Mr. Speaker, we come now to the end of this debate on the Railway Budget for the year 1972-’73. During this debate, Sir, you and other hon. members have heard speakers talk about efficiency and you have heard of cases of inefficiency. Charges have been laid at the door of the hon. the Minister and of his Administration. But, Sir, I think the overall picture of this debate has been one of a department which is doing the best it can under the present circumstances, of a Minister who has been pragmatic, who has grasped the nettle, and who has flown in the face of Government policy in certain respects. It is no good the hon. member for Pietersburg trying to justify the action of the hon. the Minister in taking in non-White persons to do certain graded jobs in the Railways on the basis of its being a border industry or a “plekgebonde nywerheid”, because that argument just does not wash. I want to ask the hon. member for Pietersburg why he tries to make excuses. This is a step forward and it is a step which we, as well as members on the Government side, have welcomed. Why then he must make excuses, I really do not know. Let us just accept the fact that this has happened and let us all say that we are grateful for the fact that it has happened, and that we hope the example of this Minister is going to permeate through to his other colleagues, and that we are going to have a more realistic approach to this whole question of labour during the coming year.

As I have said, the general picture has been one of an efficient Administration doing the best it can under the circumstances. But there is one thing which I do not think has been made clear during this debate and which I should like to draw to the attention of the hon. the Minister. That is the image which his Administration has in the eyes of the public. People are getting into trains and are finding dusty seats and dirty corridors, and immediately the good name of his Administration suffers. People are consigning goods by rail and by road motor services; they are either being delayed or they are not arriving, or they are arriving damaged, or with half the consignment missing, and once again the good name of his Administration is being damaged. I recently had the unfortunate experience of winding up an estate in which a business was concerned, and had to write off over R3 000 in bad debts attributable to unpaid claims by the Railways Administration. These were claims for goods which had either not arrived, or which had arrived in a damaged condition. This sort of thing does not help the image of the hon. the Minister. A certain person here in Cape Town during the week-end described what had happened to him and asked me why this sort of case was not brought to the attention of the hon. the Minister when we have this sort of debate. A case of brandy was sent from a place no further than 40 miles from Cape Town. It took over three weeks to arrive here, and when it arrived there were four bottles out of twelve broken, none of which had pieces of glass in them. This is the sort of thing which is spoiling the image of the hon. the Minister’s department. Nobody can expect the hon. the Minister himself to go out and investigate this sort of thing, but I know that he can have it done through his officials. I do not say this this afternoon in a spirit of criticism; I believe that that time is past in this debate. What we want now is to have a more efficient Administration, and I think the hon. the Minister must take another look at the image which his Administration has in the eyes of the public outside. Let us try to restore that image, if possible.

I want to close with a particular plea to the hon. the Minister. I apologize for not writing to him before; this matter has only now been brought to my attention. We face in two weeks’ time the Easter week-end. There are tens of thousands of military trainees in camps throughout the Republic and South-West Africa. They are all being given a long week-end over Easter. I know that the Railways did make arrangements with the military authorities whereby they would take bookings from those authorities for those boys who wished to obtain rail and air passages home for the Easter weekend, but I have now been advised that there are thousands of these boys who have been unable to get bookings; there are insufficient means of transport for that week-end. There are not enough trains and there are not enough aircraft. I wonder whether there is still time for the hon. the Minister to consider the possibility of introducing special services over that period, particularly between the major centres. Here I think of Pretoria and Durban, Pretoria and Cape Town, and between Bloemfontein and Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. I am sure that it could lead to a very much happier Easter week-end for many families in this country if the hon. the Minister could see his way clear to providing such extra services. This appeal to the hon. the Minister has come not only from Cape Town, but from Natal as well. He knows what the alternative is. The alternative is that we are going to have thousands of these boys on the road hitch-hiking. The hon. the Minister of Defence has told us that he is against this. As a matter of fact, a specific instruction has been given that this is against the rules, but, Sir, he knows as well as we do, that if there is no public transport available for these boys, they are simply going to hitch-hike. I sincerely hope that we are not going to have a repetition of the Easter week-ends of the last few years, where we have had these tragic accidents involving military trainees because they have not been able to get public transport. I sincerely hope that the hon. the Minister will go into this matter and, if possible, lay on these extra services.

There is one further question which I raised briefly with the hon. the Minister during the Committee Stage, and that is the question of the elimination of level-crossings. Sir, this is a very thorny problem. We accent that the Minister’s ability to eliminate these level-crossings is limited; it is limited primarily by the finance which is available. But more and more instances are coming to my notice where undertakings have been given to eliminate level-crossings and where plans have been approved but we still do not get around to the elimination of these level-crossings. The hon. the Minister says that he has to consult with the Roads Department; he has to consult with the provincial authorities who have to bear a certain portion of the costs involved.

All I am asking the hon. the Minister is this: Please let us in some way speed up the elimination of these level-crossings. Sir, in my constituency we have three level-crossings on national roads, and just recently, within the space of two months, two motor-cars, including that of the district commandant, were taken at one level-crossing. Fortunately, nobody sustained any injury. Sir, is it beyond the wit of this hon. Minister and the very capable staff that he has behind him to do something about speeding up the elimination of level-crossings?

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 136.

Sir, let me deal first with the question of level-crossings raised by the hon. member. I do not know whether he has ever seen the annual report of the Standing Committee. Has the hon. member seen it? It has been tabled.

Yes, I have read it.

If he has seen the report, he will know what has been done. The Committee does everything within its power to speed up the elimination of level-crossings but, as I explained to him, there is a lot of preliminary work that has to be done before the actual construction starts.

*Sir, whenever a member on this side of the House attacks the Opposition and then becomes personal, it is usually the hon. member for Yeoville who, with a very pious face, gravely objects to it. But I do not think that there is another member in this House who indulges in offensive personalities to the same extent as does that hon. member—as he once again did here on Friday. On Friday he dragged the Prime Minister into the debate by using an abusive nickname, heaven only knows why. The hon. the Prime Minister had nothing to do with that debate.

What abusive nickname did he use?

The hon. member knows very well what abusive nickname he used. The Prime Minister was not involved in the debate at all.

I am not even aware of it, and coming from him, I do not take any notice of it anyway.

Sir, I object to it. I think it really is a reprehensible thing to use abusive nicknames here. The hon. member may attack me as much as he pleases; he is perfectly entitled to do so, and he may attack the Government, but when a person has to use abusive nicknames because he is bankrupt of arguments, the level of the debate really takes a plunge. I hope that this will be a lesson to the hon. member and that he will not do it again. I am sure that in his excitement and in his eloquence he may have said things he regretted afterwards. If he reads his Hansard again, he will see what I am referring to.

I do not regret anything.

Of course not; the hon. member is as thick-skinned as the proverbial rhinoceros. He will never have any regrets; he will never be troubled by them. Sir, the hon. member was very indignant because I had poked fun at their shadow Cabinet. Apparently he has no sense of humour; he should be angry with The Argus, not with me for it was The Argus that published that “comic supplement” in which they gave a biographical description of the Leader of the Opposition and the members of his shadow Cabinet. All I did was to read from The Argus. If the hon. member is angry, he should be angry with The Argus, not with me.

Did you not pass any comment?

I did pass comment, but it was justified comment. But, as I say, the trouble is that the hon. member has quite lost his sense of humour. He cannot see when one is joking with him.

I did not lose my sense of humour; I was forbidden to practise my sense of humour.

I did not forbid him.

Which clause are you dealing with?

I am not dealing with a Black patrolman on the South Coast line at the moment.

Don’t try to be funny. Which clause are you dealing with?

No, I am not dealing with a clause; I am dealing with the Bill. This is the Third Reading of the Bill and not the Committee Stage. Does the hon. member not know that? In the Committee Stage you deal with the clauses of the Bill; in the Third Reading you deal with the Bill as a whole. Mr. Speaker, I do not know why the hon. member for South Coast is so concerned, because I mentioned him too when I dealt with the shadow Cabinet which will remain a shadow for all time to come. Is that why he is so indignant now?

No, I am not indignant; I am pleased to see that you are re-laying the whole of my South Coast line.

Mr. Speaker, we still have Black patrolmen there, so apparently the hon. the member has reconciled himself to the fact that we are employing Black men to do the patrolling duties. I am very glad to hear that.

But trained Black men.

I am very glad to hear that, because that fits in with the policy of his party.

What caused the derailment last week?

As soon as the committee reports, I will give the hon. member all the information.

Splendid! You do not know.

The matter is sub judice, and the hon. member knows that I cannot give him the information now.

It is not sub judice.

Sir, I do not want to waste my time on the hon. member for South Coast. I have more important matters to deal with.

*The hon. member for Yeoville once again asked for an impartial commission to be appointed …

Not “impartial”; “authoritative”.

Partial or impartial, but he did ask for a representative commission to be appointed to inquire into places where new harbours should be built in years to come. The hon. member waxed quite lyrical about that proposal of his. Now, these are harbours which may have to be constructed in 20 or 30 years’ time, for he said that we did not know what the industrial development and expansion in South Africa would be by the end of this century. Sir, in regard to the construction of harbours I just want to give the hon. member a little information which will perhaps do him a lot of good. We know what the physical possibilities are of all those places he mentioned. They were investigated over the years. I myself went to Kosi Bay to have a look at it, and the hon. member for South Coast was there with me. We looked at Richard’s Bay, and once again the hon. member for South Coast was there with me, and he agreed 100 per cent with the decision I had taken. We know what the possibilities of Sordwana Bay are; there is no bay at Sordwana, it merely has a sandbank which only has to be dug through, as is the case at Rietvlei, and then there would be an inland lake where the harbour is to be constructed. Sir, we know what Port St. John’s looks like. Physically it is quite impossible to construct a harbour there. As far as Port Alfred is concerned, it will never be possible to construct a harbour at the estuary of the river. I am referring to all the possible places mentioned here by the hon. member. We also know what Boegoe Bay looks like. It does not have a sheltered harbour or a sheltered bay; it is exposed. The hon. member was there and he knows this. We also know what Lambert’s Bay looks like. In other words, we know exactly what the physical features of all these places are, but I must tell the hon. member that it is not merely a question of the building of a harbour. In the first instance, one has to see to it, when a harbour is built, that one’s importers and exporters will use that harbour, and what they usually look at, is the shortest possible rail route from the major industrial complex on the Witwatersrand to the harbour. That is why the Durban harbour is the largest and busiest harbour in South Africa—because its rail route is the shortest and because the transit from Durban to the Witwatersrand, where the major industrial complex is, is the fastest.

Lourenço Marques is a little nearer.

Lourenço Marques is nearer, out has certain other adverse characteristics, and then Lourenço Marques is also blockaded. In the main, imports go through Durban, and exports, to a very large extent, and especially raw materials, go through Lourenço Marques. But then there is also another very important consideration. If one looks at East London, one finds that it has the advantage of harbour rates, but in spite of that the hon. members representing East London complained that the East London harbour was not being used; it is under-utilized, and the reason is that the importers and the exporters, those persons who have to use the harbour, do not make use of East London. Let us take the other places now. Kosi Bay has no direct link with the Witwatersrand. If a harbour were to be constructed there, it would mean a tremendous detour.

Will Natal not overtake the Witwatersrand?

Let me finish talking first; then the hon. member may talk again. Furthermore, strategically Kosi Bay is situated quite wrongly. It is almost on the Mozambique border. It is a beautiful, enclosed bay, and the water is deep, which makes it even more difficult to construct a harbour. St. Lucia is quite out of the question. Sordwana is no longer of any importance as a harbour, since it does not have any natural shelter. It is merely a sandbank which one would have to dig through, and then one would have to construct an inland harbour; what is more, it has no direct rail link. But Richard’s Bay does have a direct rail link with the Witwatersrand, with the Transvaal and Natal coal mines and with the maize-producing districts of the Free State and the Transvaal. Richard’s Bay is a beautiful natural bay. More expansion can take place there than could ever take place in Durban, and I anticipate that in the years ahead Richard’s Bay is going to become the second Durban, the second largest commercial harbour in South Africa. It is a beautiful bay and it is beautifully situated. Take the other places. Mossel Bay has been a harbour for a very long time, and there has not been any expansion. There is no direct rail link and there is no hinterland. Why should harbours be constructed at Boegoe Bay and the other small places? They have no rail links, and, in any case, if one has to build a railway, the distance to the Witwatersrand is greater than is the distance to Cape Town. There is no hinterland and there are no supporting industries.

The same applies to a large extent to Saldanha.

Precisely, but for that reason Saldanha is going to be used mainly as an ore-export harbour, because the direct link from Sishen to Saldanha is close enough to make it economically practicable. But in the years ahead I cannot see Saldanha ever developing into a major commercial harbour. That will not happen.

The distance from Sishen to Boegoe Bay is shorter.

No, it is not shorter. It has already been investigated by the consulting engineer of Iscor, and the shortest route from Sishen is to Saldanha, and not to Boegoe Bay. What is more, Saldanha is a beautiful natural bay, and in view of its deep water it is much better to build the harbour in Saldanha as an ore-export harbour than it would be to do so in Boegoe Bay, where there is absolutely nothing but desert, barren land forming the hinterland of Boegoe Bay. These are the reasons why we already know, and therefore it is quite unnecessary now to appoint all of a sudden a commission of inquiry to determine where the harbours may be built in the future, in the years ahead. When the time arrives for a harbour to be built—and I cannot see this happening very soon—all the particulars will already be in our possession. Then we shall consider all the factors, rail links and development in the vicinity of the harbour, and the harbour as a distribution point. All these things will be taken into consideration in the years ahead.

Now I want to come to another very important matter that was touched upon by the hon. member. Just before coming to the labour question, I want to say this. As far as the blind telephonists are concerned, last year already the hon. member for Kempton Park made representations in regard to the grading of the blind telephonists, and the matter was investigated thoroughly.

I am not looking for credit at the expense of another hon. member.

No, I know the hon. member never looks for political credit. He is very innocent in that respect. In any case, the matter was investigated thoroughly and discussed with the Staff Association, but it was found that in view of the accelerated rate at which the conversion to automatic exchanges was taking place, the stage would be reached within the next year or so where these telephonists would have to be placed in other posts. Furthermore, a higher grading for this group is something which would have a chain reaction, and one cannot deal with this one group only, for it would affect the entire Service. Therefore I am afraid that under these circumstances nothing can be done about it at the moment.

Is it not possible for you to grant the blind a special allowance?

No. There are numerous servants who are getting less than R180 per month. For the work they are doing, R180 is quite adequate.

Now I come to the labour question. Once again the hon. member made a very lengthy plea, ostensibly to prove that my labour policy differed from that of the Government. I want to state this matter very clearly today. I repeat that it is, and that over all these years it has always been, a fundamental principle of the National Party that the White worker should be protected against the undermining of his wage standards by cheap non-White labour and the ousting from his sphere of employment by non-White labour. This is a fundamental principle on which the entire labour policy of this side of the House is based.

That also goes for this side.

The second principle is that the Government and the Party stand for the controlled employment of non-Whites in jobs previously done by Whites, as I am already doing. The employment of non-Whites on the Railways is controlled employment. It is controlled employment with the consent and co-operation of the staff associations concerned. It is not a matter of my throwing open the doors and saying that the non-Whites may enter now. The employment of non-Whites is being controlled. But the hon. Opposition is simply obsessed with the word “Bantu”. They do not realize that there are also thousands of Coloured workers in the North, apart from those who are here in the Western Cape. There are, in addition, many thousands of Indian workers in Natal. They are always thinking of the Bantu only. When they make their plea, it is for the promotion of the Bantu and for absorbing the Bantu into industry. I said there was no colour bar in the Apprenticeship Act. After all, this is true. There is no colour bar in that Act. The Apprenticeship committees are responsible for the indenturing of apprentices. The apprenticeship committees consist of representatives of the employers as well as the employees. Up to now neither they nor the Apprenticeship Committee on the Railways has been agreeable to Bantu being trained as skilled artisans. Even on the Railways my trade union is not agreeable to Bantu or Coloureds being trained as skilled artisans.

But. Mr. Speaker, at the same time we must bear in mind that in the Cape Province there are numerous Coloureds who are being trained as skilled artisans. They are indentured as apprentices. In Natal this is happening in regard to the Indians. In the Cape Province alone approximately 90 per cent of the building industry is in the hands of the Coloureds today. We have here Coloureds who have been trained as printers. There are Coloureds who have been trained as motor mechanics. There is no impediment to this being done. They are permitted to do so, but in the northern provinces, no non-White person has up to now been indentured as an apprentice, because this is opposed by the trade unions in particular. That is why it does not happen.

But you say it is politics …

The trade unions on the Railways are opposed to it. The Artisans’ Staff Association is not agreeable to non-Whites being trained as apprentices. But they themselves suggested that in order to meet the serious labour shortage I was to allow every skilled artisan to have two non-White assistants. That skilled artisan was then to undertake to train them, inter alia, as semi-skilled workers in the building industry. When they were trained, those three would be able to do more work than could previously be done by one person. In other words, the productivity would increase tremendously as a result. I agreed to that, and this is now being done as an experiment. If it is a success as far as the bricklayers and the carpenters are concerned, it could perhaps be extended to other trades as well.

We hope you succeed.

This is being done at the suggestion of the trade union itself. Here we have a great opportunity for the same thing to be done outside. It means that productivity will be increased. It means that there will more manpower at the disposal of the employers.

The hon. member took pleasure in quoting what was allegedly said in Rapport, the Afrikaans Sunday paper. I must say I am very glad about the free publicity Rapport is getting. I must also add that Rapport is a very close second to the Sunday Times as far as circulation is concerned, and what is more, Rapport has many more White readers than the Sunday Times has.

Order!

The hon. member Quoted from Rapport, and I merely paid Rapport a compliment by thanking him for the fact that he had given Rapport some free publicity.

I wanted to give a reply to what was said in Rapport.

I am coming to that. Now I want to discuss job reservation. I was personally responsible for section 77 of the Industrial Conciliation Act, for I drafted it in the days when I was still Minister of Labour. To my mind it is a very important and essential provision because the reason at the time—and this is still the case at present—was that the rate for the job afforded the White worker no protection. The hon. member probably realizes that wages are laid down and minimum wages are determined by industrial agreements, but when there is a shortage of labour such an employee is paid much more than the minimum wage. If there is no protection for the White worker, it means that the employer may dismiss his highly-paid workers and that he may take in non-Whites at the minimum wage. In such a case the rate for the job means absolutely nothing, for then it affords the White worker no protection. That was why it was so essential for section 77 of the Industrial Conciliation Act to be incorporated. Now, even if it does not apply to a large number of industries at the moment, this always hangs above the heads of the employers like a sword, and they know that they may not, or will not be allowed to, exploit or oust the White worker.

