Mr. Speaker, I move as an unopposed motion—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, tributes have been paid by hon. members of both sides of the House to the late Mr. J. P. Hugo, who was General Manager of Railways. I hope you will bear with me if I, as one of the senior members of the House now, express my own appreciation and my own feelings towards a man who was a very great Railwayman and a very great gentleman. He was a courteous and a patient man, occupying possibly one of the most important and most onerous positions in the public and the private sectors of our public life. I doubt whether it would be easy to find anyone who occupied a more responsible position than the late Mr. Hugo. I want to pay this tribute to him, because, as I say, over the many years that I knew him I doubt whether there was one single circumstance which did more to present the image of the South African Railways in a favourable light to all those who came in contact with the upper echelon of the service than the late Mr. Hugo. He was a man of unbounded patience and never-failing courtesy. He was a man who could deal with the little man in the same way as he could with the great people and the big issues. Sir, I would like to pay this personal tribute to his memory.

Yesterday I dealt with the question of the narrow gauge railway systems which are attached to the railways in the Republic. I put it to the Minister that, as a matter of top level policy, the time should come when he would take into consideration the possibility of doing away with these narrow gauge systems. I say the narrow gauge “systems”, because, in fact, every one or our narrow gauge railways comprises in miniature a system of its own. The rolling stock in every one of those narrow gauge railways is not interchangeable with the broad gauge rolling stock alongside. If one gets into trouble on one of the narrow gauge railways because one is short of engine power, one cannot bring in engines from the broad gauge system. One is limited to what is there. The same applies to trucks. If one is short of trucks, there are endless troubles before one can bring in other narrow gauge trucks to help one out. If there is a surplus of trucks because of seasonal changes, droughts or what would you, one cannot take the surplus from that narrow gauge and take them to another narrow gauge elsewhere and use them there.

It is unsatisfactory from the point of view of the staff. The staff do not like it. A narrow gauge system goes through my own constituency from Port Shepstone to Harding. There is also one from Umzinto, which starts in my constitutency, and then goes up to Ixopo. The railwaymen do not like these narrow gauge railways. They do not like operating them; they do not like the service; they much prefer to get into the mainstream of Railway administration. Each one of these necessitates a changing from narrow gauge to broad gauge when one comes to the end of a narrow gauge line. This exchange is dilatory. It is time consuming, expensive and a waste of labour. Over and over again we find the bottleneck at the place where one has to transfer from the narrow gauge railway to the broad gauge. Over and over again the difficulty arises, either because of shortage of staff or for whatever the reason may be. Trucks are being held up; unloading is delayed. If wet weather is experienced, which occurs even in South Africa from time to time, the difficulties are compounded. From every point of view to-day, I believe, the Administration will be justified at top level in reviewing the whole situation.

I would like to say in passing that, in view of the desire of our white staff in all grades on the narrow gauge railways to disassociate themselves and to get a job elsewhere if they possibly can on the broad gauge system, I would ask the hon. the Minister, apropos or in reply to questions we have had to-day, to take into account the fact that we have in Natal a certain class of highly cultured and educated Coloured people, who could perhaps find in their appropriate place—and I am not trying to teach the Minister his job—according to his own plans and regulations, positions on some of these narrow gauge railways until such time as they are abandoned and then could fit into the bigger scheme of the Railways. But there are people among the Coloured community who would well and fittingly do some of the jobs, I believe, for which Coloured people are in use elsewhere on the railway system. Positions might be found for the local Coloured population, where there is a limitation in the number of jobs that are readily available to them, to serve the Railways in regard to these particular cases.

Now, Sir, why I am particularly concerned to deal with this matter now is because we have seen all over South Africa that our economic development is going to be based on water. The hon. the Minister of Water Affairs has already made several important speeches and whether they are getting the attention which they deserve I do not know. We, in South Africa, are now trying to find a yardstick to measure the future economic development of our country and I think that yardstick is the amount of water we have. In areas where there is no water we either have to take the water there at high costs or else we will not have any economic development there. In the area served by the two narrow gauge railways with which I dealt—and there are others—the criteria which are being applied to economic development show that we are on the edge of a vast industrial expansion there, because we have the water there. The broad gauge railway is being electrified right up to Port Shepstone, and it is going to have—and I am not trying to make a pun—an electrifying effect on the industrial development down the coast. This area will serve as a dormitory “town” for Durban as there is no other direction in which Durban can develop but towards the South Coast. People who work in Durban can then also live on the South Coast. This industrial development is coming and when it comes the development of the railway system cannot be halted, because they go hand in hand. The weakness of the narrow gauge railway system will be shown up the moment a really big and important industry is established on one of the rivers of the Lower South Coast. I want to repeat that this development is coming and that we cannot change from narrow gauge to broad gauge railways overnight. It may take years before such a development takes place, but let us plan and get ready for it. Let us accept in principle that the time has come—and I hope the hon. the Minister will accept it in principle—for a review of the whole situation and that this anachronism be now taken out of our railway system in South Africa. The railway system is a system we are all proud of and which we believe has tremendous development potential.

Mr. Speaker, the striking characteristic of this debate is the slowness of the Opposition to join issue. When the hon. member for Yeoville began his speech, we expected it to result in a very good and enjoyable political skirmish. However, the hon. member for South Coast complained yesterday that the speakers on this side of the House were speaking too much about politics. In other words, instead of having that enjoyable political skirmish which we so looked forward to, the hon. member complained that we were speaking too much about politics. But, Mr. Speaker, I am of the opinion that this Budget Debate is governed by politics, because there are many matters of policy involved here. The hon. member for Yeoville and all the other subsequent Opposition speakers made it very clear that there were matters of political policy at stake here. We as a virile Government side naturally accepted this challenge and we are also prepared to make it a political debate. This Budget, as we have it here before us, gives evidence of inspired guidance, as evidenced in the hon. the Minister, of efficient administration, as evidenced in the General Manager and his assistants, and of dedicated work, as evidenced in the ordinary workers in this large and powerful organization.

The Opposition now once more made use of the opportunity to exploit the problem of the manpower shortage and they added to that the other problem which emanates from it, i.e. the excessive overtime that many people have to work. I do not think that the Opposition will succeed in reaping any benefits at the polls in 1971 with this story about the excessive working of overtime. When one speaks about matters such as this, one also has to take human factors into consideration, especially those things which inspire people to certain actions. The people who are employed by the South African Railways to-day are dedicated people; they are patriots; their national ties urge them to refuse to back down to their problems; they are people who, by their patriotism and their national ties, will tackle any problem as a challenge. This Budget mirrors this fact. It gives evidence of the inspiring guidance emanating from the hon. the Minister, the driving force that carries the Railwaymen to great heights. Beside him stands the General Manager and his immediate assistants, and then the ordinary worker in the Railways—all patriots with national ties, people who have not forgotten what their lot was some 20 to 30 years ago. They remember what they had to struggle through in the years before the National Party came to power in South Africa. They remember how they had to sweat and strain with a pick and a shovel in order to make a living. They know what it means to make sacrifices to provide their families with food and a decent education. Thoughts of these things inspire them to-day, and because that is so, the prophecies of doom of the hon. member for Yeoville, and all his nagging about excessive overtime, will not force these people to capitulate. They are inspired by one ideal only, and that is to keep the wheels of the S.A. Railways rolling and to keep transportation in South Africa moving ahead at the highest possible tempo. They are grateful for the rapid economic growth in South Africa and therefore they will, regardless of the problems, see to it that the transportation is there to provide for this economic growth, and, if necessary, even to speed it up.

Therefore, instead of coming along here and painting a dark and melancholy picture, I think it is the duty of each of us to attest here of our sincere gratitude to the Minister, the Management and the entire staff of the S.A. Railways for what they are in the process of achieving in the field of transportation. Theirs is indeed an achievement which we cannot praise highly enough and about which we cannot bear sufficient testimony of our gratitude. I say that these people are prepared to do everything in their power for the sake of the progress of South Africa, and to prevent themselves from regressing to the days of the United Party Government. The hon. member for Yeoville said yesterday that the Minister must first calculate whether he will have the necessary manpower at his disposal before he begins with the development of Richard’s Bay. I have never yet heard a more topsy-turvy argument. The Minister is, in point of fact, so infused with faith that he will tackle more than just the development of Richard’s Bay because he knows that the manpower which he has available will accomplish successfully any task assigned to them. They will do it in the interests of South Africa, in contrast to the hon. member for Yeoville and other speakers on his side of the House. And they are so inspired because they are doing it in the interests of South Africa, and therefore I believe that even more overtime will not put them off their stroke.

It is my privilege to have many Railway people in my constituency and to know many of them intimately. In contrast with the hon. member for Yeoville, who never goes to his constituency, I am continually in mine and I know my people. I am consequently able to say that no one has yet come to me to complain about the overtime they have to work. On the contrary, they are continually bearing testimony of their gratitude for what the hon. the Minister is doing. They even went as far as to offer to work in the interests of the National Party in their spare time, the little of it which they have. That is why the hon. member for Yeoville has never dared to address a gathering in the Railway area of Langlaagte. I say again, these people are prepared to do what is required of them; they are prepared to do it in the interests of this large and important undertaking, which does not only carry the economy of the Republic, but which is also the largest provider of employment to Whites in South Africa. Among them are people who have been rejected by the private sector of our economy. The private sector did not want to employ them, not before the S.A. Railways had trained them. This is the next point I want to come to.

The S.A. Railways does a tremendous amount to train manpower. The S.A. Railways is aware of the fact that they have to manage on the available manpower. Hence their striving for greater efficiency, for a better disposition. The hon. the Minister’s concessions in connection with salaries last year and in connection with pensions this year attest to that. Those are things which create a good disposition. But in order to be efficient the people must also be trained. This the S.A. Railways does indeed do. They train unskilled men to equip them for the work which they must do. They receive a thorough training. Skilled workers are also trained, and so are people for administrative work. They make tremendously many bursaries available to workers who want to study further at university. Among the people who make use of these bursaries, are usually those men who are not financially able to fend for themselves at university. But as soon as they have completed their training the supporters of the hon. member for Yeoville and his party come along and try to lure away these men, these trained men, from the service of the S.A. Railways. That is their field of recruitment for keeping their industries going, and that is what I have against them. In many cases that came to my attention—and I think it is an everyday phenomenon—one finds that a man joins the service of the Railways as a clerk and as soon as he has had six months service and has also completed his compulsory military training, these private firms come along and lure the people away from the Railways with higher wages. Then they do not have the costs allied to training, do they; they get a trained man to whom, of course, they can offer a higher wage. But where they mislead these people is in offering them a higher wage but not telling them that they are not in a position to offer them the conditions of service which the S.A. Railways offers them. In other words, they lure these people away from the S.A. Railways under false pretences. I think that the time has come for the Government to give attention to this phenomenon. We should not like to restrict people’s movements, because it is surely one of our most cardinal rights to have freedom of movement, but if private initiative is going to lure away people, who have completed their training, from Government bodies by illicit means, I think it is something which is very much in need of attention. I think that ways and means can be found to take action against the bodies who make themselves guilty of that. I am at present convinced that, as evidenced in this Budget, we have nothing to fear in respect of the South African Railways.

Sir, it is not only evidenced in this Budget; it is evidenced in the actions of the Opposition in this House. I told you, Mr. Speaker, that we expected an enjoyable “scrap”; we expected the Opposition to put up a fight, but they crawled into their shells very quickly. The hon. member for Yeoville did not even speak for a full hour, as is his custom. In other words, they had nothing to criticize this Budget about. Like drowning men they merely clutched at one old straw, i.e. the manpower shortage and the excessive overtime which the railwaymen must work. I repeat: They will reap no rewards by those means at the polls: on the contrary, they will be even worse off at the polls than in the past.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to conclude. I do not think that it is necessary to talk for a long time in this debate. I want to conclude by associating myself with other speakers and giving testimony of my appreciation for a good Minister and a good Administration, doing very good work in the interests of South Africa. We are proud of what is being achieved by the South African Railways. I am only sorry for the recent serious accident in my constituency. I am sorry it happened, and to those who were affected by that accident I should like to bear testimony of my sincere sympathy. I am sorry that it should have happened in my constituency because it is a large railway centre and because we should have liked to see the good record of the S.A. Railways maintained, as far as Langlaagte is concerned, because if there is a constituency which is proud of the hon. the Minister and of the S.A. Railways, and which always takes note, with a great deal of gratitude, of what is being done to improve the position of the staff, especially in comparison with what they had to endure before the war, during the war, and immediately after the war, it is Langlaagte. We take note of what is being done for the staff with a great deal of gratitude.

I hope the hon. member for Langlaagte will forgive me if I do not follow him in his eulogy in regard to manpower shortages and overtime. I want to draw attention to the aircraft catastrophe at Windhoek. I have here the report of the committee of inquiry. I have studied it carefully, but I am not satisfied that everything has come to light which should have come to light. I am not in any way questioning the bona fides nor the logical conclusions of the court of inquiry. I think where they have fallen down and where they have perhaps not succeeded in eliciting all the information available is probably due to their instructions and what they were asked to do. I want to show that had the senior officials of the Airways—and I do not know any of them; I do not know whether it is one, or whether it is many—who were responsible for the composition of the crew which flew this plane out, given consideration to all the facts which should have been known to them, they would never have made the composition of the crew What it was.

In the first place, they sent out three pilots who had never flown together in their lives. Apparently in the eyes of flying personnel, this is a disadvantage, to say the least of it. Secondly, not one of those pilots had flown for more than one hour in that particular type of aircraft. I am well aware that the Boeing Company gives instructions that one hour is sufficient time to convert a man from one type of Boeing to another, but to compose a flying team of three men, two of whom at least were very experienced pilots, on a flight such as this with none of them having had more than one hour’s instruction on that type of plane, and none of them having met before or at any rate flown together before, is a serious matter to allow to pass. The officer responsible for this should be called to account as to why he did it.

Now let us consider other factors which are concerned, and out of this arises particularly the question of the captain of the plane. This officer had been examined medically shortly before this flight and he had been given a six months’ certificate of good health, within reason, as being fit to fly. In other words, the doctors who examined him said he was fit to fly for the next six months, but they made certain conditions in his case. They said, firstly, that he ought to change his glasses for near vision, and secondly, that his blood pressure was unsatisfactory and that he should see a specialist before he flew. Now whether we interpret this as meaning that he should have seen a specialist before he flew again or afterwards or within a certain period, I do not know. That can only be ascertained either by asking the doctor concerned or by getting the original certificate. But the fact remains that the captain of this plane had been given certain instructions, and so far as the report shows, Captain Smith had not consulted a specialist about his blood pressure. That is as far as is known. He was also supposed to have sent in a report as soon as possible. I do not know what “as soon as possible” means. Even the report says they have no real knowledge as to whether or not he did consult a doctor. He may have done so. He may have received private treatment that nobody knows about. The only reference we have is an answer to a question which was put by Brigadier Nieuwoudt asking whether Captain Smith had consulted a specialist. According to the newspaper report, and this is all we have on this point, he had not seen a specialist but he would have seen one when he returned from this flight, as he was then going on leave. This is unsatisfactory, because it is not known whether or not he had consulted a specialist. There is no evidence. It should have been easy to find out whether he had consulted a specialist or not, because there are less than 100 specialist physicians in Johannesburg and they could easily all have been asked, or perhaps an advertisement to this effect could have been placed. It becomes all the more important, as I shall show a little later, because certain drugs were found in the cabin after the crash, and one of these drugs could have been the cause of this accident. We do not know whether they were given to Captain Smith or not and we do not know whether he took them. There is no evidence whatever on that point. Surely that could have been ascertained? Secondly, we do not know what glasses he wore. We do not know whether he saw an optician who would supply him with glasses. Here again it would not be so difficult in a city the size of Johannesburg to find out. It should have been easy to find out whether Captain Smith consulted a doctor. Did he tell him that he was an airways pilot? It should have been easy to find out whether he went to an optician and got glasses, and whether he had had time to get used to them. Because the question of the accident centres to some extent on near vision during the flight, which was a very short one, lasting only 57 seconds from the take-off until the time the aeroplane flew into the ground. It did not fall, it flew into the ground. In other words, all the time it was flying, the pilot thought it was climbing whereas it was actually losing height.

You are now repudiating the conclusions of the commission.

I am going on what the commission said.

No, that is not their finding.

All right, just as the Minister says, but the fact remains that the ’plane flew into the ground.

Not as a result of bad vision.

How do you know?

That is what the commission found. Didn’t you read the commission’s report? I thought you read it.

I will come back to that and show how in 1959 I warned the Minister and he noted the fact that he should not use old pilots on new ’planes.

Nonsense.

