druggist, with a minimum of five years’ training, finds himself in a position where he is bogged down by irksome and irritating restrictions under Section 65bis, irritations which this amendment does not do away with altogether. The question that has been raised in regard to technicalities is a very valid one. I have here a copy of a summons which was issued to a chemist and druggist. There are 312 charges. Most of the charges relate to the address of the patient not having been described in full and the qualifications, signature and address of the prescriber not being reflected. So here we have a professional man, duly trained and conscious of his professional integrity, being subjected to the indignity of having to combat legal action. I must in fairness say that when the Attorney-General learnt about the facts of this case and when he realized that the offences were purely of a technical nature, he offered to withhold prosecution until such time as the law in this particular respect could be amended. These amendments in the Bill will to a certain extent relieve that responsibility but the opening to which the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark (Dr. de Wet) referred, still remains, and that is the question of the date. There is no provision for the date to be inserted and it seems to me that if the amendment is accepted as it stands, the chemist will still be in the invidious position of being liable to prosecution on a technicality. There are other aspects of the amendment which I think actually entrench certain requirements and they do so to protect the public. These amendments now make it possible that where a doctor, due to various reasons such as pressure of professional work etc. has not the time to insert the address on the prescription, the chemist may fulfil that function. They also make provision for the chemist and druggist to write into his prescription book the full details of the prescription plus the name and the address of the patient plus the name of the prescriber. Now that has been provided for, I suggest that to a large extent the provisions of Section 65bis (3) could well be done away with. Because I say with complete earnestness that it is this Section which is the one which causes the greatest inconvenience to the chemists and druggists of this country and which, in all humility and respect, I say is not needed now, because the details which the Minister has indicated he requires for the sake of tracing these particular drugs, will be provided in the prescription books of the chemists, books which remain on the chemist’s shelves for time eternal. I should like to read this Section so that those members who are not particularly familiar with this legislation will realize the difficulty under which we labour. Section (3) says—

I appreciate that the Minister has put forward certain consequential amendments to sub-section (iii), amendments which, I submit with respect, in no way affect the principle of the retention of such prescriptions. I should like to give hon. members a brief description of the difficulties which the chemist and druggist encounters in the carrying out of this particular section. The hon. member for Vanderbijlpark did refer to the question of benefit societies and I am aware that in the case of certain benefit societies, the organization is such that a doctor issues a prescription on a special form so that the various requirements are complied with. But the other aspect which is causing increasing annoyance is in the case of benefit societies which do not operate on that basis, those benefit societies which operate on the basis that the member of the society is responsible for the submission of the prescription with the relevant invoice before they receive payment for the prescription. This particular person, who is a member of a benefit society, goes to the general practitioner and receives a prescription on which there is no indication that the person belongs to a benefit society. He hands in the prescription to be dispensed and sometimes it is a prescription containing five items, one of which may be a potentially harmful drug or may contain a small percentage of a potentially harmful drug. He hands in this prescription and when it has been dispensed he asks if he may have a cash sale slip and the prescription. Now, Sir, in terms of this Act, because that prescription contains one item only which falls within the provisions of sub-section (3), the chemist is bound to keep that prescription for three years. The benefit society in turn demands the prescription before it pays. There is an alternative I admit and that is for the chemist and druggist to supply a copy of the prescription. But, Mr. Speaker, if you bear in mind that technically and legally the only people who can make a copy of that prescription are the chemist and druggist himself—his time is valuable, Sir—the chemist’s apprentice or an unqualified assistant in terms of this new amendment, under the supervision of the chemist and druggist, you will realize that in respect of one prescription containing four or five different items, the chemist has to sit down and make a copy. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that the incidence of these particular prescriptions and the number of times that customers ask for copies in order that they may receive payment for the medicine, are increasing. It is becoming a considerable source of embarrassment to the chemists and druggists in South Africa to have to comply with this particular provision. I ask most earnestly. Sir, that the hon. the Minister will consider some form of alleviation. I submit that there could be amendments which would enable the prescription to be handed to the benefit society, if necessary, or to be marked “cancelled” in such a way that it is no longer valid. And all the particulars which the hon. the Minister requires and which he made quite clear he wanted, will be available in the prescription book of the chemist and druggist in his pharmacy. I submit that the public would be protected, but the chemist and druggist would at least be relieved of a very irksome procedure.

