I move—

Let me say at once that the proposals which this House is being asked to consider today, possess implications of far-reaching importance: for the people whose health we are all anxious to safe-guard, for the technical professions—doctors, dentists, nurses, and other auxiliaries who give the services required for the preservation and restoration of personal health, and for the public authorities—central, provincial and local, who have hitherto been responsible for the administration of some of these services. My task today is no easy one. It would, however, have been infinitely more difficult were it not for my knowledge that matters of national health and well-being are always dealt with in this House on their merit, and that the debate on such subjects transcends the bounds of party politics. We are today considering ways and means whereby it shall never again be said by anybody in any part of this country, what was said to the Commission in evidence. “Hulle word siek, hulle gaan dood, en hulle word maar net begrawe”. This pathetic and tragic state of affairs was met with by us in many parts of the country. It is only proper therefore, that in considering suffering and death, voices of strife and contention should be hushed. It is fitting that, before addressing myself to my main subject, I should pay tribute to our great national voluntary organisations, which, usually struggling under limited financial resources, are rendering magnificent national services towards the welfare of the people of this country. They are filling in the big gaps which have been left in our welfare services by our public authorities. Amongst these great national organisations I should like to mention especially, the Federale Vroueraad and its constituent bodies, the four Vroue-verenigings; the Armesorgraad; the National Council of Women; the National Councils for the Blind and the Deaf; the South African Red Cross Society and the St. John’s Ambulance Association, and the National Council of Mental Hygiene. There is a host of others, but time does not permit my enumerating them. This is a proper occasion, also, for an expression of appreciation to the various Departments of State, to their four Provincial Administrations, to the numerous local authorities and public bodies, to the many national and other voluntary agencies, councils and committees, to the different professional organisations and associations, and to the public generally, for the great co-operation and assistance which was so readily rendered by them all to the Commission. Without their co-operation and assistance, the Commission could never have carried out the mandate contained in its terms of reference. Nearly three years ago on February 17th, 1942, in this House, there was brought to the notice of the Government a complaint of ill-health—not of an individual, but of South Africa. There were voices raised on all sides of this House that the amount of ill-health in this country was appalling, that the people were sick, mal-nourished, and economically ineffective on that account. The Government was not prepared at that time, to offer what physicians might call a “snap diagnosis” of the causes of the ill-health of a nation constituted of such diverse elements, and composed of individuals living under such widely varying social arid economic conditions. Nor was it prepared at once to prescribe a remedy. It handed over the problem to a Commission for investigation for diagnosis for analysis of causes, and for advice as to remedies. Now that the Commission has completed its task, and published its Report, it is both fitting and proper that Parliament should have this opportunity, in the words of the original motion of 3 years ago, “to give consideration to the Commission’s findings”. There has been complaints that the investigation took too long. In answer can be said that the ill-health of one sick person often takes several days to investigate, even when all the resources of modern medicine can be brought to bear upon it. The National Health Services Commission had to investigate the ill-health not of an individual, but of an entire nation. I can assure the House that it made a most careful and thorough examination of the state of ill-health, and of every one of the factors productive of that ill-health, and took them all into account when considering the remedies which it prescribed. There is no need for me to recapitulate all the findings, or the factors, nor to give in detail the diagnosis arrived at. Hon. members can all read it—I hope they have read it—for themselves. Time will permit reference to some only of these findings and factors. Now what were the findings? “In spite of Nature’s bounty, and our cloudless skies and glorious sunshine”, there exists in this country an infant mortality rate, which for Europeans is twice that of the most advanced countries, and for Non-Europeans, ten times as high. This loss of child life is to a great extent preventable. Typhoid fever, the incidence of which is a most sensitive index with regard to the standard of environmental hygiene in any area or country, is probably ten times as high for all sections of the people as compared with other civilised countries in the world. The incidence of Diphtheria in 1939 was 125.8 per hundred thousand of the European population in spite of the fact that medical science has discovered how to eliminate this disease almost entirely. In New York, it has been reduced to almost vanishing point. In Toronto no case has been reported for ten years. The incidence of Typhus, the recent prevalence of which in the Native Territories has caused this House such grave concern, is a disease of insanitation and poverty, and is an indictment of our economic and educational policy as much as of our health measures. Our preventive services have failed to keep Tuberculosis in check, even amongst the Europeans among whom the incidence has risen from 24.8 per hundred thousand in 1922 to 46.2 in 1942. Amongst the Non-Europeans the disease has increased much more rapidly, whilst amongst the Coloured population, its incidence is alarming. Whilst the startling figures periodically announced by public scare-mongers are not confirmed by scientific surveys, the incidence of Venereal Diseases in our country constitutes a revelation of the inadequacy of our measures to deal with them. In recent years, thanks to scientific planning and active field work, the incidence of Malaria has been greatly reduced, but there is still much room for further progress. Bilharzia, a preventable disease, still exhibits a very high incidence amongst the children of the Union, and is yet another pointer to the great need for scientifically planned health services. A survey of our dental health, undertaken by a dental officer of the Department of Public Health, has revealed a high incidence of dental Caries, as high as 90 per cent. amongst many Cape children. This state of affairs is mostly preventable. That, then, is the overall picture of the nation’s ill-health. Hon. members will agree with me that, it cannot but be viewed with grave concern, more especially as these morbidity rates relate to diseases and conditions which science today knows full well how to prevent. In short, the nation’s health is far below what it should and could be, and our national policy with regard to our health needs has unquestionably fallen far short of our national requirements. There is much leeway to be made up. These findings are a challenge to the country—nay! to this Assembly!—to provide health services which will put an end to this human suffering and wastage of human life. So much for some of the findings as to the extent of ill-health in the Union. But there were other findings as well. Throughout our enquiry, it was clear that the great majority of the people of this country is profoundly disturbed by the high incidence of preventable disease, dissatisfied with the present disorder and inadequacy of health services, and imbued with a passionate desire for health—without which, they maintained, there can be no social contentment, no happiness and no economic progress. Finally, the Commission found overwhelming support for the following far-reaching conclusion, namely, that “existing administrative, legislative and financial measures are not adequate to provide, by any mere process of expansion, a national health service of the range and quality necessary to remedy this state of affairs. But the Commission was not content merely with a survey of the obvious signs of ill-health. It went below the surface. It sought for the basic causes of so much pain and suffering; and here, in briefest summary, is what it found. First and foremost amongst the causes of illhealth are poverty, ignorance and the consequent sheer impossibility for sections of the people to provide themselves with those services—adequate nutrition, recreation, and a cleanly personal environment—which the Commission described as “health promotive”. A nutrition survey by the Department of Public Health in 1938 revealed the following position among Europeans: In the Cape 31.1 per cent. of the boys were malnourished, in the Transvaal 47.6 per cent., in Natal 16.4 per cent., and in the Orange Free State, 43.6 per cent. The native children with obvious signs of ill-health and malnutrition varied between 44.5 in the Maritzburg area, to 90.4 in the Letaba area. A malnourished people is the soil on which flourish the weeds of disease. Secondly, we are very backward in this country, with regard to the Non-Personal Health Services—those which concern themselves with the sanitation of the environment, the installation and safeguarding of public water supplies, etc. These are traditionally functions of local authorities. Unfortunately, over the greater part of the area of the Union, there simply do not exist any local authorities to undertake any of these services, and of the 500 or more which do exist, many are too small or too poor in rateable capacity to perform any public health service, even those relating to the most elementary environmental services. Let it be said at once, as the report emphasises, these small local authorities have striven nobly to make available as much as then poor resources permit. Even in the larger local authority areas, these services have not always proved adequate to the admittedly heavy strain placed upon them by the rapid and ever-increasing urbanisation and industrialisation of both Europeans and NonEuropeans in the Union. Thirdly, in regard to those personal services designed to detect the earliest signs of ill-health and to give advice as to how health may be maintained—in short, personal preventive services such as are given at ante-natal clinics, at infant clinics, at creches and nursery schools, and in the schools proper—in regard to this group of services, the country is woefully lacking. They are simply non-existent over wide areas and among large groups of the population; and even where they do exist, their range is rarely complete. Fourthly, curative services, although very much more plentiful than the preventive services, present the unhappy spectacle of divided control, inco-ordination, overlapping, maldistribution and gaps—a “crazy patchwork” of public and private services, determined not by scientific principles, but largely by the accidents of historical development. Fifth and last, this multiplicity of provisions and of controls has resulted in maldistribution of the medical manpower resources of the country, which would be inadequate even if they were distributed according to an organised scheme under unified control, and are thus rendered less effective than ever, owing to the lack of such a scheme, and the lack of such control. Confronted with this grim picture of national ill-health and with its own analysis of the basic causes of it all, the National Health Services Commission determined to devise measures which would simultaneously overcome all these basic causes. It could, of course, have adopted the easier course of recommending piecemeal measures to make good the most glaring deficiencies, to fill up the widest gaps; to still the loudest outcries. But the Commission resolved that the time had come to replace the patched and outworn garment, the legacy of a century of just such ad hoc piecemeal improvisation, by a new robe of health services for this country. We took our mandate literally, and presented what we hoped were clearcut, practical and comprehensive proposals for an organised health service on a national basis—A National Health Service which, in conformity with the modern conception of “Health”, would ensure adequate medical, dental, nursing and hospital services for all sections of the people of the Union of South Africa. I ask this House to bear with me while I outline the remedial measures proposed by the Commission. I ask it to consider them with an open mind. I ask it to hold steadily in view the objective of the Commission itself in making these proposals, namely, “the fuller welfare, and the greater happiness of South Africa”. The proposals attempt to follow logically the analysis of the basic causes of ill-health as determined by the Commission. The Commission was clear that health services alone cannot for ever make good the deficiencies of the socioeconomic system. It eagerly welcomed therefore the substantial proposals now being made by such responsible and expert bodies as the Social and Economic Planning Council, and the Departments of Welfare and of Agriculture for raising national productivity, for improving the nutrition and housing of the people, for increasing educational services, and for stepping up the production and improving the distribution of protective foodstuffs. These are all activities in which health authorities cannot themselves be executive, but the Commission urged that the National Health Service should be given definite advisory functions in relation to the shaping of national policies in these several spheres, so that they may be determined in accordance with the ultimate physical and health needs of the people. And here let me remark that only an authority itself national in the scope of its activities, itself directly responsible for meeting the personal health and ill-health needs of the people of the Union, could have the nationwide knowledge as well as the administrative status which would enable it effectively and fittingly to advise other central departments of State with regard to their nation-wide responsibilities. With regard to the inadequacy of non-personal or environmental health services, the Commission had a far-reaching remedy which I shall presently describe. With regard to the inadequacy of personal preventive health services, the Commission proposed that the complete range of these services should be made universally available at Health Centres. These Centres would be established not according to the exigencies of local authority finances, as at present, but according to a comprehensive national plan financed from a national health fund. With regard to the welter of authorities and agencies responsible for curative health services, the Commission proposed the integration of them all—not by any process of coercion, but on the basis of full discussion and free negotiation—into a unified National Health Service. With regard to the maldistribution and the shortage of personnel, the Commission planned for unified direction of the limited resources available in order to achieve the most effective distribution in relation to national needs. Further, it made provision for the training of increased numbers of existent types of personnel as well as for the training of new types which will be required for the rapid development of the preventive aspects of the National Health Service. With regard to the constitution and scope of the administrative machinery required to put into operation the various remedies proposed by the Commission, I cannot do better than quote from the summary contained in the White Paper issued simultaneously with the Health Report. It reads—

After considering the various forms which such national control might assume, it found that there is only one form which would fit in with our system of Government and our democratic instsitutions and traditions. The health service is to be under the executive control of a Minister of Health, who would be responsible to Parliament, which body would have the ultimate legislative and financial responsibility. The portfolio of Health, under the new arrangements, will be so heavy a responsibility, that it should not be combined with any other. Moreover, the Minister would be assisted and advised by a body constituted on democratic lines, to be called the National Health Council, which would be concerned with policy and important health matters, while on the executive side there would be a National Health Board to carry out the policy laid down, and to be responsible for the day-to-day administration of the health service. In addition to administrative and specialist divisions, which it would have to maintain at the national head office of the service, the executive would be decentralised into regional organisations, of which about 20 are visualised, and each region would further be decentralised into health centres where most of the health work will be done, and of which a total of 400 throughout the country is contemplated. On the advisory side there would be democratically constituted councils at the regional and health centre levels. In addition there should be a National Health Service Personnel Commission, analogous to the Public Service Commission, to deal with appointments and service conditions in the health service, and there should be a National Health Congress so as to provide opportunities for the technical staff of the health service to express their views on technical and scientific matters and on their conditions of service. They with the addition of some boards or committees, might be created to deal with more specific health problems, will constitute the main or basic framework of the proposed service. The various health services are to be classified into two main categories, i.e. non-personal services and personal services. It is proposed that the national health authority shall be responsible for the planning and execution of all personal health services, while non-personal services should in the main, be the executive responsibility of local authorities, assisted by the Provincial Administrations, but with powers to assist, advise and coerce, vested in the central or national authority. It is appropriate, in dealing with fundamentals, to mention that the important service of hospitalisation will be so intimately inter-related with the personal services to be rendered by the National Health Services through its head office divisions, its regional organisations and its health centres and institutions, that the services rendered by public general hospitals would have to be integrated therewith. Consequently, this important function, now under the control of the Provinces, should, together with certain personal services rendered by local authorities, be surrendered to the national authority, so as to obviate any disadvantages and inefficiency which might result from divided control”. I have indicated earlier that in the Commission’s scheme, are implications of far-reaching importance and effect. Now, what precisely are these implications for the man in the street, for the technical professions—medical, dental, nursing and their auxiliaries, and for the various units of Government—local authorities, the Provincial Administrations, the Central Government? The most fundamental of the Commission’s recommendations was that provision of personal health services to all sections of the people be accepted as a national responsibility. The Commission found, on the basis of the estimates made for it by the expert staff of the Social and Economic Planning Council, that in 1941-’42, the country was spending some £14,000,000 annually on its ill-health and health services. Of this grand total, the Central Government was spending about £2,000,000 a year, the Provinces £1¾ millions, the local authorities about £400,000—the balance, just under £10,000,000, is being spent by the general public. The people are spending that amount, either directly in fitful contributions to doctors, dentists, chemists, nurses, hospi tals, nursing homes—met under the duress of illness, when because of unemployment, due to illness, they could least afford them; or indirectly by payments through contributions to sick benefit societies, and through subsidies from employers to sick funds for the benefit of their employees. The Commission proposes that instead of spending this amount in thousands of individual medical budgets, we should all pay varying amounts in the form of a health tax into a common fund—a national health fund—with which the national health authority would finance national health needs. There would thus be a radical change in the method of financing the services—namely, there would be transferred about £10,000,000 annually from the realm of private to that of public expenditure. The health tax will draw from the pockets of the people, collectively very little more than they are paying today individually for their medical services. The incidence of this new tax will be equitable—from each in proportion to his means—instead of inequitable—from each according to the degree of his ill-health, as is the position today. The Commission’s plan provides an all-embracing comprehensive curative service—home doctoring, consulting room doctor, chemist, dentist, maternity, hospital, X-ray, operations, physiotherapy, etc., and over and above all that, a health service to promote and safeguard health at every stage of life. What changes would the imposition of a health tax bring about among the several groups in the population? Starting at the bottom, it would mean that the very poor, urban and rural, European and Non-European, everywhere would receive services not in accordance with their ability to deceive or to impress the certifying authority—magistrate, almoner, or ad hoc committee—with the desperateness of their need in relation to their resources, but simply in accordance with the need itself. For this service they would make what would in effect be a token contribution to the national health fund—from £2 10s. down to 5s. a year, but, small as they would be, these contributions would remove from the service the stigma of charity even when its benefits were extended to the poorest in the land. As things are today, even the poorest among the Natives pay at least 5s. a year to some doctor or herbalist. Let us now come to a group a step higher in the economic scale, say people with £300 p.a. and five in the family. The 1936 Census Budget Enquiry found that such a family spent £9 p.a. on medical expenses. Whilst it is true that a 4 per cent. Health Tax would mean £12 a year, this would give a 100 per cent. preventive and curative service under the National Health Scheme whereas £9 a year represents only the unavoidable minimum of curative service. We found that among the lower income groups medical care is often neglected for economic reasons, far longer than is wise from the viewpoint of the modern conception of “Health”. What of the £400—£1,000 p.a. group. This class is worst hit today. Persons belonging to this group cannot, and do not wish to get pauper medical relief. Even in hospitals they must pay in full. They must pay surgeon’s fees in full, X-rays, expensive laboratory tests, etc. Here, also, one finds neglect of medical services—not from ignorance, as with the Native, but through sheer fear of the crippling effect of medical bills. Individualistic medical practice is notoriously the most expensive way of providing medical services—and this group pays for them in just the most expensive way. The over £1,000 p.a. individual will probably pay more than he does today in direct payments for his own family’s personal medical services. But under the Health Commission’s scheme, he will have the satisfaction of knowing that all citizens are now provided for—his employees, his domestic servants, the labourers who grow his food. Nor will he have to respond to appeals for hospital extensions or private district nursing associations, etc. The income from the Health Tax would break the back of the financial problem of the national Health Services. The estimate of the Social and Economic Planning Council, and incorporated in the Health Report, was that the National Health Services in 1947 would cost about £14½ million. By that time, the Health Tax is expected to yield £10¼ million. If to this amount is added £1,000,000 which will accrue from employers’ payments under the Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1941, and under the Native Labour Regulation Act of 1911, there would remain £3¼ million to be made good by the central Government from general revenue. This is £1¼ million above today’s figure. It has been objected: What improvement on the present position can be expected if there is to be an increase of only £½ million p.a. in the total amount expended by them at the outset? The answer is this, as is explained in the report: the immediate improvements to be anticipated will be those which follow from a more rational distribution of the limited available personnel and from unified direction of their activities. Further improvements will be commensurate with the availability of increased personnel. One of the earliest major tasks of the National Health Service will be to plan for the production of personnel, commensurate with the health needs of the nation. As more personnel become available, the total bill for health may rise to £20 million a year, in ten year’s time. On the other hand, if our planning is effective, and if we utilise to the full all the modem knowledge regarding housing, nutrition and the prevention of preventable diseases, we may never reach that figure of expenditure. But, if we do not plan nationally and rationally along modern lines, we shall certainly be spending, as a nation, if not directly through the national exchequer, much more than £20 million a year on ill-health services by 1955. It may be argued that the man who is too poor to pay for it himself, can already get free medical help at State expense through the system of medical pauper relief. We, who are in touch with our contituencies know, as the Health Commission knew, that the system of medical pauper relief, in its out-patient and domiciliary aspects, is cruel and ineffective judged by modern standards both medical and social. The health report wanted to have done with all that; and, Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that the country wants to have done with all that too—even at the cost of a 4 per cent. health tax. The Health Report wanted this country to have a health service which would give to every man, woman and child the right to go to a health centre and ask for medical examination and advice free—without the intervention of a means test. I come now to the other interests which will be affected if the proposals of the Health Commission are put into operation. I will consider first, the effect on the professional groups—doctors, dentists, and other auxiliaries, who are at present engaged in a private capacity in ministering to the health needs of the people. Now doctors in the Union, as elsewhere in the world, value very highly their freedom to practise their calling as they wish, without interference from outside. Moreover, co-operation in the establishment of an organised national health service, financed from a national health fund, would involve many doctors in financial sacrifice. Despite their fears of control, the doctors of this country have frankly recognised that the present organisation—or lack Of organisation—of health services, including private practitioner services, has the unhappy results which have been diagnosed in the Report: There is maldistribution of forces and the people who need health services most, simply do not get them. The doctors have not been afraid to face up to the logical remedy for this situation, which is, that they as a group shall voluntarily submit to organisation on a national basis. Only in this way will it be possible to ensure the rational distribution of the medical forces available. This, as I have said, and as the profession itself clearly recognises, will involve socrifice of much that professional men hold dear. These things being so, I think this House will agree with me that it is very much to the credit of the medical profession in the Union, that not only is it supporting the idea of a national health service, but was actually responsible in no small measure for the initiation of the movement whose culmination was the production of the Commission’s Report. The following resolutions were passed at a special meeting of the Federal Council of the Medical Association of South Africa (B.M.A.) held at Cape Town on Saturday, 3rd February, 1945, to consider the association’s policy in regard to the report of the National Health Services Commission and the Government’s statement of policy thereon:

