On page 404 of the Afrikaans minutes an amendment appears which I would like to move. I think it will be as well to read out the amendment so that the House can understand it. It reads as follows—

1. (c) that all the supplementary lists of voters framed after the biennial registration of voters in 1941, shall be incorporated in and combined with the supplementary list of voters to be framed as soon as possible after the last day of May, 1943; and all the provisions of the Principal Act relating to the correction and revision of supplementary lists of voters shall mutatis mutandis apply in respect of such a combined supplementary list of voters.

The reason for this amendment ought to be clear. As I stated in the course of the debate on the second reading, this bill deprives the voters of South Africa of a right. The Minister proposes eliminating the biennial registration, not to let it take place. If the biennial registration had taken place, we could have objected to all the names on the voters’ roll. The whole corps of voters would have been reviewed on the occasion of the biennial registration. Now it does not happen. Now we must fall back on the biennial registration of 1941, and the voters’ roll is therefore obsolete. After that we had four interim registrations, and this one to which the bill relates would have been the fifth. Now we ask, as we are being deprived of the right to revise the voters’ roll at a biennial registration, that we be allowed to raise objections, those objections allowed by the law, in regard to the fifth and in regard to preceding interim registrations. I want to make an appeal to the Minister thus to accept this amendment. He has to admit that he is taking away an enormous right by the deletion of the biennial registration. The objection may perhaps be raised that time will elapse as a result. That argument cannot apply. Supposing that double or a few times as many objections as usual are brought before the court of revision, it will mean that the court of revision instead of sitting for one day, will perhaps have to sit for three or four days. It cannot cause a great delay. This interim registration of May can come into operation before the middle of July. A few days will not make a difference, if as is generally accented, the General Election will take place towards the middle of August. If the Minister accepts the amendment, he partially restores a right which he takes away with this bill, and I hope that the Minister will accept this amendment to restore a part of that right.

I should like to strongly support the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) with this amendment he has moved. The attitude of the Afrikaner nation as a whole is that we do not want to over-load our voters’ rolls with unqualified voters. Now the Minister can come and say that there were four interim registrations, and why did we not on those occasions object to names on the roll. But I want to bring to the notice of the Minister that it is a right which has always been given to us in the past, and we knew that every two years we had the right to object to all the names on the voters’ roll, we are of opinion that there is reason to do it. The whole voters’ roll came under revision. All parties knew that the General Election would not come before a general registration had been held again, and as a result they did not pay attention to the voters’ rolls at the interim registrations to find out who were really qualified to be on the list and who not. Considerable costs are also involved in the procedure of objecting against persons who are on the roll, and therefore, because there would be a later opportunity to object against unqualified persons, the necessary attention was not given to the matter at the interim registration. I can give the Minister the assurance that in the past things have happened at the registration which must make the Minister think twice before taking away from the public this means of objecting against persons who are registered. I do not have all the facts here with me this morning, but I know for instance that in one town 120 people were placed on the roll against whom objections were lodged, and it was found that no fewer than 117 out of the 120 were unqualified. If we have such things it proves to everyone what is going on, and I hope the Minister will realise that the law of the land is there, and that we must see to it that those people who are unqualified do not come on to the voters’ roll contrary to the law. It is the right which we have already had for all these years, and we are now busy creating a position with this law that quite a number of voters are going to remain on the roll although they are unqualified and should not be there. I want to remind the Minister that it is perhaps not going to be in his own interest. It will, perhaps, be in his interest to clear the voters’ roll of unqualified voters. I can give the Minister the assurance that, particularly in this part of the country, we have an eye to the large number of coloureds who are on the roll and who do not possess the qualification to be on the roll. The Minister can no longer take the view that he can depend 100 per cent. on their votes. A large number of Communist candidates will come forward, and it will be in the interest of the Minister’s own party to see that the lists are purged, and that only persons are on the roll who really have the qualification to be on the roll. I want particularly to make an appeal to Cape members. We heard here yesterday that in Natal they have not got this difficulty. Although the coloureds can get on the roll there, they have so manipulated it that it never happens. The Free State and Transvaal also have not this difficulty, but we here in the Cape have an enormous difficulty, because a large number of coloured voters get on the roll here. If those persons can become registered in accordance with the law of the country, we shall offer no objection if they really are qualified to come on to the roll. But what we feel is, that in the present circumstances, large numbers actually get on the roll although they ought not to become registered. There are constituencies in which 5,000 coloured people are registered, and it is extremely difficult for the party organisers or for the persons appointed to purge the rolls, to trace those people and to find out who is who. This means time, difficulties and money. This is perhaps the reason why the matter was not so sharply gone into at the last bye-election. I want to make an appeal to the Minister in the interest of the country to accept this amendment, so that the right we had in the past is not altogether taken away from us, and so that we can go through the whole voters’ roll to determine who is qualified to be on the roll and who not. It can only be to the advantage of the whole country. We all know that if a large number of unqualified persons are on a voters’ roll they can be the decisive factor at an election. We know how often it has happened in the past that a candidate was returned by a majority of one vote. If they were qualified voters who voted for him, it makes no difference. But when such a candidate is elected by persons who ought not to have the franchise then it matters greatly. I hope that the Minister will give us the assurance that he will accept the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg.

This amendment cannot be accepted. The position under the existing law is that the Voters’ list is revised at the Supplementary Revision Court and a list of all objections is lodged with the Officer in Charge of the Revision Court. In regard to the new supplementary period provided for by Clause 2, the supplementary period of registration will end on the 31st May, 1943, and the period begins on the 1st February, 1943. The period which will then come under review at the Revision Court will be the period from 1st February 1943 to 31st May, 1943. The 1941 list was the biennial list and the four supplementary lists have, as hon. members know, already been revised.

One by one.

Yes, one by one. As each supplementary list has been published a Revision Court has sat and dealt with objections to that particular list. In other words, the position insofar as these supplementary lists are concerned is that it is a case of “res judicata”—the matter has been settled. One cannot reopen the matter. Potential objectors have had their rights. They cannot now come along and ask for the matter to be reopened.

Circumstances may have altered. These people may not have the qualifications now.

In some cases it would necessarily mean that persons would have to be removed from the list under most inequitable conditions. To submit these lists to a Court of Revision would in some cases mean the disenfranchisement of many persons who since the date of registration have taken up residence in another constituency.

If you had the biennial registration one could object.

Then persons who have moved in the interim would be called upon to register in the new constituency where they now are.

The law obliges them to do it biennially.

At a biennial but not a supplementary registration. The circumstances are different. Admittedly the postponement of the biennial registration is an event which is only justified by extraordinary circumstances. We have extraordinary circumstances in the country at present. Necessarily flowing from that postponement, certain inconveniences result, but we must expect these. It is part and parcel of the necessity for postponement, but the mere fact that certain difficulties do arrive will not, in my opinion, justify our legislating today in such a manner as virtually to disenfranchise many thousands of persons. Many thousands of persons have moved from the constituencies in which they were resident. They have not re-registered in the new constituencies in which they are. Now to provide that these past supplementary lists are to be subject to revision would mean that they would be excluded from the roll. Hon. members know that in terms of the law an applicant must have resided in a constituency three months prior to registration.

That is for supplementary, not for biennial.

That is so, but, in the case of persons who have moved, they would not be able to satisfy that qualification. There is no provision in the Electoral Act which insists on residence in a division on polling day before anyone can be allowed to vote. The only question is whether a person is registered in the division in which his vote is counted. To tamper with that at this stage would be inequitable.

I regret that the hon. Minister cannot accept the amendment. With the view to the abnormal circumstances in which we live, we can understand the proposal to postpone the biennial registration. But we must do all we can to keep the rolls pure, so that voters cannot vote in a constituency where they are not resident or are not qualified. For this reason the amendment has been moved. The intention is that only people who are qualified to vote in a fixed constituency, will be able to be on the roll. Otherwise you find afterwards by the elimination of the biennial registration a group of voters who are not qualified to vote in the constituency where they are voting. I therefore deplore the fact that the Minister cannot accept the amendment. There can be thousands of people who have lost their qualifications in the meantime, and who will still vote at coming elections, without being qualified to vote. I still believe that the Minister does not want persons to remain on the voters’ roll who do not possess the qualifications enabling them to vote. Why then does he not accept the amendment? Then only persons who are qualified will come on the roll, or will it be possible to punish persons who have lost their qualifications to vote.

I would like to bring to the notice of the Minister not theoretical arguments, but what happens in practice. This will be a better guide to the Minister than theoretical arguments. During the last interim registration, for instance, 500 coloured people were placed on the voters’ roll in my constituency and in the period between publication of the names and the date on which objections had to be lodged, the 500 names were scrutinised to see if they were really qualified. We then found that a large number were not qualified, but apart from that we also had a practical example in the Hottentots-Holland by-election in regard to coloured soldiers. Applications were received from people who cannot sign their names, viz. coloured people. They apply to vote by post and then they place a cross after their name on the application form. But a coloured man must be able to write his name to be on the voters’ roll. Objection was lodged but the Magistrate said that once a person was on the voters’ roll it made no difference whether he could write his name or not. Then he is entitled to vote. Therefore we plead for the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg, (Mr. Erasmus) to be able at interim registrations to object against persons who ought not to be on the voters’ roll. The law provides that the Magistrate may fine you if you lodge a childish objection, but I have now mentioned practical examples of what happens.

I think I already have 30 years’ experience of the compilation of the rolls, and I want to ask the Minister whether he realises what he is busy doing. Personally, I am in favour of it that every man shall be registered to be able to vote as long as he is qualified to vote. But I just want to mention one case at Robertson. In one instance, 300 names were deleted against which objections had been lodged at the compilation of the new roll. In the remainder of the Union where you need only be a major to be able to vote as a European, you have not got so much difficulty, but here in the Cape where a portion of the corps of voters must have certain qualifications to be able to vote, it is a matter of great importance. The people have not always got the qualifications and if the right is therefore taken from us to object to those who are not entitled to come on the roll, the Minister is committing a serious injustice, a crime, because he allows people to remain on the rolls longer than they are entitled to be on them. I see no necessity for a change in the constitution. We are in the war alright, but we are not engaged in fighting here. The Minister cannot say that the biennial registration cannot be carried through.

The hon. member must confine himself to the clause and the amendment. The principle of the Bill has already been agreed to.

I see no reason for it. And should there be a reason for eliminating the biennial registration, the rights which expired with the biennial registration, must be restored as far as possible. The Minister, however, imagines that he is going to gain something with this measure. It is a clever way of gaining political advantage, nothing else. We have always had the right at the biennial registration to object to people who are on the roll and are not entitled to be there. Now the Minister intentionally wants to leave the people on the roll contrary to the law, and it is an injustice. People who are not entitled to vote ought not to be on the voters’ roll. There must be an opportunity to raise objections and to keep the rolls pure. As I have said, in one instance at Robertson, out of 390 applicants, we got 300 deleted, because the 300 were not entitled to vote. I am in favour of anyone who is entitled to vote, having the opportunity, but on the other hand the rolls ought to be purged of those who ought not to be there. The Minister does not regard the matter seriously. He is of opinion that it will be to his advantage. I wonder, however, what the country will say of it. It is a pity that the Minister goes so far as to do this for the sake of party-advantage.

Amendment put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—28:

Bekker, G.

Bremer, K.

Conradie, J. H.

Conroy, E. A.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fouché, J. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Le Roux, P. M. K.

Le Roux, S. P.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Loubser, S. M.

Olivier, P. J.

Schoeman, B. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, C. R.

Van der Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E,

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. J. Haywood and P. O. Sauer.

Noes—57:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Botha, H. N. W.

Bowen, R. W.

Carinus, J. G.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Gilson, L. D.

Hemming, G. K.

Henderson, R. H.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Marwick, J. S.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Raubenheimer, L. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A, E.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 3,

Here we now have a peculiar Clause which provides that should South Africa still be involved in the war in 1945, or even by that time is involved in another war, the Governor General can also suspend biennial registration of 1945. The Government is apparently very pessimistic now. We heard that the war would be over in 1943. The Minister of Finance spoke of 1942, the Prime Minister of 1944, now the Minister of the Interior comes and says that the war will not yet be over in 1945. In addition he is also so pessimistic as to expect that we will perhaps get involved in another war, perhaps against Russia. In view of the speedy victory that the Government first expected, I did not think that they would make provision for war conditions until 1947. That is the effect of the Clause, that we will still have a voters’ roll in 1947 which was compiled in 1941. According the will of the Government, it can be decided still to retain the obsolete rolls. People can have left a constituency years ago, but as long as they were registered in 1941, in Winburg for instance, they will still be able to vote at Winburg five of six years later, even if they left for Malmesbury in 1942. We cannot agree to that. The amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) on the previous Clause has now been rejected, and there is not the least opportunity to cleanse the lists. But the Minister must positively withdraw this article.

This is a somewhat unusual Clause.

You are telling us.

It was drafted for the purpose of taking precautions in regard to the future. It was felt that, by having this premissive Clause, if circumstances justified postponement in the future it would not be necessary to go back to Parliament to seek that sanction.

You are anticipating things.

The reference to other wars in which the Union may be engaged is not quite as unusual as the hon. member seems to imagine. The hon. member knows that since the 4th September, 1939, the Union has become involved with new enemies.

It has been nothing else but engaging itself in wars.

I agree that the list of potential belligerents is now growing rather thin, but I am inclined to believe that there is a good deal of force in my hon. friend’s argument that we should not be too pessimistic. And now that I see that the Opposition is in agreement with the Government that the war is hastening to a successful conclusion. I feel that no harm will be done by dropping the Clause, and I shall therefore agree to this Clause being dropped.

Although the Minister now abandons the clause, I would like to point out that as a result of the amendment of the Electoral Act, which has already been agreed to, in connection with soldiers’ votes, it is laid down that soldiers must be registered in the constituency where they resided at the time they joined the army. What happens now is that soldiers with their families, move to Pretoria and elsewhere. Thousands of soldiers from other parts of the country and also their wives are today in Pretoria and other places, and many of them are registered in Pretoria. What is the Minister going to do in regard to them?

The law lays down that they must be registered in their old constituency.

It does not help that the law lays it down. There are hundreds of soldiers’ wives who are now registered up there in Pretoria instead of at the place where they come from. The constituency is now being over-loaded, and by the removal of the biennial registration we cannot from the side of the Party object to names on the rolls.

I shall have an investigation made.

I would like to follow up what the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) has said. Soldiers and their wives who have moved to Pretoria or Bloemfontein, or wherever it may be, ought to be registered at the places where they joined up, but according to our information, a considerable number of these people have got on to the rolls at the places to which they move. There have been four or five interim registrations, and if they have got on to the rolls, we cannot object. We appeal to the Minister to take this matter seriously. Will the Minister give instructions that the persons who ought not to be there, be removed from the rolls.

The law must be carried out.

But, if in spite of the law, people have already got on to the rolls at the interim registrations, what solution is there? This morning we made a very reasonable proposal which would have given us the opportunity of objecting. The Minister has rejected it. What is he going to do now? Will he give instructions to the officials to remove the names which ought not to be there?

I will consult the officials.

Will the Minister perhaps clear up this point. Is it not a fact that when soldiers’ names are placed on the voters’ roll they are automatically registered on the roll of the constituency where they come from?

Yes, according to their address where they come from.

That is what the law says, but it is not carried out.

I am under the impression that when a soldier who comes from the Moorreesburg constituency he is automatically, on joining the army, registered for the Moorreesburg constituency. There are special forms for soldiers.

That point cannot be discussed under this clause.

It is the whole point about which we spoke.

I allowed a question to be put and a reply to be given, but this point cannot be discussed under this clause.

The position is quite clear. In terms of the 1940 Act applicants for registration have to give their home address. If a soldier fills in a registration form, he gives his full name, his rank and number, and he gives his home address, where he lived at the time he enlisted. Now in terms of the law he must then be registered in the constituency in which he was residing when he enlisted. That is the law. If, of course, applicants have not given the requisite information—it may be that certain applicants do not give the requisite information when registering as civilians, and at a subsequent stage they have enlisted in the forces—in some of these cases it may not be possible for the Electoral Officer to make the necessary adjustment.

But they are attached to the voters’ list of the place they came from.

But all the Electoral Officers have strict instructions to carry out the law. It is possible that cases such as those mentioned by the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. H. Strydom) and the hon. member for Mooreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) do occur. The same would apply, of course, to their wives and major children who may have moved from their homes, but I can assure the hon. members that the Electoral Officers have strict instructions on this point in order to ensure that the law is properly carried out and that there should be no loading of constituencies.

If they already appear on the list, will you be able to remove them?

I am afraid I cannot take the matter any further. I have given this explanation in view of the point put to me by the hon. member for Waterberg.

Clause 3 put and negatived.

On Clause 4,

As a result of the decision of the Committee to omit Clause 3, it is necessary to make a consequential amendment in Clause 4, and it is necessary to omit the following words in lines 30 and 31: “And to any supplementary list which may be framed in terms of Section 3.” I move—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 5,

I just want to put a question to the Minister. We will now find ourselves in the difficulty that many of the people who came on to the voters’ roll in 1941 have moved away to other places. Will the Minister now see to it that persons registered at the biennial registration are registered at the right place and that their names are automatically removed in the constituency which they have left.

It happens under the law.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 7,

I want to move the following amendment.

This proposal means that when a person applies for a voting paper to vote by post, he will not necessarily have to make use of the prescribed printed form. With the shortage of paper it can often happen that the magistrate has not got enough forms, and that new forms cannot be obtained in time. I want to propose that all the requirements of the law be observed, the signature, etc., but that a person can use any piece of paper, not necessarily the prescribed form.

