I move—

Agreed to.

On behalf of the House I should like to express our appreciation and thanks to the Select Committee which considered this matter so thoroughly and so seriously. It is of very great importance to this House that its prestige should be properly safeguarded at all times. In particular I should like to express my appreciation of the fact that the finding by the Select Committee that the accused is guilty was a unanimous one, because it is desirable that in matters of this kind affecting the honour of the House there should be a unanimous finding.

In reading the report, however, I also noticed that although the finding was unanimous there was a difference of opinion as to the punishment that should be imposed. That is understandable, for in the course of the years we have imposed only a few of the penalties which may be applied in such cases. The result is that such a Select Committee would obviously consider itself bound to a large extent to impose a punishment which has come to be accepted as customary. It is understandable that there may be a difference of opinion as to the punishment to be imposed in a particular case. However, I do think that it is desirable also that not only the finding but also the punishment itself should be approved with the greatest possible degree of unanimity by this House, and I am glad the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had the same feeling and that he discussed the matter with me to see whether it would not be possible to determine a punishment, if necessary a new form of punishment, on which all of us in the House could agree. It will also in future be a means of giving committees of this nature a somewhat wider choice of penalties. Now I am pleased to be able to say that it was found possible to arrive at such a punishment. I am also glad to be able to say that on both sides we conferred with the members of the Select Committee appointed, and that the punishment I should like to suggest here has met with the approval of the members of the Select Committee. Therefore, if this House sees fit to accept this suggestion, not only the finding but also the punishment will be endorsed by unanimous resolution of all those present here. I should therefore like to move—

Hon. members will notice that the motion refers to the House of Assembly, because our task here is confined to the House of Assembly only, although Parliament as a whole actually is concerned in the matter.

I have the honour to second this motion and to associate myself with the words of the hon. the Prime Minister. This is not a case of a malicious or wilful act. We are dealing here with a case of negligence, but gross negligence, and there is not the slightest doubt that the person concerned should have been found guilty. The only difference of opinion concerned the punishment, and it is a pleasure to be able to say that the hon. the Prime Minister and I wholeheartedly agreed on the punishment, which is somewhat different from the punishment proposed by the Select Committee, but is one which in our view is more appropriate on this occasion. There is not the slightest doubt that this was a serious offence and that we have to take drastic action to see to it that the dignity of the House is preserved and safeguarded. I second.

Motion put and agreed to.

I move—

Mr. Speaker, the Bill before us now in its third reading will place on the Statute Book one of the most important changes in our defence organization since our Defence Force came into being. One of the most important factors in the Bill, in Clause 2, is that it brings the existing defence organization into line with general world policy. Changes necessary to meet the new techniques of warfare, nuclear warfare and the tremendous advances in air warfare and use of unconventional weapons, and in order that our defences can be turned into one fully coordinated force. That change is provided for by Clause 3, which is one of the most important clauses in the Bill. Clause 3 also collects into its ambit a number of other important changes in our defence organization, of which the one I have just mentioned, that the entire Defence Force, on land, air and sea, can now be used as one combined force, is the most important. And in the new set-up, although more or less the same practice has been followed in the past although largely on a voluntary basis, by which men could be transferred from one branch to the other, officers and men will now be liable to transfer to any other branch or formation of the Defence Force. It will no longer be voluntary, but they may be compelled to do so. That will become the recognized practice in future, and it conforms to a considerable extent to a practice which has been found necessary in other much larger defence organizations than ours, and we on this side of the House have no objection to it.

Order! The hon. the Minister cannot even hear the hon. member.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Clause 2 considerably extends the duties and responsibilities of the A.C.F. Both the A.C.F. and the Commandos now form part of the defence forces of the Republic. Clause 2 considerably extends the scope of the duties of those bodies by making them liable in future to carry out a number of important functions and duties which were hitherto only the responsibility of the Permanent Force. The Bill in fact can fairly be said to fit the description the Minister gave it when he introduced the second reading, that it is something brought about of necessity under to-day’s world conditions. Events even since the Minister made that statement has stressed its importance. I think, however, we might add to that that it is not only world conditions, but world conditions and their effect on our own internal conditions in the Republic which must be taken into account. The Bill makes it clear that the Republic’s small Permanent Force can no longer be regarded as sufficient guarantee for the security of the Republic and therefore the expanded A.C.F. and the Commandos are merged with it, particularly in regard to internal security. Clause 2 extends to them the duties to a wide range of police duties hitherto only applicable to the Permanent Force. Now they will apply to any unit or member of the A.C.F. or the Commandos. The Minister will remember that in the earlier stages we tried to get some restriction applied to that power inasmuch as we felt that certain of the trainees in the Citizen Force had not yet reached the standard of training and discipline which warranted vesting them with the full authority of the police. The Minister gave an assurance that this power would only be used in the case of men who had undergone a special course of training in military police duties but unfortunately the Bill itself imposes no such limitation. It sets no limitation at all on the type of police duties or the type of man who can be called upon to undertake them. In fact, Clause 2 itself, in paragraph (4), vests all the powers and functions conferred on the police by the Police Act of 1957 in these men. Its scope is so wide that the Opposition still, in spite of the assurance given by the Minister, regards it as unsatisfactory, in the case of men who have not completed their six months’ training. The discussion of Clause 2 has also brought to light the startling fact that, other than last year’s batch of trainees who have completed their nine months’ training, there are very few people in the country to-day who have had a minimum of six months’ military training. That is a somewhat surprising situation to be suddenly faced with, particularly in the light of the very heavy defence expenditure over the past ten years and the big expansion in defence activities.

The Bill also in Clause 3, read in conjunction with Clause 13, not only takes into account the widespread effect of the big defence expansion upon the lives and vocations of thousands of young South Africans who are being called up for special military training, but also the restrictive effect this national conscription has on certain branches of industry, as well as the increasing extent to which the manufacturing industries in many important respects are now being harnessed to supply the defence needs of the country. Clause 13 is one of the clauses which emphasize that aspect. It clarifies the responsibility of employers in their not being liable to meet in any way the loss of pay of volunteers called up for their training period. At the same time that particular clause affords protection to people who are called up, protection up to a limited period of four months in regard to certain rights of promotion, increments, leave and sick pay, and as far as apprentices are concerned up to a period of four months’ and subsequently periods of three weeks during further periods of training will be taken into consideration for purposes of their civilian indentured training. This is a provision which we can well support, although we hope that the Minister will yet find it possible to increase that period of four months still further.

Clause 13 contains certain new principles. Firstly there is the appointment of the Manpower Control Board operating under the Minister of Labour. This is the first time such a body has been found necessary in peacetime. There again, one can regard these provisions as a pointer not only to the demands that defence expansion is making upon the available manpower in the ordinary life of the country, but especially on the skilled manpower which is already in short supply. It is also a reflection of the general world conditions at present and the mounting threat of aggression against South Africa to which the Minister has referred, and the increasing necessity for maintaining internal security. In terms of that clause the board, on which various industrial bodies will be represented, can advise the Government in peacetime concerning the use of the available manpower, particularly in regard to its allocation to defence, and it will also keep an eye on the needs of the ordinary industrial activities to see that they get their fair share of the available manpower. The board will have authority to advise the Minister and the Government regarding the categories and professions which may be exempted from military service. All these are the most important features which affect not only defence but also the ordinary life in the country and its manpower.

Clause 5 deals with the establishment of something which I think the House in general is in complete agreement with, the Air Commandos. In Clauses 6, 10 and 11 the various matters consequential to the establishment and the operation of the Air Commandos are dealt with. These are all features which the country will welcome in the Bill because they provide for the strengthening of our defences. They will enable flying people to keep in touch with military requirements and practice and provide a valuable reserve to the Air Force in emergency. We have no hesitation in giving it our full support.

Clause 15 is one which has to be taken in conjunction with Clause 2, and it is another one of the clauses in regard to which we on this side had reservations. It deals with internal unrest. A resident magistrate in an area who feels that unrest had developed to such an extent in his area that his relatively small group of local police need to be reinforced, has the right to set in motion proceedings which result in the calling up of members of the Defence Force resident in that area to support the police. That clause side-tracks to some extent, for a limited period, the powers of the State President. Previously this call-up could only be done by a proclamation issued by the State President, but the Bill waives that right for a limited period of 24 hours, so that action may speedily be taken at a time when the police probably need assistance most. We are all agreed on the principle of rendering assistance to the police. If the police require assistance to maintain order, they must receive it. Where we do differ is that this clause places no limitation on the class of members of the Defence Force who can be used, and people with little training and who lack experience may also be called upon. We feel that according them the full powers of the police is inherently dangerous, and we asked for a limitation to those who have had at least six months’ military training. Because of the rules of the House that amendment could not be proceeded with, but I want to ask the Minister who had indicated his willingness to accept a reservation subject to some limitation to give serious consideration to it in the Other Place. I believe our objection is justified. This is one of the clauses in the Bill which contains a definite weakness which we believe should be remedied.

The other clauses of the Bill deal with the limitation of the powers of the State President. In certain instances where he formerly had to issue a proclamation, that proclamation can now be issued by the Minister, or it can be waived for a stated period. Another clause deals with doctors in certain of the bigger institutions which may be used for defence purposes. The senior doctors in charge and the staff will be liable to be dealt with as defence units, something with which we are in agreement. In fact, it starts to make provision for something which defence will have to face up to in future, because expansion on the medical side will be necessary. Therefore we support that provision with the big expansion of defence manpower build-up the medical side of defence organization will have to be considered.

I think one can sum up the Bill by saying that it marks the entry of the Republic into a period of steadily increasing conscription, which is being applied not only to the serving forces but also to industry. The Minister stated that under existing world conditions it was necessary to do these things to ensure the security of the Republic. We on this side certainly do not subscribe to any doctrine that there is cause for panic or that we should not have a calm outlook in regard to the future of the country, but we feel it is necessary to strengthen our defences. The Minister is responsible for the defence of the country and we feel that under those conditions it is in the best interests of the future of the country that these steps should be taken, and we support the third reading of the Bill.

I wish to deal with one aspect of the Bill. It concerns an obvious weakness in the existing Act in regard to making use of the available defence forces of the country. The Minister knows that the duties of the Defence Force set out in Clause 2 were really confined in the past to the Permanent Force, and in respect of the Active Citizen Force they were limited. The Minister now gets the power to use the A.C.F. for police duties. But in regard to the actual defence of the country there is of course the other important aspect that the Commandos are now for the first time being put on a par with the A.C.F. and the Permanent Force in regard to their use in the defence of the country. Whereas in the past there was a difference between the functions of the A.C.F. and the Commandos as compared with those of the Permanent Force, now all the armed forces can be used immediately for the defence of the country. I will say a few words in a minute about police duties, but the most important aspect is defence. When one reads Clause 17 with Clause 21, the manner in which the Defence Force is now being constituted becomes even more important, because never before has the Minister had the power immediately to use the defence forces in the defence of the country without issuing a mobilization order, but now he can do so. When one looks at Clause 21, which also contains an amendment in regard to the issue of regulations dealing with the immediate use of the forces, I think that is welcomed, because regulations may now be issued in advance to anticipate conditions that may arise in future if we have to face a national emergency. In other words, the effect of this Bill is that the immediate use of our defence forces is now made possible. I think the Bill has great significance in the light of recent developments and statements made on the African continent, and the manner in which the Bill was received in the House will make it clear to those who made those statements that both White and non-White are not prepared to allow our country to be wrecked either from within or without, and that no South African worth his salt will be prepared to stand by and watch any country wreck everything we have built up, and least of all those who can hardly be described as upholding the rule of law.