1. (1) The Association reiterates the opinion that the bulk of ill-health in South Africa is preventable by the provision of social security generally and of adequate nutrition and housing in particular. The Association re-affirms that its members are prepared to cooperate whole-heartedly in a national health service for the prevention and treatment of disease provided that the State for its part will demonstrate its earnest intention of dealing as radically with the causes of preventable ill-health.
2. (2) The Association welcomes and supports the recommendations of the majority report of the National Health Services Commission for the provision of personal health services insofar as these correspond with the proposals made by this Association in its evidence before the National Health Services Commission. The Association is of opinion that such points of difference as exist are capable of adjustment by negotiation between the Association and the Central Government.
3. (3) The Association is opposed to the scheme outlined in the recent Government statement of policy on the grounds that it will frustrate the immediate introduction of a comprehensive and unified health service for the nation and will merely perpetuate the present Unco-ordinated patchwork of personal health services carried out by the Central Government, Provincial Councils, local authorities and private and charitable agencies.
4. (4) The Association wishes to draw attention to the fact that the profession has always considered it a moral obligation to provide medical assistance to all who may require it irrespective of their ability to pay and that the profession has hitherto fulfilled this self-imposed obligation to the best of its ability by providing service to large sections of the community gratuitously or at reduced rates. The Association therefore opposes the suggestion contained in the Prime Minister’s statement of 9th October, 1944, as reported in the Press, to legislate for maximum fees for services rendered by private medical practitioners insofar as this may limit or reduce the earning capacity of such practitioners in the restricted sphere of private medical practice envisaged in this statement. This Association is of opinion that the existing legislation (Section 80 of the Medical, Dental and Pharmacy Act) already provides adequate safeguards for the public against excessive or extortionate charges and that further legislation is unjustifiable.
5. (5) The Association trusts that the Government will put consideration of the urgent and serious health needs of the country above any legislative or political expediency, and will implement, in broad outline, the recommendations of the National Health Services Commission after further consultation with interested bodies.
6. (6) The Association feels that in view of the importance to the profession as well as to the public of any national health scheme, the Government, after defining its policy on health services, should first publish it as a White Paper before initiating legislation.

We thus see that the profession is prepared to work in the scheme only on certain conditions. One is that its introduction shall be accompanied by drastic reforms in such spheres as housing, nutrition, and other great promotive health services. I think I speak for my colleagues, in the profession, when I say that their willingness to accept the proposals of the Health Report is an indication of their faith in the determination and intention of the Government to enlarge and strengthen the measures with regard to housing, the assistance of nutrition, the improvement of agricultural production and so forth, which are part and parcel of their plans for post-war development of the country. The profession also says that it wants the proposals of the Report as a whole, not just bits and pieces. I interpret this to mean that it is not willing to co-operate unless there is what I have repeatedly referred to as the “new set-up” in the national direction of health services, proposed in the Report. Finally, the profession wishes to preserve, as far as possible, the personal relationships between doctors and their patients, and also the right of doctors to engage in private practice if they so wish. All these requirements will be fulfilled if the Report is accepted as the basis for the new set-up. There would, of course, be no compulsion upon doctors who wish to practice outside the National Health Service, to join it, and the exact terms of service within the National Health organisation will be determined by full and free negotiation, in advance of the establishment of the service, between the Government and the representatives of the profession. Reference has been made, both in the House and in the Press to the Collie Report on National Health Insurance, and the support given to it some years ago to the principle of National Health Insurance by the Medical Association. I may at once inform the House that the association formally rescinded its resolution in support of the principle of National Health Insurance. In order that it might be free to support the scheme of an organised National Health Service should it wish to do so. With regard to National Health Insurance, the scheme proposed by the Collie Committee, although it made provision for many people for whom previously there had been little or no service, was not national in its scope, for it covered less than 20 per cent. of the Union’s population. Nor did it insure health, but it merely insured its beneficiaries against some of the financial consequences of ill-health. In Britain, there has been a National Health Insurance Scheme in operation for one-third of a century; and today it is being abandoned, mourned by none, in favour of a National Health Service along the lines advocated by the National Health Services Commission for the people of this country. Let us examine the implications for local authorities. The Report recommends that personal health services should be transferred from local authorities to the central authority. In connection with these services which include maternity and child welfare, health education, periodic medical examination, etc., there exists in this country an almost indescribably welter of agencies and authorities, public and private. Because the present statutory responsibility in connection with them is very limited and because local authorities, though most willing, are not always able to supply a greater range because of the fear of the rapidly rising amounts necessarry to balance the Government subsidy, these services are today incomplete. They are not determined according to our national needs and are almost entirely non-existent in the smaller local authorities’ areas. If compelling legislation were passed to make local authorities do more, this will heighten the already loud outcry that the Government is always adding to the burdens of local authorities. The Report proposes to relieve local authorities of all personal health services, to supply them at the cost of the central authority and on a more comprehensive basis in all local authority areas. The sums thus released is intended to be used by local authorities for the improvement of the nonpersonal health services—water supplies, sanitation, housing, etc.—in their areas. Objection to these proposals will probably be raised by the major local authorities who will claim that this constitutes a grave interference with their duties and the curtailment of services which they have developed over a number of years and of which they are, and can be, justly proud. This was appreciated by the Commission and in order to meet the situation as it may arise, it has provided negotiating machinery, the “Transition Committee”, by means of which it anticipates a satisfactory solution of these problems as affecting the various local authorities, each case being considered on its merits. I come now to the second great group of public authorities affected by the proposals of the Commission, namely, the Provincial administrations. The Commission has been taken to task, even by some of its friends, for tying up its general proposals with highly controversial constitutional issues and thus prejudicing its plan as whole. It is therefore most important to state the issues clearly in order that they may be examined in their true perspective and setting. I wish here and now to assure the House that the Commission gave to these issues the most careful and searching consideration and that the conclusions and recommendations at which it arrived were neither hasty nor superficial. The Commission’s proposals were based upon what appeared to us to be pure reason. The place of the hospital, in modem health services, is no longer one of splendid isolation. Hospitals are but a part of curative services, and the latter themselves but a part of the total range of preventive and curative personal health services for whose provision for all sections of the people of this country it was the duty of the Commission to make a plan. It seemed to us, that on technical grounds there was no choice but to integrate hospitals with all other personal health services. Our aim was to ensure that the people of South Africa, European and Non-European, in health and in sickness, at home or in an institution of healing, would always be under the care of one and the same organisation: instead of being sent from one authority to another, with the inevitable accompaniment of forms, interrogations as to circumstances, and means, and other embarrassments. The Commission felt strongly, and, Mr. Speaker, there is a tremendous volume of informed public opinion throughout this country which feels strongly, that in the name of common sense and of efficiency, the time has come to do away with the almost endless subdivisions of responsibility for personal health services. However, the Commission was not ignorant of the fact that the possessive instinct is as strong among public authorities as among individuals, and that it would not be easy for authorities to whom had been statutorily assigned or who had voluntarily assumed responsibility for various phases of personal health services, to relinquish their control of those services. Nevertheless, the Commission was hopeful that, in the interests of the greater effectiveness which would follow unified control, they might be willing to do so and, in any event, it could not honestly recommend any scheme which perpetuated existent division in the administration of personal health services. Let me for a few moments indicate the milestones along the road which has brought us to the present position, Before Union there already existed a line of division between personal health services supplied and paid for privately—the ordinary general practitioner services, and private nursing homes—and those supplied at public cost—pauper services carried out by district surgeons and by public hospitals. It is a line which still exists. It is one which is most difficult to draw equitably, for the reason that there is not and never can be a clear definition of indignency, especially in a country with such widely varying standards of living. In 1910 the South Africa Act [Sec. 85 (v)] drew another line. “Hospitals,” it said, belonged to Provinces. But it forgot to say what a hospital is, and 23 years later a Government Commission (Roos) U 9 No. 46 of 1934 found it necessary to devote several paragraphs of its Report to an inconclusive discussion of the precise scope of provincial responsibility regarding hospitals. Even today some of the Provinces claim that maternity hospitals fall outside the sphere of their statutory responsibility, whilst at the same time claiming that decentralised dispensaries and even single-unit nursing outposts far removed from the base hospital, fall within it. In 1919 another line was drawn, by the Public Health Act—this time between infectious diseases, responsibility for which was assigned to the local authorities under supervision of the central Government, and non-infectious diseases, which insofar as they were the responsibility of any public authority at all, belonged to the Provinces. The drawing of this line resulted in the anomaly that a whole group of hospitals now came into being—the infectious diseases, including T.B. and V.D. hospitals—with which the Provinces, to which hospitals generally were supposed to belong, had absolutely nothing to do: and it resulted in a still more curious anomaly, which at times drives plain people into a frenzy of irritation, that communicable and non-communicable T.B and infectious and non-infectious syphilis. In 1940 there was a shifting of the boundary between the central and provincial territories. Domiciliary and out-patient treatment of paupers by district surgeons became a Central Government responsibility in three of the provinces, but remained a provincial responsibility in Natal. Last year, the Government issued a statement in which yet another line was drawn—this time between institutional and extra-instititutional personal health services, the former to belong to the Provinces and the latter to the Government. But there are clear exceptions on both sides of the line. Mental and infectious diseases hospitals, although instititions, remain with the Government. School medical inspection, although an extra-institutional service, seems likely to remain with the Provinces. And right on the line there is already much skirmishing, with promise of a pitched battle in the not too far distant future, to decide which side of it should be placed dispensaries, out-patient departments, district nursing outposts, and so forth. Surely, the lesson to be learned from all these difficulties over this long period of years, from all this criss crossing and entanglement of lines, is that it is folly indeed to attempt to divide the indivisible. It was with all these considerations in mind, and many more which there is no time to detail now, that the Commission resolved to give a bold answer to the administrative problems involved in a realisation of the commonsense ideal. Its answer was thus, inevitably: That notwithstanding the historical and constitutional background, all personal health services—hospitals included—should in future be integrated under the direction of a single national authority. This recommendation was based on pure reason. It was not based upon any denial of the constitutional rights of the Provinces—or of any other authorities—and there are several others—to have a share in personal health services. It was not based on any dsire to weaken their status, even as health authorities, as I shall presently show. It was not based on any supposition that the Provinces had failed adequately to discharge their statutory responsibilities; on the contrary, they were praised for having done so much. At this point, let me defend the two signatories to the Minority Report of the Health Commission, against those who are under the delusion that the Minority Report supports the perpetuation of the arrangement whereby the Provinces control hospitals and the Central Government the remaining health services. The minority members do not support such a division. They were at one with the majority in their belief that personal health services are indivisible. What the Minority Report does recommend is that the Provinces be given responsibility for the entire range of personal health services—extra-institutional as well as institutional—leaving the Central Government with nothing to do but produce blue prints to be handed to the Provinces for fulfilment, and of course, the job of collecting most if not all of the money to pay for the four provincial health services. Now I come to a most important point which seems completely to have escaped the notice of the Provinces themselves. Whilst the Commission proposed that the Provinces should relinquish their control of hospitals, it did not intend that the provincial contribution to national health needs should be diminished. On the contrary, the suggested release from the fast increasing expenditure of hospitals, was to enable the Provinces to develop with vigour, another very important function which they had long possessed; one which had been assigned to them by sub-section 6 of the same Section 85 of the Act of Union, namely, the control of local Government. This in effect made the Provinces the ministries of local government. In a book, written over a decade ago, which is both famous for its excellence and for its authors, namely “The Coming of Age of the Union of South Africa” appears the following statement—

This is as true today as it was then, although an awakening to this responsibility is taking place—hence the Natal Local Health Commission and the Transvaal Peri-Urban Areas Health Board. Nothing impressed the Commission more, throughout its tour of the country than the obvious inability of most authorities to carry out their environmental sanitary services (non-personal health services) not from the lack of desire to do so, but from sheer financial inability. They were so poor arid there was none to help them. They could not look to the ministries of local government for assistance, for the Provinces also were committed to the limit of their financial capacity—to the building of more and more hospitals in order to cope with the never-ending tide of sick men and women. Many of these people were suffering from preventable diseases—from enteric and other filth diseases—from malnutrition, and so forth. Some of these could have been prevented through better environmental sanitation—water supplies, sewerage schemes, and others through assisted feeding schemes. In view of these considerations the Provinces were offered a new and vital field of activity in the national scheme—the promotion of the health of the people. The general concept was that, instead of devoting their principal health activities as heretofore to hospitals, which after all, represent attempts to cure the end results of the unholy triad—insanitation, ignorance, malnutrition—the Provinces shall by way of assistance to sanitation, health education and nutrition, diminish the necessity for hospitals. Another point must be emphasised: it was not intended that Provinces should be deprived of the control of hospitals by force majeure. The Commission hoped that the Provinces would be approached, in round table conferences, with each one individually in order to ascertain whether they would be willing to surrender hospitals on the basis of the financial and other quid pro quo proposals fully outlined in the Report. The Commission has, in fact, devoted a complete chapter in its Report to the description of the negotiating machinery which was to be utilised during the “transition period” for the purpose of negotiation and consultation. Had the Provinces been prepared to relinquish their control of hospitals voluntarily, they could have done so without any violation of the constitution either on their part or on that of Parliament. Provision exists in Act 45 of 1934 for just such surrender: and the mechanism was actually used in 1940, when three of the Provinces surrendered pauper relief to the Central Government. Such, then, were the reasons which inspired the Commission, and such was the method which it recommended. It was, therefore, with disappointment and regret that one observed that the Provinces have chosen not to do so—that they were not prepared to approach the issues, necessarily raised by the proposals to establish a National Health Service in the spirit of sacrifice for the common good.

On the contrary, even before the Report of the Commission was published, they began a campaign of opposition, by means of resolutions forwarded to the Commission through ministerial channels, by means of Press interviews, and by memoranda, to what they anticipated would be some of the Commission’s recommendations. There was, of course, another method by means of which this transfer could have been effected. The central Government could have come to this House, and asked for legislation to amend sub-section 5 of Section 85 of the Act of Union, and Section 2 of Act 45 of 1934. The Government, through official statements and ministerial pronouncements, has made it perfectly clear that it does not propose to adopt this alternative legislative Procedure. The Commission, of course, based to hopes upon the voluntary procedure—that the Provinces would themselves agree to the transfer. It was as obvious to the Commission as it must surely be to members of this House, that you cannot hope to build a great national edifice concerning itself with one of the fundamental problems of national well-being, on the basis of coercion and compelling legislation. If there is one sphere of national activity in which it is essential to have wholehearted co-operation and enthusiasm of all public authorities—central, provincial, local, voluntary agencies, the people, and the professions, it is in the sphere of public health. There have been recent ministerial pronouncements on the principle of “Free Hospital” services, and that financial proposals therewith are being considered by the central Government. Much has been made also of the assertion that the people really do not care what authority administers the service, provided they get it. However, I think it is likely that they will care when, in the course of an illness starting at home, and then taking so serious a turn that hospital accommodation is required, they find that they have to apply to a toally different service—the institutional service under the Provinces—to take them over from the care of the extra-institutional service under the Government. What if no bed is available? Will the Government force the Province to accept the case? Moreover, the Commission which gave profound consideration to the subject of free hospitalisation, foresaw the following further difficulties. How is it to be ensured that all Provinces will establish free hospitalisation for all their inhabitants? Owing to differing financial resources, differing hospital needs, and different ratios of native population, a differential basis of subsidy from the central Government to the different Provinces will be necessary if standards of hospital services are to be the same in all the four Provinces. Is this not likely to arouse inter-Provincial rivalries and jealousies which it will be difficult to compose? Moreover, four separate Provincial Hospital Services will mean competition between Provinces for the limited technical personnel which is available. In this race, the richer Provinces will come off best, and the distribution of personnel would not be according to the national needs. Doubtless, an effort will be made to establish central co-ordination of the four Provincial hospital policies and services. A study of the history of attempts to establish national control or even direction in connection with other provincial functions, does not encourage optimism as to its prospects of success. I have dwelt at some length on the provincial question in order that this House and the country generally may understand clearly just what were the issues involved, and what was the Commis sion’s approach to them. Having, as I trust, made these points clear, I now wish to make it equally clear that the retention by the Provinces of the control of those hospitals which are today under them, although it makes impossible the full realisation of the recommendations of the Report, does not make it impossible to institute a National Health Service incorporating the other even more important recommendations of the Report: Let us see the so-called “Provincial issue” in its true perspective. Far and away the most important recommendation was that henceforth the State—setting aside for the moment the issue as to which component of the State is to be executively responsible—shall provide for all its people health services organised and financed on a national basis. This recommendation lies within the power of this Assembly to implement, without violating or amending the Constitution. Only the Government itself—or rather, only Parliament itself—can determine whether or not this fundamental principle of State responsibility for personal health services to the entire population is to be adopted. The Commission in making this recommendation appreciated fully the country’s many post-war commitments.