I want to ask the hon. the Minister a question. Would the Minister admit that section 77 does not apply on the Railways and that it is the trade unions that are protecting the workers?

No. Except as far as the registration of trade unions is concerned, the Industrial Conciliation Act is not applicable to the Railways or to the State. The difference is that the employees on the Railways know that they have a National Minister and a National Government that will protect them. [Interjections.]

For that reason section 77 is not necessary for the Railways, and as long as they have a National Minister, it will not be necessary. However. Heaven preserve them when they get a U.P. Minister ore day! Then section 77 would have to be made applicable.

That is not true; that is just politics.

That is the reason why section 77 exists. It is essential for the protection of the White workers, who must be protected against the undermining of wage standards by cheap non-White labour and the ousting of the White workers from their spheres of employment. It is not true that the non-Whites are not making any progress today, and it is not true that the Bantu, for instance, are being kept out of all the important spheres of employment. Does the hon. member know that 90 per cent of the semi-skilled workers in the engineering industry on the Witwatersrand are Bantu? Does he know that there are numerous, thousands of Bantu who are doing semi-skilled work? Does he know that there are thousands who are doing skilled work? I am not referring to trades, but to other skilled work. What is more, they have never been prevented from doing such work. This slogan is simply being raised for political purposes. They want to say that the Government is not making use of all the available manpower. There are at present numerous industries using Bantu in skilled and in semi-skilled work, and they have the fullest opportunity to do so. The Railways are employing Bantu to do semi-skilled labour, semi-skilled work previously done by Whites. What the hon. Opposition actually wants, is that the Government should create special facilities for the training of Bantu as skilled artisans. The Government is not prepared to do so, for those hon. members want to throw open the doors to unrestrained competition between Whites and non-Whites …

That is untrue.

… and then they hang it on the peg of the rate for the job. As I have already said, the rate for the job affords the White worker no protection at all. Those hon. members do not know what the rate for the job means. It affords the White worker no protection. The Opposition’s slogan is that all our available manpower, White and non-White, should be utilised. Surely this is what they are saying, not so? This is their slogan. They and their newspapers have repeatedly said that all the the manpower we have, White and non-White, should be utilised. The inherent part of the unrestricted utilization of manpower also includes that the White worker should then fall under the definition of “employee” in the Industrial Conciliation Act, but the hon. members must remember that the Bantu must come in and must come and work. After all, they must be afforded the opportunity of negotiating with their employers.

Surely that is also the case under your policy?

That is not something we stand for, surely. I am referring to the hon. member’s policy.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member gave me a frank answer when I asked him what their standpoint was in regard to the Mines and Works Act. He admitted what their standpoint was. Now I want to know from the hon. member whether they are in favour of the Bantu worker being included in the definition of “employee” in the Indus-Conciliation Act.

That is a good question. We shall discuss it on the Labour Vote.

Oh! If they are in favour of the Bantu worker falling under the definition of “employee” in the Industrial Conciliation Act, it means that the trade unions of the Bantu should be given official recognition. Are they in favour of that? You see, Sir, that is what we have to deal with. Those people are not prepared to be honest and to say what they stand for.

No, not “you see”. How can I reply to such a question across the floor of the House?

It is a simple question which need not be explained.

I said that we would discuss it on the Labour Vote.

In the past hon. members always said that they were not in favour of the official recognition of a Bantu trade union. Now they say that we should make use of the Bantu and that we should allow them to flock into industry into those jobs previously done by Whites. To test their sincerity, I am going to ask them whether they are in favour of the Bantu falling under the definition of “employee” in the Industrial Conciliation Act; if so, are they in favour of …

If that were the only solution, I would have replied, but there are many other facets.

There is no other solution, except the Bantu Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act, which I placed on the Statute Book more than 20 years ago. That they no longer want. There is no other solution and no other way of solving this matter.

Really, that is very superficial.

If we bring in the Bantu, we should grant them the right to negotiate with their employers. We should, in that case, grant them the right to have their trade unions, and we should recognize the trade unions. The Bantu should be able to serve with the White Workers on the Industrial Council and the Conciliation Boards, and there it should be possible for them to negotiate. If the hon. members do not say that, their politics are dishonest as regards the standpoint they take in respect of the employment of non-Whites. As I have said, we expect a frank reply. When my colleague’s Vote is under discussion, I should like to hear what their standpoint is. I hope that it will not be another egg-dance.

Every question you put to me, I can put to you in regard to the Railways.

In the Railways I use the Bantu Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act in respect of the Bantu. But the hon. member says that it is obsolete and that they no longer want it. It works well on the Railways. I am not saying that the doors should be thrown open for the Bantu to enter. It is they who are saying that we should utilize all the available manpower. That is what we are concerned with. We cannot get a frank reply on a clear standpoint. They are jumping about and doing egg-dances.

The hon. the Minister is debating against his own imagination, for he is not debating on the facts.

The trouble with those hon. members is that, on the one hand, they want to be very popular with the employers, and, on the other hand, they are afraid that they will not be popular with the employees. That is why we cannot get any frank reply from them. I have put here a pointed question to which I hope they will reply.

In the few minutes that are left, I want to straighten out a certain matter. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth North referred me to a report that was published in the Eastern Province Herald in regard to the matter that was raised here, i.e. that the new Blue Train should be given a name. In this report the following is stated—

The hon. member never referred to the university, but he spoke about the Blue Train. I just wanted to put this right. The report is quite wrong.

The hon. member for Jeppe repeated what had already been said by previous speakers in regard to the Renewals Fund. All I want to say in that regard, is that at the moment the credit balance in the Renewals Fund is R189 million. The contribution for 1972-’73 is R120 million. Therefore, that fund is quite sound, and the hon. member need not concern himself about it at all.

We have come to the end of another Railway debate. The Railway Budget I presented this year, is not the 17th, but my 18 th one. To me it was a very pleasant debate, in spite of our occasional differences across the floor of the House. Furthermore, I think that it was a very fruitful debate. I trust that in the year that lies ahead the financial position of the Railways will improve so that I may present a much more favourable Budget to the House next year. That is possible; I have a great deal of confidence in South Africa. I am sure that an economic revival is going to take place, and I am sure that by the end of the next financial year the economic position in South Africa will be quite different from what it is at present.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

1. “25. Legal Aid in any district mentioned in section 2 of this Act, but not within any area in the district of Matatiele or Port St. Johns which is not a Bantu area.
2. 26. All health matters, inclusive of hospitalization of citizens of the Transkei in any district mentioned in section 2 of this Act, but not within any area in the district of Matatiele or Port St. Johns which is not a Bantu area.
3. 27. The establishment, with the concurrence of the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, of public holidays in the Transkei to substitute public holidays established by the Public Holidays Act, 1952 (Act No. 5 of 1952).
4. 28. Amusements or entertainment tax in the Transkei.
5. 29. The licensing, regulation and control of places of amusement and recreation in the Transkei and the imposition of a duty upon the licensee in respect of the takings thereat or of a charge based upon the payment for admission thereto.
6. 30. Auction dues in the Transkei.
7. 31. The restriction, regulation and control of horse racing, the prohibition, restriction, regulation and control of other racing and the restriction, regulation and control of betting and wagering (whether as to circumstances, locality or premises), the prevention, control and regulation of dissemination of information as to betting in the Transkei.
8. 32. Licensing of totalizators and the imposition on the licensees of a duty in respect of the takings thereof; and licences, taxes and fees in connection with horse and other racing, betting and wagering, and the dissemination of information as to betting and wagering in the Transkei.
9. 33. The establishment, control and management of libraries and library services in respect of citizens of the Transkei in any district mentioned in section 2 of this Act, but not within any area in the district of Matatiele or Port St. Johns which is not a Bantu area.
10. 34. The establishment, control and management in the Transkei of museums, art galleries, herbaria, botanic gardens and similar institutions, and zoological gardens, aquariums, oceanariums, snake parks and similar institutions where live animals are kept for exhibition, except any institution which is subject to the provisions of the State-aided Institutions Act, 1931 (Act No. 23 of 1931).
11. 35. The control and management of such places upon State land in the Transkei as the State President may reserve as being places of public resort, of public recreation, or of historical or scientific interest.
12. 36. The establishment, control, management and regulation of cemeteries and crematoria and the regulation of matters relating to the removal or disposal of dead bodies in the Transkei.
13. 37. Tourism in the Transkei inclusive of the development of the tourist industry in the Transkei and the development and improvement of travel services to and within, and of accommodation for travellers within, the Transkei.
14. 38. Housing schemes for citizens in the Transkei.”

Mr. Speaker, I have found it necessary on several occasions during this session of Parliament to tell this House what our policy is with regard to the granting of powers to Bantu to control their own affairs. I have to do so again this afternoon, because the sole purpose of passing this resolution is to give the Transkei Legislative Assembly more powers. When the Transkei Constitution Act was passed we stated our point of view very clearly. Our attitude is the traditional South African attitude. I want to quote from a speech made by Mr. De Wet Nel, the then Minister responsible for the passing of the Transkei Constitution, when the Second Reading of that measure was passed. He said that “the old principle that the Bantu in the homelands should be given an increasing measure of self-government was the principle contained in that Bill”. He also said :

That is still our policy. Where we differ from the Government is with regard to the ultimate aim or end. We do not agree to the establishment of separate sovereign independent states. Where legislation with that object, or which forms part of the pattern of legislation with that object, is introduced, we will oppose it. One of the clauses in this Schedule is part of that pattern and we shall oppose its adoption. I now refer to item 27 which provides for the establishment of public holidays. Our national holidays are laid down in an Act of Parliament and only Parliament can abolish or amend those days. We have no objection to regional holidays being proclaimed for certain areas, such as the Transkei for example, and that the State President can do by proclamation. What the State President cannot do is to alter the days laid down in our Act. Our contention is that Parliament should give its concurrence to the alteration of our 12 national days. When a similar measure was introduced in this House giving this power to other local bodies, we objected and we proposed an amendment to make it possible for these homeland governments to establish holidays with the concurrence of the Senate and the House of Assembly. The amendment was rejected by the Government. With regard to this provision our attitude is the same. The position is simply that the Transkei Legislative Assembly could alter one of our national days with the concurrence of the Minister and it could have holidays in the Bantu areas of the Transkei which would not be respected in the urban areas of the Transkei in Umtata, Butterworth, Idutywa and other places. That is a difficulty which could possibly be overcome, provided the holidays of that nature, where the days differ in the two States, are not too many. But if this is to happen, this Parliament must give its concurrence. We shall therefore oppose this clause.

Then I want to discuss certain other matters appearing in the Schedule, matters which are not inconsistent with our policy of giving the Bantu powers to control their own affairs, but over which we have some misgivings. Item No. 25 in the report deals with legal aid. It reads :

We have had an argument in this House about what is meant by the phrase “in any district”. This side of the House has contended that, as far as the Transkei Constitution Act is concerned, it excludes the Whites areas in the Transkei. However, the Government thinks differently. It is advised by its law advisers that where the words “in the district” are used, it includes the White areas. We know that there has been difficulty in supplying legal aid in the Transkei because of the difference in opinion between the two Governments. The Government of the Republic contended that it was a matter which they controlled, while the Government of the Transkei disputed that and said that it was a matter which fell under their jurisdiction. So the consequence has been that in the Transkei at the moment we have no legal aid. We all want legal aid, and this side of the House is prepared to do everything to help the Government resolve that dispute with the Transkeian Government, so that the residents of the Transkei can in fact obtain legal aid. But I want to know from the hon. the Deputy Minister—is the Transkei Government then to be responsible for giving legal aid to the White people and the Coloureds living in a White area in the Transkei? Does the Transkei Government now take responsibility for giving legal aid to the citizens of the Republic? I would be glad if the Deputy Minister would tell us that, because we do not want to have the position arising where only Transkei citizens can be given legal aid. I want to know if the Transkei Government has in fact accepted the responsibility for giving legal aid to all the residents of the Transkei; because once this measure is passed, it will mean they will control legal aid throughout the Transkei.

Then I want to continue with No. 26, which reads—

If there was a comma inserted in the text, it would have read “All matters, inclusive of hospitalization, of citizens of the Transkei in any district mentioned in section 2 …”, and then we could not have had much criticism of it, because it would have applied only to Transkei citizens although we would still have had certain criticisms. But it does not read that way. It reads:

It means all matters in any district. That is what we have been given to understand in the Select Committee, and that it in fact included the White areas of the Transkei.

Now I just want to get back to this question of the White areas in the Transkei. The contention now is—this is what we have been given to understand in the Select Committee, when this Schedule was adopted—that all health matters in the White areas as well as in the Bantu areas are now going to be handed over to the Transkeian Government. When the Transkei Constitution Act was passed, the Minister, Mr. De Wet Nel, dealt with the description of the Transkei. I want to read what he said in Hansard (Vol. 5, col. 2374)—

He was talking about their becoming independent or not. He continued:

In other words, it is exclusive of the White areas. Sir, I have raised this before, and the hon. the Deputy Minister tells me that that is not the view of the Government, despite that assurance given by Mr. De Wet Nel. I am told that we on this side of the House are wrong because the Transeian Government already has control of the courts in the White areas. Sir, the courts were specially dealt with, and I want to read what Mr. De Wet Nel said about the courts. He said (Handard, Vol. 5, col. 2377)—

I want to point out to the hon. the Deputy Minister that special mention is made of the courts. Special powers are given to the Transkei Government to establish courts in the Transkei, but the Government reserves for itself the power to intervene when these courts are established, and the Minister retains the right to establish courts and to hear cases where non-Transkeian citizens are involved. Furthermore, the Attorney-General can at any time intervene and transfer a case from any court to another court, if he thinks fit. Sir, as far as the courts are concerned, the matter is specially dealt with. It is therefore quite wrong for he hon. the Deputy Minister to mention the courts to me as being an example of how the Transkei Government can take over matters in the White areas. This is important because in sections 48 to 50, dealing with courts, the Government took for itself certain powers, but in terms of section 37 of the Transkei Constitution Act, once the Transkei Government is given power to legislate in any matter, this Parliament cannot interfere. Section 37 states inter alia—

1. (1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Legislative Assembly shall have the power—(a) to make laws not inconsistent with this Act in relation to all matters appearing in Part B of the First Schedule to this Act …

We are now going to amend Part B—

Once the Transkei Parliament is given the power to deal with this matter, it can pass legislation repealing our Act of Parliament; it takes over complete control. When Mr. De Wet Nel introduced the Second Reading of the Transkei Constitution Bill, he dealt with the different matters which they were going to control and which were included in the Schedule to the Bill at the time. He said that they were responsible people and that they did not want to take control of matters which they were not qualified to control. He said—

Now I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister: Does he honestly think that the Transkeian Government is in a position to take over health in the Transkei? How can they administer health in the Transkei? What trained officials does the Transkei Government have of its own? Mr. De Wet Nel said that they wanted to develop first so that they could control these matters themselves. We know they have no doctors of their own. There are a few in private practice, and one or two, I think, in the hospital at Umtata, but how can they take over all other matters? If they are given this power, they will take over all health matters in the biggest towns in the Transkei, like Umtata, Butterworth, Idutywa and Engcobo. This will mean that the provincial authorities are going to lose their control. At the moment the Provincial Administration controls health matters, and the Government controls matters relating to infectious diseases. We say it is not right to give these people, at this time, the power to take over all health matters. Disease knows no boundaries, and we should be very careful that we do not jeopardize the health of the people, not only in the Transkei, but outside the Transkei as well. The Minister of Health ought to know better than anybody else what the position is in the Transkei. He knows that he is having trouble at the moment in the hospital at Umtata. Things are not running smoothly there and he knows that very well. The Department of Health has taken over health matters in the Transkei. Why can the Department of Health not continue to administer health in the Transkei? Sir, if this measure is passed it means that the Transkei Government can overrule the Department of Health in the Transkei because they can pass their own regulations. I do not see why it is necessary at this stage to give the Transkei Government these powers. The Minister of Health is sitting here and I want to ask him: What happens to the non-Transkeian citizens in the hospitals at Umtata and Butterworth? At the moment there is provision for White and non-White patients there and the province still has some responsibility for the White patients. Although health matters have been handed over to the Department of Health I understood from the officials on the Select Committee that if the White people in the White areas have complaints about health matters, they can still approach the province and it is the province’s duty to look after them; the province will then take up the matter with the Department of Health. There are too many people in charge of health in the Transkei at the moment. There is the province, which was originally responsible and, from what we understand, still has some responsibility. Then there is the Department of Health, and now the Transkei Government as well. If the Transkei Government wants to take over health for its own citizens in the Bantu areas and they feel they can manage it, it is their own responsibility, although we say it is wrong, that they cannot do it at the moment because they are not equipped to do it. What we object to, however, is giving them the power to take over all health matters in terms of this clause. Therefore we shall oppose this clause.

Then I want to come to clause 36 which deals with the establishment, control, management and regulation of cemeteries and crematoria and the regulation of matters relating to the removal or disposal of dead bodies in the Transkei. This clause, of course, only refers to the Transkei, so it will not deal with the White areas at the moment. Sir, when the Government first embarked on the plan to give the Transkei self-government, they appointed a commission, which became known as the Heckroodt Commission because Mr. Heckroodt was the chairman, to go into the position of the Europeans and their rights there. After receiving the recommendations of this commission, the Government issued a memorandum on the decisions of the Government with regard to the important recommendations of the commission. The commission dealt with cemeteries, amongst other things, and it recommended that cemeteries where White people were buried should be excluded from the control of the Transkei Authority. The recommendation reads as follows—

The decision of the Government was this—

I want to know from the hon. the Minister what steps the Government has taken to protect the cemeteries. It was suggested by the Deputy Chairman of the Native Affairs Commission, who was the chairman of the Select Committee, that we should raise the matter in this Chamber and that we would then be told what steps had been taken to protect Transkeian cemeteries which may form part of the Bantu areas. I hope that the hon. the Deputy Minister will give us a full answer on this point. It may be necessary for us to take further steps during the course of this discussion, but at the moment I move—

The hon. member for Transkei has dealt with the question of all health matters as defined in section 26 of the matter before this House. I wish to deal in a more specific manner with health matters concerning the indigenous Xhosa folk themselves. I submit that under this Government the services at present being offered to these people are inadequate, or are hardly coping, and I submit also that as far as essential statistics are concerned, these are incomplete or non-existent in so far as these particular health matters are concerned, and in so far as the Bantu personnel, available to serve in the Transkei, are concerned. As late as 1969, when one sought reliable data of what the position was in the Transkei in regard to medical practitioners, dentists, veterinarians, chemists and druggists and nurses, the answer was always the same, that reliable or accurate information was not available. In 1971, when a request was made for some sort of projection or estimate, I was told that it was not practical to make an accurate estimate of what the position was in the Transkei. Well, Sir, that being the position, I believe it is my duty to inform the Minister of what the actual position is, and then he can see just how bad the position could be in the Transkei. The latest figures which are available show that the number of Bantu doctors for all the homelands is nine, and just in passing I would say that 144 Bantu doctors have qualified at the University of Natal since the institution of the course. The number of dentists to serve all the homelands, is nil. However, there is one ray of light. One student, I believe, is registered at the School of Dentistry of Witwatersrand University. The number of chemists and druggists for all the homelands is four. There are no veterinarians available and the total number of Bantu nurses available, again for all the homelands, is just over 3 000. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is in a position now to give this House more specific details, because we on this side of the House feel that it is completely impracticable and unrealistic to allow legislation of this nature to go through the House unless we have the information, and unless we are satisfied that the information will lead to some sort of practical solution of the health problems in the Transkei. I ask this because health services are now to be provided by the Transkei itself, to serve approximately 2 million Xhosa and other Bantu in the Transkei.

