Mr. Speaker, when this debate was adjourned on Friday, I had dealt with certain matters which, you will concede, may to a certain extent not be discussed under the present circumstances, perhaps to the disappointment of the hon. members for Durban Point and Yeoville. However, I do not think it would be wrong or out of place, in resuming my speech, to refer to the matter which I touched upon in conclusion last Friday, viz. that there is a heavy responsibility resting on all members of this House, and specifically on members of the Opposition, to do nothing in all their outspoken attempts to drum up support for their party which would make the almost superhuman task of our security forces more difficult. I was referring to the remarks made by the hon. members for Port Natal and Durban North. I do not want to repeat them. I only want to refer to a speech made by the hon. the Minister of Police on 8th December, at a police parade in Pretoria, when he said the following (translation)—

Sir, I think that every member with a sense of responsibility in this House can endorse every word in that statement. Therefore I do not think it is out of place to make a fresh appeal to members of this House, and specifically members of the Opposition …

Talk about your own people.

… to abide by this serious and urgent request, which has no political implications, but only seeks to safeguard South Africa. I said to the hon. member for Yeoville the other day: “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones”. I want to quote a short passage today, perhaps out of the distant past, for the edification of members who were muttering a moment ago, so that they can for a change examine their own conscience and take a look at themselves, and see themselves as the people of South Africa see them. I have here a pamphlet which was published by the United Party about 20 years ago. [Interjections.] Sir, there is an hon. member who is very loath to take his medicine, but he is going to take it now. The pamphlet reads as follows (translation)—

Then the pamphlet goes on to say—

Sir, there is nothing further I want to say on this subject. I just want to repeat: “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones”.

In the time left to me, I should like to talk to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, but it seems to me he is not here today, nor is the hon. member for Yeoville. During the speech made by the hon. the Prime Minister towards the end of the no-confidence debate, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout interrupted him with these words (col. 407)—

Then the hon. member for Bezuidenhout went on to say that this was indeed the standpoint of the Leader of the Opposition. In the Press and elsewhere, at congresses, there was a whole hullabaloo over the question: “What precisely is the United Party’s policy in respect of the representation of non-Whites in this House?”

You do not learn easily.

No, we learn quite easily. Sir, the hon. member for Pinelands, who made that interjection, was told by his own newspaper that they cannot understand what the policy of the United Party is. It is the task of that hon. member, and not mine, to teach his own people. Before this remark by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, there was a continual public altercation between the hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. First the one said the United Party had changed its standpoint, then the other said it had not. After that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout told the hon. the Prime Minister the other day: “Are you not aware that this is an interim measure as far as the United Party is concerned?” If we cast our minds back, Sir, it strikes one that as long ago as 1963 the hon. member for Yeoville, who attacked the hon. member for Bezuidenhout in public, expressed the same standpoint in a television interview, i.e. that this policy is an interim policy. Sir, I am raising this matter today because it has been discussed as a matter of the utmost importance over a long period in this House, and outside, because the United Party is struggling to take over the government. It is this: What is the United Party’s plan in respect of the representation of non-Whites which the United Party believes should have representation together with the Whites in this House? Hon. members of the Opposition then said that there would be eight representatives for the Bantu, but that these should be Whites, and that there would be six representatives for the Coloureds who could be Whites or Coloureds. The question was then put to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition: “But are you going to keep it at that? What happens if they subsequently begin to demand that these representatives should be Bantu?” (The point on which the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is now fighting his own party) and then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that as far as his party and he were concerned, they would remain Whites. The question was also put: “But if they insist that there should be more of them, what then?” The hon. the Leader of the Opposition adopted the standpoint that the number would remain at eight. This question has been put to him repeatedly—I myself have put it to him three times in this House—“How are you going to guarantee that those numbers are going to remain the same and that the representatives are going to remain White?” He then said he was going to hold a referendum. Then I, and others as well, asked him: “But why hold a referendum if you do not want to increase the numbers or change the representation; what is the sense of a referendum then, and what are your instructions going to be in that referendum? Eventually he then said that his instructions under such circumstances would be: “Vote against it.”

Some of them wanted to shoot them.

But what is more— the hon. member is correctly reminding me of this now—the question was also put: “Suppose the White voters vote against the suggestion that the number should be increased or that the representatives should be Bantu, how are you then going to maintain the so-called White leadership, which your party is peddling?”, and then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition replied: “If necessary, with all the power the Government will have at its disposal”. Sir, I do not think there is any hon. member in this House who does not realize precisely what those words imply. Now, Mr. Speaker, we have been given to understand by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout— and this has not yet been repudiated—that this dispensation is an interim one. We repeatedly asked the hon. the Leader of the Opposition: “Is that promise of a referendum which you hold out to protect White leadership, as the United Party calls it, in this country, not a bluff, measured in practical terms against what a referendum means?” I now want to put a question to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition: Is he still prepared to hold a referendum on the question of an increase in or a change of the representatives of Bantu in this House? Is he still prepared to guarantee a referendum? Sir, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition does not want to speak to me, but the hon. member for Pinelands and I are good friends and he seems to be quite good-natured. Would, the hon. member for Pinelands please tell me what the position is.

Vause says he is going to shoot them.

Sir, may I inquire of the hon. member for Pinelands whether his party still intends to hold a referendum in regard to this matter or not? [Interjection.] The hon. member says “No”. I should like to know from the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, or from some or other leading or lesser light on that side, whether it is still the policy of their party to hold a referendum in regard to the question of representation of the Bantu in this House? Is there one of the leading lights who could give me a reply to that? Sir, what about the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central; what about the hon. member for Transkei? He is deeply involved in this matter. Would the hon. member for Transkei not be so kind as to give me a reply? Or would the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District give me a reply? Sir, in the absence of a reply, I think that on my argument alone I have every justification for stating in this House today that that promise of a referendum is as great a piece of deceit as one could imagine, particularly when measured in the light of what has just happened in these last few weeks when the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, without being contradicted, intimated that it was merely an interim dispensation, and that is why I say that the voters of South Africa cannot take any notice of a promise of this nature from the United Party because it is a party which trims its sails to the winds of expediency and does not serve the interests of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to spend much time on the arguments raised by the hon. member for Stellenbosch.

They were not arguments; he was playing the fool.

He said here last week that he did not accuse the members of the U.P. of colluding with the communists. He said that he wanted to state this quite candidly; he did not accuse them of doing that, but he did have an idea that the U.P. were colluding with the communists behind the scenes. Today he came along here and issued a warning to members on this side of the House that they should be careful in their actions in regard to communism and terrorists. Sir, he was implying something there which this side of the House rejects with contempt. The hon. member then went on and tackled the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in regard to the U.P.’s policy, and asked what they would do if a proposal were to be made that the eight Bantu representatives in this House should be increased.

Sir, I do not want to spend much time on that. When it was decided to proclaim a Republic, a referendum was held in that regard, and I assume that any Government would hold a referendum if there is any question of a change in our constitutional system. No, Sir, this is simply the old story all over again. Hon. members on that side decided even before the session to blow up the question of terrorism and communism into a vast smokescreen to distract attention in that way from the real economic problems of the country. They decided to embroil the United Party in a debate on terrorism and communism and on the question of non-White representation in this House. Sir, we know that story. I do not want to argue about it any further. But before I return to the hon. the Minister of Finance and the statements he made here in the debate on the Part Appropriation Bill, I want to refer to certain things which the hon. member for Carltonville, who is fortunately present at the moment, said and which we cannot simply allow to go unanswered. In his speech—I do not know whether to call it a moral sermon, an oracle or a debacle—the hon. member for Carltonville adopted the attitude that the Nationalist Party is the only party with moral strength and that it would be advisable for the many Van Blerks whom we find outside today, to go running back to the Nationalist Party. The hon. member then went on to describe the integrity and the credibility of the Nationalist Party. I wonder what Nationalist Party he was talking about. Was he not perhaps talking about the Nationalist Party of just prior to or just after 1948, for then I could perhaps concede that he was correct, but if he was talking about the Nationalist Party of today and then went on to speak in the same breath about integrity and credibility, then one must append a very large question-mark to that utterance of his. Hon. members on this side of the House have repeatedly pointed out the credibility gap which applies to that side, and then the hon. member has the temerity to come and say here that the Nationalist Party is a party with moral integrity and credibility.

The hon. member went further. He implied that the Nationalist Party was a party with firm, strongly moral and religious codes. Sir, the hon. member must not imply, as he did, that the party on this side is not a party with credibility and that it has no moral strength. When the voters look for a party in which all democratic White people can feel at home, regardless of their faith or origins, then it is this party. But look at the party on that side of the House. How can all Whites feel at home in that party? I should like to turn to the economy and what this hon. member advocated, i.e. a slow growth rate, and not the growth rate we had in 1964 and 1969.

[Inaudible.]

On a point of order, Sir, is an hon. member opposite entitled to refer to hon. members on this side as “White Communists”?

Mr. Speaker, I said, with reference to the membership of that party, when that hon. member mentioned all those who felt at home there, then I said “also a White communist”.

Order! I want to ask hon. members to be careful with their interjections. The hon. member may proceed.

I was dealing with the matter which the hon. member for Carltonville advocated, i.e. that he stands for a slow growth rate or a moderate growth rate, to use his words. Sir, there the hon. member let the cat out of the bag in regard to why this entire Government now advocates a moderate growth rate. I shall come to that later when I speak to the hon. the Minister of Finance about this moderate growth rate. The hon. member asked what is necessary for a good growth rate. It is capital and labour. He then dealt with the question of capital. Where must the capital come from? Does he not know that capital comes from an increased turnover in the business world, and does he not know that what is retarding it at this stage is the lack of labour necessary to generate more capital? The hon. member spoke quite derogatorily of the non-White labour we have; their labour is of such a nature that one cannot place them in senior positions. Their labour is of a humble kind which is only qualified to do certain things. Sir, that is why I ask in all earnestness whose fault is it that the non-White labour in this country, and particularly Bantu labour, is not capable of pulling its weight in the economy? Is it not the Government’s fault? The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and his Deputies have repeatedly stated that the Government will not allow the Black man in the Republic of South Africa to be trained, to be technically trained, to pull his weight; he can be trained in the Bantu areas to pull his weight there, but not here. As long as they are of that way of thinking, it is surely not possible, for the manufacturers have to make do with a mere a quota of the labour which the country has at its disposal; they cannot use all the labour.

But I should like to return now to the hon. the Minister of Finance who told us last year that he had inflation by the short hairs, that this country would be amongst the foremost ten countries owing to its economic strength, and that there was no question of devaluation. He was still saying that well into the year. Then, within the space of two months the Minister not only devalued, but also applied stricter import control. I want to know what two methods there were which the Minister could have utilized to bring about greater inflation and to cause the cost of living to rise more steeply than precisely those two methods. He devalued—and I shall deal later with how this has caused our cost of living to rise—and he made import control even stricter, and there the cost of living goes up; you can see no way of halting it, as the hon. the Minister will know. Do you know, Sir, that when I cast my mind back over this hon. gentleman’s past, and I have known him for many years, I think of the days when he was the leading light in the Reddingsdaadbond He was the pivot on which it turned. You know as well as I, and the old school knows, Sir, what the Reddingsdaadbond stood for and how he figured in that organization. That hon. Minister was the man who spoke up with a strong voice in the country for the lesser privileged Afrikaner, for the man who was living on and below the bread-line. He tried to work miracles for the upliftment of those people. You know it as well as I do, Sir, and we had great esteem for him, and still have it today, and for the views he held in those days. But if we come to where the Minister is today, we wonder whether he is still of the same opinion and whether he still has the same feeling for the lesser privileged. We wonder whether he is still so concerned about the cost of living and how those people are getting on. After all there are pensioners and other people who have to come out on very little, thanks to the methods he has again applied now, and which will cause the cost of living to soar again. Is the hon. the Minister still thinking of those people whose month is longer than their salaries, and how they must live on that? Now that the Minister finds himself in a different environment, is living in a marble palace, does he still look after the interests of these kind of people, as he is expected to do? Has the hon. gentleman ever tried to draw up a budget for the man earning R300, from which he must pay his house rent, or interest on his bond, insurances, licences, clothing, staple products, butter, milk, vegetables, fruit, meat, coffee and tea? Has the hon. the Minister tried to draw up such a budget to see whether such a person can come out? And if he cannot come out, can we afford to cause the cost of living to rise ever higher? Or is it time the Government did everything in its power to prevent the cost of living from rising higher? I do not doubt that the hon. the Minister knows as well as any other member of this House that devaluation coupled with increased import control can in many respects only cause the cost of living to rise. Imports, for example, are more expensive.

I sometimes wonder by whom the hon. the Minister is being advised in these times in regard to certain fiscal and financial methods. Does their advice still mean anything? What about businessmen such as Dr. Jan Marais, Dr. Hupkes, Mr. Van Aswegen and Dr. Wassenaar? Does the Government still take note of the advice of these people when they level criticism and want to lead it in other directions? Or have they, too, now that they are criticizing the Government, become national enemies of the Government? I sometimes wonder who supplies the hon. the Minister with advice, in view of the methods he utilizes.

The hon. the Minister says—

I should like to put the following specific question to the hon. the Minister. Does the Government still believe in private enterprise? How does it reconcile this with its many State and State-aided projects which could just as well have been developed by private enterprise, i.e. if he still believes in private enterprise. Then one still has the high taxes and the lack of a purposeful incentive to greater production. That is surely retarding private enterprise. In addition, industrialists are expected to get along with only a quota of the available labour, while industries throughout the world are allowed to compete in the entire labour field. If devaluaton increases production costs, how must they compete purposefully with the rest of the world?

I want to return again to the question of the availability of labour and the problem we have in that regard. This is a problem which businessmen and industrialists must inevitably have. They simply do not have sufficient labour available. The hon. the Minister encourages them to produce more. They must produce more otherwise our exports will not increase. If that industrialist has to increase production, with the increased production costs as a result of the increased costs of all imported goods, such as capital goods and so on, and with the unobtainability of sufficient labour, I wonder how that hon. Minister would argue in this regard. Even if they are being encouraged, how must they do this? The tax pressure on these people is exceptionally heavy. I do not need to mention this; the hon. member for Umlazi has done so repeatedly. The tax pressure on these people is heavy; their production costs must inevitably increase and their labour has been restricted. In fact, they do not know what the Government’s policy in regard to labour is; whether it is the policy of the Minister of Transport, which is that they are to be given a little more scope, or whether they will still be under the quota system so that they have to obtain permits to find people who come to work for them for only a while. These people are not permanently employed by them and they cannot be trained and conditioned for the work they have to do. The temporary permits make provision for transportation to and from the place of work and the Bantu states. In one way or another we are all associated with industralization or business enterprises, and I wonder whether the hon. the Minister knows what a brake on, and what a lack of incentive there is for these industrialists, an incentive which could encourage them to greater production. If there were some method by means of which they could be given an incentive after having increased their production, an incentive which provides for diminished taxation as production increases, it would encourage these people more. I should very much like to have the hon. the Minister’s attention. I know that there is a tax incentive for the man who produces more, but the incentive is far from sufficient to encourage the industrialist to produce more and better products. How does the hon. the Minister want to succeed in getting industrialists to produce more if he places three or four brakes on him and gives him no incentive to produce more and better products? In heaven’s name, is this possible? Will they respond to that call?

Now I want to return to the appeal which was made to organized labour not to ask for higher wages. The Minister said—

I repeat that greater productivity is dependent upon a number of requirements. The man must have sufficient labour; he must have the methods at his disposal with which he can produce more cheaply and not more expensively as is at present the case, and he must have an incentive. As far as labour is concerned, how many quotations are there dealing with the labour problem? In the latest edition of Commercial Opinion I read the following—

What have we been saying? We have been saying that it is necessary to make fuller use of our non-White manpower resources; that Government spending has become excessive; that taxation has become burdensome; that the continuing inflation has led to misinvestment and the creation of a pattern of exploitation that cannot be fulfilled; and that certain other Government policies are not conducive to economic growth.

To the man in the street—and, we fear, to many officials in Pretoria—these are broad generalizations that fail to evoke much response. Their impact is dulled by repetition. But one day the consequences may become evident. And the consequences are manifested in the only possible way, namely by a decline in living standards. Money incomes are not easily cut, so the inevitable adjustment takes place through a rise in the price level —what is called the cost of living.

In the latest edition of the Financial Mail, the following is said—

They realize (and so it seems, does everybody else apart from the diehards inside and outside the Nationalist Party) that continued growth and prosperity require a fundamental change of attitude to the non-White worker—to his stability, his housing, his education, his training, his productivity and his pay. The country is ready for it. The management is ready for it. And many of the trade unions are ready for it.