Arising from that, I notice that the Minister made a very important statement at Vryburg, where he said that he was now able immediately to use some 140,000 men for the defence of South Africa. If that is so, I hope the Minister will take the opportunity to indicate the level of training and the steps he will take in regard to the bulk of that manpower, because the bulk of that manpower consists of the Commandos, and only something like 20,000 to 22,000 men belong to the A.C.F. and the Permanent Force out of that figure of 140,000 men. As the result of these changes, a far heavier onus will lie on the Commandos and I think the Minister should make a statement in regard to their training, particularly as he is now making use of escapees from the ballot to build up the Commandos in the urban areas. I hope the Minister will indicate that he has embarked on an adequate training scheme in that regard.

Then I should like to ask the Minister this. He knows the difficulties with which we were faced, in terms of the rules of the House, in moving an amendment, which he indicated he was prepared to accept in regard to Clause 2.

[Inaudible.]

Order! That cannot be discussed now.

In terms of Clause 15, the Minister now has the power to use the two arms, the A.C.F. and the Commandos, for a period of 24 hours in certain districts. There is an obvious weakness here and I can only hope that the Minister will attempt to put it right in the Other Place. I do not want to traverse the whole ground again, but the Minister knows what that weakness is.

Then in regard to Clause 13, a Manpower Board is set up under the Minister of Labour. I hope that the Minister will consider the point previously made in the debate, and to which he did not reply, that there should be no clash of interest in regard to the exemption applied for by an apprentice in his individual capacity, as opposed to the general exemption granted by the Manpower Board, in terms of Clause 14. I hope the Minister will bear that point in mind because it is important. I think it will be most undesirable if the Manpower Board should be regarded as an escape route for men to avoid their military service in defence of the country.

All I can say at this stage is that I am sincerely grateful for the general support this Bill is receiving in this House. I only wish that some of the people outside our country who are boasting of everything they want to do could have heard this afternoon how unanimous this House is concerning defence matters. The hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) once again raised the matter of the duration of the training for people who have to perform police duties. We have already discussed it in the second-reading debate and in the Committee Stage, and we cannot do so again. The hon. member has also expressed the hope that in future more than four months’ protection will be given to youngsters who come in for training. I do not think that is a matter I can go into for it may mean discriminating against young men who undergo training, but I hope that we shall shortly be able to train everybody.

The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) has stated that I said on Friday that we would be able to put 140,000 men into the field. That is quite correct. What I did say is that we would have 140,000 men in uniform at the end of next year, whom we shall be able to put into the field. The hon. member suggested that only a small number of them would be trained. I may just tell him that under the nine months’ training scheme in the first year we trained 10,000; we are now training 11,000 and next year we shall train 16,000, and the gymnasium trainees must still be added to these. The 140,000 I referred to will consist only of our Permanent Force, our full-time force, our Citizen Force and our Commandos. Not all our Commando members are trained as yet.

They are mostly Commando members.

No, if the hon. member works it out, he will see that the majority of them will not be Commando members at the end of next year. Their officers are all trained men. Many of them are taking courses every year, in progressively increasing numbers, and even they will be reasonably well trained for the kinds of duties they will have to perform in the country.

I just wish to say here this afternoon that I am very grateful for the support I am receiving in respect of defence, and I should like to tell those who are not here that they will have to deal with a united South Africa and with at least 140,000 men in uniform next year, who will be prepared to strike hard.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

I wish to move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper—

Provided that the registrar may, where owing to circumstances beyond his control copies of any document required under Section 70 cannot be furnished without undue delay, permit any person to make such copies by mechanical means.

This sub-section as it now stands still gives the right of inspection to a member of the public and I would like to say that I welcome the upholding of the principle laid down by the Appellate Division in 1962, in the case of Spoor and Fisher v. the Registrar of Patents, where Mr. Justice Dowling maintained that the right of inspection carried with it the right to copy documents. This is now embodied in the clause, but I feel that this amendment which I am now moving in sub-section (2) will vest a discretionary right in the Registrar to permit copying of documents by mechanical means upon request in terms of Section 70 of the Patents Act, 1952, in the event of a break-down in the copying system of the Registrar’s Office. Many emergencies may arise in this connection. We must appreciate that there are unusual non-recurrent demands for tens of thousands of patent specifications on occasion and facilities may not be available to copy them. One of the patent firms deals with abstract patents and copies of these have to be forwarded to whoever demands them within three days; another patent firm deals with details of new patents for supply to American patent magazines, and these have to be supplied very swiftly for printing purposes. The amendment which I have moved will be able to eliminate delays in this regard. A private individual may go to the Patents Office and find after a search that he wishes to make a copy of a document; he then either has to write down the patent by hand or get the clerk to write it down by hand or perhaps order a copy of the patent from the Registrar’s Office, and in the event of the Patents Office being unable to supply a copy where it is needed urgently, the sub-section as it now stands prevents the Registrar from exercising the discretion to grant the applicant the right to use mechanical means. I feel that there will always be a need for making copies very quickly of patent registrations or extracts from documents. The need to provide for emergencies which may arise in the Office cannot be overlooked and I therefore move this amendment because I have always maintained that the solution to these problems lies in administrative measures. This amendment provides that when through circumstances beyond his control the Registrar is unable to provide copies of any documents without undue delay, he will have the right to commit any person to make copies by mechanical means. I trust that this amendment will prove acceptable to the hon. the Deputy Minister. I would like him to give it his very serious consideration because its acceptance is going to go a very long way towards quietening the fears of patent firms, members of the public, and organizations whose work could be obstructed through delays caused by a break-down of the photostatic system. This amendment will also safeguard the rights of the general public. Sir, there is one question I would like to ask in connection with sub-section (2). May I have the assurance of the hon. the Deputy Minister that this amendment will not be put into operation until the same services which patent agents were providing for themselves can be provided by the Department?

During the second-reading debate already I indicated that I was prepared to accept this amendment. As regards the assurance the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mrs. Weiss) seeks, I should like to point out that the provision that the subsection will come into operation only after it has been proclaimed in the Government Gazette has been inserted for the specific reason to give the Registrar the necessary time to acquire the requisite machinery, and to be able to provide the necessary services. I think the fact that this provision is being inserted in the Bill at the request of the Registrar is sufficient assurance that it will not be proclaimed until such time as he is able to provide the required services.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Remaining Clause and Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

In this connection I should like to move the amendment as printed on the Order Paper in my name—

When this Bill was drafted, it was intended to make special provision for the protection of certification marks, and for this reason the provisions of Clause 44 (1) were not applicable to such marks. However, it was decided subsequently that the provisions of Clause 44 should be applicable to certification marks, but by that time the Bill had already been drafted. This amendment was also proposed by the Committee. They met three times and after full consideration it was decided to move this amendment.

May I say that I would commend the deletion of both these provisions as recommended by the Trade Marks Committee itself and the S.A. Institute of Patent Agents. I am glad to see that they are both being deleted. Firstly in Clause 44 (1) it is proposed in lines 3 and 4 to omit “(other than a certification mark)”, because clearly there is no purpose whatsoever in allowing for the registration of certification marks under Section 52, because no action can be taken to enforce the rights. Hence the necessity for the deletion of these words in lines 3 and 4. And this Clause 52 will not provide for the infringement of certification rights. One must presume that these words were inserted in error. With regard to paragraph (b) of sub-section (1), an applicant for registration is able to specify the goods for which he requires trade-mark cover. Such a specification makes the extent of his rights quite clear. But if these rights extend to “goods of the same description” as laid down in paragraph (b), there would be uncertainty and embarrassment to the trade, because it is generally an open question as to what constitute “goods of the same description”. This is not defined specifically in paragraph (b). Such an uncertain extension of the rights of registration has not ever been felt to be a necessity in order to give a registrant adequate cover. And even if it were of practical advantage to a registrant this would be more than offset by the interests of the trade in general. So this side of the House is in concurrence with the withdrawal of these sub-sections through the hon. the Deputy Minister’s amendments.

Amendments put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Remaining Clauses and Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

House resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

I move—

Before proceeding to explain the object and basic principles of the Bill, it will perhaps be fitting if I just briefly sketch the historical background which gave rise to the position of the State’s film activities as we know them today.

Shortly after the end of the previous world war, the Department of Education, Arts and Science took over the equipment of the Defence Film Unit and gave it to its Film Service to be used in the making of educational films on South African subjects for schools. However, it did not take long before State Departments, which were fully conscious of the mighty influence of the film as a medium of instruction, insisted on the making of films to promote their own activities, for purposes of recruitment, etc. To meet this demand to some extent, the Production Section of the Department’s Film Service had to be extended, both in regard to equipment and staff. To-day the Production Section is known as the State Film Production and it is a full-fledged section of the Department of Education, Arts and Science. This section is housed in Pretoria and at present has a technical staff of 68 and equipment to the value of approximately R500,000. This section renders services gratis to State Departments and Provincial Administrations. Every year approximately 30 documentary films are made, consisting of about 50 reels of ten minutes each, of which 50 per cent consists of films for the classroom. But with the ever increasing need for such films the fact that the State’s Film Service as such is not geared to undertake commercial transactions has become increasingly apparent. The Public Service Acts, its regulations and provisions—like the financial and tender regulations and regulations in regard to the employment of personnel—do not comply with the requirements of an undertaking in connection with which the time factor is of cardinal interest, as, e.g., in the making of films. Film production needs a measure of flexibility which is foreign to the Public Service, but which is accepted practice in commercial undertakings.

The desirability of changing the State Film Production Section into a Film Board has therefore been felt for many years already, and with a view to this the Government brought Mr. John Grierson, a film expert who was responsible for the establishment of the Canadian National Film Board in 1947, from England at Government expense in order to investigate this matter here. His visit did not result in anything concrete, although he advocated the establishment of a board like the one proposed here. But because the Government so thoroughly realized the necessity for a more practical and firm basis for a more effective and economic production of films for Government Departments and State-aided bodies, the then Minister of Finance appointed an inter-departmental committee of inquiry during 1955, under the chairmanship of Dr. F. J. Cilliers, to go into this matter. This committee thoroughly investigated the whole matter of the State’s film activities and, inter alia, came to the following conclusion. In the first place, the committee found that the Film Service of the Department of Education, Arts and Science was not able, with its limited production capacity, to supply all the needs of State Departments, State-aided bodies and Provincial Administrations. The result of this was that various Government Departments established their own production unit, which again led to overlapping and waste, not only waste of money but also waste of the available technical manpower. The De Villiers Committee further found that there was a total lack of proper distribution facilities for films made by the State. They found that these films did not reach the general public of South Africa. Consequently the committee came to the conclusion that it would be in the interest of the State for a reasonable percentage of its films to be produced by the film industry, in order to assist in the development of a sound South African film industry. In its report the committee recommended that a strong central organization under the control of a board should be established by legislation, which could co-ordinate the film activities of the various State Departments, the provinces and State-aided bodies, which would make films itself and could act as a liaison with the film industry in order to have some of these films made, and to obtain the best distribution and exhibition facilities for State films. In terms of the committee’s recommendation, this organization should be an autonomous body with legal personality, and which would have its own funds available and be able to plan ahead; it should be able to budget without being dependent on the normal parliamentary consent.