And the White people and the Coloured people.

Yes, and the White people, as the hon. member for Transkei indicates. They are not excluded from this. I want to ask the Deputy Minister where the professional Bantu will come from and what ratio of Bantu professional men to population does he envisage will provide even a skeleton health service to meet the needs of the Transkei.

I also want to refer to the question of hospitals in the Transkei. Can the Minister supply us with the latest figures in regard to the personnel and the facilities in the hospitals in the Transkei? This too has been something which year after year this side of the Hose has sought to drag out from the Government in detail, but with very limited success. My information at the moment is that there are two State hospitals in the Transkei. The hon. member for Transkei has referred to the one in Umtata. There are 20 mission hospitals, providing roughly 2 700 beds for the whole of the Transkei; that all the doctors and medical superintendents serving in the mission hospitals are at the moment White and that nine of the 20 mission hospitals, at the latest survey, claimed that they had insufficient White medical doctors to serve these mission hospitals. I believe that this is an important aspect, but another aspect perhaps to which the hon. the Deputy Minister may be able to provide a satisfactory answer, is this. How will he be able to draw the Bantu medical personnel from other areas to serve the Xhosas in the Transkei if the present salary position is such that a Bantu doctor receives just over half the salary of a White doctor whom he will be called upon to replace; and then, if he is able to get them, what will happen if once the Transkeian Government is given authority and power over the administration of health and they decide, in order to maintain some sort of health service, that they are going to pay their Bantu doctors a wage commensurate with their qualifications, much higher than the one which pertains in the Republic or which will pertain in other Bantu homelands which will still be less autonomous than the Transkei? I ask the hon. the Minister these questions because I believe they have a vital and important part to play in this discussion. But if the hon. the Minister is not able to obtain personnel in the highest qualified categories, viz. the doctors, dentists, veterinarians, chemists and druggists what are his plans and what statistics has he to indicate that people such as health assistants, health inspectors, medical technologists, radiologists and physiotherapists are available? If they are not yet available what adequate plans has he to ensure that they are going to be provided? As I see the position, it will be many years before the Transkeian Government can accept the training of personnel of that description.

Then there is another aspect and I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister will be able to give me an answer. I learnt from the hon. the Minister of Health that in so far as medicine men, medicine women, “nyangas” and “sangomas”, herbalists and what have you, are concerned, approximately 841 licences exist. The Department of Health indicated that it is not possible to give a break down as to how many existed in these various categories. Is it the intention of the Department of Bantu Administration or take over the control of “nyangas”, medicine men, “sangomas”, herbalists, etc.? If it is, will the hon. the Deputy Minister give some indication of how he intends to effect some control over these people? Then there is the 64 000 dollar question arising out of this matter, namely: What will the Department of Bantu Administration or this Government do if once the Transkeian Government has taken over health control, it is unable to obtain a sophisticated personnel to treat their own Xhosa people and they revert to the use of medicine men, medicine women, herbalists and other people? Would this be a desirable step? Would it be a step that would be in the interest of the people in the Republic of South Africa? I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether he could give this side of the House some clarity upon these matters.

Mr. Speaker, ah interjection was made as I got up, asking members on the other side where their speakers were. I must also register my protest and exception this afternoon that Government members of the Select Committee on Bantu Affairs are not taking part in this debate. During the debate of these matters in the Select Committee certain questions were put not only to the chairman but to the officials who were present at that Select Committee meeting and we on this side of the House were given an undertaking that those questions would be answered during this debate. They were unable to answer them during the discussions in Select Committee. What has happened here this afternoon? We are now coming to the end of this debate and we still know no more than we did when we started it. There were specific questions particularly put with regard to the question of health and with regard to the question of cemeteries. It was in that spirit that we have come prepared for this debate to hear the replies to the queries we put to the Select Committee. Based on those replies we will determine our attitude towards this particular resolution. We find ourselves now in the position where we cannot determine our attitude towards this resolution, because we do not know what we are voting for.

During the hearing of the Select Committee the officials, members and chairman of that Select Committee could not give us replies to the questions we put.

Repeat your questions.

It is no good that hon. member saying that I must repeat my questions. He is a member of the Select Committee; why does he not get up? He heard the questions in the Select Committee. He knows what we were discussing. We have had no reply at all; this is merely a waste of the time of this House to have a Select Committee which should thrash these things out. Here we have to come and, in the words of that hon. member, put our questions again. We must start all over again and have the same debate as we have had in the Select Committee, now in this House. Only after we hear the reply of the hon. the Deputy Minister will we be able to decide our attitude towards this matter. I refer particularly to item 36, “the establishment, control, management and regulation of cemeteries and crematoria and the regulation of matters relating to the removal or disposal of dead bodies in the Transkei”. It says “in the Transkei” but as has been pointed out by my hon. friend from Transkei, doubt exists as to what exactly is meant by “in the Transkei”. Does it include the White townships? Does it include only those portions of the White townships which have been zoned Black? What exactly is being handed over to the Transkeian Government in terms of this? What are we being asked to hand over to them? When we pointed to the undertaking which had been given in terms of the White Paper, that these would be reserved in perpetuity and when I asked the Select Committee what exactly was planned, we could not get an answer. However, when I suggested a solution, I was told that I would get an answer during the discussion this afternoon. I submit that if I get that answer from the hon. the Deputy Minister when the debate is over, it is too late, because depending on that answer we on this side of the House might move the deletion of item 36 as well. I hope that we shall get a reply from one of the hon. members on that side of the House who is a member of the Bantu Affairs Select Committee. We are faced with the position that generations of White people are buried in the Transkei, but now we are handing over the control of these cemeteries to the Transkeian Government. We are handing it over without any guarantee whatsoever to the Whites in regard to the maintenance and the control of these cemeteries. I advised members of the Select Committee that the same position was faced in Zululand a few years ago, particularly with regard to the cemeteries at Somkele and Hlabisa where a special arrangement was made and a servitude in favour of the public was granted over those cemeteries. I suggested that as a possible solution in this case and we were promised an answer here this afternoon. We did not get that answer.

You will get it.

The hon. the Deputy Minister says that we shall get it, but as I have pointed out when we get that answer, it will be too late because it will be too late for us to move an amendment to delete this item 36 if the answer is not satisfactory.

You are working yourself up into a state.

It is all very well for the hon. Minister of Health to talk about working himself up into a state.

He was talking about you.

I am not worried; it is your blood pressure that is going up. The hon. Minister says that I am working myself up.

Order! Will the hon. member address the Chair and leave the other members alone?

Hear, hear!

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I will address the Chair. I want to put my position clear. My grandparents and my great-grandparents are buried in the Transkei. My wife’s grandparents and her father and brother are buried in the Transkei as well. Once the Transkei has taken control of these cemeteries, will we have access to these graves? Will we have any guarantee that they will not be ploughed over? Will we have any guarantee that we will be able to go there to pay homage as we have been used to?

Is it still such a joke, Carel?

This is the joke the hon. the Minister of Health is talking about. This is a serious matter, and it is no good his coming with these snide remarks because they are not called for from a person in his position. [Interjection.] I quite honestly do not know what to say further with regard to this item 36 because we have not received any reply from the other side of the House.

The hon. member has made that point over and over again.

I want to make our position and our attitude quite clear with regard to these powers which have been asked for. We have repeatedly made our positions clear, namely that we are not opposed to the handing over of powers to the Bantu authorities. We believe that this has to be done and we believe that they have to be assisted and led to the point where they can take over these powers. The hon. member for Transkei and the hon. member for Berea have pointed out that certain duties and certain powers which it is suggested should be handed over, are beyond them at this stage of development. We believe they do not have the people available to do the work and that they are not in the position to shoulder the responsibility which this Government intends to hand over to them now.

The first three items have been discussed by the hon. member for the Transkei. We are being asked to hand over the power to legislate in respect of the control of entertainment tax and of recreation and to legislate on the auction dues to be payable in the Transkei. We have no objections to this at all. We believe these are powers they should have and we believe it is right to give them to them. This also applies to the control of horse racing, the licensing of totalizators and, of course, the maintenance of library services. I sincerely hope it is going to be made possible for the Transkeian Government to maintain the library services at least at the standard which is being maintained today by the provinces. The establishment of museums, art galleries, etc., is something else which is now going to be handed over to them. We have expressed doubt in the past with regard to their ability to administer such things as herbaria, botanic gardens, zoological gardens, aquariums and oceanariums. I do not think there is any need to say any more on this matter. I sincerely hope we will now get some answers to the questions which have been put.

Mr. Speaker, in the Minutes of Proceedings of Friday, 3rd March, of the House of Assembly, Item No. 8 says :

and so on, but Mr. Van Vuuren is not here…

Perhaps he has gone to Oudtshoorn.

I do not know why he is not here but I think it is most important for this House to have the gentleman who introduced this, present in the House so that he can explain away those objections which we on this side have put forward, through the hon. member for the Transkei. I am also surprised that, up to now, the hon. Minister of Health has not come into the debate and given good and sufficient reasons why the services referred to in Item 26 of the Report, namely all health matters, inclusive of hospitalization of citizens of the Transkei in any district mentioned, should be taken over by the Transkei authorities. I want to warn this House that, if we allow this to go through this afternoon, we may find ourselves in serious trouble as far as the health of the whole of the country is concerned.

You don’t say!

I am quite serious about this.

What is happening in Lesotho?

For years we have been pleading with the Government to provide sufficient facilities for non-Whites to be trained as doctors. The facilities have been limited in the past. Up to this day the great hospital in Johannesburg, Baragwanath, still has its doors closed as far as the training of Bantu is concerned because it happens to be under the jurisdiction of the University of Witwatersrand.

Natal can take many more non-European students.

I told the hon. the Minister some years ago how difficult it is for a Bantu student to have to go and live in Natal, to pay his fees as well as his accommodation, when he comes from Soweto, which is next door to the Baragwanath Hospital.

I had to go to Johannesburg to learn.

I want to ask the hon. the Minister why he has not taken steps to provide more than one dentist to supply Dental services for the benefit of the Bantu. He cannot hide these deficiencies. These are his responsibility. Not only are there all these deficiencies in the medical services, such as the failure to provide sufficient staff in hospitals, both male and female doctors, and nurses in all stages of training, but he has not even provided sufficient health officers, to carry out the provisions of the Public Health Act.

What is happening in Lesotho?

If we allow his measure to go through, the preventive services in the Transkei may be endangered. The curative services will suffer for certain. Up to now we have been one State in South Africa and the White doctors have been prepared to help wherever possible. The mission hospitals have done their best to bring in people from outside to help. The hon. the Minister knows that provision has been made for doctors whose qualifications are not as high as the qualifications of those doctors who come from countries where there is reciprocity, to come and assist us. In spite of the shortages that there are at present, particularly in the Transkei, the present hon. Minister wants us to give over the health services to the Transkei. Let us make it quite clear. I do not say that the Bantu of the Transkei cannot do this, but I do say that he has not been trained to do it now. We must go out of our way to train as many as possible as soon as possible to give them a service which it is imperative they should have. The White people cannot continually provide these services that are required by the growing population of the Bantu.

May I ask the hon. member a question? I want to ask the hon. member whether our medical schools must set exactly the same educational qualifications for non-Whites as for Whites when accepting them as medical students.

Of course we must! There must be only one standard in South Africa and that must be the best standard. It matters not whether the man be White, Brown or Black. We want the best possible standards, and if the Minister does not open the doors of those universities and hospitals which can produce the best, the blame is on his shoulders.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the resolution.

This is basically the cause and reason why we are objecting to this item. The Bantu does not have the wherewithal to carry out the services and if the services in that part of the country fail, the failure will spread right through the country. We are not dealing with a demarcated area where there is a high wall through which disease cannot pass. What happens in the Transkei is our business here, and for that reason we ask that the safety of all people in South Africa whether they be living in the Transkei or in any other areas, be secured. The only way we can secure it at this stage is to keep it in the hands of the South African Government.

Mr. Speaker, this matter was dealt with very widely by the Opposition and I therefore want to give attention to it first. I want to say at once that recently a considerable political issue has been made of these matters in this House, which is what usually happens. This affords me an opportunity of subjecting these matters to a little analysis. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District would very much like to dramatize each of these minor matters. I listened attentively to hear whether the hon. member perhaps had a case. He objected to the fact that not all the members of the Select Committee are present here, and did not participate in the discussion. It is of course the approach of this side of the House that we do not reply unnecessarily to the Opposition on the same point two or three times. If it should appear to be necessary, members of the Committee may also participate in this debate. However, I want to tell the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District that I had difficulty in establishing precisely what he was complaining about, apart of course from the fact that he wanted to dramatize this. If I had to characterize him now, I would say that he has become a kind of political dog slaughterer. He wants to attract attention; I feel that this is really a negative approach. Although we may perhaps differ here over national problems, we must not try, unnecessarily, to inflate matters out of their context.

In regard to this matter of granting greater responsibility to the Bantu areas, it is of course a matter in regard to which our general political viewpoint differs completely from that of the Opposition. They say that they are in favour of rights being granted to these people, but these have to be selected and should be granted only on certain levels. But they have not yet succeeded, as far as the general political context is concerned, in indicating to us how the Bantu are going to come into their own, politically, and what share they are going to have. We hear that there are interim arrangements. We hear that matters will be dealt with on a basis of co-operation or some or other form of overall contact; we have no clear picture. Now the gentlemen say here that we want to create independent states, states on the way to independence, and want to give them certain rights; that is correct. It was stated here the other day that this would be an empty shell, with nothing inside, that it contained no economic substance. Now I can say this to them, they as a political party have no substance and no policy. They have existed for more than 40 years already, and now they are so very pessimistic about these people.

We can go further and consider the political development of the Whites in this country. The other day I was asked how many medical practitioners there were. I cannot furnish the hon. member for Berea with all the particulars now. From the nature of the case I do not have the numbers at my disposal.

Oh, yes?

The hon. member for Pinelands is making a remark. He is the person who, when I am not here—he did this again recently—talks about running away. Now he wants me to have all the figures in regard to different people available here today. If he gives the necessary notice, he can have those details, but he must be fair in his approach. Let us now return …

Does anybody know?

Those details, as far as I am concerned, are not relevant now. What is in fact applicable here is the principle of the matter. But let us now consider the approach adopted by that side. They do not want the Bantu to be given any say, because they do not yet have the skills for these professional services. Those are two different things. If you go back into the history of this country, you will find that in 1910 the Union had a Prime Minister by the name of Gen. Louis Botha. None of us would think of disparaging him. He did not pass Std. X. As far as I know, he passed Std. VIII. These people are being set on a course of accepting responsibility. They are acquiring a say. They are not yet producing all the artisans and the technicians. They are not producing the people in all spheres with the ability to occupy the highest post; they are being set on a course where they accept responsibility as far as administration is concerned. This is the general view, and this is the policy of the National Party which is being spelt out here and very clearly indicated. We are honest. As far as these people are concerned, they are acquiring a full say, and now they are gradually, since they were given certain matters to deal with in 1963 being given more to deal with. Now we can see how those matters are dealt with. Since there are misgivings as well in regard to the laws they will make in the Transkei relating to these various matters over which we are now grating them jurisdiction, I can say that these have to be consented to by the State President. Surely hon. members know that this is the case, and in that way those matters are always brought to the attention of the Government, and they are not merely dealt with in an irresponsible manner.

Then there is another very important point I want to mention. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District raised it, and other hon. members as well. In the various clauses mention is made of the Transkei, and then mention is made of the Transkeian districts. I had better make it clear to hom, members that these are two entirely different concepts. The Transkeian magisterial districts include the White towns in White areas. But when you refer to the Transkei, as the hon. member for Transkei did, it means the Bantu areas of the Transkei. Certain of these matters relate to the districts—these are the magisterial districts—and the others to the Transkei as such.

As far as the member for Transkei is concerned, to go into greater detail, I want to deal with the matter of public holidays. This is the first point he mentioned. Unfortunately he chopped and changed a little, but this is item 27. He said they are in favour of regional days and, as they said in regard to the legislation, they think that this Parliament should have the say in regard to this matter, and not the Minister. It is very clear that the White areas, the White towns, will not be affected by these public holidays which they are able to establish there; these will apply only in the Bantu areas. The other argument put forward by the hon. member was that it is unnecessary to introduce this measure, and it was argued that this Parliament should decide about this matter. Sir, we differ on that score; we believe that it is sufficient if the Minister decides. What this amounts to is that these people may exchange the existing 12 public holidays which apply in the Republic for others. Each specific nation, in this case the Transkei, will be able to do this. If they want a certain holiday to honour their national heros—or for whatever reason they want it for—they may submit such a request to the Minister and they may then provide by means of legislation that one of those days shall be substituted. I think that this matter was dealt with quite comprehensively during the discussion of the legislation. Spectres were conjured up in this connection, i.e. that there could be a potential 168 public holidays, but it is clear, Sir, that these were merely spectres which were being conjured up What it amounts to in practice is simply that a specific area will have a public holiday for that area alone. The public holiday will not be celebrated beyond the borders of that area.

What about Transkeian citizens who are outside the Transkei?