I am prepared to accept the amendment. It will simplify the procedure.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 11,

Here again it is necessary to have a consequential amendment in view of the dropping of Clause 3. I move—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

The remaining Clauses and the Title having been agreed to.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported the Bill with amendments.

On Clause 5,

Amendments to be considered on 31st March.

Having regard to the course which the debate took yesterday, I think it is right that I should speak. With regard to the question put to me by the hon. member for Aliwal (Capt. G. H. F. Strydom) as to whether I would make a statement as to the principles of my Party with regard to the question of Indian penetration, I do not think that it is necessary for me to make a statement upon that subject because the principles of the Dominion Party have been printed and published, and have been public knowledge for years past, indeed from the time when the Dominion Party and the United Party came into being. It is the printed and public policy of the Dominion Party to offer opposition to further penetration of Asiatics amongst the European and native population. That is clear, categorical and quite definite. Now with regard to the application of this, with regard to the introduction of practical measures, when a dangerous position develops there, I say that we have to keep cool heads and stout hearts, bearing in mind the objects and the policy which we adhere to as being right. I do not think that it is necessary for me to say very much in disposing of an allegation that was made here yesterday that there is anything connected with disruption of the Empire or anything akin to that in this problem. I know that passions run high; I know that there are a great many private interests involved, but it would be just as well to ask one to say that the Empire and all its interests were involved in giving way on one point in one country as the giving way on a similar point in another country. Neither proposition is true. The reverse is the case, and it is indeed a very valuable asset to have the different nations of the Empire owing common allegiance to a sovereign, thereby facilitating the solution of the problem and making us remember that we are members one of another, and that there has to be an application of what each requires in his own territory and country. There is no question of the breaking up of the British Empire or a threat to the British Empire. Indeed, it is because we are members one of each other that we have hopes of a very good solution to this problem. It is not necessary for me to make a declaration further as to what the Government proposes to do. My colleague, the hon. Minister of the Interior, is in charge of this matter. Let me say quite definitely that he speaks in this matter not only for himself but he speaks for the whole of the Government of which I am a member, and that this matter has not been neglected; it has been considered and it has been considered very carefully. And we now have the report—I understand that the report is now actually in hand and may be published almost immediately—a report dealing with the facts, and I say when that report is available the Government will consider it and take what action they think is necessary upon it. I know that passions run high; I know that violent language is often used, not only in one direction but in another; that I deprecate, and I am confident that every member in this House will realise that the use of violent language has never been that which I advocate, when moderate and reasonable language will express definitely the views that one holds. I agree that this problem is a very pressing one. I agree that we have not got to be diverted from the proper and true solution, whatever that may be. We must not be diverted by any extraneous argument. I have never believed in being driven off my own line by any threat. I have never found that that course of conduct, when followed by anyone else, has led them into anything but disaster, and I am confident that by following this up we shall do what is right in the end. Now there is another matter to which I am going to refer, and that is a statement which occurred in the speech made by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside), and it was made at a time when I was out of the House, but was repeated afterwards in a subsequent speech. I take the strongest exception to this, and I propose to read from a shorthand note what the passage is to which I take exception. It is to this effect: “When the war did break out the Dominion Party agreed to support the Prime Minister’s Government but they only agreed upon conditions. One of the chief conditions was that they would have a standstill agreement which they felt would continue them as members of Parliament.” That statement is absolutely false in every particular, and there were opportunities for knowing its falsity. I am astonished that any member should have made that statement without having taken the trouble to see whether it is true. Let me state what the facts were. When the Cabinet divided on the subject of war, when the late Gen. Hertzog tabled his neutrality motion and the debate took place in this House with the result that everybody knows, I was not here; I was away fighting an election in the Pietermaritzburg district. As a matter of fact I was billed to address a meeting at Albert Falls on the very morning after this has been published in the newspapers. So far from making any conditions as to the circumstances under which I or the Dominion Party would support the Government which would come into being, I made a public speech on that morning and called specially the reporters of the different newspapers to be present at it and to report what I said, and I then and there pledged, without qualification, without reserve, without any communication with the Prime Minister or anyone else, my support and the support of the Dominion Party to this party which was going to come into being. I did not make conditions that if the Dominion Party did not get so and so, I would not support the Government. I say that that statement is absolutely false without a tittle of justification, and the hon. member ought to know it. Now, sir, is there any justification in the statement that I bargained for a standstill agreement? It is not true. It is quite correct that the Prime Minister and I naturally discussed matters immediately before the Cabinet was formed, and I agreed to go into it, but the proposal was made to me? it was not my proposal. It was only after I had made the speech to which I referred, that the Prime Minister over the telephone invited me to join the Cabinet, and the proposal for a standstill agreement was not based on any proposal which eminated from me. I agreed to it, and let me say this, as we are dealing with it, that I think that to have had different portions of a coalition government fighting each other would have been a disastrous position; it would have given occasion to the Opposition—I was going to say blaspheme—to rejoice and it would have been grist to their mill.

As you are rejoicing today.

I did not catch what the hon. member said or I would have been pleased to have dealt with it. [Extension of time granted.] I have said that that statement was absolutely false and without a tittle of justification. There is another statement to which I want to refer and it is this: The hon. member said that when there was a chance of the Empire being broken up, the Dominion Party officially were prepared to hold in the balance their political future against the future of the Empire. It is rather a curious statement, but I take it to mean that the Dominion Party were prepared to put the interests of the Party before the interests of the war, and to put those interests in preference to any Empire interests which might be involved. There has not been one tittle of evidence brought forward by the hon. member for Umbilo in justification of this, and let me say categorically it is absolutely false from start to finish. I wish I could end here, but unfortunately I cannot, because one naturally enquires as to what the motive must have been for making statements which were false, are false, and would have been proved to be so, if an enquiry had been made, which was at the disposal of the hon. member. I have been engaged most of my life in the law courts, where one of the problems which is constantly before us is finding the motives which actuate people in all those varieties of actions which come before a court of law for decision, and in every case the finding of a motive is found to be difficult. In most cases it is found to be obscure, but I can only say that in this case, examining this case, I don’t think the simplest jury would have the slightest difficulty in piecing the evidence together and drawing their conclusions. These allegations are made, when? In 1939? No. Just after the events to which they refer? No. They are made in 1943. At what time in 1943?

Just before an election.

At a time when a General Election is about to be launched.

Just before the Government goes out.

And I can only say that no one in this House or out of it can doubt that these statements were made recklessly, in reckless disregard of whether they were true or false, because the means of getting at the truth were in the grip of the hon. member for Umbilo, and I can only say that they were for his own purposes, and for the purpose of blackening an enemy at any risk and any cost. The hon. member for Umbilo is without the slightest tittle of excuse.

The Election struggle in Natal between the Dominion Party and the Labour Party is going to be very interesting. But I am afraid that the Minister of Mines has taken up more time from the Minister of the Interior than the Minister expected. It is a pity that the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) is not here to react to the speech of the Minister of Mines, but I presume that he will do it on another occasion, and if the debate on this Vote is still in progress, the Minister of Labour will probably also say a few words. I cannot, however, let the Vote pass without returning again to the question of allowing the entry of newspapers into internment camps. I seriously want to protest against the policy the Government is following in regard to this matter. To me it seems as if it is a bit of scandal that the Government only allows newspapers which support it in internment camps. Apart from the fact that other newspapers published in our country have as much right as Government papers, and apart from the fact that the people in internment camps ought also to have the right to see what appears in the Opposition newspapers, it almost seems that what the Minister is doing is sharp practice. We have always still endeavoured to keep politics clean as far as possible in South Africa.

Hear, Hear!

Some people have not contributed much to it, but in general we have done our best. Now the Government comes along and financially assists the papers which support it by allowing them to come into the camps. This borders on sharp practice. No, this is something that can be described in still stronger language, and I want to ask the Government as a whole to pay attention to the scandal. The Government has a small majority in this House, and now it makes use of its power to grant admittance to newspapers supporting it to the internment camps, but newspapers supporting the Opposition are not allowed. The newspapers of the Opposition are published in our country, but the Minister abuses his powers by allowing only Government newspapers. Why must the Nationalist newspapers be excluded?

Anti-war newspapers.

Exactly. Of course Communistic newspapers can be allowed, because the Communists are their allies. But Nationalist newspapers may not be read by the people in the camps. They must be forced to read the “Cape Times” or “Die Suiderstem”.

I see you also read the “Cape Times” regularly?

We read both sides and therefore we know much more about the political situation than the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) who commits a blunder every time he rises. British fairplay is often spoken of in South Africa. What does the Minister call this procedure?

Be reasonable, play jukskei.

Jukskei is a game that can be played by two sides. I hope the Minister will play it. Here Government money is being used and the powers of the Government used to advance a commercial undertaking. It borders on foul play. It is no longer clean jukskei. The hon. member for Kensington is of opinion that anti-war newspapers must not be allowed. Have we already got so far in South Africa that you are afraid that the people in the camps should hear the other side of the case?

What does Germany do?

What have I now to do with that? I do not ask that Russian or German papers must be allowed. I simply ask that in South Africa. South African newspapers should be allowed and not only Government newspapers.

I would like to support the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) and to inform the Minister a little about jukskei. I hope the Minister will join the Fernwood Jukskei Club. Then he will find out that it is an unusual game. One does not throw only from one side, but from two sides.

If you play dirty, you are “bust”.

Yes, and if only one side throws, then he will not last long, before he is “bust”. You must play until you have exactly 21 points, otherwise you are “bust”. Now I want to tell the Minister that it is not jukskei when he refuses to allow Opposition newspapers in the camp. I do not know where the Minister gets the moral right to do so. I assume that he wants to have a certain amount of control over the camps, but is he afraid of the people in the camps hearing both sides? Is he afraid that they should learn the truth? The Minister must either not allow any newspaper, or he must play jukskei and allow the newspapers from both sides, newspapers that are published in the country and that are read by the public. And if the Minister does not want to allow the newspapers of the Opposition, will he then allow the people in the camp to get the facts from both sides, by allowing Hansard in the camp? Will he allow Hansard to be sent there? I just want to point out that if they in the camp read Hansard, then they will also be able to read the excellent speeches of the Minister. They will then be able to read how well things are with them in the camps—something which perhaps they otherwise would not realise. They can find out how nice it is in the camps, as the Minister says. Some people would very much like to come out, because they think things are bad with them, but if they read Hansard and the Minister’s speeches, then they will see how well things are with them and how fat they are getting, then the Minister will apparently have less trouble. They will even, if they read Hansard, have the privilege of knowing what their comrades write to their wives, it will create a spirit of cameraderie. Just think, the one internee will then be able to read what the other internee has written to his wife. I want to ask the Minister to be reasonable and not to allow only the newspapers of the Government side. The late Senator Langenhoven has said: “Everything which is true does not appear in the newspapers, and everything that appears in the newspapers is not always true.” Now the Minister wants to allow the newspapers from one side only. If he does not want to depart from this, then give them Hansard to read, then they can learn the facts from both sides, and they have the time to read it. I think it is a reasonable request which the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) has made to the Minister.

To me the matter of Indian penetration in Durban. Pietermaritzburg, and many other towns is no matter whatever, in any degree or kind, of Party but entirely one of principle, and the principle is a matter of justice and not of race. There is no doubt in my mind at all, Sir, that this penetration is actual, increasing, and systematic, and moreover that public anxiety and indignation is very widespread. This matter, I suggest, does merit the most careful attention of the Minister, because it is manifestly wrong that any group of people, whether indians or otherwise, should use their wealth to cause direct loss and harm to other people; and that is in fact, I submit, precisely what is happening in Durban and many other places. I am particularly alarmed on behalf of the soldiers concerned. There are many hundreds who have paid all their savings on a property and are now absent, defending their country in this battle-field and the other, and I say my Party and I are seriously alarmed on their behalf and think that it is most unfair that any group of people should harm them in their absence in any way. Depreciation of the value of the homes in which they have left their wives and children is proceeding, and must stop. We do hope that the Minister will give, as we are satisfied he has given and is still giving, the most careful attention to this matter, and solely on the principle of justice, without reference to race in any way at all, we feel that action can and ought to be taken. At the same time, we are all bound to take notice of the Minister’s point that there are two sides to the question, national and international. It is very important that we should consider the possible reactions, indeed the probable reactions, of over-drastic steps to rectify what most of us consider to be a wrong, at this particular moment, in the middle course of a war for existence. I question whether the Dominion Party would have been quite so emphatic, thus possibly encouraging my hon. friend to speak unadvisably with his lips — I question whether they would have been quite so emphatic if the erring group of citizens in question had been citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia. I hope I do the hon. members no wrong. We have to realise the fact that India is a portion of the Empire, and a peculiarly difficult portion at that, and I would remind the Committee that strong representations on this matter have already been sent to the Government of India from the Natal Indian Congress and the Natal Indian Association. I commend the leader of the Dominion Party on a very temperate speech. I am inclined to agree that he had a grievance; but for my own part I believe that the opinion of my Party is that there should be justice for all, that there is this grave danger and fact of Indian penetration, and that we must solve the problem at the earliest possible moment. Whether this is the moment that we can deal with it most safely, justly, and completely is the main point which, I take it, the Government has in view,

The Amendment proposed by Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen, put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—30:

Bekker, G.

Boltman, F. H.

Bosman, P. J.

Conradie, J. H.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fouché, J. J.

Haywood, J. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Le Roux, P. M. K.

Le Roux, S. P.

Loubser, S. M.

Olivier, P. J.

Schoeman, B. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, C. R.

Van den Berg, C. J.

Van der Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. F. T. Naudé and P. O. Sauer.

Noes—59:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Blackwell, L.

Botha, H. N. W.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Hemming, G. K.

Henderson, R. H.

Higgerty, J. W.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Lawrence, H. G.

Lindhorst, B. H.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Marwick, J. S.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Neate, C.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Raubenheimer, L. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon. V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard, C. F.

Steyn, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and W. B. Humphries.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Vote No. 27.—“Interior”, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 28.—“Public Service Commission”, £29,000,

There is one matter which I want to raise in connection with this Vote and that is the Civil Service examination which is held every year under the auspices of the Public Service Commission. To my surprise I found out recently that the requirements as regards nationality are put in such a way by the Public Service Commission for this Civil Service examination that the candidate must certify that he is a British subject, nothing more and nothing less. I have put a question to the Minister about this and his reply was that it is done according to Act No. 27 of 1923. That is the old Civil Service and Pensions Act. I now want to give the Minister an opportunity to give us a better explanation. He must not come and shield behind the old Act of 1923. One would say that since that time no Status Act has been passed, that since 1923 we have made no progress, and that we have not become a sovereign independent country. The Minister forgets that we have become an entity; that we are an independent country with our own nationhood. Now he comes in the year 1943 and shields behind an old Act of the year 1923, and the young Afrikaner who wants to enter for the Civil Service examination finds that it is one of the requisites that he must be a British subject. I hope that the Minister will take into consideration the development there has been since that year.

The hon. member is now advocating legislation and he may not do so in Committee of Supply.

It is not necessary to pass legislation to make a change. The Public Service Commission can simply alter the form, and there is nothing in the Act to prevent the Public Service Commission from issuing a form on which the candidate must declare that he is a Union National. Since 1923 legislation has been passed in which the alternative is given for a British subject, i.e. that the term “Union National” can also be used. I am therefore not advocating new legislation, but only an alteration in the form. This form, as it is issued now, does not take into account the development there has been in South Africa. But the Minister shields behind the Act of 1923 and he comes here with a monstrosity and he compels a young Afrikaner to say that he is a British subject before he can write the examination. If he wants to write the examination, then he must indicate that he has the nationality of another State. In America or in France, if a person wants to go in for an examination, then he is not expected to declare that he is a British subject. If this happened in the United States, then they would simply laugh about it. Here in South Africa, however, the Minister tries something of this kind. The Public Service Commission and the Minister of the Interior must get away from the Crown Colony complex. We are now in the year 1943 and not in the year 1923.

The same circumstances existed in 1930.

The Minister has no doubt heard of the passing of the Statute of Westminster.

That was in 1926.

It was followed by our Status Act in 1934, if the Minister’s memory is not playing him false. The conference was in 1926, thereafter came the Status of Westminster, and then the Status Act. The Minister must not try to shelter behind dry wood. The fact is that South Africa has become sovereign independent and now the young Afrikaner is expected to declare that he is a British subject, that he is a subject of another State, if here in South Africa he wants to write an examination for our Civil Service. This cannot happen in any self-respecting country in the world, and I do not know why it should happen in South Africa. No legislation is necessary to make this alteration. If the Minister brings the matter to the attention of the Public Service Commission, the forms can be corrected. There is nothing to prevent him from doing so. Why the Minister wants to shield behind the Act is this: If he retains the words “British Subject” then it means that a young Englishman who comes here from Timbuctoo can immediately enter for the examination, or otherwise he must wait for two years. That is the reason why the Minister does not want to make the alteration. The whole position is that the Minister is shielding behind the Act, because he does not intend to ask the Public Service Commission to make the change. He wants to keep the position so that a young Englishman who comes to our country, because he is a British subject, can enter for the Civil Service examination tomorrow and can compete with the sons and daughters of South Africa. This is a monstrosity in itself. I say again that there is no legislation necessary, and the Minister need only request the Public Service Commission to insert “Union National” instead of “British Subject”. Then the British subject who arrives here today will be excluded tomorrow. He will first have to wait two years.

You are now advocating legislation.

No, I am not doing that. After the passing of the Status Act no legislation is required in this respect. It is simply a form which is drawn up by the Public Service Commission. In that form they make the condition that the candidate must be a British subject. I do not want to advocate legislation, because I may not do so here, and therefore I will ask the Minister a question. If the Minister thinks that legislation is necessary, does he intend to introduce that legislation, or is he going to let the position remain as it is? That is the least that he owes this House, that he should tell us immediately whether he intends to amend the Act and to bring it into line with the Status Act and the position of our country.