I have asked repeatedly, and I want to ask again now, that the hon. the Minister, when he replies this afternoon, should tell us whether the Government’s labour pattern and labour policy has changed or whether it is still the same. Would he tell us whether more Bantu and non-White labour can be made available? Would the hon. the Minister tell us whether it is Cabinet policy that they may be given technical training in the Republic of South Africa to enable them to pull their weight in industries? Or will we again receive no replies? I want to repeat that industrialists as such, particularly in commerce, do not see their way clear to complying with the hon. the Minister’s appeal that more and better products should be produced so that the gap between our exports and imports can be closed. The Minister’s appeal to trade unions, that they should not ask for higher wages, is a farce. Has the House ever heard anything like it? The cost of living is rising as a result of methods which are being applied by that Government. If the worker’s cost of living rises, and he consequently cannot come out on his salary, what must he do? Would it help to make a moral appeal to the labour force in the Republic not to ask for higher wages while we know that there is already agitation for higher wages in many sectors, and also in the sector of the hon. the Minister of Transport? Of course these people will want higher wages. The spiral keeps turning; it is the same pattern: Every time wages increase, inflation increases as well.

Lastly, the hon. the Minister made the following statement—

Surely this is not an accurate and true statement. Does the hon. the Minister really think that when import control makes other articles more expensive, this helps make it easier for our local manufacturers to compete? Surely the hon. the Minister knows that the prices of commodities we have to import, are not only affected by the devaluation of 12,28 per cent which occurred here, but that these are also affected by the revaluation of the monetary units of the countries from which we are importing, such as Germany and Japan for example. The difference is therefore not only 12,28 per cent, but in fact 20 per cent. In addition to that, sales tax has to be paid on the prices which are 20 per cent higher. When the hon. the Minister came to light with sales tax, we told him repeatedly that he should make it a purchase tax. Now the term “purchase tax” is being used, while in reality it is a sales tax. It simply amounts to the same old story again: More money is being paid out owing to devaluation on the one hand and appreciation on the other, higher sales tax and a higher price structure as soon as imported commodities are used. How must the producer produce more cheaply? That is the problem. I think it is time the hon. the Minister took the country into his confidence and told manufacturers and traders throughout the country what the policy of the Government for the near future is in respect of the country’s labour pattern in the first place. He must tell them whether they can rely on getting more labour and that the labour will be given technical training here in this country or whether it is now and for always the Government’s policy that this will not be done?

The second point, one which I have mentioned previously, is this: What incentive will there be to produce more and better products? The hon. the Minister must indicate to us what incentive there will be apart from what I call “minor incentives” which exist at this stage for the manufacturers to produce more and better products in spite of all the problems they already have. I want to repeat that there are many countries in the world where this incentive is being given; when they are hard-up for exports of their own products and they want the manufacturers to double their yield, they not only say that more and longer working hours must be worked, they also say that if the manufacturers can double their production quota the incentive will be so much, and if they can triple it, they need not pay tax on the third portion. After all, that is probably what manufacturers here want. It is also probably the incentive the country needs to produce more. We are looking forward to the hon. the Minister’s reply in this regard. If neither he nor the Prime Minister nor anyone else in the Cabinet can furnish those replies, or can tell us what the Government’s policy is in this respect, I want to say that not only Brakpan, but many other places as well will say: “Out with this Government! We have had enough! ”

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens said here a few days ago that this debate would possibly be one of the most significant of this intire session. I do not think the hon. member could have realized how close he came to the truth. This debate which has almost concluded has in many respects been one of the most remarkable I have ever attended in my long experience in this House. I regret to say that it has been one of the most barren, boring and uninspired debates I have ever heard on the part of the Opposition. There has been a boring repetition of statements from that side of this hon. House, statements which have been made over and over again in this House during the past years.

In the second place, I must say that to my regret I experienced a bitterness and an acrimony from hon. members on that side of this House during the past debate such as I have never known in this House. In the two or more decades for which the hon. the Leader and I have been sitting in this House, I have crossed swords on the floor of this House with men such as Mr. Waterson in the debates which have been conducted here. We fought a tough battle with each other, but we could always look each other in the face, because we tried to conduct the debates on a high level.

Just like Stellenbosch.

In recent years, however, the situation has changed completely. I am very sorry to have to say, that since my friend the hon. member for Parktown became the U.P. leader in the economic and financial debates in this House, there has been a complete change in the relationship between the Opposition and the Government. There is now a feeling of bitterness in which arguments no longer count. Because the Opposition know that their arguments no longer count, they are trying to create an impression by using strong language. We could perhaps forgive them this acrimony if it were not so harmful to the country. This acrimony only springs from a feeling of frustration on the part of people who would so much like to come and sit on this side of this House, but know that, in spite of everything, they will never succeed in doing so.

Which side spoke about finance?

I shall come to that in a moment. From this side it often seemed as if those hon. members were speaking in a sound-proof room. They rant and rave, but nobody listens to them. Those who do listen to them, do not pay much attention to them. In the past few weeks I made a point of getting in touch with the business world as well. It is my job. I shall not deny that those hon. members have supporters in the business world, because we know this. But I want to tell hon. members that some of the most prominent businessmen told me that I should take no notice of what those people say. Even some of the severest critics of the Government’s economic policy still firmly support the National Party. A few days ago I spoke to a prominent industrialist in this country, a person who has been critical of certain aspects of the Government’s economic policy. When he asked me what he should do with a Government which refused to do what he wanted, I advised him to vote the Government out of power. He replied: “No, not on your life.” However critical those businessmen may be, many of them merely in order to see their names in the newspapers, they do not want that side of the House ever to take over the government. A party has never come into power by berating and abusing its opposition. A party has never come into power by repeating dozens and dozens of points of policy. Does the Opposition not remember what happened in 1953? In that year the United Party came forward with hundreds of promises and thought it would win the people’s votes by that means. However, it suffered a heavy defeat. The many promises they make will harm them rather than help them to make headway.

In conclusion I want to say in this connection that no party has ever come into power and remained in power in South Africa by means of pure bread-and-butter politics, with a purely materialistic philosophy such as we have heard from that side of the House. The only party which will govern in this country is one which can look after the material needs of the people, but which also has a message for its people, a message which transcends all material gain. What inspiration have those hon. members given the people? What inspiration have they given the youth? They say that the youth are becoming estranged and are turning to them. Let us look for a moment at what has been revealed by scientific investigations. I have here a scientific investigation carried out at the University of Pretoria, in which it is stated (translation)—

When was this?

Last year. Further on they make another interesting statement—

[Interjections.]

An investigation was carried out at the University of Stellenbosch as well, in which inter alia the following is stated (translation)—

I should like to proceed to discussing a few matters of policy, but before doing so, I want to draw the attention of this hon. House to a few points to prove how ineffectual and desperate that party is, a party which cannot even form a proper Opposition and is therefore incapable of governing the country. I want to mention a few examples—and I can mention numerous such examples—which have occurred in recent debates. In the first place, I want to make the statement that hon. members on that side are incapable of making even the most elementary arithmetical calculations. Surely a party which wants to govern the country must be able to do some arithmetic in the economic and financial spheres, but they cannot even do that. Let me mention a few examples. I referred in this debate to the cost of living index actually being 4 per cent. In talking of 7 per cent, we include the 3 per cent in administered prices, which must be dealt with differently. This is the finding of the Reserve Bank. Hon. members did not understand that. I explained it in my Second Reading speech and watched the hon. members over there. I am sure not one of them could understand that calculation. Secondly, the same thing happened when a report of an interview with me appeared in Die Transvaler in which it was said that I had predicted that the cost of living index figure might drop after March. The hon. member for Parktown looked at me with an expression of utter amazement on his face that one could say something like that, and asked me whether I had really said it. The rules of this House did not permit me to reply to that. Subsequently I replied to it in the Second Reading speech, but up to this very moment hon. members have understood nothing of it. I have not received a proper reply to it even now. In the third place, I mentioned in a previous debate that one of the reasons why we had devalued, and had devalued more than the dollar had, was that we would receive more rands for our gold than if we had not done so. I hope you can remember the expression of consternation on the faces of the hon. friends opposite. They simply did not understand that one would receive more rands for one’s gold if one devalued more than the dollar had.

The hon. member for Yeoville mentioned a beautiful example a few days ago. He said that the old people were not cared for in our country. In 1948 they received R12 per month in old-age pension, and now they receive R38. In the meanwhile the value of the rand had decreased from 100 cents to 45 cents. Then he asked: “How can they be better off when the rand is worth 45 cents?” He cannot do arithmetic. Suppose the rand was once worth 100 cents and now, according to him, it is worth 45 cents, then it has lost 55 per cent of its value. But the pension has increased from R12 to R38, i.e. by 220 per cent.

Of the R12, yes.

But one can look at it from the other side as well. The buying-power of the R12 has decreased by 120 per cent, but the allowance they now receive has increased by 220 per cent. The hon. member still understands absolutely nothing of this. In addition, the hon. member forgot that pensions have in the meantime been supplemented with a deferred pension of R11 and an attendant’s allowance of R10, so that pension can be R59 per month, or R118 for a married couple.

Hon. members opposite have proved in this debate that they have no conception of economic principles either. In the first place, we explained to them ad nauseam that there is something like fluctuations in the economy. My friends on this side of the House spoke about that. No economy ever remains on an even keel; there are upward and downward movements, there are the cyclical fluctuations. This is the case in every country in the world. If one tells them that things have gone well in South Africa for more than 20 years, but that one of those cyclical fluctuations is taking place now, they simply do not understand it. I am beginning to think that those hon. members, the so-called alternative government, are a lot of scared people and that they have taken fright. Now that a slight deceleration has unfortunately entered our economy, something we should like to change, we find that they are paralysed with fright. If they get such a fright in the Opposition, how would they not take fright and run away if they were the Government?

In the second place, hon. members do not understand the economic concept that economics is international, and that we here form part of what is taking place in the economic sphere throughout the world. We are not isolated. Our economy is part of world economy; we are affected by world trends. We repeatedly tell those hon. members this, but their blinkers are closing their eyes. They cannot see farther than right in front of them. They cannot see farther than these benches, in which they would so much like to sit.

In the third place, we have tried to explain that the inflation we have today, is due mainly to excessive consumption and that the methods which must be employed against excessive consumption are fiscal and monetary ones, which are also recommended by the International Monetary Fund in such circumstances. But they do not understand this, Sir. They do not understand it, and that is why we never heard anything positive from them.

I come to the hon. member for Durban Point, who said in a speech in the previous debate: “It may be true that the 4 per cent increase in the real domestic product is mainly in the form of wages and salaries, but look at the terrible cost of living.” Did the hon. member not know that in that 4 per cent the cost of living had already been taken into account and that it was a real figure which was determined after the cost of living had been taken into account? Did the hon. member not know this, or was he merely indulging in propaganda?

Just ask the housewives.

Sir, that hon. member is not the only one speaking like this. The other day the hon. member for Simonstown addressed a meeting in the Strand together with the hon. member for Yeoville, and referred to the cost of living which was so terribly high. He spoke of the tremendous “inflationary rate”, and said that the growth of South Africa did not nearly approach and could not be compared with the high inflation in our country. But the hon. member omitted to tell his people that the growth rate may be more than 10 per cent this year, while inflation is 7 per cent at most. He omitted to say that in monetary terms the growth rate was higher than the rate of inflation (ruilvoet).

When I spoke about the rate of exchange in the previous debate, I tried to explain that one of the main reasons why we had had to devalue and why we had devalued more than the dollar, was that the rate of exchange in our foreign trade had changed unfavourably towards us. The hon. members sat looking at me as if they had never before heard of something like the rate of exchange. The hon. member for Constantia mentioned a few dates here and asked what had happened between 22nd October and 24th November, when we introduced import control. Did the hon. member not take note of what happened then? Did he not watch what was taking place in the economic sphere? Did he not know about the outflow of money from South Africa and of the leads and lags and the other reasons for import control? Imports increased because the people were expecting import control or devaluation. As a result, there was a flight of capital from the country, and under these circumstances every responsible Government would have been obliged to do something in November in order to protect its reserves. Now the question is put to me: “But did you not know that the Group of Ten were going to meet in December?” Yes, we knew they were going to meet, but we did not know what they were going to decide or that a decision would be taken. We did not know whether they were going to decide to devalue or to what extent they were going to devalue or revalue. There were rumours that they would reach a compromise perhaps only in February, or perhaps only at the end of this year. Did the hon. member for Constantia and others on that side know what the Group of Ten was going to decide in December? On 24th November, when we decided on import control, did they know what the Group of Ten was going to decide in December? If they knew, why did they not tell us about it?

Sir, a great deal has been said here about the £80 million gold loan which was made to Britain in 1948. I think it is time for us to come forward with the truth in regard to that loan. We are always told here that in those years when we took over, the economy was so wonderfully sound that they could afford to lend Britain £80 million in gold.

You supported us.

In 1947 the deficit on current account was R354 million and the national income was R1 612 million. The deficit on current account was 22 per cent. In 1948 it was 19 per cent and in 1970 it was 8½ per cent. This was the wonderfully sound economy we took over in 1948. Every day the greatest surprise is expressed here at the great deficit on our current account and on the balance of payments. This is correct, but in our case it is 8½ per cent of the national income; in their case it was 22 per cent. Sir, what happened then?

They were bankrupt then already.

Soon after we had come into power, the entire £80 million gold loan which had been made to Britain had to be used for paying for purchases over there, because our coffers here in South Africa were empty. What else did we have to do? We had to decrease the gold coverage from 30 per cent to 25 per cent. When we came into power in 1948, we had to introduce import control at the insistence of members on that side of the House, and in 1949, as a result of the economic position, even after import control, we had to devalue the £ by 30 per cent. In spite of this, hon. members ask us: “Why did you introduce import control here and then devalue?” In view of the position we inherited from them at the time, we were obliged to introduce import control and to devalue as well.

The hon. member asked me: What about the national debt? The hon. member for Simonstown said: “Our national debt is staggeringly high”. Sir, in 1947 the national debt was 75 per cent of the national income; in 1948 it was 72 per cent and in 1970 it was 54 per cent. Just look at these figures again. In 1947, when they were in power, the national public debt was 75 per cent of the national income, and in 1970 it was 54 per cent. Yet the hon. member says it is “staggeringly high” at the moment, but he does not tell our people that the debt of a country such as ours is the capital with which the country works. A country does not issue shares; it borrows, and with this capital which it borrows we build the roads, bridges, railways, schools, hospitals —the entire infrastructure. The whole of this “staggeringly high” debt of our people is represented by positive assets.

Then the hon. member for Constantia, of whom it surprises me even more, comes along and says—

Did the hon. member say this? Yes, he said—

But surely this is not true, Mr. Speaker. It is everything but the truth. In 1966 there was a “lifting of the ceiling” by R104 million, in 1967 by R274 million, in 1968 by R280 million, in 1969 by R487 million, in 1970 by R361 million and in 1971, up to September, by R187 million. Over that period credit was increased by almost R1 700 million. But the hon. member asks us to believe that there has been “no lifting of the credit ceiling”. This is the credibility gap of which the hon. members speak so often. These are the hon. members who condemn us so often for allegedly governing the country in an inflationary way and financing the Budget in an inflationary way. But let me point out to the hon. members that in this period from 1966, the credit of the private sector increased by R1 696 million and that of the State by R212 million, approximately one-eighth of that of the private sector. In spite of this we are told that this inflation has been caused by the State’s extravagance and by its making use of bank credit, but these figures prove that the private sector borrowed eight times as much money from banks as the State.

The hon. member for Von Brandis made a few jokes here in regard to the rate of increase. In response to what we said about the rate of increase having dropped, he made several jokes about a motor car travelling over a bad road at 50 miles an hour, then at 65, and then at 60. I am sorry to say that if the hon. member makes such jokes, he simply shows that he does not want to understand the position. I think it was rather flippant of the hon. member to do such things. It was in fact a ridiculous comparison, because he knows this is not the position and that it will not go down with any economist in the world.

Then growth was discussed here. We have heard so often about the growth rate of 4 per cent, that we have fallen so low that we have reached a growth rate of only 4 per cent. Sir, let us take another look at how wonderful things were in their time. In 1946 their growth rate was 1,7 per cent. In 1942 there was a negative growth rate under their régime. In the eight years from 1940 to 1948 the average growth rate was 3,2 per cent.

Yes, but that was in war time.

And if one takes the population growth into account, the growth per capita was 1,4 per cent as compared with 2,7 per cent in our case, about which they are complaining today. I want to say that the hon. members have no understanding of our monetary concepts either. The hon. member for Parktown too made the statement here that if it is good for gold that we should devalue more than the dollar, why do we not continue devaluing and devaluing?

I think that is an argument which certainly is not worthy of that hon. member. He can do much better than that. If this is the position, we should say that, if it is good to reduce taxation, as they say every day, we should continue reducing taxation until nobody pays tax any more. If we should relax credit, we should simply continue relaxing credit. This is no argument. But the hon. member for Parktown made a much more dangerous statement than that. I said that we had devalued by 12,3 per cent in order to have finality in respect of devaluation, so that it could not be said that we would also be obliged to devalue further if the dollar were devalued again. From this the hon. member then made the deduction that the dollar was a weak currency, as well as the further deduction that the rand was one of the weakest currencies in the world. These were his deductions. But this is nonsense. Does the hon. member not know of the disquiet which prevailed at the Rome meeting of the Ten when America merely hinted that it may devalue up to 10 per cent?