I might as well tell the Minister now so that we can settle the point. This is what I said here on the 25.5.1959, as reported in Hansard, volume 101, column 6574—

You have no evidence whatsoever for that statement. You go against all your medical colleagues.

I did have at that time. Before I made that speech, I had the matter investigated in England by the Royal Society of Medicine. They accumulated the evidence for me and flew it out to me. It was on the basis of that evidence that I made that speech. I do not care what anybody says, but that speech was based on evidence which I have gathered from the Royal Society of Medicine, which is the main library for the doctors in the world.

Their pilots are very much older than South African Airways’ pilots. That is why.

I gave him that advice. He acknowledged it. If he looks up his own answer, he will find that he acknowledged that advice, although not quite specifically.

In the case of Captain Smith, it should have been known to whoever put him in charge of that aeroplane that, when he was converted to the Boeing 707, the earlier plane, he had difficulties in reaching the required standard on the Boeing 707 after completing a conversion flying syllabus. But after extra training, he finally attained the necessary standard to qualify for his command. That was on the previous plane. But on this plane, without so much as a by your leave, they gave him the minimum training. He had previously failed on another plane, a plane on which he had thousands hours of flying subsequently. They took him on a training flight of one hour, which was not a testing flight, I would presume. It is impossible to test a person within that short period of time. So here was a man who earlier had had difficulties. Yet, with a minimum of training, he was put in command of this plane. As I have said, he had had a report which gave him permission to fly, but which drew attention to certain defects which should have been treated before he was allowed to fly again; so that the whole feeling I have is that this officer was at that time, especially under the circumstances relating to the other officers, unfit to take that plane out.

Now the question of his vision comes in. He had to deal with a new panel of instruments. The instrument panel was not the one he was accumstomed to. In other words, when he looked at the panel in front of him to judge on his instruments, it was unfamiliar. He had one hour to get used to it. It is accepted that one of the instruments was possibly misread. It had happened, in fact, that it had been misread; not that it was not working, but it had been misread sometimes to an extent of 1,000 feet. The full altitude of this plane was 672 feet; the total flying time was 57 seconds from the time it left the runway to the time it struck the earth further on, so that there was not very much time. It took 30 seconds from the time it began to lose height to the time it flew into the ground. Therefore, one has a man whose sight, at any rate, is giving him some trouble; whether corrected or not by glasses, it is not possible to say. He took glasses with him, but nobody seems to be sure what glasses they were. That could have been found out, but it was never done. That is not the point, however.

This aerodrome is, I would say although I am no judge, the worst in South Africa to fly out from at night.

Why?

It was very black and dark on that particular night. Hon. members ask why that aerodrome is the worst. It is because there are no ground lights to give pilots any indication where they are. When pilots fly out from Johannesburg, Cape Town or Durban they are surrounded by a sea of lights and can see where they are. All these airports are surrounded by lights which give pilots some idea where they are, but as pilots have stated in the report when they fly out from Windhoek it is like flying into a black hole. There is nothing for them from which they can get their bearings.

As I understand it is usual for the Captain to take the first leg of a flight, and for the second pilot to take the second leg. The committee has not been able to arrive at a conclusion as to who flew this aircraft out, but it is known that the second pilot had never flown out of Windhoek at night before and that the third pilot had never flown out from Windhoek at all before. It is, therefore, probable that the Captain instead of flying the first leg, flew the second leg because he knew of the difficulties at Windhoek. This is pure assumption on my part, however. The fact remains, however, that either a pilot who had never flown out from Windhoek took the flight or that a pilot who had flown out from Windhoek only five or six times previously flew out, but that he had certain difficulties which might have disabled him in carrying out this flight. There is no doubt that there was an error on the part of the pilot somewhere and that nothing went wrong with the aircraft. The fact remains that the aircraft descended at a time when both the trained pilots thought that it was climbing. That is the explanation the inquiry came to. I want to say that the senior officer, whoever he may be, with all these facts in front of him, and the committee, whoever it may be, who decide on the composition of teams to fly out these aircraft were not doing what they should have done. They either did not know their business or they were negligent. I cannot give any reason why it should have happened, but the fact remains that that man should have given consideration to the fact that those three had never flown together before. The chief pilot’s health was under suspicion, to say the least of it. He had been ordered to undergo treatment, which he did not do and he had also been ordered to wear glasses, but we do not know whether he wore them or not. He was an elderly man and was taken off planes he had been flying for some 4,000 flying hours and was put on to a plane with a different instrument panel. Presumably also the time available to him was not enough for him to realize what was happening.

I now come to a point on which I am not too clear, namely the presence of drugs in the flight cabin. Two types of tablets were found. The one contained thephorin and the other were tablets of paracetamol. I do not want to speak about the latter because it is a substance rather like aspirin with the same advantages and disadvantages. Thephorin belongs to a group of drugs known as the anti-histamines and is not one which is in common use. The ordinary anti-histamines have disadvantages and one of the disadvantages is that they give rise to lassitude, they tend to make you sleepy, they lead to inco-ordination and cause a general falling off in efficiency. But this one is different. It is this difference that makes it extraordinary and makes me think. I do no more than think—I am very accurate in what I am saying—that the patient, Captain Smith, perhaps had a doctor who gave him thephorin because thephorin is an anti-histamine which differs from the others. It has almost fallen into disuse. It is no longer a drug in common use. But it is one which, instead of inducing sleep, rather induces giddiness and nausea. It does not induce sleep. The ordinary doctor prescribing one of the anti-histaminics will always tell his patient that whatever he does he should not go driving a motor-car within a few hours of having taken it. But thephorin is the one about which a doctor would not say this. Thephorin will disturb him and make him nauseated. And you know what it is like if you are nauseated or a little giddy and you have only 30 seconds in which to make up your mind about what you are looking at in front of you with glasses that are perhaps not as clear as they need to be. If you must then also remember that the panel at which you are looking has been moved from a higher to a lower level, it will be even more difficult. I feel that the officer who ordered these three pilots to go out on this flight should be seriously considered for a change of job.

Mr. Speaker, in despair I want to make an appeal to the Leader of the Opposition. It is shortly after three in the afternoon and just look at this Railway debate, just imagine. Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Durban (Central) stands here at this time of the day in a Railway debate and reads to us from a pharmacists’ book.

I appeal to the Leader of the Opposition to see whether he cannot make other arrangements in his Party so that they can at least say something to contribute to the advancement of this debate. I am aware that the Opposition has a manpower shortage. They had so much to say here about the manpower shortage of the Railways. However, the difference between those two shortages is that the efficiency and the labour productivity of the Railways has increased despite this shortage while in the case of the Opposition it is in the process of decreasing and their frustrations are increasing. The hon. members opposite tried to direct the main attack at the staff and the manpower shortage. They tried to do so because there is an election in the offing. I therefore want to begin by dealing with the hon. members’ complaints which they paraded under the guise of a manpower shortage. I want to say here that when they were speaking the Opposition made a lot of noise, but we could never actually bring them round to saving what their intention was with this attack. They tried as much as possible to conceal their underlying motive in this attack. However, it stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. Now I want to tell the United Party that it is well known for wearing a mini-policy. It wears a mini-policy in respect of economic and racial integration and it must remember that this can be embarrassing when its underslip is showing.

Under this banner of manpower shortage the Opposition tried to come to the fore with all manner of absurdities and accusations. I want to deal categorically with the complaints which were made here by the United Party. The hon. member for Durban (Point) raised Cain here and said that there was large-scale dissatisfaction among the personnel. However, when he was asked for proof in support of his statements, what did he do then?—he drew out half a dozen letters which he had collected carefully during the past recess and used them as a barometer! There are 220.000 employees in the service of the Railways, and what does the hon. member use as the criterion of dissatisfaction? He dishes up half a dozen letters about supposed complaints and about Railway disciplinary appeal problems. When we asked the hon. member why he did not support his statements with other evidence and why the staff associations did not agree with him, the hon. member said that he wanted nothing to do with these staff associations. The hon. member here launched a blatant attack on the trade unions of the Railways and accused them of not giving attention to the complaints submitted to them by the staff members. Surely it is not the actions of the trade unions which are worrying him here? Surely the hon. member for Durban (Point) does not do these unions any service in this way? He does them a disservice if he undermines the hold which these unions have upon their people, if he sows suspicion towards the union among its members. Why does the hon. member do it? He does it because these trade unions are not prepared to play the political game according to his rules. He does it because the responsible type of office-bearer, such as we have in the staff associations of the Railways, is not prepared to kick up the political dust with the United Party. But that was not the main objective of the hon. member for Durban (Point’s) speech; that was only a part of the camouflage of the actual aim, the actual attack.

The hon. member for Salt River said: “There should be a revaluation of jobs.” I asked the hon. member to say in what respect the revaluation of jobs would bring more Whites to the Railways. He said that there were not enough Whites. How could a revaluation of jobs assist in bringing more people to the Railways? He also said that there was certain manual labour which the Whites ought not to do. The Minister emphasized here time and again that it was his ideal to see to it that the Whites did not remain Railway labourers; they were being encouraged to accept graded work. They are visited by welfare officers and are requested and encouraged to accept graded work and thereby to improve their own positions; nevertheless, the fact remains that there are certain of them who do not want to do so. They do not want to accept graded work. They do not want to accept the responsibility of it. Others again do not want to leave their neighbourhood to go to places where that work is available. The fact remains that there is a percentage of our Whites who are not cut out for anything but manual labour. This is a fact; one finds these people in every community, and I now ask the hon. member for Salt River: Must we send these white people packing who can only earn their living with their hands, and must we appoint non-Whites in their places? That is what he pleaded for here. [Interjections.] Of course he pleaded for that. Sir, the hon. member for Durban (Point) went further; he said there was inefficiency in the Railways; he said that the farmers the industrialists and the traders were complaining and that the trains were not running to time. Sir, this conflicts directly with all available facts put before us here—facts from the Budget of the hon. the Minister, facts from the General Manager’s Report and facts from the White Paper. Everything indicates that one of the most scintillating achievements of the service is specifically the high degree of efficiency and labour productivity which has been achieved. A tremendously larger tonnage of traffic is being moved with much less manpower labour productivity increased over the past five years by almost 15 per cent in this large service. The running times of trains are improving. Accidents and collisions have decreased. There have been no bottle-necks during the past year, and the service was able to transport the traffic offered without disruption. Sir, does this look like inefficiency? But, Sir, that is not what it is all about; there is a more important motive, a more subtle motive, which I shall come to later.

Hon. members of the Opposition come along here and shelter behind this banner of a so-called manpower shortage. We admit that the Railways do have problems especially in certain grades. The Minister is doing everything in his power to accommodate these people. For example, special allowances are being given to them to take up duties in certain parts of the country, for example in Natal; special danger allowances are being paid to shunters, but, Sir, money is not the only consideration. It is of course not only in the Railways that there is a manpower shortage to-day. No, one has it throughout the Public Service. One has it in the Post Office and also in the private sector. But what does the Opposition suggest; what must we do other than to talk and to make a lot of noise here? The hon. member for Yeoville said that he was afraid: he sees a lion by the wayside; the Minister wants to purchase new Boeings and he wants to build up Richard’s Bay; where are we going to get the people to man these services? Sir, it reminds me of the story about a political gathering during the war. An adolescent young United Party supporter kept interrupting the speaker each time by asking: “Who will protect us if we break away from England?” After he had thus jumped up a few times and asked who would protect us, a stoutish lady took him by the shoulders and pushed him down saying: “Sit down, you milksop; I shall protect you.” One feels like saying to these people who are so lacking in faith: “Sit down, you laggards; the Minister will show you, as he has shown you in recent years; he does the work and he gets the manpower by, inter alia, mechanization and modernization.” Sir, the United Party has been beating around the bush. They did not have the courage of their convictions to tell the House outright what they meant by this attack. Why did the hon. member for Yeoville speak in vague terms about obsolete slogans and hide bound policy; why does he not call a spade a spade? Why does the hon. member for Hillbrow say in the Sunday Times, “We are falling short of this because the Government is obsessed with race and related issues”! Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Salt River was nearer the truth. He was much nearer the mark when he said: “More people should be employed in these jobs other than the Whites.” That is the crux of this entire attack which the Opposition made here. Throughout the entire debate about the manpower shortage the undertone, the suggestion to the Minister, was that these staff shortages on the Railways were attributable to the fact that the Minister did not fling the doors open for non-Whites to be assimilated in greater numbers in the Railways. That is what is behind the entire attack.

You should have more sense than that.

I say that it was a veiled complaint against the Minister. This was paraded before us as being the only solution.

The Minister is already doing so.

The Minister is doing it judiciously in certain grades with the assistance and the permission of the trade unions. But that is not what the hon. members pleaded for here. They pleaded subtly here for us to solve the staff question by breaking down the traditional dividing walls, by breaking away from the traditional policy which has always been adopted in this service. Sir, they did not have the courage of their convictions to say it here outright. They want the Minister to do so; they want the Minister to fake the initiative so that the hon. members for Durban (Point) and Yeoville can go out to the people at the next provincial council election. or whatever other election there may be, and say: “Look how Minister Schoeman has jammed a lot of kaffirs into the Railwavs”. They are already doing so to-day. They thought that they could get away with it in this way.

I now come to the other argument which was used here by the hon. member for Yeoville and certain of his colleagues, and that is their complaint that these services must support one another. The hon. member for Yeoville complained about the dependance of the Railways on other divisions of the transport services. He asked: “Is it right for the motorists of the Rand to have to pay for the inadequacy of the Administration in other fields?” The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) said, “The time has come for us to disengage the harbour services from the other services”. The hon. member for Durban (Point) said here a few years ago that we should free the Airways from the Railways, that we should free the Airways, as he put it, from the “railway mentality”. Sir, I may just as well ask the hon. member for Yeoville: Why must the industrialists in the Cape or in Johannesburg pay for the losses to the Railways on a branch-line between Hutchinson and Draghoender? It is just as relevant to ask that question. The success of these transport services has always been embodied in the fact that the various services are co-ordinated under one administration, and that is why the national transport service in South Africa is also to-day the only national transport service, or one of the few in the world if there are any others, which is an economically profitable one, but that is so because the services are co-ordinated and because they co-operate. Sir, during the past financial year the Railways showed a working loss of R30 million, while the other three branches of the service showed a profit of R38 million. I now ask the hon. member for Yeoville: Does he agree with me that the national transport service has the task of performing certain uneconomical services in the national interest? Does he agree with me that tariff differentiation should be applied in such a way as to make industrial development possible in certain parts of the country, for example the Western Cape? He has already pleaded for that in this House. Sir, yesterday this hon. member praised the Minister for concessions which made the exporting of ores possible for industrialists and added: But the Minister is not going far enough. This implies, in other words, that more revenue must be sacrificed by the Railways.

Does the hon. member know that the Railways suffers a loss each year of between R40 and R50 million on its passenger services and that the hon. member for Durban (Point) said here a week ago that those services should nevertheless be extended to provide better facilities for suburban passengers? And yesterday the hon. member for Salt River said that notwithstanding the loss, we should introduce air conditioning in each main-line train, which would mean even greater expenditure. Does this hon. member know that heavy losses are incurred on branch lines and on the road transport services in order to assist agriculture? Does the hon. member remember how he and his newspapers and organized commerce and industry continually exerted pressure for greater freedom to be allowed to private road transporters, and does he realize that for every concession made, more and more high-rated traffic is diverted from the Railways? And is this not perhaps the most important factor to-day responsible for the fact that the Railways are working at a loss, i.e. the fact that there is a steadily-decreasing tendency in high-rated traffic which is being diverted mainly because it is going to private undertakings? Since the hon. member has now been nodding his approval concerning all these things, I want to ask him how the Minister must make good this R30 million shortfall on the Railways? There are only two ways. One way is by asking for it from the Treasury, as hon. members opposite have pleaded for but which is in conflict with the principle in connection with the Railways as laid down in the South Africa Act. I say that he can either obtain it from the Treasury by way of subsidies or otherwise he has to increase tariffs and passenger fares, and he must recover the R40 million which he loses on passenger services each year …

Is it right that only one group of people should pay for everything?

… or he may have a further alternative. He can reduce the salaries of the railwaymen. It is very easy for the hon. member for Yeoville to talk at random here, but if you ask him to make a constructive contribution in respect of manpower shortages and this division of the services, he has nothing to say. He created a tremendous fuss here the other day about the unsatisfactory manner of budgeting. My time is almost up, but I want to conclude by saying that surely the hon. member knows, with the elementary knowledge he has of the problems of the Railways, that the Minister must, in his Budget, take into account a great variety of factors and contingent circumstances in every facet of the national economy, inflation and recession, import control, devaluation, droughts, floods, surpluses and deficits, factors over which the Railways have no control. A year before the time the Minister must cast a prophetic glance and determine what these contingent factors might be, and then he must determine what effect they may have on the transportation earnings. It is impossible for the best brain in the world to make a completely accurate assessment in this regard. But hon. members are trying to score debating points and I still marvel at the way in which the Minister and his officials managed in the past to determine these expenditures with such certainty. My time is up, but I want to say that this Budget gives evidence of absolute ingenuity and efficiency on the part of the Railways, and we must congratulate the Minister and his staff on having achieved such a great deal with a smaller staff this year.