Surely there are citizens from all over the world here in the Republic of South Africa, and there are also the religious holidays of people of other religious denominations, and who find themselves within the borders of the Republic. If those people are in the Republic, then the Republic’s laws apply and when you are in the Transkei Bantu area, those laws will apply. To split hairs now and to say that we are going to have a confusion of public holidays, is absolutely far-fetched. In any case, that hon. member’s argument did not centre around that issue but around the procedure of who is being consulted now. Sir, you can look in any diary to see how many public holidays there are for the different religious groups, and also how many other public holidays there are which are even indicated in diaries in this country; it does not create any problem, but now the hon. members allege that the public holidays of the Bantu areas, which will be in force only in those areas, are going to create a problem for us. I do not want to elaborate on this any further. It is all a question of how you see it. We are people with confidence who can control this matter. Those members see spectres and they see problems in regard to everything which lies ahead. They have never told us in what other way every people can come into its own; nor do they accept that there are different peoples. They simply want to walk all over them and wipe them out by saying : “You are part of a greater community”. Sir, many of them, as English-speaking persons, have their public holidays, and I as an Afrikaans-speaking person have my public holidays; those public holidays are holy for us as Whites, but they do not want to allow the Bantu to enjoy the same privilege. What would the position be under a United Party Government? What would they do if all the peoples who are living in one society and the Zulus demanded a public holiday, for example to honour the memory of Chaka? What would their attitude be?

May I ask a question? What day is a holy day for the English-speaking people which is not recognized by Afrikaans-speaking South Africa?

I have now said that there are public holidays for you and for us. You, for example, have Settler’s Day, and we have religious days which we all respect. But the Bantu will have other days. How are those hon. members going to accommodate the Bantu? We are accommodating them in this way. That is my argument.

The question of clause 25 was mentioned by the hon. member for Transkei. This deals with legal aid. The position there is that this applies in any district mentioned in section 2 of this Act. In other words, it is applicable in any district; it is applicable everywhere. The hon. member said that there had been a dispute between us and the Transkeian Government. There was no dispute. We wanted to apply the law in regard to legal aid, which was made applicable in the Republic about 18 months ago in the Transkei as well. They then made a request to us to the effect that they would prefer to do this themselves. After discussions it was decided that provision would be made in this Bill for them to administer this matter. Basically it will take place in the same way as here in the Republic, but it will be under their control. They will appropriate money for it as soon as it falls under their control.

In the White areas as well?

Yes. They are paying for this. Sir, we have already dealt with the question of courts. Reference was made here to the courts which are already there and which are, to a certain level, controlled by these people themselves. The courts will be administered in the same way as they are being administered at present. I never heard any criticism from the hon. member in regard to the courts there.

The greatest objection on the part of the hon. member concerns the health services. Their objection is that these people do not have trained doctors, dentists, and pharmacists.

My great objection is that they have control over the White areas.

Sir, let us first deal with this question of medical services. It is very clear that medical services are also being dealt with by the Transkeian Government in the White areas as well. At present the medical services in the White areas are under the control of the Provincial Administration of the Cape; in the Bantu areas they are controlled by the Department of Health. At present there are 20 hospitals, as the hon. member for Berea indicated. The Department of Health has only been dealing with this matter for the past few years. The accusation is now being made that those 20 mission hospitals did not really train people, that they did not render proper service. The hon. member implied that there were no trained people and that we should ensure that the necessary services are available. [Interjection.] If I have misinterpreted the hon. member, then we shall leave it at that. But let us go further and analyse this position. In the first place, the health services will be under the control of the Transkeian Government both in the White and Bantu areas. I was in Umtata last week to discuss this whole matter with the Transkeian Government. We are now giving them these powers, and they retain the services of the people who are there at present, whether under the control of the Department of Health, or under the control of the Provincial Administration. We shall also negotiate with the mission hospitals to ensure that the position which exists there at the moment continues, but the control over these people is being placed in the hands of the Transkeian Government. That side of the House does not want the Bantu to have any say until such time as they can provide the various technicians and the necessary skills at all levels. That is not the issue here, for we can always, in co-operation with the Transkeian Government, make the White doctors there, and the staff of the mission societies, available to them, but they will have the legal say. They will appropriate money for these services themselves, and in this way they are being trained to exercise control over these matters themselves. I do not think there is a better way of making the Bantu people of this country aware of their responsibilities than to confront them with their own problems, and this is what is happening at the moment in the Transkei. Sir, I can tell you that these people are enthusiastic about this. Chief Matanzima told us that there were four Xhosa-speaking doctors overseas who were prepared to return to the Transkei. They are now going to involve their own people in these services. Because we do not confront these people with their own problems in the past, the Whites simply had to do the work. I do not think it is necessary to wait until all the people are available and then only to transfer the responsibility to them. The hon. member for Rosettenville asked here why we had not had those people trained and the hon. the Minister put a question to him in this regard. I want to put this question to him : Does he know what demands are made by the medical schools? The standard with which students have to comply are tremendously high. Does he know what the selection standards are for medical schools in this country, because there are large numbers of Whites who cannot be accommodated? Tremendously high demands are made on first year students before they are allowed to take the second year course. If this Government had not made provision for a special medical school for non-Whites, how would they have adjusted themselves to this pattern? The hon. member implied that Whites and non-Whites should comply to the same standard. If that were to be done, very few non-Whites would have been admitted to our medical schools today. But this Government, to eliminate friction and to allow these people to develop in their own area, has made provision for a special medical school for them. The medical school in Durban was especially established for these people and no one could expect more to be done than is at present being done. The Government is doing everything in its power, on all levels of training, to make trained people available, but it takes time as hon. members themselves will realize. The hon. member wants both non-Whites and Whites to be trained at the medical schools. If this were to happen, very few non-Whites would be admitted to medical schools for only a limited number can be admitted, and we would then hear the reproach that we are discriminating on the basis of colour. That is the natural outcome of the policy of that side of the House.

Is their standard lower then?

You do not know what we are talking about.

Sir we are talking about standards now, and the standard of the non-Whites at our medical schools is in general lower as far as admission is concerned. Suppose a medical school was able to admit 100 students and there were 150 or 160 applications for admission, how would the non-Whites have fared? They would probably not have been among those 100 students who were admitted. Very few of them would have been included in that number. We have now made provision for them to be trained in their own university, in their own medical school. That is all I want to bring home to the hon. members.

I wonder if the hon. the Deputy Minister could tell me why this Government does not build accommodation at the Baragwanath Hospital to admit Bantu and Coloured students. Why has provision for a medical school been made only in the Natal area?

The position is of course that it costs a great deal of money to make these facilities available. These facilities have been made available in Durban. You cannot simply proceed to duplicate medical schools everywhere. We must go about this in a judicious way.

As far as health services are concerned, the question was also put to me as to how the Whites are going to be treated. They will be treated in precisely the same way as is being done at the present moment, but in this connection I want to add the following: In Umtata there are Whites who up to now have been prepared to be treated by non-White doctors and nurses, but now political dissension is being stirred up. An attempt is being made to create a crisis, simply because we are granting these rights to the Transkeian Government. In spite of that, I want to say to the hon. member that I have received the assurance of the officials and of the entire Cabinet of the Transkei that they will do everything in their power to establish separate facilities for the Whites; that they will make arrangements with White doctors and nurses for the treatment of these people. This is the understanding which has been reached. We are giving thought to these matters. I discussed these matters with them personally and these facilities will be available there, for Whites to be treated by Whites, and where the services of a specialist are required, arrangements will be made.

Did the Government consult with the municipalities in the White areas before handing over the health matters in the municipal areas?

Yes we will discuss the matter with the municipalities.

You will!

Yes, I just want to say this. This legislation is now being placed on the Statute Book, and provision is being made for it to be taken over by the Transkeian Government at the beginning of the next financial year. It is not being taken over in the middle of a year. It will be at the beginning of the next financial year. All that is being done is that statutory provision is being made now, and thereupon these matters will all be arranged administratively. They will take over in 1973. I therefore want to give this assurance. I said this to the Transkeian Government as well, and to the officials who work with these matters, that we must look into every possible problem with great circumspection, and I can give the assurance that this will be done.

Then, in regard to cemeteries, I just want to mention that certain recommendations were made by the Heckroodt Commission, as was mentioned here, but I want to say that this clause, which relates to cemeteries, of course excludes the White towns. In other words, these are not involved in this matter, but if the time should come for them to take over, we will make the necessary arrangements for proper maintenance and preservation. All that could be involved here, are perhaps the trading posts, but we have received no complaints from people who have bought trading posts where there are White graves, about any problems in that connection. We shall act in consultation with the Transkei Government there. My view at the moment is that if the municipal areas become predominantly Black then these cemeteries will be excluded. But the hon. members know the Bantu, particularly the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District. The Bantu are the last people who will meddle with a grave. Surely he knows that these people do not meddle with graves. Now I do not know why he wants to use that type of argument, i.e that the Bantu will simply plough up graves, etc. I can give the assurance that this is not yet applicable in the White areas of the Transkei, but we shall negotiate, and as was read out by the hon. member for Transkei, we will have to exclude certain of the cemeteries fence these off, and make proper arrangements for their maintenance. This is a matter which I discussed with the Transkeian Cabinet and they gave me the assurance that they will do nothing which will be in conflict with what is of sentimental value to the Whites.

I think I have now replied to all the points mentioned by hon. members. I do not think I have omitted anything. I just want to reiterate as far as these medical services are concerned, that for these lower levels enough Bantu are coming forward to render these services. There has been a fine reaction on the level of nursing sisters, and here and there on the level of matrons, on the level of nursing. We already have the requisite number of people. As far as health inspectors are concerned, attention is being given to their training and some of them are already available, although not in sufficient numbers. We cannot expect, where we have over a period of a thousand years reached a certain level, these Bantu to reach that same position overnight. I concede that we shall still have to learn what they are capable of, but this side of the House is very honest about the basic right to manage their own affairs. We do not want to withhold it from them, and we do not want to deprive them of it.

Question put: That items 26 and 27 stand part of the motion.

Upon which the House divided:

Tellers : W. A. Cruywagen, G. P. van den Berg, H. J. van Wyk and W. L. D. M. Venter.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and J. O. N. Thompson.

Question affirmed and amendment negatived.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The other day, when the Second Reading of this particular Bill was moved, I was unfortunately not in the House, and consequently I now want to raise a few matters which were not brought to the attention of the House, matters which are unique in the history of beach zoning. I am very glad that my friend the hon. member for South Coast is present this afternoon, so that he may reply to a few questions I want to ask. In my opinion, the questions arise from this legislation.

In the first place, I want to say that this matter is unique because it is one of the few occasions on which legislation of this nature has slipped through without anyone noticing it. How it happened, I do not know. I know that the hon. member who is in fact responsible for this matter is the hon. member for South Coast, and that he himself was not here—I think he had reason not to be here. The result was that the matter went through in no time without anyone really knowing about it.

In the second place, these events reveal to me a unique feature in the double-talk of the United Party over many years. A very interesting fact of the matter is that as recently as three months ago similar legislation was rejected by the United Party in the Provincial Council of Natal. And in spite of the fact that that legislation had been rejected in the Provincial Council of Natal three months ago the United Party voted in favour of precisely the same principles in this House and on this occasion.

If I am not mistaken, this is the first time in history that the same party has adopted diametrically opposed standpoints in two legislative bodies. I should very much like to hear from the hon. member for South Coast this afternoon where the lack of co-ordination between him and the leader of the United Party in the Provincial Council of Natal actually comes from. I know that they were in touch with each other for a long time in regard to the matter. I also know that in the end the Leader of the United Party in the Provincial Council decided, in spite of the advice he had received from his chief leader, to vote counter to that advice and took the entire United Party section of the Provincial Council of Natal along with him.

The first time beach apartheid was adopted was in 1967, when the United Party in Natal itself requested me, as the then Administrator of the Province, to introduce legislation on this matter. That legislation was passed by the entire Executive Committee and Provincial Council of Natal. After that, nothing happened, but in 1971 the same legislation came before that council as a result of technical changes, and they rejected it. As I say, three months later, the United Party agrees here in the House of Assembly to what was rejected there.

This is the third time.

Yes, it is the third time. In other words, they have made three changes, one after the other. The pressure exerted on the United Party at the time, arose from the fact that local authorities in Natal itself, and particularly in the constituency of the hon. member for South Coast, requested that legislation of this nature be introduced. The hon. member knows this very well, because as far back as 1965 he said on occasion that apartheid should be introduced on the Natal beaches. He advocated it under pressure from his people. At the same time he also requested that the Government take steps to introduce such legislation, but because the Government did not do so at that time—at that stage the Government was conducting an investigation in the Western Province—the hon. member for South Coast requested the Executive Committee of the Provincial Council of Natal, of which I was the Administrator, itself to introduce such legislation.

The then Minister of Planning made an offer to Natal that the Government would undertake the work of zoning the beaches in Natal for them. However, the Executive Committee of Natal decided that they would do it themselves. The result was that they instructed their Regional and Town Planning Commission itself to zone the entire Natal coast—from top to bottom. And as hon. members know, it is a very important part of South Africa’s beach area. In fact, it is the one tourist centre where there are a large number of people throughout the year.

The plans that were accordingly drawn up by the United Party at that time—in 1965-’66—led to an ordinance, which I then had to introduce. It was Ordinance No. 37 of 1967. The long title of this Ordinance, which was supported by the United Party, read as follows—

After I had introduced this Ordinance, it was seconded by the then leader of the United Party. And that leader of the United Party in Natal had been in contact with his chief leader, who, in turn, had been in contact with the chief leader of the United Party in South Africa. In other words, it bad the approval of the entire United Party.

Here we now have the piece of legislation which was not only accepted by everyone at the time, but was also placed on the Statute Book as well. From 1967 to 1971 the matter remained dormant for a technical reason, i.e. because there was uncertainty whether the particular legislation should have been passed by the Government or by the Provincial Council. However, the principle of the matter was accepted by the United Party. That legislation remained in existence and was applied for four years. In fact, it was applied in many of the 52 local authorities of Natal which are situated along the entire length of the coastline.

Then in 1971 a number of M.P.C.s suddenly discovered that they were not at all happy with this legislation. The result was that, because of a remark made by the leader of the United Party in Natal, they decided to object. They made announcements in public and said that they did not at all agree with the idea of the leader of the United Party in Natal that beach zoning should be applied. Very interesting reports began to appear in the Natal newspapers at the time, which indicated to what extent the leader, the hon. member for South Coast, differed with the five members of the United Party.

The hon. member knows very well what I am talking about, because the five members who objected were Mr. Trevor Warman, who was also Mayor of Durban at the time, Mr. Van Coller from Umzimkulu, Mr. Mike Woolam from Pietermaritzburg South. Mr. Henry Ritz from Essen-wood and Mr. Cusens from Durban North. All five of these persons objected most strongly to the fact that the leader of the United Party wanted zoning in Natal.

What paper is that you are quoting from?

The Daily News of 2nd August, 1971. This is where the trouble started between you and your own people.

The five members of the United Party who objected to the legislation, subsequently all gave very good reasons for their decision to the newspapers. Mr. Van Coller, for example, said: “I feel merely that there is no need for beach zoning at present, although very probably in the future the position may be different.” Mr. Cusens, on the other hand, said: “I am only interested in the bit of beach fronting my own constituency. I do not mind the petty apartheid of the National Party.” Mr. Warman said: “I just expressed my own opinion, that is all I did.” The fourth one said: “I do not believe there should be beach zoning. I said so and I take the responsibility for that.”

What did the leader of the United Party in Natal do then? He waited a while and then saw several people, amongst others the Minister of Agriculture, and requested him please to apply this legislation himself, because he was under pressure from his own voters.

When the Progressives saw that this strife had developed between the leader of the United Party in Natal and his leader in the provincial council and a few other members, they also started making statements, in which they said, inter alia, that they did not at all agree with the leader of the United Party in respect of this matter. A certain Mr. Mullins, who is the present leader of the regional council of the Progressives on the South Coast, referred to a very interesting quotation which had been made by the leader of the United Party in Natal. Just listen to this. I quote—

This is a statement alleged to have been made by the leader of the United Party. The result was that he, in turn, was attacked by the Progressive Party. But then the matter went a bit further. His own leader in the Executive Committee of the Provincial Council of Natal, Mr. Fowle, whom I know very well, and with whom I had dealings for a long time, then also made an announcement—in spite of the fact that by that time the Natal leader had already told the chief leader that he wanted zoning in Natal and that he had already seen the Minister of Agriculture about the matter and had requested that apartheid be applied there. He (Mr. Fowle) then announced that there was a conflict between him and his chief leader and that, as far as the M.P.C.s were concerned, there could be no question of Natal being zoned—that no apartheid would be applied on the Natal Coast. What is interesting about the whole matter is that there was then no co-ordination at all. What the chief leader in Natal actually did and what his standpoint was, was revealed very clearly when Mr. Fowle said—

In other words, the hon. the leader in the Provincial Council and his five M.P.C.s were opposed to the leader of the United Party in Natal. That rift ran right through.

What paper is that?

The Daily News of 5th November, 1971, exactly three months ago. No doubt the hon. member will have it in his file.

When the Leader of the United Party in the Provincial Council started adopting this attitude, the hon. member on the opposite side of this House began to see that a so-called “revolt” was breaking out in Natal. Because it was not merely a question of strife between him and a few of his members in the Provincial Council, the dispute assumed a general, national character. For example, there was a report in which it was explained that two of the M.E.C.s in Natal —it is very important that it was not only the members of the Provincial Council— were also opposed to the standpoint of the provincial leader of the United Party. They intimated that they wanted nothing to do with apartheid and with the zoning of beaches in Natal. A report in, inter alia, the Tribune, of which the hon. member will undoubtedly be aware, reads as follows—

It is very interesting that this is the first time that the report in the Tribune says that—

They added that one of the members of the Executive Committee, Mr. Frank Martin, whom the hon. member for South Coast also knows very well, also made statements, in which he said in public that, as far as he was concerned, beach zoning was a question of the erection of fences and camps around people.

Naturally this struggle between the leader on the one hand and his own people in Natal on the other, probably did not become known throughout the country, but it led to the Provincial Council in Natal eventually holding a meeting at which a plea was made by the leader of that Council, Mr. Fowle. The hon. member for South Coast knows this. Mr. Fowle asked that the members of the Provincial Council should not vote for apartheid on the beaches—in other words, they should appose the zoning of the entire coastline. The hon. member on the opposite side of this House knows that not only was he in contact with Mr. Fowle then, but that they had a difference of opinion about the matter, and the end of the matter was that, after a plea had been made in the Council all the members of the United Party in the Executive Committee and in the Provincial Council voted against beach zoning. Not one single member indicated that he was in favour of legislation of the kind now being piloted through this House. Sir, how something like this can happen one does not know. It is very difficult to know what form of co-ordination and agreement there is between the two bodies belonging to the same party.

