I move—

I second.

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—63:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Bekker, H. J.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, J. C.

Bosman, L. p.

Christie, J.

Christopher, R. M.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Kock, P. H.

De Wet, H. C.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Eksteen, H. O.

Faure, J. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Gray, T. P.

Hare W. D.

Hemming, G. K.

Henny, G. E. J.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hopf, F.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Latimer, A.

Lawrence, H. G,

Maré, F. J.

McLean, J.

Moll, A. M.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, G.

Pocock, P. V.

Prinsloo, W. B. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sullivan, J. R.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Waring, F. W.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and W. B. Humphreys.

Noes—30:

Bekker, G. F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bremer, K.

Brink, W. D.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Erasmus, H. S.

Grobler, D. C. S.

Haywood, J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Le Roux, J. N.

Louw, E. H.

Ludick, A. I.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Mentz, F. E.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Potgieter, J. E.

Steyn, A.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, J. G.

Van Niekerk, J. G. W.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Wilkens, J.

Tellers: P. O. Sauer and P. J. van Nierop.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

When the debate was interrupted, I was indicating that hospital services would be left in the hands of the provinces, and it now seems that it is dangerous to interrupt a speech even for a few days, because the Minister may in the meantime make a new statement or enter into a new agreement. We have now had a new development and the Minister has managed to shift this matter from the frying pan into the fire. Before I proceed with my criticism on the manner in which the Minister is tackling this matter, I just want to indicate, in the first place, that any step which the department, the Minister or the Government, takes with a reasonable prospect of bringing about an improvement in the situation, will have my full support, and I shall use all the influence at our command to promote this matter, but that must not deter me from my intention to criticise the Minister’s policy and his action as far as this matter is concerned. I said that since the debate was interrupted he has removed this question from the frying pan into the fire. What I mean is that the Minister lias in the meantime met representatives of the provinces to discuss the question with which we are dealing, namely the question of hospitalisation and what relationship there should be in that connéction with the other parts of the National Health Service, and he has further complicated the position for himself and for a National Health Service. I notice in the newspapers that the Minister and the representatives of the provinces were at the conference, as well as the Secretary for Public Health and the hon. member for Yeoville (Dr. Gluckman), the Chairman of the National Health Commission. I can only say that I assume that the hon. member for Yeoville was only there to hear what they had to say. If he was there to take part in the discussions and to influence the decisions which were made by the Minister, I can only say that in that Case the Chairman of the Health Commission is coresponsible for the fact that this matter is not only being further confused, but for the fact that a good scheme is being made almost impossible. I am convinced that the hon. member for Yeoville had no say at the meeting where the agreement was arrived at I notice that the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation agreed, in the first place, to the provinces providing general hospital services for the treatment of persons who have to be in-patients in a hospital. Of course we know that from the statements which have been made previously. That was serious enough. There again we straightaway have the divided control which makes this matter so difficult. But now the Minister is going further. I hope the newspaper reports are correct, because I can only go on the newspaper reports, and these reports say that the provinces will also be responsible for the provision of consultative specialised services for out-patients. The provinces have never had anything to do with personal services of this nature, and now the field is being extended and the whole control of the medical personnel is being divided between the provinces on the one hand and the central Government on the other hand.

They are doing it now.

The Minister is throwing an altogether wrong light on the matter by saying that it is being done now. It is being done on such a small scale that it is of little significance. We want extended services and the whole idea of the scheme is to give the necessary services to the masses as far as possible. It is altogether impossible and it is the wrong procedure for the whole clinical system to be established by the hospitals and for specialised services to go through the hospitals. The whole service is at once divided amongst more or less 2,000 general medical practitioners and 200 or 300 specialists. And it falls entirely under varying authorities, apparently with varying conditions of service, with all the attendant difficulties. It creates an impossible situation and confusion. The Minister has heard that it is not my wish to thwart the scheme. I want to give my utmost support to the Minister’s efforts to create better conditions, but I hope the Minister will realise that not only did he adopt the wrong course at the beginning, but that he is now making it even worse. He is creating an impossible position. Then he goes on to say that the services for ordinary out-patients, which are today being given by the hospitals, will be undertaken as far as possible by health centres or clinics. Unless the clinic is the centre at the hospital, which is mostly the case, it will not be a success either. If we have two authorities, if the central authority has to make a further agreement with the provinces in connection with the territory which they will cover, we are going to create further difficulties, we are again going to have the difficulties to which we have been accustomed in the past and which, in fact, gave rise after 20 years of criticism to the eventual appointment of this commission, and to the recommendation by the commission that it was a big stumbling block. Now the Minister comes along and not only does he maintain that stumbling block, but he is placing a further stumbling block in the way. Any patient who is ill will now go to the clinic or health centre and see the ordinary doctor. Let us assume the diagnosis is that the patient is suffering from bronchitis. Subsequently his condition becomes a little more serious and it is then found that he has some trouble or other in the chest. The doctor assumes that an abscess is developing. He then sends the patient to the provincial authority, to the hospital, which says: “Well, we shall see what we can do. We have not sufficient staff available. We shall see you when we can”. Eventually he comes to the provincial specialist who examines him. The provincial specialist sends him home again, or for further treatment to the centre, and, the following week the centre has to send him back to the provincial administration, the specialist of the provincial administration. There the specialist finds that an operation is necessary, and he keeps the patient for treatment. He then discovers that the patient is also suffering from tuberculosis, and that the condition of his lungs is the result of tuberculosis. Then he is required to send him again to the specialist of the Central Government, because I take it the Central Government will not do away with its tuberculosis institutions, such as Nelspoort and other places. He is therefore again sent to the official of the central authority.

Or to the local authority.

It was with the very idea of removing this difficulty that we hoped to evolve a better system. I think it will be found after one or two years that it is wrong, that it is creating an impossible state of affairs and that we will not get the development we ought to get. We can only hope then that we will be able to rectify the matter in the future. But I am deeply disappointed that we have made the position even worse than it was at the beginning. It is generally recognised that the training of staff—I am glad to see it was also recognised at the meeting of the Provinces—presents a great difficulty. I think it was said that it was an important link, even the most important link, in the whole scheme. If we acknowledge that, then the step which the Government should take is clear. And there again the Minister has placed himself in a hopeless position. The hospitals which are used for the training of medical personnel are under the control of the provincial administrations at present, and the Minister proposes to leave them there. We know what great difficulties were experienced in the past when we tried to establish a relationship between the provincial administrations, the universities and the Government. If’ the position remains as it is at present we can never hope to develop the training centres as we should like to do. That has always been the stumbling block, that the Provinces will not cope with it. It has always been said that it ought to be the work of the Central Government. The provincial Governments stated that it cost them a good deal of money to train the personnel; and if the training takes place in their hospitals, it involves additional expenditure. With the very idea of eliminating this difficulty and to attain the position where our medical schools will have developed to such an extent that they can train a greater number, we wanted to eliminate this difficulty. We could not do so. Nothwithstanding that, I want to help the Minister to rectify matters as far as possible. I therefore want to point out to the Minister that we require large sums of money for every medical school. Perhaps the hon. member for Rondebosch (Dr. Moll) may enlarge on that, but I want to make a plea in favour of Johannesburg and Pretoria. Large stuns are needed for capital expenditure and that has been the position for years, and the money that we wanted has never been made available. We admit, of course, that as far as Pretoria is concerned, it is something which is in the initial stage. Good development has taken place there, but we know that Pretoria requires a large capital sum, and Johannesburg too, requires large sums to arrange the medical school in such a way that the training can be improved and a greater number of students coped with. I just want to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that we learned from the Botha Report of 1938 that in that year the Witwatersrand University required a capital sum of £175,000 for the training of staff. That was divided amongst the various services. I need not go into details. It is necessary immediately to make available large sums of money to Pretoria for the expansion of the medical school and the co-ordination of work in the hospital and in the medical school. I want to move the following amendment—

Because we have long known that divided control is a great stumbling block, and because we now find that the Government is further departing from the proposals of the National Health Commission and therefore aggravating the position by further dividing the services under the various authorities, we make this proposal today and I hope the Minister will realise that he should reconsider the matter and make new arrangements and create better conditions in this respect.

I second the amendment. I think we on this side of the House and the people in the country as a whole listened with disappointment to the statements of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation. We were surprised to hear their statements in regard to this most important matter. The people in the country have waited for years, and after years of expectation, there was not only disappointment, but the people were shocked in their expectations by these two statements. The fact that the Government appointed a commission to make investigations into national health and what goes with it, is proof of the fact that it was aware of the conditions which prevailed in the country, that the Government was aware of the fact that drastic measures would have to be taken by the Government as such to prevent disease, to look after the health of the people and to create good hospital services generally, controlled by the State, and not in the manner in which these services have been provided in the past. After all the good work which the National Health Commission did, they brought in an excellent report and submitted it to the Government for consideration. But it was not submitted to the Government for consideration only but also to give effect to it. It is a strong and well formulated report so that the commission had every right to cherish the expectation and the conviction that the Government, since it was aware of the conditions in the country, would not have hesitated to give effect to the recommendations in their entirety. After that statement on the part of the Prime Minister and after the statement in this House by the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation, we will again have to be satisfied with patch-work, patch-work to deal with this important question. The commission strongly warned the Government against half measures. I mention this only in passing because we approach this great and most important problem not from a party political point of view, but I say that here again we have proof of the Government’s incapability, just as we have seen the Government’s incapability to tackle other great national problems. Here again they are manifesting their incapability to tackle this all important problem, and in order to conceal their incapability the Government seeks shelter behind the Act of Union. I want to say at once that we on this side of the House—I personally, at any rate,—are not in favour of the abolition of the provincial councils. I say that because we might create an impossible situation by the abolition of the provincial councils or by attempting to abolish the provincial councils or by curtailing their rights in certain respects; that we will create other problems, that we will stir up feelings by doing so. Other problems will therefore come into existence if we tried to abolish the provincial councils. But where it concerns the health and the very existence and the building up of the nation, we cannot tolerate that devil-may-care attitude on the part of the Government, that policy of letting things develop. The Government cannot grasp at every straw to save itself when the nation insists on tackling and solving great problems because they are serious. It cannot be allowed to shield behind a thin transparent smoke screen. The Government is perpetuating the former difficulties. What were the recommendations of the Health Commission in pursuance of its terms of reference? I just want to quote briefly a passage from the report of the National Health Services Commission. These were the commission’s replies to the Government under its terms of reference.

On page 2 the commission says—

Here they point out that the services are provincial. In other words, they do not want to leave it in the hands of the provinces. They go on to say—

It will be seen how strongly the commission expresses itself in regard to the health services which exist in this country. It is stated expressly where there are defects, where there is difficulty, and they go on to say how those difficulties should be tackled and solved. The Government apparently paid no attention to those serious words. It did riot pay any attention to the instruction, as it were, which was given to them by the commission as to the existing position, and how it will have to be tackled. I say the Government paid no attention to it but came forward with a measure or idea by way of a solution, whereby the whole matter is simply to be left in the hands of the provinces. I say those replies of the commission afford further proof that the Government ought not to tackle this problem in a loose but in a magnanimous way. I say in a magnanimous way and not in this loose way. Then we find that our medical men have indicated their willingness fully to co-operate in order to place our health services in this country on a sound footing and basis once and for all. They indicated their willingness, but I want to say this to hon. members and to the Minister, that although those medical men indicated their willingness, in one respect their offer of co-operation was given conditionally. They stipulated a condition when they indicated their willingness to co-operate. That condition is that the Government must not take any halfmeasures. Having heard from the Prime Minister and from the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation that they want to leave this great question of national health and national health services in the hands of the provinces again, I think this community of medical men will feel that the assistance which they offered on a conditional basis should not be lightly accepted, that we must not think that in the future they will continue to give their assistance when halfmeasures are taken, as the Government apparently proposes to do. In that case there may be trouble. I as a Free Stater am concerned because our health services are again being left exclusively in the hands of the provinces. I am concerned because the Orange Free State is a very poor province with a large platteland or rural population, which is getting health services from the authority concerned, the provincial administration, under very difficult circumstances at present.

At any rate the Provincial Council of the Free State voted for it.

If I had had the time, I could have gone into details this morning to show how the policy of the Executive Council has a detrimental effect on the smaller hospitals in the province. It is the Executive Council of my party, but we are not discussing party matters here.

Yes, that is fair.

I say their policy in the Free State, although they have again agreed to take these services upon themselves, has a detrimental effect on the health of the people. In many respects, their policy is unfair in respect of the smaller hospitals particularly. Hospitalisation and health services are provided in the Free State under very difficult circumstances, but nevertheless these services compare favourably with the services rendered in other provinces. I want to convey these thoughts to the House and draw the attention of the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation to the fact that when he proceeds to entrust this great and responsible task in a greater measure to the provinces, he should make it his duty to see to it that the policy in the Free State is thoroughly investigated by the Department with a view to seeing that right and justice is done to the smaller hospitals, which is not the case at the moment, and that services of this nature are provided to all sections of that poor province who at present have to struggle to obtain those services from the provincial administration. For example, we have two central hospitals, or provincial hospitals as they are called in the Free State; the rest of the hospitals are subsidised hospitals. The two provincial hospitals are under the direct control and management of the provincial administration and are financed by the provincial administration. The subsidised hospitals have to make ends meet on subsidies and voluntary contributions from the public. The two central or provincial hospitals have their advisory hospital board. The other hospitals have hospital boards but only in theory. They have no say, no powers. They are under the direct control of the provincial administration and cannot do anything without the permission of the provincial administration and therefore they function under detrimental and difficult conditions. I say the subsidised hospitals have a hard struggle because they have to exist purely on subsidies and voluntary contribution from the public. They are not allowed to show a deficit on the year’s working. If they show a deficit, the local public has to contribute to meet the deficit. Apart from that the population of the whole Free State is taxed by the provincial Administration to provide health services in their province, and when the local public which has a hospital in their midst is again asked to contribute with a view to meeting those deficits, they have to pay double taxation, as it were, for those services in order to keep their hospitals going. That is the position in the Free State, and for that reason I bring this matter to the notice of the Minister so that he can see to it that right and justice is done. There are many other inconsistencies which are mainly caused by the hospital policy of the provincial administration in the Free State, and I cannot go into those details at this stage. I merely draw the Minister’s attention to it, so that he can take steps to ensure that these things do not take place, so that he can eliminate the inconsistences which have a retarding and detrimental influence on the hospitals. I say we cannot go into details at this stage. The policy of the Provincial Administration as far as hospitalisation is concerned will have to be gone into carefully if health and hospitalisation are to be entrusted to them. The smaller hospitals will have to be consulted in order to give them an opportunity of airing their grievances and difficulties, and those difficulties should then be met. Then there is another matter which I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister, and that is the right to establish hospitals in the Free State. The right to establish hospitals involves a difficult and costly procedure which has to be undertaken by that poor Province. The result is lack of adequate hospital services on the platteland, and the Provincial Administration is handicapped by insufficient funds, and therefore it cannot agree to the provision of more facilities to the platteland towns by means of the erection of hospitals. We have established hospitals in the Free State for example. Large sums of money were borrowed in order to establish those hospitals. I am referring more specifically to the subsidised hospitals. As far as the central hospitals are concerned, the financial policy is undertaken by the Provincial Administration. But the establishment of subsidised hospitals in our Province is coupled with big loans. There is still a great deal of debt on some of those hospitals. Interest and redemption charges have to be paid annually in order to keep those hospitals going. I want to put this question to the Minister: What will the position be if the Central Government transfers this right or power to the Provincial Administration to provide national health services as well as hospitalisation? Will the Government take over the debt which the local hospitals contracted through the establishment of hospitals, or what will the position be? They will have to provide free services, and they cannot be expected, when they provide free services, to have to pay the capital debt and redemption and interest on the borrowed money. These are difficulties which will have to be faced. These are the conditions which exist there. And then I want to ask, since it was recommended by the Commission that more extended services should be provided to the nation as a whole—I refer particularly to the Free State—in what way and under what conditions will the division take place in connection with the establishment of further hospitals in the Free State, to meet the great need which has been felt there for so many years? In what way will that be accomplished? What conditions will be attached to the establishment of further hospitals? At the moment the conditions have a retarding effect. Under the policy of the Provincial Administration it is not an easy matter to establish hospitals: Various processes have to be gone through and a devious route has to be followed before we can get permission for the establishment of such a hospital. That is why I should like to know what the policy of the Government will be in connection with the further establishment of hospitals in our Province. Then I want to ask the Minister whether the health centres will be so divided that the vast stretches of the Free State will be well catered for. When those health centres are established, we do not want them to be situated only in the large cities and towns where the people can easily reach hospitals. The Provincial Administration which will have to do this work on behalf of the Government will have to see to it that the people in the distant parts are adequaely provided for by means of well spread-out health services.