I would like to know from the Minister of the Interior whether he will make a statement to the House about the position of the Public Service Commission. What I want to know from him is: What are the functions of the Public Service Commission; and in the second place, what are the powers of the Public Service Commission? We have often had it here, when the votes of Ministers are dealt with, and certain matters are raised, then they reply to us that this or that is laid down by the Public Service Commission and we simply cannot alter it, because it is laid down by the Public Service Commission. It appears to me that here we have reached the climax of bureaucracy. All kinds of grievances can be caused in the country; the civil servants can be dissatisfied and make people dissatisfied by the application of the regulations of the Public Service Commission, and the Government simply comes and says that it is the Public Service Commission. If there is one matter that deserves the attention of the Government, then it is the powers of the Public Service Commission as they are applied to the Civil Service in South Africa. We have often raised questions here in connection with the salaries that are paid and year after year we must hear that it is the responsibility of the Public Service Commission. People who are treated quite inconsistently as regards salaries and wages, and since 1933 we have had to hear every year that it is the Public Service Commission that is responsible. The Public Service Commission has become a bureaucracy; with the powers that it has it has almost become a perfect bureaucracy. I say that even the Cabinet is induced and I would be very glad if the Minister would explain to this House what the powers of the Public Service Commission are and whether it is within the power of the Cabinet to say that the rules and regulations of the Public Service Commission can be thrown out and changed. The time has come when we should let our voices be heard. I must tell you immediately that it is not clear to me how a large section of the Civil Service can keep out of trouble with the salaries and wages they draw—it is beyond my comprehension. It is no use our making pleas here for increases in salaries to the Ministers of the Departments concerned. Their reply is simply that the Public Service Commission has laid it down. That is the reply which members of the Cabinet give us, and I want to ask whether the time has not come when we should make a change, because we must give account to the public and the public objects to this sort of thing. The Public Service Commission do just what they please. They are a bureaucracy in the perfect sense of the word, and we can press for a change in the conditions, but we get no further. Therefore I hope that the Minister will say clearly what their functions are and what their powers are, and whether the Government in the future simply intends to abide by the regulations and instructions of the Public Service Commission. There is rightly a feeling of injustice in the Civil Service among a large section of the officials in connection with salaries and wages, and I want to ask here today that the Government should restrict the powers of the Public Service Commission. If it is possible—and if I can have my way, then I will do so—the Public Service Commission must be removed altogether, because I am afraid, and I think that I will be supported by the greater majority of the members when I say that the powers of the Public Service Commission are too far-reaching. I cannot say that they abuse their powers, but their powers have gone so far that they have gone beyond what we here as a democratic Government think the position of the Public Service Commission should be. We cannot while we call ourselves a democratic people and a democratic Government have such an institution which can apply its rules and regulations and not be responsible to the House of Assembly, that it can do things which the House of Assembly and the Cabinet cannot alter. The position is becoming still worse. I have read in one of the newspapers that the Public Service Commission can tell a Cabinet Minister that Mr. A. or Mr. B. must hold a certain position, and the Minister has not the right to appoint his own people. No, that is too far-reaching. It is not democratic and it is absolutely unhealthy. In conclusion I say again that the Public Service Commission has reached the climax of bureaucracy in South Africa and the time has come when the Government which is responsible to the people should have the right to appoint whom it pleases and that everything should not be subject to the regulations of the Public Service Commission.

I want to say a word to the Minister about cost of living allowances. I raised this matter under the Treasury Vote in the belief that I could do so under that Vote. The hon. Minister of Finance said, however, that it was a matter for the Minister of the Interior since it depended on the decision by the Public Service Commission; so I wish to raise the matter with the Minister himself now, although the Minister of Finance did kindly state that he would convey to the hon. the Minister of the Interior the points I raised in this regard. I want to make an appeal to the hon. Minister to revise the cost of living allowance scheme as it stands at present, with a view to taking out the colour bar that at present operates in it.

Business suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

My request to the Minister is for the removal of the colour discrimination in the cost of living allowance as it now operates. As I pointed out before, the colour discrimination operates only in respect of the most lowly paid group of Government employees, that is those who earn £100 a year or less. In this group the Europeans receive the full percentage increase in the cost of living. The non-Europeans, however who are divided into two groups, get only a proportion of the percentage rise in the cost of living. They are divided into the group which earns up to £60 per year, in which case they receive three-eighths of the percentage rise in the cost of living, and the group which earns between £60 and £100 which gets three-quarters of the percentage rise in the cost of living. These proportions of the percentage rise in the cost of living do in a considerable number of cases amount to less than the workers would receive if they were given the percentage rise on their actual earnings. For instance, at present when the cost of living allowance paid to those earning £100 is £18, the non-European earning up to £60 gets £6 15s. Whereas if they were paid a percentage rise on their actual earnings they would be receiving £9. I have always felt that the instinct which induced the Public Service Commission to give the full percentage rise increase to those who were earning as little as £100 was very sound. I have also always felt that the instinct which made them discriminate between one racial group and another was thoroughly unsound. That anyone earning less than £100 per year and having to keep a family is going to be seriously affected by any rise, by an increase, in the cost of food and clothing, is self-evident, and I have therefore always felt that the full difference should be made up to these people. I made representations accordingly to the Secretary of the Treasury and I was supported in these representations by the Secretary for Native Affairs. The result of my representations was the receipt of a document by me from the Public Service Cost of Living Committee setting out the principles on which the Commission had operated in framing the scheme as it is now in force. The principles, so far as I can discover them—and I call them that for want of a better name—the principles on which the Committee operated were that those non-Europeans who were living on incomes of £100 per year and more, might be assumed to be living on a more or less European level. They might be deemed to be observing more or less the same standard of living as Europeans earning the same pay, which was the justification for not incorporating the coloured discrimination in the cost of living scheme for those earning more than £100. For those earning less than £100, the Committee decided to differentiate between those earning up to £60 and those earning between £60 and £100 apparently simply because the bulk of the Government’s employees did not earn more than £60. The Committee found that the £60 limit covers the bulk of the Government’s employees; indeed they went on to say that although they took this figure as the limit of the first group, very few members of the group earned more than £50. They make the further surprising statement—not so surprising—that on the whole they did not know how to deal with the non-European position because they did not know how the non-Europeans live. That is very clear from this document. The people who drafted this document obviously had not the remotest idea of how the poor live, let alone the non-European poor. They had to admit that the non-Europeans were affected by the increased cost of commodities. That was the concession. They therefore felt that something should be done, but they didn’t know what to do, so they decided on this, in my opinion, somewhat arbitrary method of treating those earning up to £100 and more as Europeans and those earning under £100 in a different way. It is quite clear that those who drafted this plan are not familiar with conditions of non-European life. Obviously they do not realise that in the group earning less than £100 per year is to be found the large majority of native teachers who, if any group in the country tries to maintain a civilised standard of living, is that group. Yet here they are in this position that they are differentiated against as a group not maintaining a civilised standard of life. The Committee goes further and admit that if they give to these lower income groups even the full percentage rise in the cost of living based on their earnings, many of them would get more than they are getting under this scheme which simply gives them a proportion of what the Europeans get, but they do not consider that a serious hardship. They seem to think that an increase of £1 per year in the cost of living allowance is not at all important to the man earning less than £50 per year. I hope they may never have a closer experience of what it means to have to look after a family on these low rates of income. [Time limit.]

I want to say a few words about the cost of living allowances and I am glad that the hon. the Minister of Finance as well as the hon. Minister of Labour are in their places. I have on a previous occasion drawn the attention of the Minister of Finance to the cost of living allowances. I think that by this time we know how those cost of living allowances are arrived at. They draw up a sort of budget for a family based on the cost of living in 1938, and then they take the cost of living in the nine most important cities in the countries at the present time, and then they decide what the allowances must be. The hon. the Minister of Finance has been good enough to give me a pamphlet which shows how the cost of living allowances are fixed. All I can say, now that I have read the pamphlet, is that it is an extremely difficult question for the Public Service Commission to fix the cost of living allowances. We understand now that the cost of living has risen by 22 per cent., according to their calculation. I do not believe that anyone in this House will agree that the cost of living has risen by only 22 per cent. If you ask a man today whether he can do as much with five pounds as he could previously do with four pounds, he will immediately say that it is a matter of impossibility. The cost of living has risen tremendously more than that. I say that it is difficult for the Public Service Commission to determine it. I see here for example that they classify a home budget on the following basis: Food, 35 per cent., fuel, light and taxation, 30 per cent., and other miscellaneous items 35 per cent. It is fixed in this way. I do not want to go into it this afternoon. All I can say is this, that it appears to me to be out of the question that the cost of living has risen by only 22 per cent. I cannot understand how the Public Service Commission has come to this conclusion. The reason why I have risen this afternoon is this, that I do not believe that it has risen by so little. I want to ask the hon. the Minister of the Interior whether the cost of living allowances cannot be fixed on a more satisfactory basis. I notice that the full allowance is paid in the case of a married family where the salary of the man is £200 a year. An unmarried person gets half of this. In the first place I cannot understand why an unmarried man must get only half of the cost of living allowance. His cost of living has risen comparatively just as much. It is not his fault that the Government has gone into the war. Where the allowance in the case of a married person on £200 a year is paid out fully, there it appears to be fair. But I want to draw a special point to the attention of the Minister.

I am listening.

I did not say that you were not listening. Perhaps you have a guilty conscience.

I am listening. I am consulting my colleague about this matter.

What I want to ask is this. There are many people today with large families and who receive a meagre wage. I have on a previous occasion referred here to a civil servant with a wife and six children who receives a pension of £6 or £8 a month. I know of people in the municipal services who receive 6s. a day. There are many people who get about £8 a month. Many of these people have six children. Supposing that a labourer has six children and that his income is £8 a month, and supposing that he pays a very low house rent, viz. £2 a month.

What labourers are they?

It does not matter where the man works. Take those who draw a pension. Or take the unfit who are employed by municipalities.

That has nothing to do with the Civil Service.

The Vote concerns the Civil Service only.

It is the Public Service Commission that fixes the cost of living allowance for any civil servant, for any worker.

Of the Civil Service.

There are people in the Department of Irrigation who receive 4s. a day. There are people on the Railways who receive 4s. a day.

This Vote has nothing to do with the Railways.

But I was giving this example to the Minister: There are people who earn £8 a month and there are many who receive less. If you take that man’s house rent at £2 a month, then it means that he and his family i.e. eight persons, must live on £6 a month. In other words, one person must be fed and clothed on 6d. a day.

What Civil Servants are they?

The hon. Minister knows just as well as I do that there are many workers who earn only £8 a month. It appears to me that he now wants to look upon this matter lightly and that he wants to make a joke of it. I want to tell him that he need not make a joke of it. If the Minister wants to make a joke of the miserable position in which the people are, then it certainly is not to his honour.

But what workers do you mean?

It does not matter. Take the Police; take the Railway official. There are many of them who receive a pension of £6 or £8 a month. There are the irrigation workers who work for 4s. a day. There are people who work in the Department of Public Works for 4s. a day. Then there are the erosion workers. Why does the Minister now want to make fun of it? I said that if you have a family of six children and you earn £8 a month and you must pay £2 a month house rent, then it means that you must feed and clothe your children on 6d. a day. The Government promises the people all day that they are fighting for a new world, that they are fighting for better conditions. But can you feed and clothe a person on 6d. a day? Therefore I want to ask the Minister whether it is not possible for the Public Service Commission to fix the cost of living allowances for example up to a salary of £200 a year on such a basis that it will be calculated per child. Can it not be so fixed that where a man earns less than £200, he will be paid so much in respect of each child that is dependent on him. Now I want to say this to the Minister who treats this question so lightly. He laughs at people who are having such a difficult time.

The Minister did not laugh about that.

You are quite wrong; you are talking nonsense now.

I want to tell the Minister that people of his own party come and plead with me to bring this matter to the attention of the Minister. They have asked me whether the allowance cannot be granted per child. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, I am very interested and I think the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) was in the functions and powers of the Public Service Commission. I am very well aware that under Article 142 of the South Africa Act, such a Commission has to be appointed, but my feelings personally are, and I think those of my party coincide, that those powers are unduly large, and might with advantage to the State be diminished. In the official Year Book some idea of their powers is given on page 66. (1) To make recommendations as to appointments and promotions; (2) To keep a record of persons employed in the administrative, clerical and professional divisions, and in prescribed posts in the general division; (3) to make recommendations as to the grading and classification or regrading and conversion of posts in the administrative, clerical, professional and general divisions.

Order. Is the hon. member discussing the provisions of the Public Service Commission Act?

Well, sir, I was illustrating their very wide powers. I hope I am in order in doing that. I wanted to prove that they had very wide powers, and my kindred point is that those powers are too wide.

If the hon. member wishes that altered it means legislation, and that cannot be discussed in Committee.

I see, sir. Will you allow me to make this observation, that possibly without legislation and with a little bit of merciful concession on their part, the heads of departments might be given a little more power in their own households, as it were. It does seem to me that the man who knows most about the management, for example, of such a department as the Posts and Telegraphs is the Minister himself, and I well remember on many occasions drawing attention to the very poorly-paid postmen, the 1933 postmen in particular I mentioned as in need of redress, and being retorted by the Minister that he had no power to make any such amendation because he was not allowed to do so by the Public Service Commission. My submission is that if there is no other means of protest, they should be more considerate in this respect, and allow the Minister to spin his own top to some extent. I think, sir, in this body we have three uncrowned kings of South Africa who have an enormous power. I do not know whether they should have been given it, but they were and they used it, I would not say without discretion but without the discretion of the heads of departments having sufficient consideration. That is how it appears to us, and we see danger in that respect and the beginning of totalitarianism. Whatever grumbles we have with regard to any department, we feel that we should be able to go to the Minister, and having satisfied him we should have made definite progress towards our ends.

Mr. Chairman, I have not much to add to what I have already said, but I do want to impress upon the Minister the point I have mentioned, that is that the present scheme under which cost of living allowances are paid to non-Europeans and natives become progressively more unbalanced as the cost of living rises. I feel that this is ample reason for asking for a revision of the scheme, particularly in the case of native employees. At the time when the scheme was drawn up, the rise in the cost of living was some 8 per cent. and the amount by which the non-European in the lowest income group suffered from the differentiation against him was comparatively small though not unimportant to him. Today when the cost of living has risen some 20 per cent. his loss is considerably greater. I have another criticism against the scheme as it stands and that is the principle of making a rise on the allowance payable wait upon an average 20 per cent. rise over three months. There may be some justification for applying that principle to the upper levels of the Civil Service on the principle that they should contribute something to the cost and pressure of war; but there can be no justification for applying it to the lowest levels for whom any rise in the cost of living must involve a serious impairment of efficiency. I feel therefore that that aspect of the scheme should also be revised. I would suggest as the basis of revision that the principle be maintained of paying to people who earn up to £100 a year the whole rise in the cost of living but that it be applied regardless of colour. The only other reasonable proposition is that, where the principle of proportionate rates is applied to non-Europeans, the proportion be the basic minimum to be paid to anyone and that those who could benefit by payment of the percentage rise on their earnings should do so. It is, I think, common cause in this House that the bulk of the Government’s unskilled employees live well below a civilsed standard of living as a result of the wages paid to them. Here is a small chance of offering to adjust the balance somewhat and the Government ought to take it. The ramifications of this matter make it very important. This scheme affects the whole army as well as the Civil Service, and it is at the present time placing native soldiers in an extremely disadvantageous situation as against other ranks of the army. At the present time, the native soldiers are paid the lamentably low family allowance of £2 5s. a month, and these unfortunate people are getting 4d. a day cost of living allowances as against the 9d. a day paid to the coloured soldiers who are being paid at rates which do bear some resemblance to their cost of living. I hope sincerely that the Minister will take this matter seriously and change the policy in this regard, whatever the opinions of the Public Service Commission may be in the matter.

I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to the following case in respect of the allowance for cost of living. I have already spoken to the Minister of Finance about the matter, but I think that it falls under this vote. It is in connection with the people in the Free State who are in the service of the National Roads Board. People who receive 12s. 6d. and less a day receive an allowance of £2 5s. a month if they are married. The unmarried receive an allowance of 15s. a month. But the people who receive 13s. per day and more are on another scale. There the married man gets an allowance of £3 15s. a month, and the unmarried man an allowance of £1 a month. The point is this, and I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to this, that the cost of living increases equally for all. Bread, meat and all the necessities of life have not increased less for one section than for another. Those who receive the higher wage are in still a more favourable position, and we find that if they receive 12s. 6d. and less, then the allowance for cost of living is £2 5s. in the case of married men and 15s. in the case of unmarried men, but those who receive 13s. and more receive an allowance of £3 15s. a month. There is a considerable difference. The people who receive less are already in a more unfavourable position, and the cost of living has surely risen to the same extent for them. There is a considerable difference and I would be glad if the Minister would explain his attitude in connection with this matter.

You say that it is 12s. 6d. a week?

No, it must be per day. I have mentioned the figures to the Minister and I say that the difference is considerable. There is a difference of £1 10s. in the case of married men. The people who are already receiving a higher wage receive so much more in allowance. It appears to me that the allowance should be uniform, because the cost of living has risen uniformly for all, and I would be glad if the Minister would explain his attitude.