Better than between you and Connie.

This is not a matter between Connie and me; it is a matter of principle. In addition to all the apartheid measures introduced in this House in the course of 24 years, the entire question of apartheid on the beaches of South Africa, which extend from South-West Africa past the Cape up to Natal, was concerned with this principle. Members of the United Party the right to vote and to express an opinion in the two bodies in the country who have on it—both are said to have the same principles—all voted against it on the one hand and in favour of it on the other.

What did the hon. the leader of the United Party in the Provincial Council of Natal actually have to say? What did his speech boil down to? At the beginning he said he did not know what he should say. This was after he had had the consultation with his Natal leader as well as with their chief leader. If I am correct, he was in Cape Town to discuss this matter with them. And he said he did not know what to say, whether he should agree or not about the question whether beach apartheid should be applied.

When did I say that?

No, you did not say that; your Natal leader said that. The hon. member’s own leader in the Natal Provincial Administration said so.

Oh, the Natal Provincial Council, not my Leader here?

Yes. Sir, it is very interesting to hear that remark, because the hon. member’s leader in the Provincial Council, Mr. Fowle, made a plea—I have his speech here—in which he tried to indicate to the people that they could not blame him for Mr. Mitchell’s running to the Government and requesting that zoning should be applied throughout South Africa. He said—

It is Mr. Mitchell to whom he was referring—

That is what he said and further—

Yes, that is what the hon. member’s leader said. Then Mr. Fowle went further in this particular plea of his and said: “I am very sorry that I myself (meaning him and the other members of the Executive Committee) accepted the principle of apartheid on the beaches of South Africa in 1967.” He said he was very sorry about it.

What are you quoting from now?

From his own speech. I have it here, and you may have it. That is what he said, namely that he was very sorry that he and his colleagues had voted in favour of beach apartheid in 1967, for the simple reason that he embarrassed the new men who came into the United Party in 1970.

Where is that?

It is in this speech.

But you have not quoted it.

I have; I have read it to you. He said: “Ek voel vir die vyf baie jammer vir die misstappe wat ek (dit is Fowle) en my vorige kollegas in die vorige Raad gemaak het.” That is in Hansard. The hon. member can find it in Hansard. [Interjections.] You will not put me off on this. In fact he said that he felt very sorry for these people.

Mr. Speaker, may I put a question … [Interjections.] How many chairmen are there, Mr. Speaker?

Order! You can leave that to me.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister to give us the page reference where this statement was made in Hansard?

You will find it near page 132 of Hansard of that year. Then Mr. Fowle, the leader of the United Party in the Provincial Council, goes on to say: “Ek wonder of die Nattes weet wat dit is om van mening te kan verander.”

In other words, he said he wanted to change his mind, and he referred to 1967 and 1971. Continuing, he said he assumed the Nationalists would also know how difficult it was to maintain the same standpoint for a few years. Then Mr. Fowle mentioned all sorts of so-called reasons which, to him, were practical reasons why it was going to be very difficult to apply this apartheid in practice, this apartheid in favour of which hon. members on the opposite side of the House voted a few days ago and for which they are going to vote today as well. The result was that the entire United Party in the Council voted against it and against the request of the chief leader of the party. I quote from a report in the Daily News in this regard—

That is what was said : they would have no part in this scheme.

Which scheme was that?

The scheme of zoning beaches, of apartheid.

In a Bill to be published?

No, to make provision for apartheid on the beaches of South Africa.

A Bill thereafter to be published?

Yes, it had then not been published. He said—

Mr. Martin, the M.P.C., then said—

The question I want to put to the leader of the United Party in Natal, as well as to the chief leader of the United Party—who was in contact with the Natal leader throughout—is the following: On what side are they in fact standing?

As far as I know, this is the first time in the history of South African politics that two political leaders belonging to the same party, the one in charge of the United Party in Natal and the other in charge of the United Party here in Parliament, have voted directly against each other on the same principle.

In fact, the United Party is so confused in respect of this matter that a very serious conflict has developed between the two leaders.

I want to ask the hon. member for South Coast, the leader of the United Party in Natal, to indicate to me this afternoon why he did not dismiss the leader of the United Party in the Provincial Council after he had, in conflict with an instruction from his chief leader, voted against legislation they had accepted a few years previously.

Each has his own policy.

Sir, they cannot give us an indication of what their policy is— this is a glaring example. It is not a question of a difference of opinion between two persons; it is not a question of a difference of opinion between the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions and myself; it is not a question of a difference of opinion between the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and one of the hon. members on the opposite side of this House; it is a difference of opinion in respect of a basic principle contained in legislation.

They first accepted the principle in 1967; then they rejected it in 1971 and again accepted it in 1972.

I now ask the hon. member for South Coast why he did not give us an indication during the Second Reading debate on this Bill of how this difference of opinion had torn the entire United Party apart from top to bottom. They were under pressure.

Here are the names of 16 of the largest local authorities in Natal which told the United Party that they all wanted apartheid. In spite of that, 22 United Party members of the Provincial Council voted against that request, and then hon. members on that side of this House come here and vote in favour of the legislation. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, may I express my delight at the speech which the hon. the Minister of the Interior made here this afternoon. You know, Sir, my difficulty with my provincial councillors in Pietermaritzburg is to understand the sea-change which came over the ex-Administrator when he came here to Parliament. I simply cannot convince them. Now the hon. the Minister has done for me this afternoon what I have failed lamentably to do in the past. I merely have to take that speech, and I shall glory in doing it, and circulate it among members of the provincial council so that they can understand precisely the kind of presentation here in Parliament by an ex-Administrator, not of what he witnessed, not of what he participated in, but of what he read in the newspapers and sucked out of his thumb.

From Hansard.

Do not run away now.

My hon. friend need not be afraid that I will run away. I am not a Nationalist. Sir, this is really a most extraordinary statement that we have heard from the Minister, who, let me say, butted in. This is not his Bill; this Bill belongs to the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, and the hon. the Deputy Minister of Agriculture must forgive me if I remind him of the things that happened when we met his Minister. He must not now say to me : “Uncle Douglas, why do you come and tell us things like that in Parliament?” He shakes his head. I have his approval. I will go ahead with the meetings we had with the Minister. Is that right?

Provided I can read your letters too.

Sir, he can read my letters, particularly those that start: “Dear Hendrik, please can you get your Government to do something, even if it is wrong; whatever it may be, let me do something.” Year after year this has happened. The Deputy Minister knows and the ex-Administrator knows that for 15 years I have been coming to this Government. For 15 years I have been coming to the Minister of Agriculture. The Deputy Minister has a lot of correspondence he can read. But let us come back to the hon. the Minister of the Interior.

What has the hon. the Minister of the Interior groused about? That he can really come to Parliament and believe that he can with a little bit of sugar for the birds create discord in the ranks of the United Party? [Interjections.] I think we gave the hon. the Minister a fair hearing. Why do not hon. members give me a chance to make my speech now? Are they afraid of what I am going to say? Are they afraid, Sir? Yes I know they are afraid.

Sir, let me start right at the beginning by saying that the Bill before us was accepted by his side of the House the other day and no objection was raised. The Bill before us is accepted unanimously by the caucus of the United Party provincial council in Pietermaritzburg. The Bill before us is accepted by me. I take it amiss of the hon. the Minister. He may not know why I was not here during the Second Reading, but if he does I take it amiss. I was not away simply because I wanted to avoid a debate or nonsense like that. I will meet the hon. the Minister in any debate at any time he likes, but there was a reason why I was not here. I leave it at that. To repeat, the position then is that the provincial council of the United Party in Pietermaritzburg unanimously accept this Bill; the party here unanimously accept it and I accept it. We have one leader and under the leadership of our leader we support this Bill. But let us just go back a bit, for 15 years, seeing that the Minister went back. What was the position some two or three years ago, when deputation after deputation had been to the Minister of Agriculture asking for the reservation of separate amenities? Sir, I want to use that term deliberately, because it was the term “beach zoning” which the hon. the Minister defined as used by Mr. Fowle, and he slurred over it. That has been the trouble, and nothing more than that—just that definition.

Why did you not accept the offer of the Government in 1955?

What offer of 1955?

I am sorry, of 1965.

Let us go back before 1965, to the reservation of separate amenities. The hon. the Minister’s supporters in the Provincial Council in Natal argued that the Separate Amenities Act and the Separate Amenities Ordinance passed when he was Administrator, conferred upon the Provincial Council of Natal the right to set aside separate amenities on the beaches for separate races. That is what they argued, and the Administrator supported them. But that was wrong, and this Bill is before us today because it was wrong. That power to set aside separate amenities for separate races on the beaches, was a power vested in the Minister of Agriculture, and in him alone.

It is a question of the principle which was accepted.

Sir, the principle was in the power. The right to exercise that principle, the authority to exercise that principle, the power and the authority to give effect to that principle were vested in the Minister of Agriculture. So after numerous attempts the Minister of Agriculture put in the Gazette standard regulations which various local authorities could apply for and, if granted, they would enjoy them. These were standard regulations and as far as my memory serves me four local authorities applied for those regulations and they were granted and they have had the power for some years past under the regulations promulgated by the Minister of Agriculture to set aside separate amenities for the separate races on certain beaches. There were four of them. Durban I want to rule out for the moment. Durban is sui generis. It has certain powers which go back to the old colonial government days, when it acquired the dominium of the beach. The dominium of the beach belongs to the Durban municipality, so I leave it out entirely from what I am going to say. Those regulations, which were applied for by four local authorities, and granted, and applied to their area, were not applied for and applied to other local authority areas, for the reason which the hon. the Minister knows. He knows why those local authorities did not apply. If those local authorities wanted that power—four of them wanted it and applied and got those powers—why did they not apply? The Minister was then the Administrator and he knows why they did not apply.

I said 16 applied.

Yes, and four were granted. The ex-Administrator, the present Minister of the Interior, knows, because he appointed a committee to investigate the whole position of the beaches along the Natal coast. He appointed that committee under the Town and Regional Planning Commission, and what did they find? Sir, they found this, and I am with them entirely. They found that if you are going to set aside separate amenities for separate races on the different beaches, then you cannot limit that kind of provision of separate amenities to separate individual local authority areas; you had to do it on a regional basis, and that is what the committee recommended to the Administrator of those days, the present Minister.

The principle is the same.

I am not going to be put off by that kind of interjection. I want to deal now with the substance of what we are discussing here, and the hon. member is only too happy to come and bathe in Natal on our beaches in an area set aside for Whites. That is all he does; he takes advantage of it. Now let us go on. The recommendation was that there be regional zoning. Some of the local authories have as much as 200 to 300 yards of sand. As to the rest, they can have some rocky areas and they can have areas where bathing is not permissible and nothing can be done about it. It was clearly impracticable to give separate amenities for the different races divided up over perhaps 300 yards of sand. Then the Admiralty Reserve, that is State-owned land immediately behind the beach, was also still vested in the Government. The hon. the Minister of Lands would not allow the control of that piece of land to pass to the local authority. In some cases he has done so while in others he would not. You were going to have perhaps a little area of 25 to 30 yards of land for Coloureds; 25 or 30 yards for Whites; 25 or 30 yards for Bantu, and 25 or 30 yards for Indians. It was clearly impracticable. Each of these races obviously required a place where they could get water; they required change-rooms and proper conveniences. To provide these conveniences for four races on these small beaches was impracticable. So the commission said : Let us have regional zoning, 20 to 26 miles or 30 miles if necessary, where the different races can then have their different amenities provided for them. The hon. the Minister knows this. Why is he keeping quiet about it?

In the meantime trouble was arising because of the influx of visitors. We had at one stage on the Margate beach something like 30 000 people. There were no regulations there dealing with the possibility of the mixing of the races on the bathing beaches—and I want to emphasize “on the bathing beaches.” What did the Administrator of the day do about it? Nothing. I came down here and that was when the Deputy Minister came into the picture. Firstly, I came with a deputation including the mayor of Margate, to come and see the Minister and to put to the Minister exactly how dangerous it was—I am glad I see the Minister back here; I would sooner speak to his face—and how necessary it was that some steps should be taken by the only authority that had the power to do it, and that, I repeat, was the Minister himself. Nobody else had the power. I am now referring to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture. And then the trouble started. May I say that it is typical of this Government. Not with his department alone, but with every department and I have the misfortune to deal with practically the whole lot today. Dilatoriness dragging their feet, never coming to a decision, pushing the thing off on somebody else, passing the buck, coming back again and jumping over the heads of people who ought to have been consulted and going on from pillar to post and never even robbing Peter to pay Paul, leaving both of them robbed. … that is what I have to deal with year after year. I am sorry now for the Deputy Minister, but when his colleague, the hon. the Minister of the Interior brings that past history in, I have to explain it. He has asked me to explain it. Afterwards the Minister of Agriculture who is now refreshing his memory, decided that something would have to be done about it. What was to be done about it? I have got into this state now with the Government and the hon. the Deputy Minister of Agriculture will bear me out as well as the Minister of Mines, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and others, that I go along and interview them. When I have finished with the interview I say : “Will you please let me have that in writing?” They then very courteously always say: “Yes, Uncle Douglas, you shall have it in writing.” Just as regularly I do not get it. What do I do now? I do now what I learnt in my days when I was in the diplomatic service. I send them an aide memoire and I say about a week afterwards—

That way I placed it on record. I had my own version on record, but they are never contradicted. I do not think I can remember an instance where they were contradicted. I went to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture and I put it on record through an aide memoire what the position was. Then we started. The Minister had undertaken to issue the set of regulations to apply to Margate where, as I have said, we have had 30 000 visitors and where we have missed difficulties, racial troubles, once or twice by the narrowest margin. It was to be a test case for two other local authorities which were in a similar position. The hon. the Deputy Minister will remember what happened. We got his people to draft a resolution for the Town Council of Margate and I sent a telegram and a letter to the mayor saying : “Do not let your people amend one word of this resolution. This is exactly what the Minister wants.” Then the resolution came back. Then, after messing about a little bit, they found that it was not quite as they wanted it and it went back again. It was passed de novo as the Minister wanted it. By this time the Minister was preparing his advertisement or his proclamation for the Gazette. I saw the Deputy Minister who was …

: Come to the point!

… continually crossing backwards and forwards, trying to help me, and for that I give him full marks. He was doing his best, not to help me but to help. We got a rough draft which went to the then Secretary for Lands. From the then Secretary for Lands it went back again to the legal adviser who was drafting it. Finally, the day came when the Deputy Minister had agreed, the Town Council of Margate had agreed, the Secretary for Lands had agreed, the law adviser had agreed, I had agreed and it went to the hon. the Minister to be signed so that it could go to the Gazette as a proclamation. The Minister never signed it. After about a week had expired, I sent an aide memoire to the Deputy Minister who said: “No, I do not know why; I do not know what has happened here, but the Minister has not signed it. There is nothing I can do with Uncle Dirk; he just has not signed it.” I realized that I was embarrassing the hon. the Deputy Minister. I was beginning to press him in regard to his Minister. When I met the Minister outside he said: “You are getting to be a very old man, you know.”

I was right.

Yes, and the fact that he is older than I am apparently made no difference. [Interjections.] What has my age got to do with the fact that he did not sign a proclamation which he had undertaken to sign? This proclamation was prepared and approved by the law adviser, the Secretary for Lands, his Deputy Minister, the Town Council of Margate and myself after months and months of negotiation. Then I went back to the Provincial Council of Natal and I said to them : “Gentlemen, I want to tell you something. The Minister does not want to handle this hot potato; he does not want to deal with separate amenities for separate races on the beaches. He has already had his fingers burnt in the Cape. The Government has got itself into endless trouble and the outward looking policy and the ‘verligte’ attitude of some of the members of the Cabinet have now infected the Minister of Agriculture so that he is not going to sign that proclamation.” Furthermore I told them : “I shall tell you what he is going to do. I will hazard a guess—he will take the whole responsibility and put it on the shoulders of the Administrator of Natal and his Executive. He will ask them why they should not issue their own proclamation and he will tell them to do it their own way.” It was a hot potato that he did not want to touch. He did not want to take the responsibility and he would not do anything about it. He was prepared to sit for years supine, doing absolutely nothing whatsoever in spite of the recommendations that had been made. I have a very big file dealing with these questions in Margate and in the other areas where there was trouble. I have been negotiating for 15 years and sure enough when the time came we got this Bill. It is precisely as I had anticipated. The Minister now is taking authority to put on to the shoulders of the Administrator and the Executive Committee of Natal the very authority and the power which he refuses to exercise. How can he expect the Administrator and the Executive Committee of Natal to exercise powers from which he has run away, powers which he has funked, powers which he has been afraid to exercise?

Today we shall give you blazes! [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. the Minister must withdraw that.

I withdraw, Mr. Speaker.

All these years he has had the opportunity to do it. He had the document in front of him. I saw it with my own eyes. I shall go on record on oath, and I call the hon. the Deputy Minister to go on oath with me, that we saw the document that was to be signed by the Minister as a proclamation. The hon. the Deputy Minister cannot deny it. He shakes his head so he does not deny it —more honour to him. But the hon. the Minister did not sign it. That was all that was wanting to give it the power of law. Then we would have had the trouble all cleared up so far as the separate amenities were concerned. But, no, it was not done. Now the hon. the Minister of the Interior comes and has the effrontery to say to me: “what have you got to say about the difference of opinion between yourself and the United Party leader of the provincial council of Natal?”

That is fundamental; that is the only point I am asking you about.

That is the only point! He says that the only point he is asking me is on the newspaper reports he quoted. I want to say shame on him for intervening and coming with this kind of claptrap when another Minister is piloting a measure such as this through the House. There is no difference of opinion. I am not the slightest bit interested in what a newspaper says about such a difference of opinion. Why did not the newspapers come to me and ask me about my quarrel with the leader of the provincial council, the M.E.C.’s and the other members of the provincial council? Why did they go to members who had just recently been elected and ask them for their views on this matter? What form did the question take that it resulted in that reply? I will answer any question the Press would like to ask me in relation to any matter which is of concern to me and on which I can speak with authority. I was in a position to speak with authority on this matter, but I was never asked a question. Where is the question? Why was not my question and answer put into the cuttings the hon. the Minister has there? [Interjections.] For the simple reason—let me repeat—that every member of the United Party of the Provincial Council of Natal agrees with this Bill. When I said to the hon. Minister by way of a question whether that decision was taken before they had seen a copy of the Bill, he said “Yes, it was before they had seen a copy of the Bill.” Not so?

The leader of the Nats told them the Bill was coming.