The other nations had a fright, because they did not want America to devalue up to 10 per cent. Do hon. members know that the meeting adjourned for that reason? Do they know of the disquiet which existed only recently when there was talk that the Bill which is going to be introduced in America, would allow her to devalue by more than 7,9 per cent? The other nations do not want America to devalue by more. But suppose America devalued by 10 per cent or 12 per cent. Do hon. members think Germany, Japan and other countries would do nothing? They would not do nothing; they would also devalue. They would also reduce the value of their money, because they want only a certain gap between themselves and the dollar. They do not want the dollar to do better and to find things easier on the market than they do. This is an elementary monetary concept. I assume the hon. member understands this; he must understand it. Or does he not understand it? [Interjections.] No, he does not understand it. It is as I have said: They do not understand it.

The hon. member for Constantia made as outrageous a statement. He said: “Devaluation is an act of insolvency.” This is not only an insult to South Africa, but also prejudices South Africa in presenting it as an insolvent country which may not fulfil its obligations. How will such a report be received abroad, i.e. if those people who have to lend us money are told by an hon. member from our own country that South Africa has committed an act of insolvency and cannot fulfil its obligations towards its friends? I think it is time the Opposition reflected on everything it is doing to South Africa.

After all the sad tales we have heard here, I can at least present something good to hon. members by pointing to what other people are saying about us. There are other people who also know something about South Africa and who make a point of saying something favourable about the country. The hon. member has probably heard of the recent visit by Dr. Lutz, the Director of the Swiss Credit Bank. He toured South Africa for a month in order to examine the investment possibilities here. This Dr. Lutz issued a report of four big pages which appeared in a magazine. The Star of last Thursday contained a short summary of that report. This person is a prominent banker. The heading of the article reads as follows: “Put Faith and Cash in South Africa—Swiss Banker’s bright view.” I quote from the article—

He went on to say—

Furthermore, he said—

The hon. members must please listen now—

Here we have an unprejudiced view from someone who has made a thorough study of South Africa.

I want to come to points of policy now. Hon. members have asked me in the past to put our policy. I want to say I cannot do so fully, because many matters have to wait until the Budget is presented. However, I want to elaborate on a few points today. In the first place, I want to say to the hon. members that they ought to know what our policy is, because they have been criticizing it for 20 years now. Surely they have seen in the past few months what we have done in respect of import control and devaluation—two very brave steps which reflect the Government’s policy. They know that policy. Before continuing, I want to ask the hon. members, in the first place, what their policy is in regard to devaluation. No, let us rather start with import control. What is the United Party’s policy in regard to import control? Are they in favour of it or opposed to it? [Interjections.] I am calling all the people of South Africa to witness. There we have a party which wants to govern the country, but in respect of one of the most cardinal issues of the country it cannot furnish a reply.

We have already furnished it. It is untrue. [Interjections.]

In spite of the fact that it was generally welcomed by industry, I have given those hon. members a few seconds to tell us whether they are in favour of it or opposed to it. But they remain as silent as the grave. I want to put another question to the hon. members now. Are the hon. members in favour of or opposed to devaluation?

If you do not know, it is time that you knew. [Interjections.]

I honestly do not know …

It is time that you found out.

The hon. member for Parktown and the hon. member for Yeoville expressed themselves in favour of devaluation, and in the previous debate I asked the hon. the Leader of the Opposition whether he was in favour of it or opposed to it. He said he would still come to that, but to this day he has not done so. I am asking the hon. the Leader again whether he is in favour of or opposed to devaluation.

You had to devalue and we all know it.

Must I accept that if the hon. members had been in power last year they would have devalued? I receive no reply. Two of the hon. members said they were in favour of it, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has furnished no reply and the hon. member for Constantia expressed himself against it in the strongest of terms. He said it was insolvency. We have here two different points of view, and today we still do not know whether they are in favour of or opposed to devaluation. I think we have touched a very sore point as far as they are concerned and I think we can accept that if another similar situation were to develop while they were in power, they would not know what to do. They are the people who want to govern the country. [Interjections.] Surely the hon. the Leader of the Opposition knows what his attitude is and what it was in 1967, when Britain devalued. At that time the hon. member deplored the fact that South Africa had not followed Britain’s example. He said we had allowed a golden opportunity to slip by.

We did too.

When the economy of South Africa was so strong that it was not at all necessary to do so, the hon. member said South Africa could not devalue, apparently because it was too strong. Now the hon. member cannot furnish a reply. In 1967 he said, yes …

Are the circumstances the same at present?

No, the circumstances are not the same. I just want to quote to the hon. member what he said—

When we did not devalue in 1967, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition deplored the fact, because we would allegedly have had a chance then to increase the price of gold and we did not make use of the opportunity. What does he say now that we had an opportunity and used it? He says nothing now. Mr. Speaker, it seems to me we have enough examples now to show hon. members opposite …

What did Senator Horwood say?

Order!

… that at this stage we still do not know what their policy is in respect of two of the cardinal issues in the economy. I can continue in this vein and mention numerous things. They are capable of acting negatively, but they are incapable of acting positively and of stating their standpoint.

Now I want to proceed to the policy …

Now you are going to state your policy.

Yes, now I am going to state our policy. The policy of the National Party which we have not only stated in this House, but also implemented, has taken this country to unprecedented economic heights. [Interjections.] If hon. members opposite doubt this, it is merely another illustration of their ignorance in respect of the economy. Right from the start the National Party made the industrial promotion of the country one of the major points of its policy. When that side of the House was still indifferent to that principle, we realized that the promotion of industry afforded us the only method of making South Africa prosperous and of providing employment opportunities for our people. We strengthened the Board of Trade and Industry and gave protection to our industries. From that time on industrial development really started in South Africa. We laid down the principle of private initiative on which South Africa has been firmly built. We established an infrastructure in South Africa which is wonderful when compared to our resources, the size and vastness of the country and the sparseness of the population. This brought public debt. Where do we stand now? We still stand by that same policy. Where we are standing particularly in the light of balance of payments problems, and where we have devalued and introduced import control beforehand in order to safeguard our balance of payments and in order to protect our reserves, it is our policy to do everything in our power to safeguard our balance of payments, to push up our reserves and to ensure that we do not get into a similar position as last year, if we can help it in any way. Devaluation and import control are provisional steps to protect our reserves. The increase of our reserves is one of the basic grounds for the implementation of our further policy in respect of the economy. In order to safeguard this balance of payments, we must take a further step, and that is to promote our exports with every means at our disposal. We have already done a considerable amount in this regard. In previous Budgets we announced certain measures for promoting exports from this country. We have established bodies such as Safto; we have sent trade missions abroad, we have stationed trade representatives throughout the world and we have appointed the Reynders Commission to advise us on further steps in respect of exports. This Commission has submitted its provisional report. We are studying that report at present and shall tell this House at a later stage what we are going to do in that regard. Hon. members may accept that this Government is going to do everything in its power to promote exports. Now we ask, “What about the private sector?” Do the hon. members want to encourage the private sector as well to promote exports? Surely they are the people who should do so in the first place. In order to promote exports, we need production first.

Labour!

What is needed now, is that we should increase our production. Our production has decreased, or it has not increased as it should have. The State is not to be blamed for this. An analysis was made by certain people who know more about these matters than some hon. members do, and they found that capital expenditure and management were responsible for 80 per cent of any increase in production. They said that management and capital expenditure were responsible for 80 per cent of an increase in production and that labour was responsible for 20 per cent. We should take a look at the private sector and not blame the State for everything. Hon. members are not doing South Africa a favour when they blame the State for everything, and do not encourage the private sector to play its part as well. When I speak of production promotion, I am thinking in the first place of the refining of our minerals. This is a tremendously large field waiting for us. I have faith in the future of South Africa. As regards the substitution of gold by our base minerals in their unrefined, but particularly in their refined form, the world will have to look to South Africa to an increasing extent for obtaining its raw materials. In coming years we shall have to take all possible steps to refine our minerals as much as possible so that work may be provided for our people, so that transport may be saved and so that a larger measure of foreign exchange may be earned.

We need capital. We shall have to teach our people to generate capital. The first step in that direction is to teach people to save more. If the Opposition wants to work in the interests of South Africa, I want to ask them not to make a joke of the matter when we speak of saving more. There are people in this country who are able to save. I know there are people who are not able to save. This is the position in every country of the world, but there are also people in South Africa who are in fact able to save. When we look at the high consumption figure in South Africa, the actual real consumption I have mentioned, we see that it is tremendously high and that it is growing annually. But every time we speak of saving, hon. members joke about it. This is not doing South Africa any good.

That is a half-truth.

Which hon. member said, “That is a half-truth”?

I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker.

In the second place, we should welcome capital from abroad in South Africa just as we did in the past. There are numerous people who want to come to South Africa. I do not want to mention their names, but I can assure the hon. members that some of the most prominent people in North America and Europe are interested in investing in South Africa. We should not discourage them, as the hon. member for Constantia did by saying that South Africa was insolvent. Let us welcome those people if they want to invest in South Africa.

We shall have to provide credit as well. Already in my previous speech I stated that we should pay attention to the question of credit provision and to the ceiling imposed by the Reserve Bank, on which the Reserve Bank was having discussions with the various monetary banks. The hon. member accused me as though I had only just discovered that this matter was unsatisfactory. I have always known that this matter is unsatisfactory, but let the hon. member suggest another and better method to me. I can assure the hon. House that as soon as there is another and better method of controlling credit, that method will be introduced by the Reserve Bank. It would be stupid and absolutely foolish on our part to lift all credit restrictions now, because it would lead to aggravated inflation in this country.

Let us look at the problem of the protection of our industries. We gave a new directive to the Board of Trade and Industry, which has always performed this task, to protect the industries deserving of protection as far as possible. After I had spoken about our difficulties with GATT, the hon. member for Parktown made the snide remark that in 22 years we had either done nothing or, if we had done something, we did not have the right to speak against GATT. This is the way hon. members opposite argue. The hon. member for Parktown ought to know that in the past 22 years the import duties of hundreds of industries have been increased as a result of agreements with GATT.

We are not complaining about that, but …

The hon. member should first let me finish speaking before interrupting me. The hon. member knows that there are hundreds and hundreds of tariffs which are bound and which we cannot and may not increase without granting compensation for it. The motor car industry, which is one of our strongest industries today, was one of those industries, and over the past 20 years we have conducted numerous very difficult negotiations in that regard. But I have not yet finished with the hon. member for Parktown. We have received numerous increases, also in respect of bound tariffs. At present many of our industries are still subject to bound tariffs and we are experiencing great difficulty in having them unbound so that increased tariffs may be obtained in that way. We also send officials to Geneva who work there sometimes for months and years to fight for our tariffs. In addition we have an embassy operating there. There is one in Geneva which pays attention mainly to this matter. From time to time we also send people over there to do special work. The hon. member for Parktown describes them as “a flock of pigeons over the Continent of Europe holding discussions with GATT”. This is the way in which hon. members opposite treat the public servants of South Africa. When they are sent out on such essential work, they are regarded as a “flock of pigeons” flying over the Continent of Europe. [Interjections.] No, this is not the first time this has happened. By now it has become customary for them to attack our public servants, who cannot defend themselves in this House. This is what the hon. member for Parktown did. We are appointing a standing committee to make a penetrating study of the GATT issue, one which will continually be dealing with it. The Government and the Departments of Commerce and Industries continually pay urgent attention to the most effective protection of our industries. However, if the hon. member thinks this is an easy matter, he does not know what it involves. I do not want to be unfriendly, but the hon. member for Parktown and all his sophistry and very subtle reasoning made me think that I should append a name to that reasoning of his. I thought the best name would be Emdinitis. If, however, you regard it as being too personal, Sir, I am prepared to withdraw it.

No, don’t.

Very well; then I shall call it “Emdinitis”, which goes with “Parktownomics”.

I am not surprised they call that cuckoo the “Diederichs cuckoo! ”

Taxation was discussed here as well. I realize that the tax burden is heavy. However, it is not as heavy as in many other countries of the world. I want to tell hon. members that it is the desire of this Government to reduce taxation as far as possible, but then the public should not expect of the State what it expects of the State at present. Then they should not expect the schools, hospitals, roads, new ministries and all the other things they want from the State nowadays. At the beginning of this session I started writing down everything hon. members opposite requested of the Government. In the three weeks which have passed, they have put dozens of demands to the Government. However, let us take a serious look to see to what extent it is possible to reduce the tax burden of the country so as to encourage saving and industrial growth.

I come now to the problem of labour. As the hon. the Minister of Labour said last week, labour is one of the most difficult problems with which a government can be faced. I am afraid the Government which tells me that it has found an answer to the labour problem in its country, no matter what country it may be, is not telling the truth; because it is one of the most difficult issues any government has to deal with. In regard to our labour, it is necessary that we should examine it, because I have mentioned the figure before that in the past year, up to July last year, the number of labourers in non-agricultural industries increased by 5 per cent, but production by 4 per cent only, in spite of increasing mechanization. There was something wrong in that regard. That is not only for the Government to rectify. I think this should be examined by the Government on the one hand, but particularly by the private sector and by the managers and leaders in industry. The Government has established a productivity institute. That institute is making a study of various industries, and has found that there is a tremendous backlog in most industries as far as productivity is concerned, something which they themselves should rectify. We need not only supplement our labour all the time, but should make the best use of the labour we have. In most industries which have been investigated, it has been found that it is possible to increase productivity tremendously by means of the better utilization of the existing labour force. Before drawing in more and more labourers from outside, we should make better use of those we have. I want to give hon. members the assurance that the Government always listens with a sympathetic ear to the leaders in our production sector, in trade and industry, when they ask for labour. We indicated that in the White Paper issued last year. This gave us the impression that industry in general was satisfied with it and could continue expanding under it. We are always ready to hold discussions with them. There is a standing committee on labour constituted under the Ministry of Labour. We are always prepared to make fair concessions in that sphere, especially for those industries which cannot move away. The Railways have often been mentioned here, but it is a location-orientated industry. The Railways cannot be moved away; the Railways are at a certain place. What applies to the Railways, applies to all location-orientated industries. What the Railways can do, industries can do to a certain extent as well, and that is to come to an agreement with their trade unions about the reclassification of skilled work, so that less skilled work may be performed by semi-skilled workers. I think if members of the industrial world were to apply themselves a little more to the better utilization of the skills of their labour force, they would have less reason for complaints.

However, there are two things we shall not do. In the first place, we shall allow no uncontrolled influx of Bantu labour into the White areas. Secondly, we shall not allow the labour peace prevailing in our trade unions to be destroyed in any way, because it is particularly on this that the production capacity of South African industry depends. Thirdly, we shall proceed with our policy of decentralization, no matter what hon. members opposite say. The hon. member for Pinetown made a less kind remark here. Speaking of the wages in the decentralized areas, he said: “The gutter is the limt”. I know the hon. member very well. I think our personal relations are very good. But to say something like this in regard to the wages in the decentralized areas, namely “The gutter is the limit”, does not suit the hon. member. He himself has many border industrialists in his constituency. Now I want to ask the hon. member: Has he ever asked the industrialists in his area to pay the Bantu employed in their factories higher wages? After all, they may pay higher wages; we do not forbid them to do so. The private sector may pay as much as it wants to; we do not forbid them. Has the hon. member asked his people in his constituency to pay the Bantu higher wages? Apparently he has not. Therefore he has no right to say to us, “The gutter is the limit”.

Sir, I come to the final point, and that is Government expenditure. Hon. members launched many attacks on us concerning Government expenditure and said that it was too high. Hon. members should realize that there are certain essential services which must be rendered by the State. They are essential services which can be rendered only by the State. If one studies the infrastructure of our country, one finds that in the last Budget, more than 50 per cent of our Government expenditure was devoted to the infrastructure. This is what must be done. We must expand our roads, our hospitals, our harbours, our railways, our postal services, etc., otherwise hon. members would complain that those services were not available. In this regard, Sir, may I mention a figure to hon. members which comes from the well-known publication International Financial Statistics? According to that publication, consumer spending by the Government in South Africa, expressed as a percentage, is the lowest in the whole world. And now we are not comparing us to fifth-rate nations, but to the best in the world. If we compare our consumer spending in South Africa to that of the rest of the world, we find that ours is 11 per cent of our total Gross Domestic Product, while that of other countries is as high as 17 per cent, 18 per cent and more. Ours is the lowest of the comparable countries in the world.

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

Upon which the House divided:

Tellers: W. A. Cruywagen, P. C. Roux, H. J. vap Wyk and W. L. D. M. Venter.

Tellers: R. M. Cadman and J. O. N. Thompson.

Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Second Time.

Committee Stage taken without debate.