The position in regard to the cost of living figures is that these figures are worked out by the experts of the Census Department, who know their job and who act along scientific lines. It is not the function of the Minister or his department to interfere with the way in which these figures are worked out. The hon. member for Albert-Colesberg (Mr. Boltman) has suggested that the basis of computation is incorrect. Well, the basis adopted by the Census Department has the approval of the Statistical Council, and I think that experience has shown that it has proved to be a wise basis in practice. So far as the cost of living allowance to the railway service and the public service is concerned, that is worked out by two committees respectively representing the Public Service and the Railway Administration. There is a Public Service Cost of Living Committee and a Railway Service Cost of Living Committee, and it is always sought to secure the greatest measure of unanimity between the recommendations of these two bodies affecting the Public Service and the Railway Administration. The hon. member for Albert-Colesberg, sir, has suggested that the basis on which the cost of living allowance is made to the lower paid public servants is wrong, unfair and inequitable. He has talked about public service employees receiving less than 4s. per day, 4s. or less per day. Well, I know of no European Government employee in receipt of as little as 4s. a day. I do not know of such cases, but in any event the lowest paid employees in the public service receive the full cost of living allowance. If there were to be a variation, as suggested by the hon. member in order to allow a computation on a children basis, then it would mean that the man with a family of six or eight children would get the full cost of living allowance, and the man with only three or four children would not do so, and he would be worse off than he is at the present time. I suggest that the present system is one which has been very carefully worked out by responsible people, and has stood the test of experience. The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) has somewhat ambitiously asked me to give him an account of the functions of the Public Service Commission. The hon. member for Durban, North (Rev. Miles-Cadman) is not quite so enquiring, but he rather suggested that the Public Service Commission was equipped with dictatorial powers. Well, sir, the scope and functions of that Commission are laid down by the Public Services Act of 1923, and I would refer my hon. fried, the member for Krugersdorp, to the provisions of Sections 2 and 3 of the Act. But let me assure him at once that the Public Service Commission, while it has very wide powers and a very wide jurisdiction, is by no means a dectatorial body. It has not the power, and I am sure it has not the wish to have the power of dictating to this Cabinet or any other Cabinet. The Commission carries out its duties under the Act, it makes recommendations from time to time, but the members of the Cabinet are not necessarily bound to accept those recommendations. If the hon. member will refer to the Report which I tabled this week, the 31st annual Report of the Public Commission, he will, if he refers to Section 16 of that Report, find an instance where a Minister was not prepared to accept the recommendation of the Public Service Commission, and he did not give effect to it. That could hardly take place in a totalitarian State, and under a system in which the Public Service Commission had dictatorial powers. The hon. member for Durban, North, has suggested that individual Ministers should not accept salary scales as laid down by the Commission, but should proceed to lay down their own salary scales.

If they are too low.

The main object in having a body such as the Commission to lay down salary scales, is to secure the necessary uniformity in such scales. There would be chaos if the Ministerial heads of Departments were to proceed to lay down scales in their own Departments. Imagine the uncertainty, the embarrassment and the indignation amongst public servants in other Departments, if a second-grade clerk in the Department of the Interior, for instance, suddenly found himself put up to £1,000 a year, and a similar official in another Department was enjoying the present scale! There would be tremendous competition between Ministers who are not in a position to view the situation in the way the Public Service Commission is. The Government, of course, is responsible ultimately for the laying down of salary scales—it cannot divest itself of that responsibility. The Government cannot shelter itself behind the Commission. The Minister would not lightly set aside the recommendations of the Public Service Commission. It is only in exceptional cases that that would be done, because the members of the Commission are themselves public servants of wide experience, who have been through the mill, who know the public service from every angle, and have been in intimate contact with representatives of the service through their organisations, and they are the best people to view the position as a whole, and to make recommendations accordingly. I venture to think we would have a very unhappy state of affairs in our public service if we were to do away with our present system, and allow the Ministers to run riot.

[Inaudible].

Salary scales are covered by Section 13 of Act 27 of 1923, which provides that the scales be those recommended by the Commission, unless the Governor-General-in-Council especially prescribes other scales. As hon. members know, the Governor-General acts on the advice of his Ministers, in other words no Government can divest itself of its responsibility in this matter. That is the legal position, and that is the position in fact. The hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) has referred to the cost of living figures in relation to native employees. The hon. member raised this matter at an earlier stage of the discussion on the Estimates on the Vote of my colleague, the Minister of Finance. Her representations on that occassion have been taken note of by the Public Service Commission, and have now been referred to the Chairman of the Public Service Cost of Living Committee. He has been asked to go into those representations, and, in due course, the Public Service Commission will have to advise the Government in regard to them. I would, therefore, ask the hon. member to be good enough to allow the Commission an opportunity of examining the position. The hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) has raised the question of cost of living allowances to employees of the National Road Board. Those employees are provincial servants, and, as I understand the position, the Provincial Administration pays cost of living allowances as laid down by the Public Service Commission. However, I shall be quite prepared to have the figures which the hon. member has quoted examined, if he will be good enough to give them to me, and any other further information he may wish to give, and I will refer the matter to the Public Service Commission. The hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) has referred to the necessity for applicants for admission to the Public Service being British subjects. That requirement is laid down in the Public Service Act of 1923. Any applicant for the Public Service must be a British subject, and the same clause goes on to provide that he must have resided in South Africa for at least three years. As hon. members know, a British subject who has resided in the Union for two years becomes a Union national. If the law were to be changed to provide that applicants must be Union nationals, then it might well be that persons who had become Union nationals after only two years residence, would be entitled to join the Service right away. It seems to me that the present provisions of the Act constitute sufficient protection for Union nationals born in this country. There is no danger whatever of persons coming in from outside and filling posts which might legitimately be occupied by South Africans. The position of South African born Union nationals is adequately safeguarded by the Act. There have, of course, been opportunities in the past of altering the Act, but successive governments have not felt it necessary to do so, and the hon. member can hardly suggest that at this stage the Act should be altered.

In view of what the hon. Minister has said, I think it is right to make it clear that I have no objection whatever to uniformity in the rate of pay throughout the Departments unless they are uniformly too low, which appears to be the case among the bottom grades of very many of the employees of the Government itself, Europeans as well as non-Europeans. The Minister says he knows of no instances where 3s. 6d. a day is paid in any branch of the Service. Well, in his own Vote there are certain European messengers whose commencing salary is £60 per annum, which is £5 a month or 3s. 4d. per day for a 30 day month. So, I would refer the Minister, with great respect, to his own Vote.

Those are boys.

Then there is no such direct connection as I supposed, and I take back that part of what I said. With reference to this uniformity, I may be wrong again, but looking through the Votes concerning several Departments, there seems to be a considerable disparity, except perhaps on the very top grades. As regards these senior posts I certainly admit that there is considerable agreement in the provision of generous salaries, salaries which in their weaker moments members of Parliament might regard with envy.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 29.—“Mental Hospitals and Institutions for Feebleminded”, £866,000,

I should like to ask the Minister whether anything further has been done to meet the needs of non-European feebleminded. Last Session I spoke to the Minister, and asked him whether he could make temporary provision for them in the new hospital, explaining at the time that we did not think that was adequate, especially for children for whom some special arrangement should be made. The hon. Minister knows that the position is really very bad at the moment, because they have to make use of the asylum for these people; it is bad, especially for the children. I should like to know whether any advance has taken place in the position since then.

I would like to know from the Minister whether provision has been made for the feebleminded who cannot be admitted to the hospitals. I think that there has been difficulty in providing accommodation for all and we would like to know what progress is being made with the building of new places of which we have no report. Then I would like to know whether the Minister can give us any indication whether the situation is becoming better in the country in general or whether it is becoming worse. We have received no report. If this service had fallen under Public Health then we would perhaps have received a report on the matter. It is very important however to know whether it is improving or getting worse. The number of patients is 15,970 for whom provision is made. We would like to know what the position is and whether all can now be provided for.

I would like to know from the Minister what the position is in connection with Valkenberg. Last year a land transaction was put through between the City Council of Cape Town and the Government. Valkenberg was sold to the City Council and near Bellville Sticklands Farm was bought for £8,000 or £9,000, with the purpose of building an institution there. At that time when the negotiations took place, I and other members of the Select Committee went to Valkenberg. We were shown round by the head of the institution, and he showed us how inadequate the building was. We gained the impression that Valkenberg was too small and did not have sufficient facilities for the patients. At that time it appeared to be a very urgent matter and the Government intended to build a new institution at Stickland as soon as possible and to make provision there for more patients. There is nothing on the Budget in connection with this matter and I would like to know how far the Department has progressed in this matter and whether they will continue with it as soon as possible. Many of the buildings at Valkenberg are dilapidated. Some of the patients are being nursed in circumstances that are entirely inadequate. The stoep is very small. Some of them must sleep outside, and when winter comes, then those people are not properly accommodated. I would like to know from the Minister how far he has progressed in this matter.

I also just want to put a question to the Minister. He will agree with me that the nursing in hospitals of the feebleminded is very difficult work for which much patience is required. I want to ask him whether he knows that there is a continual shortage of male and female nurses in the hospitals for feebleminded. I want to ask him if it is not perhaps due to the fact that the age for retirement is so low that even young people do not regard it worth while to go in for the work. The Minister must consider changing the age. Then also the salaries are particularly low. If we go to a hospital, then we see, as the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) has said, under what difficult conditions these people must do the work, and I think the Minister will admit that the salaries should be increased. Then you will also receive more applications from people who want to do this work. I hope that the Minister will give a satisfactory answer in this respect and meet these people.

I cannot understand the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet (Dr. Bremer) not being able to follow the position from time to time, because as he knows the Commissioner for Mental Hygiene publishes a report annually.

We have not had one this year.

No, but it will be made available in due course—I do not say it will be printed but it will be made available. The position has undoubtedly been a disappointing one for a number of years. Progress has been made in various directions but there is no doubt that there is a shortage of accommodation in mental hospitals, both for Europeans and non-Europeans. The Commissioner for Mental Hygiene recently estimated the accommodation shortage as 400 for Europeans and approximately 2,300 for non-Europeans. The position in regard to non-Europeans, in regard to natives, will be eased very considerably as a result of the opening of the Mental Hospital at Krugersdorp. The superintendent physician, Dr. Toomey, who has been appointed to Krugersdorp, assumed duty on the 1st March last year. No patients have as yet been admitted there, but four wards to accommodate 500 native patients have already been completed. The plans at Krugersdorp have been based on the Queenstown model. There, as hon. members may recollect, the planning was so arranged that a comprehensive hospital can be completed stage by stage. It is not finally completed and there is still room for further blocks. At Krugersdorp we have now built accommodation for 500 patients. It is intended to have accommodation there for 400 European males, and 400 European females—800 Europeans in all; for 500 native males and 300 native females —800 natives in all, and 100 admission of hospital cases, making a total of 1,700. In due course we hope to have that accommodation. It is estimated that the total number of mentally deranged and defective persons at the end of December, 1942, was 16,358, of whom 7,448 were European, and 8,940 of other races. There were actually in Mental Hospitals and Hospitals for feebleminded at that date 13,356. There is no evidence that the incidence of mental disease is increasing, but the fact that there are additional admissions to mental hospitals is more an indication that the persons concerned, or the relatives, appreciate the value of treatment in a mental hospital. There is nothing to suggest that mental disability or mental disorders are on the increase in South Africa. There is, of course, a shortage of nurses at present. The hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) has referred to that, but that is due to war conditions. There is a shortage of nurses in our ordinary general hospitals, there is a shortage of nurses in our tuberculosis hospitals, but that is due to the fact that many of these young women, who normally would go into the Civilian Nursing Service, have joined the army. Many of those who were in Civilian Service at the outbreak of war have preferred to go into the army units and there is undoubtedly an acute shortage of nurses in the Union at present. The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) has asked about the position in Cape Town. The Government has entered into an agreement with the City Council of Cape Town under which the land on which the Valkenberg Mental Institution is situated has been sold to the City Council, but the transfer will not take place until the Government has built accommodation elsewhere, and is able to transfer the present inmates to the new buildings.

Have you bought the land yet?

Yes, land has been bought at Stickland and plans are being prepared for the building of two mental hospitals, one for Europeans and one for non-Europeans, to accommodate 7.500 each. Hon. members will realise that, for the present, building restrictions have made it virtually impossible to obtain priority for these buildings, but the Department is proceeding with its plans, just as it is proceeding with working out the plans for institutions for non-European feebleminded. The hon. member for Parktown (Mrs. L. A. B. Reitz) is perfectly correct in what she says—there is no institution at present which can accommodate non-European feebleminded. It is a position which cannot be allowed to continue but at present we cannot do anything about it. We are completely frustrated because of building restrictions and other circumstances. Building priority demands that other needs should be attended to first.

That’s all wrong.

But as part and parcel of the Government’s plans for post-war reconstruction the Department of the Interior is going into a scheme for buildings for the feebleminded. The Prime Minister has directed that every Department of State should prepare its plans for post-war expansion, and this is part of that plan, and I can assure the hon. member for Parktown that the Commissioner for Mental Hygiene and the Department of Public Health have this matter in hand.

Vote put and agreed to.

Vote No. 30.—“Printing and Stationery”, £500,000, put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 31. — “Public Health”, £1,114,000,

I wish to avail myself of the privilege of speaking for half an hour. We are fortunate, so far as the Public Health Department is concerned, in still getting a report. True, it is a curtailed and summarised report, but none the less it gives us a good deal of interesting and valuable information. As I wish to discuss the Government’s policy I wish to mention a few points in the report. The first is that we can congratulate ourselves on the decrease in the death rate among children below the age of one year. Over the past twenty-two years it has dropped from 77 per 1,000 to 51 per 1,000. On the other hand, we cannot congratulate ourselves on the decrease in the mortality rate of all children, because so far as the coloured children are concerned, and so far as the natives are concerned, we do not know exactly what the position is. We have not got the figures, but we know that in several areas of the country the mortality figures among coloured and native children are thoroughly alarming. The mortality figure is still tremendously high and we are continually being told that it is becoming very serious in some areas, and in certain conditions, and that something has to be done in order to combat it. We also find that there is a very satisfactory improvement in the death rate among mothers at child birth. The mother mortality figure has shown a considerable change over the past twenty-two years. I don’t want to say that there has been a decrease because it has not been a decrease which has taken place at a steady rate. But it is a fact that in the past five years the mother mortality rate has on an average decreased by 2 per 1,000 in comparison with the past twenty-two years. If we take the years from 1921 to 1926, and if we take the period from 1937 to 1942, there is a clear indication that there is a drop in the death rate of mothers at child birth. We can regard this as satisfactory so far as the white population is concerned. We do not know what the position is in respect of the coloured population. In regard to the natives we are also in the dark. As a result of the conditions of life and the large numbers we have to deal with the position is that at the moment we have not got the figures at our disposal. But there should be a better method devised for the obtaining of the statistics, so that we may be able to know what is happening in the country. Whereas the mother rate in regard to the European has improved, we are unable to say that that is also the case so far as the coloured population is concerned; we have not got the figures, but although we haven’t got the figures we have the impression that those figures are not very satisfactory. We believe that by the extension of the necessary nursing services we should be able to effect improvements in that respect. There is an increase in the death rate from cancer. It is an alarming figure. While in 1921 the death rate was 69 per 100,000 of the population, that figure now is 109. It may sound very alarming. I am not concerned about it, because improved diagnosis will result in giving us more accurate figures.

And in addition to that people also live longer.

Yes, we also have to face the fact that people do live longer. I don’t want to say any more about that, as we are not in a position of being able to improve those conditions. I am convinced that the research work that is being done in this country is as much as can be done in a small country. I am of opinion that research work into a matter of this kind should be undertaken in the larger institutions. Now, I want to say a few words about tuberculosis in respect of which, so far as the white population is concerned, there is a reduction in the mortality figure from 46 per 100,000 of the population to 34. This is a satisfactory improvement. But, of course, it has to be still further improved. On the other hand, we are unable to say that there has been an improvement so far as the coloured and the native population are concerned. In regard to the coloured people I believe that the figure continues to be very high, and we cannot say that there is going to be any improvement until such time as we are able to improve the condition of the whole population as a result of better nutrition. The battle against tuberculosis is a battle which must be fought with the aid of nutrition, with the aid of surroundings and housing, and owing to the fact that we have not yet effectively tackled these problems we have not yet achieved the improvement which we should have. Then there is another small matter which I want to refer to again, and that is that every year we have more than 3,000 cases of diphtheria. This is a preventible disease if the children are inoculated with the anti-diphtheria toxine. This matter has had the attention of the Health Council and I feel that if the public were better informed it would lead to the public applying for such inoculation to be given. We can also make propaganda in our schools to ensure our children being inoculated so that these 3,000 cases of diphtheria may be prevented. The position so far as venereal disease is concerned is alarming, and it will become even more alarming until such time as we have a system under which full time salaried medical officers are employed in all areas of the whole country to look after the health services of our people, medical officers who will be there to deal with all aspects of the health problem in their respective regions. If we do that we may expect to have a general system of treatment and diagnosis for the whole population, for Europeans and coloured people, and afterwards for natives as well. The position in regard to venereal disease is alarming. We have treated 265 non-European cases and 45,000 European cases. If the figures had been 1,500,000 non-European and 200.000 European the position would have been more satisfactory. What is the position today? It is that those other 150,000 cases of Europeans are not being treated, and the 1,250,000 non-Europeans all carry on without receiving any treatment. Either it is impossible to reach them today, or we know nothing about them. The Minister of Finance spoke of money which was to be provided for the feeding of school children, and in referring to this matter I now come to the important question of the feeding of the whole population, because nutrition in the long run is the foundation of public health, and it is from that point of view that I want to discuss the policy of the Minister of Public Health and of the Government. The Minister of Finance said that he was going to provide £1,000,000 for the feeding of school children; I have not got the details of that scheme before me. The Minister eventually let it be known that of that total amount £50,000 would be available, or rather £50,000 more than last year, but so far as I know the whole of this £1,000,000 will not be available immediately. Before taking such a step we should have a nutrition policy. What is going to be the policy? Is it going to be a policy of giving a special meal to the children in the schools who are under-nourished, or are we going to give a meal to the children of parents in receipt of poor wages—or is it going to be the policy to select special children and give them a particular kind of meal? It is important that we should know whether we are really going to achieve anything by the expenditure of that money, and whether we are going to have a definite plan within the course of a couple of years. A well thought out policy cannot be laid down casually. I have had personal experience of the feeding of school children in the poorer parts of our town. The first 100 children were fed in that manner twenty-four years ago, when I visited that town. I found an alarming condition of under-nourisment there, and well meaning people in the town, who realised what was required, immediately established a Children’s Aid Society—that was twenty-five years ago. They erected a building, or they adapted an existing building which cost them just on £600. In that building they had a kitchen and they put up a large stove, and those 100 children were given a meal such as was laid down by us, on every school day throughout the year. Our intention was that they would get at least one good meal per day on a balanced diet. It might be a good thing to find out what has happened to that scheme which was started twenty-four years ago.