I cannot imagine anything that will so condemn any document than that its author shall be a member of the National Party in the provincial council. That surely will condemn any document from wherever it may come. But that is not an answer I want here in Parliament. I asked the hon. the Minister whether that report had come out before they had seen the document. I do not care whether they had had word from a National Party member of the provincial council that it was coming. I want to know whether they had seen the document! It is the document which matters, not what some Nationalist member was bringing as tittle-tattle to the Administrator. The answer is that they had not seen the document. They have now seen it.

The whole council rejected your advice.

The hon. the Minister was not there. What does he mean by saying that they rejected my advice? The Provincial Council of Natal has never rejected my advice. They know wise advice when they hear it, although I say so myself. My blushes will not permit my going any further along that road. May I ask what the advice was of the hon. the Minister, when he was Administrator, in regard to the question of separate amenities on the beaches? Why did he mislead the Executive and tell them that the separate amenities were adequate and that they would receive permission and authority under that law to have separate amenities on the beaches which they accepted? I challenge him: When, as Administrator, he told the members of the Executive that the Bill for separate amenities, upon which was founded the ordinance for separate amenities, would also apply to the beaches, did they or did they not accept that?

Of course they did accept it.

They did accept it! Certainly, they did accept it. There was no trouble about it. There never has been any difficulty and there has been no change in front whatsoever all the way through the piece. If trouble-makers and trouble-mongers try and interfere in this matter and to drive a wedge into the ranks of the United Party provincial councillors and myself, I wish them luck; they will not get any further than the hon. the Minister of the Interior this afternoon. Here is a case where the Minister of Agriculture has toyed for 15 years with this very important issue. He has refused to accept the responsibility of doing a thing which was a hot potato politically and he has now put it on the shoulders of the Executive Committee, which is the United Party Executive in Natal. Subject to the proper financial arrangements being made —and I now look forward to the hon. the Minister of the Interior coming along and supporting the plea of the Administrator of Natal for financial arrangements when they come to the Minister of Finance, and if necessary getting the support of the Minister of Agriculture—in those areas in which they have jurisdiction, we can see what can be done about providing separate amenities on beaches in the same way as they have provided separate amenities in respect of other public places where the public have been entitled to go. When I say “where they have the right”, I want to tell the hon. the Minister, because he may have forgotten, that Durban is something sui generis and that all along that coastline there are private ownerships right down to the water. Some stretches of beach belong to private people where this Bill has no power. There are also these “vakansieoord” people with control over certain land and the Department of Bantu Administration controlling an area of eight miles at one place and six miles at another right down to the water. There are also places where the municipalities have acquired leases for land right down to the water. There are various other types of private and public holdings involved in this matter. In most of those cases this Bill will not run. What is therefore today being given to the Administrator of Natal and the Executive is a thing of bits and pieces. They have to deal with small bits and I doubt whether the whole matter can be dealt with on a regional basis, which was basic to the report the Administrator got. The Government must remember to take the responsibility for its own actions this time and not try, by this means, to shove the responsibility onto the Administrator and the Executive of Natal.

Mr. Speaker, I did not want to take part in the debate now, but I can very well understand the hon. member for South Coast’s nervousness. The hon. member now wants to see the case of Margate, where certain regulations were drawn up, against the broad background of total beach demarcation. That is one of the reasons why I told the hon. member that with the functions it has in respect of demarcation and control, the department cannot make regulations concerning bits and pieces of the coast, regulations about how and where the demarcation must take place. Neither is the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure able to exercise control in respect of the regulations that have been made. I told the hon. member that we would introduce legislation into this House that would make it possible for the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure to give control over those beach areas to that local authority so that they can then effect their demarcation with the approval of the relevant province. I cannot give them the powers. The powers of the local authorities must be given to them by the relevant provincial administrations, and that is exactly what this Bill now wants to do. This Bill will now give the control body at Margate the individual right to decide how they want to control demarcation …

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Did we have that prepared document for publication as a proclamation and you did not sign it?

Yes, It does not mean that if something is prepared for a proclamation that cannot be implemented, such a proclamation must necessarily be implemented by the Minister. He is there to see whether a regulation can be made applicable to the various beach areas and whether the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure can implement that regulation. The point is that the Department cannot do so. In other words, the proclamation can be issued, but somebody must implement it. The proper body for exercising the control is the local authority that exercises control there. However, the Minister cannot transfer that power to the local authority. That power of local authority is vested in the relevant provincial administration which transfers the power to them. This legislation is therefore being introduced so that the power can be transferred to the local authority, and this applies to the whole country. Wherever there are beach areas over which the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure has control, local authorities leave those beach areas to local authorities to control. That is precisely what is happening in terms of this legislation. However, the hon. member for South Coast is not nervous about this. The hon. member’s nervousness concerns the fact that his party, when it suits them, adopts standpoints opposed to separate residential areas, and when it does not suit them, as in the case of Margate, it is now expected of someone to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them. They then want someone to create the separate facilities for them there so that they can then do two things. In the first place they then want to tell people that they take care of the separate facilities, but that they are also opposed to separate facilities, as they are now, amongst themselves, also adopting views contrary to those of the Province the previous Administrator and the department. That is the whole situation, and I can therefore well understand the hon. member’s nervousness. When he came to ask me about the demarcation of Margate, I very clearly asked him whether this was not contrary to his party’s policy. I told him I had always thought the United Party was opposed to the demarcation of beaches. When the hon. member personally came to ask me about Margate, I asked him whether it was not contrary to his party’s policy. He then told me that the whole of Margate wants it and they all want it. That is why steps were taken to leave it to the Province of Natal to empower local authorities to carry out the demarcation and exercise the control. We could also have carried out the demarcation, but the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure is not able to exercise the control in the way a local authority can. If we carry out the demarcation, it means that the department must ensure that all the control measures are carried out. However, if the provinces are given the power to empower the local authorities to do so, the local authorities must implement those regulations. Consequently that is why this legislation has also been introduced. The hon. member for South Coast is not cross with me or with the hon. the Minister of the Interior now. On the contrary. I helped him to pull a chestnut out of the fire, something he and his party would never have managed to do. If his party were in power he would not have been able to pull this chestnut out, because it would have been contrary to his party’s policy. However, I have now helped him. His nervousness now results from the fact that in Natal he is saddled with a provincial council that does not agree with him about separate beach areas. Because the hon. member is in conflict with his party in Natal he now wants to put the blame on to me and the Government. He now wants to present his standpoint in connection with the demarcation of beach areas, this verkrampte standpoint the United Party states when it is fighting at Oudtshoorn, in the House as United Party policy, but in Natal he wants to hide behind his provincial councillors and say that the United Party are opposed to separate beach facilities. That is surely the United Party we know. I do not begrudge the hon. member all the happiness he can get from the standpoint he has adopted here. With this legislation I have saved the situation for the hon. member. In Natal I have done for him what his people want him to do, but which his party is opposed to. I now expect the hon. member to thank me for it.

Mr. Speaker, we have had a very unexpected and exciting conclusion to the Third Reading of this Bill. I must say I was interested to see the hon. the Minister of the Interior intervene with the history of the Natal Provincial Council. I was aware of this history. It is largely because I was aware of the history of this dispute that has arisen between the members of the provincial council of the United Party in Natal and the leader of the United Party in Natal, that I was prepared to support this Bill. It was one of the main reasons because it seemed to me that the Provincial Council in Natal had shown some compassion about this question of zoning and beach apartheid, which, I believe, had not been exercised by the Central Government in setting aside beaches for the separate race groups in the Cape Peninsula. The history of this is that up to, I think, 1970, the responsibility for planning the zoning of beaches was actually supposed to have rested with the Central government. Once the zoning was completed, it was handed over to the local authorities who were then supposed to exercise the necessary control over those beaches. They were supposed to set up the notices reserving different beaches for different races. The Provincial Executive was given the task of doing this if the local authority did not do this, and they could claim a refund of expenses in erecting these boards. This is how I understand the position. We cannot, of course, debate the actual principle of separate amenities today and I said that during the Second Reading debate. I made it quite clear that, by supporting the Bill before the House, I was not supporting the principle of the reservation of separate amenities. But that is not the issue today, because that issue was decided, unfortunately, long ago. I was against it then and I am against it now. But the point is, who is going to administer the setting aside of the separate amenities. It seemed to me that what this Bill is doing is to take the authority from the Central Government and hand it over, in statutory form now, to the local authorities. I was hoping, having seen the dispute between members of the provincial government in Natal and the leader of the United Party in Natal that I could rely on the provincial authority to exercise rather more compassion in the setting aside of amenities in Natal than had been done in the Cape Province by the Central Government. I hoped that that would be the case. [Interjections.] I still hope that that will be the case. Whether or not that is going to be the case, only the future will tell. We will only know when we see what I call those humiliating notices dotting the beaches of Natal which today dot the beaches of the Cape from one end of the Peninsula to the other, and the beaches of East London, Port Elizabeth and Plettenberg Bay. Wherever one goes one finds notices—some of them are absurd, I might say—reading “Reserved for bona fide domestic servants of this area”, or “Bathing for Coloureds 1 560 yards south”, or words to that effect, as one notice at Plettenberg Bay reads. I wonder what visitors to our beaches think when they come off the boats at Cape Town, Durban and elsewhere and travel along our beautiful beaches and are then confronted by these notices.

Up to now I cannot say that any fairness whatsoever has been exercised in the setting aside of beaches for the different races by the Central Government. I want to give the House some examples of what has happened in the Cape on this particular issue. But first, perhaps I had better continue with my little historical survey first. Up till march, 1970 it was the Central Government that was responsible for the zoning of the beaches. They then handed them over to the local authorities with the specific understanding that the Provincial Executive would set up these boards, demarcating the beaches, if the local authorities refused to do so. That is what happened in Cape Town. The local authorities refused to do so, so the Provincial Executive erected the notices and then claimed back from the City Council the cost of those notices. But then, in March, 1970, the Government decided, as the hon. member for South Coast has put it, to hand over this hot potato—I think it is probably even hotter as far as I am concerned—to the local authorities to deal with. The Minister’s statement on the 13th March, in terms of which this was done, contained the following pious expression of opinion, it said that the Government considered it to be “most desirable for the personal convenience of the various races, and particularly for the promotion of good race relations, that effect should be given to this speedily”, presumably the Government was somewhat influenced by the hon. member for South Coast, who had stated that there would be racial strife if the beaches of Natal were not speedily zoned. Now, Sir, I want to show how, in fact, the personal convenience of the various race groups has been considered in carrying out this mandate. In East London the whole area from Nahoon to Orient Beach is zoned for Whites, including the centrally situated Eastern Beach which had been used up to then by persons who were not White. The hardest hit were, of course, the Africans, something like 200 000 of them, who will have to travel a minimum distance of 32 km to reach the nearest beach zoned for their use, and this, I might say, is a rocky area with a narrow strip of sand at one end. At Port Elizabeth we have exactly the same story as far as the Africans are concerned. They are pushed out of all the more accessible beaches to the remote rocky areas, with little, if anything, in the way of amenities or facilities.

Let us have a look at the personal conveniences as set aside by the zoning done by the Central Government in the Cape Peninsula. Let us look at the allocation of beaches for the Coloured people, because they are in the majority. How has the allocation of beaches been made as far as the Coloured people are concerned? On the Atlantic side, from Blouberg Strand to Cape Town, no area has been reserved for Coloured people, except Woodstock Beach on a purely temporary basis until the area is required for harbour expansion. I may say that no amenities have been provided, because the allocation of the beach is purely temporary, and in any case bathing is dangerous in that area. From the city to Houth Bay, the beach they have allocated to the Coloured People, again on a temporary basis until the end of 1971, is Sunset Beach at the end of Sea Point. This is a stretch of sand which is largely covered at high tide, and there is also a swimming pool. They have been allocated, until the end of 1971, Maiden’s Cove between Fourth Beach, Clifton, and Camps Bay, and they have been allocated nothing more up to Hout Bay, where an area next to the fishing harbour has been allocated to them. This, I may say, is of little, if any, practical use as it has no beach; it has only rocks and boulders; no bathing is possible there and access to it is difficult. If one goes beyond Hout Bay, near Kommetjie, one finds that two areas were set aside for Coloured people, namely Soetwater and Witsand. These were intended primarily for the people moved to Slangkop under the Group Area reservations from Simonstown, from Glencairn and from Kalk Bay. These beaches are 12 to 15 miles from the concentration of Coloured people that we have at Retreat and Steenberg and more than 20 miles from the main concentrattions in the Athlone complex. And I might say that access to these beaches would be by train to Fish Hoek, and then there would be a minimal and expensive bus service from Fish Hoek to Soetwater—20 cents each way. In other words, Sir, these distances preclude most of the poorer Coloured people from enjoying any of these facilities because of the travelling costs, apart from the fact that the beaches have obviously been utterly unfairly allocated when one looks at the population figures. I will say for the Cape Town City Council that it has been trying to get permission for the building of a lido and swimming pool for the city’s Coloured people at Paarden Eiland near Milnerton, but to absolutely no avail. In June, 1970, the M.E.C. in charge of local administration stated that with the positive resistance from the local people in the neighbouring area there was absolutely no chance that the city council was going to be able to build a Coloured swimming bath in this area, but he hoped that it would be possible to allocate a beach area somewhere reasonably close on the west coast for the Cape Peninsula Coloured people. For one reason or another, the closest available area turned out to be at Silverstream, which is beyond Mamre. Sir, can anyone say that this is a fair allocation? Really, Sir, the greed of the White people in this country is going to be their undoing in the end. I might say that when the discussions with a view to setting aside some area for the Coloured people were under way, the hon. member for Maitland did not play a very excellent part in this, because he made an announcement to Die Burger that it would lead to an extremely unhealthy situation if the lido were to be built, but in any case, of course, there was no reason to fear that this was going to be done. He said that he had an alternative site in mind for the Coloured people, and it would be very valuable if he would give us the benefit of his opinion in this respect.

I want to point out, Sir, that there are something like between 150 000 and 200 000 Coloured people living in Schotsche Kloof, District Six, Woodstock, Kensington and the northern municipalities of the Peninsula, for whom the Atlantic coast beaches would obviously be the most convenient, but what is finally being offered to them— this area near Mamre—is something like 30 to 40 miles away. As far as the Indian Ocean is concerned, all the beaches have been reserved for Whites, with the temporary exception of Kalk Bay Harbour which, ever since I can remember, has been a Coloured bathing area; it is the only one which is within reasonable reach of the Coloured people by train. Nothing else from Muizenberg to Simonstown has been reserved for the Coloured people—nothing at all. Sir, you have to walk for miles along the Muizenberg beach before you are shot of the notices which say “Whites Only”. Unless Africans or Coloured people have private transport, it is virtually impossible for them to get to the various beaches allocated to them.

Let us give them Muizenberg. Would you object to that?

Sir, I have bathed at Muizenberg since I was a very small girl, and I never had the slightest objection to the fact that there were Africans and Coloureds bathing there, and to the best of my knowledge nobody else had any objection. People largely kept to themselves out of desire; there were no notices, and it was always accepted that the African people and the Coloured people bathed at the end of the Pavilion beach.

Is that apartheid or not?

There was always a voluntary segregation, and if people want to segregate themselves voluntarily, that is fine with me, but I object to this compulsory segregation. I think it is a disgusting sight to see policemen armed with guns on New Year’s Day at the Muizenberg Beach, to ensure that Black people do not go bathing in the sea. That is what greeted the sight of the holiday-makers at Muizenberg, together with those “Whites Only” notices. I know, Sir, that the principle has been accepted that there are to be separate reservations for the different racial groups; that is something that one cannot argue in this House now, but having seen the way in which this was executed by the Central Government when it had control, I was prepared, and am still prepared, despite what went on there this afternoon, to support the Third Reading of this Bill, because I hope that when the local authorities have the power to control the setting aside of beaches for the different racial groups, they will exercise a little more generosity and a little more compassion than has been done when this has been left in the hands of the Central Government.

Sir, I can to a certain extent appreciate the hon. member for Houghton’s standpoint in the sense that she at least knows what principles she believes in.

They are buying apartheid.

This afternoon the hon. member quoted a few practical problems here in connection with the Act relating to separate beach facilities. I readily concede that there are certain practical problems, but I just want to say this to the hon. member: This side of the House believes that there must be demarcation, and we shall implement this regardless of any practical problems. Sir, is there any member on this side of the House who knows what the United Party’s standpoint on this matter is? Certainly not after the hon. member for South Coast made a long speech here this afternoon. On the contrary, I think there was a worse degree of floundering around than ever before in this House. Sir, in the first place there is a principle involved. The hon. the Minister of the Interior stated this very clearly here. He said he just wanted to know what the Leader of the United Party’s standpoint on this extremely important principle is. The hon. member for South Coast then stood up and made a personal attack on the Minister of the Interior; that was his reply to a question involving a matter of principle. Sir, it is also clear why hon. members on that side are so touchy about this matter. I think the hon. the Minister of the Interior has already indicated the most important points. But last year, on 17th November, 1971, the Leader of the National Party in the Natal Provincial Council asked the following question (translation)—

The reply was that they received representations and they then mentioned all of them. I now just want to read to you what the nature of the representations was. For the most part they involved the municipalities situated in the hon. member for South Coast’s constituency, such as the Amanzimtoti municipality. The municipality of Amanzimtoti asked the Provincial Administration for the demarcation of beaches for the various population groups. The Ashley municipality asked for the reservation of beaches for Whites only. The Margate municipality: The reservation of the foreshore of Margate for Whites in accordance with the ordinance. In similar vein I could continue and mention Port Shepstone, Hiberdene, La Lucia, Verulam, Ramsgate, Tongaat and a whole lot of others. The fact remains that these people are asking for apartheid, but according to U.P. tradition, according to the old methods the United Party adopted in politics of South Africa, they again have this ambiguous approach to the matter. In Oudtshoorn they would like to be verkramp, but in Houghton or in Sea Point they want to be more progressive than the Progressives. The hon. member for South Coast can stamp around here at will, as he did this afternoon, but the fact remains they disagree. I shall quote to you from a 1971 report in connection with this matter. With reference to an interview, the hon. member’s standpoint at the time was (translation)—

As a result of this standpoint, what do the various M.P.C.s say about the matter? Let me quote a few. The first is Mr. Cusens. He states (translation)—

Then there is Mr. Van Coller. He states (translation)—

Mr. Wollam states that he is completely opposed to the demarcation of beaches; complete apartheid is altogether impossible. He says we have a natural apartheid on our beaches. Sir, here you have the evidence. I could quote a great deal more to you. However, the fact also remains that the United Party Secretary in Natal has very serious doubts directly conflicting with the standpoint of that side of the House. I can quote from the Daily News of Novembe, 1971, in which their Provincial Secretary shies away from the principles, makes terribly elaborate excuses and explains under what circumstances the United Party was allegedly compelled to adopt its position. I quote—

This is what Mr. Renton stated—

Those are the excuses these people try to advance in respect of why they now do not accept it. Then very recently Mr. Percy Fowle came along and on 2nd March stated—

But here the hon. member for South Coast comes along this afternoon and tells us that the Natal Provincial Administration has already accepted this Act.