I fully agree.

I am glad the hon. Minister agrees with me. I say again that the Free State is a poor Province, with very limited sources of income. The Provincial Administration has laid down its hospital and health policy according to the size of its purse. The Government will have to see to it that there is an equitable distribution of finances so that the health of the people can be adequately protected. I make this plea not because I am really opposed to the provision of health and hospital Services by the Free State Provincial Administration or the provincial administrations of other Provinces, but I should like to see the Government, with the millions which it spends, in other ways, also contributing millions to tackle this great national matter root and branch and to provide the services which it ought to provide to the people. But since they have apparently decided to entrust these services to the Provinces, I want to express the hope that they will enable those Provinces and the Free State in particular, which is a poor province with few sources of income, to provide the necessary hospitalisation and national health services without difficulty to that section of the Free State.

In supporting the hon. member for Yeoville (Dr. Gluckman) I do not do so as one who had the honour of serving on the National Health Services Commission, but more as a man who for 25 years has taken the keenest interest in the health of this country. I feel that if there is one thing this motion will have brought out in this House it is the fact that all political parties and all sections of the people of South Africa are anxious and keen to have such a national health service. I want to bring it home to the Government that any neglect to fulfil their promises 100 per cent. will be known and will be acted upon by the people. I in common with many others, with hundreds of thousands of others, share the great feeling of disappointment that was aroused when, before the commission’s report was published, the Prime Minister issued a statement in which, inter alia, he said that this report was an ideal, that the time was not ripe, and that constitutional problems were insurmountable. It is quite true that since that statement was made the hon. Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation has in this House accepted, on behalf of the Government, the motion introduced by the hon. member for Yeoville, except in so far as he touched on the constitutional problems in regard to provincial councils. I am sorry that the provincial executives took up the attitude that they did. I do not feel that they reacted to the feeling of the provinces they are supposed to represent.

Hear, hear.

I feel confident that if a referendum was taken on this question of whether the commission’s report should be accepted in toto, an overwhelming majority in such a referendum would let their voices be heard in favour of implementing the recommendations of this report.

The provincial councils themselves would do that.

Or, as my hon. friend suggests, if the provincial councils themselves only had the opportunity to discuss that report—which they have not had—one might have found that the provincial executives would take up a different attitude. The hon. member for Harrismith (Mr. E. R Strauss) who spoke before me brought out very clearly the feelings of a rural member from the Free State. He brought out the disabilities under which they suffer generally. I put it that not only in the rural areas but in the urban areas of South Africa there is an intense need for health services. The Government has recognised that need. I feel I have to accept the word of the Minister. He is himself an enthusiast in health matters, and I therefore feel that the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) will find in regard to his amendment that the commission themselves could not agree to it for the simple reason it would bring about immediate changes, legislative and otherwise, which is a practical impossibility; and the commission, in their annexure “F” clearly made provision there for a transition stage, by which they indicated a gradual introduction of national health services into this country. I feel that it is a pity that the hon. member for Stellenbosch, when he spoke on a former occasion about the National Health Services Commission, mentioned in this House that he had an idea that it was an electioneering dodge. I do not think that he was serious in that. He occupies a very high status in the medical profession; he is a man who throughout has shown a keen interest in health affairs; and I think he will admit that the Government was serious ….

It was in 1942 and now it is 1945; when they will take steps.

But in 1939 the Government did make a public statement that they hoped to appoint such a commission and a Social Security Commission. I do not think he was serious. The hon. member was himself offered a seat on this commission, and I am sorry he did not accept it. But the fact that the Government appointed a commission which ranged far and wide throughout the country, shows that they had a perfectly honest intention. I still feel that the provincial stumbling block is not insuperable. Notwithstanding the Act of 1934, the provinces had to ask this House for a commission in order to have certain things taken from them that were laid down in the South Africa Act. Parliament is still the supreme body and can override the provincial councils. Though I would not suggest that, I think the voice of the people of the country should be heard, and not the voice of the provincial executives. I am very perturbed as to what is being implemented at present under health services. For example, health centres are being opened and last year provision was made for £50,000 towards the opening of health centres. I want to know from the Minister, are these health centres to do exactly the work and to follow the principles laid down in the commission’s report. I notice from advertisements in the Press that already they are departing from the recommendations contained in the report in the matter of salaries for the personnel of the health centres. Does the Minister honestly expect to get a suitable type of medical man to be in charge of a health centre, a man with the requisite tact and experience and possessing high qualifications, at a salary of £750 a year?

You need an experienced general practitioner.

Yes, an experienced general practitioner to run a health centre, on that wonderful remuneration.

That is what the Government is paying at the present time to their full-time district surgeons.

I raised my voice in Parliament last year against that, and I shall continue to do so, because unless you are prepared to pay for these services, the services you will get will be inferior.

I agree.

They will be inferior, or the men will be inexperienced. I want to touch on another point that the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation raised when he took part in this debate. Throughout their career the one excuse offered by the provincial councils as to why their health services were so inadequate has been their financial difficulties. In order to overcome these difficulties the Minister suggested that the Central Government would possibly give additional sources of taxation to the provincial councils. I may merely say this, that if he does that, that will be another nail in the coffin of the provincial councils, and the more nails they get in their coffin the better it suits me. If alternatively the Minister wants to increase payments from the Central Government for health services to the provincial councils, how is it that the Minister said that he was not in favour of any coercion in connection with the question of health services rendered by the provincial councils? Surely whoever pays the piper has the right to call the tune; and if the Central Government is going to subsidise the provinces in order to bring about an amelioration in health conditions, surely the Central Government will have to lay down a central and unified policy and they will have to see that administratively such a policy is carried out? Therefore I hope that the Minister will see to it, and that the consultative committee he has appointed will see to it, that if the provinces get additional sources of income from the Central Government their services will be closely inspected by that consultative committee or by the Public Health Department. As a matter of fact I don’t know what objection there is to coercion. Surely in the Public Health Act, as it stands today, the Minister is capable of exercising powers of a coercive character, and though I know those coercive powers have never been exercised, except perhaps in very few instances, these powers have not been exercised because in the case of local authorities and in the case of the provincial authorities who were responsible for the services, the amenities for rendering those services were so minute that the Public Health Department could not apply coercion. These authorities could not be asked to do something they had not the means to do. That is why that coercive provision remained a dead letter clause in the Act. If the Government accept the principle of national health services, and evidently they have accepted the principle, they will gradually have to introduce improved health services, and they may well leave it to the country to judge in due course on the services the provincial councils will render in the field of hospitalisation. It is quite true that in the Transvaal Province, the richest province in the Union, it may be possible for such services to be rendered by the provincial council. But even these will be selective services. I doubt, for instance, very seriously whether the urgent need for hospital beds for natives will be adequately met. I know there is not only a shortage of hospital beds in the Transvaal and in every province for Europeans, and that is clearly set out in the report, but the shortage of beds for non-Europeans is enormous. The Pentz Report, which the commission very carefully investigated, reflected neither a free hospital service nor the modern hospital service according to modern conceptions of health, and I hope that if the provinces are going to be in charge of hospital services the committee will see to it that the services are rendered on the basis of the commission’s report. I want to support the hon. member for Stellenbosch in a plea to the Government to separate at least the teaching hospitals in this country entirely from the provinces. The hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander) also mentioned that on a previous occasion in this House. In any event the Education Department is responsible for the training of medical personnel, and we know that at Groote Schuur Hospital there has been one continual fight for funds in order to make teaching facilities adequate for the needs of the country. Large capital expenditure is needed if increased personnel is to be provided as laid down in the report of this Commission. Some of the Provinces will not, I feel sure, come up to the standard of providing a teaching hospital as required, and as recommended by the Commission. This question of personnel is a very serious question. It is obvious that a huge increase of personnel will be required. Take, for instance, the training of nurses. At Groote Schuur hospital a capacity to train nurses has been low in the past simply because the Cape Hospital Board and the Provincial Council could not provide the finance for increased accommodation for nurses. There has been some improvement lately and we are training nearly 100 more nurses now, taking on new probationers, than we did formerly, but still there must be an enormous increase. Will the Provincial Council do that unless the consultative committee keeps their nose to the grindstone? I fear that the administrative capacity and the financial capacity of the Provinces will fail in a real hospitalisation policy for the Union, and I feel that as regards teaching hospistals we will have more trouble under the provincial system than we would have if such hospitals were taken over by the Central Government. The main thing laid down in the Report of this Commission was that they wanted a unified policy in health services. They referred to the inco-ordination of the position and the difficulties of service which follow, where no one appears to want to be responsible, and I hope that the consultative committee—as the chairman of the Commission is a member of the committee I feel certain that he Will do his best to see that the committee in its dealings with the Provincial council carry out fully the recommendations as regards hospitalisation which were laid down in the Report. I just want to refer briefly to the question of medical inspection of schools. On page 44 of this Report, chapter 12, it is very clearly defined what the principle formerly was which guided the medical inspection of schools. It was purely selective for the pupils who were educated, to ascertain whether there were minor defects of sight and hearing, but the modern conception is quite different entirely. It is one of the biggest features of preventive medicine, school inspection, but it cannot be a factor at all unless remedial measures are adopted and applied to the medical inspection of schools, and here again, if it is placed under the administration of the Provinces I fear that the paucity of the services in the past will persist in the future. For the whole of the Cape Province they have only seven school doctors and for the last number of years a number of these posts were vacant and could not be filled. They had 19 school nurses who were supposed to advise parents on matters of diet and hygiene, mothercraft, and to inspect and report on the physically and mentally handicapped children. They are supposed to examine candidates to see whether they are fit for physical education courses. They have to report on indigent boarding houses, hostels and school buildings. We all know, and it is common knowledge, that these services were in the past inadequately rendered and although good work was done here and there it only touched on the question of medical inspection in schools. I want to ask the Minister: Is he going to allow medical inspection of schools to remain with the Provinces? Will pressure be brought upon them, if they get it, to see that the work is adequately and properly done as laid down under the recommendations of the Report? Here again I feel that we will not get adequate services unless there is a centrally controlled policy and a co-ordinated scheme for all Provinces. Let me touch briefly on the maternity nursing homes. The Commission went into that question very carefully, not only as it affected urban centres but especially on the platteland, where patients are at great distances from medical aid. They put forward recommendations which are based on the most modern conceptions of maternity work and treatment. Today in the whole of the Cape Province the Provincial administration has only one maternity hospital, and it is quite true that the central authorities and I presume the provincial authorities subsidise it to a certain extent, but only in certain areas. The platteland members of this House will tell us how inadequate the services are. We visited most of the centres in the platteland and the one cry we heard was: Give us midwives; give us hospitals, where our women can go to when they are 80 miles from the nearest doctor; give us maternity hospitals. Will the provincial councils do that if we leave it in their charge? They have failed hopelessly in the past. Will we see to it that they give it in the future? Again I cannot help, as a member of a commission who heard all the evidence, but doubt that the provincial authorities, unless they have a complete rebirth of ideas, will ever tackle these services satisfactorily. They are not capable of doing it and even if you help them financially I do not think that they have the administrative capacity to run these services. One need only mention dental services. What are the total dental services available to the poor today. The district surgeon will pull out a sore tooth if the man is a notified pauper, but otherwise there is no preventive work in dentistry today. It is quite true that the Public Health Department has opened clinics, but throughout the length and breadth of the country there is a large demand for dental services. We need a large increase of personnel. Will the provinces do that satisfactorily? I seriously doubt it. We need only read the inter-departmental report on social-economic health conditions of urbahised natives. In this article there are a few observations about the conditions existing outside our towns, by the President of the Health Officials’ Association. He is a well-known man who has had a long career, and he feels definitely that the provinces are incapable of giving these health services to the people. Surely the Government must be guided by the views of men and women who for years have had intimate knowledge of conditions as they exist in South Africa. Do not be guided by provincial executives, but by men and women who know what they are talking about and who have come into contact with these features and want to see some amelioration and the ultimate obliteration of these destructive factors as regards the health of the nation. I just want to say this, that I want to know what the policy of the Government is as regards its services to be rendered by the local authorities. What is going to happen there? Are the local authorities still going to carry on with infectious diseases, will they still have a fight with the provincial councils as to who is responsible for pulmonary tuberculosis or bone tuberculosis? Is it the intention of the Government to make tuberculosis a national problem and not a provincial one? Is it their intention to treat venereal disease as a national problem, or is it to be left in the hands of the provincial authorities? These are questions which are burning in the minds of the public today. They want to know what is going to happen and they have the right to know. I do not expect immediate action and immediate amelioration, but I want an immediate policy laid down, and that is the policy I wish to plead for. Is the Government going to increase their subsidy or will they limit it to the amount laid down in the 1938 Act, by which local authorities are limited in the sum of money they can get for health services? Will the small municipalities be subsidised? That is also a question which affects the country and the local authorities very deeply. The people in the platteland are anxious to know whether a uniform policy will be laid down or whether they are still for many years going to suffer from the lack of co-ordination. We had it m evidence in the South Western Districts. I asked a doctor there what happens to patients, as he had many instances of tuberculosis. He said: “They are notified, they go sick, they die, and get a pauper funeral.” I do not say that as a reflection on the past services rendered by the Government. I admit that there has been a lot of improvement, but I also want to make my point that the public will not be satisfied with the services as they were rendered in the past. They will not be satisfied that the local authorities should be responsible for health measures and for the national health service. No, it has been the custom lately in this House to quote Latin tags, and I will follow the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) and the hon. Minister of Finance, who set this example. I will say this to the consultative committee. Do not let your motto be “Festina lente”, which means “Go slowly”, but let it be “Ars longa vite brevis” which means “You have a long way to go and life is short”. I just want to say about, these specialist services that unless the Minister can tell us more fully what his statement in the newspapers meant, I am inclined to agree with the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) that we will have the same inco-ordination as in the past. I have no faith in the provincial councils. There again we are bringing in the same irregularities between different services and the inco-ordination of services that we had in the past. No, I can only say this that the Government should show that they are in earnest. The Prime Minister in February last year made a statement in this House that he, on behalf of the Government, would accept the amended report of the Planning Council, and that report clearly said that by 1947 the Government would be prepared to spend £10,000,000 a year on public health. If we keep that in view I shall be satisfied, because otherwise I am afraid that we will get back to the state we are in today which is very aptly described by this quotation: “Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey, where wealth accumulates and men decay”.

Mr. Speaker, in approaching this matter of the National Health Services Commission I think that the most important matter to which we have to apply ourselves is the very title of this commission the National Health Services. It is essential, on the part of this House and the Government, to secure that these services are going to be national in the true sense. It seems to me unfortunate that the constitutional situation has arisen but still more unfortunate that the Government is prepared to say that they will not touch the constitutional position. I agree that the provincial council in the Transvaal in the past has done a good deal of good work. I disagree there with the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer). In the hospitalisation there they certainly have not gone as far as we would have liked, but they certainly have improved on the position as compared with the Cape.

When business was suspended, I had just remarked that the title of this commission was the National Health Services Commission, and I would propose to this House and to the Government that that must be kept vigilantly in front of us, and that if any provincial rights or provincial aspirations stand in the way of a national health scheme, then those rights and aspirations must give way in order that effect can be given to the scheme in a satisfactory and efficient manner. It may be just as well that the constitutional issue has been raised, because it is important that it should be settled amicably. But there are many more things in this report which are more important than the constitutional difference as to whether the provincial councils or the Government shall administer and give effect to the scheme. But we have to remember this in considering this question, that the provincial councils are legislative bodies, they have the power to legislate in certain directions within certain limits. Therefore if we are to go in for provincialism in the sense of the administration of health services, we might be in a very difficult position in so far as the provinces may legislate in different directions in regard to the same matter. I see that weakness there, and therefore I have the feeling that as far as possible we must avoid any overlapping in that direction. I think we also have to remember that the rights of the provinces, in so far as hospitals are concerned, could be transferred to and used by the central authority, but it would have to be by agreement with the provincial council that the policy will be laid down centrally. That is essential, if we are to have a good scheme. Another thing we have to remember is this. In studying the minority report which, I think, was worthy of study, it will be seen that they put forward certain views to which I think we should give due consideration. I notice they say on page 186 in paragraph 19—

This means, to my mind, a very much greater power to the provincial councils, more than they have at the present time, and I think it would be a mistake to extend the existing powers of the provinces. Therefore I think the minority in going as far as that, have rather destroyed their case in favour of the provincial system, because they have asked for something more than exists at the present time, and one must ask oneself this: If this point of view is given effect to, we would then have a public health department which has a central control for the whole Union; we would have four provincial health services under four provincial directors and of course, we have today the municipal public health services in the various municipalities. To suggest that these systems can be co-ordinated to give an efficient service for national health, I think, is asking for too much because in the case of the provincial council they have legislative power and they might disagree with one another. Secondly, as far as the municipalities are concerned, some of them are in an exceptionally good position. Some of the health services in municipalities are very well run indeed, particularly municipalities which are able to finance that department. Johannesburg, Durban, and to a certain extent Cape Town, have got municipal services which are undoubtedly good. They cost money but we are able to carry then through. But there again one must realise that in giving effect to this scheme too many controls, too many diverse outlooks held by the different municipalities, can make a good scheme work very badly. Therefore I want to put forward this plea—and my party is in agreement—we want health services; we agree with this report, subject of course, to our taking into consideration the provincial rights mentioned in the minority report, and with it all we feel that the report itself is a comprehensive document; it provides for practically everything in the nature of health services, both preventive and curative. We want to see the scheme given effect to as soon as possible, and we want to see a scheme that will work to the satisfaction not only of the profes sions concerned but certainly to the satisfaction of the people themselves.