I should like to take this aspect a little further in dealing with another sub-section under Section 65bis, namely sub-section (5). Sub-section (5) reads—

Let me give you the practical implications of such a regulation Sir. Take a city like Durban for example. I believe there are approximately 300 medical practitioners in Durban and I think there is not a single chemist and druggist who can claim that he knows all the medical practitioners in Durban. But as sub-section (5) stands at the moment it is required that the verbal instructions given by the medical practitioner must be given “direct” to the chemist and druggist, not to his apprentice who is qualified under the law to perform such work, and that the chemist and druggist or the supplier must be personally known to the prescriber. Sir, I submit that it is quite impracticable for such a provision to be carried out and again I appeal to the hon. the Minister to see if there is some way in which this position could be eased. Sir, I realize that this particular aspect, to my knowledge, has not received the attention of the Medical Council, but I would like to record that in so far as the S.A. Pharmacy Board is concerned, after due consideration of this particular sub-section, it is felt that the position could well be met by the deletion of the word “direct” and by the deletion of the word “personally” from this sub-section.

I have tried to deal with the practical difficulties of this particular amendment in so far as it affects chemists and druggists. I have tried to show hon. members that it is not the intention of organized pharmacy in any way to suggest any release that may in the end be harmful to the welfare of the public. I sincerely appeal to the hon. the Minister to see if he can find it in his heart to grant us some exemption from provisions which we find no longer tolerable.

I think the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Wood) has given us a very clear exposition of their problems. I am tempted to say that in this case we cannot reproach him and say that we could not see the trees for the wood. The fact of the matter is that contrary to what some hon. members have said, he has to a great extent defended this Bill and given his blessing to Clauses 2, 3, 8 etc. It is refreshing to hear anybody trying to treat some of these matters objectively. As a matter of fact, he has expatiated on it to such an extent that he has nearly convinced me to agree with him that the three years during which the chemist must keep a prescription is indeed a very irritating provision and a long period.

The hon. member also strongly contradicted the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) who alleged that Clause 2 was a dangerous clause. The hon. member may not have meant to do so, but he gave me the impression that he thought that chemists were simply an insignificant group of people, a group which did not really perform such an important service, inasmuch as he alleged that the medical profession had accepted these measures; but, he says, there were definite reasons why the medical profession did that. But this other group of people—I repeat that he may not have meant it in that way, but he created the impression—is, in his opinion, not so important; in their case there are not such good reasons for it. No, Mr. Speaker, I think it has become clear from the debate that there are equally good reasons in the case of the chemists and druggists why the same measures should be introduced as those introduced in the case of the medical profession. The hon. member for Durban (Central) tells us that it was done in the case of the medical profession only after particularly strong precautionary measures had been taken. The hon. member for Vanderbijlpark (Dr. de Wet) stated it very clearly that here too very good precautionary measures were being taken, so that it will not be possible to make misuse of Clause 2. The hon. member said that in the case of the medical profession it was necessary because of the shortage in medical lecturers and professors. But that is the very problem in this case and that is why this clause is so necessary, it is necessary to make provision because of the tremendous shortage as explained by the hon. member for Berea.

I want to assure the hon. member for Durban (Central)—not that I have anything to do with it—that only a few of those people will be allowed. The country will not be overrun by this type of person and I also want to tell him that while I appreciate it greatly that he is concerned about it that our own people may be ousted from the profession, while we appreciate it greatly where he says that our own people may be ousted from the lecturing personnel, I want to assure him that this Government will see to it that does not happen.