Where was that?

At Graaff-Reinet. It was started there twenty-four years ago. In the years when I was there we supervised the children and even today that is still being done by the doctors there. In those days the children were given a hot meal consisting of meat, vegetables, stewed fruit, or fresh fruit, and of course, also hydrates in the form of potatoes, etc.

At whose expense was that done?

The Children’s Welfare Society collected money and it was assisted by the Administration on the £ for £ basis.

What was the price of a meal?

For 100 children we estimated the cost to be about £600 per year. Of course, that is only a year of nine months. Now the question arises, how such a scheme as proposed by the Minister of Finance is to be carried out for the whole country? Is it a good scheme? Should it be extended to cover the whole population? We know for instance that in certain factories the workers are also given one good meal per day, because if the employers fail to do so those people do not get a decent meal. A scheme of this kind for the schools will naturally have to be worked out very carefully, but please don’t appoint another Commission. Let experts determine what is the best way of doing it, and let them decide how it can be established without unnecessary delay, and what class of children should be given such a meal. I am convinced that one properly balanced meal per day would prove to be of the greatest importance, but I want to add that such a scheme should go hand in hand with a careful investigation, a systematic investigation, into the conditions of the parents, into the question whether the parents are really not able to supply their children with a decent meal. I am very much concerned by the fact that there is a class of parent who will not even feed their children if they earn enough money to do so. They will use their earnings for other purposes — sometimes for liquor, sometimes for amusements, and they do not spend their earnings in the way they should. As soon as we start feeding our school children, difficulties may arise. I must say that when twenty-four years ago I stated on a public platform that if the parents failed to feed their children we had to see to it that the children were fed, and that it was a waste of money to have children on the school benches if they were not properly fed, it practically cost me my position.

We have progressed very considerably since those days.

Yes, we made great progress shortly afterwards when we had the influenza epidemic. I think it will have to come, and we shall have to provide meals for groups of children in our schools, but we shall have to do the work in collaboration with, and co-operation with social workers. If children are to be given meals in the schools, we must have a certain amount of control over the families benefiting from such a scheme. It will be a good thing to have such control because it is those families which require supervising. There must be supervision by a social worker who will look into the question of the family income and the way in which that income is spent. We have not progressed to such an extent yet that we are able to say what people must do with their earnings, but wherever the income of any family unit is less than what the family requires to live a healthy life, there should be control over the family income. I want to lay down this doctrine, that it is wrong for the head of the family to be allowed to use his income for other purposes while his children and dependants are not cared for. Whether we want to be free or not, that is the kind of freedom I believe in, the freedom that we cannot do as we like while our family is being neglected, and while our dependants are suffering hardships. The Minister has a Nutrition Council. I believe it is only a temporary council.

It is permanent now.

Well, if it is permanent now, surely we should hear a little more from them. Or rather, we don’t want to hear so much from them, but we should have the power of acting on the advice which they give the Minister after careful consideration. The difficulty, of course, is that the Department of Public Health has not got the power to act, and consequently the Minister has not got the power either of taking any action. He is in the hands of the Government and our great grievance is that this Government carries on a state of war during which they do not consider these important matters as being of sufficient importance to deserve their attention. Those matters are important, whether we are at war or not. The nutrition of the people is of the utmost importance, and what is happening? There is no co-ordination between the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Public Health, at any rate there is not as much co-ordination as there should be. Recently a startling announcement was made in regard to bread. Personally I feel that people started writing too quickly about what our bread was doing to the population. I am not an expert in that respect but I cannot believe that the fact of our eating whole meal bread is affecting our health, or is having the effect of our not getting sufficient starch in our system. Other experts state that a certain acid prevents the starch from being taken up in our bodies. I am not so much concerned about their conclusions, I am of the opinion that they have published their conclusions far too quickly. We require more information and more data before we can arrive at such conclusions. If in addition to the bread which we are eating today we provide fruit and other types of food which are produced in this country in abundance—if those commodities are supplied to the people, we shall find that even the bread we are eating is not doing us any harm. But the co-operation between the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Public Health, and the Department of Social Welfare is not what it should be. If we had proper co-operation between those Departments the things that are happening in this country today would be avoided; we hear of thousands of boxes of fruit being sent from Elgin to Johannesburg; the people in Johannesburg knowing the kind of fruit they were getting sent it back immediately it arrived, telling the consignor at the same time: “You had better bury this stuff, we are not going to do it.” There is an instance of food which should be supplied to the people being buried. I don’t want to repeat what has already been said on the Agricultural Vote. We have control in regard to the price of meat, wheat, mealies; we have control over the distribution of fruit, but these matters affect the Department of Public Health much more than the Department of Agriculture, but the Department of Public Health is powerless. The head of the Department has no say in these matters. He has no power in connection with them; he can only give advice. We have such an anomalous position here that we feel that none but an uncivilised nation would tolerate it any longer. I admit that all of us have been weak in regard to this matter in the past, but as a result of the developments that have taken place during the war these things have come to the forefront to such an extent that we can no longer wait, we cannot even afford to wait, in dealing with these matters, until the National Health Services Commission has reported. These are matters which should be remedied at once. We need not wait until that Commission tells us where the cardinal mistake lies in regard to these matters. Our Departmental heads should come together and put things right, and it should only take a little time to rectify the position. The Department of Public Health at the moment has no power to do certain things. The Minister should step in and should make the Cabinet realise that conditions of this kind must not be allowed to continue. It is a most important matter. We have a satisfactory Department of Public Health in regard to its control of infectious diseases, and the prevention of serious epidemics. The Department has certain specific work to attend to, and it does that work very well, but the great labour is the co-ordination of those matters in relation to nutrition. The experts should meet together with other experts on those questions, but I want to repeat that I shy at the faith which people have today in Commissions and in Boards. With all those investigations by Commissions and Boards which have no powers, no progress is being made.

You yourself are a member of a Council.

That is exactly why I am in such a good position to be able to place my finger on the spot where things are wrong. If the Minister could attend the private discussions of the Public Health Council—and I think he knows that that is the position—he would realise how powerless that Council is. It is not a matter of the Department or of some Council or Board doing this, that or the other—it is a matter of fundamental policy which is of urgent and paramount importance to the country. We cannot allow matters to proceed along this course. The Housing Board comes under the Department of Public Health. I don’t want to say much about that, but the position is that in regard to Housing we are certainly not by any means making the progress which we should make. I do not believe that we are making a hundred per cent. effort today in regard to the war, nor are we making a hundred per cent. effort in regard to our civil life. I believe that there are hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of people who can be organised to work on housing. It makes no difference to the finances of the country whether we spend £10,000,000 or £20,000,000 now or in three years time. We have found out that we need not get alarmed at an expenditure of £10,000,000 or £100,000,000. The war has shown us that. We can and must carry on with the housing programme. I know that there is a shortage of building material. In that connection I am very gratified that a thorough, comprehensive investigation has been made in regard to the types and kinds of building materials that can be used, and I think that that investigation has produced something. I also understand from the Minister of Public Works that a good deal has been achieved in regard to the kinds of materials which can be manufactured here. Even doors and windows can largely be manufactured of cement, and I understand that we have available in this country more than 96 per cent. of the materials which are required. I therefore want to express the hope that it will not stop at investigations and experiments. The experimental houses have been built. Let us carry on and devolop the system and build our houses. The position in regard to housing is really alarming. If we point to the slums and to the fact that the progress that has been made is inadequate and that the health of the public is suffering, we are told that the war is to blame for all this. According to the Prime Minister we may have war conditions for several years to come yet, and five years after the war the lack of progress will still be blamed on postwar difficulties.

We have made more progress in the last three years than in the pervious nine years.

The Minister has been talking about the numbers of houses that have been built.

I admit that what has been done is not enough.

We have got behind, and we are getting further behind. I hope that after the investigation in regard to new types of houses has been completed we shall carry on. We can no longer be allowed to build luxury houses if by doing so we are preventing houses for the poorer sections of the community being built. [Time limit.]

I have quite recently spoken in this House on the state of affairs in the Transkei, and I do not propose to go over that ground again. I think I said enough at the time to impress upon anyone willing to listen, the necessity of doing something and of doing something quickly. I am perfectly aware that the National Health Services Commission is sitting at the moment, but as I have said before we cannot wait until such time as that Commission reports and until such time as the Government has decided whether they are going to implement the recommendations of the Commission. Something must be done at once, and first of all I want to ask this question, as to what policy of the Department is in relation to the question of establishing and financing rural clinics. They are very essential in a scattered country such as the Transkei where, apart from the resident medical officers in the hospitals, there are only part-time district surgeons living in the town. My own observation leads me to believe that these clinics can be of very great assistance, not only in alleviating suffering amongst the natives but also in preventing sickness. I should like to know from the Minister today what the policy of his Department is in relation to that matter. So far as the financing of rural clinics in the Transkei is concerned, it has been on an unsatisfactory basis up to the present, and I would like to ask the Minister what the proposals of his Department are, so that we can place these things on a more or less permanent basis and so that we can keep these children going. I have repeatedly spoken on the question of tuberculosis in the Transkei. I now have before me the report issued within the last month by the Umtata Hospital Board, and they say here, amongst other things—

I want to deal with that question of the provision of beds in hospitals. I have the feeling that a hospital in a central position is not the proper method of dealing with tuberculosis in a place like the Transkei. I would remind the hon. Minister that we had a serious outbreak of leprosy in the Transkei some years ago and that that problem was dealt with on the basis of farr institutions such as Emyanyana. The situation today is this, that a native comes to the hospital at Umtata; he is treated for some time, and when he shows some signs of improvement he is sent back again to his home, and there follows an immediate deterioration in his condition. I feel that if we could establish these farms in the Transkei for tuberculotics, we would be able to deal effectively with a much larger number of natives than we do at the present time, and that we would be able to do so at a much smaller cost than that of a hundred-bed hospital in a central place; and I hope the hon. Minister will consider that question. I am aware that there is a difference of opinion as to whether that type of service is the best or not, but in relation to leprosy it has proved itself to be a development along the right lines. Then I want to return to the question of vital statistics. I raised this question the other day, and I had a reply from the hon. Minister of Native Affairs. But I am going to suggest that this is not a matter for the Minister of Native Affairs. It is a matter for the Minister of Public Health.

In actual fact it is a matter for the Minister of the Interior.

Fortunately the Minister of Public Health is also the Minister of the Interior, so perhaps he will honour us by giving us an answer today. Successive commissions who have investigated the question of tuberculosis in native reserves have cried out for vital statistics. I want to conclude by asking the hon. Minister once again to tell us what his intentions are, and I beg him not to tell me that although he is trying to institute a system of vital statistics in the Transkei, he cannot do so on account of the war.

I would like to say a few words about the work of the Department of Public Health and associate myself with what the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet (Dr. Bremer) has said, viz. that he does not have very much faith in reports of commissions and blue books. I agree with that. Commissions are appointed, reports of commissions are considered, and then the Government finds that at the moment the proposals are impracticable, or that further investigation is necessary—all kinds of delay take place until the blue books are shelved and a layer of dust begins to cover them. I think that if Public Health is really a serious matter to us, and it is a serious matter, then every effort must be made, then pressure must be brought to bear on the Government to supply more conveniences for the furthering of Public Health. The situation has arisen that practically a sort of political competition has been started between the various parties, especially the Government and the official Opposition to suggest schemes, but little is done. We learn from Durban, and we learn from hon. members here that the time has come when the people should wake up in connection with the serious conditions that exist there and that the Government must take action. The Government’s reply is another commission. I want to suggest that the Government and the Department of Public Health makes an immediate start especially on the platteland. The people on the platteland, a class of people there, live under very difficult conditions. The small farmer, the shop assistants and bank clerks who receive no support from any Governments funds in time of real need, have a particularly difficult time. There is a great lack of hospitalisation and such things. I know of actual cases of young farmers who have been totally ruined by long illnesses of two or three years. Why can we not begin immediately by creating clinics in the districts. Perhaps we can encourage districts by contributing on the £ for £ system to funds which the people raise for the purpose of establishing clinics, and where there are no nursing homes, create nursing homes on the £ for £ system. In my constituency we are fortunate, because there we have established a first class hospital on the £ for £ system, but other smaller towns have not got it, and are not within reach of it. We must enable them to equip decent places with one or two nurses where cases can be treated that are not so complicated and serious that they need to be sent to a large central hospital. You get today cases where a mother of a family perhaps lies ill for months and months. No provision is made for her, there is no possibility of being nursed in the neighbourhood, the only possibility is transfer to a hospital which is a long way off. Now the position is that the mother lies there, the family is neglected, and the mother does not get the necessary attention. These are things that demand our immediate attention. I know that there is a commission that is considering matters and which is conducting an investigation, but it will perhaps take a long time before the commission reports and before effect is given to recommendations. I feel that a practical beginning must be made immediately, especially on the platteland where people are isolated and have not the conveniences that are available in the towns and cities. I will leave the towns to the commission that is now engaged with this matter and to work out schemes for them. I suggest this. In the second place I want to point out that the Minister’s figures in connection with housing were a revelation to me. The Minister has said that we have made good progress during the last 3½ years. If I understand the figures properly, then in that time about 15,000 houses were built for non-Europeans. The figures which he gave for Europeans was 800 houses. All I can say to the Minister is that I think that the scale in this connection is very skew. There is a serious and a real shortage of houses for Europeans and if we compare 800 with 15,000 then it is time that we should ask the Minister to try and load the scale on the other side and to make provision for the thousands of European families who are today without proper housing.

I do not intervene in this debate with any intention of prolonging the Minister’s agony, because I know the anxiety to get on to the Labour Vote. But I will not have another opportunity of calling attention to something of vital concern in the general health policy of the Union. I was amazed the other day to hear from the lips of the Administrator of Natal, that out of the native women who give birth to children, three out of five suffer from venereal disease. Surely we are in a State where it is possible for us to appreciate the terrible ramifications of the incidence of venereal disease. The other day I sat agape when I read that the League of Nations had considered the fact that there were 1,000,000 blind people in India. India is a very long way from South Africa, but the Minister is probably not aware of the fact that the incidence of blindness among the population of the Union of South Africa is as high as it is in India. There are, in my opinion, Mr. Chairman, no less than 25,000 blind people in the Union today. Fifteen years ago when I interested myself in the incidence of blindness in an endeavour to prevent, if possible, this economic wastage, I used to be taken to task when I used to estimate that there were 10,000 blind people in the Union. As the result of the introduction of the Blind Persons Act in 1936, it has been possible for the National Council for the Blind to register these people, and we have on the books of the Council no less than 23,661 blind people today. And that is not all of them. I want to tell the Minister that there was an effort made to advertise for people to conduct a survey of certain of the areas of the Union of South Africa. And they were prepared to pay £1,500 per annum for an opthalmologist. Only one answered the advertisement and he was over 70 years of age. So the position has fallen away. We know, however, the terrible incidence of blindness in this country, we know that there are nearly 2,000 European blind, there are nearly 2,000 coloured blind, and there are nearly 20,000 registered blind natives. I can tell the Minister that out of every 600 blind Europeans registered in this country, 62 of them go blind under the age of 40. I can tell the Minister the names of these people and exactly the cause from which they are blind. In most cases it is due not to malnutrition, but to neglect at the time of birth, and inherited diseases. Amongst the coloured blind, 38 out of every 100 go blind under the age of 40, and of a large proportion of non-Europeans who go blind, their blindness is due to venereal disease. Amongst the native registered blind only thirteen out of every 100 go blind under the age of 40. Amongst natives, cataract and other diseases are the principal causes of the blindness. Roughly speaking, amongst the native population there is one blind person in every 300, amongst the coloured one out of 800, and amongst Europeans one blind person out of every 1,200. But there are areas in the Union today where the incidence of blindness amongst the population is as high as one in sixteen. As a result of that, charitable endeavour created a hospital run in connection with the Johannesburg non-European Institute for Blind Workers at Roodepoort. A hospital was set up for the purpose of dealing with registered blind people, and it is gratifying to know that out of 26 people who entered that institution last year, 12 were cured of their blindness. The Department of Public Health is not helping to prevent blindness in this country. It has money which could quite easily be utilised for this purpose, but they cannot promote the prevention and cure of blindness simply because they are under the impression that this is something to do with hospitalisation.