The Labour Party Congress agreed, I notice, that the control of hospitals should rest with the Provinces.

The conference was not very decided in that direction. They wanted due consideration to be given to that I feel, because of the minority report which had been put forward by one of our members, and I appreciate that the congress did not want to take sides.

But eventually you must choose.

I say that if provincial rights and provincial aspirations stand in the way of a national health scheme, then they must give way to a national health scheme. That is the position that we take up, and on that we urge the Government to go forward. We go further than the Minister himself who says that he will not interfere with the constitutional position. We are prepared to urge that where the constitutional position is in the way of the progress of the scheme, then it must not be allowed to remain in the way of the progress of the scheme.

I take it that remains to be seen in the future in the light of experience.

But I would prefer us to start right. I agree that it is perhaps unwise to rush into this in the way that some of the other Ministers have done, where they have abandoned existing channels and used new channels and subsequently come to grief. I feel that in this case we must be cautious, but we must not be too cautious because if we are too cautious, we might make a failure of the scheme itself. So I think we must secure the constitutional position as far as we can. Whilst it is important and whilst we want to please all sections, I am satisfied that even the voters in the Provincial council elections would be quite prepared to have central administration of the scheme as a whole. However, I saw the other day that the conference of the administrators with the Minister have agreed that they will for the time being administer hospitals, and that in some respects, the out-patients’ departments may be co-ordinated with the health centres. Well, that may be advisable to begin with in order to get the scheme going, but I want to point out to the Minister that the out-patients’ department of a hospital has always been looked upon as something that the ordinary person likes to avoid, because it has the appearance of charity. It has the appearance of that coldness about it so that people only go to it when they are compelled to do so. If they can they will go to a private doctor or find some other means of getting the service they require. I hope the Minister will see to it, through his committee, that that part of it will be built up in a totally different atmosphere to the present out-patients’ departments. In other words, build on the lines of the prophylactorums that exist in Russia, and I am sure that members will forgive me for referring to Russia about this because it is admitted that the Russians are in the vanguard as far as this is concerned.

Why are you so apologetic about Russia?

Whenever Russia is mentioned there is an immediate feeling expressed by a section that nothing good can come out of Russia. I had an opportunity of visiting these prophylactorums in Leningrad and in Moscow, and I spent a certain time in seeing how they worked. There you have a system which is more preventive than curative, although it is curative also. There is an atmosphere like that in the waiting room of a specialist. They give specialist treatment and after that people can return to their homes. There is no atmosphere whatever in the nature of giving something for nothing, but it is regarded aS the right that every citizen has. The whole system is one which creates confidence in the patient and satisfaction that he is getting the best treatment possible.

You agree then that the means test should be done away with?

I do agree. There should be no charge. Once you apply the means test you immediately create a division. There must be no categories in the treatment of public health. I therefore feel that there can be no question about it. It is in the interests of everyone in this country that the public health service under this scheme should be enforced without a means test and that people shall be encouraged to use that service. In connection with the question of financing this scheme the Minister has dealt with it and various figures were suggested. The question was asked whether the Government was prepared to spend £10,000,000 for it in the next two years and the reply was that generally when the scheme is working fully it will cost £14,000,000. There are various ways in which that could be financed. That, I take it, will be a matter between the Department and the Minister of Finance. But I think that at any rate where it is possible we should consider the question of a health tax based, of course, on income, and that health tax could appreciably assist in paying for the scheme and for these services. I think that would be better than having a system of insurance, which I believe has also been considered. I think the tax can be worked out which would not be oppressive on any section of the people and yet will have tremendous advantages in bringing benefits to everyone. Of course, I think we are all disappointed that the service is not going to come fully into operation straight away. For a start there is only £50,000 being spent. That is the start. That is where I disagree with the hon. member for Stellenbosch, when he wishes immediate legislation to be introduced. The motion, of course, is on the same lines but it is certain that with no uncertain voice the House and the country have shown that the services are wanted, and therefore any delay on the part of the Government is something which will rebound on their own heads, and they will suffer accordingly in the esteem of the public. Therefore I am most anxious that the Minister will give quick effect to this scheme, and that he will see to it that it is a centralised scheme, and that the methods used will make for the scheme being a success. The report definitely recommends a State Scheme, i.e. that the doctors’ shall be in the full-time service of the State, and they lay down a proposed schedule of wages to be paid, and they also lay down the manner in which they will be controlled by means of regional districts and under local committees which will have no legislative power but will administer under central control. There, of course, it seems to me that the scheme should work. It will mean that we will have in the service of the country a large number of medical practitioners who will then not have to worry about the purely mercenary side of the profession, but will take a delight in the work they do, and I am sure that a good deal of research work will develop, the opportunity for which is not available in private practice. This research work, as the Minister knows, is of the greatest importance. It is after all the one thing which makes it possible for us to advance in our medical knowledge and treatment and prevention of disease. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I welcome that also. I notice with regard to the pharmaceutical services the report states that the chemists of the country do not agree with the suggestions of the commission as regards a State service but are prepared that the services should be rendered through the existing chemist shops. That is the attitude they take up. From their point of view they probably feel it is better, and they refer to Great Britain where under the National Health Service medicines are supplied from the chemist shops, as also in New Zealand where they have an ideal system. When the commission enquired into this they went much further than they were called upon to do. They said they disagreed with the pharmaceutical societies on this point and they said that because of that disagreement they would carry on with the existing chemist shops, but the ideal state of affairs would be a State dispensary. That, of course, is quite right as far as the commission and the Department are concerned, if that is their viewpoint, but the chemists contend that a better service will be given through the existing chemist shops. But the point I want to put to the Minister and the Chairman of the Health Commission is that in dealing with the pharmaceutical service in the report they went out of their way to say things which are not correct. I want to say that quite frankly. First of all on page 52, chapter 13, they say—

Now the pharmaceutical societies, who have evolved a scientific tariff say that they can prove to the commission—I think they did give evidence on this point—that there is no question that the charges are out of proportion to the cost and the value of the services; on the basis on which it is calculated by them it is a fair charge. Let me point out that under the price control, the price controller can immediately put this right if the position is not as I say it is. It is provided in the Medical, Dental and Pharmacy Act that if any doctor, dentist or chemist is found guilty of making extortionate charges, which is anything more than the usual charge, they can be prosecuted, so that there is no question about it. But I want to correct it and say that the statement on page 74, Chapter 13 of the Report is not correct.

It is based on evidence.

I hope that when the chairman of the commission replies he will tell us what body it is that gave that evidence. Perhaps the chairman got it from the Railway Sick Fund Committee? I will be very interested to know who made that statement and whether the commission compared that statement with the statement of the scientific tariff given to them by the Pharmaceutical Society. Then he goes further and on the same page 52, paragraph 76, he refers to the chemist shop and says—

The implication in the Report is that the chemists do diagnose and examine patients and do not practise ethically. The chemists take strong exception to it because they know the law just as well as the commission knows it. They do not diagnose and they do not examine patients. Why this should appear in the Report I do not know, but I want it on record also that that is the implication and that it is not founded on fact. They again repeat it in paragraph 78 where they say—

No-one has any objection to buying cheaper, but to say that it will be got cheaper by bulk buying is not quite right and I do not see why the commission mentions it in their report. It shows clrealy to my mind that the commission seems to have gone out of its Way. In a passage where they refer to one section which will have a function under the scheme, namely the chemist, at page 133, chapter 27, paragraph 18, they say—

The chemists do not like that name “pharmacist”. Why this paragraph appears there I do not know because in the English Act it says “chemists and druggists” as against “Apteker” in Afrikaans. Throughout other countries the name “chemists and druggists” is the accepted and legal title and has existed in Great Brtain for 300 years. The “Apothecaries Society” in London today are medical men. Originally they were a branch of the chemists. The chemists are a society from which the medical profession has really sprung. The position therefore is this, that when they say that the title “pharmacists” should be applied and the other title taken away, I do not think the commission can have examined the position very carefully, because actually other chemists industrial chemists, pathological chemists, biological chemists and analytical chemists can all have the respective adjective before the title chemist. As far as chemists and druggists are concerned, there is no difficulty in calling them pharmaceutical chemists. But to say that this body of men is not properly trained practically is not a fair statement, because the professional people it refers to, the chemists, are trained in more than just componding medicines. They are in a position where they are fully trained in pharmaceutical chemistry, and if you like to describe it as such in medical chemistry. They have to take courses at technical colleges which includes chemistry both in their first professional examination and in their qualifying examination. Therefore, to suggest in the way it is done here, that this title should be abolished is going too far and is not justified by any knowledge I have in regard to that. They say that they are not satisfied that chemists are receiving the best possible training and then they go on to say what they consider to be the best possible training. They say—

I say that whether it be under the health services, in the sense in which it is referred to by the commission, or whether it is through the ordinary channels of the chemist shop, the training would have to be the same. The syllabus they would have to study under would have to be the same. They would require to take fairly substantial chemistry courses, as well as physics and other subjects. There could be no question about it that they would have to take these subjects, but my objection is that in reading this paragraph it would appear as if the chemists, or as the commission would like to have them called, the pharmacists, are merely a body of men who compound and dispense medicines. They do much more than that. They manufacture, and have a knowledge of the manufacture of the fundamental preparations before the compounding or the dispensing takes place.

They also sell jewellery and other things.

My hon. friend speaks of his knowledge in a small country town, such as Robertson, etc. I think we are very aggrieved to think that chemists are compelled to sell, as he says, jewellery and things like that in the small towns.

They sell it in Cape Town too.

I have not seen it in Cape Town but the fact is this, and the hon. member knows it quite well, that the lack of protection which has been given to the chemist has compelled him to extend his professional activities to commercial activities. He has been compelled to do that and it is not the fault of the chemist but the fault of the system which compelled him to do that.

It is the fault of the Government.

It is the fault of all Governments because it has existed for a long time. I feel that in pointing out these things and in dealing with the pharmaceutical service, the chairman of the commission will take it in the spirit in which I gave it, which is that I think the commission ran away with itself in dealing with the chemists, and that the Pharmaceutical Societies are out to help in a national health service. They believe, as they said in their evidence, that the methods they use will be the best methods to give effect to what, after all, will be a service which the whole of the country will be able to appreciate. I will not take much longer. It is sufficient for me to say to the Minister that although he has told us that he is going ahead with the 40 health centres, at the same time they have been astute enough not to bind themselves too far, and I want to urge him to commit himself completely to the scheme, and although there are to be only 40 health centres put up in the first 12 months, that they will go ahead and that the committee they appoint will be capable of administering it, in the sense in which I indicated it, i.e. so that it will be welcomed by everyone.

I want to associate myself with what the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) said about the word “immediately”, in connection with the National Health Service. If ever haste was essential in connection with any service, it is necessary in connection with a national health service. Just as food is essential in the life of the nation, health services are also essential. It amounts to that. If we take into consideration what the experts of the Agricultural Department tell us about the terrible damage caused in the country by the washing away of soil by erosion, if we think of the dongas and sluits about which we can hardly do anything, we must realise that before long the same will happen as regards the health of the nation, if we do not act in time. Those dongas at first were footpaths and small sluits, but afterwards they became large and serious. Eventually they became a problem which can hardly be solved. If we allow that to happen in our national health we will also later be faced with a problem which will be difficult to solve. Look at the small amount of money spent in connection with public health. About £14,000,000 per annum is spent, but on the other side you find that preventive services represent only 1 per cent. of that amount. That is what I wish to emphasise, the importance of preventive services which must be performed in a national health service. Where we only use 1 per cent. of our expenditure on national health for preventive services, it means that those evils continue, and in that connection I wish to refer to a few diseases like for example tuberculosis and venereal disease. It is alarming how these diseases increase. We find that they especially increase amongst the non-Europeans, the natives. There are doctors who allege that up to 80 per cent. of the non-European patients treated by them suffer from these diseases. Sometimes the disease is not visible, but the non-European carries it in his blood. It undermines his health. The danger is not confined to the non-Europeans. We cannot deny the fact that the nurse-girls of our children are mainly non-Europeans and the milkers throughout the Union are mainly non-Europeans. If we consider for a moment we must realise what the result may be of the germs they spread. Therefore I wish to emphasise that we must concentrate on preventive services. It is the duty of the State not to delay a moment especially as regards these diseases. Each year health services are held in prospect to us but there are always delays and more delays. We dare not delay longer. We must act. It is the duty of the State to see to it that health services become personal services, so that each person, no matter what his means, will be able to make use of it. It is the nightmare of the average man and of the lower income groups of the people that disease will overtake them, because if they have to go to the doctor they have not the money for it and still less are they able to find money to go to the hospitals, with the result that they allow the disease to progress so far that they become practically incurable. I am convinced that the Minister of Public Health does not want to see that the health of the nation is undermined by these diseases and that matters should continue as they are now. Give everybody the opportunity, however poor they may be, to make free use of the best doctors and specialists and also of free hospitalisation, so that we can combat the diseases and remedy the existing evil. I hope that the Minister will do his utmost with regard to this matter so that we will immediately have an improvement in the situation in the whole Union. On the platteland one finds numbers of persons who live far away from the doctor and it happens that the sick die before the doctor arrives, and if they fetch a doctor the account is often so high that that person has to give everything he owns to pay the account. There are, of course, district surgeons, but in the majority of cases they are so overloaded with work that they cannot do the work properly. On the platteland the position is much more serious than in the cities, and even though a burden is laid on the shoulders of the nation, it is our duty to provide proper treatment and free hospitalisation for all. As regards the inauguration of a national health service the objection was raised that the provincial councils would have it under their control. There is machinery to execute it, there are the provincial councils, and it is just a matter of the financial support which they should receive to enable them to implement the scheme. Although it is a national scheme it can be administered by the provincial councils. I see no danger in that. The hospitals are there and it is just a matter of financial support. The provincial council of the Free State, for example, annually spends £40,000 to £50,000 on natives, to which the Union Parliament did not contribute anything. It is, however, the duty of the Government. I hope that a radical change will take place.

There are very few members who will disagree with me when I state that this House and also the country outside owes a debt to the hon. member for Rondebosch (Dr. Moll) for the speech he made this morning. The hon. member said that he was not addressing the House in this debate so much in his capacity as a member of the National Health Services Commission, but as one who had for many years taken an interest in public health questions. That is undoubtedly the case.