That is surely not true.

You have not read the Bill.

We cannot accept that argument. The hon. member will have to present us with other arguments on this important matter. In reply to the hon. member’s interjection I want to say that I have studied the Bill very thoroughly. Sir, again this is simply, as of old, the United Party’s ambiguous policy of telling one story in the cities and another story in the rural areas. They now again want to be more verkramp even than the verkramptes, because there is a by-election in progress at Oudtshoorn and they must satisfy a verkrampte candidate.

We have had an interesting diversion from the basic principles of the Bill before us. I want to deal immediately with the remarks of the hon. member who has just resumed his seat and say that it is apparent from what has been disclosed this afternoon that there has been a long period of inactivity so far as the Government is concerned, in carrying out what it professed it intended to do when it passed the 1953 Separate Amenities Bill. Because in 1962 the hon. the Minister of Agriculture published in the GovernmentGazette general seashore regulations, and in 1962 took unto himself power to make special proclamations in regard to the seashore and portions of the coast. As I say, this was in 1962. But I go back earlier— the hon. the Minister of the Interior should be aware of this—to the attitude which was adopted by the then Minister of the Interior towards the Provincial Administrations when the 1953 legislation was introduced. The hon. the Minister, now the Minister of Defence, was then Minister of the Interior and the present Minister of the Interior will know that the provinces were told that unless they passed their ordinances to comply with the provision of the Separate Amenities Act, the central Government would dictate to the provinces what should be done in their provinces. That is what happened. I happened to be present as a member of the Executive Committee when that threat was made. What happened then? The provinces passed their ordinances and the problem of dealing with the provision of separate amenities with equity and justice was then tackled. The Provincial Council of the Cape then appointed a commission. The present hon. member for False Bay was the chairman of this commission. He had with him another provincial councillor of the National Party and a provincial councillor of the Opposition. We felt that this was a matter to be dealt with by the elected representatives of the people and not by Government officials. That commission started working and it dealt with the whole of the coastline of the Cape from one end to the other. But in the middle of that came the pressure politics. When certain recommendations were made in Mossel Bay which did not suit the Nationalist mayor of Mossel Bay, who had access to the Prime Minister, there were representations to the Prime Minister to say that this commission was coming out with some stupid suggestions because they wanted to set aside an area of beach adjacent to the town of Mossel Bay for the use of the Coloured people, of whom there are large numbers in Mossel Bay. What happened then? The National Government then immediately, without even communicating with the Provincial Administration, appointed the Torlage Commission. I need not tell the House of that commission which sat for a fairly lengthy time without producing any solution anywhere to the problem of providing separate amenities with the result that it was recalled and disbanded and the provinces were told to get on with the job themselves. The fact of the matter is that today we are sitting in 1972, 19 years after this Government had said that it was going to take steps to provide amenities, when there has been as much action under that Act as there is development under the separate development policy of this Government. What is happening today? The position is to say to the provincial administration: “You take this over again, please. We have now found, and that is our excuse, that we could not do anything legally because the Act had to be amended”.

Back to square one,

That is where we are, as my hon. friend says, back to square one. In the meantime, over these years, there has been hurt, dissatisfaction and conflict between interests and groups of our population without any decision being arrived at. We have found local authorities being thwarted every time they attempted to arrive at some reasonable and proper conclusion so far as the provision of separate amenities was concerned. The hon. member for Newcastle need not worry, we are quite clear on this side of the House that we believe it to be in the intersts of the races of South Africa and peaceful coexistence in South Africa to have separate amenities. We have said over and over again that they should be equal so that justice is done in the provision of separate amenities.

Is that not petty apartheid?

We believe that these separate amenities should be provided by the local authority closest to the people having the maximum say. The maximum of local options and wishes should be considered in the provision of these amenities. That is our pledge; it is a humanitarian approach to the problem in avoiding possible points of conflict. We believe that that should be done. While we have supported this Bill and while I hope this will be effective now, I hope the Government will not stand in the way of the local authorities by saying: “You cannot do this here because we feel that this is the way it should not be done; you cannot do it there … ", when the local authorities wish to provide amenities. In regard to the provision of amenities, the hon. member for Houghton spoke about the Cape Peninsula. We agree that there is no justice in the allocation of these amenities, but it is not the fault of the local authority; it is the fault of the Nationalist provincial administration in the Cape which has vetoed many schemes and the Central Government which has vetoed others. That is the reason. What is the result? The result is that the local authority is faced with fantastic costs in providing amenities and transport services so as to give some amenities to the non-White population. That is how it is being done. One only has to look at the tidal swimming pools that have been built round the Cape Peninsula. They were built to provide some facilities, because that is the only place where the local city council or the divisional council have been permitted to establish those facilities. I think the country will benefit by the discussion we have had here this afternoon. In regard to the discussion which took place in the Provincial Council of Natal as recently as February this year, the hon. Minister for the Interior did not tell the House that the Council were only told that a draft Bill would be published for general information. They had no knowledge of the contents of this Bill whatsoever. He did not add what Mr. Fowle had said. I quote Mr. Fowle—

That is the separate amenities Ordinance in Natal—

Then he goes on to say for the interest of the hon. member for Houghton—

Mr. Mullins being a leading Progressive—

[Interjections.] Mr. Mullins was not in favour of it. I mention this and I am glad the hon. member for Houghton is supporting this Bill today, as this was not the attitude of the spokesman of her party in Natal. The whole trend of the speech of Mr. Fowle was that he wanted to have the power so that they can ensure a just deal as far as the non-Whites are concerned. Sir, it is no good hon. members opposite suggesting that we on this side are attempting to put on a facade of verkramptheid. What is being exposed to the public of South Africa, as far as this National Government is concerned, is its ineffectiveness, its inability to carry out any aspect of the policy which it has been attempting to sell to the electorate over the last few decades. That is what is happening. Now that the economic and other aspects are coming to the fore this Government is having to face the music—and the music is not very sweet in their ears in certain constituencies—then there comes this attempt to beat the old drum which was used so many decades ago. The position is that this Government has failed lamentably in its attempt to solve this aspect of South African life to ensure that all our people can enjoy the amenities of South Africa without conflict or collision of interest. They have failed to do it. To the extent that the National Government is now surrendering those powers to the provinces and the local authorities, we on this side of the House welcome the Bill.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister of the Interior entered the debate with facts I am not aware of.

His facts were wrong.

I found it an encouraging thought that the Opposition supports this legislation. But as far as I am concerned this is a matter of honesty, because I believe that one must be honest, whether one is in politics or business. The Opposition’s object is to destroy the hon. the Minister of the Interior. He comes along here with honest questions and says: “As recently as three months ago your province was opposed to this measure …

Not opposed to this measure.

Very well then, in 1965 the province was opposed to it. The word “apartheid” was a swear-word. What is the present-day standpoint of the hon. members on the other side? The hon. the Minister told the Opposition:“Give me an answer in connection with the dispute in the Natal Provincial Council. On the one hand we have the idea of the United Party leader of the Province, the hon. member for South Coast, and on the other hand the idea of his own provincial council and of his leader; let us bring those two conflicting points together.” The hon. member for Bezuidenhout stands up and speaks of “petty apartheid”. The Opposition will not tell me now what their standpoint is in respect of the Nico Malan Theatre.

Oh!

I do not know what it is; I cannot find out. That is why I say that we must conduct politics honestly and that they must tell me:“Look, that is our policy.” Whether it is a matter of beaches or the Nico Malan Theatre, I am now asking them not to blow hot and cold. That is what I so dearly wanted to hear in connection with what the hon. the Minister of the Interior said here this afternoon.

It was stated clearly.

Hon. members persist in saying that they stated the matter clearly, but they know that in the Cape Provincial Council there are persons who have a totally different idea to theirs about apartheid. Along the way we hear that the National Party has accepted the United Party’s policy. What has the Government not had to go through the past 24 years in connection with apartheid legislation that has been opposed tooth and nail by the Opposition? What is the Opposition’s present-day standpoint as far as these aspects are concerned? There is one thing I do not do. The hon. member for South Coast need not be concerned; it is not in my nature to mention, across the floor of the House, private correspondence or discussions with members of the Opposition in the Lobby or in my office. That is not in my nature. People must feel free to make contact with each other as far as problems are concerned. Do not feel uneasy. The hon. member for South Coast is definitely sitting on pins and needles now.

Read it.

I am not going to do so, because then in future there will no longer be that confidence. The hon. member quoted from a discussion between himself and Minister Uys.

It is innocent.

It is not in my nature. The hon. member for South Coast says : “They are passing the buck; all the departments are passing the buck” and that is takes an eternity before he obtains a reply or a decision. But with what kind of thing does he come along? He comes along with matters about which a decision or a reply cannot simply be given overnight. There are many of his requests that definitely have to be considered very carefully. The hon. member knows exactly what our policy is. Everyone in South Africa and in the world knows what our policy in respect of apartheid is. However, no-one can honestly tell me what their policy is as far as apartheid is concerned. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is constantly speaking about “petty apartheid”. He replied and said that the biggest example of petty apartheid is the Immorality Act. I tell you honestly that I cannot tell a voter that this is my policy and that that is the Opposition’s policy. That policy of theirs changes from Brakpan to Oudtshoorn like day into night. That is definitely so.

Do you deny what I said?

Now the hon. member for South Coast says ironically—and the hon. member for Green Point also referred to that—that an attack is being launched here by Natalians on the member for South Coast. Not one Natalian has yet supported him; but the member for Houghton and the member for Green Point have done so. It seems to me he is a voice crying in the wilderness. He says we want to transfer the responsibility to the local authority. Of course. We must delegate it. To implement the powers of beach apartheid this must be delegated to the various municipalities after a provincial proclamation. How else must we do so? Must we do so from the offices of the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land tenure? They are throwing up a smokescreen which will not benefit them at all.

What about the proclamation?

Now the hon. member for South Coast must not try to play me off against the Minister; he will have no chance of belling that cat. If there are two people who work wonderfully together, it is my Minister and I. Every time that hon. member wants to drive a wedge between us.

You killed the cat …

The hon. member for Houghton speaks for her “customers”. I agree she has no choice. I am not going to answer her about whether the facilities are sufficient or not. She does not mention that in Sea Point there is a beach for Coloureds.

I did say that.

Then I did not hear the hon. member. I understand that beach is hardly ever used. It is not an unpleasant beach at all. Why are those so far away embroidered on? There is one thing the hon. member said, however, that encourages me to think that my policy is nevertheless still a correct one. She said : “Since I was a child there was voluntary apartheid on the Muizenberg beach”.

And I said there were never any notices.

There were no notices, but we had voluntary apartheid. Those were your words. Your words were that there were Blacks, but that they used another part of the beach. In other words, the hon. member is completely happy with apartheid. But what happens when it is not voluntary and those people insist on swimming amongst the Whites? What will the hon. member then do?

Nobody objected to that either.

It was a revelation to me that the hon. member swam at Muizenberg from her childhood days and that there was voluntary apartheid. The Blacks swam to one side. However, the day will come when those Blacks will say that there must be mixed swimming. What is the hon. member going to do then? Is she going to ask for a notice to be erected or is she still going to speak of voluntary apartheid? I now want to ask her whether she swam amongst the Blacks or with the Whites when she was a pretty little girl. The hon. member for Green Point said that for a long time we did nothing, but I know we shall get no answer from the United Party even though we talk till we are blue in the face. The Opposition realizes today that present-day South Africans want to swim separately and that South Africa does not want mixed audiences in the Nico Malan Theatre. Tomorrow or the day after the United Party will accept this. My standpoint is separate development and not oppression. I believe in every man to his own country and every monkey on his own crag; you, White man, in your country and you, Black man, in your country, and that is the end of it.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, we have now come to the closing stages of the discussion on a Bill which amends the provisions of the Dairy Industry Act and applies the whole of the Act to South-West Africa and particularly applies to South-West Africa all the provisions regarding the manufacture and sale of margarine. In regard to this matter, there are certain questions which I would like to put to the hon. the Deputy Minister and certain other remarks I would like to address to him. These are in connection with the control of the sale of margarine and the control of the dairy industry in the face of the competition which is now going to be put to the dairy industry in South-West Africa by the advent of margarine and, in particular, the advent of yellow margarine. The series of questions I have been asked to put to the hon. the Deputy Minister in all sincerity, and I am sure that he will reply to them in his usual courteous manner, is, firstly, in regard to the issue of licences. Will he issue licences to manufacturers in South-West Africa to manufacture yellow margarine? Is it his intention at this stage to issue only to one manufacturer, or will more than one such licence be granted? Will manufacturers in the Republic be allowed to export yellow margarine to South-West Africa? Will he issue an additional quota for South-West Africa or will a portion of the Republic’s quota of 18 000 metric tons be rerouted to South-West Africa? Who will be in charge of the distribution of yellow margarine in South-West Africa? Will it be the board and will they appoint agents as they do for the distribution of butter? Having put those questions to the hon. the Deputy Minister I am sure I will get answers from him in time.

I want to put it to him that he has now created in South-West Africa a situation where the Dairy Board, particularly in regard to the sale of butter, is for the first time going to be faced with competition from some other product. I wonder how prepared that Dairy Board is for this particular competition which it is going to face. It is going to be faced with the sort of competition which the Dairy Board in this country has faced, namely high finance using high pressure salesmanship aimed at the housewife in particular with one object only, namely the sale of yellow margarine. Unfortunately, we have found that these manufacturers are prepared to go to almost any end and to use almost any means to sell their product. I sincerely hope that the Dairy Board in South-West Africa is going to be ready and prepared to counter this sort of attack which is now going to be launched upon their product. I refer particularly to an advert which has appeared in almost every daily newspaper and Sunday newspaper throughout the Republic. It shows a picture of a gentleman, obviously a little overweight, about to place something in his mouth. It reads:

I would like to have the attention of the hon. the Minister of Health for a moment, if I may, because it does concern him too. When the announcement of the introduction of yellow margarine was first made in this country, it was made by the hon. the Minister of Health. The reason he gave for the introduction of yellow margarine into South Africa was this particular health hazard.

Did you read what I said?

I have read it. We have had this argument before.

You are lying.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, is the hon. the Minister entitled to say: “You are lying?”

I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker, but he must read what I said and not just put words into my mouth.

Sir, we have argued this point before with the hon. the Minister of Health. I will put it this way: The inference was drawn from his words …

Yes, but I did not say it.

That’s right. I will be fair.

What inference?

The inference was drawn from his words that there was a danger of heart disease if one consumed animal fat, including butter.

That is true.

An hon. member says, “That is true”.

What about it?

That is fine. I accept it; but these manufacturers have taken advantage of this sort of statement and the inference which was drawn from the speech of the hon. the Minister of Health, to produce this sort of advertisement. The obvious inference is that the yellow substance which this gentleman has in his hand and is about to place in his mouth, is butter. The inference to the housewives of South Africa is: “If you don’t want your old man to die of a heart attack, don’t give him butter—feed him rather on Floro, the pure yellow margarine.” I want to say here and now—I am sure the hon. the Minister of Health will agree with me—that this sort of advertisement is based on certain selected data which is deliberately extracted by the manufacturers for this sort of advertisement, while certain other data which is against their case, is being deliberately suppressed. I believe the Dairy Board in South-West Africa would almost be justified in producing a counter advertisement to this one.

They did.

I agree with the hon. the Minister. A counter advertisement was introduced reading: “You love them, give them butter”. I want to compliment the Dairy Board on it. I think it is a very good advert. But in the face of the fierce competition they are getting from the margarine manufacturers, I believe the Dairy Board should go further. I am almost inclined to say to the hon. the Minister that he should ask the Dairy Board to use the same irresponsible tactics the margarine manufacturers are using, and that they should also investigate certain reports and experiments which have been conducted, primarily overseas. I refer to one in particular, conducted by Dr. Seymour Dayton, professor of medicine at the University of California, on which he reported recently. That was the result of an eight-year controlled clinical trial of a diet high in unsaturated fat in preventing complications of heart disease. In this experiment 846 people were studied, of whom half were on a conventional diet, that is a diet of butter, cooking being done in dripping and lard. Almost wholly animal fats were taken in. The other half were on a diet that was altered by the substitution of vegetable for animal fat. Margarine was used as a bread spread and cooking was done with sunflower and other vegetable oils. In this experiment the over-all death rate was almost equal—178 in the one group and 174 in the other group—but this interesting fact emerged: In the unsaturated fat group, that is to say, the group on margarine and vegetable fats, the incidence of death from cancer was almost double that in the animal fat group. Sir, there was another experiment. Two Californian researchers reported recently that there was a higher incidence of cancer in men on a diet of unsaturated or vegetable fats. Sir, I am no scientist; I am no medical man, and I am not prepared to say who is right, but what I am trying to show to the House this afternoon is that by the use of certain data, to the exclusion of other data, anything can be proved. I believe that this is what the margarine manufacturers are doing today, to the detriment of the dairy industry. Sir, I hope that the hon. the Deputy Minister is going to take the power, or if he has not got the power, that he will use his influence with the Cabinet Minister concerned to see that this sort of advertisement does not continue to appear in our newspapers. It is grossly misleading to the public of South Africa. I hate to think what reaction there would be if the dairy industry were to put out an advertisement similar to this, reading: “Don’t feed your old man on margarine; he will die of cancer.” Because that is the implication of these experiments.

In conclusion, on this particular point, I think I must say to the House that another factor in favour of what I have just been saying is the fact that New Zealand has the highest per capita intake of butter in the world, yet it has the lowest incidence of heart disease. The United States of America, on the other hand, has the lowest per capita intake of butter, yet it has the highest incidence of heart disease. In the face of these facts, Sir, can we continue to allow this sort of advertisement to the detriment of the dairy industry?