With reference to the people’s health on the Platteland, I think that this is a matter that is causing much anxiety. There are various diseases that prevail on a large scale. I shall mention two. There is tuberculosis and there are venereal diseases, that have affected from 60 per cent. to 70 per cent. or even more of the population, particularly the coloureds. Let me give the Minister this assurance that we have many more tuberculosis cases on the Platteland today than he actually thinks. Now the Minister knows that in the past there has been an arrangement that holds the local bodies responsible for the support of those people during the period of their illness. But that burden has become insupportable to those local bodies, and what I would now like the Minister to do is to make a statement regarding what the policy of the Government is in the matter of contributing towards the improvement of that position. I do not know if the Minister knows it, but we have instances where the District Surgeon has stated that there are over a hundred cases of tuberculosis in the area of one Divisional Council. It works out at about £180 a year to keep one person in hospital. I know of one Divisional Council in which there are 150 cases. If we now multiply 180 by 150, then it means that that Divisional Council has to provide an amount of between £25,000 and £30,000 per annum. It is quite beyond the potentialities of such a local body. The Platteland has sent a deputation to the Minister, and the Minister has made certain promises to it. I can tell the Minister that the position is critical. Does the Minister know that some of the Divisional Councils have already definitely decided that no matter what happens they cannot see their way clear for the future to care for these cases of tuberculosis. Does the Minister know that there are coloured persons walking about until they die from tuberculosis? The local bodies must obtain that money by imposing local taxations, and he will agree with me that when the expenditure runs into tens of thousands of pounds the local bodies cannot possibly afford it. I have not the necessary time now to quote all the figures. The Minister knows what the figures are, because these were submitted to him. Those figures show what proportions the disease has assumed, and what the position now is. Where this is so, the Minister dares not allow that position to continue. He must make the statement and tell us what he is prepared to do. If necessary, he must contribute 100 per cent. in order to prevent those conditions and to save those people. What to me is so astonishing is this: If we look at the estimates then we see on page 167, G/8, the amount for the prevention of the spread of tuberculosis, and that there is a reduction of from £11,225 to £2,300. There is a reduction of altogether £9,000. Why is that? Has the position according to the Department then improved so that less money need be spent? I want the Minister to tell us what is going on. I would have thought that the Department would be prepared to put at least £50,000 or £100,000 additional on the estimates for the purpose of improving conditions. I want to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact once again that this disease has increased in a terrible manner on the platteland, and where the Divisional Councils have withdrawn their assistance in many cases, the Minister comes and reduces this amount by £9,000. I hope that the Minister will be abe to give a satisfactory explanation of this. Then we find more or less the same sort of thing in connection with the treatment of venereal diseases.

You are reading the estimates quite wrongly. The amounts to which you are referring refer to separate institutions.

My point is that additional provision should have been made. The Minister should have come forward with a plan and with the necessary money to assist the Divisional Councils to resist the spread of these diseases.

But surely you have noticed that the Vote has been increased.

But it is being done on such a small scale that it is practically worthless. The increase perhaps provides for the increase in the price of the medicines but there is nothing to prove that the Minister is tackling these matters on a big scale. In connection with G/8 there is a decrease of £9,000, and we would like to have an explanation of this. Then I would like to touch on a few other points. I see that in connection with District Surgeons—that is Item D—there is a reduction of £2,220. Now what is the position today? I do not know if the Minister knows it, but in my constituency there are three towns without a doctor. The people are a tremendous distance from the nearest doctor. I am not quite sure, but it appears to me that there is also a reduction in connection with nursing. There is a reduction under D/7. Does the Minister realise that if there is not a doctor in a town, then the position is sad and wretched? In the small towns such as Loxton and Brandvlei there is no doctor. Unless the District Surgeon gets a proper salary he cannot remain there, because the towns are so small that his income is also small. The people cannot make a living, and they go elsewhere where they can get a bigger income. The Government must take the small towns into consideration and give the District Surgeons a bigger allowance. I also want to draw the attention of the Minister to a little place like Vanwyksvlei. There was a nurse. There are poor people, and they cannot afford to go to Carnarvon to fetch a doctor there. There is no nurse, and they simply have to die. I want to appeal to the Minister to make a special allowance to the nurses, so that they may remain in such places. We must try to make those places attractive to them, because at the present time such places are unattractive to nurses and doctors. I want to ask the Minister to reply to this point, whether he will make it more attractive for doctors and nurses to remain in such small towns. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, without desiring to delay the passing of the Vote, I hope I may have the indulgence of the House just long enough to support what the hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming) has said in regard to the usefulness of native clinics, which we should like to see established throughout the Union. I am fortunate enough to have in my constituency a clinic which was established I think by the present Minister of Public Health, which is in its way an example to the whole Union for the sound methods on which the work is carried out. Some years ago, whilst the present Minister of Finance was Minister of Public Health, I drew attention to an example of a clinic that I came across in Swaziland of a very satisfactory kind, and I should like to say that the methods adopted in the Bulwer district where a clinic has been established—

A health unit, we call it.

That is established on very sound lines indeed. There the method is not merely the curing of ills, but the building up of propaganda in favour of prevention, teaching the native people in their backward condition that they should use vegetables in diet, and improve generally all their methods of feeding their children and generally conserving their health. They seem to have taken to it very readily, and very good work has been begun in that district. So satisfactory has it been that neighbouring districts have passed resolutions supporting the establishment of health centres or clinics of the same kind. I hope the Minister will be encouraged by what has taken place, to persevere with that policy, and to give us further proof of the wish of the Government to improve the health of the natives, and encourage amongst them sounder ideas in regard to health matters than they in their primitive state possess today.

Mr. Chairman, as the Minister will recollect, for a number of Sessions we on these benches have been asking him when the question of responsibility for native hospitalisation in the reserves is to be decided. The Minister will remember that the Provinces have said it is beyond their capacity. He told us last Session that the matter has been referred to the Financial Relations Commission to decide the matter as between the Central Government and the Provinces. Now I want to ask the Minister when he expects this Commission to report, because it is a long time ago now since it was appointed, and in the meantime native hospitalisation in the reserves suffers. On the second reading of the Housing Bill, I raised certain points in connection with housing of the coloured people and natives, which the Minister apparently did not think called for a reply, and therefore I want to raise them again now. The first one is this matter of supplying cement floors in sub-economic housing schemes. I believe there is some other material besides the cement, but in the climate of the Western Province, these floors are very cold indeed. I know it is not possible to get timber at the present time for flooring, and therefore I want to ask the Minister, as a temporary measure, whether ordinary earth floors cannot be used. That is what most of these people are accustomed to. I can assure the Minister they are better than cement floors. I can assure the Minister that these cold cement floors are a great cause of complaint, especially when many of these people have no beds at all and have to sleep on the floor. I ask the Minister to get the Housing Board to look into this matter, and see whether it is not possible to approve of these simple earth floors, and put in timber floors later after the war, whenever timber is available. I also want to ask the Minister whether his Department will not now give up the policy of approving two-roomed houses. In many of the newest sub-economic schemes these two-roomed houses have been built. I am sure the Minister will agree it is wrong to expect an ordinary family, wife, husband and children, some of the children quite big, to be housed in a two-roomed building. They must have one room a as living room, and that means herding the whole family together into one sleeping room. I knew a municipality which has been able to put up three-roomed sub-economic houses at a rent of 10s. per month and if that can be done in one case it can be done in others. I do hope the Department will from now on set its face against the two-roomed house. I want to ask the Minister whether the Housing Board will not approve of advances being made to non-Europeans to get their own houses. Assisted house-building schemes of that kind have been put into force in other places. Bloemfontein has made an outstanding success of it, and this method of providing houses is cheaper for the native and the coloured man. Where these schemes have been put into operation they have had to be undertaken out of economic loans—in the case of the Bloemfontein Municipality for instance. There is nothing in the law to prevent such understakings being financed out of sub-economic loans. Requests have been made to the Minister for sub-economic loans, but the reply has always been that the Housing Board has set its face against this. There is a serious shortage of houses today. That shortage could be much more easily met if sub-economical loans could be made available to individuals.

I feel I must conclude my remarks because I had left off at a point which might be interpreted in the wrong light. I do not want to leave this House under a false impression. The Government is by no means unsympathetic and the sympathy is translated into action not only by Dr. Peter Allen, Secretary for Public Health, but also by Mr. Kuschke, Secretary for Social Welfare. Both are working in collaboration with the National Council for the blind, both are anxious to give whatever help can be given in accordance with the Government’s policy. I left my remarks at a stage where this Palmer Hostel, associated with the Transvaal Institution at Roodepoort, is faced with having to shut down after having run for about twelve months. It has done tremendously good work. It is financed by funds raised by the National Council for the Blind. The Government in subsidies pays out about £350,000 towards blind welfare work. We feel that we have funds which the Secretary for Public Welfare would be prepared to spend if only he could. He could carry out a survey if he had the necessary material. Mr. Kuschke is in the same position. He is anxious to see this type of work developed. He is feeling it is doing the work which the State should do, and the whole policy of the Administration is to help. We feel that despite the fact that the Department of Health and Social Welfare have arrived at the idea that this is hospitalisation, it is nothing of the sort, it is a need for following up Welfare work in the cause of prevention. Your hospital system may be able to do it. If this new hospital with 500 beds, this new hospital at Orlando, is built, and if it gets those 500 beds—if we are able to ask the Johannesburg Municipality to allocate 50 of these beds to an Eye Department, and if, as a result, it is possible for us to go into the Mafeking and Marico Native Locations and bring out one of each 50 of the population who are blind, we may be able to do something, but I doubt if arrangements could be made with the Municipal authorities to bring in these people from the rural areas, who need this care and this preventive work which will have the effect of completely curing their blindness. It has been said that the great tragedy of blindness is not the blindness, but the fact that so much of it is preventible. We are a new country and we are just starting this work, and I appeal to the Minister not to curtail public initiative or voluntary effort, because if the Palmer Hostel shuts down it may be ten or fifteen years before another Institution opens up. I appeal to the Minister to make it possible for Mr. Kuschke and Dr. Allen to assist the National Council of the Blind, to assist voluntary effort to go on, and help the Government in what is their real desire, and to save all this useful wastage of human material in the field of social welfare work. It is for that reason that I have intervened, and I hope the Minister will make it possible for these institutions to remain open.

I would like to focus the Minister’s attention on the position that has arisen in connection with sub-economic housing schemes. In reply to questions we put, it was disclosed that about £20,000,000 was spent on the schemes, and that under these schemes 24,014 houses were built for non-Europeans, and only 3,266 for Europeans. The Government is not responsible for it that so few houses have been built for European persons. The Government advances money to the municipalities at ¾per cent. interest to build the houses and to let them at a cheap rental, but in practice it boils down to this, that local authorities are not inclined to obtain money for cheap housing schemes for their European citizens. They are going in for sub-economic housing for non-Europeans on a great scale in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and a few other places, but they hesitate to use money to build houses for European persons. Thus we find that more than 24,000 houses have been built for non-Europeans and only 3,000 for Europeans. Cannot the Minister spur on the municipalities to avail themselves of the schemes and to build houses also for the European people? Take Cape Town for instance. There we find that low-paid people live in these houses and that they pay from 15s. to 30s. per month. In Bloemfontein, however, such families have to pay that price for one room, and house rent is one of the principal items of expenditure. House rent takes about one-fourth or one-fifth of the income of a family. If the municipalities can be persuaded to tackle more sub-economic housing schemes for the low-paid labourers, then they can come out better with the meagre wages they receive. I therefore want to ask the Minister to encourage the municipalities to make use of these schemes, and by so doing to give the low-paid labourers houses at a reasonable rental. There is something else that I would like to ask the Minister. We know that tuberculosis sufferers from outside are not allowed in our country, but in reply to a question we got the information that 6,000 came in from England last year, British soldiers.

From England ? Those were probably soldiers on their way home.

I asked the Minister what the position was in connection with Nelspoort, and how many tuberculosis sufferers were brought in there from outside. Now I would like to know if the English soldiers are supported here at the expense of the Union or at the expense of the British Government?

I wish to give my support to the plea by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Bowen) for assistance to the hostel for the cure and prevention of blindness at Roodepoort. I have known the enterprise at Ezenzeleni since its inception. I have seen the various steps in its development and every one has been a tribute to the devotion of the people who have given themselves to this work. I know that for the most part, these people have had assistance from Government departments; but this is not so in respect of this hostel which is designed to provide a place for the treatment and prevention of blindness. It has struggled into existence against considerable difficulties and is today in danger of being strangled by red tape. It seems to belong to no department—it has no claim on anyone’s assistance; but if, in fact, it is strangled, it will be a tragedy. It is the only effort of its kind in existence and it is blazing the trail towards that preventive work which is so overdue in this country and so highly necessary. I do hope the Minister will give the matter his earnest consideration and that he will get round any corners which can be got round to keep that hostel in existence. I also want to support the appeal by the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) on the subject of housing, in particular his appeal that the Minister should consider getting the Housing Board to put an end to the two roomed house. It is a fact that a great many of the houses at present being built under housing schemes to take people out of bad surroundings, are actually slums before they are occupied. That seems a ridiculous position and it seems only necessary to be brought to the notice of the Minister for him to see that an end is put to it. I know that to abolish the two roomed house is of course to increase the cost of the housing schemes, and that that will create many difficulties, but I imagine that the Housing Board is already faced with that difficulty, and has had it pressed upon it by the report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on urban African conditions. I feel in any case that this problem must be dealt with apart altogether from this question of accommodation. I feel that there is no sense in continuing these two roomed houses and that we should turn our backs on the practice of building them.

The Church felt so concerned about the tuberculosis position on the platteland that they summoned a congress of interested persons at Riversdale last year to discuss the subject of the prevention of tuberculosis. I just want to say to the Minister that if a municipality wants to send tuberculosis sufferers to a hospital then it takes so long, even where they are prepared to bear the expenses, before they can get accommodation that the patients generally die before the time. At the congress figures were submitted that were obtained from the various municipalities in regard to mortality cases as a result of tuberculosis.

I shall be glad to have those figures.

But they have been given to you.

I was astounded when I heard the figures from the wives of predikants and others who took the trouble of approaching various municipalities for data. What causes me to worry is that the Government want to help, but that it is all patchwork. Why cannot we tackle a disease such as tuberculosis, which is a terrible disease, and eradicate the thing from beginning to end. It is a national matter. The municipalities have not the funds to tackle the matter. Here and there institutions are erected and steps are taken, but it seems to me that there is no comprehensive plan of tackling this terrible scourge. It is clear that if radical steps are not taken and infections proceeds as in the past then it will be a big catastrophe to our country. If the Government will take into consideration the value of the health of the citizens of the country, then it will realise that it is worth while to take steps. The same applies to venereal diseases. There is no co-ordination. There is no compulsion. One gets charitable institutions that work in the various districts, but it is all on a loose footing. One does not know whose duty it is, whether it is the responsibility of the Divisional Council, of municipalities, or of Provincial Councils—the Central Government must take steps to coordinate the combating of these diseases.

For that reason the commission has been appointed.

I hope that it will not again remain at a report, but that they will tackle such a disease thoroughly and eradicate it. I spoke the other day to the District Surgeon at Wynberg, and he told me that the people were entirely lost. They do not know if they fall under Cape Town, or under the Divisional Council, and there is the Roman Catholic Church with its societies, and our church, and the Anglican Church; there is no co-ordination. A patient suffering from venereal disease remains in hospital for perhaps a few months; it costs £15 or £18, or more, and he is not completely cured, but he can leave the hospital provided he comes for treatment once a week, for four weeks. These people perhaps live on the Cape Flats, miles and miles from the hospital. It was difficult enough to get the patient there in the first place, but they do not return for four weeks, with the result that the disease continues and infects other people. That is also the reason why one finds so many blind children and malformed children. The disease spreads, it is not cured entirely. That is the result of patch-work. One spends £18 or £20 to cure a person and all the time it is waste of money because the person is not quite cured and does not get the final necessary treatment. That is how it happens also on the platteland. Municipalities have already reached the position where, if they do not have to pay then they do not pay. Nor do they care if tuberculosis sufferers who apply, have to wait three months or six months. A tremendous change should be brought about in connection with these matters. It is all patch-work. As regards housing, I am not satisfied that the types of houses that are being built are the best. The specifications are laid down and loans are subject to the condition that the house are built according to the specifications. But the houses are not always satisfactory. There is a tremendous shortage of houses, and there is talk, talk, talk, but no steps are taken to provide for the shortage. I am glad that the Minister now appears to realise that the Government has a responsibility there. The Minister says he is glad that I now think as he does. If he will take the trouble to go into the matter he will see that the first speech which I delivered in this House related to housing. I said at the time that the only way out is for the State to build houses, that the State should ensure that the people got houses and that it could not be expected of the municipalities to do this. I am glad that the Minister now realises the responsibility of the State. One should think particularly of the poor people, the people who are not in a position to pay a first instalment. The people who have means can help themselves, but the poor people should be assisted so that they can also have a sense of pride in the ownership of their own houses. Care should be taken, however, particularly in the small towns, not to build all the sub-economic houses in one area, they should be spread over all parts of the town, otherwise the area in which the sub-economic houses are built will easily get the name of a white location. We must avoid that. [Time limit.]