Mr. Speaker, it is plain that there are to be many urgent and competing claims upon the public purse—demobilisation, expansion of education, social security schemes, food subsidies, housing, industrial and agricultural adjustments and reconstruction and other public works and services. The Commission endeavoured in its report to make out a case for a National Health Service to be placed in the front line of priorities. It maintained that the ultimate cost to the nation of allowing the present inadequacy and incoordination of health services to continue will be far greater than can be estimated in terms of pure finance. One : For without health, there can be no true happiness, no true security, no true wealth. I am convinced, on the basis of all that I heard during the tour of the Health Commission throughout the country, that were a plebiscite to betaken, the people of this country would favour the establishment of a National Health Service whatever other commitments there may be with regard to post-war developments. It should be pointed out, also, that a social Security Plan to provide certain benefits for people who are ill, injured, invalids, etc., can never work unless it is accompanied by a National Health Service on modern lines, which aims at the preservation and the restoration of earning power. Mr. Speaker, up to this point I have given a summary of the findings of the Commission with regard to national ill-health, its analysis of the basic causes, its proposals as to adequate remedies for them, and the implications of those proposals for the various parties concerned in this great problem. In other words, I have attempted to carry out, partly, that which is demanded by the terms of the motion before the House, to turn the light of the Commission’s Report upon national health problems. But the motion asks for more than that. It asks that, in the light of the Report, measures be devised to ensure personal health services which shall be adequate for all the people of this country. But, Mr. Speaker, this will remain merely a pious wish unless and until measures are introduced to ensure that it shall be so. Now, I am aware—gratefully aware—that certain measures have already been proposed by the Government. We have been told that there is to be free hospital services, and that a financial formula has been or is being worked out between the Government and the Provinces, with regard to it. Assuming even, that satisfactory financial relations in connection with this matter can be arranged, free hospital services at best means curative services only, nor does it include all curative services. Free hospitalisation does not include preventive services. Then, there is the Health Centre Scheme. When, a year ago, the Government consulted the Commission with regard to the initiation of the Health Centre Scheme, the Commission advised that the organisation and administration of the Health Centre Service should be in conformity with the principles to be laid down in the Commission’s Report when it became available, as it did shortly afterwards. The Health Centre Scheme, however, as it is at present being developed, is certainly not in conformity with these principles. What, it will be asked, are these principles? They are that the services to be rendered at Health Centres shall be available to all who need them, and ask for them, without any question of payment arising. The Government’s statement issued on October, 9th failed to accept that principle. Instead, it adum brated an arrangement whereby those attending the Health Centres would be divided into a least three categories: the “sick poor” who would pay nothing; “those who can afford to pay something”; and “those who can afford to pay”. Several difficulties have already arisen in consequence of this declaration of policy. The first is the necessity to devise and administer a means test which will fairly distinguish between these three categories. The second is that the Service itself is in danger of becoming stigmatised as a pauper or charity service, and therefore of its being avoided by those who are poor, but too proud to submit to being regarded as paupers, and yet, because of their poverty will not call in a private practitioner, but simply neglect their health needs. The third difficulty, is that the medical and allied professions are becoming deeply suspicious of the Scheme, which appears to them to threaten private practice wherever it is established, and yet is not part of an organised Health Service in which professional interests will be safeguarded in the several ways suggested in the Report of the Commission. It may well be asked, what then are the measures which should be taken and which will ensure adequate health services for the people of this country? Obviously, they must be such as will remove the obstacles which at present stand in the way of the achievement of that supreme objective. What are the obstacles? The Health Commission will have reported in vain, and my speech here today will have been in vain, if anyone fails to recognise them. They are: first, the economic inability of the majority of the people to pay for their health services as and when they require them. Second, the administrative complexity which so hinders efficiency and completeness. Third, the lack of health personnel. The measures which are necessary to remove these obstacles are as follows: First, the economic obstacle must be removed by the institution of a universal health tax. It is implicit in the motion that the House accepts in principle as a national responsibility the provision of adequate health services for all. Second, the administrative obstacles to the integration of the present confused and confusing welter of health services into an ordered national whole cannot be overcome in a moment, even by the Government. The Commission recognised and in this speech I have also recognised, that true integration cannot be achieved by coercion. For this reason, the Commission itself recommended the establishment of negotiating machinery for the purpose of bringing about unification and co-ordination on the basis of mutual agreements between all parties concerned in the giving of health services to the people—the various professions, the voluntary health organisations, and the various public authorities. It is implicit in my opinion that the Government adopt this measure, and establishes negotiating machinery now with the express object of achieving this aim as speedily as possible. The precise form which the machinery should take is for the Government to determine. The body to be created should begin also to establish the machinery recommended in the Report for the purpose of central control and administration of the great new service. It might also carry out the delimination of the country into health regions, and establish regional health councils in the manner suggested in the Report. I come now to the third great obstacle—lack of personnel. That was repeatedly emphasised by the Commission, and I emphasise its importance again now. No-one can ensure adequate health services as long as there is so grave a lack of personnel as exists in the Union today. Particularly is there required a large increase of personnel trained as doctors, as dentists, as health visitors, and district nurses, as hygiene officers, as native health assistants, in the preventive aspects of modern health services. It is implicit in my motion that the Government shall accept responsibility for providing sufficient personnel to ensure adequate preventive as well as curative health services for the people of the Union. According to the Report, the immediate steps necessary for a discharge of this responsibility are the establishment of an institute of hygiene to undertake research into technical problems and to train preventive personnel on a large scale ; and the establishment of a medical school with facilities for the training of Non-Europeans and of Europeans who will take up work among Non-Europeans. I ask this House to accept these principles, and to urge the Government to institute these measures. I said at the very beginning that there are far-reaching implications in these measures, but this is not the first time this House has been called upon to sanction far-reaching measures designed to promote and preserve the health of the people. A generation has passed since 1919, the Public Health Act—which created what the Unipn had lacked hitherto—a central ministry of health—was placed on the Statute Book. That was indeed a “revolutionary” measure in its day. It came none too soon. There are some who say that that Act and the Department and the Ministry it created, are sufficient for the needs of this generation. The overwhelming weight of informed, expert opinion throughout this country, and that of the people themselves, does not support this view. In 26 years, there have been vast changes in the fundamental concepts of health, as in other social services. Whole new departments have been brought into being since 1919—Labour and Social Welfare—new administrative schemes have been established—pensions for the aged, for the blind, for the physically disabled. Vast new Government irrigation projects have been conceived and established. Escom and Iscor have been brought into being. Workmen’s compensation and industrial conciliation machinery have been sponsored by the State. We have a new status among the comity of nations, and a new flag. All this since 1919. Is there, then, any cause for wonderment that there should be a demand for a “new set-up” in the sphere of health administration—in the sphere in which there have been, during the past 26 years, discoveries and advances as great as those made during the whole of the nineteenth century? It is discouraging that the Health Commission should have been criticised because its proposals are “revolutionary”—idealistic, etc.—they could not have been otherwise, unless the Commission had been composed of men, blind and deaf to the needs and demands of our time. During the past generation, there have been new creations of health services in countries as diverse and remote from each other as Russia. Denmark en New Zealand, Jugoslavia and Chile. In Great Britain, the Beveridge Report made the provision of an organised national health service for all, one of its great Assumption B as part of a rational scheme of social security. The Government of Great Britain, amidst the distractions of war without a commission to incite it to do so, is preparing to implement assumption of the Beveridge Social Security Report, and to spend £148,000,000 a year on an organised national health service. We had courage to plan bodily for the war effort; to establish, at the shortest possible notice, totally new bodies for administrations for the production of war material, for the most effective control and distribution of our limited resources. Why can we not do this in the sphere of health services, too? In war we need a unified command, and so also must it be in the ceaseless war for the defence of the national health. The time has come for South African health policy to copy its military policy. The nation must mobilise its human material, and financial resources in an all-out attack on the enemies in our midst. Modern medical science has already produced the necessary armaments. What is now required, is an organisation capable of utilising them in the interests of the public health. Such an organisation could Only be developed satisfactorily in the form of a National Health Service. Statesmanship should not lag behind scientific discovery, least of all in South Africa with its great record of progressive legislation in the sphere of human welfare. The establishment of a National Health Service, based upon the great principle of the preservation of natural health, will bring health and its attendant blessings to the people of this country on a scale and in a way hitherto undreamt of. I appeal to the Government not to turn a deaf ear to so many, and such authoritative voices, crying out in unison, and to go forward boldly with a health plan worthy of the place South Africa has already gained for itself among those nations of the world who determine their policies in the light of knowledge.

I second. I think everyone will agree with me that today I have an unenviable privilege, unenviable because I have to speak or second this motion immediately after such a brilliant and complete exposition as was given by the hon. member who has just sat down. Nevertheless it is a privilege to me, not only because I am speaking from a back-bench but also because I am aware of the fact that the discussion and the deliberations and the conclusion to which we will come today, will have far-reaching consequences and be a milestone in the history of national health in our country. As far as the technical and the medical aspect of this matter are concerned, I am, of course, a layman. I am not speaking as a medical man. If there is perhaps anyone in the House who thinks that I am speaking as a medical man, I want to say immediately that I am a layman in that sphere. But because of the very fact that I am a layman, I think I am perhaps in a better position than a medical man to convey the feelings of the man in the street; that I may be in a better position to interpret what the man in the street or the ordinary member of the public feels in regard to this matter, and I think I should deal for a moment with those feelings which are expressed by the community from time to time. I also think we all realise that here we are not only dealing with a very involved and contentious matter, but a matter in connection with which the public outside is keenly awaiting the conclusions to which we may come. Various countries have already accepted a national health scheme. It took those countries centuries fully to realise the value of a thorough and all-embracing national health service, a health service which does not only take care of the individual, which does not only heal the individual when he is ill, but a health service which aims more particularly at preventing disease or which aims at the promotion of health. It has become clear to the public from personal experience, from what we have heard here, and also after a careful study of the deliberations and the experience of various health commissions, that the health of the people of South Africa leaves much to be desired. It is the considered opinion and view of leading and responsible persons that this state of affairs in our country is ascribed to a few factors especially; in other words, it is due to the fact that we have no national health service, that our public health service is not available to all members of the population; in other words, our health service does not serve the whole population. Our medical services are based on means and not on requirements. Only those people who can afford to pay for it are able to avail themselves of the present health service. The main essential of any sound service should be co-ordination and thorough organisation. It must be a service which can contribute in the greatest measure to the health of the population as a whole, and it must be aware of the factors which keep the people healthy and which build up or destroy the health of the people. In other words, it must be health service which takes into account the economic welfare of the people, the social development of the people. It must be able to satisfy the nation as a whole as a complete service. In our country we know that our health service covers only a section of the people at the moment, namely the paupers. But we are aware of the fact—I think everyone in the House is aware of it—that we have no personal health service for the vast majority, and those people must therefore take care of their own health. It is therefore an individual and private responsibility. I have said that one of the main requirements, if not the most important requirement of a sound health service, is co-ordination. If we have not got that co-ordination, we waste time; we waste energy; we waste money, and the nation as a whole does not experience the greatest and most salutary benefits which such a health service can give. I shall explain what I mean by that. Many of us are aware that our health services are being financed by a diversty of authorities. The maintenance of our health services is financed by no less than seven groups. We have the individual; we have the benefit societies; we have the employers; we have the State; we have the provinces; we have the local authorities and in addition to that the charitable associations. Then there are also three separate bodies which provide health services in our country. In the first place we have the provincial councils. Some of them as the hon. mover said, are poor. Others again are rich. The local authorities possess executive powers in connection with non-personal health services and personal health service so far as communicable diseases are concerned. Then we also have four provincial councils some of which are poor and some of which are rich—Natal, for example is poor—and more specifically they are legally responsible for the control of hospitals. They also undertake special assistance to the less privileged people; they also control medical inspection and treatment of school children, and they function in spheres which are outside the control of the local authorities. Then we come to the State itself, which acts more particularly through its department of Public Health. The State advises the local government and provincial councils and if necessary the central Department of Public Health can force the provincial councils to carry out their duties. The department can compel the provincial councils to carry out their duties, or if they cannot do it, the department itself may act. A further obligation rests upon the State in respect of physical education and instruction. In other words, the State aims at the promotion of health services designed to promote the health of the people. Then the State appoints and remunerates district surgeons. Employers are compelled by the State to institute certain services for certain classes of employees. Take the mine natives in the compounds, for example. The State has no control, however, over medical practitioners or dentists or the training of nurses, except indirectly through the South African Medical Association. The system of control which I have outlined here shows very clearly that our present system is very involved, expensive, disjointed and clumsy. There is divided responsibility as between the central government and the provincial councils and also the local authorities. As a result of that divided responsibility there is a state of uncertainty and confusion, so that the National Health Services Commission was entitled to say that it is literally a crazy pattern. According to the Roos report of 1934—and as far as I could ascertain the position is practically the same today, except for one small alteration which was brought about last year, and for that reason I am quoting the opinion of one of the witnesses—it is stated that it is a remarkable phenomenon that the vagueness of the Public Health Act and the confusion of the authorities which fall under the Act, has not yet led to an astonishing scandal which has shocked the humanitarian feelings of the people of South Africa to its very roots. In the first place we find, according to that Commission’s report, that the control of leprosy hospitals fall under the Department of Public Health, as well as the isolation hospitals in Durban and Cape Town and the Department is jointly responsible for sanatoria for tuberculotics, such as Nelspoort. The Department of Public Health is also responsible for certain isolation hospitals and the treatment of acute epidemic diseases, as at Rietfontein, for example, as well as for certain hospitals for venereal diseases. But in the second place the Department of the Interior was responsible until quite recently—I think last year—for the control of institutions for mentally defective people. In the third place the Department of Prisons controls the prison hospitals; fourthly, the provinces control the general hospitals and institutions for chronic diseases and communicable diseases, and in addition to that they are charged with the supervision of private hospital institutions; and finally there are the local authorities, such as our municipalities and divisional councils, which are responsible for other communicable diseases, with the exception, of course, of acute cases. But worst of all is the fact that there is no provision for the assignment of responsibility for non-communicable cases of tuberculosis, for border-line mental cases, and generally speaking, for the training of nurses. From what I have just said, it will be no exaggeration to say that if you die or suffer injury in a motor accident, you will be sent to the general provincial hospital; but if you become mentally defective you will have to go to a hospital controlled by the department of the Interior—that was the case until quite recently, at any rate—if you contract leprosy or venereal disease or tuberculosis, you will go to a hospital controlled by the Department of Public Health, If you contract a chronic disease, you have to go to the provincial hospital for chronic cases; and if you are a border-line mental, case or a sufferer from epileptic disease, you cannot go to any hospital at all. In all probability you will first find yourself in a police cell where the warden or police agent will nurse you until it is eventually decided to which institution you can be sent. And if you happen to die out of sheer desperation, not knowing where you will have to go, or if the State cannot decide where to send you, if a hospital cannot be found to which you are to be sent, your body will in all probability be taken to a morgue, and if it is a case which is connected with the law, you will fall under the Department of Justice and in that case an official from the Department of Public Health will come along and take a blood smear and send it to the South African Institute of Medical Research in Johannesburg. I would be insulting the intelligence of hon. members if I were to enlarge further on the state of confusion which exists in connection with the health of our people. What passes my comprehension, however, is that our people have tolerated it up to the present, that the nation has tolerated this extremely unsatisfactory state of affairs, that we, or at any rate some of us, are still prepared to carry on with this extremely ridiculous fool’s paradise, or as a doctor put it, “this dreary, damnable, dismal state of affairs”. I am quite convinced of it that the majority of people feel that a radical change is imperative, is urgently necessary, if our country hopes to attain a sound, national complete system of social security. A portion of social security, a sub-section, but a very important part of it, will have to be a sound national health service. But if there be any hon. members who feel that I am trying to present my personal views in regard to this matter, that I am speaking from a subjective point of view as far as this matter is concerned, I just want to quote briefly the views of the nation in regard to this state of affairs, as interpreted through the medium of its newspapers. We know that shortly before the report of the Gluckman Commission appeared, there was a rumour that the Government as such was not prepared, owing to certain considerations, to institute sound health services, based on the proposals of the National Health Commission. Immediately there was a tremendous reaction right throughout the country and it was pointed out that the people were no longer prepared to tolerate the present position. At a fully attended meeting of the Mine Workers’ Union, i.e. of the Joint Committee on which practically all the branches of the Mine Workers’ Union are represented, the following resolution was passed unanimously—

I just want to quote from a few newspapers—

It is all the more startling to be told now that little can be done beyond filling in gaps in existing services.

“The Rand Daily Mail”:

“Die Volksblad”:

“Die Suiderstem”:

“Natal Mercury”:

And in the same edition Dr. Allan Taylor writes—

“Die Burger”:

“The Sunday Times”:

And in the same edition the Rev. A. Palmer, writes—

“Trek”:

“Forum”:

Public opinion is running strongly. The Government is, in fact, on trial.