The object of this Bill is to give effect to the main recommendations of this Committee of Inquiry, namely to establish a National Board which can co-ordinate the film activities and photographic services of Government Departments, the provinces and State-supported bodies, and which can make provisions for the purchase, manufacture, exhibition and distribution of certain films of an informative nature; which will contribute to the development of the film industry in the Republic and which can buy films which have an archival value, collect them, process them and make them available to research workers, film producers and students who are interested in the development of the film as an art form.

The objects in regard to the production of films for State Departments and State-aided bodies, and the requirements which have to be complied with, may be summarized briefly as follows: Firstly, it is the object to produce or to have produced films destined to depict knowledge concerning South Africa, its people, their way of life, culture, traditions and problems. They are produced mainly for the State Information Department and are destined for local as well as overseas exhibition. They are supplied with sound tracks in Afrikaans, English and various European languages. These films therefore have to comply with the highest standards in regard to quality and technique. The second object in regard to the making of these films is to promote tourism. They are made for the Tourist Corporation, and will in future be made for the new Department of Tourism. They are also distributed overseas, and must therefore comply with the highest standards.

Thirdly, we need films to instruct the broad South African public as a whole in connection with specific matters like road safety and nutrition. They must also be of the correct length to fit in with the supporting programmes, and must also obviously be of good quality. Fourthly, the Government wants to have films made to publicize the particular functions and activities of Departments and organizations, inter alia with a view to recruiting personnel for, e.g., the Police, Defence, the Post Office, etc. They must also be of a high technical standard and attractive.

Fifthly, we have to comply with the needs for classroom films which are used as educational aids in our schools. They must conform to the specific curricula of the schools and psychologically they must be such as to be suitable for the school audience concerned. In the sixth place, Mr. Speaker, we need films for research purposes. Phenomena of scientific interest are filmed for further analysis and study. Lastly I may perhaps mention that we need films to record historical and unique happenings for their educational and news value and for posterity.

As you will have inferred from the objects I have stated, Mr. Speaker, a fairly wide field for film production is envisaged. In order to attain all these objectives, use will be made to a large extent of the private film industry in our country. The Bill makes provision for that. Whereas in the past the industry had no share in this specific type of film production of the State, the Bill now provides that some of this work can be entrusted to the industry, through the board. The development of the film industry and of photography in the Republic will therefore greatly benefit from this Bill which is being introduced to-day. The intention is, however, not that the board will give direct support to the film industry of the country, but that it will act as a channel along which an important proportion of the demand of State Departments for the production of films will be canalized to commercial undertakings. The board will co-ordinate and control this aspect of the State’s film requirements by appointing experts in the sphere of film production to ensure that the State receives the best value for its money from these commercial undertakings. Under the present system (with the exception of the films made by the industry for the Department of Information and the South African Railways and Harbours Administration) only about 50 films per annum each of ten minutes’ duration are made for other State Departments by the State’s film production section. The balance of their annual requirements, amounting to about 150 reels, simply has to stand over year after year. The arrangement now proposed will result in greater production at a more reasonable cost. It is expected that when the board is in full swing, which we expect to be in three or four years’ time, only about 40 per cent (i.e. 80 reels) of the State’s total requirements will be manufactured by the State itself. The other 60 per cent, amounting to 120 reels per annum of ten minutes each, will be made by commercial film producers through the agency of the board. In that way State funds will be made available to the growing film industry and indirectly give financial support to up-and-coming film producers, which will considerably strengthen our own film industry.

Whereas in the past the film requirements of the Department were necessarily restricted by the production capacity of the State Film Production Section, the board envisaged by this Bill will on behalf of the Departments be able to make arrangements with the industry to give effect to the needs of every particular Department. The Departments will in future have to negotiate with this Film Board in regard to their requirements. But—and it is important to emphasize this—the Departments themselves will have to make provision in their Estimates for funds to pay for the films made for them through the Film Board. The board’s own production will, however, be limited to a maximum. I may just mention here that the State Department concerned, the Provincial Administrations and the South African Broadcasting Corporation have all been consulted in regard to this matter, and that they are all in agreement with the provisions of the Bill. The only body which raised objections for well-founded reasons is the South African Railways and Harbours Administration, and it is therefore specifically being excluded from the provisions of Clause 11. The Railways has already made its own contacts and we felt that it was not necessary to allow duplication.

In regard to the distribution of these films. I want to say that one of the important aims of this Film Board will be to bring about an improvement in that regard. One of the greatest problems with which the State has to cope is to ensure effective distribution for departmental films which bring matters of State and State policy to the knowledge of the public. From the nature of the matter it is difficult to persuade the distributors of films for entertainment to include in their programmes films of this nature which have little or no entertainment value. Except in exceptional cases, therefore, distribution through the ordinary amusement channels is eliminated, and other machinery has to be created in order to allow these films to reach the broad masses in the country.

In the case of educational classroom films, distribution is done by means of the Department’s section for audiovisual education, but this distribution is to a large extent confined to the schools and other educational institutions of the Republic and South West Africa. The board which is now going to be established will therefore have to concentrate on building up distribution channels in this country which are not exclusively dependent on places of entertainment. The National Film Board of Canada has succeeded in achieving a nation-wide distribution of State films by obtaining the co-operation of cultural organizations, film clubs, study groups, libraries, agricultural clubs, debating societies, etc. I do not think it ought to be difficult to build up a similar distribution organization in this country also. In regard to overseas distribution, there will have to be the closest co-operation with the Departments of Information and Tourism in order to make use of the existing distribution channels. Apart from this, a definite campaign will have to be launched in order to develop new fields. Hon. members who visit the cinemas have frequently seen documentary films depicting Canada, New Zealand and other countries, films which are often welcomed by the cinema-going public. So one asks oneself why documentary films made in South Africa and depicting our natural beauties and way of life cannot also be shown on the screen in those countries. It will be the task of this Film Board to seek such channels for distribution for us abroad.

Apart from the extent to which the private film industry will be used for the production of State films, the Film Board will of course also have to concentrate on making films on its own initiative for inland as well as overseas distribution. In regard to photographic services, the position to-day is such that various State Departments’ functions are of such a nature that they have to have their own photographic service. That is, e.g., the case in the Department of Defence, the South African Police, Trigonometrical Survey, Agriculture and Information. The last-mentioned two Departments do only part of their own photographic work, and the rest of it is done for them by the State Film Production Section. The object of this Bill is not to bring about a change in this present state of affairs, but to make provision for the proper coordination of the State’s photographic requirements and to ensure that unnecessary overlapping does not take place. A central photographic service will be able to do this work much more economically, particularly where it concerns the large-scale production of photographs and diapositives.

I now come to the financing of this Film Board. In so far as the initial running costs of the board are concerned, it is envisaged, as indicated in Clause 14 (1), that the board will be financed by means of interest-carrying loans supplied by the State. It is estimated that an amount of R100,000 will be necessary for this. In addition, loan capital will have to be supplied to the board in order to enable it to take over the existing film equipment of the State Film Production Section and that of other Government Departments, which it will need for the carrying out of its objectives.

For the rest, the board, as indicated in Clause 14 (1) (b) and (c), will be dependent on moneys received for services rendered, contracts entered into or action taken by the board, or on money from other sources. At this stage, Sir, I should just like to give notice of an amendment which I will move in the Committee Stage. I want to draw the attention of hon. members to Clause 3 (1) (b). This clause provides that all five of the persons concerned will serve on the board, but the word “or” in line 43 (of the Afrikaans text) causes doubt in the mind of some persons as to whether that is the intention. Consequently I will move that the paragraph concerned be replaced by the following one—

The law advisers tell me that this “or” really means “and”, but I was not able to understand it and they were then good enough to put it in language which even I could understand.

I now come to the question of the Film Institute, which is also provided for in this Bill. This Bill also provides for the establishment of a Film Institute under the Film Board. Everybody who saw the exhibition of documentary films in Cape Town and in Pretoria will surely agree that this is a very important aspect which we dare not neglect further, and that is where we should preserve our documentary films in this country. The institute which will be established by the Film Board will be responsible for the purchase and acquisition by donation of films of an archival value, and for the restoration, care and preservation thereof to prevent this material being lost to posterity, to research workers, students, etc. As you know, Sir, the life of film is to a large extent dependent on storage under certain definite conditions in regard to humidity and temperature. Nevertheless a stage is reached where such a film deteriorates and even gradually perishes. In such a case it ought to be duplicated timeously so that its contents may be preserved for future use. It is now envisaged that the institute will also make available for research purposes the films in its care. As something depicting history, the film plays a great role in the forming of a nation’s character and traditions, and as such it should be available for exhibition on suitable occasions. Because the proposed Film Board will have available to it specially built storage rooms and equipment for the preservation, restoration and duplication of films, this is the suitable body to which the functions of the proposed Film Institute should be entrusted.

You will agree, Mr. Speaker, that a certain measure of State control is essential in view of the fact that the State is making available considerable sums for film production. Clauses 17, 18, 19 and 20 provide for the necessary measure of State control over the activities of the board.

In regard to the date of commencement of the activities, I may just mention that we intend appointing the Film Board as soon as possible, if this Bill is passed by Parliament, so that it can commence its activities early next year, quite probably towards the beginning of July 1964.

Mr. Speaker, viewed from the educational, the cultural, and we may also say, the industrial, angles, this is a very important undertaking, and I should like to think that it is generally supported by this House.

Just before the Minister sits down, may I ask a question? Will the hon. the Minister please explain in a little more detail what the relationship will be between the Film Board and the existing Department of Information? Will the Film Board in future make all the films for the Department of Information, or will that Department still retain its own rights?

The Department of Information will be treated in the same way as any other Department. It must apply through the Film Board for the making of films. As the hon. member will see, there is an exception in Clause 11, namely that if any Department should desire to make a film otherwise than through the agency of the Film Board it will be necessary for the Minister of that Department to come to an agreement with the Minister of Education, Arts and Science so that the necessary permission may be granted. Except for such a case, all applications by State Departments for the making of films, either by the Film Board itself or by private undertakings, must be canalized through the Film Board; they are the people who have to do the co-ordination. The main object of this Bill is to get that co-ordination so that it will not be necessary for every Department to establish its own film unit.

May I also put a question please? Can the hon. the Minister give us a little more information as to why the Railways have been excluded?

I have said that one of our great problems is to get the correct distribution channels for State-produced films. We are struggling to make them available to the public, both inside this country and overseas. Throughout the years the Railways has succeeded in building up distribution channels for itself here and abroad. It has built up valuable commercial contacts for itself, and we feel that it should be allowed to retain those contact. There are cases where, e.g., they manage to get the aircraft of the S.A. Railways shown in advertisements of other undertakings as the result of their business contacts with them. Our main object is to get the best possible distribution of our films, and whilst the Railways has these contacts and channels and requested us to allow it to continue with them, it was felt that we could comply with that request.