Where I said a moment ago that I have nearly been convinced to concede certain requests made by the hon. member for Berea and to agree with him, I in turn want to issue a word of warning and say that we should be careful when we deal with these potentially harmful drugs. We should not become too slack in this matter. As a matter of fact, the chemists and druggists themselves have said so. That was why they recommended that those medicines should be placed on a special list. You often hear the argument, Sir, that it is not really necessary to be so strict, that whereas you must be strict in the case of habit-forming drugs and poisonous medicines, it is not necessary to be so very careful in the case of the other. Only a small group of people are affected and not much damage can be done. The principle should be to protect the public. My contention is that it is a weak argument to maintain that only a small number are affected, because when it comes to habit-forming drugs, it is also only a small number, proportionately speaking, who are affected, but in that case we are prepared to limit it very strictly. The same applies here, because the fact remains that the numbers that are affected are not as small as we think. I want to emphasize that the number of persons who are affected by these potentially harmful drugs is not as small as is commonly believed. Where the argument is used that when you are dealing with poisonous medicines and habit-forming drugs, everybody who comes into contact with the person who uses these medicines is placed in a dangerous position, I want to say that the same applies in some cases where you are dealing with potentially harmful medicines. You cannot say that there is little danger because the numbers are small. The fact remains that even these small numbers, which I said a moment ago were not so small, should be protected against themselves. It is necessary to ensure that those persons who are perhaps unaware of the fact that they are allergic to one or other of these medicines, are protected for their own sakes and for the sake of those who are near to them. It is a fact that some of these medicines have an affect on people which, in spite of all our scientific knowledge, cannot be determined to-day, and because we do not know what the future holds in store if people use these medicines regularly, it is impossible for us to become lax. I do not think a proper survey has ever been made, but I am curious to know how many motor car accidents are the direct result of the use of some of these medicines. Many of us are in the habit when we go on a long journey, to take some of these things to keep fit knowing how they affect some people and making it impossible for them to handle a car safely at a high speed.

That is why I want to plead that we should be careful that we do not always make concessions and in doing so make it easier for the public to lay their hands on these potentially harmful drugs. I want to emphasize that although this is a big problem as far as the chemist and druggist is concerned, we must, until such time as we know definitely what the affects of these medicines are, be careful as far as this matter is concerned.

I am inclined to take the view taken a little earlier by the hon. member for Hercules (Dr. A. I. Malan) that we are making a complicated issue out of something which is not so complicated at all. I think that really is the position. If one looks at this Bill one realizes that it is a comparatively simple Bill. It sets out to achieve two objectives. The first is to remove some of the sting from the application of Section 65bis in so far as it applies to the requirements on prescriptions for the supply of this particular class of drugs. It has partially done that, but as the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Wood) has pointed out, it has also left in, some of the simpler things which could quite easily have been removed at the same time. This Bill was obviously prepared in haste. It is obvious that it has not been given the full consideration it should have been given, because if it had I am quite sure it would have made adequate provision for the removal of the provision in regard to the date in Section 65bis (1), which still remains; this Bill has not taken it out, and it has also failed to provide for things such as the registration of apprentices which is a very important matter.