Right at the beginning of his speech the hon. member for Parow almost seemed to suggest that in a railway debate like this the hon. member for Durban (Central) should not even talk about Airways, but did the hon. member not look at the operating results for last year? If he had looked at them, he would have seen that whereas the surplus on Airways was R7.6 million, that on Railways was R7.4 million, and is that not in itself an indication of the importance of Airways within the general structure of transport in this country? Yes the hon. member complains about its being raised in this debate.

But the hon. member for Parow went further than that. He poured scorn on the hon. member for Durban (Central) and said: “Verbeel jou, mnr. die Speaker, hier kom die agb. lid vir Durban (Sentraal) en hy lees hier uit ’n apterkersboek in ’n Spoorwegdebat.” I think if that hon. member just reflects for a moment, he will be ashamed of himself. My hon. colleague was speaking about an air accident in which 123 people were killed. Yet that hon. member seems to think this is a matter for scorn and that it should not be raised in this House. I think his attitude is the answer to his complaint as to why we have come here throughout the years and asked that the Airways should be divorced from the Railways. And he drew a childish comparison here. He asked why the loss on a side-line near Hutchinson should be borne by the railway users of Cape Town, and should not this be applied to the other branches of the transportation service, to the pipeline and to the Airways? What a childish argument! Does he not realize that in a service like the Airways you have completely different operating and human problems and that it needs a completely different approach to those problems? This is what we mean when we say that the Railway mentality is so very much exemplified by what that hon. member has said this afternoon.

I want to come back to this question of the Boeing, the Pretoria, which crashed at Windhoek. The hon. member for Durban (Central) has dealt very adequately with the medical problems which arise. I do not wish to say any more about that, except that I want to reinforce what he said about this question of whether the board went into the question of Capt. Smith getting new glasses, and if so, what type of glasses were they? If he had been prescribed new lenses because of failing vision (and this was the case), what sort of lenses were prescribed? I think it is important that the Minister should give us information on this point, because if he were merely prescribed ordinary lenses for close reading these would have been of very little use to him in that aircraft that night. If he had lenses for close reading, he would not with those lenses have been able to see the instruments properly. If, however, he had bifocals, this would have been a different matter entirely, because he would have been able to use them for both near and far vision and, if he was acting as second pilot on that leg, which is possible, he would have been doing the after take-off checks from his list and he would also at the same time have had to look at the instruments. This is a matter of tremendous importance as far as the cause of that accident is concerned, and I think the Minister must tell us whether the board of inquiry went into this matter, and if so, what were the results of their inquiries into this question of Captain Smith’s glasses. Just to recapitulate, it was a very dark night. The crew had never flown together before, despite the fact that the hon. member here says “rubbish”. He is reading the report now. I am very glad that he is doing so. He says that is not so, but if he reads that report a little more carefully he will find that the board says it might have had something to do with it. It is a pity he did not read the report carefully before.

It might.

I am coming to this question of what was decided and what might have been. But the crew had never flown together. The two chief pilots had only had one hour’s conversion training, which is admittedly in accordance with the Boeing Company’s recommendation What is more, the I.V.S.I. (the Inertial Lead Vertical Speed Indicator) was in a different position on the C model than it was on the A model and B model, and so was the radio altimeter. In contra-distinction to what has been the practice on many airlines, a fact which is mentioned in the report, where elaborate steps had been taken to standardize instrument panel layout, S.A.A. took no steps in this instance to standardize the panel layout. Here, then, you have the captain of an aircraft with a suspect vision—although we do not know what the position was with his glasses—with a co-pilot with whom he had never flown before, taking off on a very dark night and climbing up to 650 feet and then flying straight into the ground within a short space of 57 seconds. May I also point out that this particular aircraft had different operating methods. For instance, flap retraction differed from the A model. In general, this aircraft had different handling characteristics from the A and B models arising from the fact that its engines had greater thrust.

We can speculate ad infinitum on the causes of this disaster. The board, by and large, blamed the pilot and attributed the disaster to an error on the part of the pilot. But, as I say, we can speculate ad infinitum on what could have happened during the 27 seconds they were climbing and during the short space of 30 seconds it took them to hit the ground. It could be that Captain Smith, if he was flying in the Commander’s seat, with his defective glasses, did not have his shoulder straps on and it could be that he might have had to lean forward to see his instruments properly, especially as the cockpit layout was unfamiliar. It could be that his chief first officer, if he was sitting in the second pilot’s seat, instead of keeping a watch on monitoring the instruments, was so pre-occupied with his post take-off checks that he did not notice that the aircraft was losing height instead of climbing. This is a possibility which is mentioned by the board in its report. It could have been that the trim was wrong. As a matter of fact, there are all sorts of possibilities. But whatever the cause, 123 lives were lost. The Board of Investigation consisted of competent men. The chairman was Acting Judge Cecil Margo, who had been a pilot of great distinction during the war. Another member of the board was Colonel Bob Preller, one of the most experienced civil pilots in the country. But yet this board could not put its finger on one specific thing and say with any degree of certainty that that was the cause of the accident.

Of course, they might have been able to do that had this aircraft been carrying the “black box”. To this I will come back in a moment. First let me say that S.A.A. has a wonderful record, until recently almost free of fatal accidents. Apart from two Dakota crashes, it was not until the Rietbok crash on 13th March, 1967, near East London, in which 25 people lost their lives, that S.A.A. had a crash comparable with any of the terrible disasters which had befallen overseas airlines. I think a tribute should be paid to the pilots and air crews of S.A.A. for having made this record possible. Initially almost all of them were ex-Air Force personnel who had served in the S.A. Air Force during the way. They thus had gained experience of operating aircraft under difficult and widely different conditions. These men handed down a fine tradition to those who followed them. Since the Rietbok crash, we have had this Boeing crash at Windhoek where 123 people lost their lives. Lastly, there has been this incredible incident on 20th October last year when a Viscount, carrying some 49 passengers, set off from East London to Kimberley, but ended up instead out at sea and had to land at Durban. This might have led to the third major disaster within the space of about 1½ years, was it not for the fact that the sea was not covered by cloud and that the pilots realized their mistake in time. But these two disasters and this one near-miss have fortunately not shaken the confidence of the travelling public in S.A.A. As a matter of fact, today it is carrying more passengers than ever before. It is true that it is a worldwide trend that more and more people travel by air, despite air crashes. Yet, the phenomenal expansion of S.A.A. is a particular cause of gratification. There lies on each of us the duty to maintain that confidence of the travelling public in S.A.A. But on no one does that duty lie more heavily than on the Minister because he is the man responsible for the Airways and he is the man who, if his subordinates make mistakes, must shoulder the blame.

There are certain disturbing aspects which are common to all three incidents, i.e. the two crashes and the one near-miss. The first aspect common to all is poor public relations. The second, that in each case the accident could either have been prevented or the cause could probably have been established with certainty had the aircraft or aerodrome to or from which they had been flying been properly equipped. If time will permit me, I shall deal with these three cases in turn, starting with the Boeing crash at Windhoek. Here I want to confine myself to the fact that the Boeing did not carry a “black box”. I need hardly stress the importance and value of this instrument which, according to the number of channels it carries, automatically records various facts relating to the aircraft’s flight—inter alia; time, air speed, altitude, heading and rate of climb and of descent. I want to illustrate the usefulness of these instruments in evaluating the causes of a crash and for this purpose I want to quote from a Press report of an inquiry into a crash of a Vanguard of British European Airways in dense fog at London Airport with the loss of 36 lives. The Press report is as follows—

I quote all this in order to illustrate the value of these instruments. Furthermore, there are points of similarity between the Vanguard’s crash and the crash of the Boeing of S.A.A. at Windhoek. In both cases the aircraft had been climbing, levelled out and then flew straight into the ground. I do not say that these points must be carried too far. I only say that there is a similarity here. Only in the one, the black box assisted to determine the cause of the crash, while the absence of the black box in the other made it impossible for the cause of the crash to be pinpointed. The Vanguard did carry a black box, while the Boeing did not. As a result, the cause of the crash of the Vanguard could be established while, in the case of the Boeing, the loss of a R6½ million aircraft with 123 lives can never be explained—only because an instrument costing less than R10,000 had not been fitted into the aircraft.

A further disturbing feature is that when the news of the crash first came through, the Minister himself did not know that that aircraft had no black box. He did not know it. When he landed here in Cape Town from Durban on the Sunday night he said he thought the ill-fated Boeing had been fitted with a black box. He said he understood all the new Boeings were equipped with these instruments. Well, the Minister could be forgiven if he had made a mistake, because he had been away from his office. However, the next day the Press carried a report in which S.A.A. headquarters in Johannesburg confirmed that the new Boeing—it had done less than six overseas flights—was carrying the recorder. But that afternoon, in this House, the Minister has to announce that it had not in fact been carrying a black box. This sort of thing is inexcusable. S.A.A. headquarters in Johannesburg could or should have looked at the aircraft’s airframe log book at Jan Smuts airport before ever issuing a statement that it had a flight recorder. For all I know big aircraft like this Boeing might have special instrument log books; I do not know, but be that as it may, there certainly is a record available of every instrument fitted to the aircraft and all the work that has been done on such instruments. I could think of few things less calculated to instill confidence in the minds of the public than the Minister and his officials issuing statements on important matters like this, and then having to contradict themselves the next day or the day thereafter.

Now I want to come to the question of why there was no black box. The hon. member for Orange Grove and I at various times have put questions to the Minister on the subject of flight data recorders, and his reply has been that the earlier types of instruments had been unreliable, that an improved type had become available during 1966, that financial provision had been made for the purchase of the improved type in the 1967-’68 Brown Book, but the order could only be completed by June, 1968. I am not doubting the truth of all that information that the Minister has given us, but it just will not wash as a satisfactory explanation as to why there was no black box on this Boeing. I will tell you why, Sir. I quoted from what had been discovered about this Vanguard crash. Tremendously valuable information was provided by the black box on the Vanguard. That was in 1965. These black boxes had been available since 1941, and as far back as 1958 the Americans made it compulsory to have one installed in every big airliner operating from that country. The British followed suit, making it compulsory for them in 1965. But the hon. the Minister said: “No”, he said these earlier types which the British and the Americans thought were quite suitable and valuable and which they were using, were not good enough for us. If one waits long enough, one will always get an improved model of any machine, and so one can go on from year to year putting off the acquisition of vital equipment. I repeat here is a case where an aircraft costing R6 million or more crashed, and we will never know the cause because of the Administration’s failure to provide R10,000 worth of auxiliary equipment in the form of a black box in time.

In that crash the black box could not have given us any information.

Oh, no!

The technical people know more about it than you do.

Does the Minister really say the black box would not have given any information?

No, not in that case.

Well, then I can only say this to him, and I do not wish to be discourteous to the Minister, I say to him he should not be the political head of S.A.A.

Apparently you know more than the technical officers do.

The Minister can reply. The board of inquiry made certain recommendations and many of these have already been acted upon. The aircraft are now all fitted with flight data recorders, and the board recommended it. So the board probably thought in a similar incident they might be of some use after all, despite what the Minister says. The instrument panel layout has been standardized, and the take-off and check list procedure has been modified. One of the board’s recommendations was that cockpit voice recorders, recording the crew’s conversation and other sounds in the cockpit, should be fitted. I want to ask the Minister: What has happened about that recommendation? I have seen in the summer edition of The South African Pilot that S.A.A. “is also evaluating cockpit voice recorders”. That is all I have seen about this recommendation. What provision, if any, has been made for these in the Estimates? It is the board’s recommendation that they should be acquired, and as far as I can see there is only one item on the Estimates, namely item 1180, which may have some remote reference to this, and that is where R11,700 is provided for one multi-channel voice recorder. I do not know if this is one of these cockpit voice recorders or whether this is an instrument for office use. Why are S.A.A. still evaluating this equipment? Are they waiting for another crash before ordering equipment which is by now in general use in many overseas airlines?

I come to the second episode, the episode of the Viscount which was a “near miss”. On 20th October of last year a Viscount carrying 49 passengers set off from East London to Kimberley. That evening a Boeing 727 was due to come in to land very shortly, they wanted to clear the runway, so this aircraft taxied out and took off rather quickly. When the pilots got into the air they pulled out the wrong flight log. Instead of using the flight log for the leg East London-Kimberley, they used the one for the Kimberley-Johannesburg leg and they set the course accordingly, a course which was about 95 degrees out. Then they had to climb up through cloud and they climbed up until they were about 20,000 feet up or a bit more. There they remained quite happily for about 1¼ hours, not worrying very much because they knew the first radio beacon that they were liable to pick up was on the East-London-Kimberley route, at Jagersfontein, a weak beacon, which is about an hour’s flying time from East London. Then, according to the Press—I do not know if this is correct—the trainee pilot queried the course and they realized they were over the sea and had to land at Durban.

Now I come back again to this question of poor public relations. At Durban those passengers were told, again according to the Press (and I do not know if it is true), not the truth, but that bad weather at Kimberley had forced them to land in Durban. When they finally got to Kimberley they found the weather had been fine and so they began to get rather puzzled, they began to wonder what was going on, and they began to talk about this incident. Instead of S.A.A. issuing a plain unvarnished statement telling the public what was happening, that there was an inquiry going on and that the pilots had been grounded pending the inquiry, which, I think, was the position, they just kept quiet. All this time these stories and these rumours grew, until finally in January, about 2½ months after this event, the inevitable happened and the Press got hold of it. Then, and only then did S.A.A. tell the public that the pilots had been disciplined, in other words, dismissed. Then a spokesman for the Railways said it was a “departmental matter”. Honestly, this is a strange sort of public relations. Those pilots were disciplined, and they were disciplined quite rightly. I want to say that in this case, quite apart from the inexcusable lapse on the part of the pilots, once they got into the air this whole matter could have been put right very easily indeed if the airport concerned had had proper radar facilities. The ground control at East London airport, after they had taken off, would have seen at once on the radar that they were heading in the wrong direction, they would have contacted them on the R.T., and they could have altered course. But when I asked the hon. gentleman in his other capacity if he is going to instal radar at that airport, what did he tell me? He told me the air traffic density at the airport does not warrant it. Here we had a case that could very easily have been a major accident. The initial error could amost certainly have been avoided by the use of radar, and yet the Minister tells me that traffic density at that airport does not warrant radar.

Then there was the third incident, namely the Rietbok incident, where an aircraft was flying from Port Elizabeth in indifferent weather and into very, very much worse weather at East London. They knew it was bad. They tried to go under cloud, after having sent a radio message. The last radio message was sent at an altitude of 2,000 feet: “2,000 feet, Victor Fox (the call sign of the aircraft) coast in sight from the port side of the air-craft”. That was near Port Alfred. From there it lost height until it was just about level with observers on the coast. It disappeared round the headland and crashed into the sea. In that case again, the board could come to no conclusion about the cause of the accident. There again, there was no flight recorder on the aircraft. There was also not a radio altimeter on the aircraft, which would have been valuable at low level over the sea. I think that I am correct that after that crash the board of inquiry in that particular instance recommended the installation of data flight recorders. Be as it may, a data flight recorder in that particular instance might or might not have been recovered. The question is whether it would have floated, as some of the other wreckage did. But the point is that that aircraft went down. There was no record of the conversation at the control tower at East London, because at that time they were not able to tape the conversation. There were no instrument landing facilities at East London. There still are not, as the hon. the Minister told me the other day. They have still not been installed there. Yet, when the matter was raised, the then hon. Deputy Minister, who is now the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, said that this instrument landing system would have been no help at all to that aircraft, because it was not yet within landing range, or words to that effect. I have the Hansard here. I have never heard such terrible rubbish, because if that airport had been properly equipped with a radar and instrument landing system, that aeroplane would never, at that low height over the sea, have tried to get in underneath the clouds. It would have had the facilities to come in at 4,500 feet, as it was supposed to do, over that airport and make a proper blind approach. I want to say to the hon. member for Parow that these are the sort of reasons why the South African Airways needs to be divorced from the South African Railways: because one wants people running the South African Airways who have a knowledge of the problems, who realize what the pilots are up against sometimes. I say that those pilots need consideration as well. They need consideration, not merely as regards this question of facilities at the aerodromes which they use, but also when it comes to the question of salaries. I have here an article in the Financial Mail of March 7th. It lists the maximum gross salaries for captains of large capacity aircraft, such as the Boeing 707. the D.C. 8, the D.C. 10, etc., as issued by the International Federation of Airline Pilots Association. The figure for the maximum gross salary for a captain of such a big aircraft in America is R28,800. Here in South Africa it is R9,790. May I say that of this list of 16 countries, South Africa stands not last, not next to last, but just above that, namely third from last. Naturally, this is not an exhaustive list. There are many more other countries that have airlines. Only Argentine and Chile of the countries listed here pay their senior captains less than we do. I say that these matters must be put right, that the time has arrived and it is long overdue that the South African Airways should become a separate entity. It is becoming so important in its own right, in view of the number of passengers and the amount of freight it is carrying, that it needs its own organization. It is time that it should be divorced from the control of the Railways.