As the Minister stated in his introductory speech this is a most important piece of legislation because it envisages control of an extremely powerful medium for the influencing of public opinion. We have had a very short time to consider this measure. I think we will be better able to study the Bill now that we have had the advantage of hearing the hon. the Minister’s observations about the various provisions and the principles contained in the Bill. I therefore wish to move—

I second.

Agreed to; debate adjourned.

May I ask for the privilege of the half-hour, Sir? Last year when we discussed the Vote of the Minister of Labour we raised several difficulties that people were experiencing. We on this side of the House are very glad to see that some of those difficulties have disappeared; we are grateful for the improvement. We are also glad, for the Minister’s sake, that he does not have to contend with these extreme problems any more. Last year, for example, one of the major subjects we had to discuss was the question of unemployment. The Minister himself had to come to the House with an amendment to the Unemployment Insurance Act in order to save money for the Unemployment Insurance Fund because the drain on that fund had become so serious that it gave reason for concern. That amended Unemployment Insurance Act has now been in force for a year and I think it would be interesting for the House if the Minister gave us a full report of the effects of the amendments. We would know how much money has been saved as a result of the severe restrictions which were placed upon beneficiaries, apart from the savings which must have been effected as a result of the improvement in the employment situation. We shall also be interested to learn from the Minister whether his Department has had any information about hardships caused by the administration of the amended Act. We on this side of the House have certainly had many complaints from people who have suftered as the result of the amendments. The difficulties last year were caused mainly by the reluctance on the part of people who own capital to invest their money in South Africa. People were unwilling to invest their capital in businesses in South Africa in view of the uncertainty at the time which still obtains to a large extent. That has been overcome in part for several reasons. One of them is that various finance institutions have had to reduce their interest rates. This has made it more attractive for people to borrow money and to use it. There is also no doubt that Government expenditure, especially in the Defence Department, as had a stimulating effect upon industry. Finally, there is the natural phenomenon that capital dislikes to be idle. When people have capital available they want to use that money. As capital mounts up there is a tendency on the part of people to suppress their worries and fears and to take risks with their money.

It is the duty of the Opposition to warn the Minister of Labour that he must please not be over-optimistic about the labour situation. All Ministers of Labour in the past, since 1948, have tended to come to Parliament and to give us statistics about the labour position which have not been convincing. Indeed, Sir, we on this side of the House have found that figures given by the Department in respect of the unemployment position are useless and indeed misleading. We know for a fact, in the first instance, that many of our Coloured people who are entitled to register as unemployed do not do so. They prefer to trudge the streets looking for work themselves at factory gates rather than to appeal to the Department of Labour. I do not know why they do so; reasons are given which I do not want to repeat because I think many of them are unfounded. But the fact remains that the statistics available to the Department of Labour on the unemployment position amongst Coloureds and Indians are completely unreliable. We shall show this in the course of our speeches. We know that the unemployment position amongst Indians in Natal is one which is causing profound concern. The estimates I have heard from authoritative sources far exceed the official figures available to the Minister and which he gives to the House in good faith. The time has come that the Department of Labour should accept that the information that they have officially in regard to unemployment among Coloureds and Indians cannot be relied upon at all.

Then we have the fact that we in South Africa do not maintain statistics of unemployment among our Native people. In this connection the findings of the Froneman Commission must have come as a severe shock to us all. I hope the Minister of Labour was duly shocked when he learnt from the report of that commission of the startling incidence of unemployment amongst the Native people of South Africa. It is a difficult position. I know. Whom does one classify as unemployed in the strict sense of the word? The unemployed may be a tribal Native; he may have his roots in the reserve; he may have land in the reserve to which he can return and which may entitle one to say that although he is not in active employment he cannot be regarded as unemployed because he has a form of earning a living in the reserves. The mere fact that that is the position means that a greater number of detribalized Natives are probably not regarded as unemployed although they are, strictly speaking. They are not regarded as unemployed because this Government perseveres in the fiction that all the Bantu people in South Africa are in fact still tribal Natives and that they should still have their roots in the reserves, even if they do not. That fiction confuses the issue. It makes it impossible for us to do clear thinking about the position of the industrial Native in South Africa.

In this connection I must add that it is a pity that the statistics of the Department of Labour do not make it possible for us to determine in which age groups the larger number of unemployed fall. I think if we were able to determine the age groups of most of the unemployed in this country we will find that the situation is most unhappy. From our experience we are sure the Minister will find that the heaviest incidence of unemployment occurs amongst our elderly people, not our old people, but our elderly people of 50 years to 60. We on this side of the House and I am sure hon. members opposite know of hard cases, of men who are physically and mentally fit but who are out of work because they are over 45 and find it impossible to find a job. Employers are nervous of a man who is over 45. They are the people who suffer. I would ask the hon. Minister what special steps has his Department taken to see to it that these willing workers, whom we need in South Africa, are given proper opportunities to be placed in employment? It would seem that there is no special machinery in the Department of Labour to provide for the needs, the dire needs, of people over 45 who are unemployed. You see, Sir, we cannot afford in South Africa that people of skill and people of potential skill, even of 45 and over (these people still have skills or may have skills that can be developed), are wasted; we cannot afford to have them unemployed. There seems to be general agreement amongst all people who think about the economy of South Africa that the dominant retarding factor in the development of our country is not persistently a shortage of capital or the unwillingness of capital to become invested, but it is the shortage of skilled manpower.

Can you suggest anything to persuade the industrialist to adopt that attitude?

I am grateful to see that the hon. member for Vereeniging and I for once worry about the same thing. I am asking the Department of Labour in the first place whether they are aware of this particular problem and secondly, whether they have taken special steps and have taken special measures in order to meet the problem. If they have not, then the Opposition will have, as so often has happened, to think out something and present it to the Government in order to overcome this problem. But first of all, I want to give the hon. Minister a chance to show that he has been thinking about the problem and that he has taken steps.

I was making the point about the shortage of skilled manpower in South Africa. Not long ago the hon. the Prime Minister published some of the findings of his Economic Advisory Council and one of the major findings was that the problem that we in South Africa will have to face in future and have to face at the moment is the problem of the shortage of manpower. Now I am not going to press that advice by the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council. Our experience is that members on the Government side do not attach much importance to advice by reputable economists. So I am rather hoping that it may have some impact upon hon. members opposite if I quote the remarks of people who are actively engaged in industry and business in South Africa to show how serious the shortage of manpower is. I would like to draw the attention of the hon. Minister to the result of a survey recently conducted by the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation. According to the morning Press of 23 April of this year this was the position—

Only in the steel industry a shortage of 2,000 skilled workers! And as our defence programme expands and as further demands are made on our steel industry, every South African must feel profound concern to think that in one industry alone, a key industry, a vital industry, there is a shortage of 2,000 skilled people. That is not all. Look at the position in the building industry. According to a report in the morning Press of 16 February this year, we are told—

“I understand that only 15 apprentices were registered this year, and of these 13 had only passed Std. VI at the age of 16 or over. The average age for this standard is 13 years.”

It was obvious that with the natural wastage, the industry would not be able to continue unless ways were found for attracting suitable apprentices or use was made of Africans already trained by the municipal housing authorities.

Then more generally there was a statement reported in the afternoon Press on 26 February, referring to Dr. M. H. de Kock, the ex-chairman of the Reserve Bank, who said—

Dr. de Kock, speaking at the annual meeting of Federale Volksbeleggings, added that the most important limiting factor in the expansion of South Africa’s economy was shortage of suitably trained people.

Then we had a statement by Mr. D. W. J. C. Visser, a senior psychologist of the Cape Education Department, who said, as reported in the morning Press of 26 April, that there had been an alarming wastage of White manpower in South Africa for years, and very little had been done about it.

So I can go on, Mr. Chairman. I have a stack of quotations here, but I do not want to bore the House. But psychologists, industrialists, economists, all complain that we have a bottleneck and that as the skills and enterprise and the labour of our people combine to advance South Africa, the bottleneck will increasingly be skilled manpower. We want to know what the Government is going to do about it. Can we afford to waste our elderly manpower as is happening to-day in South Africa? Is the Department of Labour fully aware of this shortage of manpower, the need for more skilled labour?

But when I ask whether we can afford to waste our elderly manpower, I am forced to put another question as well, a question which is more tragic: Can we afford to waste the skills and abilities of our youth in South Africa? It grieves me to have to tell the House that in fact there is a shameful wastage of the potential skills of our young people. Again, I cannot state it better than as it has been stated by some of the prominent leaders in the business world and in industry in South Africa. Here is the testimony of Dr. F. J. van Biljon, president of the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce, as reported in the Transvaler on 20 April 1963. This is what he says—

Statistiek dui daarop dat die Bantoe vinnig besig is om sy agterstand by die blanke in te haal.

And then he follows this up with a shocking statement—

We do not make use of the intellectual potential that God has given to us…

The position has improved considerably.

I want to remind the hon. Chief Whip of the party opposite that we are now not talking politics, but we are discussing much more serious matters.

I would also like to draw the attention to a survey conducted by National Institute of Personnel Research, which also reveals a shocking situation, as again reported in the Transvaler of 22 April 1963—

As 5,000 meer blanke mans jaarliks in Suid-Afrika matriek of soortgelyke kwalifikasies behaal, en 3,000 meer blanke mans per jaar genoeg opleiding bekom om toesighoudende of geskoolde werk te verrig, sal dit ’n geweldige verskil aan die samelewing in die land maak.

Die Instituut het vraelyste gestuur aan 11,120 blanke mans tussen die ouderdomme 17 en 20 jaar, wat in 1954 vir militêre opleiding gereigstreer het, en aan 5,157 mans wat nie vir militêre opleiding goedgekeur was nie.

Volgens skatting was sowat 39 persent van die mans in die groep wat nie Std. VIII gehaal het nie, wel daartoe in Staat met meer aanmoediging en moeite.

Dit is bereken dat ’n totaal van sowat 32.5 persent van die groep wat nie matriek of soortgelyke kwalifikasies gehaal het nie, daartoe in Staat was.

And so on, a story of the wastage of the potential skills and abilities and gifts of the youth of South Africa. Sir, are we not reaping our corn while it is still green? Are we not indulging in a form of waste that no country can afford, but least of all this sorely tried nation of South Africa.