Even if the hon. member had not been a member of the National Health Services Commission, his professional qualifications and the interest he has always taken in public health would have made him an authority on the subject. I myself since that hon. member has been in the House, have never wittingly missed an opportunity of hearing him on the subject. But undoubtedly authority was lent to his remarks by the fact that he was a member of the commission and heard the evidence on which its report was based. I think that the particular value that attached to what he had to say on the subject was the clear and lucid explanation he gave as to the significance, from the practical and technical aspects, of the Government’s decision to maintain the provincial authorities in their present functions so far as public health is concerned. He explained many aspects of what might be expected to flow from that decision. Now, Mr. Speaker, as is the case with most reports by commissions on social and economic questions in this country, the people who are most affected by the recommendations of such reports are the majority of the people of this country, who, in the case of this country, happen to be black. There is no necessity for me to dwell upon the overwhelming evidence that exists of the widespread conditions of illhealth among the native population of South Africa, on their proneness on a great scale to epidemic disease, on the murderous infant mortality rates (where the figures are known), on their widespread poverty and the corresponding prevalence of diseases which are associated with poverty amongst the native people. The evidence of all that, including the evidence of an official character, is well known and undisputed, and has been much emphasised in the report of the National Health Services Commission. I want to add my tribute to that that has been paid by other members during this debate, and by the Minister himself, to the work this commission has done. Not least is the value of this report due to the fact that it is an entirely colour blind report, that it treats the population of South Africa as a whole. It treats the need for medical services as applying to the whole people of South Africa irrespective of colour or race. The report has also rendered a national service in stressing the utter inadequacy of existing medical services available for the people of this country, the people of all races. The hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp) in seconding this motion, dwelt upon the fact that there is already a national health service in respect of animals, whereas there is no national health service yet for human beings. I recollect a case which I raised in this House some years ago, which illustrates this very fact. A constituent of mine, a native school teacher in a remote place, fell a victim to a disease which is fortunately rare in human beings, that of anthrax, and he sent for the district surgeon, who lived many miles away, asking him to come to his assistance. The native was told that the district surgeon would come, but as the case had not been referred to him by the magistrate, it was not a pauper case, his fee would be so much. I do not say that the fee was excessive for the distance the district surgeon would have to travel, but it was excessive in relation to this man’s means. He could not possibly afford to get the doctor out. However, who did specially travel out to see him without any cost to him, was the veterinary surgeon, who came to question him about the anthrax lest he might infect cattle in the surrounding area. He did not have to pay the veterinary surgeon; that was a free Government service. It was a case of rendering a national health service, but unfortunately the then existing health services had no interest in the human being, but only in the infection that human beings might bring to animals in his neighbourhood. I drew the Minister’s attention to this case in the House, and I heard the sequel. A policeman came out, presumably as a result of my remarks in this House; it appears he was sent out by the magistrate to question the native as to his means. When he heard the miserable pittance that the native received he said: “I am going to tell the magistrate you are a rich man and that you could quite easily have afforded the doctor.” That was long ago, but it illustrates the point that the hon. member for Vryheid made of the practical effects of having a national health service for animals and not having a national health service for human beings. A man, however poor, cannot get any attention today unless he is certified as a pauper, and as far as I can gather, a man has to be very poor indeed for a magistrate to say he is a pauper, and even then he suffers under the obvious stigma. The commission has, as I have said, fulfilled a public service in stressing the inadequacy of the health services available to the vast mass of people of the country—particularly those who need health services most. The mass of the people who are most prone to disease are, in the overwhelming majority of cases, not served at all. I am referring to the facts which appear to me of special value which have been stressed by the commission—the inter-dependence of ill-health upon poverty and upon economic conditions, and the inevitability—however efficient curative medical services there may be—the inevitability of widespread disease as long as the existing economic conditions are permitted. But the commission has not limited itself only to exposing facts which many of us knew before. It has also attempted, in so far as lies within the province of the science of medicine and of medical men, to suggest practical remedies. It has reported in favour of unified national health services with an administrative structure which will ensure technical efficiency and also (which is to me as important) some measure of democratic control. It has suggested that the organisation that it proposes shall not limit itself to health services in the narrow sense of the term, but that it should also have advisory functions in relation to the general policy of the country, particularly the general economic policy of the country in so far as that policy is likely to affect the health of the people. They made practical proposals also for improving the desperately inadequate environmental services available to the people, particularly in the small towns, by suggesting the relief of the provinces from their present financial obligations in regard to hospitalisation, but without cutting down the present revenues available, helping them therefore, if they so wish, to use the funds, which at present are available for other types of service, for the improvement of environmental services and particularly for the subsidisation of the local authorities in order to enable them to improve environmental health services. They have suggested a bold, imaginative and just plan. I think they have performed a great national service in bringing before the country what really is required to cope with the conditions of poverty and disease to which they have referred. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister, in October of last year, made a public statement which dealt “inter alia” with the report of the commission. That statement has been commented on a number of times during this debate. It has been referred to by the Minister of Public Health and it was referred to before Parliament met in explanatory statements by the Minister of Public Health. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister also, on another occasion, to which you will not allow me to refer (it was during the course of another debate) also dealt with this statement. This statement was widely interpreted, rightly or wrongly, at the time, as indicating that the report of the commission was not accepted by the Government. The Minister in this debate told us that this was a false impression and that they actually do accept the report of the commission except in so far as the provincial issue is concerned. I was very glad to hear this statement of the Minister in broad terms. But there are certain aspects of the statement which I should like to refer to, because I assume they have now been reconsidered in view of the Minister’s statement. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister stated in October that—

Having referred to the “logically complete scheme” the commission had proposed, he went on—

The Minister said in this debate all that was intended by that was that except for the question of provincial controlled hospitals, the report of the commission was accepted. It is, however, not clear to me—this is not a question of questioning the bona fides of the Government or anything of that kind—what is to be the function of this elaborate organisation which the commission recommended should be set up—a central organisation, a regional organisation and a local organisation—making provision for the control of the health services, an organisation for preserving administrative efficiency, an organisation for safeguarding the interests and the duties of technical personnel? How that is to be fitted into the divided control between the provinces and the Central Government on the lines of the division of hospital services and certain other medical services I cannot understand. Moreover—and this was a point made by the hon. member for Rondebosch—when it said that provincial functions are to be maintained does that also refer to the health functions fulfilled by local authorities, because in terms of the South Africa Act municipal institutions are under the control of the provinces; and the provinces, it seems to me, can very well argue that any attempt to co-ordinate those services now rendered by the municipalities such a clinics and so forth would be an encroachment upon provincial functions, if it was attempted to bring them into the purview of a national organisation such as recommended by the commission. This is a point that also needs clarification, because the acceptance of the present constitutional position means that not only the provinces but also the local auhorities (which under the South Africa Act are under the control of the Provincial Councils) are to maintain their present functions, and if that is the position, I cannot see how a national health service can mean anything else but a broadening of the present functions of the Public Health Department. To start with health centres and perhaps the appointment of further district surgeons appear to be all that is contemplated by the Government when it states that it has accepted the commission’s report with the exception of the recommendation on the provincial issue. It seems to me that this provincial question on the organisational side is crucial. It has been fully dealt with this morning by the hon. member for Rondebosch. Then on the financial side the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister said—

The commission said the scheme would cost about £14½ millions. To the extent of £10½ millions or more the cost would be covered by a health tax to take the place of expenditure incurred by private individuals on doctors and on health services generally; it would not mean any additional ordinary taxation by the Government. On the financial side, as had been pointed out, the Government at present spends £3,300,000 on public health and the addition of another £1⅓ million would bring it up to the financial recommendations of the commission. The Government had already accepted Report No. 2 of the Planning Council, which recommended an expenditure of £10,000,000. Already they are expending over £3,000,000 of public money. I therefore cannot understand the statement made by the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister—and it has not been explained to my satisfaction—how another £1⅓ million would involve serious financial difficulties. The Minister said that the country wants a national health service, and the Government proposes to give the country a national health service. That is accepted. But we are entitled to ask: What is meant by a national health service, and how is it to be financed? Those are not questions that have been answered during the course of this debate. The only practical steps that have been proposed are the establishment of health centres under an advisory committee. The commission admitted that its recommendations could not be carried out at once, and it was for that reason it recommended the establishment of a transition committee, not merely to establish health centres—that was to be one of its functions—but also to start building this organisation which it recommended, and negotiating with the various authorities who would be affected by the establishment of such an organisation. Is not the House at least entitled to ask whether a committee with these functions and not merely with the function of establishing health centres, is contemplated? The Minister said that the Government was not running away from this commission. It is not a question of running away; it is a question of whether the fundamental recommendations of the commission are being carried out, and these questions I have asked have not been clarified during the course of this debate, though they are questions which seem to me to be fundamental, if the Government claims that the action it is taking is in terms of the commission’s report. Much has been said of the opposition of the Provinces to the implementation of the report of this commission as far as hospital services are concerned. The hon. member for Rondebosch has dealt with the grave technical implications that are involved and to which I have also referred. But I want to ask at this stage: Who are these provinces; who are these provincial authorities who are objecting to the carrying out of the report of this commission? We know that the provincial executives are objecting, but are they in this matter truly representative of the people of the Provinces? There is no difference between the people of the four Provinces and the people of the whole Union, and the statement that the hon. member for Rondebosch made this morning that in his opinion the majority of the people of South Africa wanted a national health service to be established such as was recommended by the commission, is a statement I have never heard contradicated. I do not think it could be contradicted. Is it the people of the Provinces who are objecting to this report? Is it the starving location dweller? Is it the poverty-stricken native peasant? Is it the poor white? Or is it simply a small minority of provincial politicians who see their personal functions derogated from? I myself feel that the hon. member for Rondebosch is right in this suggestion, that it is not a question of the majority of the people of the provinces who are raising these objections but it is a minority, which is not in this matter speaking for the people who are most affected, those who stand in the greatest need of the type of services the commission has recommended. We have not been told either what case has been put before the Government that the Provinces can discharge the necessary services in a better way than they could be discharged under a central organisation such as was recommended by the commission. Is that the point, and if so what arguments have they adduced to support it? Surely not their previous record, as the hon. member for Rondebosch showed this morning. And if the constitutional issue was going to be a difficulty in this matter, why were not the Provinces approached before the commission was appointed? Surely the report of the commission was not needed to find out what the attitude of the provinces was in this matter, and if the provinces’ oppostion, in view of the terms of the Act that the Minister referred to, was to be a determining, or even important, factor in this matter, it seems to me that this question should have been decided before a commission like this was asked to investigate. In fact, one of the actual terms of reference of this commission was—

The provincial issue was thus present to the mind of the Government when it appointed the commission, and I suggest if the provincial issue was to be a stumbling block to the setting up of a national organisation this issue might well have been decided in advance. In fact, the hon. member for Yeoville (Dr. Gluckman) said, in moving this motion, that at a very early stage of the investigations of this commission, representatives of the provincial authorities came before them and expressed their unalterable opposition—if I understood him correctly—to the carrying out of the organisational proposals which have been made. I would have thought that even at that stage the matter of the constitutional issue might well have been dealt with. But the position is now that on the merits of the case the hon. member for Yeoville and his colleagues have recommended what they regard, for the reasons which they state, on practical grounds, as the correct organisation. The Government has not said that they do not agree with this type of organisation; all they say is that the provincial opposition to this matter cannot be overcome. I do feel with the hon. member for Rondebosch (Dr. Moll) that the Government should not have taken into account the officials or authorities who happen to be the head of the provincial administrations at the present time, but should have had regard to the wishes of the people in the provinces themselves. What has been the provincial record in the field of health services since Union? The hon. member for Rondebosch has dealt with that in some detail. I only want to refer to a few aspects of it, more particularly concerning the native people. In any controversy there may be as to how the provinces have fulfilled their obligations in the field of hospitalisation, in so far as the European population is concerned, there can, in my submission, be no doubt that they did not fulfil the need as regards the native people. The commission’s report is to the effect that as regards general hospitalisation there is a total beddage deficiency—I can give the figures—for Europeans of 1,489 beds on the basis of one bed for every 200 of the population. For non-Europeans the beddage deficiency is 8,619. I think it likely although I have not any direct evidence on the point, that the province most directly concerned in the opposition to this report, is Natal. I want to point out that according to the commission’s report, in the European field, the province of Natal had a surplus of 826 European beds, and for nonEuropeans, i.e. natives and other non-European races, a deficiency of 1,418 beds. So, in the case of the non-European population, even on the basis of one bed for every 500 of the native population, the province has not met the minimum provision required for non-Europeans. There has also been a serious shortage of beds for Europeans except in Natal. For the Union as a whole, including Natal, there has been a serious shortage as regards non-Europeans and particularly natives. I think the Minister or anyone else who knows about the matter will bear me out when I say that the provinces in the past have explicitly refused to carry out to the proper extent their obligations in the field of native hospitalisation. In fact, they have said that as they cannot directly tax the natives, they do not see why they should provide hospitals for them. The National Health Services Commission expressed itself very severely on this aspect of the matter. On page 122 of the report, chapter 25 paragraph 28, they say—

Now, it had been suggested, and I think quite wrongly, by the Native Affairs Commission some years ago that native health services should be placed under different control from other health services, that native hospitals should be separated from European hospitals, and that the Provinces should not be left with responsibility for hospitalisation for natives but that the Government should assume control of it. I think that proposition was adequately replied to by the commission itself when it said—

The commission, is quite emphatic about that. They are against the separation of the control of native health services and other health services. There I must say that I agree with them fully. If, however, they remain together, says the commission, the past record of the Provinces is the Achilles heel of their claim for continued control of hospital services. Now, Sir, I know that the Provinces, on the one hand, are unalterably opposing the Government’s accepting this commission’s report, but on the other hand, it has come to ask the Government for more money. That would appear, on the face of it perhaps, to be a strange attitude, but that is what they have done, and I understand that discussions are still going on on the question of further subsidies to the Provinces, not only for this purpose but for other purposes also. Well, it may be that the Government is prepared to finance the Provinces sufficiently in this regard to make up this enormous gap in their services which the commission reported on. I would have thought, however, that in relation to the consideration of questions of this kind, it would have been pointed out to the Provinces that divided control, whether it be in health services or in anything else, is bound to result in increased costs, and that the Central Government is being asked by the Provinces to increase costs. I would not have thought that at the present time arrangements would have been made with the Provinces which would have resulted in increasing costs more than is necessary, more particularly in view of the Prime Minister’s statement as to “financial difficulties” and more particularly also in view of the Government’s financial obligations at present in relation to demobilisation, social insurance, and many other subjects of the greatest importance to the people of this country. It may be that the Government is prepared, as I say, to finance the Provinces, but I can still not help commenting upon a provincial claim, which involves serious modification, if not rejection, of the health plan which the people of this country want, as the Minister himself stated, and at the same time making further claims upon the finances of the Central Government. I am sorry that the Government felt themselves compelled to concede this claim on the part of the Provinces. It should have been made clear to the Provinces at the outset that this was a matter which was going to be dealt with on an objective basis, on the basis of the need of the people of South Africa in relation to services which are of the most vital importance to the whole of the population.

Mr. Speaker, at the outset I would like to state that I am in full accord with the fundamental principles of health for all as embodied in the commislsion’s report, and I would like to take this opportunity of congratulating the hon. member for Yeoville (Dr. Gluckman) and the members of the commission for that excellent and comprehensive document. Having said that, it is quite possible that what I am about to say may be misconstrued as criticism of the fundamental principles, but I want to emphasise once again that in this House there is no one who is keener to help to obtain health facilities for all people, irrespective of race, than I am. There is in this country no definite co-ordinated health system. In so far as the Government is concerned ten different department have certain health functions allocated to them, and it is definitely obvious that the main recommendation in the National Health Service Commission’s Report, namely that of co-ordination should be implemented as quickly as possible. This is fundamental. I do wish to state this. It has been obvious, so far, from the debate on this subject, that emphasis has been laid more on the curative side than on the preventive and promotive side of health, and in relation to this I would like to recall that in so far as the history of medicine is concerned, we have gone through three distinct eras. Up to the present curative medicine has advanced and advanced at at spectacular rate. Through the industrial revolution and synchonising with the industrial revolution, with the accumulation of vast communities in urban areas, there developed a preventive health system, the system which we know as collective public health measures. During the commencement of this century we then came to another era of medicine emphasising not only the collective public health aspect but also the preventive aspect in relation to the individual himself and the building up to what we term positive health on promotive measure grounds. I have stressed this because I feel that, in relation to health we must shift our conception of health or ill-health which is being emphasised—and that emphasis is necessary due to the fact that many speakers today have stressed the importance of hospitals in relation to health organisation. I have stressed the promotive health aspect because that is the aspect of our health services to which adequate consideration has so far not been given and which is responsible for most of the ill-health which we have in this country. Apropos of this I would like to emphasise it in this way, to come down to one single word “food”. A Medical Officer of Health, a certain doctor in England, a progressive Medical Officer of Health, under the Slum Clearance Act, removed an area where the incidence of tuberculosis was particularly high. He shifted a group of people to an area where new houses had been built and better housing conditions prevailed. After one year this progressive Medical Health Officer found, on perusing his statistics, that the incidence of tuberculosis in these houses to which he had transferred that group of people, was higher under these new housing conditions than it had been under the old slum area conditions. With his research outlook on life he investigated and found that it was due to the higher rentals, as the higher rentals which had to be paid necessitated the tenants restricting their consumption of food. This brings me to this important point, that “food” is the fundamental feature in relation to the health of this country. I have introduced the subject in this way because there has been a good deal of criticism against the provincial council system. The suggestion from numerous speakers has been that the ill-health we have in this country today is due to the lack of attention given to this matter by the provincial councils. I want to state here that the ill-health in this country is due to the lack of sound health planning by successive governments in ensuring that the lower income groups in this country—and by this I include the non-Europeans—have received food adequate in quantity and in quality. If we treat the National Health Service Commission’s recommendations on logical grounds, the first thing to do is to pay attention to the individual, to see that the necessary facilities are there for him to have sound housing, feeding and recreation, which are the promotive aspects, so as to build up his health and to ensure that the incidence of ill-health shall be lessened. Having said that, I want to revert again to the hospital system. We have spoken in this House about the inadequacy of beddage in hospitals, particularly beddage for non-Europeans. I maintain that if we have in this country a sound health system, a health system looking after the interests of a particular individual, building up his resistance so that his resistance to infection is increased, instead of hospitals being required to expand, they would contract, and with a better health organisation, together with improved curative methods, arid along with our undoubted improved public health methods, instead of hospitals having to expand and cry out for beds, they will have a diminished demand for beds. The fact that at present our hospitals have got to expand is a reflection on the health of the people in this country. I am now going to criticise the conception of the organisation as recommended by the commission. Most of the speakers have deplored the fact that hospitals, by agreement with the Government, now come under the authority of the provincial councils. I maintain that the provincial system of hospitalisation will not affect the question of the health services either one way or the other. With the provinces still maintaining the hospitals we can take the expansion or reduction in hospitals in this country as an indication whether or not the new health services are functioning properly. One has felt for many years that the Government has not played its part in securing health for the people of this country. There is one matter which is not touched upon in the Report. With excellent machinery existing to promote health for a certain section of the population, why is there not health training here as yet? I refer to the Defence Act. It is provided by this Act that the youth of the country between the ages of 17 and 21 have to enlist, and the reflection I make on the Government in this connection is that fit men are placed in units and regiments and the unfit—and I think the over-all percentage of rejects is something like 50 per cent. to 60 per cent.—are discarded. Now, I contend, and I think hon. members will agree with me that there is suitable machinery here to take the rejects and to put them into battalions, part-time battalions, to invesigate their feeding conditions and to give them sound graduated exercises, so that they ultimately can be built up into strong men and take their place, after this training, as sound and contented citizens.