It is not necessary to quote further proof of the fact that the people outside are no longer prepared to wait for a thorough and co-ordinated health scheme. The medical profession, through a resolution passed last Saturday, asked for a national health service; the Dental Association is asking for it and the nurses are insisting on it. The large majority of all sections of the population are asking for a sound national health service. But if that is the case, and I am convinced it is the case, and if this Government, too, wants to institute a sound national health service, what is standing in the way? Two great bogies. Our one big bogey is the question of finance, and secondly we have this other bogey, the monster of provincial councils in a Union form of government. As far as finance is concerned I am not yet convinced that a national health service will cost very much more than the people are paying today for the unco-ordinated patchwork which we have today and which results in waste of time and money. I specially want to emphasise that financial considérations should not be the decisive factor in the case of such an important matter as national health services. I firmly believe that our people are willing, or let me put it this way, that our people would rather make South Africa the healthiest country than the richest country. When this country is threatened by an enemy, we do not ask beforehand, before we proceed to mobilize, or before we decide whether we will defend ourselves or not, whether we have the money for it. We know that the question of finance, the question as to whether the country can afford it, does not come into the picture at all. I do not know of any statement by the Minister of Finance when this House decided in 1939 to participate in the war, that we could not wage war because we did not have the money. In this war against the plagues which threaten the nation, against the plagues which undermine the health of the people, the money to cover the costs will also be found. I believe, together with Cecil Rhodes, that when it is a question of doing anything worth while, it should be done first and the money found afterwards. In this country at our National Convention we accepted the Union form of government, the Union form of state. Nevertheless we find this inconsistency in regard to provincial councils, which were placed on such a basis in 1934 that today Union has become practically a name only. I do not want to attribute the blame to anyone. I just want to say that the spirit which was laid down in 1908 and 1909, the spirit of the National Convention which was put into practice in 1910 was ignored when the foundation was laid in 1934 for further divided control, provincialism and parochialism. What I am saying here is proved by the apparently—I am using the word “apparently”—unnational attitude which is being manifested by our provincial councils, or let us rather say the apparently un-national attitude of our provincial executive committees as far as this health scheme is concerned. Can it be that our provincial executive councils, are placing provincial or regional interests above those of a national health service? I take it for granted that that is not the case. But if that is the case, then I want to ask whether the time has not arrived when we should break down the relationship which exists, or whether the time has not arrived to reconsider the decision of the National Convention? Or if we cannot go as far as that,. I want to ask whether the time has not arrived for us to do away with the Provincial Councils? Because if the existence or continued existence of the Provincial Councils represent the great stumbling block on the road to a national health service, we, in common with the newspaper “Eendrag”, choose the national health service. Failing that, we shall have this disastrous, untenable state of affairs that national interests will be made subservient to provincial prerogative and if the people fully realise this state of affairs, the cry will presently be “Away with Provincial Councils!”, even in those Provinces which are today in favour of the retention of the Provincial Councils. If it is felt that we cannot get a sound national health service because the Provincial Councils or Provincial Executive Committees are opposed to it, I am convinced that the people would prefer the national health service. But we should not like to disturb the peace between the Central Government on the one hand and the Provincial Councils on the other hand, especially at this stage. Personally, however, I feel convinced that we will only attain national unity then, that we will only attain national unity when we place all important matters which affect the nation as a whole in the hands of the State, of the national Government, of the Government of the State as a whole. But that does not mean to say, of course, that in that event we must do away with Provincial Councils, that we want 100 per cent. centralisation. We believe in decentralisation. We believe that there must be divided control, but it must be based on a sound foundation, and there must not be an intermixture of national and provincial control; the position must not be that the Provinces will also want to cope with certain national interests. That is opposed to the spirit of the Convention of 1908. We need not therefore advocate the abolition of the Provincial Councils. The hon. mover of the motion has already pointed out that our Provincial Councils, if we have a national health service, will be able to devote more attention to other duties which were then entrusted to them; for example, they would be able to devote more attention to the improvement of health conditions in the towns and assist in carrying out a national health service. But we trust that our Provincial Councils and our Provincial Executive Committees will show sufficient civic spirit to make a co-ordinated health service possible. We expect that of them. If they fail, we shall have to ask ourselves whether the time has not arrived to remove the provincial stumbling block. One is very often struck by the thought that it would seem that our State has much more sympathy for our cattle than for our people. Hon. members know as well as I do that in this country we have a national health service for our cattle. We have a service, for example, which undertakes intensive research, based on national lines, and paid for by the Exchequer, in the interests of our cattle. When there is an outbreak of disease or pest among our cattle, we find that the “cattle doctors” practically fall over one another in an attempt to save the lives of the cattle. There is regular dipping, and regular preventive measures are applied to keep the cattle alive. We even go so far—not that I want to suggest that this should also be applied to human beings—as to shoot our cattle in order to prevent the spreading of pests. But let me give a practical example to show what I mean. In the Transkei there is a national health service for our cattle.

In the report of the Medical Council of 1942, we find the following: In the Transkei there are 7 doctors and 8 veterinary surgeons.

There are 53 district surgeons and 54 cattle inspectors; there is no health official; there are 166 agricultural demonstrators; there are 703 dips and 587 hospital beds. There is a system of registration of births and deaths in respect of cattle, but not for human beings.

As far as infected animals are concerned, the movement of cattle has been placed under strict State supervision. As far as human beings are concerned, infected or noninfected, the movement is unrestricted. What is the result? The cattle in the Transkei and in other parts are healthy. Why?

Because there is a sound national service. I realise that the comparison is not altogether correct. But what I should like to convey is the fact that we have a sound system for our cattle, while as yet we have no system for our people. All we ask is a statesmanlike policy and a national approach to this problem of national health, and as far as our Provincial Executive Committees are concerned, the decisive factor in that case too, should be the national interest, and there is no greater national interest than the health of the people. I am convinced that this House will deal with this matter on a nonparty political basis, so that everyone, unimpaired by party political ties and consideration, will be able to contribute his best to the institution of a sound national health service, as recommended by the National Health Commission, and that the House will accept this motion so that we shall be able to make a start with our efforts for the materialisation of our ideal, namely an A.1 nation.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the House will agree with me when I say that the Government has been fully justified in its choice of a chairman of the National Health Services Commission. After having listened to the hon. member for Yeoville (Dr. Gluckman) this morning, giving that clear and concise exposition of the findings and the recommendations of the Commission, everyone will realise that he and his colleagues have performed a sound task and that they have rendered the country a great service. He has reminded the House today, he has reminded the country, that the Commission found the organisation of our health services a “crazy patchwork.” He has told us that the state of ill-health in this country is a challenge to this House. I agree with the hon. gentleman, the Government agrees with the hon. gentleman. It is because the Government, in 1942, realised that the state of ill-health in this country was a challenge to this House and to the country that, despite the preoccupations of its war effort, it decided to appoint a Commission. It realised, at that juncture, that the time had come for a change; that the working of our health system under the Public Health Act had become out-moded; that the time had come for the inauguration of a New Deal in our health system in this country. In those days the Government realised that, and in those days the Government appointed a Commission because it realised that the House and the country would have to face a new situation and be prepared to deal with a new situation along entirely different lines to those obtaining in the past. I emphasise that, because there has been a certain amount of misconception in the country, possibly even in this House, a feeling that the Government is running away from the Report of the very Commission that it appointed. The Government, Sir, this Government which in matters of national importance has given a lead to the country in the last five years and has been prepared to act along bold lines, this Government is not likely to run away from a document like this, or from a Commission which it specifically appointed in order to point out the remedies for prevailing ills. The hon. member for Yeoville this mornring has asked the House to consider the implications of the motion. He has rightly done so, because, before setting out on an entirely new course on a public health issue in this country, it is as well that every section of the community concerned with the proposals of the Commission, should appreciate what is involved in them. He has dealt with the professional angle. I think it is greatly to the credit of the medical profession in this country that, through their representative Association, they have unanimously come to the conclusion that they want a national health service in this country, and that they are prepared to make sacrifices in order to see that ideal achieved.

Who said “unanimously”?

My hon. friend asks who said unanimously. The document which has reached me purports to be a unanimous resolution. It may very well be that there are individual members of the profession who do not agree with the majority. But the document that has been referred to by the hon. member for Yeoville purports to embody the views of the vast majority of the medical profession. That, Sir, is the professional angle. The hon. gentleman has referred to the financial angle, and it is certainly as well that the public should appreciate what is involved in the financial angle. Wé are perhaps too apt in these days to imagine that we can introduce welfare measures, social security measures, measures affecting the happiness and well-being of the community, without having to undertake a corresponding obligation; and it is as well, when the House is asked to consider all the implications of this report that it should realise we shall have to pay for what we are asked to do in this report, and that we cannot get these things merely by a stroke of the pen and by adopting resolutions. We shall have to pay, and the country will have to pay. Well, sir, I think that the country is in the mood for making reasonable payments if it is enabled to obtain a system which it wishes and which can improve upon the situation as it was in the past. But do not let us lightly talk of the introduction of social security or a national health services scheme, unless we have clear in our minds what the implications are. The hon. gentleman, in introducing the motion, referred to personnel. He said that the success of the scheme will be determined, not by finance, but by the availability of sufficient suitable personnel. I think he has rightly stressed that point. We know the difficulties inherent in the present position. We know the difficulties that the small committee dealing with health centres has had in the course of the past nine months, difficulties in securing suitable personnel. That, of course, is a transient difficulty due to existing war conditions. But it is quite obvious that, however well thought-out the plan, however carefully conceived the mechanism and the organisation, unless we have the proper trained personnel we cannot put that machinery into operation. And it will take time to obtain that personnel. I think that the reception which this report has been given by the country shows that the Government was right in thinking that a complete overhaul of our health services in this country was necessary. The Government was right when, in appointing that Commission nearly three years ago, it appreciated that our Public Health Act was out of date, and that we should have to adopt new methods in this country to deal with these matters. The hon. member for Yeoville (Dr. Gluckman) has said that the people are dissatisfied with the high incidence of preventable diseases. I agree with him, and the Government agrees with him. I think that this House will support me and will support the hon. members who have spoken, when they say that the country is looking for bold, imaginative steps to deal with this matter, and will not be content with patchwork panaceas. I say that by way of preliminary, and I come now to the Government’s approach to the report itself. What has been the Government’s approach to this report? I emphasise once again that there appears to have been a cloud of misapprehension and misconception in regard to the Government’s attitude. We have been told that we had put the report in cold storage, that we were running away from the report and that we were not proposing to do anything further than to decide the constitutional issue. That is not correct and nothing which the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister has said, or which any other member of the Government has said, justifies that interpretation being placed on the position. There may be some—I certainly do not charge those who have spoken to-day; I certainly do not charge those whom one knows have the national interest of this country at heart—who are indulging in wishful thinking when they suggest that the Government ran away from the report. But I know that the members who spoke to-day are sincerely and honestly hoping that big steps will be taken, and I know that they believe that the Government will deal with this matter along such lines, bold and imaginative lines.

Yes, but when?

There may be some who have been guilty of a certain amount of wishful thinking, and who would like to think that the Government is running away from the report in order that they may for some paltry petty purpose make capital out of it.

They did not run away from the war.

What is the Government’s approach? Practically immediately on receipt of the report of the Commission the Government found itself faced with difficulties about its financial relations with the provinces. The report of the Corbett Commission had become available and a number of intricate matters between the Government and the Provinces called for negotiation and statesmanship. These negotiations were carried out by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, and it quickly became apparent on reading the report of the Commission, that right into the very vortex of these discussions would be plunged one of the recommendations of the National Health Commission, namely, that the control of general hospitals should be taken away from the Provinces and placed in the hands of the proposed National Health Service. Immediately the Government was up against the provisions of Act 45 of 1934, an Act which had been specially passed by Parliament to entrench the rights of the Provinces. I deal with the facts, and state them objectively, in order that the House may determine the true issues. Other hon. members can deal with the facts as they see them. I only wish to state them and I will then proceed to give the House the reaction of the Government to the position as it saw it. That Act laid down that Parliament shall not abolish the powers conferred on the Provincial Councils by the S.A. Act except on a petition to Parliament by the Provinces concerned. Section 85 of the S.A. Act vested control of hospitals in the Provinces. Were we now going to declare war on the Provinces and tear up this Act, and take away control from the Provinces and put it in the hands of the National Health Service? The hon. member for Yeoville very fairly gave the answer to that question this morning. He has told the House that never was it intended by the Commission that the integration of our Health Services contemplated by the Commission should take place by coercion. He has emphasised that. Coercion was never contemplated. As the Government sees the position at present there is only one way of carrying out that particular recommendation of the report and that is by coercion. The Government was not prepared to adopt methods of coercion and it decided that it would abide by the existing constitutional position. It wished to have clearly demarcated the functions of the Provinces in relation to those of the Central Administration, subject to the control and administration of general hospitals remaining with the Provinces. Here I would emphasise what the hon. member for Yeoville has said today, that it is important that we should realise that because a decision was taken on the constitutional issue, the recommendations regarding the National Health Services need not be thrown overboard. Is there any reason at all, why, with the control of the hospitals still vested in the Provinces, we should not proceed to build up that National Health Service which is contemplated by the report. The minority report suggested that the Provinces should run the hospitals virtually as agents of the central Government, but the Provinces refused to agree. I repeat what I have said before, that is seems to me not to matter one jot or tittle to the patient, who has to have his appendix out or some other major operation, whether he is being properly dealt with in a hospital controlled by the Province or controlled by some other central adminstration. The test is one of efficiency, one of service. If the service is given, and efficiently given, we are meeting the need. The provinces have agreed to the principles of providing free general hospital services. Recently a resolution was taken in the following terms, namely, that the Provinces agree to provide general hospital services free to all the public, provided that the central Government allows the Provinces additional taxational powers. The Free State had other reservations to make also. The Provinces have accepted, in principle, the provision of free hospital services, but have rightly asked that is should be emphasised to the country that this cannot be implemented in a day or a night. We cannot enter into this new order in a day or a night. It has to be brought in gradually. But the principle is accepted. We have agreed that the Provinces will proceed with the control of hospitals. They have asked to be allowed special powers of taxation. They have been told by the Government that the Government are prepared to meet them in that respect when it is necessary for them to impose special taxation to meet hospital needs. In that case they will be provided with facilities for doing so. They will also, of course, benefit from any fresh financial formula arrived at between the Treasury and the Provinces in regard to the general financial relationship. So much for the constitutional position. That has been cleared out of the way. But I repeat again that the fact, the fact that we have dealt with the constitutional issue, does not in any way debar this Government or this House from proceeding to deal with the rest of the report on its merits. This Government accepts that the country wants a National Health Service. What our decision amounts to is this that so far as is compatible with the maintenance of the Provincial system, we are prepared to take the steps necessary to provide a National Health Service in South Africa.

But when?

That fact was indicated in the Speech from the Throne. If hon. members will refer once more to that portion of the Speech from the Throne which refers to health services, they will see that the Government made it clear that they contemplated the provision of a national health service. There have been these misunderstandings but the desire of the Government has been to do its duty and to make it clear that by agreeing to provide the country with a National Health service it was not going to do wonders in one moment. There have been too many cases in recent years when members of the public have suffered disappointment through finding that things they expected to take place in a short time have not matured immediately. The Government would have been quite wrong in doing that. It would have been acting dishonestly if it led the country to believe that, merely by accepting the report, or by taking certain decisions, the country was going to have a complete new health deal immediately. The Health Commission has stressed the fact, namely, that even if every single one of its recommendations are accepted, including that on the provincial issue, it will take an appreciable period to implement these recommendations. The Government has been astute not to do or to say anything which might give the impression that we were going to bring about this new state of affairs immediately. There is the question of personnel which was stressed by the hon. member for Yeoville. It will take a long time to build up a force of doctors and nurses and there are many other matters which will require a great deal of attention before this service can be built up. We have always accepted the ideal set forth in the Report as a good one, and have never turned it down. What we have said is that we are taking certain immediate steps. We have taken a decision dealing with hospitals and have decided to establish Health Centres; and to implement that decision we have appointed a Committee under the Chairmanship of the hon. member for Yeoville and which includes the Secretary for Public Health, to make a start with the provision of Health Centres. We have established a training centre for the training of personnel for Health Centres. We established that training centre at Polela, which was inaugurated as a Health Centre some four years ago. It is an outstanding success. We are using Doctor Kark, the Health Officer there, to train Health Centre personnel. But we have encountered difficulties. It is evident that in certain parts of the country difficulties will be raised, partly by the profession and partly by others, to the establishment of Health Centres, and the Committee had to proceed slowly. But the experience which this Committee gained, in dealing with something like twenty Health Centres, is evidence of the difficulties which may accompany the transition from the present state of affairs to one where there will be Health Centres throughout the country, a network of Health Centres. We are proceeding with the immediate task of establishing certain Health Centres, but there is a great deal more that requires to be done in the immediate future. And for that reason the Government has decided that, in order to assist it in its task of building up this National Health Service which is contemplated and which the country wants, it is going to establish a body, not necessarily a Transition Committee as contemplated by the Commission itself, but a body which can act at once and advise the Government on the steps to be taken in the development of the National Health Service scheme, and which can render to the Government such assistance as it calls for in the execution of such steps. That body will be called into being at once, and if that body considers that legislation will be necessary during this Session, the Government will consider the introduction of that legislation.

Is this a permanent body?

It will have some permanency. It may merge into a permanent body at a later stage, or be replaced later by a separate body. The hon. member will remember that the Health Services Committee recommended a Transition Committee, but two members disagreed, and said there should be no Transition Committee, but that a permanent Health Board should be immediately appointed. This body will be a semi-permanent body, but not a statutory body, and it will assist the Government and advise the Government on the steps now to be taken in planning and making ready and putting into operation the National Health Service. That is the position at present. We have been accused of running away from this Report. We have, however, not gone back on our undertakings. We are not going to undo all the work started three years ago when we launched upon the country this National Health Service Commission, and when we determined to, and announced our determination of including health and measures for the promotion of health and the prevention of ill-health as part and parcel of our post-war policy. We are going forward. The country wants a National Health Service. It wants a nationally organised health service. We are prepared to give the country that. Only in one respect at this stage, has the Government said no, and that is in regard to the constitutional issue. That decision stands. It may well be that in the future the Provinces may wish to approach the central Government in regard to these hospital functions. That is a matter we can leave to the future. The Provinces have approached the Government in regard to certain charitable services and these services were recently taken over. That action may well be repeated in the future, but we stands by the present decision. We stand by the maintenance of the provincial system. Subject to that, Sir, I am prepared to accept the motion of the hon. member for Yeoville.