It is most encouraging to see the way in which members on all sides of the House are anxious to take part in this debate on public health and to offer suggestions by way of assistance to the departmental heads. I think it is a sign of the times, this interest in public health and public health development, and particularly in regard to such matters as housing, nutrition, and the National campaign against diseases such as venereal disease and tuberculosis. I am grateful to hon. members who have made various suggestions this afternoon. These suggestions will be carefully examined by the Department, in due course. I think I might remind the Committee that despite the difficulties which we have had during the last three and a half years, despite the injunction on all Government departments to go slow, to cut down in regard to spending, the Public Health Department with the approval of my colleague, the Minister of Finance, has been able to carry on as usual, and not only carry on as usual, but to expand, with the result that as I pointed out last year for the first time in the history of the Department, the Departmental estimates topped the £1,000,000 mark. I mention these things because it is quite obvious that public health cannot stand still even in war time. The Government has fully realised this, and I think that evidence has been given on many occasions that it is the desire of the Government, it is the desire of the Public Health Department to ensure that it shall not stand still, but it shall adopt a progressive policy despite the difficulties of the war. That has been the slogan of the Department—progress, carry on despite the difficulties and setbacks, carry on and do not be perturbed by outside difficulties. But quite obviously one cannot bring about all the reforms one would like to in a day. Many of the Institutions of the Public Health Department, many of its activities have been the result of experience, gained over a number of years. It is true that public conscience is demanding a forward step, a revolutionary forward step in a number of directions. I think it is true that the time has come for the Public Health Act itself to be reviewed. I think the time has long passed. I think the Public Health Act, the Act of 1920, is out of date, as far as our existing circumstances are concerned. But do not forget that the Department of Public Health is at present bound by the provisions of the Public Health Act. It is limited in its functions by the provisions of that Act, and until the Act is altered, until the public of this country is educated to a State where it requires that that Act should be altered, the Public Health Department will have to carry on within its present limitations. Now this has been realised. The Departmental head has realised, and I have realised, that, but there are some persons who suggest that because one realises these things one should act at once. There are people who say: “Why don’t you step in? Why don’t you act at once? Why have a Commission? Why have a plan?” I ask hon. members to remember what this stepping in would mean. I ask hon. members to realise the implications of tearing up the Public Health Act and introducing a new Bill straight away, without any prior consideration, without any prior planning on a scientific basis.

You have had three and a half years.

I do not propose to bring this debate down to the level of party politics or political auctioneering. Perhaps part of the reason why the activities of the Department of Public Health are not known as well as they ought to be known to members of this House and persons outside, is that we have tried to keep its activities out of the political arena. If there is one Department whose activities should be divorced from these matters, it is the Department of Public Health. I do not propose to compete with the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) or any other hon. gentleman who seeks to traffic in matters of human material, human interest, and upon a basis of political expediency. I think we should leave these things out, it has not been done in the past, and I do not propose to allow it to be done now. If we were to tear up the Public Health Act, what are we going to put in its place? Is the Department of Public Health going to take over hospitals, assume the financial responsibility not only of infectious but of other diseases. I put that question to hon. members representing the Province of Natal. If the Public Health Department came forward with a new Public Health Act in terms of which hospitals would be taken over by the Central Government, could Natal agree to that?

No, I think not.

If we were to embark upon other activities without consultation with the people concerned, there would be a good deal of opposition and criticism from local authorities. There are many pitfalls in the way; there is a great deal of health propaganda to be made in the country before these changes can be made, and it is for that reason that Government, instead of rushing in without prior investigation, has decided, so far as the long range policy is concerned, to appoint a National Health Commission with sufficiently wide terms of reference to go into all these difficult and controversial matters. The long range policy of the Department is symbolished by the appointment of that Commission. Some hon. members laugh and say “another commission”, but the alternative to having a Commission is to do nothing, because any attempt to change in vital fashion the existing order of things so far as public health is concerned, would meet with a storm of opposition unless there was prior enquiry and unless the people in all the provinces were given an opportunity of expressing their views. I am not going to go into the vexed question of Provincial and Central Government control. These are matters which the Commission has to investigate, the public is given an opportunity of expressing its views, and the provinces are also given an opportunity of putting, forward their standpoint in regard to these and other financial relationships. The Commission has, as I say, sufficiently wide terms of reference to allow it to traverse the whole gamut of public health matters in this country. Its terms of reference are unrestricted, it is specifically charged with reviewing the provisions of the Public Health Act of 1919, with making recommendations for the provision of an organised national health service in conformity with modern conceptions of health, which will ensure adequate medical, dental, hospital and nursing services for all sections of the people. Those are very far-reaching terms of reference indeed, and if that ideal is to be translated into practice, then quite obviously a great deal of money will have to be spent, and a good deal of reorganisation will have to be made. Hon. members must remember that Rome was not built in a day, we cannot by a stroke of the pen produce this new health Utopia. The policy being followed by the Public Health Department is, I venture to think, a wide policy, it is the policy of the scientific approach, a wide investigation, opportunity to all parties to state their case, no stampeding of opinion, no rushing in without an opportunity for the expression of all views. That is the long range policy of the Department as embodied in the appointment of this Commission. The Commission has embarked upon its work in a spirit of enthusiasm, and it has been accepted by the public with enthusiasm. It has not found any difficulty in finding witnesses ready, to tender evidence, it has been almost embarrassed by requests from individuals and public bodies to give evidence, it has not allowed the sittings of Parliament to interfere with its activities. During this Session of Parliament the Health Commission has continued with its sittings, and as soon as Parliament goes into recess that Commission will proceed upon a tour of the whole country, paying particular attention to places such as the Transkei and other native territories, and to the Platteland, which has its own peculiar medical and hospital problem. It intends not only to hear evidence, but to see for itself. I think the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet (Dr. Bremer) will agree that that is a wise policy, and it is the right approach to the problem. The Commission has a great and wonderful opportunity; it is possible for that Commission to come forward with far-reaching schemes which may completely revolutionise our public health ideas in this country, and enable the Government of the day to introduce a new deal which will mean something for every section of the people. One does not want to anticipate the labours of that Commission, for it would be premature, it would perhaps be impertinent, and certainly unwise to attempt to anticipate the recommendations of that Commission. The Council for Public Health, of which the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet is a member, meets once or twice a year, and it does very useful work when it does meet, but I visualise something of quite a different nature, a permanent body of professional and other officials who will be there to help and guide the department throughout the year. We have to change our whole conception of the Department of Public Health, but we must wait till the Commission reports. That Commission, I hope will be able to report at least by the beginning of next year if not by the end of this year; it has already made excellent progress. There were those who prophesied rather dolefully that we should hear nothing about this Commission for another two or three years. Well I understand that as the result of progress made today we shall have that report within a reasonable time, and this House and the country will have an opportunity of considering the report, and the Government will have an opportunity of formulating its policy in accordance with its recommendations. But it is not sufficient to rely merely on this Commission, it is not sufficient for the Department to fold its arms and say: “We shall wait for a year or eighteen months, and just carry on in the same old way, before bringing about any innovation.” The Commission was appointed last year, and the Department has not been sitting still since then. A number of innovations have been made, and I think in the forefront of current policy should be placed housing and nutrition, and side by side with these as corollaries should be placed the campaigns against tuberculosis and venereal disease. The hon. member for Graaff-Reinet has referred to the fact that one of the difficulties of the Department of Public Health in dealing with infectious diseases is the lack of vital statistics in respect of the native population. The hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) has also referred to that matter, and the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) has also taken an interest in it, as well as the member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming). It is true we have no vital statistics in regard to the native. Some of the statistics in respect of Europeans, from which the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet quoted this afternoon, provide most interesting data. He referred to cancer and to the fact that the death rate per 100,000 had increased from 58.54 to 109 in the course of the last few years, a very large increase indeed. But as he pointed out, that did not necessarily mean that one had to draw a very gloomy inference. I think it is accepted now that the increased incidence of cancer in the death rate is due more to the fact that persons are living a longer period than formerly. In earlier days, sections of the population did not reach the cancer age, but through better nutrition, better living conditions, and modern science, more members of the community now reach that age, and are now beset by this enemy, the scourge of cancer. But however that may be, the figures that are obtainable concerning Europeans show how important these statistics are to the Department of Public Health. Vital statistics are part of the munitions of war of the Department, which is very much hampered by not having those statistics in respect of natives. About 1937 the Minister of Commerce and Industries, Mr. Stuttaford, appointed a committee to go into this question of vital statistics amongst the natives. It is quite apparent from their report that the Department of the Interior, which would be responsible for this work, would have to increase its staff very largely, and a fairly widespread organisation would have to be brought into being.

It might have been done before the war.

Perhaps it should have been, but it is impracticable today from the manpower point of view. As hon. members know, we cannot even have the biennial registration of voters, because we cannot get the necessary manpower, and there are other difficulties in regard to obtaining these statistics.

Without them you cannot have a policy.

There is a good deal of truth in that interjection, but I can tell the House this, that in my capacity as Minister of Public Health, I am urging myself in my capacity as Minister of the Interior, to formulate plans for post-war expansion which will enable this to be done. In other words, I have asked the Department of the Interior to include provision for vital statistics amongst the natives in its post-war expansion plans. I mentioned earlier in another debate, that the Prime Minister has instructed all Departments to prepare plans for post-war expansion as part of the general policy of postwar reconstruction. Many of these plans will be co-ordinated by the Economic and Social Planning Council. So far as the Department of the Interior is concerned, provision for obtaining vital statistics amongst the natives will be made. Nutrition, Sir, is one of the items of immediate policy. The hon. member for Graaff-Reinet has said that he would like to hear more of the work of the National Nutrition Council. Well, Sir, I agree that perhaps it is unfortunate that that annual report has not been published. As the result of one of the recommendations of that Council, a Union nutrition officer, Dr. Laskie, has been appointed. The Department has now a sub-section dealing with nutrition, and the task of that section will be to co-ordinate the activities of the Nutritional Council, and other bodies concerned with nutrition. Dr. Laskie is busy compiling a report of the Nutrition Council. The main work of the Council has been done hitherto by a sub-committee, and it is due to this sub-committee that one is enabled, or should be enabled to get the necessary co-ordination between different Departments. The Public Health Department is vitally concerned with the provision of nutrition, that is to say proper food to the community. The Minister of Social Welfare is concerned in the matter of feeding school children, and the Department of Agriculture is concerned with the production of foodstuffs and its distribution. There is an Agricultural and Economic Committee of the National Nutrition Council, and the Chairman of that Council is the Secretary for Agriculture. There is also on that Council representatives of the Department of Public Health and Social Welware, they are in fact the secretaries of those two Departments. And so in regard to other committees. But I do feel, Sir, that there has not hitherto been quite the necessary co-ordination one would have liked in regard to some of these matters Steps are being taken now to see whether it will not be necessary to reconstitute the National Nutrition Council in order either to make the membership smaller, or by the appointment of a small executive committee to enable that Council to meet more frequently than it has done in the past, and to have more immediate contacts with the Department than it has had. The appointment of our nutrition section in the Department of Public Health will materially help in this matter. I agree with hon. members who have mentioned the distribution of foodstuffs. It is quite inexcusable that a large section of Europeans in this country and a much larger section of non-Europeans are not receiving a sufficiency of protective foodstuffs, and that food and citrus should be destroyed because of a so-called surplus. There is no surplus in this country. When persons are hungry or badly nourished there is no surplus, and there never can be a surplus. As hon. members know, there has been established a Committee consisting of representatives of the Department of Agriculture, Public Health, Social Welfare and the Citrus Board, and I understand also of the Deciduous Fruit Board, which is now busy preparing plans, not merely in regard to citrus but in regard to deciduous fruit, and I hope, Sir, that that is going to open the door to better co-ordination and to the elimination of such wastage as has taken place in the past. Let me say I read with some concern a statement published by the Chairman of the Citrus Board that the Government has been offered the surplus citrus for the year 1942, but had declined to accept it because the Government refused to pay the railage charges. I must confess that that statement shocked me when I read it, because I was not aware that any such offer had been made to the Government. I have made enquiries, and I find that what happened was that at the last moment the Department of Native Affairs was told that it could have the surplus provided it took over that surplus at the source. That Department was given no opportunity whatever for making arrangements for distribution and it could not do so in the time available. It was no question of the offer being turned down, because the Department refused to pay the railage, the offer was not accepted because it was made at a time when it was impracticable to use that offer.

Did not the Railways refuse to pay the carriage?

I understand that the explanation I am giving is the cause of that being turned down. The Railways themselves may not have been concerned, because I am perfectly certain that whatever the attitude of the Railways, it may be that in this matter it was for the Central Government to pay, and not the Railways to make a loss. That is understandable, but that would not be the cause of the turning down: of the offer. The Minister of Railways might quite correctly take up the attitude that if the State is going to assist needy persons in obtaining proper food, it is for the Central Government to pay and not the Railways. That may be the proper attitude, but I understand from the Secretary for Native Affairs, that the primary cause of the refusal to make use of the offer, was that they were unable to arrange the distribution. Quite obviously it is no use being landed with 6,000,000 pockets of citrus when you have to get them to the native reserves, and you have to make your arrangements for distribution and so on. This Inter-Departmental Committee which has been established, has now an opportunity of timeously going into all these questions, and working out a plan which will be available when the new citrus season approaches. The Department of Public Health is putting before that Committee a co-ordinated plan somewhat along the lines of a system operating in America in regard to various foodstuffs. Whether that suggestion will be adopted or not is a matter for the Committee. I can assure hon. members that these questions which have quite rightly so concerned the thinking public, are being dealt with now along proper lines of co-ordination between the Departments concerned. So far as the administration of the feeding of school children is concerned, that will be undertaken by the Department of Social Welfare in conjunction with the nutrition officer and the provinces. The question of housing has been raised again. There some disappointment has been expressed that more progress has not been made. I can only repeat what I said in conjunction with the Housing Bill that if the achievements of the past three and a half years are disappointing, then the achievements of the previous nine years must have been lamentable.

That is no excuse.

Of course it is no excuse, it is not going to help us to be always delving into the past, but it certainly seems to me to be somewhat carping that when one does make progress during a period of great difficulty, the only comment that is made on the opposite side is: “Why have you not done more?” I am not satisfied, I say that quite openly.

Why should we be satisfied if you are not?

But I do not indulge in carping criticism of the Housing Board, or the officials of the Department of Public Health. I do not expect them to make bricks without straw, or houses without bricks. No doubt the hon. gentlemen opposite who are so used to dropping them would not experience any difficulty. I want to tell the House that if the Housing Board tomorrow were to put before me a plan for building 50,000 houses, it would be just worth the paper it is written on, because it would be physically impossible to build them. Hon. members must face up to these questions with a sense of reality. In appointing a committee to make a national survey of housing, I think the Department is acting wisely, and again making the scientific approach with a view to tackling the matter more forcibly when building materials become available in greater quantities than now, and when circumstances change. Meanwhile, local authorities are succeeding with their sub-economic and economic schemes, and the Department of Public Health, through the Housing Board, is encouraging local authorities to do their duty. But we cannot decide in what way we may have to go forward on a national basis until the problem is known as a whole, what housing is required as a minimum in the next five years to provide for the poorer sections of the population. Some hon. members have suggested that not sufficient sub-economic housing is taking place in respect of Europeans. Well, sir, I would again remind hon. members that it is the local authorities that have to build. They can go forward with their schemes, because they know the needs of the local areas.

Why not compel them to do it?

My carping friends over there will never be satisfied with anything. They were satisfied with nothing at all at a time when there was a Government in power which had unlimited funds, but now that more progress has been made in three and a half years than was made under the previous Government, they are not satisfied. They were satisfied before and kept quiet, but now when buildings are being put up despite great difficulties, all they can offer is carping criticism without any generous appreciation of what is actually being done. The hon. member says why not force the local authorities? The hon. member knows as well as I do that one of the principles of the Housing Bill we have been discussing is to expect the Department of Public Health to bring pressure to bear on local authorities. He knows it is my policy to exert pressure on local authorities.

It is rather late in the day.

Why did not the hon. member say that six or eight years ago? I should say action has been taken timeously in anticipation of post-war reconstructions. I leave it to the House as a whole to judge whether or not the efforts now being made by the Department of Public Health are on wise lines, and whether this charge of delay can be substantiated. The hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) and the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) have asked me some questions regarding the plans of houses for natives, and they have expressed their disapproval of two roomed houses for native under sub-economic schemes. Well, I have plans and pictures here which I would be pleased to show to these hon. members who are interested in these matters, showing the designs drawn up by the Housing Board for two and three roomed cottages. It is true that in some cases two roomed cottages are built. At Q Town near Cape Town two roomed and three roomed and four roomed cottages are built. Quite often provisions are made for varying needs. You may have a cottage of two rooms for two newly married people, for whom such a cottage is quite sufficient. Afterwards they may have children and pass on to a larger place. But there may be an elderly couple of two for whom a two roomed cottage is sufficient. So I do not think we should agree to rule out these two roomed cottages altogether they may come in useful. But I do agree with the hon. member for Cape Eastern and with the hon. member for Cape Western that it is very undesirable that two roomed cottages should be placed at the disposal of tenants with families. I am in entire agreement with them there. The question of the flooring raised by the hon. member for Cape Western is one which I shall bring to the notice of the Housing Board. The hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming) has asked me what is the Government’s policy in regard to the clinics in the Transkei. Let me say this. These clinics have done excellent work and the Government is now taking them over. Hon. members will recollect that these clinics were established through the financial generosity of the Native-recruiting Corporation of the Chamber of Mines, which placed a subsidy at the disposal of the Government. The clinics were started by way of experiment, and they have certainly proved themselves, and the Government is taking them over and proposed to extend them. I am hoping to have the opportunity with the Secretary for Public Health of visiting the Transkei at the end of the Session. The Department is hoping to acquire land near Umtata for the purpose of erecting a tuberculosis hospital service which will serve a large area. It is hoped—the plans are being formulated—visualising the possibility of having a large hospital there which will serve a large area with small subsidiary hospitals ranging round in the outlying areas. The existing clinics which are attended by Native Nurses are proving most useful. There are one or two places where the patients can remain but in the majority of cases these places cater for out-patients. But they are proving extraordinarily useful. The experiment at Bulwer in Natal of a Native Health Clinic has proved exceedingly useful and interesting. The Department has now established a similar clinic at Bushbok Ridge in the Transvaal and it is proposed when the time arrives—and there is provision for it—to have a similar one in the Transkei. We are anxious to have a little more experience of Native Health Units as opposed to clinics before doing anything more in the Transkei. The difference is this. The Native Health Unit operates as a centre—and around it there are supply clinics which radiate from that unit. In the Transkei we have started with the clinic, and we have still to build the unit in the centre. In the Transkei we have started, and also in Natal, from different angles, and in the light of of that experiment no doubt we shall be able to develop our future policy. The war against tuberculosis is being waged continually by the Department. The hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen) has pointed to one or two items on the Vote and has suggested that either there has been a decrease in the Vote, or that the item has remained static. He has chosen one or two items in connection with some small institutions. If he will examine the items relating to refunds to local authorities he will see that there are increases, but the expenditure on tuberculosis, the annual expenditure on tuberculosis by the Public Health Department, is not reflected only in the Departmental Estimates. The House must also have regard to the Loan Estimates.