But I want to touch on another aspect of this in regard to the second objective of this Bill, which is to create registers for the registration of certain classes of people who are not at present registered or are not entitled to be registered. I particularly have in mind the technicians who are mentioned in the Bill itself. I think this springs possibly from an address by the then hon. Minister of Health, Mr. Viljoen, when he opened the annual general meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society in Cape Town in April, 1957. He stated that he had been advised that several millions of pounds of foreign capital was waiting to come into this country for investment in new pharmaceutical manufacturing laboratories, but that it was being withheld because of certain restrictions on the activities of such businesses imposed by the Medical, Dental and Pharmacy Act. He stated that he wished to see those obstacles removed in order that the country could benefit by the introduction of that foreign capital and the resultant expansion of our industries. I think that this particular aspect in the Bill which applies to technicians springs from that source. Personally, I think it is a good thing, but I have doubts as to whether this Bill will really achieve what it is setting out to do along those lines. This problem of the establishment of the bigger pharmaceutical industries in South Africa, is such an important one to us because it ties up, as I have indicated to this Minister before, particularly with the expansion of Sasol. Sasol is the ideal place for the establishment of such satellite industries on a very big scale, but there are many aspects besides the aspect of registering a particular type of technician. I think the Minister appointed a commission not long ago to go into the high cost of medicine, amongst other things. This also ties up with this particular aspect, because if the Minister wants to reduce the high cost, in this country, of certain of these very specialized products, I think he must start at the bottom and investigate the thing as a whole, and not start with one or two little aspects which create an odd technician here and there and make him available to these concerns. The problem is far bigger than that and it goes far deeper. I think the Minister in this Bill has actually just scratched the surface. He has not dealt at all with the real problem he is trying to solve. I accept that the facilities for training chemists and druggists in South Africa do not cover all the aspects which are required by these companies producing these specialized products. I accept that in time we will produce that type of chemist and druggist, but we have to face the fact that at the moment we do not. But our law requires that such a man, possibly not properly trained—he may have gone overseas and had such training; there are those exceptions to the rule—that such a man shall supervise all of that work. In many cases I accept that he is probably supervising work which he does not understand very well. This Bill does not make provision for that. It still says there must be supervision; there must be a technician but he must still act under the supervision of a chemist and druggist. I do not want to comment any further on that and give my opinions, but I do not think it solves the problem that the Minister is really trying to solve. I do not think it solves the problem which Mr. Viljoen had in mind when he made this statement in Cape Town. So I submit to the Minister that this is something which needs very much deeper investigation before it is introduced into a Bill of this nature. When I looked at this Bill I wondered why the Minister had been in such a hurry to introduce it, because apart from relieving the situation in so far as the chemists and druggists are concerned in relation to Section 65bis, I can see no other matter of extreme urgency in it. I believe that if the Minister would get down to solving all the requirements of these companies he is trying to help by means of this measure, he will achieve far more.

There are other problems, too. The high cost, to a large extent, is not because they have to pay the salary of a chemist and druggist as well as the technician. That is a minor item in the production cost. The Minister must investigate the question of research and the moneys spent on it not being allowed as a rebate for taxation purposes. If you couple that up with an inquiry into what technical staff is required in the production of these special drugs and all the other aspects that go with it, I think the time would be ripe to decide what type of persons should be registered as chemists and druggists, other than chemists and druggists, to meet and deal with the position that the Minister is trying to deal with.

I do not want to go any further into that. However, before I sit down I want to ask the hon. the Minister to consider the points put forward by the hon. member for Durban (Berea) as to the further removal of the necessity for the date, and in addition to that, to provide also for the registration of apprentices which I think is a very important aspect which has been omitted from the provisions of this Bill.

I should like to thank hon. members on both sides of the House for the objective way in which they discussed this Bill and the whole matter we are now considering. I was almost moved by the sympathetic way in which the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Wood) put his case and pleaded the cause of the pharmacists. Most of the questions and arguments which were mentioned earlier in the discussions were subsequently answered by other hon. members, so I do not think the House would like me to cover the whole ground again. I shall only touch upon a few points where I may be helpful.

Firstly, I should like to remind the hon. member who has just sat down that the object of this Bill is not really to reduce the high cost of medicine, nor is it to assist in the development of our industries. The real object is to alleviate the position of pharmacists in certain circumstances. I can quite appreciate the difficulty mentioned by the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher), in connection with the definition of pharmaceutical technicians and the other definition of unqualified assistants. I can appreciate the difficulty hon. members have with the definition of pharmaceutical technicians, because I share it with them. It is the way lawyers sometimes have, to define things in this fashion. If hon. members will refer to Section 96 they will find that the definition of a dentist is framed in the same way as the definition of a pharmaceutical assistant. A dentist is defined as a person registered as such under this Act. That is hardly a definition, but the draughtsmen in this particular case have followed the example of their predecessors and they are now defining a pharmaceutical assistant as a man registered as such. The hon. member for Durban (Berea) has explained very fully what exactly is meant by a pharmaceutical technician, and perhaps I may just remind hon. members of a few of the things that we expect from such persons. We expect from them that they should know the ingredients of the products they handle. They must at the same time feel at home with the machines needed for the production or the packaging of products such as pills which they manufacture. They must know exactly the temperatures and the moisture needed for the production of medicines like powders and tablets. They must be well acquainted with the art of applying specific coatings on tablets. They must know the medicines they are required to handle in the performance of their work.