As I have said, the dairy industry in South-West Africa is now facing a challenge from yellow margarine, and I want to say to the hon. the Deputy Minister that he must give that Dairy Board all the powers which it requires to fight this challenge. I believe that the Dairy Board can sell its products. It has a natural product to sell which I believe is the finest product because it is a natural product, but I believe that up to now the Dairy Board has not had to sell its products. Sir, in the trade we have two terms; we talk about “marketing” and “merchandising”. I do not believe that the Dairy Board has done either, because it has not had to do so. It has had a product on which it has had a monopoly. All it has done has been to place that product before the housewives and say to them: “There you are; you must buy it because it is the only one you can buy.” Now, however, it is facing competition, and I want to put it to the hon. the Deputy Minister that he must do with the dairy industry what was done with the citrus industry in this country. The citrus industry took a marketing man, a man who did not know one kind of orange from another kind of lemon, and put him in charge of the marketing of citrus. In doing so, it placed the citrus industry on the well-balanced footing that it is today. The citrus industry has introduced the “citrus seal”, and I want to suggest that the hon. the Deputy Minister should consider introducing a “dairy seal”. Let us have a seal for pure products.

Why not a “butter seal”?

It is the same thing; I accept that suggestion from the hon. the Minister. I am sure that the hon. the Deputy Minister is aware that most of the so-called ice-cream which is sold today has not got an ounce of dairy products in it; it has no milk in it, let alone any cream. In order to protect this industry and to give it a chance to sell its products, I wonder if the hon. the Deputy Minister is not prepared to take out a trade mark on the word “cream” to ensure that the word “cream” will only be used in products in which dairy products are used.

What about face cream?

No, obviously not face cream, but since the use of the word “ice-cream” implies that it contains cream, a natural product from a cow, the manufacturer should not be allowed to use the word “ice-cream” where it contains no cream at all. I am dealing with food-stuffs now. The Deputy Minister knows what I am talking about. I must say in fairness that some ice-cream manufacturers do at least go so far as to say, “this is a sherbet,” which clearly indicates that there is no dairy product contained in it at all.

Sir, we have to go further. We have to market our products, and the one in which we are mainly interested at the moment is butter. Butter at the moment in South Africa is produced in two sizes only, 250 grams and 500 grams as far as the housewife is concerned. It is packed in a plain wrapper of vegetable parchment. There is nothing inspiring about it at all. If we want to merchandise that product, let us think of some other means of wrapping; let us make it more attractive to the housewife. Let us put some sort of picture on it; let us put market research people on the job. I do not presume to know all the answers.

What about the Minister’s face?

I think we should use a marketing expert in the Dairy Board to sell this product. Let us conduct market research; let us ask the housewives what sizes of packs they want. Let us ask them whether they are satisfied with only a 250 gram pack and a 500 gram pack.

It has been done.

The hon. the Minister says it has been done. I wonder if a 100 gram pack would not be more attractive to more housewives, and certainly more attractive to more non-Whites. I must give the hon. the Minister credit for introducing such a scheme a little while ago; he introduced a 10 cent pack of butter. It was a brilliant scheme, and I complimented him on it, but what happened to it? It has never been used; it has never been sold; they have never packed butter in these 10 cent packs and given them to us, the retailers, to sell, especially those of us who are in the Bantu areas for whom it was specifically designed. Every day in my supermarket some Bantu customer asks me whether I will not cut a ½ lb. of butter in half because she has not got the refrigeration to keep 250 grams of butter. This is the point that I am making to the hon. the Minister. I complimented the hon. the Minister of Transport the other day on the fact that today in an aircraft you get a 10 gram pack of butter. At least those who cannot tell the difference between butter and margarine are sure now that they get butter when they fly with the South African Airways. I am sure that the hon. the Deputy Minister knows that there are others who would also like access to this 10 gram pack of butter—hotels, restaurants, caterers in various spheres—but they cannot get it. Why not? The Dairy Board should be pushing these things. Every available outlet should be investigated by the Dairy Board to counter the competition which is facing it in this country. Sir, these are some ideas that I want to put forward for the hon. the Minister’s consideration. I want to appeal to him to put them to the Dairy Board and to see that they are carried out. We have a good product; let us sell it.

But there is another aspect, too. As I say, butter is packed in vegetable parchment. The shelf life of butter in vegetable parchment is very limited. Experiments overseas have proved that if it is packed in tin foil the shelf life of butter is extended considerably. This is another aspect which I believe should be considered. Moreover, if butter is packed in tin foil, it can be made more attractive to the housewife; it will look better. When the housewife goes to the deep-freeze in the supermarket and she is faced with white margarine, yellow margarine and butter, Holsum and all the other cooking fats, the first thing that should hit her eye is the butter in that deep freeze; that is the product that she is then going to buy.

Now, that deals with butter, but there is another aspect of this dairy industry. Because of the competition that the dairy industry is now facing from yellow margarine, I believe, and I am sure the hon. the Deputy Minister will agree with me, that the consumption of butter in this country will drop from 120 million lbs last year to 80 million lbs. The quota for yellow margarine which has been granted is approximately 40 million lbs. and I do not believe that there will be more than 80 million lbs of butter consumed. I sincerely hope there will be more, but my estimate at this stage is that that is all the butter we will consume. We have, however, to continue to produce milk, because if we do not, what are the people of South Africa going to do for this natural health food? Sir, we have to stimulate the dairy industry from rock-bottom, on the milk side, and this means that we have to sell more milk—not only more butter but we have to sell more fresh milk. I do not know whether the hon. the Deputy Minister is aware that three years ago here in Cape Town when the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration started his reduction of Bantu labour scheme, a consortium was formed of three main milk distributors who are distributing all the fresh milk in Cape Town, through three outlets. At about the same time the plastic pack was introduced for the first time. Certain businessmen negotiated and purchased milk in plastic packs and put this out through supermarkets and I am given the assurance—I cannot vouch for it, but I am given the assurance by the people concerned—that it was never used as a loss leader. In other words, milk was never sold at a loss. Statistics will prove, and I am sure that if the Deputy Minister goes to check on this he will find that this so, that in the first month the daily average consumption of fresh milk here in Cape Town, in the Western Province, went up by over 3 000 gallons a day, and over a period of two months the increase was slightly more than 6 000 gallons of fresh milk a day. This was the increased consumption, when it was sold through the supermarkets. But through this consortium the supermarkets had their supply closed off. Eventually they were able to negotiate with the consortium again that they could supply milk and today you can buy fresh milk in the supermarkets, but it is controlled and the consortium is compelling the supermarkets to maintain the retail price. RPM, retail price maintenance, is being applied in regard to fresh milk in the Western Cape. I sincerely hope this will not be allowed to happen in South-West Africa in the face of this competition from yellow margarine, because what did this mean to the fresh milk producer? It meant the sale of an additional 6 000 gallons of fresh milk per day at a higher price. It meant that there were 6 000 gallons per day less to be separated to produce this butter of which we are going to have this big surplus in the face of this competition from yellow margarine. This is another aspect that I think the Deputy Minister must look into. Allow the supermarkets to sell milk. Sir, does it matter to the Dairy Board if the supermarkets want to sell it at a loss, if necessary? They are selling their products, and what happens after that is of no concern to the Board. But I believe that the supermarkets should be given the opportunity and we will find once again that the consumption of fresh milk will increase and we will be part-way towards solving the problem of over-production of butter. But above all we will have more of this health-giving product sold, because the supermarkets are merchandisers; they are marketers. They only have to put an advertisement at the door of the supermarket to tell the housewife that the price of milk will be reduced by 2 cents a litre today and that milk will simply walk out of the supermarket.

Sir, we have taken a big step forward. I believe that the war between margarine and butter is over. I believe that the dairy industry must face up to the competition which they will now have to face for the first time, but I am sure that with the cooperation of the people who have the interests of this industry at heart, the whole dairy industry of South Africa can be put back on a sound basis.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has asked me quite a few questions. I want to mention, firstly, that in South-West Africa margarine will be manufactured under licence. On the question of whether there will be one or two licences, I can only say that it is not a closed business. If there is a greater demand and people want to enter the market, licences will be considered. So if there are two or three who have licences and the demand for it exists, more will be added. As regards its exportation, the question was whether this takes place from South Africa to South-West Africa, or from South-West Africa to South Africa. These arrangements will be made by the Dairy Board. If a local factory has been established there, one would not want it to be ruined as a result of imports from the Republic. The main question asked by the hon. member was whether there would be additional quotas for South-West Africa. It is logical that there must be additional quotas for South-West Africa. If you grant quotas there and you grant quotas here you cannot allow the one to intrude on the other’s market. It is a waste of money and it involves additional transport costs. If the Dairy Board of South-West Africa comes with the request—it is possible that they may come with the request—that they want to import margarine because their factory has not yet started to produce, we can provide for that additional portion which goes to South-West Africa. I want to tell the hon. member that we would welcome it if the margarine manufacturers should want to export to other parts of the world. It is in fact the intention to work in that direction. It would help the oil-seed and groundnut farmers. Now the hon. member asks whether we are going to appoint agents.

This will be done by means of an agent who will be appointed by the Dairy Board of South-West Africa in consequence of proposals which are made to it.

Will they do it themselves?

I doubt whether the Dairy Board will do the distribution themselves, but it may be that they will find that it is more efficient if they do it themselves. I doubt whether this will be the case, however. South-West Africa used to be a country which exported butter, and today South-West Africa has to import from the Republic, because its production of butter has dropped sharply. The hon. member spoke of cholesterol and the advertisement which relates to it. I do not like that Stork advertisement at all, and therefore I have to agree with him. The Dairy Board will look into these matters. That advertisement insinuates that butter is fattening, or that it has some other adverse effect on people. The one point which the hon. member must remember is that the manufacturers of yellow margarine or white margarine in the Republic are also very active in the concentrated feed industry. They told us that they honestly do not want the dairy industry to be adversely affected, because they are also the people who have to sell oil cake and concentrated feed to the dairy farmers. Therefore I feel that if we were to talk to them and tell them to put an end to this sort of advertisement it would help. We also have regulations which must be complied with. I do not believe it is right to tell the dairy industry that they should advertise butter in the same negative way, because a negative thing never works. If we ask for their co-operation, I think we will achieve much more. The hon. member talks about tin foil. That is quite right; but it adds an additional cost to the price of butter. When we see even the 10 gram butter packs on the aircraft I wonder whether we should not make butter available to cafes and so on in the same form. The hon. member referred to the 10 cent pack of butter and asked why it had been abandoned. I want to tell the hon. member honestly why it was abandoned. It was abandoned because the shopkeeper did not want it.

Is that so?

Yes, that hon. member may be an honest shopkeeper. Some of the shopkeepers said that they did not buy the 10 cent packs because they could cut up a pound of butter into four pieces, into quarter pounds. Many shopkeepers cut it up into five pieces.

They are not allowed to.

He used to cut it up into five pieces and now he cannot do so any more, because he gets it already cut up into a quarter pound. Now he simply says that he is not interested. The Dairy Board found that the 10 cent packs were not as attractive and popular as they had thought they would be. All these matters are being investigated again, however. I want to repeat that I do not disagree with the hon. member. The hon. member is seeking a market for butter and that is why I say that I respect his opinion, namely that we must sell more butter in this country. The hon. member referred to the citrus seal. It is a very good idea that something similar should be found for dairy products. There are people selling ice-cream today who do the same as some people who sell orange juice. They sell their product under the name of “orange juice” and then “imitation” appears in small print on the top. It is so small that you can hardly see it, and if you look you will find sweet blow all of an orange in the bottle. Then we imposed the condition that before it gets this seal it must contain a certain percentage of orange juice. We can investigate this direction in regard to ice-cream. For example, if a man wants to sell ice-cream or dairy products, he must stipulate what the contents of the dairy product in that package is. Then the hon. member says we should sell more milk. The hon. member is also aware of the fact that we import cheese and condensed milk.

Is there a shortage?

We import cheese from abroad. We produce cheese ourselves, but with the increase in consumption there is a shortage. We cannot switch over the factories overnight. The Factory which received dairy milk and produced butter can only gradually be switched over. The farmers must be educated. Where they used to send cream they must be asked to consider sending industrial milk instead for the manufacture of cheese. This is one of the solutions by means of which the farmer can be helped. The hon. member says that chain stores must be allowed to cut the price of milk and sell it for less. That is something with which we must be very careful. When we give a certain group, the chain stores, for example, the right to undercut the existing supplier of milk and dairy products—the traditional shops which delivered those products to the houses—that small shopkeeper cannot make a living any more. After all, the chain stores have a loss leader, so that, when they charge you two cents less for a pint of milk, they recover it on a tin of shoe polish which they sell you. Somewhere they catch you. Perhaps the cashiers even ring up the till incorrectly—hon. members know how they operate those cash registers. We cannot allow chain stores to take over the market eventually. As soon as they have the monopoly they will do as they please. I am not saying that I disagree with the hon. member. The Dairy Board has often gone into these problems. We will look at his suggestions and proposals again, because I believe that the hon. member’s proposals are positive and are meant to help the dairy industry.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Order! In terms of a resolution of the House the Committee has been empowered to revert to Clause One. Before putting the Clause again, I must inform the Committee that I have given further consideration to the admissibility of the amendment which, on the motion of the hon. member for False Bay, was agreed to by the Committee on 7th March.

It appears that the amendment enables the Minister of Agriculture to declare land, which under paragraph (a) of the definition of “agricultural land” was excluded by the Bill as read a Second Time, to be agricultural land for the purposes of the Subdivision of Agricultural Land Act, 1970. Although the amendment is relevant to the contents of the Bill, it is tantamount to an extension of the scope of the Bill, which can only be effected by means of an instruction of the House. I have concluded, therefore, that the amendment should be deleted from the Bill. Mr. Speaker, to whom I submitted the matter, has agreed with me.

As the required instruction has now been obtained, the amendment in question is in order and may therefore be moved.

Clause 1 :

The hon. member for False Bay, who originally moved the amendment, cannot be present, and in his absence I move the amendment, as follows—

Mr. Chairman, it would be unnecessary to repeat the entire debate we had in connection with the hon. member for False Bay’s amendment. However, I nevertheless think it is necessary for me to just sketch briefly why we on this side object to the hon. member for False Bay’s amendment which has now been moved on his behalf by the hon. member for Potchefstroom. We feel that in terms of the Subdivision of Agricultural Land Act the Minister already has sufficient powers to deal with the subdivision of agricultural land. It is also our view that it is unnecessary for agricultural land in an urban area to now also require the Minister’s approval before it can be subdivided— and that is actually what this amendment amounts to. We see in this amendment not only a step to restrict the Interests a farmer might have in such land. The amendment will also result in the restriction of local authorities who would like to carry out urban development. Unfortunately some of this agricultural land will fall in urban areas. Also, unfortunately, some of those towns must develop from time to time. Why is it not enough to leave the planning of new areas to the local autority? The relevant local authority can, in its turn, leave the matter to the townships commission existing in each province. I think it is unnecessary for the hon. the Minister to restrict such a local authority in that respect. But in my opinion there is something else of greater importance. When a farmer has land in a town he is pre-eminently placed in a position to realize his capital in the course of time. Why must the hon. the Minister now restrict such a man when there is, in the course of time, a chance for him to effect a considerable realization of capital? This does not mean that such a man will be driven out of the farming industry. If such a person is still young it will be found, in nine cases out of ten, that he purchases agricultural land somewhere else. What is more, he could possibly be in a much better position as far as his working capital and solvency is concerned. He could become a much better farmer at another spot than he was in that particular town. As far as my knowledge goes there are of these agricultural small-holdings or this agricultural land within our smaller towns in the Cape. In the case of farmers who had a chance to subdivide their land, it would quite simply mean that in the course of time there would be a reduction in the value of their land if the Minister adopted these powers. The Minister can prevent that land from being used for urban, industrial or any other development except agricultural development. He can therefore restrict such a development. In 1970, when the hon. the Minister came along with this legislation, he gave us the repeated assurance that he did not want to interfere with local authorities and that he did not want more powers than were necessary. However, now the hon. the Minister comes along at the eleventh hour and he wants to adopt even further powers to restrict the futures of that small number of farmers by way of this amendment which he is now prepared to accept. I want to ask the Minister and the House to reconsider this matter once again; let us grant the farmer living near the town or on a small-holding a little more freedom than the hon. the Minister is now prepared to do. It could happen that the land of a person living near to the periphery of a town is declared an industrial area. I am now thinking of a specific town I know very well, where such land is agricultural land today and where that relevant municipality declared it an industrial area. This municipality had the approval of the provincial authority for that step. If the Minister had already had this power before the municipality made this decision it means that those people, who could make a considerable profit by selling industrial stands, could have been restricted by the Minister. Frequently such farmers are not big or prosperous farmers. They frequently farm on small pieces of land. When they can use it for purposes other than agriculture, this hon. Minister can say “no”. He can say that that person cannot obtain R2 000 or R3 000 for an acre or a morgen, that he must use the land for agricultural purposes and that urban development or industrial development must take place in another direction. I think the hon. Deputy Minister is being unfair and unjust to these people. I can see no other reasons why he wants this power. Surely the hon. member for False Bay insisted that the reason must be to prevent urban development or perhaps industrial development from taking place. The hon. gentleman ought to have some sympathy for thousands of farmers who are in financial difficulties. There may perhaps be many of them, and now the hon. the Minister wants to restrict them further and not give them a chance of perhaps having a better bank account or making a better investment at another spot. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister ought to reconsider this amendment, because it is not in the interests of agriculture and neither is it in the interests of the farmer. I honestly believe this. That is why we are opposed to the hon. the Minister’s amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member says that this amendment will result in the value of a person’s land being diminished. But we have re-hashed this matter time and again. If the Steering Committee provided that a township can be established at a certain spot, on agricultural land within the town, next to the town, or some distance away from the town, what farmer does the hon. member then want to protect? We have had examples of this in the Western Cape. It has been said, for example, that farmer A’s land should be retained as agricultural land, but that urban development should take place on farmer B’s land. Farmer B now has the chance to obtain R2 000 per acre or morgen. I can see no other way out. We must have land to build houses on. We cannot come along with a Bill and say that no more houses may be built. Now there is a specific piece of land within the urban area which is an economic …

May I ask a question? Why do you want the right to make the choice between those two farmers?

In practice it has happened that some of the municipalities in the old established regions have asked us to retain a specific piece of land for agriculture. But, Sir, we are not taking any person’s right away from him. It is coincidental that one person has a piece of land adjacent to the town and another has a piece of land 50 miles distant. I do not think we need to argue the matter further; we have repeatedly re-hashed the affair.

Amendment put and the Committee divided :

Tellers : W. A. Cruywagen, G. P. van den Berg, H. J. van Wyk and W. L. D. M. Venter.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and J. O. N. Thompson.

Amendment accordingly agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to (Official Opposition dissenting.)