Chapter 11 mentions that.

One is very concerned, in relatioin to the organisation, that under State control the old traditional contractual relationship between the medical practitioner and his patient, where certain loyalties are mutual one to the other, will disappear. One is alarmed that perhaps the old relationship may be disturbed by the advent of a third party, particularly the State, and it is possible that in this connection the divided loyalties which are inevitable in such a condition might react to the detriment both of the medical practitioner and of the patient. It is to be hoped that the Government will take into account that relationship and see that the mdical practitioner is unfettered by redtape so that he can still retain the enthusiasm and initiative which are so necessary in the relationship between doctor and patient. One can go a stage further, in as far as the proposed organisation is concerned. One believes—I feel this is fundamental—that there should be centralised co-ordination and centralised guidance, but if we insist upon centralised control, one feels, in view of the criticism which we have already had against various Government departments, that we may be setting on foot another bureaucracy which is going to irritate the people of this country. I feel that it is necessary to consider this point when we consider the imposition of any other national control. Whilst on this subject, I do consider that the existing machinery in South Africa, under the South Africa Act, namely the provincial system, along with the local authorities, can still be utilised for the benefit of the community, with centralised co-ordination and centralised guidance of this administrative machinery. I would like to state here that the South Africa Act, as the Prime Minister has pointed out, is a sacred document, and it entrenched, when Union took place, the various privileges enjoyed by the different provinces of the Union. Following on that we then had the Status Act and Act No. 45 of 1934 which further entrenched the position, and only on an appeal from the provincial council itself can its jurisdiction be altered. I know that the hon. member for Rondebosch (Dr. Moll) stated that he felt that the people of South Africa, if a referendum were taken, would enforce the commission’s recommendations for a complete nationalisation of our health services, but the provincial council is an elected body, the local authorities, are elected bodies, and if such feeling was general, and an election took place, the remedy is in the hands of the people. I do feel in raising this constitutional issue we are likely to provoke or to precipitate a constitutional position which will react to the detriment of the country, and in view of this I would like to quote from General Smuts’ speech, speaking as the Minister of Finance, on the Financial Relations Bill of 1913. He said—

Following on that, in 1935, the Roos Commission investigated provincial relationships and I think this report serves to emphasise that through the provincial medium, through the existing legislative machinery of this country, we can function on the true principles of democracy by the process of delegation of responsibilities, from a centralised co-ordinating and guiding council. One feels that with the extension of existing machinery an effective organisation can be put into effect from the administrative point of view. Wherever provincial functions have remained unimpaired a record of progress can be recorded, but where there has been encroachment either by Parliament or by the Union Government, it has resulted in friction, overlapping and inefficiency. In this respect the Roos Commission of 1935, which was appointed by the Union Government and had as its chairman the late Auditor-General and as one of its members the present Minister of Transport, had this to say—

Their difficulties have been caused by overlapping with Government departments. This restricted them. I understand there is a new financial relationship in so far as provincial matters are concerned. I am not certain of this point, but I believe that the basis now is a question of 50-50 between the provinces and the Central Government. On this point I would like tot state that I do think this, and most emphatically, that free hospitalisation is essential, and so far as practicable, free practitioner services to every member of the community should be available. In view of the poor state of the finances of the various provinces, one hopes that in hospitalisation, in order to enable the provinces to fulfil the ideal of free hospitalisation, the Government, and particularly the Minister of Finance, will grant liberal subsidies to enable the provinces to carry out the ideal of free hospitalisation. Having said this, I would like to state how pleased one is with the creation of health centres in the rural areas. It is in these areas, particularly amongst the non-European section of the community, that comprehensive health services are essential, and their ideal, which apparently is based on the Polela Health Centre, is sound, because it embraces comprehensive teaching, on health education in relation not only to hygiene but also nutrition. One would like to see an extension of this health centre’ ideal, and an implementation of the report in this regard to the fullest extent so that in the shortest possible space of time the Government will place an adequate number of health centres in those areas in which real health services are so needed. In relation to the staffing of these health centres; in dealing with the non-European community it is essential that the staff, medical staff and nursing staff and administrative staff, should have a most sympathetic approach to the problem, and in connection with that sympathetic approach it necessitates having a background of the social condition of the various tribes within the Union of South Africa. In view of this I do hope that in so far as appointments are concerned to these health centres, the Government will consider the personality of the individual and his knowledge of the native tribes. I say his “personality” because tactful handling will be imperative because in our conception of efficient health services we will have to break down what is a very important factor, one which negatives the true functioning of health services, the superstition ingrained in the native mind, and it is by an understanding of this native superstition, and the native mind, with a tactful approach to the native that the health centre is going to function in the most efficient manner.

It is done at Polela.

In relation to the nursing staff, one views the present shortage with a degree of concern. Estimating the province of Natal on the basis of 58 health centres which implies a total of 544 nurses it is obvious many more will be required. It seems to me that the Health Services Commission consider eight persons associated with the health centre, on a basis of a 24-hour service sufficient. It is impossible for nurses to continue working for that period. One has to allow them time off; one has to allow for wastage; one has to allow for ill-health; one has to allow for vacation periods and so on, which means that a considerable number of nurses will be required not only in the province of Natal—I merely took Natal as an example—but in all the provinces of the Union, and in view of the fact that there is a dearth of qualified nurses not only in Natal but throughout the other provinces of the Union today, I would like to ask the hon. mover of the motion or the hon. Minister concerned what steps they propose to take to create sound training facilities in the Union so as to secure an adequate number of fully trained nurses. Quite apart from this purely training side, one feels that in relation to the consultative committee which has been created, a co-ordinating committee on which the various provinces are represented with members of the Health Department, the nursing organisation with its newfound autonomy, is a sufficiently representative body, and a body of sufficient importance, to be given representation, so that they can voice the views of the nurses under the National Health Service Organisation. Having said this with regard to the nurses, I feel that attention should be paid to the aspect of the doctors. And I would like to make this point. The same criticism applies to the medical men as applies to the nurses in respect of “personality”, in respect of “experience” and in respect of “knowledge” of the natives, particularly the background of superstition. Under the national scheme there will be a shortage of medical men in South Africa, and I feel that we should assist in securing, in so far as the medical profession is concerned, the best available brains in the country. This is basic to the health of the country because the report’s ramifications are so wide, embracing housing, food, recreation and so on, and this stresses the necessity of securing the best brains in the country in the national interest. In medicine—and this also applies to all the other professions—it is unfortunately only the privileged classes who are able to finance their children to secure the necessary university education to become doctors. I do feel that the best brains should have an opportunity of coming into something that is a most fundamental thing in this country; it is basic in relation to social security, it is basic in relation to our human resources; it is basic in relation to our economic structure and it is basic in relation to every sphere of national activity that the best brains should be encouraged. There are so many young men and women in this country who would like to take up the study of medicine, to embark upon a medical career, inspired by truly humanitarian motives, and the Government should consider the necessity of creating a tremendous number of open scholarships, so that these young men and women so inspired who have also the necessary ability, may fulfil their ambitions and serve the State in this capacity. I desire to emphasise this. Now I would like to come to the question of the local authorities, because in a sound administrative machine with a central co-ordinating committee and central guidance, delegating authority through the medium of the Provincial Council and from the Provincial councils to the local authority, I feel that an expansion of the services under the local authority can be effective in promoting and securing the health of the individual, and this is the basis of a sound health organisation. One visualises in the urban areas not only health centres on a similar basis to the health centre at Polela, but a “community centre”, a big hall in which all relevant health services are centralised—a comprehensive health education with the use of the film as a means of propagating health. The centre should also concern itself with stimulating interest in recreation, and interest should be cultivated also in cultural education, and here I want to emphasise this very important point, that one of the difficulties under which we labour today is the fact that many of the young people of this country are not using their leisure time in a rational way, and unless through this community centre, we can educate the young people of this country in the correct and rational use of their leisure time, then it is possible that that leisure time may be utilised in some manner detrimental to health and thus antagonise the successful functioning of the national scheme. Direction in this way, I think, is important and through the community centre in an urban area this ideal of sound health, mental and physical, will assist in securing the success of a national health service scheme.

At 4.10 p.m. the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted on the 25th January, 1945, and Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 2nd March.

The House thereupon proceeded to the consideration of Government business.

When the House adjourned yesterday I was just busy pleading for the internees in the internment camps. I tried to point out how the Minister concerned with internment holds the fate of those people in the hollow of his hand, that he is the son of President Steyn—certainly one of the greatest and most honourable Afrikaners ever produced by our Afrikaner nation.

I suppose you are referring to his father?

Yes. I feel, convinced that if that worthy old man were still alive he would have done everything in his power to try to release those people. Fortunately—I say fortunately—he left a son in whose power it is to give those people their freedom, and I want to make an appeal to him in that respect that he should think about what his father would have done if he had been alive. I also want to remind him that he is the son of one of the most worthy old mothers ever produced by our nation. She is at the eve of her life, and just imagine what joy it will bring to her heart if the Minister should give heed to those thousands of beseeching prayers which arise for the release of those people, to think that almost 60 years ago she gave birth to a son who today exhibits the greatness of soul to give his fellow-Afrikaners their freedom. The hon. Minister might tell me that he cannot do a thing like that just because of his relatives. But we are concerned here not with an ordinary father and an ordinary mother. The South African nation regards President Steyn as one of the fathers of the nation, and to the same degree we regard his venerable old mother as a mother of the nation, a national father and national mother of almost 60 per cent. of the people in the country. And as regards the English-speaking section I wish to say that I do not believe one will find 1 per cent. of those who knew the old people and still know them today or who read their history, who will object and who do not also regard them as a national father and a national mother. I want to appeal to the Minister that he should not regard them merely as his father and mother, figuratively they are the father and mother of the nation. I think we all anxiously await peace, when we notwithstanding political differences, in many directions will be able to co-operate in the welfare of the country and the nation. We have great problems and yesterday we learnt from the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) what great problems we will be faced with in the near future. We must not today reproach each other. Do not let us live in the past; let us live in the future. I also want to say that we must try to heal as far as possible the wounds inflicted during the past years, and this is another wound which can be healed. I ask the hon. Minister to listen to this plea. Some of those people have been locked behind bars for four and five years. I had the experience to sit behind bars for twelve days, and to me it seemed like twelve weeks. Just imagine, those people are sitting there for four or five years. Multiply it by five or six and one can almost say that they have been there for a lifetime. Now the hon. the Minister may tell me that he alone has not the power to consent to the release of those people. But I want to tell him that he is at present regarded as one of the most important Ministers in the Cabinet and I cannot imagine that if he pleads in the Cabinet for the release of the internees, he will not be able to make his influence felt it will be in the national interest. We are all getting old; we approach our end, and we all know that when we come to the end of our lives we realise better than we now can that we can only inherit the life hereafter through mercy, and I wish to conclude by saying that happy is the person who can look back on his past and consider that he showed mercy to his fellow-Afrikaners, who were oppressed.

In the first place I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) on his speech yesterday. I think it is a speech which was appreciated by all of us, one which came from the bottom of his heart to show the people of South Africa a service, but I wish to point out that in the same row of frontbenchers there sits the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw). In my turn I wish to say that whatever he might say about the Jewish nation, no nation has ever been built up through hate. No-one can build up a nation through hating another section. I want to appeal to the hon. member for Beaufort West that he should cooperate in training our Afrikaner sons and daughters in South Africa, and if we do this, I have not the least doubt about then mental capacity to compete against any other element in the country. If we train our sons and daughters in the sphere of commerce we do not have to fear that they will not be able to compete with the Jewish nation, but if we teach our children to hate the Jews we will never make a great nation of the people of South Africa. I should like to go further and to say something about the notice sent out—and which is being exploited today—by the Minister of Lands to persons who at present live on Government farms, whether they are in the war or outside. For twenty years certain people have been living on Government farms.

Forty years.

Still worse. I want to say this, that it is a sad state of affairs that South Africa has not yet made provision for the burghers of the country to have their own piece of ground, and that they should be lessees for 40 years in this country. Here the hon. Minister of Lands adopted a policy not of putting people off the soil, but of helping them to obtain their own ground and to enable them to become the owners of that ground.

But he is chasing them away.

I just want to say that few had the Minister’s courage in coming forward and making provision for our people, who have no ground, to obtain a piece of ground. I think the Minister went far out of his way to make the necessary money available so that the man can obtain money from his Department to an amount of £4,000 with which to buy ground.

But he never receives the ground.

I think we are adopting the right procedure in making the South African nation self-supporting on the ground and to enable a man to obtain his own ground, but I say that the system of letting 2,000 or 3,000 morgen at £6 per annum is wrong. Who pays that money? The taxpayer is paying the rent of that ground, because which farm is worth £6 per annum in rent? The tragedy of the matter is this that most of the people who hire ground at £6 do not even look after their own cattle on the ground; they have a large number of cattle on the ground belonging to speculators. Certain people are only caretakers who look after the cattle of those rich people, and they engage the lessees only as hewers of wood and carriers of water. I want to tell the Minister this: I hope and trust that before he retires as Minister of Lands each farmer who today has leased ground will be allowed to have his own piece of ground, and I have the fullest confidence that the Minister will see to it that each one has his own bit of ground.

Clap hands again at your own speech.

If the hon. member knows as much of his own district as I know of mine he can also get up to speak.

But he does not clap hands.

I heard from the opposite side that the Government has as yet put nothing right in South Africa. I in my turn wish to say that the present Government has performed miracles just recently for our nation and fatherland, and I want to say that the Minister of Finance had the courage to do what no single other Minister opposite ever had after they had been in power for sixteen years, namely to provide a pension for the Boer War veterans. The present Minister of Finance did that, but he went further and when the old people found themselves in difficulties he authorised an increase in their allowances and gave them relief in their old age such as they had never had before. I want to go further and say that this Government managed to give our children the necessary food and fresh fruit even in the outlying areas of South Africa. The other day I was at a place 150 miles from Louis Trichardt, and there the best fruit is being provided for the children on the platteland. I think the Government has done much ….

To give pensions to the Bushmen.

The hon. member says that the Government awarded pensions to the Bushmen. In reply to that I wish to say that many of the Bushmen brought up white children in this country. Yes, let them laugh, but there are members on the opposite side who will not allow a Bushman to touch the wheels of their cars, but they are prepared to allow the Bushman to look after their children.

It seems to me that a Bushman girl looked after you and dropped you.

They are quite prepared to allow natives to bake the bread in their houses ….

You don’t say!

But when those natives have done their work on the farm and they are old and worn-out and this Government wants to give them a pension, they raise objections. When they have sucked the marrow from their servants they do not even want to allow the Government to take care of those people in their old age. I want to say that we on both sides of the House can be proud of the work done in the past, not only as regards the farmers on the platteland, but we can be proud of the fact that the Government undertook to make provision for our soldiers who will shortly return to South Africa. Capital has been made of the fact that certain of our soldiers did not receive the full value of their allowances.

But that is true.