Mr. Speaker, I do not profess to know sufficient about aircraft to reply to the hon. member who has just resumed his seat. I would rather leave that to somebody who is more versed in those matters. But what I do want to do, is to react to certain speeches that have been made during the course of this debate and which concern the harbours and the shipping matters of South Africa.

My first reaction relates to the future development of Cape Town harbour. This was referred to by the hon. member for Salt River. As he knows, I was one who like him favoured the development of Rietvlei as opposed to the outer basin scheme. But I think the hon. member must accept that a majority decision has been made which has recommended the construction of the outer basin harbour. Obviously, this has not been embarked upon lightly.

Before I go any further, I would like to pay a tribute to Mr. Moffatt, who came back from retirement to conduct the investigations of the committee as to which scheme they should in fact adopt, and to prepare the report. I had the pleasure of speaking to him and discussing this matter. I think he has done a fine job. This matter has been investigated. Shipping News of October, 1967, for the hon. member’s reference, says the following:

I want to point out to the hon. member for Salt River that there are obviously going to be benefits as well as what he thinks will, in fact, be disadvantages in the construction of the basin. There will obviously be quite a saving in the overall scheme, not only in capital cost on the basis of the estimates of the committee, but also in the annual charges which will have to be debited to the harbour and its working. It has other advantages which I think the committee discussed, such advantages as the non-necessity for duplication of services to serve the harbour, and many others. I think that both the Milnerton and Cape Town City Councils are probably very satisfied indeed with the outcome and the recommendations that were made. In addition to that, I think Cape Town is being reasonably well provided for. A new shed is being built on the J quay, as the hon. the Minister has told us, as well as a pilot launch to replace the “Bus”. In addition, there are three twin-screw tugs being constructed for use on the South African coast. This must obviously improve the position in all ports. However, I believe that the position as regards the Cape Town harbour is such that they can now proceed with the job and provide the additional berths which are necessary. I am satisfied. The hon. member himself said that three years have been wasted. I do not think three years have been wasted. I think that the proper investigation has taken place. I think one must give credit to the Minister too, because he was prepared to yield to the requests of local interests and have such an investigation made before going on with this scheme which had obviously been recommended to him before.

In moving up the coast to Durban, I would just like to mention that, from inquiries I have been able to make, more than adequate provision has been made for the development of Mossel Bay harbour. Quite considerable improvement is to be done during the course of this year. Port Elizabeth appears to be working to approximately 75 per cent of its capacity. From all one can determine, the people using the East London harbour seem to be reasonably well satisfied. So the position along the coast from Cape Town up seems to be one of satisfaction and quiet.

Now, Sir. I come to Durban, because in my limited time, Durban is going to need quite a lot of discussion. Both the hon. members for Umbilo and Pietermaritzburg (City) have obviously reacted to reports which have appeared recently in the Natal Mercury and also the Daily News. They are reports in the Natal Mercury with such headings as: “More improvements to harbour urged. Enlarged entrance needed.” In the same edition, the editorial was headed “Harbour indictment”. Then, Sir, there was another article in the same paper with the heading “Improve harbour now, or we will be left standing—Butcher”. The fourth article was on the subject of why Durban should have an independent port authority. It appeared in the Natal Mercury on Thursday 27th February, 1969, and was written by Mr. J. C. I aight, who is a senior research fellow in economics at the University of Natal. This is obviously the article which inspired the speech of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City), because one can read quite a large part of his speech in this article.

You did that too.

That is quite correct, I did do that. I asked this hon. Minister for a separate port authority, but not only for Durban. I asked him for a port authority for all the ports of South Africa. The hon. the Minister turned my request down. I have never withdrawn it, but I am sorry I cannot support the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) in his and Mr Laight’s request for a harbour authority just to control the working of Durban Harbour. I think the request is quite unreasonable and that all our ports are important and that all the ports must be treated on an equal basis.

Let us see what the position is. These articles were, first of all, sponsored by the Durban Chamber of Commerce and the Durban Chamber of Commerce obviously reacted to Mr. Butcher’s requests. I think we can find another article, which I will quote just now, which probably inspired their original thinking. Nevertheless before I come to that, I would like to say that I wonder if those hon. members know that the Durban Chamber of Commerce have since seen the hon. the Minister. I would say that they are more than satisfied with the outcome of the interview. They might well ask those hon. gentlemen what they think about the recommendations now. They may well ask themselves if the hon. the Minister is to follow the recommendations of his advisers and the world trend to-day or whether he is to follow the recommendations of the daily newspapers. These are the problems facing the hon. the Minister, following the recommendations of those two hon. members. The article which I believe inspired the whole of this request for improvements to Durban Harbour was an article which was published in the South African Shipping News of November, 1967. This article was written by Mr. Hugh McManus, chief dredging engineer of Simons Lobnitz Limited, builders of Durban’s diesel electric dredger Ribbok, which had arrived at the port recently and is now in service there. Mr. McManus addressed the local branch of the South African Shipbrokers’ Institute and he told them that what is required in Durban is an entrance channel with an assured depth of 65 feet and a dry dock capable of coping with vessels of up to 500.000 tons dead weight which will have the necessary repair facilities. In this article he said that—

The article then reads—

Sir, this article is self-explanatory. The question is put and also the answer, the same as these two hon. members have done. The only difference is that these hon. members only put the questions and did not give the answers. The answer is self explanatory, but let us go into this a little bit further.

Shipping and port development throughout the world at the moment are going through one of the greatest revolutions that ever struck them. This hon. Minister, or anybody planning the future development of South Africa’s ports and harbours can, in fact, disregard at his peril what is going on to-day and what the trend is. Now what has actually happened? Ships travelled over our seas through the centuries and then suddenly they were threatened by the aeroplane. The aeroplane not only took their passengers away from them, resulting in a reduced number of passenger ships, but it has also started to take away cargo. The shipping people had to do some rethinking and they have done it very well. Ships to-day are resolving themselves into two particular types, as I see the picture. First of all you have the ship to cope with containers, the new method which is called ro-ro—roll on and roll off—and unitization. All of these three methods of transporting goods have a place in the future of harbours and ships. These three possible solutions to the problem of shipping are going to be seen more and more in ports and harbours throughout the world. The other aspect of shipping is by means of bulk carriers. Provision has to be made for both of these particular types of ships. They are so totally different that I think the hon. the Minister is absolutely right in making provision for these two types of shipping in two separate ports. I believe he is absolutely right in doing this and that both Durban and Richard’s Bay can cope in the future, and that by keeping them up to date that can be done. The indications that this is being done are here already. In Durban the hon. the Minister has carried out his undertaking, namely the building of pier No. 2. He gave this undertaking to me a year or two ago. The building of a cross berth is well under way and funds are now provided to complete this work. When that is finished Durban Harbour will have a very good capacity. It will also be able to be reasonably easily equipped for the handling of containers and that type of traffic.

In speaking to my shipping friends in Durban I found that they are not half as perturbed as these articles in the newspapers and the pleas by those two hon. members make them appear to be. They are very happy with the developments which have taken place, in Durban Harbour. The hon. the Minister has responded to the requests of the people who use these harbours. He has responded here in Cape Town. He has not commenced the building of the new harbour at Rietvlei as some would have preferred, but at least he is providing the necessary facilities. Our harbours are going ahead and the fantastic sums which are spent every year on our harbours are evidence that that development is taking place.

Let us have a look at what is required. If you are going to handle bulk carriers of up to 300,000 tons dead weight, you are going to need a harbour with a depth of at least 80 feet as the draught of these carriers is 80 feet. This is a very big draught. The average draught of a 240.000 dead weight ton carrier is plus minus 65 feet and it is rather interesting to note, in passing, that a 100,000 tonner doing six knots needs approximately 2½ miles to stop, with the aid of tugs. These carriers are huge and massive and special provision has to be made for them. The hon. the Minister is developing Richard’s Bay for the purpose of serving these ships. He has also given us the undertaking that a dry dock will be built there which will be capable of servicing these ships. The Department has already made provision for the setting aside of land, if anybody should wish to go there to do the necessary ship repairs to this particular type of ship. No pressure will be brought to bear on these people, but at least they will have the opportunity, if they wish to do so, to go there and to use the facilities which are being made available. As far as bulk carriers are concerned, some of them can use our ordinary harbours because a bulk carrier, that is to say a maize and sugar vessel of 50.000 tons, needs only about 40 feet. Now let us come to the ship of which I think we are going to see more and more and that is the container ship, and the conventional type which we see at the moment. It is rather interesting to note that Fair play, which is a magazine on ships and shipping in May, 1968, said that of all the ships which were then being built in the world only six would have a draught exceeding 35 feet and of those six the maximum draught would be 37 feet. Sir, do we need to dredge Durban harbour out to 65 feet, as recommended, and to widen the channel at fantastic cost, to accommodate ships which obviously are going to be around 35 to 37 ft. draught? It is rather interesting to note that a ship like the Windsor Castle, of 36.123 tons, draws only 32’ 1½" of water; that is her draught. The Canberra, which is one of the biggest ships to come here, which is a ship of 45.733 tons draws only 34 ft. of water. So our ports are not in bad shape to handle the container boom which I believe is coming. It is interesting to find, if one looks at more recent information in Ports and Terminals, the issue for February. 1969, that 145 container ships now in service, they total 1.4 million tons, that is to say plus-minus 10.000 tons each. The 113 on order or in the process of being built, they total 1.7 million tons, which is plus-minus 13,000 tons each. There are 28 which are being converted which, I take it, are ordinary types of ships which have a normal draught. The 33 ships on study total 500,000 tons dead weight, which means plus-minus 16.000 tons per ship. The picture which we begin to see, therefore, is that the revolution in shipping for which we are being asked to make provision is going to deal with two distinct types of ships. One type is those with the fantastic draught of up to 80 feet and possibly more later on, which are going to be the bulk carriers, and these need a type of handling which is peculiar to those types of ship only. You do not need to provide every port with those facilities if those ships are not going in. It is my honest and considered belief that Durban and Richard’s Bay can both be developed and that they can provide for the future requirements. Then there is also Cape Town, which would be an ideal container port; so would Durban be. I want to remind hon. members that Durban has a 42 foot depth in the channel, at low water, although I accept that there are restrictions on tankers and maize ships. Nevertheless, Sir, there is a margin for a certain amount of development if it is necessary, but the question is whether it is going to be necessary or not. We can accommodate quite big ships there now. When you come to the ore-carriers and bulk carriers, I believe that adequate provision is being made at Richard’s Bay.

Sir, I want to support the Minister’s motion that his Budget be accepted because I believe that he is making every effort, within our ability to finance it, to develop the harbours of South Africa properly. Some of us might be a little bit disappointed because he has adopted one scheme instead of another; some of us might see it through slightly different eves from those of the Minister and his advisers, but at least all of us have to accept one thing and that is the fact that our harbours have coped very well indeed with the overflow from Suez for which no country would normally be expected to provide. Not one member of this House would ask any country to provide for something of the nature of Suez, which may or may not have happened, and which we ourselves did not expect to happen when it did happen. Sir, our people at the harbours have cooed with this in a wonderful manner; they have risen to the occasion and they deserve our wholehearted thanks for the way in which they have done it. It is rather interesting. Sir, that not one member from the Opposition side in this debate has stated that they are being called upon to work excessive overtime. They talked about the railwaymen being asked to do it, but not one of them has spoken about a member of our harbour staff being asked to work excessive overtime, and yet those men have responded to the call and they have worked overtime. We all know it; the Minister knows it; I know it and so does every member sitting in this House. They deserve a vote of thanks because they have coped with the position exceptionally well. But we must not lose sight of the fact that that is not normal traffic; that is not traffic to cope with which this country has to find the finance to develop its harbours. If we have a a little extra capacity and they can take up the slack, as they have done here when we have had extra capacity, then so much the better, but I think every member in this House will accept that the harbour staff have coped very well, but it is not our duty to provide for exceptional circumstances such as the closing of Suez, a canal which has been in existence for very many years and which was suddenly closed. I therefore support the hon. the Minister in asking that his Budget be approved.

To-day I want to cite a case, in which I think the hon. the Minister has been unfair. I might go so far to say that his action borders on the improper. Politics, as you know, Sir, is a hard game. We understand it, and most of all, the Minister of Transport understands it. He has been at it for a long time, and he is regarded by many as being tough. But, I was surprised the other day, when the hon. the Minister, who has a reputation for being fair, and who for some years enjoyed the reputation of being competent at his post, gave credit in this House to the hon. member for Umhlatuzana for a matter in which the credit should rightly go to the hon. member for Port Natal. Sir, I have gone to the trouble of finding out the facts, because I believe that in this House, we should have the record straight. We find, so often, that political propaganda is made out of matters, out of which, there is no propaganda to be made, and sometimes, the credit goes to people who do not deserve it, who did not earn it, and who had nothing to do with the whole thing.

In January, 1967, the hon. member for Port Natal placed a question on the Order Paper in connection with labour in the Durban dock area. He asked how many there were, and so on, and the Minister gave him a reply. A year later the hon. member, who in the meantime, has made speeches drawing attention to the fact that a compound in the Port Natal harbour area, was undesirable, again put a question on the Order Paper. On this occasion he wanted to know how many Bantu were at present employed there, but this was the crucial question: “Have any complaints been made?” Sir, the date is significant, namely 7th May The Minister in his reply to question (2) said: “There have been no complaints”. On the 17th May the hon. member for Port Natal, who every time he has stood up in this House, has raised the question of the undesirability of having a Bantu compound in the docks area, again questioned the Minister. The gist of his questions was always that these people should be housed elsewhere, outside the dock area, and the Minister’s reply consistently was, that these people should be near their place of employment. The fact that the Government’s policy is to reduce the number of Bantu employed in white areas did not worry the Minister because, as you know, Sir, there is a state within a state and there sits the head of the state. Then, in May, again a further question was asked, and in July the hon. member wrote a letter to the Minister objecting and asking him what was going on. In the Minister’s interesting reply, he said that if Bantu servants who are employed in essential harbour services were to be housed at Umlazi, they would be dependent on transport to reach their place of employment, etc. Then he said that they were awaiting the approval of the Bantu Affairs Administration. Fair enough. Nobody complains about that. When the hon. member for Port Natal asked another question in February, he got a reply to the effect that representations had been made concerning the citing of the proposed Bantu compound, and then the Minister said that Mr. V. A. Volker, M.P., for Umhlatuzana and Mr. Cronje, M.P.C. for Umhlatuzana had made representations on the 4th May. Sir, the chronological order of all these questions asked by the hon. member for Port Natal and the correspondence from him indicate that he and he alone was responsible, but the hon. member for Umhlatuzana realized that here was something for which he could collect a little credit.

Vulture.

Order! Did the hon. member call another hon. member a vulture?

Yes, Mr. Speaker, but I withdraw that.

I am surprised that the hon. the Minister, with his great experience and his deep sense of fairplay, was so moved politically, by the result of the Newcastle by-election, that he had to try to repair some of the damage which had been done at Newcastle. I do hope that he will acknowledge that what I am saying is correct, and that the hon. member for Port Natal is the person who should get the credit.

Not at all.

Sir, the hon. member for Uitenhage made a speech here yesterday and went to great pains to draw inferences from remarks and speeches which I had made here in connection with the employment of Coloured persons in the Railway service. Here again, just for the sake of the record, so that we will all know exactly what we mean and so that we do not have to rely upon the imagination of Nationalist organizers and propagandists as to the meaning of these things, I would like to re-state the case. When, from time to time, I have suggested that Coloured persons are entitled to get, and should get, some consideration in the Railway service, I have enunciated the proposition, that this should be done because of the shortage of manpower in the Railway service.

And on grounds of justice.