In clause 1 I just want to make a correction. In the discussion during the Second Reading the hon. member for South Coast asked if these are loans to farmers who wanted to plant forests, of the same kind as agricultural credit allocations to category 3 farmers, and whether they also qualify. After discussions with the hon. the Minister of Forestry I find that the reply given to the hon. member for South Coast’s question was not completely correct. The aim of the Minister of Forestry is to initiate and encourage private afforestation. The means test will still apply; a means test will be applied, but not on the basis for agricultural credit farmers who are in financial difficulties. Each case will be considered on its merits by the Minister of Forestry and the recommendation will be made to the House for the granting of loans, provided funds are available. The aim is to encourage private afforestation.

The position is then that such a farmer who is planting trees could obtain a loan from the Department of Agricultural Credit, apart from other sources?

As I have said, I made a mistake. I said he is not our customer if he can be helped by the Land Bank or by a private commercial bank. But according to what I hear from the Minister of Forestry those people, after his recommendation, can be helped under this new scheme.

In connection with this clause I just want to express a few thoughts. Afforestation and the planting of trees has now become a necessity in this country, and it is one industry that can be practised profitably on a part-time basis. It requires capital, and at present there are newcomers in the field doing this on a part-time basis. Since afforestation extends into future generations, and a large amount of capital is invested in it, I want to make a friendly recommendation to the Minister about whether the set-up cannot also be extended to grant assistance not only to the full-time farmer, but also to the part-time farmer who enters this field in all good faith and invests a large amount of capital. There is a parallel in respect of wattle-bark, where the loan on the subsidy paid through the agency of the Land Bank, is made available to all growers. Therefore I also want to make that request in this case.

I want to state beyond all doubt that we must not get the idea here that any man, the Mitchells, the Streichers, the Graaffs and the Koekemoers, who are prosperous and rich people, may now consider themselves able to obtain loans from Agricultural Credit for the purposes of afforestation. We do want to stimulate afforestation, but I do not want to let the idea take root here that a person can plant forests to his heart’s content and that he will obtain loans at 5 per cent. We would then be misleading the people. The Minister of Forestry will consider each case on its merits. To the hon. member for Ermelo I can say that he should actually bring this matter to the attention of the Minister of Forestry. He mentions a person who is not exclusively a forester, but is a prosperous owner of flats who has investments of half a million rand—I then ask myself the question and I do not believe it to be our task to finance that man at Agricultural Credit. But if a person is perhaps a maize farmer, or he has a small shop, and the Department of Forestry says it has delved into all the aspects, the man can qualify and we can help him in order to stimulate afforestation, then this can be done. This is a question one cannot answer “yes” or “no” to. Every case must be treated on its merits.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 3:

This clause, which makes possible and facilitates the establishment of waterworks, is so important to my constituency, in fact to the entire South-Western Districts, that I should like to dwell on that for a few moments. In this belt we have mixed farming. On the one hand one has stock farming and then one also has grain farming. Normally the two go together very nicely. We had a very good grain harvest last year, for which we are very grateful. But the previous three years things went very badly for the farmers in that region. There were three crop failures that accumulated very great losses, and at those times it was very important for one to have had help in the form of one’s stock farming. And the general comment amongst the farmers was that if one did not have one’s livestock one would have gone under. When one comes to stock farming the provision of water is probably the most important element of the entire set-up, because without a good supply of water one cannot farm with livestock. This clause is specifically so important since it now helps one with the provision of water. There one normally has recourse to boreholes, but these are frequently very briny, so much so that one sometimes catches codfish in them. At other times one bores 10 or 12 holes, as the Department of Water Affairs has already found, without obtaining water. Where the soil is hydrous one can build dams, but the summer rainfalls are at times uncertain. The Department of Water Affairs plans to lay a pipeline for our farmers from the irrigation dams in the mountains, so that they can obtain water from those dams. But a great deal of planning and research must still be done before this becomes possible. This clause has now made it possible for a number of farmers to get together—10, 12 or 15 of them— for the establishment of their own water scheme. Without the subsidy being given to them in temrs of this clause such a move would never have been possible. What they now do is, firstly, to look for a suitable point in one of the rivers that flows past the area. Then they can abstract the water from the river with a good pump, and a plastic pipeline can then serve fresh water to 10 or 12 farms from the river; something they could not have obtained previously. You will find the farmer’s livestock in a much better condition, because with fresh water such an animal’s condition easily improves by 10 per cent to 15 per cent. On the other hand a farmer can graze a great many more head of cattle—perhaps half as many and sometimes even twice as many. He also has the advantage—and this is very important—that he can make a garden for himself around his house, lay out lawns, plant flowers and beautify his farm. Thus he can make life pleasant for himself as a farmer. In this clause special mention is made of category 3 farmers who will benefit markedly from this measure. On their own they cannot establish such schemes. The subsidy here being given to them now makes it possible for them to participate in those schemes, to be that much better farmers and to have that much better incomes. With the establishment of the water schemes problems do crop up, and I should like to bring these to the hon. the Minister and his department’s attention. If about 10 or 12 farmers get together to establish such a scheme for themselves, a scheme that is subsidized and that could not be constructed without the subsidy, there are usually only one or two of the farmers adjacent to the river who have water rights from the river and who can pump when they want to and as much as they want to. The other 10, 12 or 15 who lie further away, who do not border on the river and do not have water rights, now find a problem developing. If such a farmer is a poor man, he can end up in a lot of trouble. They now have to apply to the Supreme Court for water rights from the river, rights which the farms normally do not have. If they go to the Supreme Court there is quite a lot of work and quite heavy costs involved. A deputation must go along and the application must be made through an advocate. He must make the application before the judge and then the judge gives his decision according to the circumstances. Those costs, which are frequently quite extensive, make it altogether impossible for the less well-to-do farmer to participate in this scheme. It would be too expensive for him, as the hon. member has said. All the water rights of the farmers who have such rights below the abstraction point will be affected by such abstraction. Hon. members probably know that one could rather interfere with a farmer’s wife and children than his water rights. The moment you touch his water rights, even though you never use them, he immediately rebels. These people must also be taken into consideration. This whole scheme will make matters so much better for the farmer who is situated some distance from the river. They in particular need this water so badly and they are the ones who would like to use it. These exceptionally heavy costs, legal and judicial costs and the costs involved in the registration of their deeds of transfer, make the costs of the scheme so steep that it will be beyond the reach of many farmers. I want to ask the department to give attention to this matter. They must see whether in future we cannot obtain a recipe, a formula whereby we can find an easier way for these farmers than is now the case with the marked costs involved. To satisfy the farmers below that abstraction point, one may perhaps broach with the Department of Water Affairs the possibility of compelling irrigation dams higher up in the river to allow a certain amount of water to flow through, a quantity equal to that abstracted by this scheme. This would quite possibly satisfy the farmers who are situated lower down on the river and have water rights but do not want to relinquish them, in that they will not offer any opposition to the schemes being planned there. I should like to bring this point to the hon. the Minister’s attention and the attention of his department. I want to suggest that in future we give proper attention to that. Let us accommodate the category 3 farmer in particular.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Mossel Bay referred to a matter that we want to give attention to. Actually the Department of Water Affairs will have to be closely involved in this. The hon. member referred to a public stream that is declared a State-controlled scheme where each person is a registered owner of the water right in that stream. That would make him a riparian owner. It does happen that farmers who are not riparian owners also want water from this public stream. The Department of Water Affairs is then faced with the problem that if it gives such a farmer abstraction rights, another farmer could perhaps be prejudiced in the process. Where is one going to draw the line? Later one could receive requests for abstraction rights from farmers living 20 miles from the stream. That is why I say that it is not necessary for a farmer to take a lot of legal advice on this matter. The Water Act is very clear about this. As I said, every case will have to be considered on merit. We should like to help such people, but then this must be within reasonable limits. It cannot be expected that a person living five miles from a stream should be able to claim abstraction rights. We are specifically faced with the problem of too little water in this country. The hon. member is right; there are cases where one has a few category 3 farmers and a few prosperous farmers that are drawn together in one irrigation scheme. Cases such as this are very sympathetically considered by the Department of Water Affairs. If they have a practical canal system or abstraction system, if it justifies its existence, if their request has foundation, the farmers will obtain a loan from the Department of Water Affairs for the establishment of such a scheme. We shall investigate the hon. member for Mossel Bay’s requests.

But your department gives the money.

Yes, the Department of Agriculture gives the money, but on the recommendation of the Department of Water Affairs. That department must tell us in what cases it feels a loan ought to be granted. In terms of legislation we have the power to grant loans of more than R9 000 in cases where we see that the applicants can utilize water to the benefit of the country. But, as I have said, each application is linked to a thorough investigation. A general rule cannot be applied.

Clause put and agreed to.

Mr. Chairman, we are dealing here with an amendment which provides that the hon. the Minister of Agriculture shall designate from time to time an officer in the Public Service to be the Chairman of the Land Tenure Board. As was pointed out during the Second Reading debate on this Bill, the Land Tenure Board is a board vested with tremendous power and tremendous responsibilities. As this amendment is phrased by the hon. the Minister, he is now asking this Committee to give him the power to designate any officer in the employ of the State. If we have a look at the Public Service Act, we find that this includes officers in the employ of the Provincial Administrations as well, and, of course, in the employ of the Administration of South-West Africa. We on this side of the House feel that this is a good move. Because of what has happened in the past—I refer particularly to the so-called Agliotti scandal—it is only right that the Minister should have direct access to the Chairman of the Land Tenure Board and that this should not be a person acting independently on his own, but that he should be somebody under the direct control of the Minister. Therefore we on this side of the House support the principle that the Chairman of this Board should no longer be the Chairman of the Agricultural Credit Board, but should be a civil servant appointed by the hon. the Minister. With one proviso: We feel that the person so designated by the Minister should be a senior civil servant. As the Bill reads, the hon. the Minister could designate anybody. I know that someone is going to say that that is unreasonable and ridiculous, because he is not going to appoint the person who pours the tea. However, the unfortunate experience which we have just had, is still fresh in the minds of the people of South Africa. I think that, if the hon. the Minister were to accept the amendment which is being suggested by this side of the House, this would go a long way towards allaying any suspicions which may linger, or still do linger, in the minds of the public outside, because we are here handing over tremendous powers to one person. It is for this reason that I move the amendment as printed—

I have gone out of my way to have the Bill modified the way the hon. member asked for it to be modified, but the legal advisers tell us that there is no definition of a “Senior official”, not even in the Public Service Act. I have asked them to help me since we intend appointing a senior man. They told me we would then experience all kinds of problems as far as definitions were concerned. Previously an “under-secretary”, for example, was a senior man. That has been changed. The concept of “senior officer” has been changed to “deputy secretary”. When a senior man is instructed to perform a specific task he has, at that moment, powers up to a certain point. If the amount he deals with is exceeded he has to consult the Minister. This we have done on account of our experience in the past. But then again he has to have the power to send another man to view a piece of land and to determine whether there is a canal for example, before we buy such land. Is it necessary for a senior man to be sent on a trip of a thousand miles to ascertain that? Officers of lower rank should be able to carry out tasks such as those. When a title deed has to be registered, for example, a more junior officer will be given that job. As I said during the Second Reading, when speaking of a senior man, we mean and have in mind an officer who is an expert in his field. I may tell the hon. member that I should like to insert the word “senior”, but the legal advisers tell us that it is not practicable. We simply cannot do it. For that reason I ask the hon. member to be satisfied and to withdraw this amendment. I should have liked to insert it myself. The relevant person may even be given a more important sounding designation than “senior man”, because that person will really be a top man. We simply do not have the power to include it in the Bill, and this applies to all legislation we deal with.

On account of the explanation furnished by the hon. the Minister and the feeling he has expressed here, namely that he is desirous of appointing a senior man in this position, we on this side of the House are prepared to accept it. If this is not complied with in future when the appointment is made, we will simply expect to be able to take the hon. the Deputy Minister at his word as given to this House today. That is the spirit in which we approach this matter. We should like to see that the officer designated as chairman of the Land Tenure Board will, in fact, be the expert referred to by the Deputy Minister. Under those circumstances I believe that the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District, because he also accepts the viewpoint of the Deputy Minister as I do, will be inclined to withdraw his amendment

Mr. Chairman, I must admit, that like my friend, the hon. member for Newton Park, I must accept the word of the hon. the Deputy Minister. I do know that he faces a problem. There is another aspect that perturbs me. Just now we are going to come to another clause in which that hon. Deputy Minister is going to ask us to allow him to delegate the power to deputize such a person to act for the board.

As Myburgh is delegating powers to you now?

This is another point where I do feel that we need a little bit of reassurance from the hon. the Deputy Minister. [Interjections.] If that hon. Whip knew a little bit of what was going on and if he were able to read the Bill he might not keep on with that inane interjection all the time. We are dealing with a serious matter here, unless that hon. Whip does not consider R5 million of public money as being serious. Because he cannot read a balance sheet, he perhaps does not know what R5 million means. It is public money and that is what we are dealing with now. I feel that the public outside do require this reassurance from the hon. the Deputy Minister. He has given it, except for this one point. While we are dealing with this question of the board I wonder whether he cannot at this stage show us what is going to happen. The Minister will be allowed to delegate to some officer of the State the power to appoint another officer of the State as chairman of this board. Is this really what he intends to do and to whom is it his intention to delegate that power? With the approval of the Committee I withdraw my amendment, having received this assurance from the Deputy Minister, but I would like to have an assurance from him on this second point as well.

Amendment, with leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Chairman, I can give the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District the assurance that this will be a senior man. If I do not appoint the right person I am sure the hon. member will let me know soon enough. The Chairman will be appointed by the Minister.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

Clause 2:

Mr. Chairman, here we are dealing with the crux of this Bill and with the crux of the whole application of the principle of this Land Tenure Act. How does this clause intend to amend section 9 of the Act? We find that the Minister may not delegate certain powers, and I think that I should detail what these powers are for the benefit of the Committee. He may not delegate the power to appoint members of the board, except the chairman of the board. That power he may delegate. He may not delegate the power to determine the period of appointment of the members of the board. He may not delegate the power to terminate the period of office of the members of the board. He may not delegate the power to determine the allowances, the remuneration, leave conditions and other conditions of employment of the members of the board. He may also not delegate the power to make regulations. When we put against these powers which he may not delegate, those powers which he may delegate, we find a completely different story. The powers which he is allowed to delegate, which he may hand over to some officer of the State, include firstly, as I pointed out just now, the power to designate a civil servant to be the chairman of the board. In terms of section 4 of the Act, he may also delegate the power to purchase, from moneys allocated by this House, land suitable for farming purposes. He may also delegate the power to exchange State land for any other land. This involves millions of rands of public money allocated by this House. In addition to that, in terms of subsection (2) of section 4 of the Act, the Minister may delegate to a civil servant the power to expropriate for farming purposes land or rights in or over land in a water-controlled area. In terms of section 5 the Minister has to decide whether State land is or is not suitable or is required or not required for farming purposes, and whether it should be disposed of. He may delegate this power to a civil servant. In terms of section 6 of the Act, the Minister may develop any State land for or for use in connection with farming. So the decision is his; but he may delegate the power to make that decision to a civil servant.

They have got it back to front.

My hon. friend from South Coast has seen the point. Surely, it appears that the whole matter is back to front. The important issues, the expenditure of millions of rands of public money, the appointment of the chairman of the board, the disposition and development of State land, all these powers may be handed over by the Minister to any civil servant. But the unimportant powers, such as determining the terms and conditions of employment of a member of the board, may not be delegated by him. It appears that this matter is back to front. Accepting the responsibility which is being handed over, and that it should only be handed over to a responsible person, once again I move the amendment which stands in my name on the Order Paper, an amendment to the effect that these important powers may only be delegated to a senior officer of the State. I know the hon. the Deputy Minister is going to come with the same story that it is impossible to define, but I want to say to him that it is surely not beyond the wit of his department and of the legal advisers to find some way of protecting the public in this matter.

I can see the problem of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District on account of the explanation he has furnished us. However, he must bear in mind that it makes no difference whether it is a senior or a junior official. It is a very small amount in respect of which a limit is being laid down, and the Minister has to decide whether any land which is more expensive should be purchased. How is one going to appoint another chairman in case the chairman falls ill? How is that meeting going to function without a chairman? The intention in that case is to designate a deputy to act as chairman.

By whom is he going to be designated?

He will be designated by the fully authorized Secretary or other senior officials of the department. This is simply how it works in practice, but I say again that I can see the problem the hon. member has. I may just tell him that it will be a senior man. We have given all aspects of this matter our careful consideration to see how it is going to work in practice. Section 9 of the principal Act provides for the delegation of all the powers the Minister has in terms of that Act, except those in respect of section 2, i.e. the appointment of the members of the board other than the chairman, and those in respect of section 8, i.e. the making of regulations. The amendment proposed in clause 2 therefore only deals with the power the Minister has in terms of the new section, i.e. to designate an official of the State to act as chairman. The hon. member may now elaborate on the matter further and foresee certain complications. If somebody wants to “swindle” (verneuk) you, he wants to do so. That is the important point. You have to plug the loopholes now. To our way of thinking I believe the best solution will be to appoint a senior man, a reliable man— that does not mean that there have been any unreliable ones in the past, that is not what I should like to insinuate—who has a sense of responsibility, one who will appreciate that certain cases will have to be referred to the Minister for his decision before those matters are taken any further. We are all just as concerned about the matter as the hon. member is.