May I say this: I honestly think that if we had had the help of the opposite side, if we had co-operated, we would not have had these difficulties. The hon. Minister of Agriculture is today being criticised on all sides. I want to tell him that he must console himself with the fact that there are many people here who begrudge him making a success of his position.

His own side too?

But I want to tell him that if he continues to trust the farmers of this country they will show him that they will give him a chance to make a success of his position. I have not the least doubt that he is working under difficult circumstances, but he has the full confidence of us who know the farming community of South Africa. I think there is one great difficulty in South Africa today.

That is you.

And that is that at present there is too much money in South Africa. Those who have filled their pockets today ….

Pots and pots of money.

Those who filled their pockets not with the money of South African citizens but with Imperial money which was paid for their cattle, are now aggrieved that the Minister of Finance is collecting a little revenue from them. Now that the shoe is hurting they begin to feel that they have made so much money and that they must now pay taxes, but that they do not wish to pay taxes.

Do you pay taxes?

But I say, as the hon. member for Stellenbosch said yesterday—if his own people do not wish to listen to him it is sad—I wish to say that most of us do not want to part with that money we made in the time when South Africa was prosperous.

Uncle Jim, that is a good point.

If is a danger to South Africa. In the near future when we have to return to normal conditions in South Africa, it will surely be very difficult for some people who today are used to living on £50 and £60 a month to go back to the £30 per month on which they lived in the past. What is the danger to South Africa? That when we again have normal circumstances in South Africa in the near future it will be very difficult for some people who today are used to receiving £50 and £60 a month again to get used to living on £30 and £40, and the sooner we go back to normal conditions in South Africa, the better for the progress of South Africa. I wish to say that I hope that hon. members opposite will accept the advice of their front-bencher, the hon. member for Stellenbosch. Let them listen to him and if they take heed of what he says they will at least have a future, but if they reject his advice they have no future in South Africa.

Dp you accept the advice?

I just want to tell hon. members that the member for Stellenbosch has delivered a better United Party speech than anyone of us could have done. I want to say that in the ordinary course of events the townsman wants to buy products as cheaply as possible and at the same time he wants to buy the best products of the farmer. The time has arrived when we must realise that we have tried to do the impossible in South Africa by means of various expedients. I firmly believe that control boards are excellent things, but we must not exclude the business man from them. As far as South Africa is concerned there must always be a recognition of the business man. We need his sound commonsense. No country in the world has ever made a success when it excluded its best brains, and I firmly believe that we have very good brains in South Africa, but we must give these people an opportunity to use their best brains for the welfare of South Africa. If we make use of the best brains and if we have the greatest possible degree of co-operation as regards all sections in South Africa, then there is not the least doubt that we will be able to hold our own against any country in the world after the war. But if we proceed from the point of view that work is beneath us, that for example a son of South Africa cannot be an hotel proprietor, there is something wrong. I hope that we will proceed from the standpoint that we will see to it that our sons in South Africa will enter commerce more and receive training in business, and I hope that there will still be legislation in South Africa by which we can at least force every business man to train a certain number of boys or girls in business. The other day I was in a certain town in the Cape Province. The hotel was a very good one and I had the privilege of congratulating the proprietor on his hotel. He said: “Who is to blame for it that there are not more of us South Africans in business?” He blames us.

The Jews.

There my friend goes again. We do want to train the Afrikaner nation commercially. It is tragic to see that our boys and girls are not being trained in the business world. I should like to see our business houses obliged to train a certain number of boys and girls. We will then confer a favour on our sons and daughters. The idea now is that everybody should be professional people. Many people think that if one is not a doctor or a barrister, one is not worthy of fulfilling a post in South Africa. I think of a man like the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Gray), who is one of the biggest business men in Johannesburg, and when I think of the number of young Afrikaners whom he gave an opportunity to be trained and became a success in the business world, then I think that we should give praise to those people who come to South Africa to give South Africans an opportunity to be trained and to become of some importance in life. I plead that the Government should make money available so that each child can be trained in South Africa to occupy the best position in accordance with his ability. If one has regard to business ventures, especially in the Western Province, whether they are English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking, and one sees how sucqessful they have been, one cannot but take off one’s hat to the sons and daughters of the country. But we are busy holding them back and we only think of the professions, and also of the motto: “Back to the soil”. We must also give our boys an opportunity to enter commerce. I do not say that that should happen at the cost of the farming population on the farms, but an opportunity should be provided. Furthermore I say that we should have more regard to the traditions of certain countries in Europe that farms should remain in the family. It is good that farming families should not have to leave the soil. We no longer have the permanency on the farms we had in the past. I should like to see some of our sons and daughters entering the world of commerce, but on the other hand I hope and trust that farms will not go out of the families, as happens today. On the one hand I should like us to see to it that some of our boys and girls enter the world of commerce and on the other hand I should like to see provision made for the farms to remain in the possession of the old families and not to fall into strange hands.

South Africa is today toiling in the grasp of mal-administration, and while the country is struggling in that grasp, the Government is applying various anaesthetics, not alone in the country but also in this House. We are told that great things will happen, not only after the war but now, for example, in connection with the employment of soldiers. We have been hearing that since the beginning of the war. The hon. member for Durban (North) (Rev. Miles-Cadman) the other day referred to a case of a major in the army and explained how a person who had attained such high rank in the army was today in such a position that he could not pay his rent, while the war is still in progress. I have before me a number of letters from persons in my constituency, persons who at present are employed in the ammunition factory. I will read one or two—

Another letter—

These are two letters of the type we receive every day, not only from persons who are or were in the army, but also from persons who work in the various war factories. If there is a plan on the part of the State to secure these people, if the State has worked out any system which it will apply, why does that fear exist, not only on this side of the House but also amongst those directly affected, that they will become unemployed? Some time ago I had the privilege of visiting the war factories in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Vereeniging and elsewhere. It is true that good work is being done and that a high quality of goods is being manufactured, but the type of material manufactured there all consists of war material for which there will be no demand in South Africa after the war. If the thousands of persons employed in the factories are thrown back on the hands of the State, I should like to know what provision has actually been made for them. Apart from the assurances we receive every day from the Minister of Demobilisation as to what he is doing, we should like to have more particulars about what will be done, and the people who are affected by it also want to know. The other day the Minister told us that we are producing more than ever before. But it would be wrong, especially on the part of the Government, to forget that after this war each product manufactured will not only have to compete on a quality basis but also on a price basis with the overseas product. Today there is no competition from overseas, but what assurance has the Government that when the war is over and we again have international competition, perhaps of a more serious nature than ever before, what guarantee can the Government and the Minister of Economic Development give that he has any knowledge of the possibility that these industries will be able to compete with like industries in other parts of the world? I now want to make a few remarks about housing. Much has already been said about the subject. This side of the House has already shown that everything is not in order with regard to control, but the post-war scheme of demobilisation surely demands in the first instance co-operation between the various Departments of State, and especially that there should be co-operation between the State, the Provincial Councils and the city councils. When I arrived in Cape Town I went to the Vredehoek Estate, because I had been told that a beautiful flat there had been vacant for months. I went there and found a beautiful brand-new flat in which nobody had ever lived although the place had been completed three or four months before. The words of the proprietor were as follows: “I am very sorry, it has been vacant for four months, but I may not let it because on one or other technical point I am in conflict with the regulations of the municipality” There is another block of flats next door, on the same sized ground. The building next door is built to the same plan, except that it is somewhat higher and longer and bigger. But for one or other technical reason these beautiful flats may not be let. The owner wrote me a long letter. There was an officer who found himself in the most difficult position in regard to obtaining a dwelling. He had a sick mother and was looking for accommodation for his wife and mother. They prayed and begged to get the flat but because there was one or other small technical point, the flat had to remain empty and this officer could not find accommodation. If that is the sort of co-operation, if those are the circumstances reigning in the country today, I ask what the position will be when the war is over and the difficulties are ten times greater. If this person had contravened some or other regulation, he could not have contravened it more than the owner of the flats next door, which were all let. Yet this officer could not be given accommodation because there was one or other contravention and the flats could not be let. To me that seems a terrible state of affairs. If that is happening today, what will happen after the war? To come to another aspect of maladministration under which the nation suffers we arrive at a matter about which much has been said, namely the question of food, but we cannot cease talking about it until the problem has been solved. In the past we always had the problem in South Africa of exporting surpluses. That was the position before the war. Today there is a shortage of almost every food product in the country. We had a large surplus of meat before the war. We did our utmost and applied all sorts of methods to make a success of the exportation of meat and to find markets in the world in order to get rid of our surplus meat. Now the Minister tells us that people today are using much more meat. He apparently expects us to swallow that. I personally went from butcher to butcher every morning in Cape Town to get a piece of meat, and it is unobtainable. The Minister prides himself on the fact that the public are now getting meat at reasonable, fixed prices. I have just been to the Rand and in Pretoria, and the mass of the public have not the least idea of what the fixed prices are. They are only thankful to obtain a bit of meat. The people in Pretoria tell me that they tell the butchers: “Send us a bit of meat and charge us what you like, as long as we can only obtain meat.” That is the position. The Minister laughed about the difficulties the other day, but the people are famished for meat. I have a telegram here from the South African Mint Employees’ Union which I want to read—

It is therefore nothing new to the Minister; he has already heard of it, but the problem remains the same. This shortage of food and the maldistribution must be tackled energetically and must be solved, and the Minister must not simply laugh when it is discussed.

I did not laugh.

The other day. Further I have here a letter from a dealer in Port Elizabeth. This person complains that the small businessman is not getting his quota of meat. The larger butchers obviously still have supplies, but for the small butcher existence is becoming impossible, and he says that protests to the controller are ignored. The letter is written in English and the writer is surely a political supporter of the Minister, and I cannot believe that such a person will go so far as to write to the Nationalist Party unless he is practically desperate. Is anything being done to help these people? Rationing is now being spoken of. Then we will get another direction in which certain persons can make money. I have before me a form which I received from the Traders’ Rationing Information Services. They want to create a millennium. All shops must join and must pay £3 3s. per annum, for which all their difficulties will be solved and they will be looked after. On the one hand one finds control, and on the other hand patchwork which promotes individual interests. There is inefficiency and the problem of the public not obtaining what it needs remains unsolved. Some time ago, when the potato position was so desperate a delegation came to interview me and to ask whether I could not do something in connection with the position in Pretoria, and whether I could not try to approach the controller. That deputation was composed of consumers, merchants and market agents. It was not a political deputation. In the first place we interviewed the Price Controller, then the Food Controller and then the two together, and this controller says that our request was quite reasonable and eventually we had them practically in a corner and the controllers had to agree that “the only solution is to see the Minister and the Food Committee of the Cabinet”. I telephoned the Minister and he said that a few days before he had received a deputation from the low-veld about potatoes, and that he did not think we could provide further information. All this was in spite of the fact that this was a representative deputation from the city of Pretoria and in spite of the fact that the problem in which we were interested was not primarily the production of potatoes on the low-veld—that was not the point in which we were interested. I told the Minister that I had sworn affidavits in regard to a black market inside the Pretoria market in regard to potatoes. That could not persuade the Minister. Then I told him that I had sworn affidavits to the effect that officials of his Department were involved in the black market. Still the Minister had no time to see me or the deputation. I wish to cast no reflection on the officials, but we have sworn declarations from responsible persons, and until today nothing has been done in that connection. I feel that when we have reached the stage where the Government simply ignores a representative deputation from a whole city like Pretoria, there is something wrong. Under these circumstances the old war drum is being beaten for our benefit. One sound of it is the Hitler sound, the second the war sound. But while that drum is wearing out a beautiful new sound is introduced, that of Yalta, and the Prime Minister tells us now that the solution has been found for the problems of all the world. That is done simply to deflect attention from the bad conditions and maladministration in South Africa itself. We are all tired of the war and will be thankful when it is over, but what is the solution which the Prime Minister suggests and which will bring about a millennium of eternal peace? That the Big Three meet in Yalta? But the world has already followed the road indicated at Yalta for the past 130 to 150 years, and what did it bring us? War, and once more war, and then war again. Those beautiful ideals we also had in the past out on the road indicated at Yalta we have always eventually had war.

Germany and Germany and Germany.

Coloured vote, coloured vote and coloured vote. The Great Powers have already divided the world amongst themselves in spheres of influence. Some time ago President Roosevelt suggested that a great power committee should be formed, which would take the form of a police force, and must be covered by a treaty between the four Great Powers. The same thing was done in 1814. Now it is again being suggested that the Great Powers must have all the authority. In 1814 it was Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia which entered into a treaty against “the French war curse” Let the hon. member who shouted out “Germany, Germany and Germany” listen to this. In 1814 the same Germany was one of the four large powers which signed a treaty against “the French war curse” and they co-operated and were to give the world a millennium of peace. They signed the Holy Alliance. Now we have something like that again, and this announcement of President Roosevelt has already earned protests from countries, like Holland, and Brazil and other small countries who are dissatisfied. If we go back to 1814 when the four large powers signed the Holy Alliance, which was signed also by every small nation of Europe except the Sultan and the Pope, what do we find? That there was never a session of the Holy Alliance, no conference. The Great Powers played the master and did what they liked. Now we again learn that there is to be a Holy Alliance of four powers. According to President Roosevelt there must be such an alliance of the United Nations. No mention is made of any definite place where sessions will take place. The late Mr. Frank Knox, who played a great rôle in America, even suggested that the oceans of the world should be divided between the countries as spheres of influence. Poland and Sweden, according to his suggestion, were to come under the Russian sphere of influence. Even Lipman in his well-known book “War Aims” suggests such spheres, and he wishes to include Greece in the Atlantic community and that the Russian sphere should include Hungary, while the Hungarians hate the Russians. The Chinese sphere must include Thailand, while the Thailanders want to have nothing to do with the Chinese. There are world figures who agree with President Roosevelt and our Prime Minister that that is the right road to be be followed. But in the past that road led to nothing else but wars. The most shocking thing of all is that these countries, who want to decide the spheres of influence, the four Big Ones, together represent a population which is less than the population of the rest of the world. In other words, the four Big Ones want to rule the world by might and power, as has happened in the past. They want to do their will by means of the power of aeroplanes and tanks. Let us now consider what happened when the same methods were applied after the fall of Napoleon. At that time Spain was in the French sphere of influence, and France invaded Spain and put into power there an unwelcome pro-French Government. Russia had three wars against Turkey. Britain and France fought the Crimean War against Russia, and in the East Russia fought three wars against Persia, also fought in Siberia, and pressed the Chinese right back to Vladivostock. All this happened in the so-called Century of Peace. When we have regard to the country which always pretended to protect the peace of the world, the country which protected the small nations of the world, if we have regard to what Great Britain did in this so-called Century of Peace, we find that it conquered Egypt in the most aggressive manner; that it waged a war against Persia, and two wars against Afghanistan; that it waged wars against numbers of Indian states; that it waged three wars against Burma and two wars against China, and took Shanghai. That is the “Holy War” of the “peace loving nations”, and it ended the century with the wreck of the two Boer republics in South Africa. That was the century of peace. That is also what is now being proposed for the future. France and Italy and various others of those countries, including Prussia, waged a series of wars. They were all wars to protect their spheres of influence against or to expand them to the detriment of other great powers. That was the course of the so-called peace which led to world war No. 1. On 21st October, 1939, that great friend of the opposite side of the House used the following words—

It was fear for their spheres of influence, fear for their own interest, fear that they would lose world supremacy, either to Germany, or to France in the past, or whether it will be caused by Russia in future, which makes the great powers steadily follow the path of war while pretending that they wish to promote peace. It is that same international incitement we find on the part of the great powers, that incitement to war about which Molotov spoke; it was the main road to war which that beautiful peace treaty of Versailles opened up to World War No. II. That road is again being favoured by the Prime Minister, and we on this side of the House say it is the shortest road to World War No. III. The Prime Minister attempts to ridicule us on this side when we speak about Russia and the danger Russia can become to us in future. But what do prominent world figures say? In the first place I wish to refer to the words of Rene Chaloult a member of the Legislative Assembly of Canada. Inter alia he said the following—

But we on this side of the House dare not say it. If we say it, we are either ridiculous or else we use harsh language against Russia: A British member of Parliament Commander R. T. Bower recently made the following statement—