Should we not consider whether one of the causes at least—and this where the Department of Labour is directly responsible—for reaping our corn while it is still green, for wasting the potential of our people, is that by various measures for which this Department is responsible, we are creating a false sense of security among our young people? That to me is the great danger of a system—I will call it a system—of action, of thought, known as “job reservation”. That to me is one of its greatest dangers. Through job reservation we are limiting all races in South Africa in their opportunities, limiting them in their potentials, denying to South Africa the abilities of the peoples of South Africa—a shameful state of affairs! I notice that the Garment Workers Union in a statement issued on 15 February, of this year, complains that since job reservation was introduced the number of White workers, White garment workers in the Transvaal, came down from 3,237 in 1960 to 2,936 at the beginning of 1963. In spite of this so-called protection, the number of White workers in this industry is decreasing. The reason is that job reservation works against the interests of White workers in the Transvaal, it works against the interests of factories in the Transvaal; it favours factories in Natal and in the Cape, but especially factories on the borders of the reserves. They have an unfair advantage over factories in the Transvaal where they employ civilized labour and pay civilized wages to their people. The time has come that the hon. Minister of Labour— and not his deputy, I want to hear the hon. Minister himself on this—should tell us what is his Government’s policy to make use of the potential of our Coloured and Indian peoples. After all, in theory at least, the Natives have their homeland: The Xhosas in the Transkei, the Zulus in Zululand and the Vendas in Vendaland, etc. etc. They have opportunities to realize their skills and their potentials. But what about the Coloured people and Indian people? What does the Government do to see that those people are able to give to the full of the potential that God has put into them to this country, this South Africa of ours? What is the Government‘s policy?

Let us look what is happening to the cape Coloured people for example. In this City of Cape Town, there are hundreds of fine monuments to the enterprise of the Cape Coloured people, some of the finest buildings of this city. But from 13 May of this year, seven skilled crafts in the building industry in the Cape have been closed to the Coloured people. What is this? I will tell you what it is. It is nothing but a gratuitious, ineffective insult to the Coloured people of the Cape. Here I have a report from the morning Press on 30 April 1963—

Coloured workers now practising the crafts, however, will be allowed to continue their trades in “White areas”.

How very generous of the Minister! The report continues—

Mr. Bruce Dundas, vice-president of the Master Builders and Allied Trades Association, said: “The building industry offers one of the finest avenues of employment for Coloured men.

The Coloured people need not fear it will ever be possible for Whites to take over their jobs in the building industry. There are just not enough Whites available and the determination soon to come into effect will have little practical effect. It is restricted to certain branches of the trade that have been staffed almost wholly by Whites.

So I say it is a gratuitous insult to hurt the feelings of these loyal South Africans, these Coloured people. What a reflection on the justice of the people in charge of the Government in South Africa! And the reaction of the Coloured people was that it amounted to “slavery”. The quotation goes on—

“Causing worry and unhappiness.” This Minister by the application of job reservation to these seven crafts in the building industry, has been guilty of gratuitously insulting the Coloured people, quite unnecessarily, causing unhappiness and worry and misery in a thousand homes in the western Cape. Quite unnecessary in the circumstances. Unnecessary because South Africa needs the skills of these people, Coloured or not. Look how silly this job reservation system is! It is purely a political gesture, totally ineffective as a protection for the people. I want to come to another report from Durban, which appeared on 23 April 1963—

Although heavy-vehicle driving was work reserved for Whites, the Department of Labour, said a spokesman for the company, had given the company permission in Natal to engage Africans. There is said to be a shortage of 17,000 White drivers in the Province.

Job reservation, but the Minister is forced to grant exemptions and allow Africans to do the work for which no White people are available.

That is a wrong report. There is no reservation in Durban.

Well, the fact remains that there is a shortage. The fact remains that in many industries, the hon. Minister has to give exemptions. The hon. Minister knows it. He knows that there are very many complaints from people who say: This type of work is reserved for Whites only; give us the White people; we simply cannot get them. I want to repeat that we cannot afford in South Africa to deny people the opportunity of using their potential skills. I have heard from a very good source that at Hammarsdale people are employed to do building work on the new border factories and that they are paid 25 per cent of the wages paid to White people in the established industrial areas. Is this the intention of job reservation? To reserve jobs for White people in the existing industrial areas and then to see that future jobs are created on the borders of the reserves where there is no job reservation, and no rate for the job so that eventually only non-existent jobs will be reserved in White industrial areas for Whites? Job reservation is no protection. The only effectual protection is the rate for the job. That fundamentally is still the only protection for all the workers, irrespective of race in this country.

I want to know from the hon. Minister how his Department intends to overcome this problem they have, this problem of the shortage of skilled labour in South Africa. At the moment immigration is still tragically inadequate. I cannot go into detail, because that falls under the next vote. But it is a fact that although immigration has slightly increased, and compared to what the Government did in the past, it has dramatically increased, it is still hopelessly inadequate for the needs of South Africa. And even if all the White people in South Africa were to be trained to the limit of their skills, as all of us would like to see, it still would not be enough to fill the real needs of South Africa in respect of skilled labour, and to enable us to expand to the limit of our capacity. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) was true to form to-day; he once again made a big fuss about problems to which attention has been drawn repeatedly and in connection with which there have been appeals to people to co-operate in combating those problems. He began by referring to the Indians and the Coloureds who do not register with the Labour Bureaux. We admit that fact, to a degree. However, I should like to ask him whether he now wants the Minister and his Department to take the “Bergies” in Table Mountain from the bushes and drive them to the Labour Bureaux to have themselves registered, or does he want the Department of Labour to take the Indians, who are living in their thousands in the bushes around Durban, out of the bushes and get them to register themselves? Is it the task of the Department of Labour to drive the people with a whip to the Labour Bureaux to be registered? The Department is there to provide employment for the people who want to register. It is the task of the Department of Labour. The hon. member has referred to people 45 years of age and older. Now I happen to be one of those who have repeatedly pleaded in this House for those people of more than 45 years of age, and I have pointed out the difficulties in the way of getting these people employed. The Government has already done very much. Steps have been taken to raise the age limit in the Public Service, in the Railways, etc., and last year again in the Defence Force the age was raised to enable us to make use of these people. But there are certain problems and I wish to point out that even when Mr. Schoeman was Minister of Labour, and when Mr. de Klerk was Minister of Labour, appeals were made to employers to employ the older men and to retain them in employment. But there are certain difficulties in this regard, and one of the greatest difficulties is the question of pension funds, in view of the provision in regard to the pension funds that people cannot contribute to pension funds after they have reached the age of 45 years. That is one of the great obstacles, this provision in the regulations in respect of the pension funds, that people above the age of 45 years can no longer contribute to a pension fund. That is a very great objection. But I know the Government is sympathetically disposed to the matter. The hon. member has also elaborated upon the shortage of skilled labour and technicians. I want to tell him that we are equally concerned about that. In the course of the present Session a motion was proposed by the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) in which he drew the attention of the House to that matter, and efforts have been made in this regard. The hon. member refers to one-quarter of the high school pupils who can matriculate but who have not matriculated. He blames the Government for that. I think responsible people in this country have year after year, particularly during recent years, appealed to parents to keep their children at school, and the present Government has had great success in increasing the number of high school scholars. I should like to mention some figures. In 1948 there were 123,513 scholars in our high schools and that number had already increased in 1961 to 232,230; while the number of pupils in the primary schools has increased by 52.15 per cent, the number of high school scholars has increased during the last 12 years by 96.1 per cent. I think a very great effort has been made particularly by putting up more high schools in the Transvaal, etc., so that the scholars remained at school. Reducing the age of admission to high schools also contributed to it. But much more can be done in this regard. However, I should like to point out further what more has been done to encourage people to qualify themselves. Take the matter of bursaries. Do you know that since 1956 the Government has instituted bursary schemes in the Public Service firstly, and that 1,600 public servants have already received bursaries to qualify themselves technically. They have been given the opportunity to study. 1,323 agricultural bursaries have already been granted; 302 bursaries have been granted to railway people. The C.S.I.R. has, with the aid of funds from the Government, awarded 910 bursaries and since 1956 the Government has also made funds available to universities, and since that year R464,000 has been made available for bursaries to enable people to undergo technical training.

Then the hon. member has also dwelt upon job reservation and the Coloured people. I want to say at once that the hon. member’s facts in this regard are completely wrong. In any event, he represents it in such a way that it does not give a picture of realities. The job reservation determinations provide in the first place that the Coloured building workers who have qualified themselves to-day, may continue and no reservation is applied to them. Similarly also the apprentices already registered. Moreover, job reservation provides that it applies to only certain areas, only the larger cities. Outside the big cities it does not apply at all.

The White man in the rural areas has no protection at all.

Next it provides that job reservation is not applicable to a group area for Coloureds in the Cape or to a group area for Indians in Durban. Let us now take the opportunities being created by the Government for Coloureds at the present time. Do you know that at the present time many opportunities for Coloured workers have been created within the metropolitan areas which have been mentioned, for which the Coloured workers are eligible and may be registered? I wish to explain that the Government is engaged upon great housing schemes for the Coloureds in the Cape. There is a shortage of 50,000 dwellings for Coloureds alone, and for Indians alone there is a shortage of 30,000 dwellings. Those dwellings have to be built with Coloured labour in the Coloured areas. The Housing Commission is spending R7,000,000 annually on Coloured housing in the Cape alone, and the Coloureds are building them. Those are only the dwellings, but think of all the other public buildings such as schools and churches that must be built. That shows there are sufficient opportunities for employment. To try to create the impression that we are depriving the Coloureds of work, surely is wrong.

Take another fact. There is the Garden Cities Utility Company which laid out Pinelands. They have now received approval for the establishment of a Coloured township here comprising 3,000 dwellings. We have given the Bantu an opportunity to build their own housing schemes, and the same thing is being done for the Coloureds. In other words, to create the impression that the Government is taking away work from the Coloured people is wrong. [Time limit.]

I was asking what the Minister’s plans are to overcome the shortage of skilled labour. The hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. van der Walt) seemed to indicate that my major attack was on job reservation, but my attack was that we would like to see some drive on the part of the Minister and his Department to overcome the shortage of skilled labour, and job reservation is only one aspect of it. The hon. member reminds me of the simple woman who had an illegitimate child and when the minister reproached her for the sin she had committed she said that it was only a tiny baby. In spite of the opportunities for work given to the Coloured people, it remains wrong to deny them the right to use their skills in the service of the only country they know. I do not agree with it, but in the case of the Black people my friends opposite can argue that they will have their own country. But the Coloureds and the Indians have to live here and we are denying them the right to use their potential skills to build up South Africa, and that is the point the hon. member did not even attempt to answer. How can the Minister overcome this problem? It is quite clear that immigration cannot solve the problem, and even if all the White people in this country were trained we should not solve it. It is clear that we shall have to use the labour resources of South Africa properly and make available to South Africa the skills of its people, which this Government not only fails to do but prohibits. If we could really combine the potential of the people of this country, there is no limit to this country. We could then set an example to the whole of Africa. We could become the industrial and economic leader of the whole of Africa, but we are denying that by our own bigotry. We should accept as our simple principle that our people should be given the right to put their potential at the disposal of their fatherland. I am not alone in saying this. Some of the most surprising people agree with the United Party. Here I have a report in the Star of 23 April of a speech made by Dr. C. R. Louw, the chairman of Trust Bank—

Personally, I think that is a misprint, but he is reported to have said this—

I can only say it is impossible for anyone to state the attitude of this side of the House more clearly than Dr. Louw did.

But of course people must be protected against unfair competition. People with a higher standard of living must be protected against competition from people with a lower standard of living, but the answer to that is not job reservation. The answer to it is the measure adopted by all civilized states throughout the world as far as I know, and that is the principle of paying the rate for the job, which prohibits the employer from employing a man at a lower wage when he is willing to work for a lower wage because he has a lower standard of living. Everywhere else in the world it works, but in South Africa for some peculiar reason is said not to work. But the history of this country shows that it does work. Nowhere in South Africa have non-Whites displaced Whites from work, but the non-Whites have created work for all other races, and that is reciprocally true of all races. Work begets work.