I had hoped, after the Minister had spoken, that it would not be necessary to propose an amendment. But now that we have heard everything which the Minister had to say, now that we have heard how far the Government is prepared to go, I feel that it is still necessary to move an amendment to the motion of the hon. member for Yeoville (Dr. Gluckman). The reason why I move the amendment is because I feel that the proposal is not far-reaching enough. After the Minister has spoken it is clear that the proposal of the hon. member for Yeoville is quite useless because it asks that the Government should consider the matter. The Government has already considered the matter. We have realised that for a long time, that the Government through the Prime Minister, gave a decision about the constitutional position, and that it has already, through the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation, announced its policy in connection with the rest of the Report. We do not wish to ask the Government to consider the matter, but wish to go much further, and we intend to move an amendment. The hon. member for Yeoville has set out the aims of the National Health Commission. He indicated in detail what they had in mind and what their aims were. I still think that it was a mistake on the part of the Government, two years ago, not first to decide certain basic principles before asking the Commission to investigate the matter. That is the reason for all the disappointments and for all the delays there will be during the following ten years or more in the institution of a National Health Service as indicated by the Commission and as the nation wants it. We do not wish to underestimate the work of the Commission. It is an important primary step in development. It is the primary stage of an important development, but I must say that after the reaction of the Minister, to the speech of the hon. member for Yeoville, I am surprised that the Minister really thinks that we Will be satisfied with it or that his critics, not only on our side of the House but on his side of the House, and in the newspapers, who support him, will be satisfied with what he said here. I do not wish to re-affirm the necessity of a National Health Service. The hon. member for Yeoville explained every aspect of such a service; the hon. member who seconded his motion showed in serious manner what the public felt about the matter, and his statement, towards the end of his speech, about the difficulties experienced by the public whenever they need hospital services was simply brilliant. I naturally will never try to make the comparison he made between the Agricultural Department and the Department of Public Health, because I realise only too well that every step taken towards the improvement of the herds of cattle in the country is also a national health measure. Every single thing done to improve the food of the country is essential; that was always our view and it is still our view, that it is one of the most important sub-divisions of national health. But I do not mean to convey that the hon. member meant that comparison in the wrong sense. I am convinced of what I know, namely that the Agricultural Department in all its attempts to improve the cattle in our country is working in the interest of public health, and the nutrition of the population. These matters have already been stressed and I wish to speak solely as a person who for years was in general practice in the platteland, and to say here that it is simply heartbreaking to think of the young people who are receiving medical training, who are being trained as nurses, and who have to perform health services, and who know that they will have to do all their work in a false or wrong spirit. They know that they must do that work in order to make a living. They must pay off heavy debts in connection with their studies and must make money. They must gain an existence from the sickness of the nation. Naturally they sometimes have to attend to those who cannot pay them for their services. They are called to those who cannot afford to pay for their services. I will never forget my visit, as a young man, to the locations of our country. It is heartbreaking to help people who almost without exception call the doctor only when it is too late. The National Health Service aims at eliminating disease in its earliest stages. It wants to cure disease in its earliest stage. In 90 per cent. of the cases, even under the privileged section of the population, as far as the doctor is concerned, the disease is not cured in the earliest stage. In many cases the doctor is called in only in the final stages. What the National Health Service attempts to do is to provide medical services when such service can still be of some use. We cannot get past that argument. I also wish to say that I realise just as well as the Minister and hon. member for Yeoville that we cannot have such a scheme in complete form in a day, or in a year, or even in two years. We all realise that such a scheme has to develop. We realise that the scheme needs a highly developed technical personnel. We realise that even in the essential services of the country. We have seen in recent years how an unbalanced personnel of an unbalanced Department of Public Health, with insufficient personnel, had to be responsible to the country for numbers of epidemics, which although not as serious as epidemics we had in the past still came in larger numbers than formerly. This disorganised Department of Public Health then had to be responsible to the nation for certain things not having been given effect to. Why not? Because the trained personnel did not exist. I know just as well, and perhaps better than the Minister himself, how difficult it will be to train the right personnel for this service. Ten years ago I stated in private and in scientific conversations that it will be necessary to train a totally different kind of medical official and general practitioner for the different kinds of work which would be performed within the limits of such a National Health Service. But although I said that we know how difficult it will be and how long it will take, that is no good reason why the Government should not now accept the basic principles. It is no reason for the Government not immediately accepting the principle and announcing that it will introduce the necessary legislation. After listening to the speech of the Minister I can only say that the Minister has again for the thousandth time, as many times as possible, stated things in vague terms in his speech. He told the country: “We will do everything; we are willing to do everything; we know what should be done, and not only that but we already knew two or three years ago that the position was serious and for that reason we appointed the Health Commission” On a previous occasion I said enough about the appointment of the Commission and about the delay which there has always been. But I wish to say here that the Minister, by an announcement of concrete steps, has not satisfied the country. Let us now examine what the Minister has actually said and what they will do in practice. He first told us that the Government agrees that the position is bad and that wide changes are necessary, that a “new deal” must come about. To that he added that it is a misunderstanding to think that the Government is running away from the recommendations of the Health Commission. He said it was quite wrong to draw such an inference. The Government can do all those things. It will bring into existence a National Health Scheme, and he is willing to do everything recommended by the Commission, with the exception that he is not willing to initiate legislation to the effect that next year, if necessary, we will spend two million pounds and the following year, if necessary, double that amount, until development can take place and the full amount proposed by the Commission will be available. Then the Minister said: “We must pay; the country will have to pay for what it wants.” It is a self-evident fact, of course, that the Country will have to pay. I think we all realise how heavy the taxes will be which will be imposed to cover the cost of such a scheme, and I do not wish to minimise this. I realise that it is very serious but I wish to say that even before the development of the scheme we should today accept the basic principles and initiate such legislation as is necessary. We should now make the administrative and financial arrangements for the gradual expansion and development of the scheme and for the increased financial assistance which the scheme will need. That has not been put in prospect, except in vague terms, by the Minister. The Minister could perhaps have expanded about what we will actually have to pay. I know that the country will be surprised when it hears what we actually will have to pay. But that should not put us off. We must tell the country that every year it will cost so much in taxes, with a view to possible developments. The Minister has also said that the Report recommended that there should be a total change, that the health services should be revised and improved as a whole. He says the Government knew this. He says the population is dissatisfied. The hon. member for Yeoville says that the population is dissatisfied with the health conditions of the nation. The Minister says that the Government agrees—they are dissatisfied—and he says: “We must take bold, imaginative steps, not patchwork.” What are the “bold, imaginative steps” which we are now going to take? We are now going to tell the population: “The Government realises fully what should be done and we will not interfere with the provincial system or the constitutional system.” That we already knew. The Prime Minister has already told us that. Then the hon. Minister said: “Coercion was not contemplated.” It is not a question of coercion. There are certain steps that must be taken. The Government knows that they must be taken. The Government agrees that they should be taken. If the Government does not wish to change the machinery in that way, we must change the machinery in another way. Before we stand still and watch national health suffering, I say we should rather use coercion in that respect, if it is necessary. But I am satisfied when the Minister says we must not use coercion. The hon. member for. Yeoville also said that no coercion was contemplated. We would like it to happen by consent, but we cannot permit the machinery of State to be used in the interests of persons and groups of persons against the interests of the nation. We dare not allow that. If that is so, a change must be made; the Prime Minister must then use his influence with the Provincial Administrations. But I do not think that is necessary. I say we know what must be done; we know what is necessary for the hospitals; we know what developments are necessary. It is certainly not beyond the power of the human brain to evolve a scheme whereby we can attain the full development or the full benefit of our payments to the Provincial Administration without derogating from their powers. The Minister has just said that the Government is willing to grant larger powers to the Provinces for new taxes. We are willing to create new sources of revenue for the Provincial Administrations. We know very well that the Provincial Administrations are not bodies that like levying new taxes, that they are not bodies empowered to force people to pay heavy taxes. If the Government wishes the Provincial Administrations to tax the Provinces, there must still be a measure of coercion because we must know whether the Provinces will go far enough in extending hospital services for the whole population. I do not for a moment believe that that constitutional difficulty need really stand in the way. I am conviced that we can find a modus operandi by means of which we can erect hospitals where they are necessary—in each Province with the support of the Provincial Administrations. If public health were under a central body the Government would have had to give all the money. Why cannot an arrangement be made whereby the central National Health Board, the central body, can say to the Provinces, after they have worked out carefully a scheme of hospitalisation: “We give the administrative control over hospitalisation to you, but we say where hospitals shall be built, and the Central Government provides the money for it.” The Minister of Finance, I think, at one stage said it is unhealthy to give money without their having the responsibility of finding the money. That is a very old principle.” We all know that children who obtain money easily spend it easily, and they do not learn to value money or to control it, if the parent is too generous with money. But here we are discussing a totally different position. I have also spoken with Administrators about it. They are afraid of being in an inferior position. They are afraid of the position where they will lose control of the hospitals, where they will play no part in providing the money, and that they will then have to lose a large part of their finances. My reply to that was the following: “If hospital services are extended to the whole Province, whether it is the Cape Province, Natal, the Orange Free State, or the Transvaal, as it ought to be, the Provincial Administration, with the measure, of local control it exercises within the framework of that central health service body, can be a much more important body or have a more important function than the function it has today in providing only a small number of beds and hospitals and levying taxes and finding money therefor.” The Minister told us that they would empower the Provincial Administrations to levy new taxes, and I immediately say that the Provinces will not be willing and will not be able to extend those hospital services as they ought to be extended under a national health scheme such as that visualised, not only by us but also by the National Health Services Commission.

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 23rd February.

The House thereupon proceeded to the consideration of Government business.

I move—

I believe that this motion will meet with the approval of the House. It is being introduced after consultation with the various sections of the House through the members of the Select Committee on Public Accounts. The procedure that is being followed here is the procedure prescribed in the Finance Act (The Exchequer and Audit Act), 1911. That Act deals with the appointment of the Auditor-General and lays down that at the age of 60 years he must retire, but it also makes provision that he may remain for a longer period if a resolution to that effect is taken by both Houses of Parliament. As hon. members are aware, a proposition similar to this was introduced last year and the year before last, and was accepted by the House, and the same reasons hold good today for the retention of the services of Mr. Smit as Auditor-General as were valid in the previous years. The reasons that I then mentioned were twofold. The first was the fact that Mr. Smit is an official of great ability and of outstanding impartiality, who has carried out his important duties as Auditor-General with great credit to himself and to the satisfaction of all sections of the House. Mr. Smit is still young for his years, and thus he is in all respects still qualified to continue with that work, and it still remains the wish of all sections of the House, as interpreted by the Select Committee on Public Acounts that he shall carry on. The second reason is this: We are at present still in the middle of the war, and the most important feature of the work of the Auditor-General in present circumstances is the audit of our war account. As hon. members are aware, that is a very difficult task. It is a task in which Mr. Smit has hitherto succeeded, notwithstanding the difficulties, but he is still in the middle of this task, and even should the war end tomorrow it would still take a little time to close off those accounts. Regarded from that viewpoint, it would be a big mistake to make a change now. If we want to have a proper audit made of that important account, it is desirable that Mr. Smit should remain in the service for a further period. In this connection I want to mention that this department is somewhat different from most of the government departments, and that for the following reasons. In the ordinary government department it generally happens that the second seniority, the under-secretary who has already been trained in the work, succeeds the head of the department. That, however, is never the case in respect of the Auditor-General’s department, and the reason is this, that the Auditor-General is invested with a higher status than all the heads of departments, and consequently when it comes to a question of promotion all the heads of other departments are senior in comparison with the Assistant Auditor-General, and thus they have all to be taken into consideration for promotion before the claim of the Assistant Auditor-General can be considered. That is the reason why it is always the case that the new Auditor-General comes from another department. He thus comes from right outside. He has not been trained in the work of that department. This is especially important during such a period as the present. It would mean that we would have to get someone new from another department to continue and complete this important work in connection with our war accounts, So I believe that hon. members on all sides of the House will be agreeable to accept this motion. As I have said, consultation has taken place, and that has enabled me to learn that there is no objection. Mr. Smit has done his work with ability and he has given satisfaction to all sections by the impartiality with which he had discharged his duties.

I second.

I am in agreement with what the hon. Minister has said. The position in connection with this appointment is that the promotions in the other sections are not disturbed, and we are accordingly prepared to accept the motion. We were consulted before the motion was introduced, and we acquiesced in its acceptance. But I should like to bring one aspect to the notice of the Minister. I am speaking now for myself. When a man has reached the age of retirement and he is still retained in the service, all the other clerks who serve under him are held back. Personally, I am not in favour of members of the government service being retained after they have reached retiring age. The younger people should be given an opportunity.

This is an exceptional case.

I agree with the Minister that this is an exceptional case. It is an appointment that is made by Parliament, and moreover it does not affect the promotion in his department. I merely thought it necessary to say these few words.

I should like to associate myself entirely with what has fallen from the hon. Minister’s lips. In the person of Mr. Smit, I think the Government has had an official who has carried out the most important work that has fallen to the lot of any person, in the most effective and the most efficient manner. But the whole question of the extension of the period of office of Mr. Smit raises an issue which I hope will be taken into consideration one of these days, either by the Government or by the Public Service Commission, and that ie the principle of retirement at the age of 60. As soon as an official attains the age of 60, he is normally retired, just at a time when he is probably at his very best, and I think one of these days we will have to consider whether that principle of retirement at the age of 60 is not one that will have to be done away with, so that an official in the position of Mr. Smit can continue for a much longer period than is the case at the present moment. One other point that should be emphasised in connection with the re-appointment of Mr. Smit is the fact that he has had to do his work efficiently, as it has been done, under the utmost difficulties, being short-staffed both as a result of the fact that the type of official who is required to assist the Auditor-General is not readily obtainable at the present moment, as well as by reason of the fact that many of the members of the original staff of the Auditor-General are away on active service, and I hope that in this coming year it will be possible to facilitate the work of Mr. Smit to this extent that he will not only be able to secure the return of many of his officials on active service, but that he will also be able to secure other officials to make it possible for him to do the work which he has to do much more easily and much more readily than he has been able to do it in the past.

I think every member who has been associated with Mr. Smit must agree with everything that was said this afternoon, and I want to associate myself with those remarks also, but I would like to have it placed on record that we in the Labour Party are opposed in principle to the extension of the period of office of civil servants beyond the age of retirement. We believe that the whole object of fixing a pensionable age is that the person should be placed on retirement, and that the post should then be open to juniors in the department.

Why not apply that to Parliament as well?

We recognise that under the exceptional circumstances which prevail today and in view of the fact that there are difficulties in making a permanent appointment, particularly in such an important post as this, it is advisable as a war measure to extend the period of office of Mr. Smit. We accept the position gladly that Mr. Smit should continue in office for another 12 months, but we wish to put it on record that as a matter of principle we are opposed to the extension beyond the pensionable age of civil servants.

Motion put and agreed to.

I move—

The aim of this Bill is, as indicated in the title of the Bill, “to provide for the control and distribution by the Kamanassie Irrigation Board of all the water conserved in the Kamanassie Irrigation Dam, etc.” and to grant certain powers to the Board at Kamanassie. For many years, for almost 100 years, the position has been that irrigation was practised near the Kamanassie River, and from those days until now there has never been, in spite of all the developments which took place, a board which had the right to regulate the division of water there and to administer it, with the result that a terrible wastage of water and also damage to soil resulted, and for that reason there was much unpleasantness from time to time as a result of the fact that irrigators had the right at any time to take as much water as they wanted, irrespective of the amount their neighbours needed. I therefore want to put the position to the House. The Kamanassie Irrigation District is situated in the districts of George, Oudtshoorn and Calitzdorp. Portion of the ground served by the conservation dam is situated in the district of George, the bottom portion of the irrigration district is situated in the district of Calitzdorp, while the larger portion of the irrigated ground is in the district of Oudtshoorn. The irrigation district commences on the farm “Kamanassie”, on which the conservation works are erected, and runs along the Kamanassie River Valley and the Valley of the Olifants River, in a westerly direction to the farm “Warmwater”—a distance of approximately 40 miles. The registered irrigable area under the scheme is 12,709 morgen of which more or less 1,200 morgen lie in the Kamanassie Valley. Along the Olifants River and Kamanassie River and their tributaries irrigation has been practised for a century and today a large number of canals exist. That is true especially along the Olifants River. In order to make the best use of the available flood waters the canals were made very wide in order that as much water as possible may be taken out while the rivers are running. Each of the original farms has its own canal or “sloot” as they are locally called, and usually after the death of the original owner the ground was cut up in equal portions and divided amongst the legatees. Each legatee was awarded an equal. “turn” of water. However, with the passage of time, various factors rendered the division of water unequal, so that the principle of equal shares of water per morgen disappeared completely and does not apply any more in any shape or form. For example, people might have equal portions of ground and they might have inherited equal “turns”, but in the course of time some of them cultivated more ground and irrigated more ground with their existing water supply. The result of this was that, due to the energy of the owners, certain portions of the ground receive less water per morgen than other portions. It also happened that certain additional ground was bought, not so much for the ground itself but because of the “turn” of water attached to it; even “turns” were bought apart from the ground to which they were originally attached. The result is that the principle of equal distribution of the water is not in the least applied today. The Kamanassie irrigation district was formed in 1917 with the object of building works for the conservation of the surplus water of the Kamanassie River. These works, consisting of a conservation dam and canals, were completed in 1926 at a cost of £726,000, and an irrigation loan to this amount was awarded to the Board. No portion of this loan, either capital or interest, has ever been paid back, and in 1934 the whole debt, which together with interest amounted to the sum of £1,163,862, was written off by Parliament. A writing-off of £13,734 was also made to the Jan Fourieskraal Irrigation Board; which falls under the Kamanassie Dam. Apart from that £14,441 has been given to these boards to date by the Government for the reparation of damages caused by floods to their irrigation works. The total amount thus actually given to these boards by the State amounts to £1,192,037. I wish to affirm that not a single penny of this amount of almost 1¼ million pounds has been paid back by the irrigators under these schemes.

Was this £14,000 also written off?

It was given as a gift in order to repair flood damage; it was not enough to write it off—not a penny was repaid. Since the building of the dam the Kamanassie Board experienced considerable difficulty in arranging a reasonable and fair division of the water. The flow of the Kamanassie River was the subject matter of two Water Court decisions. The first, in 1929, fixed the normal flow of the river at a maximum of 50 cusecs, while the second decision in 1934, divided the stream between the various riparian farms along the river from the dam until its confluence with the Olifants River.

Was it the normal flow of the Kamanassie which was regulated?

Irrigation was practised many years before the dam was built and it was done along the normal river, and that is the water in connection with which the court gave its decision. As regards the surplus water, however, each owner can, as long as water flows in the river, and without any limitation, take as much water from the river as he needs to the limits of the capacity of his furrow. That happens in view of the fact that the Board has no control over the river bed or over the mouths of the private furrows. The Board is obliged to make use of the river bed and also the bed of the Olifants River inside its irrigation district for the division of stored-up water to owners situate at the bottom end of the district, especially the Jan Fourieskraal owners. Therefore, when the Board attempts to send water down the river bed, this water may be taken by the owners situate between the dam and the bottom end of the district, depending on whether they need the water for the irrigation of their ground or not. It is therefore quite impossible for the Board at any particular time, to determine what quantity of water should be let out into the river in order to reach the lowerlying owners, with the result that there is complete chaos, and often the lower-lying owners receive insufficient quantities of water. On the other hand, if the Board tries to give compensation for the use of the water by the upper owners by letting out more water in order to increase the flow, it often happens that precious water flows past the bottom boundary of the district and uselessly runs to the sea. The present Bill is intended to improve this chaotic state of affairs. Various attempts have been made in the last 25 years to regulate this matter, but in vain. The Bill gives the Kamanassie Irrigation Board control over the beds of the rivers inside its irrigation area, which they may consider necessary to use from time to time for the transfer of stored-up water from the conservation dam to irrigators inside its district.

Is that water from the Jan Fouries River or also out of the Olifants River?