What does the Duke of Bedford say—

Even Ghandi said that Russia was a great danger which would dog the countries of Europe. But if we on this side of the House say such things we are ridiculous and childish. If we warn against Russian Communism we are represented as being ridiculous. I say this, that if Communism is a danger to other countries in the world, then it is especially a danger here in South Africa where we have a small country with a small white population as against a large native population, if there is one country which must warn against Communism it is South Africa. Why does not the Prime Minister say that those world figures are also ridiculous when they issue warnings? Why are only we ridiculous? I repeat that we have as much right, and more, to warn against Communism than any other country in the world, because we have the coloured problem. It is because we face these great problems in our country that we on this side of the House, and I believe also all right-thinking people over the whole world, favour a world union of all the nations, a world union which will sit permanently in order to deal with world problems, and where nations will have equal rights, and where a few great powers will not be able to divide the world into spheres of influence. For that reason we suggest co-operation on a friendly basis, not founded on vengeance and power. But if we speak in that direction the Prime Minister says that the Leader of the Opposition is using insulting language; we use insulting language against Russia and Stalin! The Prime Minister also says that we can be sure that Stalin will not be frightened. I just want to say that anything this side of the House may ever say about Stalin can never approach near to the terribly insulting language used by Winston Churchill himself about Stalin. At one time he went to Italy and congratulated them on having Mussolini at the head of affairs, who had kept them safe from that bloody murderer with his bloodstained hands, Stalin. Is that harsh language or not? The whole question is this, that if we touch on anything on this side’ of the House, if we lay before the House a logical argument, the whole matter must be thrown overboard by the Prime Minister who draws a few crooked furrows through the land and says that we are using insulting language. Here we are faced with a matter which affects the whole future of South Africa, and with all respect I say that the Prime Minister has treated us with contempt in regard to that matter. As a back-bencher I say it with all respect, that it is not an attitude we expected from the Prime Minister of South Africa. The Prime Minister took the British press here under his protection and said that the press was always right; that it never went wrong. In 1939, when a treaty was made between Stalin and Hitler, the “Cape Times” published an article under this title: “Those International Criminals”, and the Communists in Cape Town then held a meeting and said that the day would dawn when Smuts and Churchill would sit at the feet of Stalin. I should like to know from the Prime Minister whether, if the English press is always right, they were also right when they called Stalin an international criminal? No, it becomes increasingly necessary for us in South Africa to look to the interests of and circumstances in our own country and to forget other countries and their problems. We know that we are a small country, and if we are a small country which is relatively poor, it is so much the more important that we should first solve our own problems, and only after we have done that can we look to the position of other countries. Our first interest lies here in South Africa, to provide for our own people—in the first place to see that they are fed. We must see that our own people are housed. We must put a stop to the chaos into which our local systems of control have landed themselves. The systems of control we have today are in a muddle, and we cannot get away from that fact. As soon as control is instituted the controlled article disappears and a black market immediately develops. There is only one way out: Either we must do away with control or else we must have efficient and complete control. That is the only solution, and it does not help to have certain systems of control in connection with a few articles, and to carry it out in such a way that one section of the people must go short of the articles needed in the house and in business. We know that there is one section who have everything it needs and for whom it is not necessary to queue up. When I addressed a meeting on Church Square in Pretoria about the food position and the meat shortage, I discovered that while I was absent from the Transvaal, shortly afterwards, a little newspaper in Pretoria called the “Pretoria News” had much to say about it. I do not think that the title of that little newspaper is quite justified, because it does not provide for the interests of Pretoria and contains no news. In any case, it called me the Meat Eater of Gezina. Well, if I had meat I would have liked to have been a meat eater at that time, but unfortunately I had no meat. It carried on against me in a terrible manner and said that I had no realisation of what the Government is doing to solve the meat shortage; the only thing I know that the Government did to solve the meat problem, or rather the only thing that happened, is that a big storm killed two head of cattle near Johannesburg and that obviously helped the meat position. That is all that was done. Today the position is still as serious as it was at that time, and the noise we get from that sort of newspaper certainly does not help to improve the position. The difficulty will not be solved unless good administration on the part of the Government is put into effect. When controllers are appointed, we find that shortages occur immediately the controllers are appointed; or else the stuff disappears as the result of exportation, and at once there is a shortage. For this reason I suggest that the Government should try rather to export the controllers and keep the food for us. And if that does not solve the problem I would suggest that we should rather export the Government and keep the necessary articles in South Africa.

I should very much like to congratulate the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers). We are very grateful to know that he has collected so much wealth during the war. We hope he will not forget the Minister of Finance. With regard to his accusation that our children are educated by Hottentots and Bushmen, I just want to tell him that we cannot all boast of nicknames. The hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) yesterday expressed his disapproval in reference to the personal attacks which the Minister of Demobilisation had made on the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie). Those attacks, as the hon. member showed, were purely of a personal nature. The hon. member for Pretoria (Sunnyside) (Mr. Pocock) then accused the hon. member for Beaufort West of being the last person who could speak of personal attacks. I want to point out that the hon. member for Beaufort West attacked the Jewish race, but he did not attack any particular person. The hon. member for Sunnyside then went on to say that we were engaged in driving the English-speaking people away from us. No, that hon. member knows better, and the English-speaking section of the population also knows better. They know the attitude of the Re-united Nationalist Party. They know that we adopt the attitude that there are two types of Englishmen in this country. We have the one class to which the hon. member for Sunnyside possibly belongs, and we have the type to which the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Stratford) belongs. There is a wide difference between them. We can co-operate with an Englishman provided he is out and out a South African. But we cannot co-operate with those Englishmen who have one leg in London and the other leg in South Africa.

Who are they?

There are some of them on the other side. The hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) made an attack on the Leader of the Opposition and stated that he (the Leader of the Opposition) had insulted the Prime Minister because he said that the Prime Minister used to be a Rhodes man. I wonder whether the Minister of the Interior or the Minister of Mines, and a large number of members on the other side, would regard it as an insult if they were called Rhodes men.

You are talking nonsense now.

That is what the hon. member said. But we find a strange spirit on the other side. Repeatedly when we have stood up in this House to criticise the Prime Minister and to attack his policy, we have been told: “But how dare you criticise a man who is so advanced in years, who is held in such high esteem, who is so world-famous?”. Let me say this, if we are not allowed to do it, the Government ought to put a younger man in the seat of the Prime Minister so that we can criticise him. We do not criticise the Prime Minister as a person who is advanced in years. We respect old people in our country. We criticise the Prime Minister in his capacity as Prime Minister of South Africa. I say that the reply which the Prime Minister gave was very disappointing to the people outside in two respects. I can give the Prime Minister the assurance that as a result of his reply he now stands before the people of South Africa in his true colours. When we on this side of the House ask what the policy of the Government is, when we ask, for example, what the policy of the Government is in connection with Communism, we are viciously attacked. I want to say in no uncertain terms that the time has arrived when the people of South Africa have the right to know from the Prime Minister what the position of South Africa will be after the war. We have heard that the Prime Minister will be going overseas in the near future, and what we should like to know from the Prime Minister, and what he does not want to tell us, is what policy he is going to advocate there. Is he going to bind us more firmly and more closely to the British Empire or is he going to follow the course which Canada is adopting? We cannot get a reply to those questions. May I just say this. The Prime Minister himself told us that England would emerge from this war economically bankrupt and with an empty exchequer. If the Prime Minister is going to advocate a policy of linking South Africa more closely with England in order to help to save her from financial ruin. South Africa need not expect anything to come of the great and tremendous industrial development which we should like to see in this country. Those expectations will go up in smoke as they did after the previous war. But we cannot get any reply from the Prime Minister to these questions. We also have the right to ask the Government what its policy is in respect of our internal problems. During the course of all these debates we have had, not a single Minister of the other side has had the courage, although we have attacked them, to get up and say that this, that or the other is the policy of the Government. I want to illustrate that briefly. We asked the Minister what his policy was with reference to the conquering Russia. The Prime Minister’s reply was he could not be bothered with such childish questions. He is becoming nervous, but he has not yet given us a reply. But what, about the other Ministers? I come to the Minister of the Interior; I come to the Minister of Labour. I put a pertinent question in regard to the labour policy. He took no notice of it. I want to tell the Minister of Labour that we shall press him on the main estimates until he replies to those questions. There I come to the Minister of Mines. The hon. member for Mayfair (Mr. H. J. Cilliers) read certain statements to the House, but the Minister would not reply to them. He said he wanted more evidence. He does not react to the misery in which many of the mine workers find themselves. I want to ask the Minister of Mines this. The hon. member quoted a certificate which had been given by Dr. Hodgman, a well-known physician on the Witwatersrand. That certificate states that a certain mine worker died of miners’ phthisis. The Medical Bureau stated that it was not miners’ phthisis, and the Minister agrees with the Medical Bureau. Now I want to ask the Minister whether he will get up in this House and say that Dr. Hodgman does not know what he is talking about. He will not do it. That is the attitude of the Minister of Mines, and we heard nothing at all from him. Now we come to another great question, i.e. Communism, and we want to know what the Government’s policy is in that respect. When Russia was Germany’s ally, no one had a good word for Russia. What is the Government doing now; is it trying to educate the people outside in a communistic direction? In this connection I want to refer to the Minister of Justice. It is true that he does not concern himself very much with the administration of justice in this country, but he plays the rôle of politician. In Johannesburg he told an Englishman that they could hold sports gatherings on Sundays and that if they did so, they would in a fitting manner be upholding the Voortrekker ideals. It is the son of a president of one of the Republics who is doing this. He made a speech in front of a Jewish audience in Johannesburg, where the Consul-General of Russia was present, on that occasion the Minister of Justice assumed the rôle of historian, and he praised Russia sky high. He stated, inter alia, that during the Second War of Independence Russia had given an ambulance to the Boers. He praised the Soviet Union sky high. I want to say that the Afrikaners do not owe a debt of gratitude to Soviet Russia for that ambulance. Does the Minister of Justice know so little about our history that he does not know that at that time the Soviet Union did not exist? That ambulance was given to the Republics owing to the efforts of the Rev. Gillot, who was there to protect the interests of Protestants. If he had been alive today, he would not have been allowed to live in Russia. Then we have the hon. members on the other side trying to make the people believe that Communistic Russia is so kind. Those, things will not go down with the people of South Africa. The hon. member for Rustenburg made a plea here for cooperation, but while he was doing so he was trying to drive in a wedge amongst the members on this side. I want to be quite honest and frank as far as co-operation is concerned. There are certain problems in our country and we know that after the war we shall have to stand together in order to solve those problems. I agree with that, but I want to be honest in regard to our attitude. We on this side of the House are not prepared to enter into any compromise as far as our constitutional position is concerned. We do not want to effect any compromise as far as a Republic is concerned, and the Republican aim. That is number one. That is our Party’s attitude. With us it is a matter of principle, and we do not want to sacrifice anything in that direction. Then I come to a second point, namely the colour question. What is the attitude of members on the other side in regard to the native question in our country? We on this side insist on the principle of guardianship in relation to the native, and we are not going to sacrifice that principle. Those who uphold that principle will co-operate with us. Another important question is the Indian question. Can we co-operate with a person like the Minister of the Interior who wants to go so far as to give the Coolies the franchise? Can we co-operate with people who adopt that attitude? No, it is out of the question. And then we come to the Minister of Finance. I asked him in Germiston what his attitude was towards that question, and his reply was that the eventual solution of the Indian problem lay in giving them the franchise. If that is the policy of that side of the House, they cannot co-operate with the Nationalist Party. Then we come to another point, namely the Jewish question. We are described as racialists. Is there any member on the other side who can tell me that there is not a Jewish problem in this country? I have not had a single conversation with English-speaking members on the other side in regard to this matter, in which they have not admitted that the Jewish problem is a dangerous one. We cannot get away from those things, because they come to our notice daily. The Jewish community has the trade in its hands; our professions are in the hands of the Jews. What happened at the University of the Witwatersrand? The rest-room of the European students was set aside for evening classes for nonEuropeans. The matter was put to the vote, and if the newspaper reports are correct the Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking students voted against it and the Jews voted for it. Sixty per cent. of the medical students are Jews. Is that in the interests of the English and Afrikaans-speaking people of South Africa? I say “no”. That is something which we have to face whether we want to do so or not. Our trade and our professions are in the hands of the Jews, and that is a sign of danger to us. I want to say this, that the Afrikaans-speaking person has practically been brought to his knees by the Jews. They are now starting with the English-speaking people, and the sooner we squarely face this matter and put it on a sound footing, the better it will be. This problem is now assuming a more serious trend. The Jewish community is proceeding in a new direction. A meeting was held in Johannesburg by Jewish employers. It was practically convened secretly, and when the representative of our Party’s newspaper came on the scene to find out what was happening, they refused to admit him. He had to clear out. What was the important matter in regard to which they had to come to a decision? The Jewish employers were discussing ways and means of getting hold of the skilled trades in South Africa for the Jews. If our trade is already in the hands of the Jews, if our professions are in their hands, what is to become of us if we allow them to get control of the skilled trades? They are trying to get a foothold in the trades, and if that happens, what is going to become of the Afrikaans and English-speaking people in the future? I say it is an underhand type of organisation. We cannot deny it. Last year we had a revelation in this House by the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) in connection with the Jewish Board of Deputies. That was not denied by the other side, although people who take a leading part in the Jewish Board of Deputies are members of this House. But I say it should not be held against me when I as an Afrikaner, as someone who has the interests of South Africa at heart, warn the people when I see those things. My Party advocates a quota system. The Jewish race cannot be assimilated, and they admit it. If the Jewish race constitutes 10 per cent or 8 per cent. of the population, what right have we English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking Afrikaners to allow commerce and industry and the professions to be in the hands of the Jews to the extent of 80 per cent.? I say in that case we commit a crime against ourselves and against our descendants. As far as a few of these matters are concerned which affect the Jews, my Party in the Transvaal decided that no Jew may become a member of the Nationalist Party. I want to be honest; he cannot become a member. But what happened? A very prominent member of that race asked me for an interview in my office in my capacity as secretary of the Party. He had a private interview with me so I do not want to divulge his name. It was ’n well-known person who is also well-known in Communistic circles. This man pleaded with me to use my influence to have the constitution altered so as to enable Jews to become members of the Party. He stated that he too wanted a republic in South Africa. I just want to say that after our experiences in the past, we decided to close the doors. What is the Government’s policy on the other side? In every case where the Government has made a failure up to the present, the blame has been thrown on the civil servants.

Is there any matter of which they have not made a failure?

Is there anything of which they have not made a failure? That is another question. But the civil servants are blamed for every one of those failures and the Minister of the Interior knows that the whole Civil Service was up in arms against him when he put the blame on the civil servants some time ago for certain things which had gone wrong. They practically accused the civil servants of sabotage. What can the Government expect if it treats its civil servants in this way? It is those people who have to carry out the policy which the Government lays down. How can one expect the civil servants to have confidence in the Government? What hurts me is this. I think it was the hon. member for South Peninsula (Mr. Sonnenberg) who got up in this House and spoke sneeringly of the officials in the Food Department. He said they were discourteous, and I do not know what else. Again the blame is thrown on the civil servants.

There is something behind it; it will still come to light.

Yes, there is something behind it. It will be appreciated if the member who made those charges will get up in this House and apologiese for that blot on the civil servants. It will be of no avail to ask the Minister to do so; we know he will not do it. In these circumstances one cannot expect the civil servants to carry out the Government’s policy. I also come into contact a great deal with civil servants, and I have never been insulted. Let us assume the civil servants were discourteous towards him; in that case he could have reported them to the Minister. But instead of that the hon. member comes along and pulls the civil servants to pieces on the floor of the House where they cannot defend themselves. I say that is a policy which is unforgivable, and the hon. member is driving in that wedge as deeply as he can. He does not care what becomes of the Civil Service. I have not much time at my disposal; I just want to say a few words in regard to the amendment of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp). The hon. Minister of Lands said two things in this House which impressed me very greatly. In the first place he stated that he had made no plans to help farmers who have been ruined and who have had to take refuge in the cities, to obtain land again. While those conditions exist, he notifies the settlers under Section 11 that they are to leave the land. Where are they to go? Surely they cannot roam about? The Minister is driving those people to the big cities, to the stream of poor white-ism in South Africa, and once they are in the cities, he will say what he said the other day, that he has not devised any plans to assist them to make a living. I want to make an appeal to the Minister to change his policy. The hon. Minister has become known of late not only as Minister of Lands but as Minister of Expropriation. We have tens of thousands of morgen lying idle, belonging to big companies. Why cannot the Minister expropriate that land and make room for the soldiers in that way? That is one recommendation we make. In the first place I want to ask the Minister whether he has ever made a survey to ascertain the amount of land which he actually requires for the soldiers? Can he tell us exactly how much land the soldiers want? Is the Minister not perhaps going to expropriate much more land than the soldiers need? As it is, he is going to ruin the people whom he now drives away. We want to ask the Minister in all seriousness to withdraw that notice. I personally was a practical farmer for fifteen years; I know everything about farming; no one can tell me anything about it. I just want to say that every farmer who is ruined will become a poor white. He lacks the training to make a living in the city, and he is going to become a poor white. The Minister has no right to rid himself of his responsibility by saying: “Let things take their course; I have nothing to do with those people; they are tenant farmers.” But surely it is the responsibility of the Minister and I want to ask him seriously to reconsider this matter and if possible, to withdraw that notice to the settlers.