Sir, the future of the Coloured people, as you well know, has now run into a cul de sac; their future is to be left to posterity. I want to ask the Minister of Transport again, to listen to me most carefully, and I would particularly like the propagandists on the Nationalist Party side to listen also. I have never said, as is suggested here in his Hansard, that the trade unions, the staff associations in the Railway service, should not be consulted, because that is the only way in which these people can be introduced at various levels in the Service. I have also never suggested that they should be employed in substitution for white workers. I believe that they are an ancillary force, that they have the ability and that if they had the training, they could be employed to good advantage and to the benefit of the Railways, which are expanding. I believe, further more, that the staff associations would ensure that the rate for the job, or equal pay for work of equal value, would be the criterion upon which such employment would be based, and upon which it would be agreed to. So these hon. members opposite are faced with this problem, that a national institution like the Railways is faced with a very serious staff crisis, and a shortage of skilled people. We maintain, as you have seen by way of our amendment, that overtime is not good for the individual.

Excessive overtime.

Yes, excessive overtime, but any overtime is really undesirable in terms of trade union rules. There must be a really good reason for overtime. Overtime has got to the stage where it is extremely excessive, so much so that employees on the Railways have raised their standards of living to the amount of money they now earn. I am not suggesting to the Minister that the solution of that particular problem is an easy one, but I say perhaps the time has come, when that overtime should be consolidated with the basic wage and the hours reduced, in the same way as in years gone by, the cost-of-living allowances were consolidated with basic pay. I appeal to the Minister to realize, as I am sure he does, that when I plead for the use of Coloured persons on the Railways I plead from the point of view that I look after the interests of these people whom I am here to represent. I think hon. members opposite must ask themselves this question. If Coloured people are not to be employed on the Railways, except in very subservient and minor jobs, what really is their future? I can say from years of experience in the province and elsewhere that it is only a matter of arrangement to make it possible for us to employ these people alongside Whites. The hon. member for Uitenhage made a big song and dance, and suggested that I had in mind, which I refute here and now, to have Coloured people giving orders to Whites or, in other words, throwing their weight about. That is not true, and what is more the Coloured people themselves do not expect that. But they do feel that they should have opportunities. I once said to the Minister, and there was quite a bit of concern on that side, that it would be impossible to have a second Railway run only by Coloured people for the benefit of Coloureds and another one alongside of that for the benefit of the Bantu and run by Bantu, to carry the thing ad absurdum, as they say in mathematics; and similarly, for the Malays, the Griquas and the Indians. Therefore it is the bounden duty of the Minister in collaboration with his staff associations to find ways and means of employing these people on a proper basis and at proper scales of pay. I think if he were to do that, he would find that the development of the Railways would not depend on the excessive amount of overtime being worked at present and that his present white staff would get far bigger salaries than they do at the moment; I believe, quite firmly, that we are nowhere near the end of the development which will take place on the S.A. Railways. I hope that we will not have any further suggestions that this side of the House, the party to which I belong, has plans other than the ones which have been clearly stated and enunciated. I appeal to the Nationalist Party propagandists, when they publish their pamphlets, to put the statement I have made here this afternoon alongside the ones they disseminate, and in the same size type. That may be asking a lot, but I believe in this modern age that that is not impossible.

The other thing I would like to refer to, leaving that subject alone now, is that I was disappointed to find that the Minister made no provision and did not give any consideration to Coloured pensioners. I take as an example a man who has been 45 years in the service of the Railways. The last time he got any sort of increase was on 1st April, 1964, when he got R3 added to his allowance, which was increased in his particular category from R16.33 to R20 a month. I say that in view of the fact that one in every two people working on the Railways is a Coloured person, the Minister should seriously get to grips with this problem, and introduce a pension fund to which they can contribute and from which they can draw benefits in the days when they can no longer work. I ask him whether it is a proposition to live on the bounty of the Minister and the employers, which in this case, is the Railways, when these people have given so many years of faithful service. I do not think the Minister can deny that the Coloured personnel do give of their best and are keen and honest workers on the Railways.

The third issue I wish to discuss with the Minister is this question of tariffs. We had a discussion here the other day when the Minister was not present. I want to ask him how he can reconcile the statements made to me from time to time across the floor of the House, that Railway rates do not militate against the establishment of industry? This is what he said. I recall last year asking him to make some concessions in regard to the part of the country, which is nearest to my heart, the Northern Cape, and he said: Show me one industrialist who does not wish to establish an industry because of Railway tariffs. Shortly after that he made some quick deductions and some reductions at Port Elizabeth as the result of complaints from Japan. Of course, complaints in this country carry no weight, but when they come from Japan, it is another matter. Now we find that the Railways, through the good offices of the Minister, is offering no less than 15 per cent discount on rail and R.M.T. services from certain specified areas on goods and merchandise transported to nearby ports, and at the ports it also offers 25 per cent reduction on dock and harbour dues, as a discount. How does he reconcile these concessions with his attitude that Railway rates have no bearing whatever, on the siting of industry or the willingness of an industrialist to site his industry in any particular place? I hope that the Minister will consider this matter, look into it, and see whether there are other areas, other than those which are the decentralized areas, where this can be done. Of course, the polite words to use is to say that these are border industries. But they go by another name now; they are growth points. This is to hoodwink the industrialist, because it is obvious, if one studies the documents, that these are intended for persons who are introducing money into this country to establish industries. I believe that the Minister should apply his mind to this aspect of his operations and he could do so with some profit, namely assistance to industrialists who wish to establish themselves in areas other than these growth points.

My final point is, and I should like to ask the hon. the Minister this. He always says that everybody is pulling his weight. I wonder what supervision there is of maintenance in regard to rolling stock. He made a speech last week in the House, in which he said they were contemplating having trains of 3,000 tons or more in weight, hauled by one set of locomotives. Is it correct that such trains put more than normal strain on braking gear? Are the vacuum brakes, etc. able to cope? Are the rails able to cope with that type of train travelling at speed? Because you know, Sir, when one travels on passenger trains, in a thousand and one minor ways, one can see quite clearly, that the supervision of the maintenance of passenger coaches leaves much to be desired. These are the things which apply to the comfort of the passenger. One does not wish to grouse, but there you are. To any person who has been responsible for the employment of other labour, it is obvious that the supervision in regard to the maintenance of passenger coaches should be done a lot more closely and much more efficiently.

Give examples.

I can give a few examples. They are minor ones. The hon. member for Salt River talked about the heaters in the coaches. Unless you are a Samson, you cannot open the screw type ones, or close them. The bunk-lights do not work. The starters on the fluorescent fittings do not work; they glow all night. One cannot put them on or off, and one sits in the twilight.

You must have used the wrong switch.

No, I do not use the wrong switch; I try them all, even the one for the little green one, the night-light. I say to the Minister that this is something he should look at with open eyes. One only has to ride on the fast trains. If one is on the bogies which clank, especially with the new welded rails, you wonder whether the supervision of the maintenance is as careful as it should be.

Finally, before I resume my seat I should like the hon. the Minister to state his policy in regard to the provision of road services where the Department of Community Development decides to establish Coloured townships and also Bantu townships, though of course my special interest is in Coloured townships. Is his attitude such, that these people must first show that they want to use the railways before he builds a line? In other words, must he first know what the demand will be? Does he expect these people to use buses, or to go on foot from the distant places which are selected for the establishment of Coloured townships, or does he agree with the Government’s policy that when a township is provided, roads are built and access roads are built to the township? Does he agree that a railway should be built at the time the township itself is built, so that people could use the railway to get to and from work? Does he realize what it costs people in the Cape Flats to come to Cape Town by bus every day? These are a few things which I hope the Minister will bear in mind and to which I hope he will give his attention.

Mr. Speaker, time permitting I shall return to the hon. member for Karoo. At this stage I want to reply to what the hon. member for Durban (Central) and the hon. member for Albany said. The hon. member for Durban (Central) made an unfair and unreasonable attack on the Management of the South African Airways this afternoon He said that the pilot of the aeroplane which crashed at the Strydom Airport. Captain Smith, should never have been allowed to fly. That was the first point of his attack. His second point was that the pilots of the aeroplane had never flown together before. Thirdly, he said that the pilot’s conversion course from the one type of aircraft to the other had been too short. I just want to say that Captain Smith underwent a medical examination on 23rd March. After that examination he was declared fit, except for two small matters which still had to be attended to. Firstly, there was the question of his glasses, and secondly, he had to consult a doctor because of his blood pressure. Precisely one month later the accident occured.

Small matters.

Yes, if they were not important in this case the hon. member is casting a reflection on his own colleagues, the people who examined and passed this person. The Management of the South African Airways had to act according to that medical report. The point is that the pilot was passed after the medical examination. Then I also want to point out that Captain Smith was a man who had 18,000 flying hours’ experience. He had flown more than 4,600 hours in aircraft of the Boeing type.

Debate adjourned.

Mr. Speaker, when this debate was interrupted. I was following up a remark made by the hon. member for Kensington, and I was pointing out that subsequent to 1959 the numbers of students at Fort Hare had indeed been decreasing. However, I also pointed out that Indian and Coloured students had been allowed at Fort Hare up to and including 1959. There had also been Bantu students from the whole of South Africa as well as students from outside the borders of our country. In passing, I may just add that those students who came from outside the borders of our country and graduated at Fort Hare are now rendering good service throughout the length and breadth of Africa. They are prominent persons now and are rendering good service to the developing African states. Of course, after the establishment of the University College of the North and the University College of Zululand, the Bantu students who had previously attended Fort Hare transferred to the university colleges situated in their vicinity. Those university colleges were more accessible to them and had in fact been established for the ethnic groups concerned. It is obvious as a result of the facts I have mentioned, that the numbers at Fort Hare would have decreased initially. But it is unfair, for the purposes of this argument to isolate Fort Hare as far as numbers are concerned. The complete picture is as follows: At the beginning of 1968 there were 457 Bantu students registered at Fort Hare. The hon. member for Kensington mentioned a figure of 426 for the end of that particular year. At that time 610 students were registered at the University College of the North, and 364 at the University College of Zululand. That gives a total of 1,431. The hon. member for Kensington said that the number of registrations at Fort Hare at the end of 1959 was 500. In 1968 there were already 1,431 Bantu students attending the three Bantu university colleges. The students were exclusively Bantu. The 500 students at Fort Hare whom I have just mentioned belonged, as I said, to various racial groups. It is also interesting to know that the number of applications for admission to Fort Hare and the other two Bantu university colleges was even higher for 1968. In fact, there were 1,855 applications. However, several applicants were not admitted, because they did not have the necessary university entrance qualifications. I am mentioning this to show the increase in popularity of these university colleges. How does this accord with the particulars and the negative wishful thinking of the Opposition? How does this accord with the argument of the hon. member—and I believe that hon. members on that side will try to carry the argument still further—that these colleges are a failure?

The hon. member for Kensington referred to the large expenditure per student at Fort Hare which has to be incurred by the Government. He maintained that that expenditure amounted to five or six times the cost of keeping a white student at a white university. In reply to a recent question in connection with training costs per student the Minister of Bantu Education said that the cost per student at Fort Hare amounted approximately to R1.490 in the calendar year of 1967. That in itself disproves the allegation made by the hon. member for Kensington in connection with this matter. One readily concedes that the expenditure was heavy at first, even at Fort Hare, which was already in existence. But provision had to be made for new faculties and new courses of study. With the take-over of Fort Hare in 1959 there were only two faculties, with 18 departments. At present there are already seven faculties with 40 departments. In other words, the field of study for the Bantu students at this university college has increased threefold in scope. As the university develops further and the numbers of students increase, the cost per student should, of course, decrease in proportion to the unit costs at the white universities. The hon. member placed emphasis on the cost to the State, and this is, of course, very important. But let us now look at the costs to the student and to the parents of the student The costs to a Bantu student at the moment still studying under certain conditions at the so-called open universities are, of course, the same as those for a white student there. I briefly quote the costs, i.e. the personal costs consisting of lecture fees and boarding fees at the white universities. At the Witwatersrand the cost for a B.A. or a B.Com. course is R620 per annum. At the University of Cape Town it is R590 for the two courses concerned. The cost of a B.Sc. course at the Witwatersrand University is R640 and at the University of Cape Town R676. Against that the cost for a Bantu student at a Bantu university college in respect of boarding, lecture fees and other charges is R187 for a B.A. or a B. Comm. course and R220 for a B.Sc. course. For diploma courses it is even less. If Bantu university colleges had not been established and the set-up had remained as it had existed under the United Party Government, deserving Bantu students would have been prevented from obtaining higher education.

I now come back to Fort Hare in general. Fort Hare is fast developing into a national university which satisfies the requirements of and meets the needs of the Xhosa national community. In fact, a university without national ties is an absurdity. And there is definitely nothing wrong with a university’s having national ties. Few university institutions have such close national ties as, for example the universities in Britain, France, Germany and even the United States of America. And now it is the task and the calling of Fort Hare to develop such national ties too, without sacrificing standards. The Xhosa community is also accepting this institution with ever-increasing pride. It is realized that Fort Hare, just like the other universities, can only serve the particular interests of the Bantu community as such when university training has been fully integrated with the general development programme of the Bantu. Because the Bantu universities will to a larger extent than the existing university colleges strive to become the centres of the national development of specific Bantu national groups, this legislation with which we are dealing now will bear valuable fruit in the future.

We on this side of the House were not surprised to learn that Fort Hare and the other non-white university colleges were going to get university status and become virtually independent institutions. When the National Government established this dispensation in 1959, it made the promise that the colleges would develop to full status. The National Government has fulfilled its promise in this case, just as in the case of all its other promises. What has surprised everybody is that the university colleges have within such a short space of time reached the level of development at which they can ask to be granted increased status.

One wonders at this juncture whether the moral priests and some academics who kicked up such a fuss in 1959 and who fell in behind the Black Sash during a protest march, still exist. We are hearing nothing from them on this occasion. So far we have read nothing from them in the newspapers. One just wonders whether they have left the United Party in the lurch.

I conclude with more or less the same words as I used at the beginning of my speech. I regard the amendment moved by the hon. member for Kensington as unrealistic, negative, prejudiced, only politically coloured and quite unnecessary.

The hon. member for Koedoespoort has referred to various figures, which during the course of my remarks I will deal with. It is quite obvious that the hon. member showed no support or enthusiasm for the amendment which my hon. colleague for Kensington put forward, namely that this matter be referred to a select committee. In fact, the hon. member for Koedoespoort was critical of our amendment. I think that displays a certain degree of complacency on his part. He has got to the stage now where he does not admit that there is need for consultation on a broad front. There should be nothing that we need be afraid of. We should be prepared to ascertain the feelings of the people vitally concerned in the establishment of these universities: in the change-over; the people involved with Fort Hare, those who were concerned with Fort Hare in the old days. Surely this is of some value in the deliberations of this body? But the hon. member for Koedoespoort sees no justification for it and no virtue in it. He said that we in the United Party were not prepared to give the university colleges a chance, and that we were destructively critical. I do not believe that he is being fair or objective. The hon. member said in his remarks during the Second Reading debate last week that the United Party had learned nothing. I believe that the Official Opposition has kept a very close watch on the activities surrounding the ethnic university colleges. One has only to scrutinize the questions that have been placed on the Order Paper to show the interest the United Party has displayed. From these questions has come information which has enabled comparisons to be made. And from these comparisons I believe we have been justified in asking that this matter should go to a select committee, because we see that a high expenditure has been involved and we are entitled to ask whether there has been maximum use made of the teaching resources at the disposal of the Republic. I think we are justified in asking whether there is any justification at this stage for the change over and whether it would be wise at this stage to have one university for the Bantu. I believe that it is time to take stock. We know that it is the intention to introduce further Bills to make provision for existing university colleges to become universities. We know it concerns the three Bantu university colleges. We know that the Indian college is to be given university status and that the same applies to the Coloureds. I say that if the Indians and the Coloureds are to receive this status, it is only fair that the Bantu too should enjoy the improved status. But my big question is this. Are three universities at this stage necessary and are they justified? I want to quote Professor MacQuarrie, a person well known by reputation. He said this—

The present facts with which we are concerned are that there are three university colleges, namely that of the North, which deals with five ethnic Bantu groups, one at Fort Hare, primarily for the Xhosa group, and the one for Zululand, which apparently deals with both Swazis and Zulus. But when we take the overall enrolment—and the hon. member for Koedoespoort has referred to this—the number is 1,431 for three university colleges. I admit that that shows an increase of 197 per cent compared with 1960. But what we have to take into consideration is the fact that these university colleges are now due to become fully-fledged universities.