Mr. Chairman, as I have said, I am aware of the hon. the Deputy Minister’s problems in this regard, but he has just said something which perturbs me even more. Is it his intention that there is going to be more than one official of the State who is going to be designated, at different times, to be chairman of this particular board?

You have to have a deputy chairman, because at certain times the chairman may be ill.

Yes, there is a deputy chairman; that is fine. Provision has been made in the Act for a deputy chairman who will act in place of the chairman when he is ill, but I believe that the Deputy Minister went a little further than that when he spoke about appointing people at different times, and that this power must be delegated to the Secretary because the Minister may not always be available. Frankly, I do not see the Deputy Minister’s point. There is one other point in regard to which I should like clarity from the Deputy Minister. He says that an amount has now been fixed, above which all matters must be referred to the Minister, and that the Minister must personally take responsibility for them; he must make the decision. Is that correct? He does not lose his responsibility by delegating his power anyway.

No, he does not.

Sir, I wonder whether the hon. the Deputy Minister could tell us what that amount is?

We buy from day to day. There is never a day when we do not buy land for the building of dams, for defence, for Bantu administration, and so on, and this can be done to an amount of R100 000, if it is all above board, and there is nothing they hesitate about. If somebody buys from the State, the amount is limited to R10 000 if it is sold out of hand. That is the position at the moment, but it can for instance be altered tomorrow morning.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Deputy Minister said that he understood the difficulty of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District. My hon. friend does not have any difficulties; the difficulty lies with the Deputy Minister. I think the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District made out a very good case when he showed that the really important matters are those in respect of which the Minister may delegate. When it comes to matters of lesser importance, the Minister may not delegate his powers. Sir, what is the position of the Deputy Minister? We on this side of the House have been seeking an opportunity for a long time to raise this matter, and I think this may be the proper opportunity to do so. We talk here about the delegating of authority to a “senior” official. This amendment was moved by my hon. friend so as to have a discussion on this point. We know that the legal advisers find it difficult to find a definition for a “senior official”. We accept that, but that is not the point. The point is that we wanted to use this opportunity to get the assurance from the Deputy Minister which we have now had. As far as we here in Parliament are concerned, is the Deputy Minister the Minister for the purposes of this Bill? If he is not, can we include a provision in the Bill that the Minister may delegate his authority to the Deputy Minister? If we can do so, we shall be happy. The Deputy Minister is not a senior official, but we shall be happy if the powers are delegated to him, because we shall then have someone here in the House who is answerable for those administrative decisions taken by the Minister. He can delegate his authority to somebody else because he may be busy, with whatever he may be busy with, and he may want somebody else on the job.

I have heard that the Deputy Ministers are, shall we say, jacks of all trades. They are the people who rush around and keep the wheels turning in the departments. Let the Minister now delegate his authority to the Deputy Minister. Then we shall be happy, because we shall then have the opportunity, here in Parliament, when voting moneys, or when dealing with legislation, as we are now, where we can say to the Deputy Minister: “There sits the Minister. He has delegated his authority to you, and what do you have to say about this particular matter which has now arisen?”

But if the Minister and the Deputy Minister for the purpose of our legislation are one and the same person, then what exactly is the position of Deputy Ministers? There are numbers of them. What precisely is their function so far as the statutes are concerned? We have rules which deal with the right of a Deputy Minister to pilot a measure through the House in place of the Minister. Here we have a case in point today. The Deputy Minister is handling this particular measure; that is in terms of the rules and we have no objection to that. We understand it, because it is before us but, Sir, when it comes to legislation what is the legal position of the Deputy Minister? I do not remember any legislation in which the Deputy Minister appears. I know the rules where he appears, but I cannot think of any legislation where a Deputy Minister appears.

As this point has occurred from time to time in discussions, this may be the simple, straightforward opportunity for us to say to the Deputy Minister: “Let this Bill stand over. Go to the Minister and ask him to take the power in that particular clause to delegate his authority to the Deputy Minister,” and then we will be completely satisfied. Sir, I want to put it to the hon. the Deputy Minister that he should ask leave for this to stand over and that he should go back and discuss this matter with the Minister and point out the difficult position in which he finds himself —not the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District. Sir, this is a straightforward debate and the Deputy Minister will accept our bona fides as we are accepting his. Let him go back to the Minister and say: “Here are these important matters and it is felt in very reliable and responsible quarters that these matters are of such importance that the delegation should be to the Deputy Minister,” and then the Deputy Minister can come back again to this House; there will be no waste of time, and we will then know that the Deputy Minister is the person to whom the Minister can delegate his authority. That, in terms of parliamentary procedure, stems to me to be right and we will be perfectly happy with it.

At the moment the Minister has the power to delegate certain of his powers to the Deputy Minister. If he wants to delegate his powers to buy land, he can delegate his powers to me. It is not necessary to provide for it in the Bill. We are arguing this question as to what is meant by “senior official”. Sir, I agree with the hon. member for South Coast that this is not a political issue. We are working with the money of the taxpayers, and the taxpayers are not divided into Nationalists or United Party supporters; all the people in South Africa are paying taxes, and that is why I want co-operation, and I am getting it. But I say that it is no use arguing about the powers of the Deputy Minister at this stage. I can ask the Minister to delegate his powers to me, and I think he will be prepared to do so.

*Sir, I think we are perhaps talking at cross purposes. All of us are concerned about the possibility of another mistake occurring later on.

We will be quite satisfied if it could be stated in that way.

I do not know whether it is going to be of any use delegating additional powers to the Deputy Minister. You may have 10 deputy ministers, but I say again that if somebody wants to find a loophole through which to “swindle” (verneuk) you, you are not going to stop him. Let us apply this in practice in this way. I may tell hon. members that the department is being criticized today, even by Opposition Members of Parliament, who say: “Why are you so over-sensitive when you have to value land?” What happens today when we have to value land, is that the matter is carefully investigated, down to the most minute detail. We are told that we are wasting time, but our reply to that is that we are going to see to it that we are not caught out again. We are on our guard now as far as this matter is concerned.

You have been caught out several times.

No, believe you me, we will definitely not be caught out again as we were in this particular case. I do not even want to mention which case this is here, for that only makes me feel bad.

Is that power of delegation, under which the Minister can delegate certain powers to you, a general power in the Statute?

He can delegate certain powers to the Deputy Minister.

Without specific reference thereto in the Statute?

Yes.

Order! The hon. the Deputy Minister must withdraw the word “swindle” (verneuk) and substitute another word for it.

I withdraw it and substitute the words “taken in” for it.

Mr. Chairman, in the light of the remarks made by the hon. member for South Coast and the assurance given by the hon. the Deputy Minister, I should like, with the approval of the Committee, to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, with leave, withdrawn.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

When the debate was interrupted I was dealing with the most important objection we on this side of the House have to the Bill. I added that this legislation has only been on the Statute Book for one year and it is already clear to some of us that the legislation is not welcomed by the agricultural land owners. Now as a result of the amendments the hon. the Minister is moving, the original Act is being made even more drastic. I refer particularly to clause 3 and to the powers the Minister is now going to obtain. According to our view of this clause it will mean that no farmer will be able to lease his farm unless he obtains the approval of the hon. the Minister. I believe this to mean that the hon. the Minister will be able to interfere with a farmer’s reasonable earnings from his land. Not only could circumstances be such that a farmer is compelled to lease such land from a financial point of view, but there may be no heir and he may then decide to lease portions of that land.

As we read this clause it means that the hon. the Minister will have the power to refuse a man permission to subdivide his land and lease certain parts of it. Of course this clause also goes much further, because it is going to interfere with one’s local authorities that may need certain agricultural land for the development of urban areas. With these powers he is obtaining here, the hon. the Minister can now prevent such a thing from taking place. Neither is it impossible for a farmer to discover a deposit of precious or base metals on his land. One could now ask whether the hon. the Minister could then prevent the leasing of a portion of that farm if in his discretion he thinks that land should rather be used for agricultural purposes. In terms of this legislation the Minister can also go a step further. He can now lay down conditions for the use of such land. The Minister could determine that because land cannot be used for agricultural purposes, that land must not be leased. We want the Minister to give us the answers to these question. According to his own circumscribed discretion he can restrict any further development if it is not agricultural development. We now want to know: Were all these relevant amendments the Minister is moving discussed with the S.A. Agricultural Union?

And what is more, were they discussed with the provincial authorities? Were they discussed with the Association of Municipalities and with their executive committee, those people charged with the laying out of towns and with local administration. We should like an assurance as to whether the hon. the Minister or his department was in touch with these people, particularly with a view to the amendment in clause 3. These days great delays are already being experienced in the planning of new residential areas. It is my considered opinion that as a result of the hon. the Minister’s amendment in clause 3, the delay in the planning of townships that may be situated on agricultural land will become even greater. As we see it, the object of this amendment is to get an even tighter hold of the agricultural land owner. No person will in reality become the owner of his land. We believe that this type of amendment the hon. the Minister is now coming forward with is the worst form of socialism.

What!

There are many farmers living from hand to mouth. Any opportunity they may have had of making a living from their property on anything but an agricultural basis can now be denied them by this hon. Minister. The powers the Minister obtains in this legislation could entail a decrease in the value of the farmer’s property. Not only does the hon. the Minister control the subdivision of agricultural land, but he also becomes the one to determine agricultural land values. This is one of the foremost reasons why this amendment ought not to be passed. Everything will depend on the kindness of that hon. Minister, his successor or colleague. When a Minister becomes an autocrat there never will be any certainty of policy either. His views will apply for all circumstances. Nowhere need there be a specific set of rules. Not only does he place himself in an uncomfortable position as Minister, but he places the land owner in an unenviable position of doubt. This could all lead to a greater lack of confidence in the agricultural industry in this country.

Therefore we do not think the hon. the Minister has done the agricultural industry any favours with this amendment Bill. I want to come back to the point I made when the debate adjourned last time. A brand new clause is now being included here, a clause that was not initially foreseen. With the amendment the hon. gentleman will now also have authority over the use of the land. I refer particularly to clause 4, and to the penultimate clause that completely changes the long title of the Act. A year or two ago we thought the Minister only wanted authority over the question of the subdivision of agricultural land. Why is it now necessary for the Minister also to have the power to interfere in the use of agricultural land? We want the hon. the Minister to explain this to us. I heard his Second Reading speech very clearly and subsequently also read it very carefully. The hon. the Minister did not give an explanation. This is an altogether new principle. What is the motive of the Government and the Minister in wanting control over the purposes for which agricultural land can be used. Say, for example, I have a piece of land on which I want to erect a brickworks. Say it is good agricultural land. Or say I want to form a company to start such a brickworks because there is excellent gravel under the topsoil. When I have such an asset, which the Minister thinks is good agricultural land, but which I, for altogether different reasons, consider to be good soil for brickmaking, is it the intention that the hon. the Minister may say that I cannot fence off that land into say four, five or ten morgen divisions and start an industry for myself there? If it is the hon. the Minister’s intention to act even in such a case, I want to tell him that he is taking this Bill on the subdivision of agricultural land altogether too far. For example, say I have a piece of land near the city and I want to float a company and start a chicken farm there. In reality such a thing would be a form of industrialism. But because there are good fruit trees and vines on the land, that hon. Minister can tell me that he thinks I am acting incorrectly and that it is not in the interests of the agricultural industry that I do this. The Minister then says that I may not use it for that purpose. According to the provisions of clauses 3 and 4 we feel that these are powers the Minister could exercise in the course of time. We therefore believe that the Minister must not come forward with this amendment. In the circumstances, I therefore move as an amendment—

1. (a) confers further drastic powers on the Minister of Agriculture, which tray conflict with the individual rights of owners of agricultural land in respect of the use of such land;
2. (b) encroaches upon the powers of provincial councils in respect of the division of land; and
3. (c) excludes certain agricultural land in South-West Africa from the provisions thereof’.

Mr. Speaker, on a previous occasion the hon. member for Newton Park said that the farmer has very sound judgment. I agree with him, and that is also the reason why the Opposition has been sitting in those benches for 24 years. We could have expected the hon. member for Newton Park and the Opposition not to vote for this legislation. They were, indeed, opposed to the original Bill. Now that the hon. the Minister comes along to plug the loopholes in that Act, we can expect them to try to keep those loopholes open. But those loopholes are actually what the hon. members’ friends, the speculators, use for making money. Anyone who has a love for South Africa’s soil and who sees what is happening in the large cities and towns as far as the subdivision of land is concerned, will vote for this legislation. Because the Opposition’s strength lies not in the rural areas, but in the cities, they would like to accommodate the speculators in the cities and give them satisfaction. It costs the State a tremendous amount of money to try to consolidate land that has already been cut up into uneconomic units. The State also goes out of its way to help the farmer, who has a small piece of land and wants an additional small piece, to consolidate. What is the use of the State incurring expenses in consolidating land while, on the other hand, it allows that land to be cut up much more rapidly? Eventually it would cost the State much more to effect this. The cutting up of land around the large cities and towns is only a way of polluting the land, the water and everything in those surroundings. Hon. members read in the newspapers that there are people living on the Vaal River who had to demolish their houses because the land had been cut up so injudiciously.

That is the Rand Water Board’s land.

Yes, but it does not only happen there, it happens at many other places in the country. This is detrimental to the country and it costs the State a tremendous amount of money to rehabilitate those areas. If there is no legislation to prevent this continuing, what would be the use of correcting it at one spot while it is polluted to a worse degree at two other spots? The hon. member spoke of so-called uneconomic subdivision. The hon. member expects a rule to be laid down defining so many hundred or so many thousand morgen of land as an economic unit. It is in that connection that he spoke of “so-called uneconomic subdivision”. The hon. member is surely aware that at a place like De Dooms eight to ten morgen of land planted with vineyards can form an economic unit. In the sheep areas 5 000 morgen is sometimes not an economic unit. Each case will have to be treated on its own merits when it comes to the determination of economic units. Then the hon. member also comes along here and makes the ridiculous statement that the Minister will now tell the farmers what they may farm with on their own farms. The long title of the principal Act read as follows: To control the subdivision of agricultural land. Now clause 9 of the Bill inserts the following: To control the subdivision and, in connection therewith, the use of agricultural land. Only when agricultural land is subdivided will the Minister have any say. As far as the man who does not subdivide his farm is concerned, the Minister has no say about what he may do on his farm and what he may not do. As I read the legislation, the Minister’s authority when land is subdivided is specifically aimed at cases involving cities where there is good agricultural land and other land that is suitable for the development of residential areas. The hon. member asks whether they should hang in the air. When they want to subdivide land and make it available for those purposes, the Minister may say that the land, except perhaps for the ridges, is very suitable for housing and that it is therefore not necessary to use good agricultural land for that purpose. I shall tell the House why they also want that good agricultural land to be available for housing. The reason is that speculators who purchase that agricultural land would be able to develop it more cheaply than if there were ridges on that land. That is why the hon. member is so fond of advocating that it should also be possible to use agricultural land for that purpose.

Why do you not build a house on Table Mountain?

Mr. Speaker, when the hon. member spoke about this same Bill on a previous occasion, he mentioned the example of 1 000 morgen of vineyards and 1 000 morgen of Port Jackson trees and said that the Minister would decide that the land on which the Port Jackson trees stood should be developed as an urban area and not the 1 000 morgen with the vineyards. Would the hon. member then like to see that 1 000 morgen with vineyards destroyed, while there are 1 000 morgen with Port Jackson trees available that can be utilized as well, if not better, for housing purposes? No, the Opposition has altogether lost touch with the farmers. If that is the attitude they are going to adopt in respect of legislation of this nature, they will drift even further away from the farmers. The hon. members who should be lodging pleas here on behalf of the farmers have not been able to win any more rural seats as it is. They had to move to the cities. If they adopt this attitude they will eventually all be representing urban constituencies.