We cannot blame the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) ; he is still young. He does not know the life history of the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister as well as we who have been in this country longer than he has. He sung the praises of the Prime Minister, and he added that history in the future will prove the greatness of the Prime Minister and the services which he rendered to South Africa. Little does he know that during the period when the Prime Minister was in power, incidents took place in our country which did not occur under the regime of other Governments. We have in mind, for example, the shooting of the handful of Bondelswarts coloured persons in South West Africa. I visited this place personally. It was a handful of neglected, old coloured persons, and the Prime Minister issued instructions to his pilots to drive this small group of coloured persons together in the mountain, and there they were shot down with machine guns and bombs. Little do the coloured people of our country know of the cruel deed which was perpetrated there against this handful of fanatical coloured persons. It was so bad that complaints were made even in London in regard to this cruel deed. Then the blame is thrown on the Nationalist Party; and we are accused of trampling upon and persecuting the coloured persons. I go further. Little does the hon. member for Rustenburg know what happened in Johannesburg in 1914, how the labourers who had sound reasons for voicing their objections, were shot down. No notice was taken of their objections. The result was that the Prime Minister had this handful of labourers shot down by the police. Yesterday I listened to speeches describing the bitterness which is felt today in connection with the question of miners’ phthisis. I was struck by this thought; if those mineworkers were to make the slightest attempt to thwart the Prime Minister, they will again be shot down and so we could go on. Natives were shot down at Queenstown. In 1914 the Prime Minister did not hesitate to have his own people shot. I say it is a history of blood, a history which, I hope, the hon. member for Rustenburg will also have recorded. These are things which the Prime Minister did for British Imperialism; these are outstanding occurrences during the period he was in power. After him came the Nationalist Party. For fifteen years the Nationalist Party, under the late General Hertzog, governed in peace in South Africa. There was peace and quiet and immediately after the Prime Minister came into power again, there was further bloodshed and war. I hope the hon. member will take steps to have these things recorded in the annals of South African history. But let me point out this. There are two elements which have never been touched by the Prime Minister. These are the two parasitical elements. They have gone scot free all these years. I refer to the Jews and the Indians. They have been the favourite children of the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister. The Hon. Leader of the Nationalist Party is now being blamed as though his hands are bloodstained. There we have a man who is imbued with a spirit of nationalism and who has tried up to the present to act in the constitutional way and to base everything he does on a Christian foundation. Has he ever persecuted anyone? It cannot be proved that he has ever wandered from the constitutional path in the slightest degree. But let me pass on. The time will come when there will be peace in South Africa once again and unity such as we had under the government of the Nationalist Party. The hon. member for Rustenburg and the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Goldberg) referred to the speech of the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer). I want to say that the speech of the hon. member for Stellenbosch is being interpreted wrongly. There was not the slightest idea or thought in his mind that he sought co-operation in the sense in which his speech is being interpreted. No, the hon. member knows himself that it is impossible for this side of the House to co-operate with the Kontorowitz clique on the other side. As long as that element is on the other side, co-operation is absolutely impossible, and it is even impossible to co-operate with the Prime Minister who regards South Africa as being too small, too trifling, too insignificant, and who finds all his glory overseas in the British Empire. Co-operate? No,, this side of the House does not think of co-operation. Forget and forgive? We can never do it if we think of Slagtersnek, of the Second War of Independence, of the death of General Beyers and Jopie Fourie, of the arming of natives. Co-operation with that side of the House? I say no. There is one basis of co-operation. If that side wants the co-operation of the Opposition there is only one basis and that is: sever the bonds of the British Empire; unchain those bonds; let your soul be in South Africa. I say that is the only basis on which there can be co-operation, when the United Party severs the bonds of British Imperialism. I am glad the hon. Minister of Native Affairs is here. I am sorry the Minister of Lands and the Minister of Justice are not here. But I shall let this matter stand over until later. I want to draw the attention of the Minister of Native Affairs to certain facts. I do think we have adopted the wrong course in the past in connection with the granting of land for native settlement, more particularly in view of the mountains of our country. That does not mean that I begrudge the native his legitimate land. We want to give the natives every possible right. But as the position is at present, the greater part of the possessions of the natives is in the mountainous regions, which form the water sources, and those water sources are in real danger for the future, and unless a change is brought about we shall lose that mountainous country; we shall lose those water sources. We have heard the evidence of the friendly visitor we had from America with reference to Basutoland. We have seen Basutoland totally destroyed by soil erosion. The native does not know how to conserve his soil; and not only are those water sources threatened, as it were, by the natives, but they destroy the bushes, the trees and burn down the ravines. I personally know of cases where the natives are cutting down and burning trees in the ravines. The native is very fond of his axe (“byl”). He always has a sharp axe, and it gives him great pleasure to use it.

Are you referring to “Van der Bijl” (axe)?

I say the natives are fond of cutting down trees. This threatens the water sources, and the result is that ravines are burnt down and the precious soil, the moss, the shrubbery which draws the water, is lost. And as soon as it rains the water rushes down to the sea unimpeded. There is a very great danger today of soil erosion in mountainous areas which are occupied by natives; and if the Minister does not take steps to control the position the water sources will be totally destroyed in the near future, and we shall have nothing to show for it and the native will have nothing to show for it. For that reason I want to urge the Minister very strongly to give the native land which suits him. Give him more than he has at present, but give him land where there is no danger of soil erosion, and where he cannot constitute a threat to the water sources of our fatherland. That is why I put a question to the Minister in connection with areas between the Olifants River and Lotaba. The natives occupy the whole of that mountain range, that precious area where the Drakensberg range constitutes the water sources of the European settlements of the Minister of Lands below the mountain. If the Minister visits those parts he will see for himself what vandalism there is in the form of trees which are being cut down and water sources which are being destroyed. Those water sources which were rivers for years are today small streams, and in the majority of cases those streams have dried up.

A commission of investigation has been appointed to go into this matter.

I am Very glad to have this information, and I hope it will not only be a matter of investigation but that the Minister will contribute his share in seeing that those dangers are eliminated. We have excellent land lower down which can be given to the natives, land which is unoccupied today.

Do you mean to the north of Lotaba?

Yes, there we have thousands of morgen which are not occupied by Europeans today. It has a rich water supply. On the one side there is the Lotaba River and various other spruits; and the subterranean currents are close enough to the surface to permit of boring. It is an excellent area where the native can be apart and where he will not disturb the Europeans. May I point out to the Minister the danger in having natives in the mountainous areas. The natives have no sanitary facilities, nor are there doctors amongst them. Diseases spread unchecked and unimpeded amongst the natives, and the germs of those diseases are carried by the water, and that constitutes a dangerous threat to our European settlers lower down. The Minister of Lands contemplates settling returned soldiers on land which is situated below the natives. They have to use that water for domestic and other purposes. At the moment I know this is the case where a European settlement is not further than three miles below the natives, and this European settlement has to use that water for domestic and other purposes. I say the position is terrible; we can except all sorts of diseases in the future. I shall be glad if the Minister will take these few suggestions into consideration. The Minister says he has appointed a commission of investigation. It would be even better if he were to visit those parts personally. We know he takes a great deal of interest and we know that he has put his heart and soul into this work. He has proved that in the past, and I feel that if he visits those parts personally he will accomplish something worth while for the future, not only for the Europeans but also for the natives. I want to say a few words in connection with the Minister of Lands. I am sorry he is not here. The Minister has made certain statements here in connection with his policy of driving tenant farmers off the land, and in that connection he stated that he as Minister of Lands was not inclined to lease land but to grant land. That is correct. But I want to explain that in the past every Minister of Lands has given out land on lease. We can prove that during all these years, for 40 years or more, the previous Ministers of Lands have leased State land, and I say the Minister is still doing so today. He still has land which is given out on lease. There are still many tenant farmers to whom he has not yet given notice that they are to leave the land. Why does he only put a certain group of farmers off? There is land under the Department of Lands which is still being leased today, as in Northern Transvaal. These tenant farmers have not been given notice that they have to leave. In the Richtersveld there are approximately 30 farmers who have not been given notice to leave the land. That also applies to Vioolsdrift too. What becomes of the land when the tenant farmers leave? It is a bad policy to leave land lying idle and to let the land grow rank, thereby becoming a hot-bed of vermin. Moreover the State derives a certain amount of income from these lands, although it is not very much. In every respect it is a detrimental policy which the Minister is adopting, and I shall be very glad if the Minister will withdraw his policy at this stage and act more soberly and consider every case on its merits. Consider every case on its merits and ascertain whether or not the man has made a success of his farming operations. We feel that anyone who has been a tenant farmer for a number of years has put a certain amount of his capital into the land; he has effected improvements and he ought to become the owner of the land. I have dozens of cases where the sons of tenant farmers today fighting in Italy. Is it fair that the son who is fighting in Italy must now learn that his father and mother have been driven off the land which they have leased? The Minister says he cannot differentiate. Is it right that a soldier who may have been wounded must now find on his return, having left the place as a young man with his father and mother on the land and possibly having left a small number of stock in charge of his parents, that his mother and father have been driven off the land? Is that fair towards the son who sacrificed his life? We feel very strongly in regard to this point and I shall avail myself of a further opportunity to raise this matter again. I am sorry the Minister of Justice is not here. I shall submit certain matters to him at a latter date when we come to the general estimates.

I should like to bring something to the notice of the Minister. Much has been said here about scandals and I also want to deal with a small scandal which is being perpetrated in the neighbourhood of this House. I often visit the place. It is the Public Library. Outside there is written “South African Library” and “Suid-Afrikaanse Biblioteek.”

That does not fall under me but under the Minister of the Interior.

Yes, but we annually have to vote £5,000 and they are now asking for an increase. I often visit the place, but I do not feel at home there. I much prefer going to the Parliamentary Library where one feels at home, and one is served in one’s own language. In the Public Library one sees no notices in Afrikaans. One only finds notices like “Subscribers only” and “Ladies’ Table” and “Table No. 1,” etc. I only found one Afrikaans notice “Intekenaarskamer,” and that was written wrongly, with a full-stop behind “intekenaars” as if it were two concepts. It is not only I who feels like that. Much correspondence has taken place about the matter. Dr. E. C. Pienaar, Dr. van der Merwe, Dr. Scholtz, Dr. Stockenström and others, men of weight, wrote about it. They are people who are in constant contact with students and savants, and they all feel completely lost there. I tried to get into touch with the officials. There are a few who speak a little broken Afrikaans, but only very few. Only the coloureds speak both languages. I see the hon. member for Gardens (Dr. L. P. Bosman) here. I think it falls in his constituency and perhaps he can devote some attention to the matter, so that when we come to Cape Town and make use of the library we may feel a little more at home there, and feel that we are in a South African library and not in ah English library. That is the position. About 60 per cent. of the population of South Africa is Afrikaans-speaking, but here one has a library which : is practically solely English. There is a small quantity of Afrikaans books. There is another library here which is becoming a strong competitor, namely the Netherlands Library, which is very popular. I much prefer going there. There one is served in one’s own language. I do not wish to detain the House, or else I would have quoted what various writers of letters stated. Last year I looked forward to using the libraries, and I tried to feel at home there, but to no avail. I then thought that circumstances would improve, but this year it is the same. I could have mentioned this matter during the debate on the vote of the relevant Minister, but I should like improvement to be made as soon as possible, before we are again asked to vote another £5,000 of State funds. We cannot tolerate this any longer.

We will put it right.

Then we shall again have to wait until next year.

No, next week. I am a worker.

I just want to reply shortly and to make a few remarks about some financial matters which have been dealt with during the course of the debate. I do not want to waste the time of the House by entering into all the other matters that have been discussed here. I however feel that I must refer to one point which is not really a financial point, but which was raised by the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) during the debate on the second reading and again while the debate on the third reading was in progress. He made the suggestion that members of Parliament should take over the work of the controllers, and in that connection he said that the House of Assembly must have its honour restored by having the right to exert control over executive functions recognised. I do not want to enter into a discussion about the practicability of the proposal. All the time of members of Parliament, at least during the Sessions of Parliament, is employed, and how in addition to that they can act as controllers, with all the work connected with those posts, I cannot understand. But the matter raised by the hon. member really goes deeper and that is why I refer to it. The matter really affects one of the elementary principles of our constitution. Under our constitution the House of Assembly has no right to exercise executive functions, and the restoration of the honour of the House thus does not enter into the matter. There are the three functions of our Government, namely the executive function, the legislative function and the judicial function, and in our constitution the three functions are clearly separated. It specifically refers to the executive, legislative and judicial powers of the State, and when one studies the Act itself one finds that there is firstly a chapter about the executive power, which is the Government and the officials, and then there is an entirely different chapter about Parliament. Parliament is therefore no part of the executive authority. Thereafter one finds Chapter VI, about the judiciary. Thus there are three functions or elements in the system of government. It is not part of the function of Parliament to take part in the work of the executive. Parliament is the legislative body, and when one talks about the honour of Parliament, it is in connection with the legislative powers of that body that this expression is applicable. Therefore I am afraid that the hon. member for Krugersdorp does not clearly understand the position as regards this matter. Further, he referred to the memorandum of the Government about social security, especially as regards old-age pensions, which are referred to in paragraph 6 of this memorandum. I do not want to discuss the matter fully now. There will be other opportunities for that. I only want to say that my hon. friend referred to two points in connection with the Government’s policy as set out in the memorandum. The one is the retention of the means test and the second is that distinction is drawn in the pensions as regards cities, villages and the platteland. I just want to say that in both cases the attitude of the Government is in agreement with the recommendations both of the original Social Security Committee and of the Planning Council. As regards the second point, the distinction drawn between the three classes, that policy is also supported by the select committee appointed last year. As regards the other point, the abolition of the means test, although the select committee recommended its gradual abolition, on closer investigation it was evident that the estimate made by the Select Committee of the cost in connection with the matter was Quite wrong. The expenditure would be much higher and therefore I am of opinion that the matter is put quite correctly in the Government’s Memorandum—

The hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart) raised the question of the position of the crop farmers in the Free State, and especially the possibility of making shortterm loans for seed I want to suggest that he should raise the matter with the Department of Agriculture. That is the procedure which has been followed in the past.

†*Then, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Tothill), who is not here at the moment, asked a question about legislation in regard to stock exchanges and unit securities. Had the hon. member been in his place when I replied during the Second Reading debate on this Bill at 5.30 on Tuesday morning he would not have asked that question, but no doubt the hon. member for Bezuidenhout was spending his night in a more restful manner than that in which more conscientious members of the House spent theirs. Had he been here he would also have heard me say in reply to the hon. member for Pretoria (East) (Mr. Clark) that I could not deal with taxation questions immediately before the Budget, and therefore that answer must serve him in respect of this question about mining taxation. The hon. member for Sea Point (Mr. Abbott) made an interesting contribution to the debate about home ownership for returned soldiers, on a long-term lease basis. I would suggest that he explores that with the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation. Then the hon. member for Durban (North) (Rev. Miles-Cadman)—it is rather distressing that every hon. member I have replied to so far is not in his place—referred to the cost-of-living index figures. That is a matter which has been considered by the Public Service Commission of Enquiry and its report will shortly be on the Table. In view of that I do not think I should make any comments in advance.

Question put: That all the words after “That”, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the motion, Upon which the House divided :

Ayes—66 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bekker, H. J.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Butters, W. R.

Christie, J.

Cilliers, H. J.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

De Kock, P. H.

De Wet, P. J.

Derbyshire, J. G.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Eksteen, H. O.

Faure, J. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gluckman, H.

Hare, W. D.

Henny, G. E. J.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hopf, F.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Lawrence, H. G.

Maré, F. J.

Marwick, J. S.

McLean, J.

Moll, A. M.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Prinsloo, W. B. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Shearer, O. L.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon, B.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Starrock, F. C.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Stratford, J. R. F.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sutter, G. J.

Tothill, H. A.

Van der Byl, P.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and W. B. Humphreys.

Noes—29 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bremer K.

Brink, W D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Erasmus, F. C.

Erasmus, H. S.

Grobler, D. C. S.

Haywood, J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Le Roux, J. N.

Louw, E. H.

Ludick, A. I.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Malan, D. F.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Steyn, A.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Swanepoel, S. J.

Swart. C. R.

Van Niekerk, J. G. W.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E,

Wilkens, J.

Tellets: P. O. Sauer and P. J. van Nierop.

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment dropped.

Original motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.