The Jan Fouries River flows into the Olifants River. There are a large number of furrows. Jan Fourieskraal is a small district. It lies below. This Bill provides for powers to be given to the irrigation board over all the stored-up water flowing into the Kamanassie and the Olifants River and its tributaries. Clause 2 gives these powers to the Board, while Clause 3 provides for the equal division per morgen of scheduled ground as regards the stored-up water. Clause 3 empowers the Board to make use of any private furrows or canals for the division of such water. In order effectively to control the stored-up water flowing in the river beds, it will be necessary for the Board to build certain sluice gates and measuring apparatus at the mouths of such private furrows which at present take water ad lib from the Kamanassie and Olifants Rivers. Clause 4 compels the Board to erect these works and empowers it to do so and to exercise exclusive control over the works. Clause 5 modifies the aforementioned decisions of the Water Court, to which I have already referred, as regards the Kamanassie River. According to these decisions, as they exist today, the Board is obliged to allow to flow into the river any water which flows into its dam from day to day, to a maximum of 50 cusecs. This water (normal flow) is then taken by the various owners who, according to the Water Court decisions, are entitled to it and according to the shares awarded to them, but from time to time it happens that they do not need this water, or portion thereof, with the result that the portion which is not taken is allowed to flow past their farms, so that it then enters the Olifants River, where it is used by the first owner who wishes to divert it. It will however be more reasonable that this water, when it is not being used by the Kamanassie riparian owners, should be stored by the Board so that it can be divided between all the riparian owners in the district, together with the surplus water. Under Clause 5 the provisions of the decisions of the Water Court are allowed to be disregarded to this extent. As regards Clause 6, which provides for the deletion in the Schedule of inserted portions of certain areas of ground, I may say that it is clear, after investigation, that there is too little water to irrigate the inserted portions, and in the past recommendations were made by the Irrigation Commission and approved of by Parliament, to the effect that certain portions of the irrigable area should be deleted. Those areas which at present gain no benefit from the stored water, may evidently be excluded immediately. These areas can be divided into two classes: (a) Those who although they were scheduled as being irrigable, cannot be irrigated by the existing works; and (b) areas of “new” ground, i.e. ground placed on the Schedule after the date of completion of the dam which cannot profitably be irrigated, as for example “brak” ground. Clause 6 provides that a committee consisting of three members appointed by the Minister and three members elected by the Irrigation Board should be instituted. This committee will investigate the whole question and report to the Minister. After that the Minister will delete from the Schedule the ground recommended by the Board. Clause 7 forbids the building of new irrigation works or the extensive alteration of existing works inside the irrigation district. It is absolutely necëssary if the Board is to have complete control over the river bed. Clause 8 provides for the formation, by the Kamanassie Irrigation Board and the Board of the Jan Fourieskraal irrigation district, which falls within the Kamanassie irrigation district of a “reserve” fund which in future may be used only for the repair of flood damage to their irrigation works. Times of flood and great damage occur and then they are not able to repair the damage. In the past they came to the Government for help to repair the damage. That is for instance the reason why the £14,000 was granted. Now they have to levy on each morgen of ground which is scheduled and the levy goes to a special fund which may only be used for maintenance in connection with flood damage. Clause 9 empowers the Minister to compel the Board to erect the sluice gates and measuring apparatus mentioned in Clause 4 and to make sure that the payments are made into the reserve fund. Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform the House that this irrigation district has been thoroughly investigated by many State Commissions, and that the Bill now being brought before the House is intended to give effect to the recommendations of the Irrigation Commissions of 1934 and 1943. The Irrigation Board was consulted in connection with the various provisions of the Bill and is anxious to obtain the powers at which the Bill aims. It seems certain that the additional powers given to the Kamanassie Board by this measure will ensure a more reasonable division of the water supply, and that alone will be to the benefit of the whole farming community in the Valley. I just want to add that when the Bill was drawn up I went to the trouble of going to Oudtshoorn. There I was met by the Irrigation Board and discussed the Bill with them, clause for clause. Certain changes were made at the request of the Board and eventually it was agreed to accept the Bill in the form it now is. Thus the Bill I am handing in is one on which there is agreement. Before proposing that the Bill should be accepted I wish to say that I tried to indicate that the large amount of £1,192,037 was written off in connection with this scheme. It is a very large amount. In the past the Boards were always criticised for having these amounts written off and it was said that only a few people, or only a portion of the people, got the benefit thereof and were enriched thereby, with the result that eventually the Government was landed with a mass of people who could not make an existence, so that the Government then had to write off these amounts. I just want to say now that I was surprised when I visited Oudtshoom. When one speaks about the district of Oudtshoom in general terms and one thinks of the irrigation there and of the prosperity and great productivity of the district, one is surprised, when one goes to Oudtshoom, to find that the productivity and—riches possessed by Oudtshoom depend on only a small area of ground. One would think that Oudtshoom has a large hinterland, a large area where productivity is high, a hinterland which assists the productivity of the district. But conditions in Oudtshoom are quite different from what one imagined. The prosperity of Oudtshoom depends completely on that little bit of ground in the valleys of the two rivers, which at the most is 2 or 3 miles broad and about 40 or 45 miles in length. From this small piece of ground is derived all the, prosperity and riches and development which took place there. It is surprising. I wish to say here that whereas it has always been said that the money which was given to the boards was wasted and that the State got nothing out of it, the money which was given to and spent in these valleys falls amongst the best investments ever made by the State. It is surprising to see what is produced on these small areas of ground. As I have indicated in the past, there was never any proper administration or regulation, there was never a board which had the power to regulate the division of the water properly and to administer matters. That could never be done fully. This Bill, the second reading of which I now move, aims at a proper division and administration as far as this area is concerned, the area of the irrigation district Kamanassie, on which depends the whole of the prosperity of Oudtshoom and all its industrial development. This Bill will improve the position and make possible greater prosperity. I may say that after the second reading I will move that the Bill be referred to a Select Commitee.

I am very sorry that the hon. member for Oudtshoom (Mr. S. P. le Roux) cannot possibly be here today. I feel that I am not entitled to ask that the second reading be postponed until such time as he can be present. But I just want to say that this scheme has in the past caused a great number of difficulties. Difficulties were experienced when the dam was constructed to effect an agreement between the riparian owners, and there were many other difficulties. A Board was called into being and in terms of Act No. 8 of 1912 that Board had certain powers. Whether the powers were carried out or not, I do not know. But I should like to raise a few points which in my opinion are dangerous. In the first place, power is being given to the Irrigation Board to use the bed of the river as its furrow. You will understand that when a dam is constructed outside the river and water is blocked in the river, to which the riparian owners were entitled in the ordinary course of events, it is necessary to be very careful. The riparian owners are all entitled to the reasonable use of the water. In this case water is being stored and blocked in the river, the Kamanassie River, which flows just below the dam into the Olifants River. The Olifants River comes from Willowmore and flows right up to Mossel Bay, where it flows into the sea. It is a very difficult river; there are no places where dams can be constructed. The majority of the dams in the river are constructed of sand, and stones and bags only, because there is no firm bed. When the river flows strongly, no wall in the world can stop it. But in the existing circumstances the riparian owners all have certain rights in the various furrows which are led out of the river. You know this type of Karoo river. When the flood is over the water has disappeared and the dam has been washed away. But usually there are fountains in the river—rising water in the bed of the river—and the water is dammed up. Furrows are then constructed and, as the Minister said, water has been led out of the river for hundreds of years by means of furrows. There are no established rights in connection with any one of the furrows. These furrows were constructed jointly and there are vested rights in that connection. I am not referring to the new furrows which were made by the new irrigation board but to the old existing furrows.

They are included here.

When the dam was made, the riparian owners along the Kamanassie River were, of course, given certain privileges. As the Minister said, the normal flow to which the riparian owners along the Kamanassie River were entitled was fixed at 50 cusecs. Before water could be stored in the Kamanassie dam, the normal flow had to be determined. I appreciate the difficulty which arises as a result of the fact that the Irrigation Board was set up at the dam. The provision in the Act of 1912 is that the water which is stored must be distributed fairly amongst the various owners. I appreciate the difficulty, because along the Breede River we were faced with the same difficulty. The Olifants River is a very long river and the Kamanassie River comes from the Outeniqua mountains and flows into the Olifants River. The water in the Olifants River itself has never been distributed over the various furrows. On the other side of the river there is a fair number of tributaries which flow into the Olifants River. The Olifants River itself usually provides the furrows with more water than the water which comes from the Karoo. That does not happen often. That is why they have had droughts so frequently in the past. The Berg River flows regularly, but it does not give sufficient water to enable the bed of the Olifants River to provide all the furrows with water. The people along the furrows, however, have always enjoyed the benefit of this water. But now we are telling the Board : “You are not only getting control of the controlled water in connection with which we have spent £1,192,037, but you are getting control of all the water in the river. You are now going to make a distribution of all the water in the river, not only of the quantity which is stored.” That is the one danger I visualise. Then I come to a second point. The Irrigation Act of 1912 provides that the Irrigation Board or River Board which makes the dam, is compelled to arrange for the distribution of the water. They must do so on an equitable basis. It does not say how it must be done. Here a fixed distribution is being laid down, and the water must be distributed according to the size of the land. Here we have a departure from a principle which was laid down in the Act of 1912. I want to ask the Minister where the water is going to be distributed. Are you going to grant the people their share of the water in the dam itself or at the intakes? We must remember that the river in the Klein Karoo is very treacherous and when it is warm the loss owing to evaporation is very great, arid if the water is distributed in the dam higher up, the person lower down will not get his share. It is usually said that there is sufficient water to permit of the irrigation of so many acres, and every one gets his share of the water in the dam, but he is called upon to suffer the loss which arises through evaporation. The principle in the old Act was that the water should be distributed on an equitable basis. Certain principles were laid down governing the distribution in the event of a normal flow. The size of the land, the nature of the land and the distance which the water has to flow before reaching the land, are factors which are taken into consideration. I admit that the size of the land is an important factor which should be considered; it is the most important factor and plays the greatest role, but where you have a very long furrow, the evaporation may be considerable. If you distribute the water proportionately, the people will not all get the same amount of water. One furrow may be better than another; there may be a great loss in one furrow owing to seepage; the loss owing to evaporation is not the same in all cases. Where are you going to distribute the water—at the dam higher up?

At the intake in the furrow, where the sluice gate and measuring device will be erected.

Then I just want to say to the Minister that there is no engineer in the world who will be able to carry that out, because circumstances vary from day to day. Take a river of 40 miles. What is going to be the position of the people lower down? I feel sorry for the people lower down the river, because on some days they will not get water at all. No engineer can determine what the evaporation will be on any specified day. The Department knows that. They are looking for trouble in inserting this provision. Why must the provisions in the Act of 1912 be departed from, the provisions which refer to an equitable distribution? They are really looking for trouble. One cannot possibly say how much evaporation there will be. One can only lay down that there should be an equitable distribution, and if there are a thousand morgen below the sloot at the lower end, and a thousand morgen higher up you have to ensure that one tenth of the water reaches the land lower down, in terms of the Bill as it reads at present. In that case you will waste even more water than to-day. I realise that the Act of 1912 is very old and I have often urged that the Act should be revised. Legislation is introduced over and over again which makes an inroad on the existing Act of 1912. One does not know where one stands. One does not know, for example, whether this measure will be accepted as a precedent for future measures. One does not know what the position is. One should not so lightly depart from the provisions of the existing Act. No reason was given by the Minister why, as far as the distribution of the water is concerned, the original provision that the distribution must be on an equitable basis, is being departed from. The distribution must be pro rata. Why is there a departure in this case from the existing provisions? This is a very important matter. Here control is being given not only of the conserved water supply but all the water in the river, whether it comes from the Willowmore district or from Meiringspoort, from Grobbelaar’s River or from the Jan Fourie’s River. All the water is being placed under control, and the Board has to distribute it.

Within the limits of the Board’s irrigation area.

That is correct, but all the dams are situated within this area. I can understand that there is not sufficient water. There is not sufficient water for the land. The difficulty is to deschedule some of the land. But if this Bill goes to the Select Committee, these people will be able to submit their objections. If certain land is de-scheduled, it will mean that the people concerned will not be entitled to water from the dam, but they can always get water from the Olifants River and perhaps they will be better off because that will mean that they will not have to pay the water tax, and if the dam is always full, there will always be seepage water. The fact that there is a dam is undoubtedly to their advantage, because they will get seepage water when there is water in the dam. But there are two important principles where this Bill differs from the existing Act, and I would like the Minister of Lands to tell us clearly why he wants to switch over from an equitable distribution to a pro rata distribution. Is this a prediction of a general change which will come about? The other matter is this, that since all the riparian owners get water from the river, as at Breede River with its furrows, for example, there may be justification for giving the river to them as a furrow, in which the water can be led off. But this Kamanassie River is a tributary of the Olifants River. It is not only one river. There are big rivers which feed the Olifants River. Why must the rights of the riparian owners be taken away in such a case? Those rights will now be governed by the Board. The position is that they have to make a pro rata distribution, but I still want to see the board which can do it. They do not know what the evaporation is going to be. I was born in those parts and grew up there, and I know those rivers. These are big rivers, but they are treacherous, and on a warm day the evaporation is going to be very much greater than on a cool day. It means, in effect, of course that they must deliver the water at the intake. It is going to be difficult to do that, and the water must then be distributed in the furrow. In these circumstances, I cannot see why these privileges of the people should be taken away, why they should be prevented from distributing the water themselves in the furrow. I do not know how many furrows there are, but they do exist, and all the Irrigation Board can do is to bring the water to the intake and the owners will then make the distribution themselves. Why then is it necessary to provide in this Bill that the Board will take over the control of the furrows? I am sorry that the hon. member for Oudtshoom (Mr. S. P. le Roux) is not here. I know that there is a great deal of difficulty in connection with this matter and that the people hold strong views on it. I do not want to make the Minister’s task more difficult, but as someone who takes an interest in irrigation I should like to know what the position is. Here we are only dealing with the Olifants River but to-morrow it may apply to other rivers and then we will be told that we did not object when this Bill was introduced. For that reason we must have clarity in connection with these proposals. These are a few of the points which I noticed when I read the Bill, and I thought I should bring them to the notice of the House. There is another matter in connection with the excise of land from the schedule which I want to bring to the notice of the Minister. I think it refers to Clause 6. This Clause reads—

When reference is made here to clause ninety of the Act, Act No. 8 of 1912 is referred to. There a procedure is laid down according to which the taxable area is fixed. This clause goes on to read—

1. (a) cannot be supplied with water distributed by the Board in terms of section three by means of furrows or canals existing at the date of commencement of this Act;
2. (b) have been placed upon the said schedule subsequent to the date of completion of the dam, namely the thirty-first day of December, 1926, and which cannot be beneficially irrigated by water distributed by the Board in terms of section three.

In other words, if there is riparian land which has not yet been supplied with water by means of a furrow, it is exluded, and that land can never be supplied with water. The people are being deprived of their riparian rights. That is the only meaning which I can read into this clause. It means, in effect, that if that riparian land did not make use of the water at the time the Act came into operation, if the land was not irrigated from the river, the riparian rights in respect of that land are being taken away. I do not think that is fair. I did not personally consult these persons, and I do not know what their views are on this matter. I take it they were trying to get the best advice and present their case to the Select Committee. Then there is still the question of a reserve fund. I think a reserve fund is a good thing in the case of any furrow. I personally am concerned with such cases. But my objection in connection with this matter is that this reserve fund must be deposited into the Government fund. Interest will be paid on it, of course, and that is not my objection, although it might have been possible to obtain a higher rate of interest elsewhere. But now we have this difficulty that the Board concerned cannot withdraw those funds and use it without the permission of the Minister. If we get a Minister who is not friendly disposed towards the irrigators, he might say that the money should remain in the fund to cover damage caused by a great flood, and that these people should impose taxes to obtain the money which they require for certain works. I cannot understand why that condition should be attached to such a reserve fund. After all, it is not the money of the Government. I can visualise all sorts of difficulties in connection with these things. The department has good engineers, but frequently they cannot understand the practical difficulties of the farmer. For that reason we have an Irrigation Commission. Many of the engineers are young men from the University who think they know more about irrigation than the farmer. They can work out how many acres of land can be irrigated by the water in the dam and how many cubic feet of soil are necessary for the wall. But there are many farmers who know more about the essentials of irrigation than they do. I know farmers from whom the engineers can still learn a great deal. I want to mention one case which caused quite a sensation. The engineer of the department said that a certain furrow would cost £6,000 and the people nearly fell on their backs. One of the farmers’ members of the Board then made the furrow for £60. It seems almost incredible, but that furrow has been in existence for 20 years and up to the present no damage has been caused. The Irrigation Department threatened to close the furrow because they were afraid it would wash away. I do not want to level any accusations against the engineer. I suppose he also had his difficulties. I understand he was a nervous man with a wife and eight children, and that he was afraid of losing his post if he made a mistake. He wanted to be certain and he therefore recommended that the furrow should be built of concrete. We might get those difficulties and we must remember that the farmers who grew up in such an area have experience of that area. If application is made for money from the reserve fund the engineer of the department will have to submit a report; the department accepts his report and it goes to the Minister. The Minister will, of course, accept the advice of his own officials. I think some other means should be found of giving control to river boards and irrigation boards. After all, in this case the people are dealing with their own money. The boards of which I have some knowledge, fortunately have not yet required these moneys, but what will happen if they do need it?

In the past they have paid in.

Yes, in the past they have paid in but it is felt that they have no control of that money, and they do not know what will become of it if an unsympathetic Minister is appointed. My point is simply this, that the engineer may submit a report, while the farmers of the district who know the circumstances, will probably be in a better position to judge what should be done. I want to repeat that I am sorry the hon. member for Oudtshoorn is not here to-day, because he is naturally in possession of all the details. I felt, however that it was necessary for me to point out that it is a dangerous principle to depart from basic principles in the existing Act, without knowing what the policy of the Government is. The engineers of the department have been struggling for the past 20 years or longer with the policy of equitable distribution. Then there is this point that the same system cannot be applied to all rivers. A river like the Orange River has its normal flow. If the Breede River is full, the water flows into the sea, but the river might come to a standstill within a week, and water must then be left in the dam. The Olifants River will also have its normal flow in areas where the river is fed by fountains. But for the greater part it has not got a normal flow. We cannot pass legislation for one river and then apply it to all other rivers. Has there been any expert investigation into the question of how these rights should be determined, and can we apply the same principles to a river which is not in constant flow and a river like the Orange River? This is a very involved matter, and we feel therefore that we ought to know what the position is We are now introducing separate laws, whereby one board is given certain rights and another board is given other rights. What will the position be when it is necessary at some future date to pass uniform legislation. The time has arrived to rectify this matter. I feel therefore that there are dangerous principles in this Bill, and I have done my duty in warning the Minister in that connection.