Then I think the Minister should consider whether the time has not arrived when the privileges of learning the advantages of collective bargaining should not be extended to the other races. I have not the time to go into this, but the hon. member for Umhlatuzana (Mr. Eaton), who was unfortunately prevented by illness from being here to-day, on a previous occasion put out suggestions to the Minister. We admit that most of the Black people in this country are too primitive to conduct collective bargaining, but the existing trade unions, with their vast experience, should be encouraged to include the interests of the Native workers in the representations they make, and there should even be a system of affiliated membership with the existing trade unions so that the Black people can gain experience. In advocating this course, I want to warn the Government that it is necessary that we in South Africa should train our Bantu in this art of collective bargaining, because if the Government’s policy is to come to fruition the time is not far distant when nothing the Government can do will stop the Bantu of the Transkei from forming trade unions and claiming for themselves the right to conduct collective bargaining. Unless we start training them now, they will exercise those rights without the necessary experience and responsibility, and it will result in chaos and misery, and nobody will be to blame except this Government which denies those people the opportunity to be properly trained.

What are you pleading for now?

I will repeat it, because unless I do so I will be misrepresented again. I am pleading that the existing trade unions, who are amongst some of the finest in the Western world, should be encouraged to take the Native workers under their wing, as is happening in the steel industry to-day, with very excellent results.

Order! The hon. member is now advocating legislation.

I apologize, but if I may not plead for it, I may put a question on the subject, and I want to ask the Minister whether he has ever considered the need for such a step. I want to say that if only we would change our attitude to the human resources of South Africa, we can change the outlook for South Africa completely, not only industrially but also politically. This Government has a wonderful opportunity; yet they are locking the door on that opportunity. The Minister has the key to that door. This Minister in his past life knew better. He had wonderful opportunities to learn wisdom. I can only hope that he will impart some of that wisdom to the other side of the House, to moderate some of the follies he is compelled to administer to-day. [Time limit.]

There can be only one fundamental reason when official recognition is sought for Bantu trade unions.

I did not ask for it.

I was not referring to the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn). I merely said that there can be only one fundamental reason when official recognition of Bantu trade unions is asked for, and that is that the Bantu have no effective champion for better wages and conditions of employment in South Africa. Now it is strange that the hon. member raised this matter at this stage when everybody in the country must admit that the Bantu have an effective champion for their interests in the Central Bantu Labour Bureau. For the past four years, from 1959 to 1962, wage increases have been brought about in this manner for 514,000 Bantu workers, amounting to nearly R23,000,000 I say it is peculiar that we should have to receive these representations when the Wage Board which has been established to look after the interests of the unorganized workers in industry, has had its working capacity doubled by legislation, and that during the last five years 60 determinations have been made by the Wage Board, affecting 203,000 Bantu workers, and which mean millions of rand for the Bantu workers.

The hon. member for Yeoville has also referred to the many complaints received from contributors to the Unemployment Benefit Fund as a result of the amendments passed here last year. The position is that the Minister has stated during this year, in reply to questions from the other side, that the complaints received emanated from persons who have left the labour market and no longer qualify for benefits because they did not work for the minimum of 13 weeks now required. In most of the cases the complainants received the benefits on various occasions during the period of 26 weeks in the preceding period of 52 weeks. Their complaints now were that it is not their fault that they have attained an advanced age or have become chronic sick persons. The hon. member for Yeoville knows as well as I do that the primary purpose of the funds has always been to pay unemployment benefits to contributors who are suitable to be employed and available for employment, while they are unemployed and are looking for employment. In other words, the object of the fund was never to pay a pension to people who have left the labour market. Even with the introduction of the sickness allowance in 1952, the then Minister of Labour, Mr. Schoeman, stated very emphatically that we did not intend establishing a scheme to pay sick benefits; it is a matter that should fall under a scheme of national health insurance. In other words, the people who have complaints, are people who simply cannot be assisted, because the fund was never intended to help those people.

The hon. member for Yeoville has said that the rate for the job is the only effective safeguard for the Whites. But when we read the report of the Industrial Tribunal on the building industry in the Cape Province and Natal, we find that this so-called safeguard has nowhere stopped the ousting of the Whites in that industry in these two provinces. On the contrary, the same principle which has been lauded by the hon. member for Yeoville as a safeguard for the Whites, was really a crowbar used to oust the White man out of this industry. That is revealed very clearly. I do not know whether the hon. member has read the report, but there is the evidence of the Durban Branch of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers. That is a society which is opposed to job reservation, but what does their Durban branch say—

That is understandable, for the simple reason-that the White artisan usually receives more than the minimum wage, while only the minimum is paid to the non-Whites, who are able to eke out a living on that, but on which the White man with his higher standard of living cannot do so. But the position of the White worker is undermined still more because dishonest employers pay to non-White artisans even less than the minimum wage. Evidence was given in this regard by White workers before the Industrial Tribunal. They said this—

That is on page 16 of the report. This evidence, is corroborated also by the Industrial Council of Natal in their evidence, where they said this—

But what happened in Kimberley, where the principle of the rate for the job prevailed? If the hon. member for Yeoville had read the report of the Industrial Tribunal on the building industry, he would have known that they said this—

The building industry in Kimberley at the present time is wholly dependent upon the Coloured artisan. What has happened here in the western Cape in the building industry, where the Whites constitute only 25 per cent? This very remedy the hon. member for Yeoville wanted to suggest as a sufficient safeguard for the White workers, namely equal wages for equal work, has forced the White worker in the position that to-day he constitutes 25 per cent of the building industry. What objection has the Opposition to these 25 per cent Whites being protected in their industry? [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, may I ask for the privilege of the second half hour? I should like to discuss the Government’s policy with regard to job reservation as it affects the Coloured people. I do so in the knowledge that the present Minister of Labour is a fair-minded man who will consider these representations and will not be unduly influenced by some of the regrettable speeches made by other hon. members. This matter of job reservation is one of paramount importance as far as the Coloured people are concerned. I cannot speak too strongly of the great frustration and fears which exist in the minds of the Coloured people about their future in this country, the only one they know, if a halt is not called to this unfortunate policy of job reservation.

It is their safeguard against the Bantu.

It undermines their very economic existence. There can be no gainsaying the fact that job reservation is causing a great deal of dissatisfaction and antagonism amongst the Coloureds. Protests have been made by most of the Coloured organizations throughout the country, and particularly the Cape, against job reservation. It is claimed that job reservation not only deprives members of the Coloured community from following the trades and occupations which were traditionally theirs down the corridors of the years, but it is also having the effect—and I am speaking of cases brought to my personal knowledge—of virtually closing a large number of avenues to the Coloured people for obtaining employment in competition with the White man. Coloured leaders claim, and I support it, that it is morally wrong to protect the inefficient White worker and creating what is really a monopoly of employment for him at the expense of the Coloured worker, who in many instances has an equal or better education and is more skilled than the White person receiving this protection. Sir, I repeat that this policy of job reservation is of paramount importance to the Coloured people. The Minister will appreciate the absolute despair facing young people who have reached school-leaving age and who of necessity have to embark on some form of trade or occupation to supplement the meagre earnings of their family. What opportunities exist for these young Coloured men? They are very few indeed. Can one imagine anything more frustrating to a young boy, who having passed Std. VII, or even some higher standard, is told that the Government will not allow him to follow a trade or occupation of his own choosing? Can one imagine anything more likely to build up in that young mind a bitterness and a resentment which he can never get rid of? What hope can there be of establishing good relations between that young boy, who may one day be a leader of his people, and the White citizens of the country? I say with absolute authority, from personal knowledge that I have of the Coloured people, that this policy of job reservation is creating the greatest resentment on the part of the Coloureds. It has the effect of depriving many of them of employment in trades which were traditionally theirs for generations and for which they are only suitable.

But this criticism is not only voiced by Coloured people’s organizations. There are many White leaders of trade and industry in South Africa who support the criticisms levelled against the Government in respect of job reservation. White leaders of industry also feel strongly on the subject. Their sense of justice compels them to protest time and again against job reservation. These White people also claim that there is no justification on moral or economic grounds for such a policy. I should like to refer the Minister to a speech made two days ago by the president of the Cape Chamber of Industries at a luncheon given by the Canadian and South African Business Men’s Club in Cape Town, in which he said this—

He went on to say that as far as job reservation in the western Cape was concerned, it was a purely political innovation with no justification. I entirely support that point of view. I say that job reservation in the western Cape as applied to the Coloureds cannot be defended on any moral grounds, and it is purely for political reasons that this policy was adopted by the Government. The President then went on to say this—

I would like to say immediately that I am dealing now with the Coloured people who are citizens of this country and whose case has been pleaded by us from these benches session after session during the lifetime of this Government. I want to say that my colleague and I associate ourselves wholeheartedly with the views expressed by the president of the Cape Chamber of Industries. I feel most strongly that there is no moral justification whatsoever for this political innovation of job reservation, and I would appeal to the hon. the Minister to review this policy. He can do so with a great deal of credit upon himself and a great deal of credit upon the Government. I appeal to him to review this policy. I say that the upliftment of this obnoxious job reservation determination would not only be well received by our Coloured citizens but would win for us a tremendous amount of goodwill in the outside world, and nobody knows better than the hon. the Minister himself how much we in this country need the goodwill of the outside world. I agree entirely with the president of the Chamber of Industries when he claimed that the granting of a new deal to our Coloured people in respect of their working scope would relieve our country of a great amount of adverse criticism which we are receiving from the outside world. After all, all we are asking the hon. the Minister is to give to these Coloured citizens, who are South Africans in every sense of the word, the same level of protection that we are giving to the White citizens of this country. There seems to be no reason at all on any moral grounds why there should be a differentiation against the Coloured people as compared with the Whites. I say it is morally wrong to give this protection to the White people with a total disregard of the rights and privileges of the Coloured people who have been brought up in these industries and who have been traditionally employed in them for generations in the Cape. Sir, this appeal for the upliftment of the job reservation policy has also come by means of an unanimous resolution from the body known as the Council for Coloured Affairs. The Government have on many occasions indicated in this House that the Council for Coloured Affairs is the only real body of Coloured opinion from whom they take any advice and whose opinions they respect. I would remind the hon. the Minister that a unanimous resolution was passed a short while ago by this Council for Coloured Affairs, pleading with the Government to dispense with the policy of job reservation and race classification in industry and trade. Sir, I repeat that this body is the one official body that is recognized by the Government in its approach to Coloured Affairs, and I suggest that the hon. the Minister might very well attach some weight to the views expressed by this body.