Hon. members must not forget that this Bill is not only for the advantage or the protection of pharmacists. It is basically a Bill intended for the protection of the public. Perhaps I should just remind hon. members that when we have to deal with this type of potentially harmful drug, we are dealing with drugs which can be a menace to society. Two years ago the same matter was considered by the Committee for the Ministry of Health in England as they were very concerned about the position there, because they said that many of these drugs could attack or affect the central nervous system of the individual taking them, and result in physical and psychological deterioration. They came to the conclusion that the injudicious use of this type of drug is something so accompanied by dangers to the individual that the use of such medicines should be carefully restricted. When we make laws we have to deal not only with law-abiding citizens, but also with the people who do not abide by the laws of the country. Section 65bis was framed in this way originally, in 1954, with the concurrence of the Medical Council and the Pharmacy Board, because at that time the Pharmacy Board was convinced of the necessity for protecting the public. If you want to protect the public, you must force the pharmacist to dispense drugs only on the instructions of a medical man. It is the medical profession which has to see to it and has to decide as to the correctness of prescribing a certain drug to a patient, and under no circumstances was it considered advisable that the pharmacist of his own accord should sell these drugs to the public. In order to safeguard the public, one must be able to trace the pharmacist who exceeds or does not fufil the requirements of the Act. One must be able to trace him, and in order to do so it is essential that we should know, firstly, the name of the doctor who gives the prescription. We must know the name of the person for whom he prescribes it, but we must also know the address of the patient. Unless you know the name and address of the patient, it is impossible to follow up in order to determine whether the pharmacist has acted in accordance with the provisions of the Act. If on the prescription you simply find the name of Miss Jones or Mrs. Smith, it is impossible to trace such a person, and unless you can trace the person for whom the prescription has been made out, it is impossible to bring home to the pharmacist any transgression of the law.

May I ask a question? May I ask whether the Minister has had many occasions where chemists and druggists have been prosecuted in a court of law for failing to carry out the provisions of Section 65bis, between 1954 and the present time?

Unfortunately we have had to ask that a large number of prosecutions be stopped, because pharmacists have not followed the instructions of this section. I think the hon. member himself mentioned the case of a chemist who had no fewer than 300 possible charges laid against him for contravening the law.

On a point of clarification, I meant in so far as non-technical offences are concerned, where there was an abuse.

That is the unfortunate thing. Supposing a doctor has not written on the prescription the name or address of the patient, then the chemist is inclined to look upon it as just a technical offence, but it is not a technical offence. It is absolutely essential, if you wish to be able to prosecute a pharmacist who has wrongfully given a drug to a patient. It is essential for the Department of Justice to be able to trace this chemist who freely dispenses these things to our young people, to students, and who sell them to people to whom they are not entitled to sell them without a prescription from the doctor. When they are taken to court, they produce a number of prescriptions without addresses and it is impossible to identify the persons for whom the prescriptions have been made out, and consequently it is impossible in such cases to bring home the transgression to the pharmacist himself. All these requirements of the Act, all the essentials are absolutely essential if you wish to make sure that these potentially harmful drugs are dispensed correctly and made available to the correct people. It is not because one is unsympathetic towards the profession of a pharmacist. We know the difficulties with which they are faced, but it is because it is essential for the protection of the public that these provisions must be retained as they are, excepting for the amendments we are introducing to assist all concerned. Primarily these concessions are in favour of the medical profession, because in future it will not be necessary for the medical practitioner to write in his own handwriting his name and address. He need not write in his address at all and he need not write in his qualifications or the address of the patient, provided that someone writes it in, whether it is his typist or the pharmacist himself. It is further provided that the doctor need not state the frequency with which these drugs can be dispensed, but if he does not state the frequency it is accepted that it is intended to be dispensed only once. I think that by these small concessions we are materially assisting the profession. I think it is difficult to make more concessions because then it would become impossible to protect the public.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.