I should like to participate in this short debate, not as a townsman, but as someone who grew up in that district and who still is very much interested in that district. I hope that the House will not take it amiss that I, although I have grown older, am still interested in that part of the world where I grew up. In the first place I should like to say that I am glad, on behalf of the people of Oudtshoorn and those who live along the banks of the Olifants River, that the Minister has now intervened in connection with this matter. Hon. members of this House will perhaps view this Bill as something which effects only Oudtshoorn, and which is of interest only to the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. S. P. le Roux). But those of us who visited that district last year, and who know those regions, will realise that Oudtshoorn, and irrigation in Oudtshoorn, is of interest from a national point of view. We will remember that Oudtshoorn was well known as an ostrich-farming district. When the ostrich-farming industry was ruined the farmers had to change over another kind of farming. Unfortunately for the farmers, at that time there was a very big flood, just after the price of ostrich feathers had dropped, and that flood washed open the whole river. Before that the river bank was fairly densely covered with growth and there was a normal flow, but the great flood washed it open with the result that conservation of water was rendered practically impossible, and the district became a dry one. But there is another important fact in connection with the district of Oudtshoorn, namely that scientists have ascertained after the cessation of ostrich farming, the district could bear wheat for 50 years without any necessity for using fertiliser. The reason is that legumes like lucerne, beans and peas, put nitrogen into the ground. I need not enter into the scientific explanation of the matter, but because of the lucerne which had been trampled into the ground for all these years, the ground became very fertile. However, owing to the lack of water the district could not produce what it otherwise would have produced. Those who read the report in “Die Suiderstem” saw what a surprising wheat crop was expected in Oudtshoorn, or rather, was harvested in 1944. Our country is faced with a shortage of wheat and bread in these times of war, and I feel that hon. members will agree with me that the district where wheat can be sown with great success should receive the attention of this House and should actually be nursed by us to a certain extent. Viewed from that standpoint this matter which is being discussed this afternoon becomes not only of local interest but actually a matter of national interest. I also wish to draw attention to the fact that the scheme which was inaugurated by the Government to make the wheat districts fertile again by means of sowing lucerne is dependent on the district of Oudtshoorn for the lucerne seed. For this reason I am glad that the Government has taken a hand in the position prevailing in this district. I would mention an important reason for it. When this irrigation scheme was originally considered—I hope that in the meantime we have departed from that policy—we were still following the policy of inaugurating irrigation schemes on the basis of the financial position. In other words, when a scheme was being considered, it had to be determined whether the number of morgen of ground which would be brought under irrigation would justify the expenditure on the scheme. When the Kamanassie Dam was being considered in about 1920, an attempt was made to bring as much ground as possible under the scheme in order to justify the costs. A large acreage was bought in under this scheme and it was impossible for the river to serve that ground. I am referring to Kahn’s Valley near Oudtshoorn, the Armoedvlakte, the soil along the Kannas River, the Moeras River and eventually also the ground along Vlei River. I think the Minister calls that the Jan Fouries River. I do not know where he gets that name from. I see now that the Minister intends to take these bits of ground out of the scheme, and in spite of what the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) said, I think that the Minister Will have the full support of the people along the Olifants River in connection therewith. The people at Jan Fouries River and beneath the main road can now exercise practically no irrigation owing to the tremendously large area which has been brought in under the Dam. Some people have an enormous number of morgen, with the result that they have such long turns that the supply is exhausted before the people lower down can obtain water. The second point is this, and I shall be very glad if the Minister would have this particular point investigated. The hon. member for Swellendam has rightly said that the Kamanassie River is a branch of the Olifants River. The result is that the water from that river in fact is used to irrigate ground which should have been irrigated by the other tributaries of the Olifants River. There are the Kannas River, the Moeras River, portion of the Grobbelaars River, Wynands River and Vlei River. I think the Minister will remember that a large portion of the ground along: the Kannas River and all the other rivers I have mentioned here, especially the Vlei River, is not irrigated by the waters of those rivers, but by the water out of the canals of the Kamanassie Dam. The water of those rivers flows away. It may be argued that those rivers are too small. In times of flood the water is perhaps used here and there sporadically, but in times of scarcity of water they receive no benefit from the water which is in the river in times of flood. The third point is this, that. I hope the Minister will one day see his way clear to dam up the Olifants River.

Do you mean at Towerwater spoort ?

Yes. It has been proved that the Kamanassie Dam is not large enough for the district. If we have enough water, that district can bear wheat equally with the Western Province, and also vegetables because the soil is fertile. If a dam is made at Towerwaterspoort, just as much water, and more, can be stored as in the Kamanassie River. Then it will not be necessary for the Minister to withdraw places like Kahn’s Valley from the scheme. Then it will be possible to irrigate not only those areas which the Minister is now compelled to withdraw from the scheme, but also Kahn’s Valley, the soil near Wynands River and at De Hoop. We must bear in mind that our country is a dry one, and that we are committing a sin when we permit that millions of acre-feet of water per annum flow into the sea. We must regard irrigation works not only from the point of view of the people who draw benefit from them, but we must regard them in the same way as the hon. member for Yeoville (Dr. Gluckman) this afternoon regarded the health service—a matter of national importance to South Africa. We must regard irrigation works as a national matter and I am convinced that if we dam the Olifants River at Towerwaterspoort, we will have saved that district for South Africa for all time. As the position is now, I want to suggest something else. I do not know to what extent the State itself can do it, but perhaps the Minister, through his Department, can persuade the farmers to do something in that direction. It is peculiar that that district sometimes has to be declared a drought-stricken area, and that in spite of the fact that so much water flows away. Those rivers are very steep, and when they are in flood the water flows away quickly. I do not mean to suggest that private farmers should make dams in the river, but dams can be made along the rivers where farmers can accumulate their turns to water. If this is done they will be able to hold out quite a while longer in times of drought. The hon. member for Swellendam was very anxious about proportional division versus fair division. I think I am putting it correctly. I do not think it is necessary to argue about that with the Minister; I think it is a point about which the people in the district spoke. The furrows run in such a way that if supervision is not exercised over the division, all the water flows to one portion of the valley while the other part of the valley suffers damage. That not only applies to the Orange River. Finally I wish to say this. I do not know whether the Minister is aware of the fact that the river there enters a “poort”. In passing I also just want to say that one of the best warm baths in the Union of South Africa is situated there. After the river passes through the “poort” and after it has joined up with the Kamgas River, there are areas which can be placed under irrigation. I do not say they are large areas. We are still inclined only to devote attention to large irrigation schemes, while small ones can be of enormous value to the country, and I want to express the hope that the possibility of having smaller irrigation schemes in future should not be lost sight of. But may I also say this. During this war and especially in South Africa, machinery was evolved—I do not think it is universally known—and I will refer to one instance. Take for example the machinery evolved by the “Essential Services Corps”. That machinery evolved by them can easily be used along our rivers in order to tackle small irrigation schemes. I understand that the hon. Minister is going to refer the matter to a Select Committee. In that case he people who object against the Bill will have an opportunity to put further points to the Minister.

I merely rise to give a hint to the Minister. The Minister told us on the Second Reading that the people concerned were all consulted and that there was complete agreement.

The Irrigation Board agreed.

I am not so conversant with the irrigation scheme. There are various tributaries flowing into that river.

Do you mean the tributary?

Yes. Those people who are living along the tributaries have certain furrows; they have erected dwellings and there are irrigation works on a small scale.

They are left alone.

The question is whether they have not certain rights which they are deprived of here. But I have no reason to doubt the Minister’s word when he says that these people are satisfied. I accept that, and seeing this is so I merely want to give this to the Minister for consideration; while there is no difficulty I want to ask whether he will not refer this Bill to a Select Committee before the Second Reading. If those people are satisfied the Bill will come back from the Select Committee in the same form as it is here now. But there may be certain things such as mentioned by other hon. members, which encroach on the rights of the people who are now there. When we accept the Bill as it stands here, the Select Committee cannot, of course, introduce any alterations, and it is for that reason that I am appealing to the Minister to send the Bill to a Select Committee before the Second Reading. I see many objections against Clause. 2 of the Bill. It appears to me that that Irrigation Commission that is being appointed will be entitled to take away certain rights from people living along the branch streams, and they will have to get a proper portion of that water in connection with the whole scheme. Certain rights will also have to be taken away from people. The hon. Minister has informed us that not all the lands that fall under the scheme can be irrigated. I accept that. It is often the case that a scheme is constructed, and when the scheme is completed it transpires that there is a considerable amount of land falling under the scheme, but for which there is no water available, and then you get all sorts of difficulties. Years ago we had those difficulties, and those difficulties have continued. If the Minister can solve those difficulties with this measure, and if the land must be taken away from people who have had it for almost a hundred years, is compensation going to be given to those people in respect of the rights that are going to be taken away from them, or is that not going to be done? I am putting that question simply to obtain information. Then the Minister stated that as a result of the judgment of the Water Court that water that amounted to 50 cusecs has now been reduced.

No, that remains as it is. Under the judgment of the water court the water is left to run. Now the water court says: If you do not use it let us then save it.

I did not follow the Minister very well in regard to that question. As I have said, I am not so well acquainted with that scheme, but I do feel that certain rights will be taken away, and if the hon. Minister is so certain of his case, and I accept that, that these people are all satisfied and that they favour this Bill, there should not be the slightest objection to referring the Bill to a Select Committee before the Second Reading. I want to make an appeal to the Minister. He has himself stated that the people are satisfied, and while that is so there can still be no objection to this course. I am glad that the hon. Minister regards this as a national scheme. As he has stated, almost a quarter of a million pounds has been written off. We on this side of the House regard irrigation as one of the things that should be an absolutely national matter in South Africa. Far too much water is still running into the sea, and whenever money is spent by the Government in connection with the creation of irrigation schemes we on this side of the House are entirely prepared to approve of them if they will have, as a result, that more food will be produced and that more people will be settled on the platteland. I do not think that it is necessary for me to say anything further on this Bill. I am only sorry that the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. S. P. le Roux) is not in his place today, that he is prevented from being present owing to unavoidable circumstances, but I want again to express the hope that the hon. Minister will accept my suggestion to refer the Bill to a Select Committee before the Second Reading.

I, too, do not really want to oppose this Bill, but still I feel that we should be clear on certain points. For instance, will it not establish a precedent that may be made applicable to other schemes? In my constituency, for example, you have of course owners above the dams and below the dams. In the past we had to register our rights on that river above the dam. In how far will we now be protected? It is likely that new farmers who bought land at a later date along the river will also be given the opportunity to protect their rights, or is it only those owners who were there before that time who will be given this protection.

Do you mean those above the dam?

Yes. Then I feel, Sir that we ought to commerce thinking more about the national aspect of irrigation in this country. We have our old irrigation laws. They are such that the finest advocate in the world would not be able to tell you what is right and what is wrong. I think it is time that the Minister gave us a consolidating Act in connection with irrigation. Furthermore, I feel that there is much that is retrogressive about the law as it stands. For instance, the Minister has intimated that in the future they are going to institute big schemes there. This will mean that the old laws that protected the riparian owners and the catchment areas will now be altered: it will mean that the rivers will have to flow in other directions out of their catchment areas. I regard this from a national angle, and if it is a good thing for the people as a whole, then that scheme should be used in such a way that these waters can be diverted to any other area. The hon. member told us of a scheme that was eventually brought through the Brak River down below to Port Elizabeth. I feel that this will be one of the benefits for that part of the country, but I do not know whether the irrigation laws, as they stand today, entitle one to do this, and I trust that the Minister will inform us in what direction steps are being taken. I believe that if anything good is ever to be done, the water that now runs to the sea should be used in the drier regions, so that granaries can be built there, and I feel also that in the first instance security must be accorded to the existing schemes on which millions of pounds have been expended before new schemes are commenced. I should like to know what the Minister’s attitude is whether he has the power to do this. We oh this side of the House will welcome it if this is done in the form of a national scheme, and hot as a personal scheme.

I am grateful for the way hon. members who have discussed this Bill have received it. Let me say this at once in reply to the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp). The hon. member has asked why we are not sending this Bill to a Select Committee before the Second Reading. I think that all the people have come to agreement on that point. Let me please clearly explain the position, especially after the observations that have been made in connection with the absence of the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. S. P. le Roux). The hon. member for Oudtshoorn was unfortunately ill at that time. He was on his farm in the Free State. He telephoned me and made his apologies for not being able to be there, but he appointed someone else to arrange things with me. We met there; I think the full Irrigation Board was there. I took the Bill with me. We altered it there. We went thoroughly through the Bill and checked it clause by clause. Then we met again, and we accepted those amendments that they desired, and that we could concede, and eventually we arrived at the conclusion that I should come to Parliament and tell the House that this is a Bill that the Irrigation Board of Kamanassie have accepted.

Did the owners of the land also agree?

No, I am talking about the Irrigation Board.

That is another matter.

The board accepted it, but the board represents these people. The position is as I have stated it here today. If they change their minds and they want other alterations now, then they will have to appear before the Select Committee, but in any case they will be breaking an agreement that I entered into with them. I went to Pretoria to meet them at a great personal sacrifice. We went right through the scheme. We dealt with the Bill, and brought in amendments, and this is the agreed measure that I arrived at with them, and by it I stand. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) split hairs over several points in an unnecessary way. Let me mention first the question of the reserve fund. The board that he represents also has a reserve fund. In this Bill we say that the reserve fund will be paid in exclusively for the purpose of making good damage done by floods. I cannot imagine that when they have experienced a flood and if the Irrigation Board has £3,000 in the reserve fund, that the Minister would then refuse to give them that.

But the damage may be only £250.

Then naturally they would only get £250.

But the Minister may say that they should levy a rate in view of it being such a small sum.

But the rate is imposed precisely for that purpose. The object is to protect these people. I think that the time has passed when irrigation boards should approach the Government and ask for assistance every time that floods cause damage. The board should stand on its own feet.

But you know that this is a nasty river.

I know; but they got assistance from the Government only recently. I think it is better if provision is made in this manner.

We do not like the fact that it “must be the Minister”.

The hon. member does not want the Minister to be passed over, and someone else to be appointed does he? The Minister is in charge of the department. My hon. friend talked about the dangerous position that was created by giving the board full control of the channel of the river. That irrigation board can only utilise the river bed to carry the water to the owners.

Why is all the water being stopped? All the other water that runs in the river is controlled by them together with the board. Kamanassie is only a branch stream. It comes hundreds of miles from there. The water runs in the river, and you catch it in the dam and control the lot.

The water court has in its wisdom, assessed that water at 50 cusecs.

But this is the Kamanassie River; it is not the Orange River.

Their con fluence is a considerable distance below the dam. The question is this. The hon. member asks why is a departure made from the provisions of the Act of 1912 which prescribes that “they must make an equitable distribution”.

That is a different thing.

The board endeavours, as far as possible, to make this “equitable distribution” of the water, but the difficulty is this, that the owner takes the water out of the river at will, and this makes it absolutely impossible for the board to make an equitable distribution. Then the hon.

member spoke about the land that it being descheduled, that is being taken out. He asserts that their rights are being infringed. If the hon. member will look at sub-section (2) he will see that some of that land may again be placed on the schedule at a later period as soon as they have the facilities to cultivate it. The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H Bekker) put this question to me: What is the position of farmers who are situated above the dam in so far as concerns the protection that the Irrigation Board has for its dam? As the law stands there, they may again register their protection and today they may build a dam with a capacity of up to 25,000,000 gallons. Now the hon. member asks whether they are again scheduling. I do not think so. I cannot say that with certainty, but that is the position, I believe.

You are right.

I am only giving my own opinion as Minister of Irrigation. I think if ever there was an evil perpetrated in this country it was when the law was adopted to afford protection to certain persons and certain companies in respect of a whole series of farms—50 or 100 farms—above the irrigation works. While they have this protection above their dams there are farmers who dare not build a dam in the river. The people’s farms are washed away, and they have not the right to build a dam.

If you have not been given protection you cannot get a dam. You only build for surplus water, and not for the normal stream.

The time has now arrived when the Government will have to take up seriously the whole question of soil erosion, and the Government is going to do so.

It is time.

The question arises whether the time has not arrived to cancel that protection that has been granted. The people stated that water should still run past there. The water runs away to the sea. I say that is one of the greatest evils which came into existence when that law was made to afford protection to certain individuals or companies or boards. I know of cases where a tin-pot company has this protection, and 50 or 100 farms are lying above them, and these are simply being eroded. They are situated higher up, and they are being washed away. My opinion is that when the Government tackles the problem of soil erosion in earnest we will have to give serious attention to the question whether we should not cancel this protection that was granted in the past, and then give these people an opportunity to build dams as well, so that their farms will not be washed away into the sea. The hon. member opposite spoke about a consolidating Act. I cannot say anything about that at the moment. The hon. member put a question in connection with the scheme that I announced last year, namely the Orange-Fish River scheme, which links up with the Sundays River. I only want to say this in passing, that today 53% of my technical staff are on active service. We are very short of staff. But when the war is over, and we get our staff back, this will be one of the matters that we shall tackle at once. It may take us two years to make the surveys, but we shall begin as soon as the staff is available. I refer to that scheme in connection with the Orange River, Fish River and Sundays River. We shall make a proper survey as soon as the staff returns. I think that I have dealt with all the points, and I now move.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

I now move—

I second.

Agreed to.