Having dealt in general terms with this obnoxious policy of job reservation, I want to deal specifically with the hon. the Minister’s latest determination with regard to the building industry in the Western Province. Those of us who take any interest at all in Coloured Affairs in this area were shocked to hear that the hon. the Minister, by a determination dated the 9th November, 1962, had introduced job reservation in the building industry in the Cape area. I want to refer particularly to the portion of the determination which deals with the Cape, Wynberg, Simonstown, Bellville, Paarl, Wellington, Stellenbosch, Somerset West and Worcester in relation to the building trade. The hon. the Minister’s determination laid down that work normally performed by skilled artisans in stone masonry, marble masonry, joinery in workshops, wood-machining in workshops, electrical wiring, letter cutting and stone decorating, etc., will now be reserved for White persons, and that no person who is not a White person shall perform such work, provided that those already employed in those industries in the areas mentioned shall not be affected. Sir, this has had a most serious effect not only upon the Coloured people of this province but also among the White leaders of industry in this province. I think it is necessary for me to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention to a portion of the evidence which was given before the Tribunal in relation to the state of affairs in the building industry before this determination was made. I would remind the hon. the Minister, in the words of one of the witnesses who gave evidence before this Tribunal, “that since 1922 peace had reigned in the industry. This was due to the spirit of cooperation between the races at all levels. All problems had been discussed and settled on the basis of what would be the best for the industry and its employees. No racial conflict had ever entered into the picture Sir, this statement, in a concise form, was made by the leader of the building industry who spoke on behalf of the employers’ section when giving evidence before the Tribunal. He said that since 1922 peace had reigned in the industry; that there had been no racial disputes between employers and employees and between employees and employees on racial grounds and that everything was settled on the basis of what was best for the industry and its employees. Then we find that suddenly the Minister sets up this Tribunal. In replying to a question which was put to him by my colleague, the hon. member for Boland (Mr. Barnett), who asked him at whose request the Industrial Tribunal was set up to inquire into job reservation in the building industry, the hon. the Minister replied that if it was in respect of the Western Cape that the information was sought, the request came from the S.A. Operative Masons Society who specifically asked for work reservation in the Western Cape and from the S.A. Electrical Workers Association who had asked for protection for the Whites in the Cape. Sir, it might have been justifiable for the hon. the Minister to have inquired into the scope of work affecting these two organizations who asked for the setting up of this Tribunal, but I suggest to the hon. the Minister quite seriously that there was no general request on the part of the building industry for an investigation into the building industry as such, and in support of that contention I want to submit to the Minister some of the evidence that was given before that Tribunal by individuals who represent members of the council on the employers’ side as well as representatives of the employees. One of the members of the council representing the building industry, Mr. Posener, indicated to the Tribunal that he was speaking on behalf of the employers’ side of the Industrial Council; that he was speaking on behalf of the Master Builders Associations for the Cape Peninsula and the Boland but not on behalf of the Worcester Master Builders who would be presenting their own case. But generally speaking he spoke on behalf of these important bodies which I have just mentioned, the Master Builders Association for the Cape Peninsula and the Boland. He went on to say this—

It must be remembered that the Chairman of the Tribunal had indicated at the outset that the terms of reference of the Tribunal were to investigate whether as the result of interacial competition the White workers in the building industry in the Cape needed protection. This spokesman on behalf of the employers went on to say that they had tried to investigate this aspect as carefully as they could and they had come to the conclusion that there was no interacial competition whatsoever to justify any protection being given to any section. They went on to say that they had tried to establish where competition might exist between European and non-European workers, and then they asked this rhetorical question—

Therefore the monetary aspect did not arise. They then went on to say—

There again, Sir, there was no interacial competition, bearing in mind the fact that the vast majority of employers were White and that they would naturally lean towards employing White people—

Sir, this was not due to any fault of the Coloured man; it was not due to any intrusion made by the Coloured man upon the White man’s preserve—

I want to emphasize this aspect. This spokesman of the employers’ organization said that whenever White labour was available it was fully utilized—

Mr. Posener quoted population figures which showed that the rate of increase in population in the Coloured group in the Peninsula between 1946 and 1960 was 2½ times as great as the rate of increase in the Whites. Therefore it was obvious that more Coloured employees were becoming available than Whites. There had been a boom and great expansion in the industry in the post-war years and the White labour had not been available to fill the hundreds of vacancies. Coloured labour had been engaged in their stead. The only White artisans available had been those coming in from the platteland and it had been found that their standard of work and training had been far below that of the artisan trained in the Peninsula. However, all White labour which was available had been engaged.

The competition factor did exist, but not between races in the building industry, but between the building industry and outside employers such as the Public Works Department, local authorities, the South African Railways and Harbours, building societies, etc. These bodies recruited their building artisans in great numbers from the industry. They employ White artisans exclusively and this had been a major cause of the diminishing of the number of White artisans in the industry. It had not been possible to secure White labour to replace these artisans and the employers had turned to the Coloured labour force. This was not a case of displacement of White by Coloured, but the voluntary departure of White artisans.

[Laughter.] My hon. friend over there laughs. This evidence was given before the Tribunal by a spokesman of the Employers’ Organization, who went on to say that the employers in the industry were faced by a chronic shortage of White labour. They tried to keep the supervisory jobs in the hands of the Whites —we all know that; the Coloured people know that and they accept that—

Throughout the whole of the evidence of the Employers’ Organization it was strongly stressed that there was no question of White labour being displaced but rather that it was impossible to obtain White labour and that of necessity the industry was obliged to engage Coloured labour in this industry which has in fact been the prerogative of the Coloured man throughout generations. Mr. Posener went on to say that he could state unequivocally that no job dilution had taken place in the building industry in the Cape and that there had therefore been no interacial competition due to job dilution. He said that the Industrial Council made very sure that no dilution took place. He went on to say—

As far as I am concerned I am confining my remarks here this afternoon to the position obtaining in the Cape. Let me quote again—

Sir, why the White worker should be protected and no protection should be afforded to the Coloured people is something which is beyond me, but even accepting that it was the fundamental job of this tribunal to protect the White worker I say that the decision which was taken by the tribunal was against the weight of evidence, against the volume of representations made to it not only by the employees but by the employers, the very people who engage White and non-White labour. Mr. Posener went on to say—

With the closing of the doors to the Coloureds in the Transvaal and O.F.S., the Cape was one of the few places where the Coloured could attain artisan status, and he felt it would be most regrettable if their entry to the trade in this area should be restricted in any way. As it is, the building industry was one of the few industries which accepted Coloured youths as apprentices and the closing of this door would have a disastrous effect on a great number of Coloureds in the Cape.

May I say here that there was no evidence to the contrary, and despite this evidence and despite the substantial volume of representations made to it, the Tribunal, by a majority decision, decided to recommend the imposition of job reservation in favour of the White workers. Mr. Posener went on to say this—

In conclusion, Mr. Posener said he would like to inform the Tribunal that the Master Builders Associations of Cape Town and the Boland were unanimously opposed to the enforcement of job reservation in any form in the building industry. He went on to say—

Sir, I cannot for the life of me see how in the face of this evidence—and I have only given a very brief resumé of the large volume of evidence that was given before the Tribunal, how this Tribunal could come to the conclusion that it was necessary to take special steps to protect the White artisans against Coloured artisans. That recommendation was contained in the majority report of the Tribunal. I say that any fair-minded man receiving these representations and hearing the evidence which was led before the Tribunal, could only have come to one conclusion and that is that job reservation in the building industry was not justified in the light of the circumstances which obtained at the time. I want to remind you, Sir, that peace had reigned in this industry since 1922; there existed a spirit of co-operation between the races at all levels; all problems of any kind had been discussed and settled on the basis of what would be best in the interests of the industry and in the interests of the employees. There had never been any racial conflict, and despite this evidence we find that the Tribunal recommended to the hon. the Minister the imposition of job reservation in the building industry. Then we have the evidence of Mr. Briggs who is also one of the leaders in the industry and who supported his colleague whose evidence I quoted a moment ago. Let me quote what he said—

I want to pause here for a moment and say that my colleagues and I support entirely the views expressed by Mr. Briggs before this Tribunal when he said that if job reservation had to be embarked upon as a policy, then it must be viewed in the light of what is good for the welfare of the State and for the welfare of all its citizens. Sir, the Coloureds are part and parcel of the citizens of South Africa and I suggest that they are also entitled to protection. [Time limit.]

The Coloured Affairs Vote still has to be dealt with and I do not think it is relevant here to explain in general terms what the Government has already done and is doing for the Coloureds. In recent times it has become very clear that the Coloured representatives and the United Party are bidding against the Progressives as regards the Coloureds. It seems to me the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) has stampeded them completely. Nobody in South Africa has the right to come along with higher bids as far as the non-Whites are concerned.

Why lower the level of the debate?

The hon. member states that the Coloureds are concerned about their future as a result of job reservation. I think the Coloureds are the very people who have no reason to be concerned about their future in consequence of job reservation. Then the hon. member says there is immense dissatisfaction among the Coloureds, a statement which is just as sweeping as that made a while ago by the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) whose allegations were effectively refuted by the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) by reference to the Industrial Report. Why should the Coloured people be dissatisfied when the Whites are protected by job reservation? When we analyse the facts we find that we are faced with the position, particularly here in the western Cape and indeed in the whole of the Cape Province, that the Coloured population is much bigger than the White population. We have the further fact that the Coloureds have ousted the Whites from a number of industries and are squeezing them out completely. Why should those people be dissatisfied when the White man protects himself? I disagree with the hon. member. I think the Coloureds too have reason to be thankful to the Government for the introduction of job reservation. I should like to mention to the hon. member a few industries in which the Coloureds have been ousted completely by the Bantu. The Coloureds have been squeezed out of a number of industries in the western Cape. Mr. Chairman, last week, under the Bantu Administration and Development Vote, the question of the removal of the Bantu from the western Cape was raised. The United Party opposed it. They moved an amendment—and there was a division on it—that the hon. the Minister’s salary be reduced, because, among other things, he wishes to remove the Bantu from the western Cape. Where were the Coloured Representatives then? Why did they not on that occasion raise their voices in this House in the interests of the Coloureds? They did not have the courage to come and vote; they stayed away. They were not concerned about the Coloureds then. Job reservation was never intended to protect the Whites only. Job reservation was designed to protect all racial groups, and I believe the Coloureds are just as grateful to this Government as the White man, because the Coloureds have been ousted by the Bantu here in the western Cape from a number of industries, and I should like to mention a few. The Coloureds have been ousted completely from the dairy industry, until the ’forties, the western Cape was supplied with milk by Coloured delivery boys, but they have been ousted from that industry by the Bantu. The Coloureds in this area have also been ousted from the hotel industry.

Are you aware that the Coloureds no longer want to be milk delivery boys?