I think that if we want to consider this matter in an objective sense we should make the comparison with the position and financing of primary and secondary education. Here we find two factors of vital importance to the question before this House. If we make a study of the position we are struck immediately, firstly, by the numbers of people who leave secondary schools with matriculation certificates which entitle them to enrolment at the university colleges and secondly, by the fact that we cannot disregard the quality of the education. Basically the potential student material is not yet available to justify this step. And I want to quote another authority. This is what he said—

If we put it another way we find that there is a high drop-out of pupils at secondary schools under the control of the Department of Bantu Education. Of the 59,000 secondary school pupils in Std. VI in 1962 only 3 per cent reached matric six years later, namely 1,836. It seems to me important that we consider the quality of the education of these students. We find for example in 1967 that the total number of matric candidates was 2,034. Of this number 125 obtained university entrance matriculation with mathematics and 103 with science as a subject. Now, I know that it will be said that more recent results have shown an encouraging improvement. That I will concede. According to information that came to hand to-day, the maths figure has risen to 181 while the science figure has shot up to 766. But I ask myself whether among those who took science subjects, there are people who have taken the true science subjects which will equip them for the university training which they need for the positions which they will have to fill in the future. I ask myself where, from amongst these people we are going to find sufficient doctors, architects, engineers, teachers, surveyors, or chemists. I ask myself the question, why are there so few who reach this stage. And I say advisedly and with conviction that it is due in the main to the fault of this particular Government and their failure to provide facilities for pupils at secondary schools. The hon. member for Kensington referred to the per capita cost at university colleges. But when one comes to look at the per capita expenditure at secondary schools we find a figure of only R53 per annum. And if one compares it with the figure of R1,333, which was the average figure for 1967, one finds that it is one-twenty-fifth of the average figure expended on students at university colleges. How is it possible to provide the adequate education at secondary school level that will lead these people on to university?

The Transkeian Government has accepted the necessity for a review of their position. The Transkeian expenditure on secondary schooling is practically double that spent in the Republic. It amounts to R101 per pupil per year. If cognizance is taken of the fact that the Bantu high school population amounted to 3.5 per cent of the total in 1955 and that it has increased to only 3.8 per cent in 1967, this is not a very encouraging sign. I would agree that the overall enrolment in the higher classes has increased, but the percentage remains depressingly low.

Now we find that, despite the intention to provide university training for the various ethnic groups, this is not really being achieved in the true separate ethnic sense of the word, because none of the three existing Bantu university colleges is able to offer complete training courses for many degrees. Part of a degree is offered at one university but for the final year’s study the student has to go to another ethnic university college. I want to quote a particular case. There are others, too, but I know specifically of this one. It concerns pharmacy. The first year in pharmacy requires study in Botany, Physics, Chemistry and Zoology, which is obtainable at the three university colleges. But when the prospective pharmacist wishes to carry on, he then has to go to the university of the North to take his final two year courses. What is the position at the moment? The latest position, as I know it, is that three Bantu have qualified at a cost to the State, of roughly R15,000, and I believe that is being conservative.

At the European universities you have the same position.

Oh, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will not catch me out on that one. There are 11 training institutions where students can go to qualify as chemists. I do not believe the hon. member’s statement is a good argument at all. Now, what has become of these non-White chemists and druggists who qualified? As far as I know, one has gone to Zambia and another has gone to Malawi. I believe they have done that possibly because there their earnings are assessed on the basis of qualifications, and not on colour. So, Sir, we are producing people who, in time, will go to the states to the north of us.

The same as engineers.

That is one case. Now I want to make another comparison which I believe deserves certain consideration and thought. Let us take the non-White medical school of the University of Natal in Durban. All the students, the Bantu, the Indians and the Coloureds are being trained at one institution. In 1968 there was an enrolment of 130 Africans, 209 Indians, and 31 Coloureds. One hundred and ten Bantu have obtained their M.B. Ch.B. degrees since 1951. I want to ask the Minister whether he believes that these graduates, who have received their training together with other racial groups were not fitted to cater for their own people simply because they had been trained at universities which do not concentrate solely on the ethnic group concerned? There is another very significant factor. The estimated cost per student per year at the medical school I mentioned is R1,000. I have referred to the fact that the average cost at the ethnic colleges was R1,332 per year. In other words, it is costing well over R300 more per student per year to have these students at the three ethnic university colleges. It is interesting also to compare the number of Bantu enrolled at these three university colleges, because we see it is almost identical to the total number of Indians enrolled at the university college for Indians in Natal. Here the cost is R678 per student per year, roughly half the amount now being spent to train a Bantu student.

Reference has been made to Fort Hare, and I think it is fitting just to refer briefly to the past record. We find the first degree student were enrolled in 1923. Up to 1960 Fort Hare had produced 1,193 graduates, 34 post-graduates, and 645 students with educational and other diplomas. If we take Fort Hare and the other two university colleges established in 1960, we find that the total expenditure from Revenue and Loan Votes, amounts to over R18 million, for a total enrolment of 1,431. I believe it is not because of the quality of the teaching there that the enrolment is low, or that the number of graduates is low, I believe it is primarily due to the fact that the intake is not available. Amongst the results which have come from the, three university colleges, there are 572 degrees and 568 diplomas. Eighty per cent of these diplomas were undergraduate diplomas, in other words, the students concerned were not matriculation exemption material. That was from 1960 to 1968. If one takes the R18 million and the number of students who have obtained degrees and diplomas, it works out roughly at R16,000 per student. I realize this is not a true figure because some of the factors remain constant, and the longer these institutions exist, so the cost must come down to a certain extent. But it does give us food for thought.

In regard to this considerable outlay to provide the university colleges, we have certain recent figures which are very interesting. 2,236 Bantu students are enrolled as students at the University of South Africa. This means it has 1½ times the total enrolment of the three Bantu university colleges. Do their people suffer because they have not been educated in the truly ethnic atmosphere of a Bantu university college? I do not think to any great extent.

It makes one wonder whether there was not some measure of wisdom in the Holloway report of 1953 which said this—

I now want to deal with the staff position, because here, too, we find a very interesting position. Let us take the Indian university college. I have already said that the number of students approximates the number of students in the three Bantu university colleges, namely 1,400. They have there Indians, and I believe that no one who knows the heterogeneous nature of the Indian folk would say each of these people is receiving an education suited to his particular culture. They are all there under one roof and they seem to be managing fairly well. They have a staff of 134 for 1,400 students. We must bear in mind that the Bantu university colleges, with an enrolment of 1,430 odd, for only 30 people more, that is, have a staff of 256, due to the diversification which has taken place at the Bantu university colleges. This was the 1968 figure. Of the 256, only 45 are Africans. It means there are 122 more staff members at the three university colleges for only 30 more students. It means, as the hon. member for Kensington has already pointed out, that the Bantu university colleges enjoy the most favourable student to teacher ratio in the Republic.

In the world.

I bow to my hon. colleague’s superior knowledge there. It is indeed a very favourable ratio. At Fort Hare the ratio is 4.5 to 1, at the University College of the North it is 6.8 to 1, and in Zululand it is 4.7 to 1.

And they are not all matriculated.

That is just it. Over 30 per cent of the enrolled students do not have matriculation exemption.

I think we are entitled to ask what is the overall effect of this position? I believe the teaching posts at the university colleges are much sought after. There are good reasons for that. They offer a university status. It is a status symbol. They offer that status to people who have taught at colleges for advanced technical education. In certain cases there are salary advantages and good fringe benefits. They offer, too, smaller classes, easier conditions when it comes to marking papers, preparing lectures, and dealing with their students. They also offer opportunity and time for research and further study. This position exists while South Africa, as a whole, is undergoing or experiencing a critical shortage of teachers, particularly at secondary school level and particularly in maths and the sciences. Now we know that we cannot expect that there will be a large influx of Bantu who will occupy these posts in the future. In 1968 the total enrolment in all three Bantu university colleges in the faculties of education was four at the University of the North, 10 at Fort Hare and none in Zululand. That amounts to 14 for the degree course in education. One can also say that it will not be possible to siphon off many graduate teachers from the existing numbers employed at secondary school level and in the high schools, because already their numbers have fallen. Where the graduate teachers represented 36 per cent of the teachers in 1961, that percentage has fallen to 25 in 1965. So we can ask with extreme justification, I believe, where will the teachers come from? Where will the staff come from?

Now I want to deal with the courses. If one studies the position carefully, one finds that they are not complete for each national unit. I have already referred to pharmacy, but there are other courses as well. So it means that there will have to be an interchange of students from university to university. One only has to study clause 27 of the Bill—I shall come back to that one—and to refer to clause 22, which deals with the admission as a student of any person who does not belong to the Xhosa national unit. It makes it clear that this Minister and his Department expect that there will be an interchange of ethnic groups for some time to come.

Now I want to refer to clause 27, which deals with the faculties, departments and courses. The courses that are quoted in the Bill itself are Arts, Natural Sciences, Education, Law, Agriculture, Commerce and Administration and Theology, while the University of the North offers, in addition, Mathematics, Economics and Administration, but does not offer at present Law, Agriculture, Commerce and Administration. If one comes to consider the overall position, we find that these are the courses which are not yet available at any Bantu university college: Engineering, Architecture, Quantity Surveying, Dentistry—there is a great need for dentists in the Bantu homelands—Townplanning, Linguistics, Drama, Music—imagine, Sir, three Bantu university colleges without music; not even at one—and Fine Arts. That is rather amusing, because if one goes back to the days of Van Riebeeck, one would find that the Bushmen even in those days had developed quite a high ability and sense of art. But no course in Fine Arts is yet offered at any university college. I believe, if it is the intention to provide all these three university colleges with these courses, the expense to the taxpayer will be enormous. I believe, too, it will place an unbearable strain on the existing, fully extended teaching facilities. If it is not the intention to provide these separate facilities, then it is a travesty of the Government’s policy of separation. I believe that, under these circumstances, it is time that we stop to reconsider. The best way in which this whole aspect could be reconsidered, would be for this House to accept the amendment moved by my hon. colleague, because I believe the evidence and the opinions which would be gathered from those bodies which could be questioned, would be of invaluable use to this House in the consideration of the Bill before us. I must say that I believe, from all the figures that we have been given, that the stage is set at the moment for us to ask the question, “Why not one university for the Bantu”?

Mr. Speaker, one almost does not feel like replying to the arguments we once again heard this afternoon from the hon. member for Berea. Therefore I am doing so with some reluctance, because from what he said it is very evident that, on the one hand, he has very little understanding of the affairs concerning these established university colleges and, on the other hand, he also has little appreciation for the work being done in general by the Department of Bantu Education, which is responsible for the education of the Bantu in South Africa, from the lowest standards up to university level.

Before giving any reply to a few of the matters he raised, I just want to read this article to him from a paper, which is not at all sympathetic towards the Government.

Is it Veg?

No. Evidently the hon. member knows much more about Veg than I do. The article reads as follows—

The article continues, and this I am reading for the interest of the hon. member in particular—

I am reading this article, which is complimenting the Government, from a paper which is not sympathetic towards the Government.

I want to refer to a few matters raised by the hon. member. He tried to indicate to us that the United Party was vitally interested in the work done at these university colleges in the past. Unfortunately we have more experience of the little interest which comes from the side of members of the Opposition. I am saying this because of the fact that during previous discussions in this House on university colleges, I extended invitations to hon. members of the Opposition to visit one of the university colleges so as to see what was really being done there; because I say with conviction that if they would only get to know the work being done at these colleges, they would be impressed, would feel small and would not make such irresponsible and unreasoned statements in this House as we have been hearing during this debate on this specific Bill. The hon. member asked whether three university colleges were necessary. This question is characteristic of the ignorance which prevails amongst members of the Opposition as far as this matter is concerned. I can tell them that these university colleges, which were established on an ethnic basis, have produced a happy student community. Even if they were to stand here and squabble about the principle of the matter for goodness knows how long, they must know that the students do not want things to be different to what they are at present. They are studying happily together with their compatriots and they are happy students on the different campusses.

Because each one has his own professor!

Heaven be praised that the hon. member is not one of them! The hon. member for Berea made reference here to the small stream of matriculants. Then he also spoke of the quality of the education. To think that we still find people now, after the Department of Bantu Education has been at the helm for 13 years, who can speak of the quality of the education which is being given! This is as though they still do not realize that the examination standards in Bantu education are exactly the same as and correspond to the standards set by any other educational authorities; or do hon. members still want to argue this point? The fact that few matriculants are being produced, is hardly something for which the Government can be held responsible. We too would surely have liked this to be different, but let me say this: All matriculants who become available and who want a university training, do receive one. Hon. members need have no fear in this regard.

The hon. member asked from where we obtained our employees for the various professions. I in turn can ask him this question: Would he have obtained more of them if these university colleges did not exist? These university colleges are in fact the answer to meeting the demand for these people, and they are being absorbed as rapidly as they are being produced. I am very pleased that the hon. member for Berea mentioned the medical school in Durban. But may I tell him this: I wish I could place him in the position of a Bantu trying to gain admission to the medical school in Durban. We already have the position that Bantu students prefer to go to these university colleges and not do a pre-medical, as they are required to do in Durban; they prefer to take the full B.Sc. degree at the university colleges so as to improve their chances of being admitted to the medical school in Durban.

That is part of your secondary schooling.

Now I do not understand what the hon. member means. The fact of the matter is that virtually no Bantu are admitted to that school. It is extremely difficult for them to be admitted to that medical faculty, but here they will be given an opportunity of following their own medical course in time to come.

Mr. Speaker, the question of costs is raised ad nauseum. I think it has been stated repeatedly in this House that the costs at a new institution must obviously be higher in view of the fact that one has capital expenditure which one does not have to incur in other cases. This also explains the difference in costs between the Bantu university colleges and the Indian university college in Durban. I think the hon. member will be able to understand this. The hon. member’s learned friend, as he referred to him a short while ago, said that these lecturer-student relations were the worst in the world. Has the hon. member ever tried to work out what the relations between students and lecturers are like at the University of Ghana; has he ever tried to work out the costs of that university as compared to the costs of the university colleges in South Africa? Reference was also made to the courses. Sir, the Government has nothing to hide. The courses offered at these university colleges are increased in number as the need for new courses arise. New departments are being added periodically. The departments are organized within specific faculties and from time to time new faculties are added. The fact of the matter is that the Opposition—and this became evident from the speech of the hon. member for Kensington the other day—is not really on about the provisions of this Bill, but they are still trying bitterly hard to swallow that pill which laid down the principle, which established these university colleges. I shall try to indicate this in the course of my speech. The Opposition is really fighting, as appeared from the speech of the hon. member for Kensington the other day, against a de facto situation, something which is really existing to-day. We are not speaking about something which is still to come. This is a factual situation and they are still prepared to oppose it. To me it also seems somewhat injudicious politically for them to oppose this measure whereas there probably are between 500 and 600 members on the teaching staff of these institutions who are all yearning and looking forward to the step contemplated in this Bill. I think they are missing the whole principle contained in this Bill, i.e. the academic untying of the bond between the university colleges and the University of South Africa. Surely this is the one major principle which is contained in this Bill, and the second principle is to raise the university colleges to the status of universities. They are missing this point, and yet it must have been clear to them that these steps would be taken. May I quote what was said here in 1959 by the then Minister of Education, Arts and Science—

Here he was referring to the Extension of University Education Bill of 1959—

That was the principle, and the prospect of that was held out even at that time. No less a person than Dr. Louis Steenkamp, blessed memory, used the following words in his argument at that time; he said he had become convinced on the commission that it was “the considered opinion and conviction of everyone that these institutions for non-white higher education, should be true and genuine higher education institutions, which could eventually develop into full-fledged institutions—institutions which could enjoy the confidence of the non-Whites from the very outset”. The Opposition has been trying its best to see to it that the non-Whites do not get to feel such confidence. I am also going to quote from a previous debate, and I am going to quote the words of no less a person that Jan Smuts, when he said—

Therefore, there was every indication that these university colleges would develop and would be raised to the status of universities. This is the second important principle contained in this Bill. But the concern of the Opposition to-day is obviously not the principles contained in this Bill, but the principles which were thrashed out as long ago as 1959.

[Inaudible.]

I shall do that hon. member the favour of helping him with the Act if he will come to see me to-night. It is not easy to do so now.

He will not remember it to the next day.

Sir, the point at issue here is that old principle …

What principle?