I move—

In 1940 the question of a water supply for Saldanha Bay, in connection with certain military installations which it was desired to establish in this area was investigated and it was decided that the best source of a permanent water supply was the Great Berg River. A point for the abstraction of water from the river was chosen some two miles downstream from the confluence of the Sout River with the Berg River. The work consists of a pumping installation situated at this point capable of abstracting up to 1,000,000 gallons of water daily, and conveying this through a 12 inch diameter main 12 miles in length to storage reservoirs, from where the water gravitates to Langebaanweg Aerodrome, five miles to the south-east, through a 6 inch diameter main, and to Saldanha, 14 miles to the south-west, through a 12 inch diameter main. The works were constructed by the Department of Defence at a cost of approximately £246,600. The Government owns the ground on which the intake works are situated, and has also, except in two cases, obtained agreements from all the owners over whose ground the pipeline has been constructed for the registration of servitudes of aquaduct free of compensation. While, therefore, the Government by virtue of its riparian rights is entitled to abstract water for use on its riparian property, it is, under the provisions of the Irrigation Act, not permitted to convey this water to non-riparian ground for use by non-riparian owners for domestic or other purposes. I may say that when the building of this pipeline was originally under consideration the whole matter was viewed from the point of view of supplying water to the areas concerned for defence purposes only. Subsequently, however, various private interests, chiefly local authorities in the district, came into the picture as they desired to obtain a supply of pure water from the Government’s works. From the public health point of view it is highly desirable that a source of pure water supply be made available in the area covered by the Bill, but the Government in considering the matter from this angle, was faced with the fact that under the existing Irrigation Act it is, as I have already stated, precluded from supplying any water from its works to non-riparian users. It is to rectify this position that the present Bill is designed. The rights of certain riparian owners on the Great Berg River from the intake works down to the mouth of the river, a distance of approximately 35 miles by river, are adversely affected by the Bill, in that they will be deprived of the use of the water abstracted by the Government up to a maximum quantity of 1,000,000 gallons per day. There is, however, very little, if any, irrigation practised along the reach of the river with which we are concerned, and in any case, the amount of water abstracted by the Government would have a comparatively negligible effect on farming operations. Although theoretically therefore, riparian owners rights are adversely affected, in actual practice it is considered that they will suffer very little prejudice, as there is likely to remain an adequate supply of water in most years for the use of riparian owners and for stock drinking purposes. In regard to Clause 4, I have stated that agreements to register servitudes were acquired in all but two cases. In these two cases the owners, although they have granted to the Government the right to build the pipeline across their properties and to convey water therein for the duration of the war and twelve months thereafter, refuse nevertheless to grant servitudes of aqueduct without payment of compensation. In all other cases, as has been stated, free servitudes have been acquired. Inasmuch as the Government has expended nearly a quarter of a million pounds on these works it is not considered desirable that two owners should be in, a position to embarrass the Government by making, perhaps exorbitant demands for compensation, and it has therefore been deemed necessary to insert a cluase in the Bill providing, for the expropriation of servitudes. The Government desires, of course, to arrive at agreement in all cases of this sort rather than resort to expropriation, but failing agreement, the clause will enable the Government to acquire servitudes or aqueduct by legal process. Mr. Speaker, I want to say something about the possible effect which the abstraction of this water may have on the water supply lower down the river. The river is a tidal one to a point some distance above the Government’s intake works and while the water in the river remains pure during rainy seasons, that is except near the mouth, in dry periods tidal influence may make itself felt for some distance from the sea. Some of the riparian owners feel that the abstraction of 1,000,000, gallons per day at the Government intake works will aggravate this condition. However, no reliable gaugings of the flow of the Great Berg river have ever been made and it is therefore a very difficult matter indeed to arrive at any accurate conclusion as to what effect, if any, this abstraction of water will have on the purity of the river water in the neighbourhood. It may be that tidal influence would make itself felt in extremely dry periods whether this quantity were abstracted or not, but the whole question at this stage seems to be one of pure conjecture and open to argument. I would like to tell the House, Mr. Speaker, that this Bill is being introduced entirely as a result of representations from private interests in the Saldanha Bay area. The Government has been requested by various bodies, the Vredenburg Municipality, Saldanha Township, Langebaan village, private farmers and other parties, to supply water to them and if the powers sought by the Bill are obtained it will enable these requests to be considered. As members will know, the location of pure water supplies in this part of the country is a very difficult matter and the provision of a water supply to the small communities here is of paramount importance in the development of the whole area. I trust therefore that the House will pass the Second Reading, after which the Bill will be referred to a Select Committee before being taken through its remaining stages. Dealing with the clauses of the Bill, it will be seen that Clause 2 gives the Government the power to abstract from the Great Berg. River a quantity of water not exceeding 1,000,000 gallons per day and to convey, control and distribute it on ground whether riparian or non-riparian, and to use such water or permit the use thereof by the Railway Administration or any other body, local authority or person to whom it may be desirable to supply such water. Clause 3 empowers the Minister to make charges for water so supplied.

This Bill is entitled the Saldanha Bay Water Supply Bill. I have never yet heard of a Bill with a more misleading title than this. The pipes have been laid down there for a considerable period already, and the public there are sill without water. Saldanha Bay and the neighbourhood will be very interested to know that the Bill has been given this name while they have to beg in order to get water.

Is the water not there?

The water is there, but the Government it sitting on it and does not want to give it to the public. It is all very well for the Minister to tell this House—when we are faced with an accomplished fact—what plans the Government has to provide the people with water. I should be glad if the Minister would give a little information in connection with three matters. In the first place, I would like to know why the Government, a considerable period after its scheme was completed and on which it expended £250,000 of the people’s money, until today has made no provision for water for the public. The second matter on which we would like to have some information is why the riparian owners should now have to appear before the Select Committee at their own expense to beg the Government for compensation, a guarantee and protection. What is the position? For many years this area has not had an effective water supply: I am referring to parts of Vredenburg, Langebaan and Saldanha Bay. The whole area has a very defective water supply. In the course of a debate last year I said that if Saldanha Bay and the environs had an adequate water supply, Cape Town would not be situated where it is now situated but where Langebaan is, because experts say that Langebaan is the most natural harbour in the Southern Hemisphere. The people there have been looking forward to a proper water supply for years past now.

I understand that the water is now going to be brak.

I can only say this, that of course it is not all the water from the Berg River that is brak. We welcome the fact that the water has been laid on. The Berg River is actually the only place whence water can be laid. If the riparian owners were approached their attitude would not be that they disapprove of the Government taking water out of the Berg River, in order to provide it for the people at Vredenburg, Langebaan and Saldanha Bay. But what they do object to is that proper protection has not been granted to the riparian owners, and that they are not being compensated for the damage that they will sustain as a result of the scheme. What is happening? The Minister himself states that he is not absolutely positive that if 1,000,000 gallons per day are taken out of the Berg River salt water will not flow up, and that the riparian owners of the area will be affected thereby. Well, a substantial number of the farmers of that area have no doubt at all that if you take 1,000,000 gallons out of the river the salt water will flow up, and that the position will be made very difficult for all of them. They called on the Minister and pleaded their case, and he took up the attitude that he could do nothing for them. They apparently do not interest him.

They are getting the opportunity to appear before the Select Committee.

My information is that they are very disappointed over the interview with the Minister, and that he adopted an unreasonable attitude.

They can submit their case to the Select Committee.

They will avail themselves of the opportunity, but it does seem to be unreasonable that they should be involved in the expense of appearing before the Select Committee in order to ask that their interests should be protected. Why, if the Government abstracts 1,000,000 gallons of water there, should the people be exposed to the danger of brak water, without the Government protecting their interests by, to mention one possibility for instance, building large embankment in the river and also paynig compensation.

Absolutely no investigation was made.

I consider it nothing less than shameful. The Government wants to come in here and function as the lessor of water. Through the Railway Administration it also wants to provide water there. It wants to make money out of it. Now the owners must come down here with their advocates and their agents, whom they have to feed, to protect their interests. The Minister could have acted somewhat more sympathetically as far as concerns the interests of these people. There is another matter to which I wish to draw attention. The Minister stated that the people over whose ground he had laid the pipes had been so obliging as to accept servitudes, so that he could construct the pipe-line even through wheat lands, etc. on to Saldanha Bay. Why did he allow them to cede their servitudes? Was it fair of the Government to have done that? The Minister knows that two of them refused to do so, and today they still refuse to do so. The Government is endeavouring to force the people to its own way. I cannot say that this has been done in an unjust manner, but I have been informed that the Government asked them to accept these servitudes. Those who did cede them, I believe, have received no compensation from the Government.

Are you alleging that the Government tried to save a couple of hundred pounds?

I don’t say that, but it is peculiar that the Government stood over these people to persuade them to issue their servitudes. I want to ask the Minister to give this House the assurance that in respect of the servitudes that he has already received, those that the people have ceded for the benefit if his department or the Department of Defence, that he will return those servitudes without fighting the matter in the courts seeing that it is still a question whether the cession of these servitudes is legally valid. I want to ask the Minister to cancel the servitudes that he has received without testing the matter in the courts, and to see to it that those who have granted servitudes receive fair compensation. A third point that I want to mention is the price at which water will be delivered at Langebaan, Vredenburg, Saldanha Bay and other places. In the first place, I want to ask why the matter has been allowed to drag so long. The state’s money, £250,000 has been utilised to construct the pipe line and the public is still waiting for the water. He says that under the war regulations the water could simply be abstracted for military purposes. Well, that is an elastic term. Let me give an example. There are the officers, men and staff, who worked at Saldanha and at the aerodrome at Langebaan. Some of them are not living near the mouth of the pipe-line, but a number of them are living at Langebaan and Vredenburg and at the hotel at Saldanha Bay. Have they not gone to live there for war purposes? The pipe-line has been constructed at a high cost for war purposes, and it has been debited against war costs, but many of the workers have gone to live further away because there was no housing accommodation. I would like the Minister to visit that district to see for himself the bad position that exists in reference to the supply of water up at Langebaan. There has been placed at my disposal a report in connection with a medical investigation at Langebaan. I do not want to go into that, but in the case of Langebaan the medical official refers to the fact that up to the present no epidemic diseases have broken out there, but that there is a serious shortage of water, and that it is necessary to have a scheme for the provision of water. He adds that most of the residents are not able to pay for the water. Then I come to a point in connection with which I have a serious objection. If the Government wants to help people, why are such tremendous tariffs mentioned for water? The pipe has been constructed with the public’s money. Now the Minister wants to charge the people at Langebaan, for instance, exorbitant prices for the water. The amount of £12,000 has been mentioned, of which these poor residents have to pay £6,000. That is the sum that has been mentioned.

I think your information is wrong.

I shall be relieved if it is wrong, but my informotion is that that will be the price. One gains the impression, and the people there have the impression that the Government is very mulish about giving the public water, and that if they do give it they are going to adopt a Shylock attitude and demand their pound of flesh—or, as in this instance, their bucket of water. I want to move as an amendment—

I do not want to detain the House any longer. I merely want to emphasise that there are three matters that should be accorded the Government’s attention. The first is that the riparian owners must be protected and must be paid for the losses that they suffer. It is only reasonable when such a far-reaching thing is done as to abstract water from the river, and to convey it to another place. It is, of course, a time-honoured usage that people who suffer this damage are adequately compensated. The second demand is that people should not be influenced in one way or another by the Government to cede servitudes. The third is that the places and people who are provided with water will get it for a reasonable sum. If the defence works are reduced in size, if persons that the Government have there in connection with war activities fall in number, the Government will have a considerable amount of water to spare that can be given to the public. Why should it be demanded of the public that they should have to pay for their water a high price, and what is to many of them a price that they cannot afford to pay, though the pipe-line has been constructed at the expense of the State.

I second the amendment. A greater disregard of rights I have never seen in any law. The Government asks through this Bill, to be enabled to abstract water from a river which is not theirs and to sell it to whom they like at any price without seeing to it that these people or the riparian owners will be entitled to have drinking water. I simply cannot understand it. The Minister would, of course, never expect personally to get anything for nothing from anyone. The pipe-line was constructed there for defence purposes in order to bring the water to certain military establishments. When the war is over the pipe-line will be lying there. The water does not belong to the Government. They require it for military purposes, and the people have to be satisfied and acquiesce in that, even the riparian owners. Now because the pipes are lying there, the Government want to do business. It is not its water, but they want to seize the water and sell it to anyone they like, to lease it to anyone they like, whether they are riparian owners or people living inside the catchment area or outside. In other words, the Government can convey the water to Gape Town if it pays them to. I never heard of anything of this sort. The Minister must understand that these people have paid for their farms along the banks. If anyone buys a farm on a river he pays a higher price because he thereby secures certain rights and conveniences on the river. He is entitled with this land, to the use of the water. Now the Minister comes along and says that he wants to pump this water out. He says it is only 1,000,000 gallons a day, just a small quantity, but the people state that they do not know what the result is going to be when the water is pumped out. The sea water will come up, and the water in the river will become brak, so that it *will not be drinkable. The Minister is not worrying about that. If the Minister says that the pipes have been constructed there, and that he wants to furnish the public with surplus water at a reasonable figure, we can understand it, but he has not gone first to the riparian owners in order to see how much they require with a view to then taking the surplus, but instead of that he assumes the right to all the water. When I read the Bill for the first time I rubbed my eyes. The riparian owners pay for the water through the higher price that they have to pay for the land along the river, and they are entitled to the water according to law. I can understand that in connection with the war the Government was entitled to construct the pipe-line, and to take the water for this purpose, but if the water is no longer required for this purpose then it cannot take it at its will. You cannot even conserve drinking water. You must abstract the water from a normal stream as you find it necessary, and if you want to conserve water even for domestic purposes, you must buy out the water rights above you; you must buy up the land that is entitled to the water. When the Cape Town municipality constructed the Steenbras scheme it had to buy all the land there. Now the Government comes along and without paying a 6d. even it is going to take the water whether it belongs to the riparian owners or not, and then it is going to sell the water to whom it will and at any price. I have never heard of such a thing. If I go from here and seize another man’s property and then sell it to anyone I want to, they would put me in gaol. The Bill says—

1. (a) by means of the works, abstract from the Great Berg River a quantity of water not exceeding one million gallons per day and convey it to the area known as Saldanha South Township or any other area which he may determine, and control and distribute it as he deems fit;

Simply because he has the pipes there, the Minister comes here and asks us to approve of him seizing other people’s property for him to distribute as he wants to. I think if he appeared before the court and he had done anything like that, the court would punish him. I read further—

1. (i) such land is riparian to the said river or its tributaries or not, or whether situated within or without the catchment area of the said river; or
2. (ii) the Government, the Railway Administration, such local authority, company or person is an owner of land riparian to the said river or not.

I have never in my life heard that anyone can approach Parliament and ask for such rights. I want to ask the Minister if he realises the significance of a million gallons of water a day. That is three cusecs of water. With two cusecs you can irrigate 100 morgen. Where water is plentiful the department grants one cusec per 100 morgen, and in my district where the rivers are comparatively dry, they irrigate up to 500 morgen with one cusec. But here the Minister comes and pumps water out of the river, so that the riparian owners may perhaps not have any drinking water. The Minister himself admits that the consequences of this abstraction have not been investigated, and the local people say that the water will be brak if so much is abstracted and the sea water comes up. If the people tell the Minister that they do not mind, that they can do without the water and that they will not suffer any damage, I would be satisfied. But now the Government laid a pipe-line for defence purposes in connection with war, and when they see that the war may be over in six months, the Minister comes along and wants to take these rights. I do not believe that we, as Parliament, can grant that. It is no longer going to be devoted to defence works, and the Minister has no right just to seize these pepole’s rights. Now they want to save the money that they spent on the pipes, and these people have to pay the penalty. They have had transfer of their ground; they hold the rights of riparian owners, and here the Minister comes with a Bill to deprive them of their rights. I want to make an appeal to the Minister. I accept the fact that he wants to do his best, but I do not think that he realises the consequences of his action. I want to make an appeal to him not to proceed with this Bill, but to present something regarding which we have a complete report, so that we may know whether these people will have drinking water, and that the water will not be salt. The Minister does not know what the two cusecs per 24 hours is going to mean. I have already seen that river when there was not even one cusec running in it. That means that all the water would simply be abstracted. Furthermore, the Minister goes then to these people who abstract water nearer the mountain, and tells them that they may not do this, because they are hampering him in getting his 1,000,000 gallons a day. I do not think that the Minister realises the significance of this Bill, and accordingly I feel that it is necessary for the Minister to take it back and, first of all, to make proper enquiry whether there are really 1,000,000 gallons of water per day in the river, and if it is not there, whether the Minister can tell the people living near the mountain, that they are hindering him, because they are diverting the water. It is not only the rights of the riparian owners that are affected. If there is a surplus of water then an arrangement can be made to buy that water from the people, and then the Minister can do with it what he likes. I would not stand in his way of doing that. But as the Bill now stands he can simply do what he likes with the water, and tomorrow we may have a Minister of Irrigation who will go and sell the water to the Railway or to Cape Town because they are prepared to pay more for it. The Minister must have regard to the consequences. He will not always be Minister. Private rights are being taken away here, and it does not apply only to the riparian owners.

What is there at Saldanha Bay?

There is an areodrome and that sort of thing. I only want to tell the Minister that it is not only the rights of the riparian owners that are being taken away. Anyone who comes to a river in which water is running is entitled to drinking water, and if he abstracts the water at this place then he is impinging on the rights of the whole country. This little Bill of the Minister’s is a crime, and I request the Government not to go on with it.

It is not every day that I throw bouquets in the direction of the Ministerial benches, but I do wish to congratulate the Minister of Lands on undertaking in this Bill what I consider a public-spirited and very necessary work. The districts concerned happen to be very well known to me, and the need for this water, the supply of which is here contemplated, is exceedingly great, so much so that long ago I personally petitioned the Minister of Defence to take some such step as the Minister of Lands is now undertaking. I have two points to make, and these are urgent. From my experience of the river in the summer time, a million gallons a day is a very large amount of water indeed, and it does seem to me that the riparian owners do stand to be prejudiced in the amount of their supply. I agree with the suggestion that has been put forward by the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus) that suitable compensation should be provided for those who suffer that loss, or alternatively relief should be afforded by building a wall, or by making some such preparations that might avoid the loss altogether. Therefore it seems to me that their rights shoud be absolutely safeguarded. I am thinking now particularly of Vredenburg and Langebaan. I have one point to make to the Minister. In that village the people are tremendously poor. For health reasons it is absolutely necessary that they should have that water, but they will not be able even when the installation is made to advantage themselves from it, unless the price of the water is made extremely low I put that to the Minister. The district is a poor one, and his good work will be negatived very largely unless he contrives that the people of the neighbourhood are supplied at a very cheap rate.

The hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus) has come with a terrific fuss and said that that community cannot get a drop of water.

Why has there been shilly-shallying for so long.

I have stated in my speech—

Those bodies were Vredenburg, Saldanha South, Langebaan and a few private farmers. In order to comply with their request we have come before the House with this legislation. I stated further in my speech—

I also stated in my address that we have not the right to abstract the water, and to supply owners away from the river, but as soon as this measure is through we shall be in a position to do so.

The pipe-line was already there in 1943.

It was constructed for war purposes. We had a right to that. We have now only to deal with this Bill, and now the hon. member comes with a terrible to-do and says that we are asking exorbitant prices. He talks about £12,000 and £6,000. Where does he get that? Not a single word has been stated as yet as to what the price of water is going to be. As soon as this Bill has gone through the Government will endeavour to provide water for their private community, as I have stated in my speech.

Why did you not do this as far back as 1943, when the pipes were constructed there?

That was for war purposes, and it was a matter for the Defence Department.

Would they have broken up the pipe-line?

No, that was not the question. These people gave a servitude; that was voluntary and they did not ask anything. Two of them would not give it to us for nothing. They were prepared to give a servitude for the duration of the war, but once the war was over they wanted the right to ask for compensation

These were intelligent people.

It is now laid down in this Bill that an agreement can be arrived at with these people to pay them compensation.

At 6.40 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 7th February.