Mr. Speaker, when one is dealing with legislation of this sort, it is necessary to be quite clear as to what we are talking about, particularly after listening to a speech such as we have heard from the hon. member for Ladybrand. After listening to a speech like that, one has the impression that that side of the House is intent on exercising control over everything that a man can do or cannot do with his land. Is that what the hon. member for Ladybrand is pleading for? This is the way in which he has put his case. If that is what they want, then they must tell the House quite clearly and they must tell the voters quite clearly that that is what they want. I am sure that if they did so, they would not have the support from their own people. It is all very well for the hon. member for Ladybrand to speak as he does, but if his farm is situated next to a city or to some development and he can sell his farm at a very good price, will he tell this House that he will refuse that good price simply because he has a good farm? Will he tell this House that he will not subdivide his farm in any way and get a good price for part of it because that part of his farm is good agricultural land? No, Mr. Speaker, these people talk with two voices. They make very fine general statements, but when it comes to practice, when it comes to their own properties, they are quite prepared to sell for the best price they can get. In fact, they run to the Minister and squeal if he prevents them from selling. I think the fact that we have before this House this amending Bill proves that we were right when the original legislation was introduced in 1970, when we said that this was not the way to deal with the problem which the hon. the Deputy Minister told us then he wanted to deal with, namely the uneconomic subdivision of good agricultural land. We have told him so at the time. He now comes with amending legislation. The curious thing about this matter is that it does not seem as if the hon. the Deputy Minister has studied his Bill very well. In introducing this legislation, he told the House that—

The hon. the Deputy Minister seems to overlook that this legislation introduces two entirely new principles, both of which are of considerable importance. One of these principles has been dealt with at considerable length by the hon. member for Newton Park, namely that the amendments introduced by this Bill now make it possible for the hon. the Minister, in granting permission to subdivide agricultural land, to define the use to which those subdivisions may be put. This is an entirely new principle. I submit to this House that it is a very important principle. It enables the hon. the Minister to direct how land, which is subdivided, shall be used. In other words, the owner who wishes to subdivide part of his land, and the person who wishes to acquire that subdivided portion are not free to decide to what agricultural use they shall put that subdivided land, but the hon. the Minister will now tell them to what use they must put the subdivision. We on this side of the House do not see any justification for this. The hon. the Deputy Minister shakes his head, but what I have said is perfectly correct. Clause 4, as was pointed out by the hon. member for Newton Park, quite clearly gives the power to the hon. the Minister, if he grants an application, to include “conditions as to the purpose for which or the manner in which the land in question may be used”. In other words, the purpose for which the subdivision may be used.

May I ask the hon. member a question? Are you satisfied with a subdivision which allows a man to have 10 000 cattle in a feed lot next to the Vaal River?

The hon. the Deputy Minister must please not ask ridiculous questions such as this. I will tell him why I think it a ridiculous question. He knows very well that one cannot have general rules as to the size of an economic unit. A piece of land, which is only a few morgen in extent, may be economic as a result of the situation of that land and the use to which it is put.

You are missing the point.

I am not missing the point at all. The hon. the Deputy Minister is trying to mislead the House by asking ridiculous questions. When this Bill was originally introduced into this House in 1970, we told the hon. the Deputy Minister that, if he were really concerned about the use to which agricultural land was being put and the way in which it was being subdivided, he was going about it the wrong way. No less a person than one of the senior State officials of this Government has virtually accepted that the proper way to deal with the situation is the way in which we have suggested, namely to prepare for the whole of South Africa proper regional guide plans showing the use to which the land within that region may be put and to break down that regional plan into area plans dealing with the expansion of cities. This recommendation of the Niemand Commission has been accepted by the Government and it is being put into effect. The hon. the Deputy Minister himself referred to these guide plan committees in introducing the Second Reading of this Bill. If the Government accepts that this is the proper way to go about things, why does the hon. the Deputy Minister then persist with this legislation? If he tells me that they must have powers until such time as these guide plans are put into effect, there may be something to be said for that. But then we would be arguing the matter on an entirely different basis. I would then still say to the hon. the Deputy Minister that the way he is trying to deal with this problem is not the correct way. He is going to have to come to this House with more amendments if he persists and if the guide plans are not prepared speedily.

The other objection we have to this legislation—I am now dealing with broad principles before I deal with the clauses in detail—is that the Minister is not the proper person to deal with this problem. He cannot deal with the different situations which exist in different parts of the country. The provincial authorities have handled this matter very well in the past. The hon. the Deputy Minister won’t challenge me when I say that.

I hope you are not referring to the Natal Administration.

I challenge the hon. member to go back to his own constituency and to make that statement, because he knows very well that Natal has the very best planning authority in the country, a fact which has been conceded by the Niemand Commission, in the body known as the Natal Town and Regional Planning Commission. I challenge him to dispute that. I challenge him to dispute that now.

I will.

Do you deny that?

Order! The hon. member must proceed with his speech.

I abide by your ruling, Sir. These bodies have been responsible for the proper co-ordinated development of the provinces. They are the best bodies to handle this. If the hon. the Deputy Minister will not accept my statement, perhaps he will give proper attention to what one of his own M.P.C.s in the Cape Province said. I am now referring to Mr. Conradie. I do not wish to quote at length from the speech, but I would urge the hon. the Deputy Minister to read it very carefully. It deals with all the problems we have heard about in this debate, and deals with them far more intelligently than we have had from members such as the hon. member for Ladybrand. I am referring to the speech delivered by Mr. Conradie to the Sentrale Karoo-Ontwikkelingsvereniging on the occasion of its 23rd annual congress. This speech was made on the 2nd October, 1969. The hon. the Deputy Minister nods his head; no doubt he knows about it. If he knows about it, then he will also know that one of the points stressed by Mr. Conradie was the fact that the provincial authorities should be permitted to deal with the co-ordinated development of land in their own provinces. The hon. the Deputy Minister will not deny that they are also in a position to protect agricultural land properly. He will not suggest that they are going to allow good agricultural land to be used, for example, for township development when other land is available. The hon. the Deputy Minister knows that, with the expanding population that we have and are going to have in the years ahead, local authority areas must inevitably expand so that more housing can be provided for the population. Whether it is for the Coloureds, for the Indians or for the Bantu, more land will have to be given over to housing in the future. An often quoted figure in this House is that within the next 30 years we are going to have to build as many houses in this country as have been built in the last 300 years. One can only do this by giving over more land to housing than is available today. So inevitably some agricultural land will have to be acquired to extend the local authority areas, so that more housing can be provided.

Nobody is disputing that.

I am pleased to hear that, because judging by some of the speeches we heard when this Bill was before us in 1970, you would think that every piece of agricultural land was to be made sacrosanct from now on. I am very pleased that we have had this admission because at least there is some realism entering into the debate now. If we accept that local authority areas are going to have to expand and agricultural land or land which is today being used for agriculture, must tomorrow be given over for townships development, the real problem is how this should be properly tackled. Until such time as there is a regional plan to indicate the direction of expansion in which the local authorities may go without damaging good agricultural land which cannot be replaced elsewhere, we are running around in the dark.

Having dealt with the question of a regional plan and of breaking that plan into area plans, I come back to the point I made earlier. The local authority must then handle the position, not the Deputy Minister because the Deputy Minister does not look at the position from the broad point of view. We cannot look at the future expansion of a province or of South Africa purely from the point of view of the future of agriculture. This whole matter is interrelated. One must obviously have regard to the future of agriculture, but one must also have regard to the future of industry and of the towns. The hon. the Deputy Minister knows that more and more of the farmers are coming off the land and going to the cities.

He is encouraging them.

He in fact encourages it, I am told. Until such time as the Government stops looking at the problem piecemeal and without relating it to the whole, we are never going to have a satisfactory development plan for the various parts of South Africa, a proper development plan within each province. I think that is all I want to say in regard to general remarks.

Now I want to come to the specific clauses. I said earlier on that I wondered to what extent the hon. the Deputy Minister had really studied this Bill. I pointed out, Mr. Speaker, that there are two new principles, the first one relating to the new power given to the Minister to control the use to which a subdivided piece of agricultural land may be put on granting an application for subdivision. The other new principle is in clause 3 (f). The position as it exists today is that a local authority may expand its area of jurisdiction by acquiring an entire farm. There is nothing to stop that from happening in terms of the Act as it stands at the present time. In terms of clause 3 (f), the hon. the Minister is now taking the power to prevent a local authority from even acquiring an entire farm without his permission. It has nothing to do with subdivision at all. Surely that is another important new principle which we find for the first time in this amending legislation. I would like to know from the hon. the Deputy Minister what such a clause is doing in an Act which has to do with subdivision. This has nothing whatsoever to do with subdivision. It is now preventing an owner from disposing of his entire farm—not a subdivision—to a local authority without the Minister’s permission.

Sir, I want to deal with some clauses to which we object specifically, and I want to say that in justifying these amendments, the hon. the Minister has given very few convincing reasons as to the need for some of these amendments, and I hope that later in this debate, in the Committee Stage or in his reply to the Second Reading debate, he will be more specific and that he will justify some of the general remarks that he has made. Firstly, I want to deal with clause 1, paragraph (f). Paragraph (f) as it stands at present excludes from the definition of “agricultural land” land zoned for any particular purpose under a town-planning scheme which is in force in terms of any law. This has been changed to read—

In motivating this, the hon. the Deputy Minister tells us that he is introducing this amendment because—

We would like to know what object is not being achieved. Then he goes on to say that he is now taking a power which will enable him, in consultation with local authorities, to exclude land which is not within a local authority area, but which may be adjoining it, from the definition of “agricultural land”. Sir, in my opinion that is a very good thing to do. It is a good thing that the hon. the Deputy Minister should, in consultation with the local authorities, consider excluding land, which may be suitable for future township development, from the definition of “agricultural land”. But why does he wish to amend this clause? Because the clause as it stands at the moment excludes land zoned for any particular purpose under a town planning scheme. As the hon. the Deputy Minister points out, such land is invariably land which is either within a local authority area, or a local authority may acquire and include it within its area of jurisdiction.

I come now to clause 3 (f). I have already dealt with that to some extent. We would like the hon. the Deputy Minister to motivate this. He tells us that he is introducing this—

of Agricultural Technical Services to obtain control in order to ensure that any extension will not take up only the best agricultural land.

Surely the hon. the Deputy Minister does not suggest that local authorities, which are all subject to the control of the provincial authorities, expand their areas of jurisdiction beyond what is necessary to cope with the normal expansion that they expect in the future.

Not in the Transvaal.

Does the hon. the Deputy Minister suggest that in Natal, for example, local authorities expand their boundaries beyond what is necessary to cope with future expansion?

We have only had experience of this in the Transvaal.

Sir, let me put it to the hon. the Deputy Minister positively. I do not believe that local authorities, possibly with few exceptions, who are responsible to their ratepayers and who, as I have said, are subject to the jurisdiction of the provincial authorities, will expand their boundaries more than is necessary. In other words, they are not going to take in more land than they anticipate they will require in the future, so I do not believe that the Deputy Minister ought to interfere. If the provincial authorities consider that a local authority is justified in expanding its boundaries to take in further land, why should the hon. the Deputy Minister step in? In what way does the hon. the Deputy Minister know better than the provincial authority whether a local authority ought or ought not to expand its boundaries? If the hon. the Deputy Minister says that there is a danger that they will take good agricultural land in preference to agricultural land which is not so good, surely this is also a nonsensical argument, because the provincial authorities would naturally take this into account in determining whether to give permission to the local authority to expand or not, and in any event, Sir, I come back to my original argument: Until such time as you have a proper regional plan, how does anyone know where he stands if the Deputy Minister is going to be in a position to say, “You cannot take this farm to expand a local authority, but you can take this farm”? It is not in the interests of the local authority and it is certainly not in the interest of the farmers, because there can be a great deal of prejudice if the hon. the Minister prevents some and not others.

But if they include an adjoining farm, then they tax it. We do not differ at all.

Sir, I would suggest to the hon. the Deputy Minister that he ought to indicate to the House whether the Government is really serious about proceeding to establish central guide plan committees throughout the country. Of course if they are not then he had better speak to the hon. the Minister of Community Development who issued a statement only about three weeks ago saying that this was one of the recommendations of the Niemand Commission which the Government accepts. Now, if that is accepted, I think the Deputy Minister ought to tell this House exactly what part this legislation is going to play when these central guide plan committees are going to be established and whether it is the Government’s intention to maintain this legislation on the Statute Book, even after these guide plans are in existence, and if he is going to maintain the powers which he is now taking in his hands. If that is so then the Government might as well stop wasting the time of everybody concerned in trying to form these guide plans. All these people who are spending quite a lot of time, not only State officials but private persons as well, in working out these guide plans had better know their position straight away. The hon. the Deputy Minister and his Government will find that they will wash their hands of the whole thing and let the Government go on making a mess of the thing as it has done for years.

The hon. member for Musgrave must forgive me. I shall come back to him in a moment. But I want to react first to a shocking remark made here by the hon. member for Newton Park, when he said that this legislation and the preceding legislation amounted to the worst form of socialism.

I said this amendment which the Minister is introducing now.

Very well. You are saying that this Act is the worst form of socialism.

The particular clause to which I referred.

Very well; I agree with you. I want to tell the hon. member for Newton Park at once that we on this side are very pleased with him as the agricultural leader on that side, for as long as he continues to make such stupid remarks and to come forward with as many confusing legal interpretations as he did, we are perfectly happy about the fact that they are not a factor in politics as far as the interests of farmers are concerned. Once again the hon. member for Newton Park and the hon. member for Musgrave have made a big fuss about the fact that we are introducing a new principle here, i.e. the changed use of land. I want to tell the hon. Opposition that in the early forties we had a rarity in the Free State, namely a U.P. Administrator. When gold was discovered on the Free State goldfields, he and the National Executive Committee recommended that control be exercised over the use of land. The U.P. Government of that time accepted that recommendation, and when the Natural Resources Development Act was introduced in 1947, Mr. S. F. Waterson, the then Minister of Economic Development, had the following to say (Hansard, Vol. 61, col. 5279)—

This is what he said in introducing the Natural Resources Development Act. He piloted through clause 15 of that Bill, which prohibited the subdivision of land and a change in the use of land in controlled areas without the consent of the Minister. As we know, that first controlled area was the Free State goldfields. But as the country developed, that controlled area became bigger and bigger in extent. In other words, the people who quite rightly introduced control over the use of land in this country, are the predecessors of the Opposition. Now they are making a mockery of the work of their own predecessors by using such unbridled language in regard to this legislation which is before us today.

The hon. member for Musgrave also referred to the wide powers now being granted to a Minister. I have just read out to you, Sir, that in 1947 the United Party introduced that very principle by granting unheard of powers to a Minister, in this case it happened to be another Minister, but the principle remains 100 per cent the same. Furthermore, I want to tell the hon. member for Musgrave that he should not take it amiss of me if I make the insinuation here today that he was only speaking on behalf of township developers and their interests. It is true, and I admitted it here by way of interjection, that in the future more agricultural land will have to be surrendered for township development. But then it should be done in a planned manner and then the department which has control over agricultural land, should at least have the control over the type of agricultural land they are prepared to surrender. Sir, if I had to award a symbol or a badge to the debaters on agriculture on that side of the House, I would give them a badge depicting a donkey with a wooden plough. As regards their ideas on the subdivision and the consolidation of land, they are quite archaic. At a time when the entire modern Western world exercises the strictest control over and prohibits the subdivision of agricultural land in order to promote consolidation in that way, they are saying, as the hon. member for Newton Park did, that we are engaged in the worst form of socialism.

I want to tell the hon. the Deputy Minister that I welcome this legislation because we must come into line with the Western world. As far as the consolidation of land is concerned, one can only come into line with the Western world if one repairs all the leaks in the bucket. One cannot fill the bucket if it has leaks, and that is precisely what the hon. Opposition envisages. They want loopholes and they want leaks so that we may not, like other modern countries, proceed with the consolidation of uneconomic units. I want to say in passing that the hon. member for Newton Park wanted to kick up another terrible row by wanting to know what an economic unit was. Since 1947 we have, under the Natural Resources Act, been dealing with this legislation in controlled areas. I myself have been living under this Act as a farmer and as an attorney right from the start, ever since 1947, when this legislation was promulgated. This is a matter about which one can argue theoretically, but in practice it has always worked out the way it does now. We should not have a hundred-and-one objections, and we should not refuse to follow modern trends.