The old principle, the pill which the Opposition is still swallowing down with such difficulty. The objections of the United Party, as set out in the second part of their amendment, at that time were that “the proposed institutions for higher education for non-white persons will not have the standing of universities, nor will they enjoy the academic freedom traditionally associated with a university”. That was their objection. The university colleges would not have the standing of a university, and now that we are dealing with a Bill which will give those university colleges the standing of a university, they still think it fit to oppose the principle. Mr. Speaker, the United Party had several objections at that time, and as I now see the matter, all of those objections have fallen away to a very large extent. The hon. member for Orange Grove himself, who unfortunately is not in the House at the moment, said at that time—

I say that the objections of that time have actually fallen away to a large extent, and therefore I cannot understand why the Opposition is opposing this Bill at this stage. They said they were in favour of the establishment of institutions for higher education for our non-white population groups if the demand was there. The question is whether it has been proved to us during the past 10 years that this demand does in fact exist. The demand may in fact be relatively small. Perhaps the demand is not, as the hon. member for Berea would like to argue, as great as one should like it to be, but the demand is there and when we come to educational considerations, where is the line going to be drawn; when can one say that the demand justifies the supply or that the demand does not justify the supply? As far as I am concerned, a great deal of money may be spent on the education of one soul and then that is sufficient justification.

Objections were raised at that time to the establishment of these university colleges at the places where they are to-day, in spite of the fact that the old Fort Hare still is where it was at that time. They said the colleges should be established at cultural nuclei, at cultural centres. The question was asked—and this is a story which we still hear very often—why the University College of Zululand, for example, was not to be established in Durban, as though Durban is the cultural centre or the cultural nucleus of the Zulu people! The second point raised by the Opposition at that time, was that the council of an institution which was to be established should be an autonomous body in so far as it should enjoy the same rights, privileges and functions as the councils of existing universities. The reason advanced at that time for that objection was that there would be discrimination in the academic field; that suspicion would be aroused amongst the non-Whites. Mr. Speaker, who did most at that time, exactly in the same way as this is being done in this debate now, to arouse suspicion amongst the non-Whites? Every debate conducted by the Opposition in this House on this matter, practically every question asked in this House, is aimed at creating further suspicion. I just want to say that the councils are being given more freedom in the Bill now before us, and will gradually be given more freedom. The impression evidently exists that the Minister exercises the powers granted to him by the Act every day, whereas the truth of the matter is that they are not even aware of the Minister at these university colleges; the work is going ahead on an academic level, without interference from Government side, in contrast to what is being suggested by that side of the House. It was said at that time that that side of the House would insist on the teaching staff enjoying academic and intellectual freedom as well; that they would insist on the State not interfering with lectures. What nonsense! That is why I have so often felt the need to take some of those members just to one of these institutions. Is it at all possible for them to imagine that the members of the staff of these university colleges do not enjoy academic freedom? Is it conceivable that they can believe that the State will interfere with the lectures of a lecturer to his class?

Do they really believe this, or is it only political nativity? This Bill gives the lecturers even more freedom than they had at that time, because it is freeing the colleges from the bonds of the University of South Africa. Therefore this Bill follows on the statement made by the hon. the Prime Minister on 3rd April, 1968, when he said that the university colleges could free themselves academically from Unisa and make provision for their own curriculi, for the training of students, for the conducting of examinations, for introducing courses and for awarding degrees and diplomas. In addition this Bill is making provision for the maintenance of academic standards, as at Port Elizabeth, and for co-opted members from the staffs of other universities as far as the question of curriculi, standards, examinations and moderation is concerned. The Government has also decided that it is satisfied that the university colleges have proved that they and their staff are able to maintain the desired academic standards.

Now I want to try and indicate point by point that the granting of academic autonomy at this stage, after these colleges have been under the very pleasant protection of Unisa for ten years, is completely justified. The university colleges have grown up, and, when I say this, the hon. member for Berea must take my word for it. If he is not willing to take my word, I repeat my invitation that he should some day visit those places with us to see for himself, because I still want to make him feel sorry about this thing. The fact of the matter is, in the first place, that the staff of these institutions, the administrative staff as well as the teaching staff, now have sufficient experience of teaching and conducting examinations to enable them to proceed under their own steam. In order to give them further assistance in an indirect way, provision is being made in any case for co-opting members of the senates of other universities. As far as the staff is concerned, you can realize, Sir, that it is the ideal of every lecturer to teach his own subject, to draw up his own examination papers and to lay down his own standards, and in all these aspects they have now acquired sufficient experience in their departments under the efficient guidance of Unisa. In the second place, academic autonomy is justified on account of the quality of the lecturers appointed at these colleges. I emphasize this point in view of the fact that covert references are often made in this House that these really are second-class institutions, or even third-class institutions; because in making appointments to the staff the appointees are selected from the applicants by experts drawn from all other universities in South Africa. They serve on the selection committees for appointments. Let us remember that lecturers for posts at these university colleges are being freely drawn at present from the white universities, and the opposite is also true. Nearly 25 lecturers have been enticed away from one specific university college by white universities over the past ten years. The university colleges are losing their staff to the existing white universities, and the opposite is also true because, as I have said, lecturers are being attracted from the existing universities to the university colleges.

Lecturers at these colleges do as much research as time permits them to do. We must remember that these are dedicated people. They do their research at the C.S.T.R., at the National Council for Social and Educational Research. Overseas study and research also holds good for the non-white lecturers, and many of them have availed themselves of these privileges. Whites, on the other hand, have availed themselves of the facilities of institutions such as the London School of African and Oriental Studies to do research at those institutions on Bantu languages as well as Bantu language dialectal geography. The hon. member for Berea spoke of linguistics a short while ago. This field too is fully covered by this type of research which is undertaken at these institutions from time to time.

All things considered, the time has arrived for these university colleges to display more initiative of their own in the field and circumstances in which they are working; in other words, they should be given more elbow-room, as they are in fact being given in terms of this Bill.

As far as suspicion is concerned, if this Bill is not passed, we may be accused at some later stage that the Whites are studying at a university whereas the non-Whites have to study at a university college, and I do not think hon. members opposite would like this accusation to be made.

In addition we must mention the fact that the modern pattern is to establish universities and not to maintain university colleges. We had this pattern at RAU and at Port Elizabeth and at the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland which was raised to university status in 1964. Over the past 10 to 12 years, in the picture of Africa, we have had the case that 12 institutions were immediately established, not as university colleges first, but as universities. During the same period 14 institutions were raised from the status of university colleges to the status of universities, and as a matter of fact, as far as I know, there is only one university college left in Africa. Therefore hon. members cannot really have any legitimate fears in respect of this university which is to be established, especially not in respect of standards and examinations, because as I have said, provision is being made for the representation of experienced staff members of other universities on the faculties and the senate of the college, and for their assisting in drawing up and moderating examination papers. Then regard ought to be had to the fact that however valuable the services of Unisa might have been in the past, Unisa was established by and in the interests of Whites. For practical reasons it is not always possible for that university to make all the adjustments which are essential for the respective population groups of the Bantu in respect of certain directions of study in order to meet the particular requirements which are peculiar to each particular non-white population group. Therefore one cannot expect this to be done. The fact must be mentioned here that Unisa has already made tremendous adjustments, but I think it is fair to say that the stage has been reached when the colleges themselves should be given a little more elbow-room and when it can no longer be expected that Unisa should make further adjustments in the interests of these university colleges. I am talking of the needs of the Bantu population groups, and then it has to be stated that Unisa has no faculty of medicine or of agriculture or of engineering. This is a shortcoming which is making itself felt under the present dispensation. Even as far as the pure natural sciences are concerned, the fact should be borne in mind that Unisa is a correspondence college and consequently does not have the laboratories in which they can employ science lecturers. Therefore even in this respect the university colleges have had to make use of the lecturers of other universities. [Time expired.]

[Interjections.] I do not know why hon. members are so sensitive, but I thank them for their welcome at this, the first opportunity I have had to address this House. Of course I have the remarkable privilege of following the hon. member for Zululand, who has been talking about Bantu education, a subject about which he should know something, but unfortunately this afternoon he has shown us that he has not learnt anything. He referred to the fact that lecturers are now beginning to move quite freely between what have been called the university colleges up to now, and the so-called autonomous universities of South Africa. I notice that one of those lecturers—whether he was frustrated or not, I do not know—has come to Parliament, namely the hon. member for Zululand, who did not find it more to his advantage to move to a white university, or perhaps one of the other university colleges. He rather came to Parliament and I am afraid he has bored this House for the last 30 minutes. The hon. member mentioned that lecturers are now being attracted to these university colleges from the white universities. I am very glad to hear this. I am sure that if these colleges are to develop, as we would like to see them develop, to full university status and to the autonomy which is enjoyed by full universities in this country, this flow will continue and will become greater; and I am sure that those persons who are attracted at the moment are only those who support the Government policy of apartheid, but I hope that their numbers will be swelled by other South Africans who have a loyal and genuine interest in the education of these people. [Interjection.]

There is another point which was raised by the hon. member for Zululand, the same point which was raised by the hon. member for Koedoespoort, who unfortunately is not here now. It was this question of whether or not there should be three universities.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, may the hon. member insinuate that the hon. member for Koedoespoort has not been here the whole day?

That is not a point of order.

May I say for purposes of the record that there was no question of any insinuation on my part. I merely deplored the fact that he was not here because I would have liked to reply to him.

You are not boring the House now, are you?

With regard to what these two hon. members said about these universities, I want to put the question quite straight to them and to the Minister. Why must we limit the choice, for the Bantu, in their education? The choice in primary schools and in secondary schools is limited. They are limited to-day to Government institutions only. No longer have they the opportunity of going to church schools.

Do you want them to go to white schools?

I have not suggested anything of the sort. If the hon. member would like to suggest it, he may go on and say so, but let us make it quite clear that this is no suggestion of mine. [Interjection.] As I was saying, through their school careers their choice of education is limited. They are compelled to go to Government schools and they have no choice of looking for other types of education. What we are in effect doing with this Fort Hare Bill, and, of course, there are similar provisions in the other Bills which apply to the other university colleges, is to limit Fort Hare to people of the Xhosa ethnic group. I know there is a provision in clause 22 where the Minister can give permission for persons of other ethnic groups to go to this university, but I want to get from this Government an answer to this straight question: Why must you limit their choice? Is there any valid reason for limiting the enrolment at Fort Hare, for instance, to Xhosas, and at Ngoya to the Zulus and at the University of the North to the Sothos? I can see no reason for this at all, except plain autocracy on the part of the Minister.

While the hon. member for Zululand was speaking, I interjected and asked him a question. When he spoke about the new principles which were embodied in this Bill, I asked him to tell me what new principles actually were embodied in this Bill. He could not answer. He suggested that I should meet him tonight and that he would then try to educate me a bit. I am afraid that that is no answer at all. The fact remains that he was unable to give us an answer. I do not believe that he has read the Bill, Sir, or if he has read the Bill, has he applied his mind to it? Has he applied his mind to it in relation to existing legislation? Even his own Minister, the hon. the Minister of Bantu Education, admitted that there is only one new principle in this Bill. The Minister said that the achievement of greater academic independence for Fort Hare and the resultant greater powers and functions of its council and senate, was the only really new principle involved in this Bill. This is what the hon. the Minister said.

The Minister said it was the only really new principle.

Yes, exactly. That is the very point I made. I asked the hon. member to tell us what other new principles were embodied in this Bill. No other new principles are embodied in this Bill.

Why should there be?

I shall tell the hon member why. To honour the word of the hon. the Prime Minister. That is why there should be.

Step by step. [Interjections.]

I hope that the steps which this Government will take will be larger than those taken by the hon. the Minister. The hon. the Minister went further and said that this Bill would separate Fort Hare academically from the University of South Africa. That is all that will happen in terms of this Bill. As far as Fort Hare is concerned, all that is happening in terms of this Bill is that its apron strings are being cut. It is now being severed from the University of South Africa. But what did the people of South Africa, and particularly the Xhosa people, expect, when this Bill was presented in Parliament? They heard the statement by the hon. the Minister at Ngoya last year, where he said that autonomy—“selfstandigheid” was the word he used—would soon be given to the university colleges. They expected this. They expected autonomy. But what have they got, Sir? All they have got is the cutting of the apron strings from the University of South Africa. What did the hon. the Minister mean when he spoke about “selfstandigheid” for these university colleges? I hope he will give us an answer in his reply to this debate. Did he mean academic autonomy?

I said that they would be academically free from the University of South Africa.

The hon. the Minister now clarifies a statement which has been misunderstood, not only by me, but by many people outside. This misunderstanding was further confounded by a statement by the hon. the Prime Minister. I have here a Press release concerning “an announcement by the hon. the Prime Minister concerning greater academic independence to non-White university colleges”, which was released on 3rd April, 1968, at 7 p.m. [Interjections.] Yes, I agree. The word “academic” was used. He talks about this greater independence …

Academic independence.

… and he goes on to say: “It has also been approved that the institutions in future be called ‘universities’ ”. This immediately conjured up a picture in the minds of the people. Incidentally, Sir, the word “university” is in italics. He went on to say that “the chairmanship of the council be elevated and the incumbent of this post be designated as president of the council.” Sir, so far a certain picture is conjured up in the mind of the reader. But the statement goes further: “The Government has taken this resolution in the belief that the university colleges and their personnel have given proof of their ability to maintain the same standards which are applied by the independent universities”.

Academic standards.

No, not academic standards. The words used are “the same standards”. [Interjections.] This is the picture which was conjured up not only by me, but also by the people outside. The hon. the Minister has told us what he meant. I accept his word, because that is what he has given us in this Bill.

But that is what the Prime Minister said. He spoke of academic independence.

Mr. Speaker, I am speaking in the home language of the Minister. I am not speaking in a foreign tongue. I should like to read to him again what the Prime Minister said. His statement reads as follows: “The Government has taken this resolution in the belief that the university colleges and their personnel have given proof of their ability to maintain the same standards which are applied by the independent universities”. They have given proof of their ability to maintain the same standards as the Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit, the University of Natal, the University of Cape Town, the University of Stellenbosch or any other university. That is what the statement meant. That is what we expected but this is what we get from the Minister to-day. He now admits that all he intended was greater academic independence. But, Sir, the hon. the Minister, in giving this greater academic independence, for which we are grateful, has taken greater administrative control. If the hon. member for Zululand had looked at the Bill and if he had compared it with existing legislation, he would have found that the hon. the Minister now becomes the Lord High Priest of Fort Hare and that he has now taken control of everything. He is now the spider sitting there, controlling every single function of that university. [Interjections.] These hon. members disagreeing with me should go and read the Bill. We shall come to the Committee Stage shortly, Sir, and we shall then show that in almost every clause the words “with the consent of the Minister” or “the Minister shall” appear. This is merely an extension of greater administrative control. [Interjections.] The hon. member says “so what?”

The hon. the Minister in his Second Reading speech also said that the introduction of this Bill marked a milestone in the development of the Xhosa people. But, Sir, I want to ask what sort of a milestone this is.

A millstone.

My hon. friend says it is a millstone. I do not think it is a millstone, Sir. [Interjections.] But, having regard to the greater administrative control which is being taken by the hon. the Minister, I should like to say that if this is a step forward on the part of the Xhosa nation, then to quote my hon. friend “hulle vorder agteruit”—in exactly the same way as this Government is doing.

The hon. the Minister went further and said that this clearly proved that the Government had always been sincere in its policy and that it had faithfully honoured its undertaking. We had an undertaking from the hon. the Prime Minister last year that this university college, as it became able to maintain the same standards that were applied by the independent universities, would be granted the same degree of autonomy. How can the hon. the Minister now say that the Government has always honoured its undertakings, when he produces a Bill like this? I feel that either the Prime Minister or the Minister of Bantu Education has misled the people. The worst thing of all is that we now have a case where the hon. the Minister is going back on a White man’s word. The worst thing we can do to the Bantu people in this country is for any White man to go back on his word.

That is not true.

This is the impression which has been given by this Press statement on the part of the Prime Minister. This Bill does not come up to those expectations.

I want to go back in the history of Fort Hare. There has been a history of unrest at Fort Hare ever since the takeover by the Department of Bantu Education in 1959. There have been various reasons for this. I do not want to blame anybody or any section. But I want to say that one of the reasons for this unrest is because many of the Bantu people, professors, educated people, turned their backs on Fort Hare when it was taken over by the Department of Bantu Education. Another is because Bantu students went to Fort Hare because they had no alternative. They went there under protest. They were truculent when they went there; they resisted disciplinary measures and they were just difficult. Sir, there were also many Whites who turned their backs on Fort Hare when it was taken over by the department. Because of this we find that the staff has been drawn, by and large, from people supporting Government policy, the policy of apartheid. In these circumstances the situation was ripe for unrest. That, of course, we had. But it has now stopped. Here we now have an attempt to place the University College of Fort Hare on a sound footing, on a par—at least that is what we hoped—with the other universities, the so-called free universities.

Where you have no unrest?