What are you doing for prevention?

Hon. members know that in the Loan Estimates will be found items dealing with the construction of hospitals.

Yes, but what are you doing meanwhile?

What are you doing about prevention?

If my hon. friends would listen to me I might feel that they were sincere in their desire to get information.

What about T.B. people coming in from outside?

I never quite understand which part of the Zoo I am reminded most of when I hear that babel from the other side, when the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. Bekker), and other hon. members over there get down to it. Let me give the House just one or two figures.

What about prevention?

In 1935 the amount on the Maintenance Vote for tuberculosis was £32,320. On the Loan Vote the amount was £12,400, making a total of £45,000. In 1935 the total annual expenditure on tuberculosis on maintenance, and on the Loan Vote, was £45,619. On the 1942-’43 Vote the item for maintenance was £142,240, an increase of about 400 per cent. The item for capital expenditure was £219,365, making a total of approximately £360,000. In other words in 1935 £45,916 was spent whereas in 1942-’43 we arranged to spend £360,000, an increase of plus-minus 800 per cent. No impartial observer of these figures could say for one moment that the Department is standing still, that it is not making progress. These figures speak for themselves. The Department is spending large sums every year and will continue to do so. Part of the present day policy is to establish fairly large tuberculosis hospitals at various centres where patients from a wide surrounding area may be treated.

What are you doing for the prevention of tuberculosis?

If my hon. friend had listened to what I said about nutrition and housing, he would realise that if he can combat malnutrition and provide good housing we shall have won the battle.

That is in the distant future.

What the Department is doing is not taking note of silly interjections but getting on with the job.

Where are these houses which you are speaking of?

One of these houses which is eminently suited for the hon. member for Cradock is fairly near this House—it was discussed and dealt with earlier on in these estimates under the Mental Hospital Vote.

Are you referring to the Minister’s residence?

As it is quite obvious that that last subject is much more germane to the hon. member over there I shall not detain the House any longer, but if any hon. members are interested in these matters I shall be very pleased to discuss the subject further with them and to give them any information they desire to have.

You have not told me yet what you are doing about prevention?

I want to add my tribute to the work which has been done at Ezenzelini, I would like the Minister to give us a contribution to that Institution for the prevention of blindness. No such contribution is made. The only funds which that Institution gets are from the public and from the National Council for the Blind. This is for natives. Not only do we get nothing for the natives, but we get nothing for the Europeans either, and I should like the Minister to consider the matter from that angle. The National Council for the Blind has voted funds for the prevention of blindness, but those funds are on far too small a scale to enable them to do anything effective. It is much better to prevent blindness than to allow these people to get blind and then to have to give them pensions and all the expense connected therewith. I put that to the Minister. There is another matter I want to draw the Minister’s attention to, and that is the disgraceful state of affairs prevailing at Sophiatown in Johannesburg. Here we have a place where you have sixty-six rooms in one particular area, on four stands, being occupied by 330 people—that is 330 people living in sixty-six rooms. There are only ten lavatories and thirty-three people to each lavatory. Conditions are so bad that these natives have to buy their water. They pay 3d. per paraffin tin of drinking water and 1d. for what they call second grade water—that is washing water. The rent charged for these rooms, which are 12 ft. by 10 ft. and some only 10 ft. by 9 ft. is £1 5s. per month, which means that these natives pay something like £82 10s. per month, or £990 per year, for these sixty-six rooms. There is no cross ventilation, no drainage, and only bucket sanitation. The children there have no means of occupying themselves—there are no schools—we are making criminals of them—and their health is also affected. I mentioned some time ago that disease knows no colour bar. These children are becoming infected with tuberculosis, and other diseases. Venereal disease is rife, and it is time the Minister took this matter in hand and dealt with it, not only from the point of view of the health of these natives themselves, but also from the point of view of the health of the European community in general. These natives are employed in European homes—they are the servants, the domestic servants in European employment, and these diseases may be and are spread by them throughout the homes where they are working. I know the Minister is doing his best through the Public Health Department to cope with the situation, but I do feel that the matter is so urgent that it is deserving of his immediate and urgent attention, and that definite steps should be taken to do away with this grave menace to the health of the native population as well as to the health of the European community.

I am sorry that the hon. Minister adopted such a tone here towards us, a tone that really does not become the Minister. I can assure the Minister that we on this side of the House are discussing this Vote of public health with the greatest seriousness. Now the Minister comes here and he tries to make some remarks to get rid of the matter. What we expected was this: We expected the Minister to take this matter seriously. I asked the Minister in all seriousness why the one item for the prevention of diseases should have been reduced by £9,000. The least I expected was a serious reply to my question from the Minister. I am not au fait with all the measures that the Minister has adopted; but he speaks here of an 800 per cent. expansion. That may be so, but now I ask whether the position of 1935 in comparison with the position today is not due largely to the fact that numbers of soldiers are returning from the North who suffer from tuberculosis, and that there must be special institutions to treat those people. That still has nothing to do with the ordinary spread of tuberculosis in the country. If the Minister of the Interior cannot give a reasonable reply, I would like to ask the Minister of Finance to give us a reply. The Divisional Councils of the Cape are surely not bodies that one can eliminate with one stroke of the pen. Special deputations went to them. As I have said, the least we expected was that the Minister of the Interior would tell us what his plans are.

There will be a clause in the Finance Act.

We expected a reasonable answer from the Minister; we expected him to tell us that he is willing to take the matter into consideration and that legislation will be introduced. The Minister is treating this matter in a frivolous fashion, and that is not the way in which to treat a serious matter such as this. There are thousands of people on the Platteland who cannot go to anybody for help, because the Divisional Councils simply cannot afford the expense. Then I put a serious question to the Minister—in so far as my constituency is concerned—viz. in connection with the scarcity of doctors and nurses. The war has drawn away many doctors and nurses. There are about three towns in my constituency in which there are no doctors. The nurses are drawn away from the small towns, which are in many respects very uninviting. I want to ask the hon. Minister if he will not make provision in those towns where there are no doctors or nurses in order to ensure that proper care is taken of the health of the people there. I expected the Minister to get up and say that he would go into the matter and see what can be done. As regards housing, I just want to say this to the Minister. We want to be quite appreciative. In my constituency considerable improvement has come about, and I am grateful to the Minister for the funds which have been made available. But yet there are some of the towns in my constituency in which nothing has been done in connection with an improved housing scheme. We have persuaded the Minister to bring pressure to bear so that the municipalities shall be compelled to step in and help those people. There are areas in the country where the position is very serious, and I hope the Minister will ensure that those people shall also have a reasonable chance to live. Then the Minister also said that so far as tuberculosis is concerned one must take into consideration what has been done in the matter indirectly. He said that one had to consider housing and nutrition. But there is another factor that I would like to bring to the attention of the Minister, and that is clothing. There are numbers of coloured people, particularly on the Platteland, who live in a reprehensible condition. They go practically without clothing in the winter months. I hope that the Minister will also pay attention to this third factor, viz. proper clothing to enable the people to retain their health.

On the question of the distribution of foodstuff I was very much disappointed with the remarks which the Minister made on the bigger issue. He really confined himself to the charge that the Government had refused an offer of free food. Well, that is only scratching the surface of the subject, and I feel that while he probably never made a truer statement, than he made when he said that there is no surplus of foodstuffs in this country, he should have added that we have thousands of people who are not in a position to get food almost of any description, and certainly not in a position to buy most of the foodstuffs produced here in South Africa. Now I hoped for a statement from the Minister as to how he was going to deal with the position which is arising. Firstly I want to put this question to the Minister. Does he expect the producer of this country to grow food and then give it to him to distribute free? Because that seems to be the basis on which the discussion has proceeded.

I am expecting nothing. That is why we have the Inter-Departmental Committee.

The Inter-Departmental Committee does not seem to me to be one which will get very far. We have been told that we have a surplus of foodstuffs which we can export—I don’t call it a surplus of foodstuffs. We produce more food than those who are in a position to purchase can consume. That was the position just before the war. We were testing the overseas markets for what, for argument’s sake, we might call a surplus. We we exporting large quantities of meat and butter which should be consumed in this country, but owing to the purchasing power of the community the would-be consumers, were not able to purchase this food.

That is exactly what we are saying.

Half the sugar crop of this country went overseas, and you have no finer energy building food than sugar. And so you can go the whole gamut in regard to the food sent overseas—you find that the great majority of those living below the breadline were unable to purchase these foodstuffs which we were sending overseas. I was hoping that since we were now discussing social security, since were were discussing the desirability of uplifting the poorer classes, the Minister would have come forward and given some indication of the policy which the Government was going to follow in the future.

Won’t you give us the policy?

Yes, give me your seat. Does the Minister look to private members to give him a policy? Is the Minister so bankrupt of a policy himself?

Of course he is.

Perhaps it is too optimistic on my part to look to the hon. member for a policy.

Those humorous interjections which we enjoyed in the olden days when the Minister was a backbencher are unbecoming to him today, when he enjoys a position of responsibility. This is a serious matter. We have ample food in this country and yet we have our poorer classes unable to buy the nourishing food so necessary if we are going to build up the Nation.

Are you beginning to see the light?

We have had for years now the Nutrition Council sitting. We have had reports of all sorts laid before the country, we have had statistics of all kinds in regard to food value, we have had statistics of every sort in connection with nutrition foods, and protective foods, but I have yet to see a policy which has enabled one single lb. of food to be put within the reach of those who need it so badly.

Have you ever heard of brown bread?

Oh, yes, and I have eaten it too. But I don’t know whether the brown bread sold at 6d. or 6½d. per loaf is any nearer the reach of those who are below the breadline than the white bread was. I really fail to see the force of the Minister’s interjection. I hope, without bandying words, or chipping one another, the Government will come forward with some scheme that will enable the product of this country to be put within the reach of those who need it so badly, and put a stop to this fatal policy of exporting the very lifeblood of the people, export the very foodstuffs which must be brought within the reach of the thousands of people of this country if we are going to produce strong children and a healthy nation. I think and it appears to me that that is one of the most important things which can be tackled by the Public Health Department and by the Department of Social Welfare, and the country is waiting for that policy, and the producers of foodstuffs are waiting for a policy. They are waiting to produce but they cannot produce and then sell what they produce at less than their cost of production. I put it to the Minister that you cannot have a better time than the present when money is plentiful, to start a comprehensive scheme of purchasing instead of allowing the export of our foodstuffs—and I say that the time has come that we should look to supplying our own people who need things so badly, rather than export our foodstuffs to the outside markets.

My quarrel with the Minister is not so much about the way he is spending the Public Health Vote but my quarrel is rather that he was not able to persuade his colleagues in the Cabinet to make this Vote £11,000,000 instead of £1,100,000. I know that good health is an expensive product. Both the prevention of disease and the maintaining of good health cost money. South Africa has been handicapped by the fact that for many years insufficient money has been voted to provide for public health, to provide for the health of the nation. What can one expect from an expenditure of £1,000,000 for a population of 10,000,000 people. I can assure the Minister that the country is becoming health conscious, but the trouble has always been that this House has not been health conscious.

The Government has not been health conscious.

Nobody seems to have been conscious of the fact in the past that there has been a need for good health and to satisfy that need is a costly process. Now I want to tell the Minister that he at least has shown a little originality in the fact that under him the Public Health Department has established a native health centre at Polela, and is now in the process of establishing another health centre for Europeans in the Knysna area. Here are two experiments being made by the Public Health Department which might very well help in a solution in many ways to our health problems in this country. If hon. members would take the trouble to read the Blue Book published last year by the Interdepartmental Committee on the health, social and economic conditions of natives in urban areas, and if they were to read that in conjunction with the Carnegie Report, on the health conditions of the poorer sections of the European population, I am sure their eyes would be opened to the enormous health needs and especially the preventive health needs of this country. It is an appalling condition that in the King Edward VIII Hospital, out of every hundred native babies born twenty-two died of congenital syphilis, and out of a thousand babies born in the Alexandra Township in Johannesburg—out of every thousand babies born in one year three hundred and eighty died before they reached the age of one year. These are the people who work for us in our homes. These are the people who may carry disease not only to our doorstep but right into our homes, to our children, and I am sure that if the mass of the people realise the significance of the figures published in these blue books and the enormous spread of tuberculosis and venereal disease among natives, they will recognise the danger from the economic and the industrial point of view — they will recognise the danger of the supply of native and coloured labour decreasing as the years go by—and they will also realise the danger of the European incidence of tuberculosis and venereal disease increasing and becoming as serious as it is among the natives and coloured people. I only want to say this, that in the past it has been pointed out that one must not consider that this Vote on public health constitutes all that is spent on public health. As a matter of fact a former Minister of Public Health pointed out to me that I did not take notice of what the Provincial Councils, the Municipal Councils and the Divisional Councils spent on public health. That exactly is where the canker lies. There is no co-ordination and no co-operation between these various authorities, and until we have a co-operative system, until we have unified control in health matters, all the work we are doing today is so much patchwork. Good work is certainly being done in various respects, I am not deprecating the work of the Minister or of the Public Health Department. I know they are doing excellent work, but that work will only be complete, it will only be on a secure foundation when it is directed from one central combined administration.

That is why you were appointed on the National Health Commission.

I am hoping that this Commission will convert this House. I do not want to speak now as a member of the Commission but as a member of Parliament, and I think this Commission will probably succeed in making this House health conscious. In regard to this matter of vital statistics amongst the natives, how is it that the old Cape Government could keep such vital statistics? The real difficulty in this matter of health services is that there has never been a sufficient sum of money provided for that purpose. This will be realised if we compare what we spend on health services with what is spent in New Zealand. Unless you provide for health from the cradle to the grave, you cannot have good health throughout the country. We will be a C.3 nation unless we wake up to the fact that good health needs money.

The hon. Minister must now be aware that it is not only this side of the House that criticises his Department. One hon. member has said that the Minister’s policy is bankrupt, and I reiterate that it is bankrupt. Another member said it was patchwork, and I also reiterate that all his work is patchwork.

Excuse me, I did not say his work was patchwork.

The Minister boasts of his brown bread, and I think that is the most he has tried to do to feed the people. I think the Minister is very much to blame that the poor people in the country are not being properly fed. Food is one of the items you need to have public health. We know that thousands of cases of citrus were thrown away, grapes are buried, and food in general is destroyed, and I ask the Public Health Department why is it they have not stepped in and provided certain facilities for storing that food to give it to the poor, as they need it? If the Minister had done that he would have been able to tell us that he had done something as far as feeding the country is concerned. Another thing, I feel that even the price of 6d. a loaf for bread is abnormal, because there is a tremendous lot of profit made. In time of war there should be no speculation in the food of the people, and there is an enormous amount of speculation in food going on. If the Minister had enquired into that speculation and tried to give the poor cheaper food, he would be doing something in the interests of public health. I want to ask the Minister what he has really done to alleviate distress on the platteland. As far as the platteland is concerned we find that there is very little done. If you go to the Minister and ask him to assist public bodies, he only gives you a small donation. For instance, in the Fish River Valley at Mortimer there is a clinic which the public pay for, they have put £100 of their own money into it, and many have volunteerd their services. But when you go to the Minister for help, he gives you a very small amount. I feel the Minister should go out of his way to give these people sufficient money. In the Valley 70 per cent. to 80 per cent. to the natives have venereal disease. That is practically being cleared up not by the Minister and his Department but by the people themselves. I appeal to him in cases like that to be more liberal as far as money is concerned. In Middelburg, for instance, the Town Council has done a tremendous amount of work with special clinics to combat disease, and they should be assisted more than they have been, and matters of this kind should not be left to the public as a whole to subscribe.

You do not realise, apparently, that the Department is bound by law to pay, and does pay a certain amount, no more and no less.

I feel that the Minister should be more liberal. The platteland is really not protected at all. Although there are clinics here and there, these natives intermingle again, and though you have perhaps cleared up a certain portion, you find that because there is no continuous service they are re-infected. This service should be kept on not for a month at a time but for years. I appeal to the Minister to give us more service in that direction. There is another item which I wish to discuss, and that is housing on the platteland. If the Department would give the farmers certain assistance in housing his natives, that would be one item in promoting public health. If you give the people food and provide them with clinics, you must still improve your housing, and on the platteland nothing has been done.

The sum of £400,000 was diverted to the smaller municipalities.

I am talking about farming. I know there has been improvement in the smaller towns.

That has nothing to do with public health; that is social welfare.

I am pleading that the farmer should be included; why should he be cut out?

He is not cut out; he comes under Social Welfare.

I still say the farmer should be assisted.

You must say that to my colleague the Minister of Social Welfare; it has nothing to do with public health, and never has done.

Oh, I see. The Minister now says that the rural population has nothing to do with public health.

At 6.10 p.m. the Chairman stated that, in accordance with the Sessional Orders adopted on the 28th January and 11th March, 1943, and Standing Order No. 26 (1), he would report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported progress and asked leave to sit again; House to resume in Committee on 31st March.