In conclusion I should like to mention two other loopholes, which I feel should be attended to. I am sure that at the moment it is not possible for the hon. the Minister to attend to this particular objection of mine. It is a major issue and many other problems are involved. It is the question of land which belongs to a company and the use of such land by shareholders. That is an aspect which will have to receive more attention in future. However, I want to come back specifically to clause 3 (d) of the legislation, which provides that no lease in respect of a portion of agricultural land may be registered in a deeds registry unless the Minister had consented in writing to the registration concerned. This clause, clause 3 (d), specifically refers to the type of lease for which provision is made in the General Law Amendment Act of 1956, Act No. 50 of 1956. This Act lays down what the requirements are for validating a long-term lease in respect of third parties, and requires such a contract to be registered in notarial form in a deeds registry. In addition this particular Law Amendment Act provides specifically what leases are to be registered in this manner. To be specific, these are leases where the term of lease is 10 years or longer and where the term of lease is the natural life of the lessee or any other person, or where the term of lease may be extended indefinitely by the lessee for periods which together with the first period of the lease amount in all to not less than ten years. I repeat, this type of long-term lease should only be registered if one wants it to be valid against third parties. This is not necessary between lessor and lessee. Between them an unregistered lease is valid too. Subsequent to that there were other court rulings which provided that certain other persons were not third parties either. Heirs, for instance, were not regarded as third parties. Against them, as I have already said, an unregistered long-term lease is valid too. My question to the hon. the Deputy Minister was: Does clause 3 (d) envisage that a portion of a unit of farm land, to which a title deed exists, may not be leased for a long period without the Minister’s consent? If the answer is in the affirmative, the provision is not comprehensive enough. I have already indicated that such a lease can be valid between certain parties without registration. However, if the clause only seeks to prohibit a negotiable right without the consent of the Minister, the provision concerned is comprehensive enough, for registration establishes the negotiable right in long-term leases of this type. If the hon. the Deputy Minister says that he only wants to stop a negotiable right if it is not done with consent, I nevertheless want to ask him whether it would not be desirable to make the long-term lease in its entirety subject to approval before it is registered or even after it has been registered. That will not be a controllable matter. I want to grant that. Where registration does not take place, it is impossible for the Minister to know where a lease has been entered into, because it is not registered. However, if the General Law Amendment Act were amended, and if it were provided that such a lease between lessor and lessee would not be valid in respect of agricultural land, irrespective of whether it is registered without the Minister’s approval, it would be possible to exercise control over long-term leases of this nature. The reason why I mention this is that, because a lease is valid between the parties without registration, it is possible that a lessor may lease five different uneconomic portions of his farm to five different young people for, say, 50 years or longer. That would be quite legal as long as they are the only people involved. In that manner they would, to my mind, defeat the purpose for which section 3 (d) will have been placed on the Statute Book. I realize that this may mean amendments to the General Law Amendment Act, but I would appreciate it if the hon. the Deputy Minister would give his attention to this matter and react to it at a later stage by effecting an amendment, if necessary.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I resent very much indeed the insinuation which the hon. member for Kroonstad made against the hon. member for Musgrave by saying that the hon. member for Musgrave was speaking merely in the interests of land developers. I want to ask that hon. member to get the Hansard of the hon. member for Musgrave and to show me where in that speech that he made did he say anything that could be construed to be to the advantage of people who want to develop ground. That is a totally wrong insinuation to make; it is totally false and totally unjustified. I think the hon. member ought to know better. He should not come to this House with that kind of thing.

One learned gentleman to another.

Yes, as one learned gentleman to another, I think it is unworthy of him. I really do.

The hon. member mentioned the Natural Resources Development Act of 1947. However, nowhere in that Act as passed by the United Party was the Government of the day given powers similar to those which are being given to the Minister. The Act provided for a council. There was a council which would advise the Minister. The Minister was the Minister of Economic Development, and not the Minister of Agriculture. You can see some of these things …

Look at the principle in section 15.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member says that I must look at the principle. The council was empowered to do certain things. I think it is worth while dwelling on those for a minute. The council could prepare schemes for the exploitation, development or use of resources in any such area. It could declare controlled areas; it could facilitate or guide the carrying out of such schemes, that is, … to assist and advise statutory authorities vested with any powers or functions in connection with or affecting the subdivision or use of land in any controlled area …”

May I ask the hon. member a question?

May I just finish what I am saying? The Act as passed by the United Party in 1947 made provision for all that this hon. Minister has been trying to do in the Act which was passed in 1970. There was provision there for controlled areas to be developed. This is precisely what we on this side of the House have been asking for. There is one other provision I wish to quote—

I believe that the fact that this legislation resides under the Minister of Agriculture, is totally wrong. The emphasis has been placed on the wrong Minister and wrong department altogether. I believe that the department and the Government have had their power, under this Act, the ability to declare controlled areas and to control the subdivision of ground, if they had seen fit to use it in the way which was proposed by this side of the House, namely by zoning certain areas for certain means of development. The hon. member may now ask his question.

Does the hon. member deny that section 15 of the Natural Resources Act provide that the Minister of Economic Affairs must grant permission for the subdivision of land and for a change in the manner in which it is used?

Section 15 refers quite clearly to “A restriction upon subdivision and use of land in controlled areas.” What has happened through this Act of the hon. the Minister, is that the whole of South Africa has been declared a controlled area. Every piece of land, for whatever purpose it may be used, has been declared a controlled area. This is where the legislation is wrong. What has happened is that there has been a virtual embargo placed on the subdivision of ground for many different purposes. The whole question is being viewed from one viewpoint alone, namely that of agricultural ground.

I want to say that I was very disappointed indeed when the hon. the Deputy Minister introduced the Second Reading of this Bill. I have had some problems with his department and he knows about them. When he came with this amendment, I thought it was going to sort out some of the problems I have had, because the legislation deals with ground which is not today agricultural ground in any sense of the word other than in the purely technical definition which is contained in the original Act of 1970. This definition includes ground which cannot in any way be used as agricultural ground. I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister to explain what will happen in the case of areas of land which were legally subdivided, broken up and sold in various small portions to various people, and are now roundabout the peripheries of certain of our urban areas. How does the hon. the Deputy Minister intend to use the Act? Will he tell me that he is going to consolidate all those areas back into farms? If he is not going to do so, what is the purpose of this Act, giving him control of those pieces of ground with regard to the use of agricultural land? I can see absolutely no purpose for this at all. Later on I wish to quote just two examples to the hon. the Deputy Minister and to the House in this regard. I want to ask him to tell me why his department has refused to give permission for that ground to be subdivided further than it has already been subdivided.

I want to say that I associate myself very strongly indeed, as I said at the Second Reading of the original Act, with the idea of a regional plan. In every area a zone must be set aside where the subdivision of ground for residential purposes must be facilitated. We are facing a tremendous housing shortage. All that has happened in terms of this Act is that the subdivision of ground has been made much more difficult, because there seems to have arisen—certainly in my province—a misunderstanding or a Contretemps between the hon. the Minister’s department and the Provincial Administration. On several occasions the hon. the Deputy Minister said to me that my problems were caused by the Provincial Administration, but I have taken the trouble of going to the Provincial Administration and tried to find out where the problem lies. I get the reply from them that it comes from the hon. the Minster’s department.

I have the correspondence here.

I was told this by the Provincial Administration itself. They told me that they cannot establish from this hon. Deputy Minister and his department what kind of policy they wish to be carried out in the province of Natal.

They refused in Natal.

Of course, because they do not know what the hon. the Deputy Minister is trying to achieve. They have not yet achieved any kind of understanding and they do not know what he is getting at, because they get a blanket refusal in every case.

I now want to come back to the two points I want to discuss with the hon. the Deputy Minister. The question is made here that we must not allow good agricultural land round about our urban areas to be subdivided and that we must look for the more difficult ground which is not such good agricultural ground. But let me ask the hon. the Minister of Planning a question. In Pietermaritzburg we have a specific case in point, where there are two areas which are to be allocated for Coloured areas. One of them is adjacent to the present Coloured area, but it is very difficult ground to exploit. The other area is some miles away from the present existing Coloured area, and is easier ground to develop. Is the hon. the Deputy Minister now going to place an embargo on the Minister of Coloured Affairs and the Minister of Planning to allocate the better area for Coloured housing? How does he resolve these problems? If we are going to put up the cost of building by anything up to 25 per cent or 30 per cent merely because we are not going to take ground which is better agricultural land and force building development to go to the more difficult ground, I think the hon. the Deputy Minister has a lot to answer. I do not think it is going to work in that way. I think one is going to find that the pressure is going to be to allow the easiest and cheaper type of ground to be used for housing within certain limits. I think it should be the job of the Minister and his department and the other departments involved in regional planning to determine where these areas are in which development can take place. The hon. the Deputy Minister asked whether we would be content to have 4 000 cattle on ten morgen of land next to the Vaal River, but I want to point out that we passed an amendment to the Water Act last year giving the Minister of Water Affairs specific powers to deal with a case like that, of anybody polluting the Vaal River. It is in the Water Act and any member who sat on the Select Committee will know that that specific problem was raised last year and that provision was made for it in the Water Act. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister should better delegate his powers to the Minister of Water Affairs who will fix it up for him.

When he introduced his legislation the hon. the Deputy Minister gave us no kind of a background as to the problems which have arisen in regard to the implementation of the Act at all. We have had a whole year in which the Act has been in operation. I had some problems with it myself and I hoped that we were going to get a review from the hon. the Deputy Minister when introducing this legislation. I hoped that he would tell us that in trying to apply the Act there were certain problems which had arisen. All we got was a very short and bald statement by the hon. the Deputy Minister, however, dealing with certain specific amendments without giving any kind of a review at all. I think when he replies to this debate he owes it to the House to give us some kind of an oversight of what is happening in South Africa, and how the applications are coming in, of how they are being refused or accepted and so on.

I am going to tell the truth and the hon. member is going to be hurt.

If I am wrong I am quite prepared to accept it. You must tell me where I am wrong and I will be quite prepared to accept it. I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister what his intentions are in regard to certain areas, and I will give him a specific example. I have already written to him in regard to the farm called Woodburn. Is that the letter the hon. the Deputy Minister has with him now?

Yes.

Let me sketch the background of this case. This ground has already been subdivided and cut up into smaller areas.

We wanted to help you but the Natal provincial authorities said no. If the hon. the Deputy Minister will assure me that he will give his consent when he replies to me, I think I can go and talk to the Natal Provincial Administration about their refusal. But let me give the hon. the Deputy Minister and the House the background.

Did he not give you his consent?

Yes, I welcome his consent. If he wants to help me, I can take it that he will give me his consent if I can arrange it with the Natal Provincial Administration.

But they said, “Please do not give your consent.”

They might change their minds when I get a chance to talk to them. Here we have a small portion of ground of 27 acres, which lies between the Health Committee area of Merrivale and the local Health Commission area of Cedara. It will never be a farm. It can never again be a farm in the sense of the word that the hon. the Deputy Minister and I understand the term “farm”. It is a smallholding and it can be nothing else. An application was made to cut off four acres and it has been refused. If the hon. the Deputy Minister is serious and he intends to apply this Act for the consolidation of those areas, I can understand that there might be a problem. But if that is not his intention, surely it is in the interests of the country and it is the duty of the Deputy Minister to understand why the applications have been refused. There must be some co-ordination between the Deputy Minister’s Department and the Natal Provincial Administration. One simply cannot place a total embargo on the subdivision of land. I welcome anything the hon. the Deputy Minister can tell me about it. If we can come back to the matter on a later date, I understand I have his full sympathy and support.

Mr. Speaker, mentioned in the Second Reading debate on the original Bill that my constituency is not only one of the best agricultural constituencies in the country, but that it is also a resort area. I come back to the point I made. The Deputy Minister took me to task for using the phrase “holiday home”, but there is more and more pressure in my constituency by people who wish to buy small plots of ground where they can go for a weekend, something like a holiday home, a cottage or something similar, something which is vital in terms of the pressures of modern urban living. Again I return to the request that I made, that there should be a zone, that the Deputy Minister should take the power within his department to zone a certain area in consultation with the provincial authorities, who are the people who deal with and understand these matters. He nods his head. I think that we are really making some kind of progress, but certainly it does not appear to me from the terms of the legislation the hon. the Deputy Minister has introduced here that this is going to be his serious intention. I would like to reiterate that in Natal, where we have a very close provincial control through the Town and Regional Planning Commission, it is impossible to have, what I regard as a blanket embargo. There has to be some kind of movement on the part of the department. Let us say once again that this side of the House is totally in agreement with the prevention of uneconomic subdivision of farms. Nobody wants to load the State with the responsibility of having to consolidate farms which are uneconomical, but so many of our problems in Natal relate to the small areas round about the local authorities. I think that this legislation has done absolutely nothing to help the problems that I have had, and I associate myself with the amendment of the hon. member for Newton Park.

I really find it difficult to reconcile with one another to various standpoints put forward by hon. members opposite. Let us just take a look at the last observation made by the hon. member for Mooi River. He said that in principle his side of the House was in favour of the idea that agricultural land should not be subdivided into uneconomic units.

Yes.

He says “yes”. But let us compare this now with the attitude adopted by the main speaker opposite on this very same topic. He accused the Deputy Minister by saying that there was no such thing as a definable uneconomic unit. In fact, he said it was a “so-called” uneconomic unit.

Your own commission of inquiry could not find it.

But that is nevertheless the fact of the matter. Now I find the problem that the hon. members for Mooi River and Musgrave are apparently pleading for guide plans to be drawn up before the principle of the legislation is to be accepted. But the hon. member for Newton Park is, in the first instance the champion of the individual rights of farmers. Secondly, he has become the champion of the powers of the Provincial Administrations.

I think you are battling.

No, it is that hon. member’s privilege to battle. But let us consider what the hon. member for Musgrave said. He said that this draft legislation was introducing a totally new principle into our legislation, namely, that the use of land—not only the subdivision of land, but also the use of land—would now be controlled.

No, the use of subdivided land.

Very well, he says the use of subdivided land, but is that correct? I want to refer the hon. member to Act No. 10 of 1944, and I just want to refer him to section 1 of it. Incidentally, he is reasonably young and I just want to remind him that his party governed this country in 1944.

Where were you at the time?

I was studying, which that hon. member has never done. Sir, what is the principle contained in section 1 of Act No. 10 of 1944? It is to delegate to Provincial Administrations two distinguishable powers; the one is for controlling the subdivision of land into units smaller than 25 morgen in extent. But what is the second principle contained in the same Act? It is, namely, also to regulate and control the use of such subdivided land. I want to ask hon. members on that side whether the principle of control in respect of subdivision and in respect of use is therefore only correct when hon. members opposite ask for it, and not when hon. members on this side ask for it?

But I want to take the matter further. The hon. member for Newton Park asked the hon. the Deputy Minister whether he had consulted organized agriculture and the Provincial Administrations.

Of course.

Of course he consulted them. But, Sir, let us take it a little further. I want to ask the hon. member for Newton Park whether he consulted organized agriculture? Did he consult organized agriculture originally, when the principle of the original Act was under discussion? Of course not. The hon. member is so out of touch with organized agriculture that I want to make the statement here that he cannot even pretend to be speaking on their behalf. What are the facts? When last did the hon. member attend an agricultural congress?

He has never been to one.

I think he has never been to one. Sir, what is the standpoint of organized agriculture on the principle of this legislation? The standpoint of organized agriculture on the principle of this legislation is not negative, but one of support; it welcomes this principle. When the hon. member initially opposed the legislation, he spoke at length about the stream of protest allegedly raised by the farmers against the implementation of this legislation, and where is that protest? But, Sir, I want to go further than that. The hon. member is also the patron of provincial powers. He said that this legislation interfered with the powers of the provinces. I want to suggest that he has not read this Bill, for the fact of the matter is that in principle this legislation grants the provinces powers of control which they do not have today. Sir, let us just consider the whole question of provincial powers. When I listen to hon. members opposite, it rather seems to me as though the Government and the Provincial Administrations and even the local authorities, are three institutions which are in continual conflict with one another and that they are not levels of effective administration. Sir, what is the test that has to be applied in order to determine whether a particular power is vested in some or other level that exists in our political structure? After all, we are not living in a static economy. Surely, the norm should not be that because a particular power has been granted to some level or other on a particular occasion, it is a situation to which permanence should be given. This is the test: Which of these levels of administration can in a given set of circumstances render the most effective service? Surely that is the norm. In a country like ours, with these various levels of administration, it is important for us to realize that from time to time interaction will take place in respect of the powers of these various levels, but always with the aim of effective management and administration as the decisive factor. Therefore I consider it to be wrong that, in respect of effective administration, we should continually try to play off certain levels of government against one another, whereas their function should actually be to put us in a better position to govern our country. But I want to go further. I say that there are certain criteria that should be followed in respect of administration. The hon. members for Musgrove and Mooi River do not agree with the hon. member for Newton Park, for these hon. members, if I understood them correctly—they may correct me-—adopted the attitude that, in the first instance, there were good grounds for the control of subdivision and the use of land, but that prior to legislation to this effect being introduced, the necessary guide plans should be drawn up. In other words, in princple the hon. members for Mooi River and Musgrave are not against the principle of this legislation, but they have certain objections in respect of the implementation of this legislation.

You are wrong.

He says that he also objects to the principle. Sir, he can only have one of two objections to the principle of this Bill, for the Bill only has two principles; the one is the question of control over the subdivision of land, and the second is the question of control over the use of land. These are the only two principles contained in this Bill. I ask hon. members: If they object to the principle of this Bill, in what respect has the position changed since they adopted the principle of control over subdivision and control over use in 1944?

They have changed their minds now.

Did they only change their minds because they happen to be sitting on that side? [Interjections.] Sir, the hon. member for Mooi River is free to sit and make noises over there, but I challenge him to dispute that their party, when they governed, adopted in principle the two principles contained in both this Bill and the principal Act.

That was only an interim stage.

As my hon. colleague has said, that was probably an interim stage only. Surely hon. members opposite are aware of that, and if they are not, they should ask the hon. member for Green Point, for he was a member of the Executive Committee …

I did not say anything.