I hope that is the intention of the hon. the Deputy Minister. I hope he wishes for no unrest and that we will be able to solve this whole problem. I now want to appeal to the Bantu people and particularly to the Xhosa people, to take a positive and a practical interest in the university. But I also want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Kensington and let us refer this Bill to a Select Committee before Second Reading. That will enable us to consult with the people who are the most concerned in order to get their ideas on this matter.

Why?

The hon. member asks Why. It is because they are the people who are concerned and who are going to this university; they are the people who are at present being compelled to go to that university. They have no choice. If they want to help their children to get the greatest benefit out of life by having them educated, they are being compelled to send them to the University of Fort Hare which is being run as this Government wants to run it and not as the people concerned want it to be run.

What is wrong with the running of it?

There is plenty wrong with the running of Fort Hare. It was evidenced by the unrest which we have had and it is evidenced by the low figures which are being turned out and the weak results that we are having.

You are talking about France.

I am not talking about France. There is no need to bring in France or any universities overseas into this debate. We have peace and quiet in the universities of this country because we have a responsible class of young people in this country and I like to think that all we South Africans are responsible in this matter. But there is no need for the hon. member to draw this in and to try to draw another red herring across the trail. As I have said, I want to make this appeal to the Xhosa people to accept this university, to make it their university and work in it and help the people there and to help themselves. But it is also for the Government to assist them. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister and to the Department to bury the hatchet at Fort Hare.

There is no hatchet.

Mr. Speaker, can the hon. the Deputy Minister really be so blind as to say that there is no hatchet? What I am appealing for is that we must take these institutions, these university colleges as they are being called now, away from being merely Government institutions unilaterally run by the Government. In this Bill we have a clause which is tantamount to an admission that the University of Fort Hare as it will be constituted in terms of this Bill, will be nothing more than another Government department because there is provision in the clause that the members of the staff can merely be transferred to any other Government department. They are merely considered as civil servants. Is this the right way to consider academicians?

I will give you the Oscar.

I thank the hon. the Minister of Sport. As I have said, let us refer this matter to a Select Committee and let us consider the problem. Let us see whether it is not possible to change the nature of this institution; let us call it a university and let us make it a university as we accept the term “university”. Let us turn it into a community university which will be run with the co-operation and the goodwill of the Bantu people whose sons and daughters will be educated there and not with surly acceptance as there has been during the past 10 years. I submit that the parents and the citizens have the right to determine the type of education that their children shall receive. This is the crux of my argument, and this is why I support the amendment of the hon. member for Kensington. We should consult with these people to find out what they think and what they feel about how this should be done. A new outlook is required towards Fort Hare on the part of the students, on the part of the authorities and on the part of the Bantu people generally. Sir, give Fort Hare a chance.

The impression has grown that Fort Hare is a college merely operated under the Government policy of separate development and that it is being used for the purpose of promoting that political faith. It is bad that such a suggestion should be made.

Are you really serious?

I am serious. This suggestion has been made and it is repeated amongst the Bantu people that this is done merely for the propagation of the Government’s policy of apartheid. At the same time as I say that this should cease I want to say to the students that they must not use the campus as a political battleground. The purpose of Fort Hare should be the purpose of any university and that is to make available knowledge and experience and the heritage of mankind to the young people and thereby enable the youth to live their lives fully and to serve mankind. Primarily, Fort Hare needs just to be a good university. That is all it needs to be; nothing else, just a good university. Perhaps this is what that side of the House and this side of the House both have in common. Perhaps we both seek this and perhaps we both see that this is what is needed. But it is not apparent in this Bill. So let us refer this Bill to a Select Committee where we can have hon. members from that side as well as from this side consulting with the people concerned and between the three groups, let us see whether we cannot come out with a University at Fort Hare which will be just a good University.

Mr. Speaker, an hon. member has just asked me how my headache was. Just give me a chance, and I shall deal with it under the Health Vote.

My difficulty with the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, and with so many other members during this Session, is that the hon. member is in precisely the same position to-night in regard to this Bill as we were 10 years ago, and now he and the other hon. members think that they were there first. Ten years ago we said that we wanted to make full-fledged universities of these university colleges. This Bill is a further step forward in that direction. I have all the more difficulty with hon. members and in particular with the hon. member who has just spoken because they stumble along and struggle on like a man who has his shoes on back to front. If he threatens to kick you do not know whether he is going to kick you with the heel or with the point of the shoe. One simply cannot get a good grip on things. This hon. member began by speaking about the “so-called university colleges”. The hon. member also said that the hon. member for Zululand had bored this House for a half hour. At that stage already the hon. member was smacking his lips in anticipation of the way in which they were going to deal with us in the Committee Stage. Let me now inform the hon. member that we are not going to “bore” him; we are going to drill him. “Limit their choice.”? I wonder whether the hon. member can mention one student who had an ideal which he wanted to realize at a university and who could not realize that ideal as a result of the fact that these university colleges had been established and that Fort Hare had been taken over by the Department of Bantu Administration and Development. I do not think that there is one hon. member to-night who could say that that student was handicapped as a result of these developments, and who could not undergo the training which he wanted to receive. After all, these people are being afforded opportunities on a large scale of going to other universities until such time as provision can be made for all their needs in their own universities. It is not the case at all that they are, inter alia, being limited in their choice. The hon. member states that academic independence is the only thing which is new in this Bill. Suppose that were the case, then I want to ask the hon. member what more hon. members want in view of their prophecies of doom ten years ago? “Refer it to a Select Committee!” In the course of my speech I shall indicate what progress has been made in regard to Fort Hare. To refer this Bill to a Select Committee is merely to walk round the mountain and then try to plan at one’s leisure a way of getting over the top. Look, that is not in our nature! If it has to be done, then the women take the lead rope and we cross the Drakensberg bare-footed—we do not while away our time under the marula tree of a Select Committee. I think I may as well leave it at that.

Mr. Speaker, on 26th February, 1959 the then Deputy Minister of Education, Arts and Science moved, and I quote: “That leave be granted to introduce a Bill to provide for the establishment, maintenance, management and control of university colleges for non-White persons …” Here I end my quote.

Thereupon an amendment by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, Sir De Villiers Graaff, followed. I quote—

and what follows on that.

Now he is ending his quote again.

I am ending my quote. Here the then member for Vereeniging, who is to-day the Minister of Community Development and Public Works, pointed out to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition a similar attempt at declining to allow the first reading of a similar Bill to be taken. The hon. member pointed out to the Leader of the Opposition that the then Prime Minister, Dr. Malan, requested leave in 1953 for the introduction of the Bill to place Coloureds on a separate voters’ roll. Then a similar amendment was also introduced with the purpose of preventing the first reading of the Bill. At the time the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Strauss, said that it was disgraceful …

Do not give half of it.

This hon. friend must kindly put his shoes on correctly.

Where did they say that?

I have it here and I can read it out to you. It is not my purpose to deliberately conceal something here. [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I am confining myself to my speech, as I usually do. At the time the then hon. Leader of the Opposition said that the Prime Minister should be allowed to state his case, since it was the right of a Prime Minister of a nation as well as every hon. member in this House. That was what the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Strauss, requested. In regard to the University College of Fort Hare Transfer Bill, the then Minister of Bantu Education moved—

That was the Bill which was introduced by the Government. The hon. member will probably not insist now that I should read everything because I might perhaps be omitting to mention something. On the other hand the then Leader of the Opposition moved the following amendment. I quote—

And what follows. The hon. members on the opposite side are always saying: “I move that we omit all the words after ‘That’ ”—and then we refuse. To-night, 10 years later, they are saying that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee, which is merely another way of saying it. It is possible that by doing so they think they will be able to produce a more thorough Bill, but it is merely another attempt to apply the brakes and to hinder the passage of the Bill. The hon. members are simply unable to see that it is our intention, and that we are engaged in making full-fledged universities of these non-White university colleges.

How did the hon. Leader of the Opposition motivate his amendment at that time? In the first place, the hon. Leader’s main objection was that the Government—and here are the words which the hon. member for Green Point wanted so badly to hear—would be interfering in academic freedom. In addition he said that his Party would welcome such universities, but then they must be full-fledged universities. In addition the hon. the Leader of the Opposition saw in this a lowering of the standard of the university college to something which did not nearly approach to the concept of a university in the Western world. Continuing, the hon. Leader stated that he feared the control of the university by the Minister of Native Affairs—as he was at that time called. Lastly, he stated that what was being envisaged was not a university but a State-controlled school for some or other form of higher education which would not be worthy of the name university.

If one takes note of the progress during the past 10 years in regard to this subject which we are dealing with to-night, you will see that these were all dire predictions which have come to bought. Here are a few last gasps of protest. At that time someone said here in this House: “I really feel desperate”. The same person said that it was an undermining of our chances to take the lead in future on the African Continent; that it was placing the university colleges under the control of the Department of Native Affairs, a thing which no university with any self-respect could like. In the fourth instance the same member stated that it was going to cut short almost half a century’s growth in the direction of full university status. To-night, after 10 years, we see the progress in that the university colleges are going to become academically free, instead of being set aside or whittled away for a half century. That hon. member, Mr. Stanford to be precise, said these things in column 1557 following of the Hansard of 1959. In column 1559 of the Hansard of 1959 the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development alleged that it was a misrepresentation to imply that Fort Hare would be turned into an inferior university. He also said that the Bantu Education Act had been opposed in the same way, but that the Opposition had omitted to say anything about the success of the aforesaid Act. In the next instance the Minister stated that the universities had to produce leaders. Up to that stage it had not yet been possible for Fort Hare to produce leaders. In the division which followed, 77 members were in favour of the Bill and 45 opposed to it. On 22nd April, 1959, the hon. member for Kensington, asked in column 4462—

Note the prophecies of doom. And to-night, 10 years later, we are coming forward with the Bill to grant academic freedom to that former university college. Also note the intense sustained opposition—also during the Second Reading. After the Opposition had declined consent to the introduction of the First Reading, the then hon. member for Albany, Mr. Bowker, stated during the Second Reading, in column 4471 of the Hansard of 1959 that the Minister was seeking to achieve a devilish purpose in the Act. He also said—

He also stated—

The hon. member said this on 22nd April, 1959. To-day, only 10 years later, we are now dealing with this Bill to grant academic freedom to that same institution. Let us listen for a moment to what a man with authority has to say about this university college. I want to read from the Bantu Education Journal of September 1967. This is what Prof. J. J. Ross, former rector of the University College of Fort Hare, had to say—

That was the opinion of the then principal of that institution, and he tells us here how certain people viewed the matter at that time, people who opposed the Government when this measure was before the House. Now, what is the history of this institution? Another hon. member referred earlier on to the history of Fort Hare. It was opened in 1916 by the Church of Scotland under the principalship of Dr. A. Kerr. The idea of separate university training for non-Whites was propagated as early as 1878 by Dr. James Stewart of Love-dale. (Subsequently at the Potchefstroom University College the corrugated iron canteens—the students’ hostels—were very significantly referred to as Lovedale, and the other one …)

Hammarsdale.

No! I have forgotten. At the time of the transfer of Fort Hare in 1960 the institution already had 1,193 degree students, 34 post-graduate students, 456 U.E.D.’s and 189 other diploma-certificated students. These included Bantu, Coloureds and Indians. This is a bygone era, an era which will never again exist in future. To-day hundreds and hundreds of them are assisting in development projects throughout Africa. If they are engaged in subversive activities there then I just want to say that they were not brought up badly, they went bad when they were grown-up. That was inter alia enough proof of the need of the Act of 1959 and the transfer in 1960 which was by no means a leap in the dark. We knew precisely what we were dealing with, where we were going, and what we wanted to do. The establishment of the various colleges made the transfer of Fort Hare for the Xhosa necessary. The colleges were those for the Coloureds, the Indians, the Sothos and the Zulus. At the same time it made an end to the so-called open universities, excepting the University of South Africa, as well as separate and exceptional admissions inter alia at Cape Town and Johannesburg.

At Fort Hare the lowering of academic standards was guarded against. Academically it was placed under the supervision of the University of South Africa as far as courses, examinations and certification was concerned. In this regard let me quote again from this Bantu Education Journal. Prof. Ross had the following to say—

The material progress at that institution is summarized in the next sentence by Prof. Ross when he states—

The material progress was such that the principal of the institution, who knows what he is talking about, was able to testify as he did above.

Let us glance for a moment at the number of students. Bantu students in all the colleges numbered 365 in 1960, 1,161 in 1966, 1,313 in 1967 and it is assumed that by 1975 there will be 6,000. The appeal of the colleges is reflected in the success which is being achieved. Would the open universities, if they had been left as they were, have been able to absorb all these people? We must say no, they would not have been able to do so. Then people would have complained, “I wanted to receive certain training, but the necessary facilities for me to be able to do so did not exist in South Africa.” But through the establishment of these colleges they have every opportunity in the world to undergo the training which they want so badly. The growth is attributable inter alia to the situation of those university colleges in the areas they have to serve. The colleges are homogeneous, and this promotes participation in college activities. This is also something we envisaged at the time with the establishment of these institutions. Listen once more to what the then principal said—

The influx made selective admission necessary; the doors could not simply be thrown open to all who wanted to come in, even if one had wanted it and it had been possible. The influx was too great. The hon. member who spoke before I did, spoke about the places to which we were compelling them to go but where they did not want to be. But the influx was such that selective admission had to be applied, as I have said. In 1967 there were already seven faculties. The present rector has written as follows—

Now let us look at the academic achievements. Between 1960 and 1966 the particulars for Fort Hare, Ngoya and Turfloop were as follows. There were 444 successful candidates in the following directions of study—B.A., B. Sc., B.A. and B.Sc. (Hons.), M.A. and M.Sc., B.Ed. and M.Ed. 426 diplomas in 10 other directions of study were obtained. In 1967 Dr. Ross wrote as follows—

These are now these so-called “tribal colleges”. This is what the principal of the institution has to say. What we want to bring about tonight, to-morrow and in the ensuing days, the principal of the college said as long ago as 1967 should have been done at that time.

Fort Hare is playing its part in the communication of knowledge as well as in the promotion of knowledge by research in the socioeconomic fields, inter alia in education, arts, theology, commerce and administration, agriculture and geography.

What about the staff? The degree to which the staff are equipped for their task appears inter alia from the fact that White universities meet staff shortages by drawing on the University College of Fort Hare. If they had not been well-equipped staff, this would most certainly not have happened. Do you see the position we have already achieved as regards the status of that institution? But the college was spoken about with so much contempt, and even to-day some people believe that nothing good can come of it; they believe that this legislation holds nothing good. But Fort Hare is going from strength to strength. Let me quote a few statistics. In 1960 there were two faculties, in 1968 seven. In 1960 there were 18 departments, in 1968 40. In 1960 there were 90 staff members, in 1968 139. In 1960 there were 360 students, and in 1968 451. Here is something interesting. Note how this college has to an increasing extent become the home of the Xhosa and not the other groups. In 1960 there were 115 persons belonging to other ethnic groups apart from the Xhosas, in 1961 there were 102, in 1962 67, in 1963 15, in 1964 7, and in 1968 there was only 1. Look now how their numbers are decreasing. In this way it is serving its purpose. But we are being told that restrictions are being imposed on these people because they do not have a free choice as regards what university they want to go to. These people who have been taken out of the University College of Fort Hare were accommodated elsewhere, they are not floating around in space.

But they had to leave.

And things are going very well with them.

I think that we have now had a good survey of the growth of Fort Hare over a period of approximately 10 years. How long did it take our White universities to outgrow their college shoes and become full-fledged universities? I now want to indicate this. But I am not doing it in a derogatory sense in respect of our White universities; the fact of the matter is simply that things develop much more rapidly now than formerly. We are in a hurry with these university colleges because, for their and our own sakes, we want them to be what they must be, namely full-fledged, well-equipped universities. Let me now go into this. The University of Cape Town was established in 1916. It had its origins in the South African College which was founded in 1878, i.e. a period of 38 years before becoming a full-fledged university. The University of Stellenbosch was established in 1916; it had its origins in the Victoria College which was founded in 1885—a period of 31 years. The university of the Witwatersrand was established in 1921; it had its origins in the South African School for Mining and Technology, established in 1910—a period of 11 years. The University of the Orange Free State was established in 1949, and originated out of the Grey University College of 1910—39 years. The University of Natal was established in 1948, and had its origins in the Natal University College of 1909—a period of 39 years. It sounds as if I am holding an auction now. The University of Pretoria was established in 1930, had its origins in the Transvaal University College of 1910, a period therefore of 20 years. The Potchefstroom University for C.H.E. has been independent since 1950, since 1919 as the Potchefstroom University College it had been under the University of South Africa (developed out of the theological school); that is a period of 31 years.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23 and debate adjourned.