I am so sorry that the hon. member did not say anything, for if he had said something, he would perhaps have made an intelligent contribution to this debate. Sir, surely there is a continual change in the powers of local authorities in relation to the Provincial Administration and vice versa, and between the Government and the Provincial Administrations and vice versa. The impression I gain is that hon. members on that side are of the opinion that this Parliament ought to have no powers, and I want to tell them that in our structure any Provincial Administration and any local authority derives its authority and powers from this Parliament—and the sooner hon. members realize this, the better—and that when an interchange of the functions of local authorities and Provincial Administrations takes place, the norm that has to be applied, is the norm of effective administration and government. But I want to take it further. Let us see whether this Bill improves the existing position in respect of control, and let us see whether it does not grant more powers to the provincial councils. Let us see, Sir, whether there is any merit in the accuzation that some provincial powers are being taken away without any compensating factor contained in the Bill itself. Secondly, let us see whether this Bill contains deficiencies, for the hon. the Deputy Minister is obviously introducing amendments for the very purpose of ensuring the better and more effective administration of the principal Act and, by those means, drawing the Administrations into the administration of this Act, or into the principle of this Act, where he himself can exercise the control for the purposes of the work of his department.

The first deficiency that exists in the Act, is obviously the following, namely that the scope of the existing Act is so wide that the Department of Agricultural Technical Services has to consider applications which do not really come within the framework of its objectives, which the hon. the Minister seeks to achieve by way of this Act; in other words, in the definition of agricultural land, the Act now includes land which ought not to be tested against the norm of agricultural and economic standards.

We said that in 1970.

Yes, perhaps the hon. member was not here, but when the Minister wanted to allow him that point, he quarrelled about that as well. I want to repeat. What deficiency exists at the moment? The deficiency exists that, because the scope of the Act is too wide, there are applications which, with the acceptance of the amendment proposed by the hon. the Minister, improve that deficiency. Then we find a second deficiency, i.e. the fact that farms can be withdrawn from the provisions of the Act through steps taken by local authorities by, for instance, applying in the first place for the extension of its area of jurisdiction, so as to bring into that new area of jurisdiction land which is invaluable from an agricultural point of view. That is the deficiency that exists. I just want to point that out. The hon. member for Newton Park is the Cape leader of this party, and as such he will be aware that there are several divisional councils in the Cape to which the provisions of the planning chapter of the Townships Ordinance are applicable, such as Cape Town itself, Stellenbosch, Paarl and Knysna. The result is that in these areas a farmer can subdivide his farm into units larger than 25 morgen in extent, without any controlling authority over him. That is why there is a deficiency, and I think that what we should do now, is to identify these deficiencies, and once we have identified them, we should judge the remedies the Minister wants to apply in order to supply these deficiencies.

A third deficiency that exists, is that within the areas of some of these urban local authorities, some of the most valuable agricultural land is in fact to be found, such as here in Paarl and in the area of the municipalities along the Orange River. In Paarl pressure is continually being brought to bear on the Cape Administration by owners for good agricultural land to be subdivided. Now the hon. member for Durban Musgrave has quoted Mr. Conradie, the M.E.C., but why does he not quote another speech of his in which he made a moving plea for powers to curb the subdivision of agricultural land within urban local areas, a power which they do not have? I shall tell you why.

That is not what he said.

What about Act 10 …

My complaint against hon. members on the other side is that in trying to find motivation for standpoints, they are not prepared to give the complete standpoint of people, but only to quote that portion of the standpoints in question which happens to substantiate their own views. I think the hon. members owe their own responsibility as members of this House a great deal more than the price they are paying now. What does the legislation do after the deficiencies have been identified? A new definition, the new paragraph (m) of the existing definition, will enable the Minister to exempt, in accordance with a guide plan, if you wish—the Act does not exclude the drawing of a guide plan—those areas, i.e. land, which really has no agricultural value and which should not really come within the provisions of the norms of this Act. That is the first matter I want to mention, but the second one is that the result will be that any subdivision in these areas will be controlled by the provinces in terms of legislation controlling subdivision for purposes other than agriculture. In other words, this provision not only eliminates this deficiency, but also grants the province additional powers for resting the land exempted in terms of this provision against the requirements it wishes to lay down in terms of its own legislation for township and other development in its area. But what do we hear? All we hear is a repetition of the old outcry that provincial powers are being eroded.

What are your views on clause 3 (d)?

I shall come to that in a moment. It is also true that rural areas in which planning schemes exist, such as around our major cities, which have up to now been excluded from the provisions of this legislation, are now included again. I want to repeat that from the nature of the case the hon. the Minister has, in respect of the department he handles, certain requirements he has to meet. It goes without saying that the Administration and local authorities have certain functions which they have to carry out. After all, there is consultation between the various bodies which, within their departments, have various targets. Surely, a continual process of evaluation takes place between the hon. the Minister’s department, the Administration and the local authorities, once again with a view to the evaluation of what is of the greatest importance in a given set of circumstances and in a given area, namely the agricultural aspect or the township-development aspect. What hon. members are doing now, is to play off these levels of government against each other all the time. I think it is a public disgrace.

He will determine who makes money out of it.

The hon. member says he will determine who makes the money. I want to ask the hon. member …

No, the Minister will determine.

I want to ask the hon. member whether, in respect of town-planning schemes and zonings, the Administrator, too, does not at the moment determine what rights of use there may be within a municipal area. Does he not do so at the moment?

What about the local authorities?

I am referring to the local authorities; the Administrator determines the rights of land use.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the hon. member.

No, I do not wish to reply to questions now. The fact of the matter is that if the right of land use is changed, the local authority may make a recommendation to the Administrator. Determining the right of land use is not the only thing the Administrator can do; he can go much further than that. If he rezones land in a municipal area for a purpose other than the one for which it is zoned at the moment, he can say that the owner has to pay over to the local authority, a part of the appreciation, if there is any. The point I want to make is that the principle of control over land use has, after all, been embodied in our legislation, and also in our provincial legislation, for a long time.

Yes, in local authorities as well.

Yes, in local authorities as well. Let us consider this Bill further. In terms of clause 7 the Minister will be able to delegate powers not only to his own officials, but also to officials of provincial administrations. This is a further extension of those people’s powers in regard to the spheres and facets in regard to which they can judge and which come within the scope of their powers. The amendment effected in terms of clause 10 will add to the provinces’ powers to control the subdivision of land into portions even larger than 25 morgen in extent in areas exempted by the Minister for the provisions of the legislation. It is a further extension of the powers of the provinces. I want to summarize by saying that hon. members may argue as they please, but in fact remains that the whole principle of control over the subdivision of land in rural areas and urban areas, is a principle that has already been adopted. The principle of control over the use of land in rural areas and in municipal areas, is a principle that has already been adopted. Those hon. members are quite prepared to pose here as the champions of the individual rights of the people who are under discussion here, namely the farmers. Do hon. members now want to elevate the individual rights to a position superior to that of the common interest? I have here with me the observations made initially by the hon. member for Newton Park. Do hon. members want there to be no restrictions whatever on farmers in respect of the use of their land? I want hon. members to tell us what their reply is—yes or no.

There are many powers which one already has.

But of course. Surely that is the point. Surely the hon. member has already accepted the principle in the Soil Conservation legislation, which seeks to protect the soil. In fact, that Act was passed in 1946. But am I now to say that when his party passed that Act in 1946, it eroded the rights of the individual, or am I to say that hon. members, when they passed that Act, carried out their responsibility, namely that of protecting the soil in our country. Now I come to the second point I want to make. Does the hon. member agree that we are a relatively poor agricultural country, and that it is the responsibility of the Government to prevent, in cases where these interests are of primary importance, after a process of evaluation, valuable agricultural land from becoming uneconomic for agricultural purposes? Does he agree with that?

No, he will not reply.

He is as silent as the grave.

I am of the opinion that there is one deficiency which is not being eliminated by the legislation before the House at the moment. In this draft legislation the Minister did not make any provision for this particular deficiency, and that is that there is also agricultural land situated in urban local authorities over which the Minister cannot exercise any control at the moment. Therefore I am giving notice now of my intention to move the following amendment at the Committee Stage, namely that the following words be added at the end of line 35, page 3: “But with the exception of any such land which the Minister, after consultation with the Executive Committee concerned and by notice in the Gazette, declares to be agricultural land for the purposes of this Act.” That will enable the Minister to comply with the pleas addressed to him from time to time, namely that he should not prevent and block the subdivision of land per se, but should try to prevent the subdivision of land, tested against a specific norm. I know what hon. members are going to do with this amendment I want to move. They will say that there is already a shortage of building premises, and that the Government is now going to restrict the subdivision of land to an even greater extent. But the essence of this amendment which I want to move, is that this step should be taken in consultation with the Provincial Administration, and when the Administration advises the Minister in this particular regard, he will have to express an opinion in respect of the need and the necessity for township development in that vicinity or in respect of the farm itself. Then the process of evaluation is going to take place in order to determine what interests are to be the decisive ones in this specific set of circumstances. That is why I am giving notice of my intention to move such an amendment.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for False Bay claims that the principle of control over agricultural land has long been contained in the Act. We admit that there are certain provisions dealing with this in the provincial ordinances and in certain laws of the country. The hon. member referred to Act No. 10 of 1944, in which the area of 25 morgen or 50 acres is mentioned. Those provisions, however, are not at all the same as those in the present legislation.

But I want to go further. There have always been the different levels of government on which the hon. member has so beautifully elaborated here, namely the local government, the provincial government and the ministry right at the top. But how does the present legislation work, for example, the previous Act piloted through this House in 1970? Before land can be subdivided one first has to go to the top and ask for permission from the ministry. No surveying or anything of that nature can be done before one has asked for permission from the people at the top. In the past, with the levels of government, one could go to the Administration if the local authority were to reject it. There was a right of appeal to the Administrator. To whom can one go once the hon. the Minister has rejected it? It is an impossible matter.

What if the Administrator were to reject it?

I know of cases in my constituency and the hon. the Minister knows of cases where there was no right of appeal at all, because this matter does not work from the lowest level to the top one, but from the top level down to the lowest one. In other words, this is not a Bill which helps the people to get to the top level, it is a Bill which actually bears down on the people and stifles them, as my hon. bench-fellow said the other day. [Interjections.]

If one compares the long titles of the Act and of this Bill, one sees that the long title of the Act which was before the House in 1970 was only “to control the subdivision of agricultural land”. If one looks at the long title of this Bill, however, one sees that this Bill is introduced—

We agree with the extensions of provincial powers, but if one looks at the amendment in paragraph (f) of the definition of “agricultural land”, and at the amendment in clause 1 (b), one wonders whether it is in fact going to extend the powers of the provincial councils. We know it reads as if it were an extension, but the way I know public life it seems to me that it is only going to handicap the local authority and the provincial council with red tape. I am glad to hear that the hon. member for False Bay is going to move a further amendment to clause 1. I hope the hon. the Minister is going to classify it further, because we on this side are also going to move amendments to that clause, as it is very vaguely put. If it is indeed an extension of the powers of the provincial councils, we cannot see that it is going to be easy to apply.

I now come to the amendment of section 3 of the main Act which is introduced by clause 3. The proposed new paragraph (e) reads—

That paragraph is going to cause a lot of trouble in certain parts of South Africa, and particularly in the coastal areas. Along the short stretch of coast which I know in the Eastern Cape from, say, the Bushman’s River up to the Fish River, there are several places where there are no surveyed plots—in some cases it is Government land and in other cases a private farm—where people do have movable property, a cottage. This includes places such as Gasooka, Kleinemonde, Riet River, Old Woman’s River and Fish River Mouth. They are controlled by divisional councils and one cannot erect a permanent structure there. These places have been there for years, however, There are places such as these here in the Western Cape as well. Farmers are not the only people to go there. That cottage, and the right to stay on that land, is sold by one family to another. When one looks at this clause of the Bill one sees that they will no longer be able to sell those places. People sometimes buy those beach cottages when their children are still young. When their children have grown up they sell them to someone else.

If it has already been subdivided it is not affected.

But it has not been subdivided. That is where the problem lies. That land has never been surveyed by a surveyor.

Then it cannot be sold.

Those cottages are being sold one after another.

Transfer cannot be given.

When reading this Bill, however, I can see that there is going to be trouble. They do in fact obtain some sort of title to that house, namely the right to stay on that land. The land, however, has not been subdivided.

But Chat is not in this Bill.

If you had kept quiet now, there would not have been any trouble.

No, but it will be interesting to know what will happen.

†Clause 3 of the Bill deals with the substitution of section 3 of the Act. The new section 3 (f) is an interesting amendment. It would now appear that a local authority, whereas it could buy ground under the Act as it stood and could extend its boundaries, except ground that was subdivided, may, in terms of this amendment, not even buy a full unit, an undivided piece of ground, without the permission of the Minister. We were talking about the planes of the government earlier on. Surely the local authority must know what its requirements are. Surely it should be able to specify that a certain piece of ground fits in with any urban development scheme. Surely it should be able, in conjunction with the townships board of its province, and with the executive committee, to decide for itself whether it must acquire land or not. Now, even if it needs a piece of undivided additional land, it has to get the permission of the Minister. I think something should be done in regard to this. I feel that one should not over-restrict the subdivision of ground in urban areas. I believe that this Minister, instead of bringing this restrictive legislation, should allow the townships board and the planning boards of the provinces to plan for their large urban areas. If we are going to over-restrict them, we are going to increase the cost of building land, which is already very expensive. By over-restricting and limiting the supply of building land in our urban areas, we can only add to the cost of those plots, and add to the inflation from which this country is already suffering. I suggest that we look at this legislation very carefully before we pass it, with the idea of not creating an artificial shortage. I might mention that the tendency of inflated valuations of land in our urban areas, and also in our holiday resort areas, has multiplied by an enormous amount. It will multiply more if this legislation is passed. Since the ordinances controlling further development of holiday resorts on the Cape coast were introduced some years ago, valuations went up enormously. I want to mention the example of a plot 50 feet by 100 feet in the Eastern Cape, at a place called Boesmansrivier. In 1966 the valuation of this plot was R150, but today is valued at R2 500. This is a dangerous thing that is happening. I believe that if we are going to over-restrict, we are going to put these prices up even further. People are not going to be able to afford the burden. I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister to leave these powers to the provinces and to forget about this Bill entirely. I also appeal to him to accept our amendment.

The hon. member for Newton Park mentioned the possibility of ground being purchased for a brickfield and being affected by this Act. Well, I know of a case about which I did not go to the Minister, because I knew that there would be trouble; so I recommended a 99 year lease. Thank Heavens, I got through in time. But the cost of building material is another thing the man in the street has to contribute to today. The price of bricks is exceptionally high. There is not much brick ground available in certain parts of the country. In some places today bricks are R60 per 1 000. If one is going to push up the price further by restricting the amount of ground available for the purpose, it is just going to aggravate the position.

Clause 4, as has been mentioned by the speakers on this side of the House, introduces an amazing new principle and a new power. It in fact gives the Minister the power to determine how a farmer may farm. I feel that this is going a little bit too far, because the Minister already has power to exclude and control the bad and inefficient farmer under the Soil Conservation Act. Why must we have another clause in this Bill which gives him the power to say exactly what has to be done and how the ground may be used? The clause reads—

That is very strong wording. If this clause is necessary, we would very much like to know from the Deputy Minister why and whether he is going to delegate this new power to anyone as the hon. member for South Coast asks so wisely; because this is a power which could not lightly be delegated to anybody. I feel that the power to control is already laid down by the Soil Conservation Act. If someone is contravening the Soil Conservation Act, if somebody is upsetting his farming operations by inefficient farming and bad use of land, the Minister may exercize that control; but clause 4 contains an entirely new principle, something we do not like at all.

Then it is difficult to understand sometimes how these cases are decided. I had a case in my constituency which unfortunately I heard about too late. It was a case of certain sections of the old Clarkes party grant of plots of the 1820s. There were four separate surveyed plots but a farmer had bought them up before. Three of them were adjacent to each other on one side of the road, and the other section of 50 morgen was on the other side of the road. Now the owner offered to give the 50 morgen to one of his neighbours, whose farm did not exactly join it, but it was half a mile away. This 50 morgen would have made this man’s farm economic. It had water on it.

It can be consolidated.

I will give the hon. the Deputy Minister the details of the case later, but I will tell him now why I never approached him about it. It was turned down by the secretary of the board, and the seller then sold to someone else who bought the lot. It was definitely turned down. I heard about it far too late. But the ground was offered for nothing; it was offered as a gift to a young farmer who was battling on a small farm, and it was turned down. It is too late for us to do anything about that now; but this is what happens under this Act. I believe that one has to take a look at this whole question again, and come forward with something entirely different, introducing a different principle, where there can be a local board to decide these matters. Local conditions are far more important to local people. It is impossible, as I have said during the Second Reading debate of the original legislation, to decide from Pretoria what must go on in Pofadder for instance.

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