No, that is only what they are being told by the Coloured representatives. There are still many farms on which Coloureds are employed. There are dairies employing Coloureds as delivery boys. That is a story which the United Party is fabricating to support their argument that the Bantu should be permitted to remain here. Mr. Chairman, I say the Coloureds have been ousted from the hotel industry. And do you know what I find so strange? When you go to the borders of the Transkei and to certain parts of the Eastern Province, you find Coloured workers in numerous hotels. They say there that the Coloureds are better workers in the hotel industry than the Bantu, but here in the western Cape, as a result of United Party stories and stories by the Coloured representatives that the Coloureds are not good hotel employees, the Coloureds have been squeezed out of the hotel industry. But let us take the motor service stations. What is the position there? A few years ago they were all staffed by Coloureds. What do we find to-day? Only here and there do we find a Coloured attendant at motor service stations. Let me tell you, Sir, that I do not have my tank filled at motor service stations where there are Bantu attendants. I take petrol at those stations where Coloureds are employed. The Coloured person is equally good and equally reliable. Those are two of the most remunerative industries in the western Cape—the hotel industry and service stations—because the people there receive tips. They receive much more in the form of tips than in the form of wages, and this remunerative work is being done at the present time by the Bantu here in the western Cape. The hon. member for Peninsula tells us the Coloureds are dissatisfied because they are worried about their future. I say that that is nothing but an attempt to incite people against this Government. If ever there was a time when the Coloureds had cause to be satisfied—I concede that one is never satisfied but sometimes one does have cause to be grateful—then the Coloureds at the present time have cause to be grateful to this Government who has opened doors to them which were never open to them before. As the hon. member for Peninsula knows, there are numerous posts in the Department of Coloured Affairs which are occupied by Coloureds.

They are back doors.

Here we now have a Coloured representative who says that the doors being opened by a Department of State for the Coloureds are back doors. I think the hon. member ought to be ashamed of himself. [Time limit.]

I want to limit my remarks to the Unemployment Insurance Fund. Last year the hon. the Minister said that the Unemployment Insurance Fund was not intended to provide assistance to the chronically sick or the aged; he said that such people could be assisted from other sources such as the Department of Social Welfare. If these people are chronically ill or disabled and cannot work I have no quarrel with the Minister in that regard. But where I join issue with him is in regard to those men who are not chronically ill or disabled and are able to work. There are many men in my area who have been pensioned off from the mines (the mines pension scheme is still young and does not offer complete security to older men who have had to retire either because they were too old or because they had contracted pneumoconiosis in the early stages) and find it difficult to get other jobs. The mines have always been first-class employers and have given these men surface jobs but these jobs are, of course, limited in number. Most of these men, when they left the mines, were absorbed in the engineering shops on the East Rand but they were quite naturally the first ones to be put off when business was slack. I maintain that it is at such a stage that the Minister and his Department should step in and endeavour to help. That is what the Unemployment Benefit Fund is there for but what do we find? The amendments effected to the Unemployment Insurance Act last year to all intents and purposes took away this source of assistance to these men; it took it away to a large degree in any case, and they have certainly brought about a great deal of distress and unhappiness. When I refer to older men they are really men who are still in the prime of life. They get no help from any other sources. They do not fall within the purview of the Social Health Department either because they have a pension or because they have saved their money and bought themselves a house and are now subjected to the means test. I am not criticizing that but these men are still able to work and I maintain that if they are able to work they are the responsibility of the Department of Labour.

I want to examine how this Minister treats these men, men who have been good citizens, men who want work and who do not want charity. Some months ago a petition was sent from my area signed by 30 men who live between Benoni and Springs protesting against the proposed amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act last year. They have handed me a copy of the reply which they got which reads—

That was that. It may be because of the fact that every name on that list was English that the Minister did not attend to their problem. What did the Minister do about this particular class of men? In reply to a question put by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) concerning the Unemployment Insurance Act he referred to people who were out of the labour market. I want the Minister to tell us whether or not he considers (a) men who are regarded too old to be employed in clerical positions or because they do not qualify for pensions schemes and (b) all men who are a bit older than those, but are still fully capable of being employed, to be his responsibility. If they are not his responsibility and if they are not the responsibility of the Department of Social Welfare I should like to know whose responsibility they are? I appreciate the fact that things are not as bad as they were some months ago but employment is always on the up-grade or on the down-grade and when it is on the down-grade the older men are the first to have their employment terminated. If the Minister is going to tell me that such a man should not and does not fall under the purview of his Department, I will see to it that those people know what his views are. As the mines close down in my area, and this is also the Minister’s area, this problem is going to get worse and worse. We are going to find more men being put off by the mines at an age where it is not easy for them to find another job although they are still fully capable of working and the Minister should tell us whether or not he considers them his responsibility. If he does not consider them his responsibility we shall have to consider what pressure we can exert on the Government as an Opposition to do something in regard to this problem.

I should like to remind the Minister that these are men who know him personally, men who probably worked for him before he changed his political colours. I want now to refer to the Unemployment Insurance Fund. According to the Auditor-General’s report the Unemployment Insurance Fund has been getting into serious difficulties. The last time there was an excess was in 1956 and it amounted to £988,000. This turned into a deficit of R9,800,000 in 1961. In 1961-2 the total benefits paid was £16,000,000 as opposed to 1956 when it was £5,000,000, which is a tremendous increase. A large portion of the deficit between costs plus payments out and receipts is of course made up by interest on invested capital which amounts at present to R125,000,000. The overall deficit for 1961 was R5,782,000 after crediting the interest, whereas the actual deficit of payments over contributions was R9,800,000. I accept that there should have been a tightening up in some form or other but I think the Minister will have to rethink. I am not advocating any legislation or anything like that but I think the time has arrived that the contributions from employers and employees should be increased. Seeing that the Government has consistently ignored our demand for a contributory pension scheme we are going to have this trouble with us to a greater and greater extent. If you will not give the country a contributory pension scheme you will have to reorganize this Unemployment Benefit Fund and you will have to arrange for help in between jobs for these older people who can work, and for whom jobs are not there at the moment. I maintain that the policy of this Minister and this Government is simply one of laisser-faire; why worry about these old chaps. I think the Minister will have to get off his back-seat and do something about them in future.

As a representative of a workers’ constituency I want to convey my sincere appreciation to the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) and the United Party for their contribution to this debate because they have once again undoubtedly showed themselves to be the greatest enemies of the White workers in South Africa. The position is that we have almost full-scale employment as far as White labour is concerned. There is hardly any unemployment in South Africa. Had the United Party been in power with their policy of “the rate for the job”, you would not only have had large-scale unemployment amongst the Whites but those Whites who were in employment would have had to work at lower wages. The hon. member for Yeoville expressed his concern about that difficult group of unemployed, namely, the 45-year age group and over. I share that concern with him because the major part of my work in Vereeniging consists of trying to assist those people to find employment. The only difference between us is that my concern for them is genuine concern whereas his concern is assumed.

How can you say that.

I shall prove it. If there is one class of worker who is vulnerable under this policy of the “rate for the job” it is the man of 45 years of age and over. If you were to apply a policy of “the rate for the job” you would not only be making the man of 45 years and over vulnerable but you would make it simply impossible for that man to find employment; you would be throwing him on to the State. This problem of the 45-year-olds is a real problem and the Government and the various Departments have done everything they could to employ those people. Our problem is to persuade the industrialists to employ these people. That was why I asked the hon. member for Yeoville what he suggested we should do to persuade industrialists to employ these people. In the first place we must remember, Sir, that if a man of 45 years is out of work there must be a reason for it. Normally you do not dismiss a man of 45 years, because he has been in your service for a long time, he has the necessary experience and you know that he is a faithful person with responsibilities. You are, therefore, faced with this problem that you know the man of 45 years who is unemployed is a person who has not given the service which was expected of him. In the second place the industrialists are in this difficulty that they are faced with strong competition. They are not anxious to employ these people because they get better service from the younger people. That is also the problem as far as people of 60 years and over are concerned. I have negotiated with many industrialists in Vereeniging and they have assured me that it did not pay them to employ those people because their production was not up to the production of the younger person. As I have already said the State has done everything in its power to employ those people. What we have to do to-day is to persuade industrialists to employ more of those people. I want to suggest that job reservation should be applied on a larger scale. As has been brilliantly illustrated by the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East), if you were to apply the policy of the rate for the job you would be throwing numerous White workers on the open market in competition with the Bantu worker.

Why?

I shall try to put it so clearly that the hon. member for Turffontein will understand it, although I do not guarantee that I shall succeed. Who will determine that rate? It will be either the Government or the Wage Board. And they will have to lay down a rate which is lower than the wages people receive to-day. They will have to lay down the minimum rate. Our difficulty to-day is not unemployment but a shortage of labour. As a result of this high rate of employment employers pay much higher rates than they would otherwise have paid. Let us take the position of a fitter and turner. He earns approximately £15 per week to-day, if not more. You will be placing a weapon in the hand of the employer if you applied the principle of the rate for the job by placing him in a position where he can say to that fitter and turner: “If you are not prepared to work for £12 10s. I shall engage a Bantu in your place at £10.” What is there to prevent the employer from doing that? The Bantu is so pleased with that wage that he will say he is willing to work ten hours per day instead of eight. The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) says that they can be reported but who will report them? Will the employer? Will the Bantu? He has a better job than he has ever had in his life. You are thereby destroying the whole idea of negotiation between employer and employee. The difficulty is this that all employers will have to do what the unscrupulous employer does because they are in competition. You are therefore placing a sword in the hands of the employers which they can keep over the heads of the employees. If you were to apply the rate for the job principle in respect of such jobs as lorry drivers which do not call for a high degree of skill you will be throwing hundreds of Whites on the streets and there are thousands of cases in the country where Whites drive lorries. That is why I should like to plead with the Minister for job reservation on a larger scale. I may tell the hon. member for Yeoville this that we in Vereeniging should like to see job reservation in respect of lorry drivers of 5-ton lorries and over. We should also like to see the operation of cranes to be reserved for Whites. If you were to apply the principle of the rate for the job all the jobs, such as crane operators, lorry drivers and any other work which does not require the same amount of skill as in the case of a fitter and turner, will fall into the hands of the Bantu. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) started off by congratulating the Government on the fact that there was virtually no unemployment in this country. That is another example of how hon. members opposite can delude themselves in regard to the facts of life in South Africa. Was the hon. member not in the House when the Deputy Minister told us that the Froneman Commission had found that there were 500,000 unemployed Bantu in this country.

I was talking about unemployed Europeans. I specifically said “blanke arbeid”.

Must I accept that the hon. member for Vereeniging is not interested in unemployment as long as it does not concern the Whites? Of course, the hon. member deludes himself like so many hon. members opposite do when they say that there is no unemployment in this country because they only look at the figure of registered unemployed persons which the Department publishes. Of course the figure of registered unemployment is just what it says; that figure only refers to the number of unemployed people who go to the labour bureau to register. It is a fact, as was again revealed recently by the census, that the number of registered unemployed is a fraction of the total number of unemployed. During the 1960 census they also took a census of the unemployed and if you compare that figure with the number of registered unemployed as given by the Department of Labour what do we find? We find, for instance, that as far as Whites were concerned the number of registered unemployed in September 1960 were 13,000. When we look at the census figures for the same month we find that the number was 41,000. So the unemployment figure in respect of the Whites was nearly three times as high as indicated by the figure of registered unemployed. If we look at the figure for Asians and Coloureds, who are given together in the figure of registered unemployed, we find that they give the figure as 13,800 whereas the census figure for the same month was 116,000—nearly eight times as high. If we look at the figure in respect of Africans we find that the registered number of unemployed for that month was 33,000 whereas the census figure was 334,000 —seven times as high. Altogether the total number of unemployed was very nearly 500,000 for that period whereas the figure of registered unemployed was only a fraction of that. That shows you, Sir, how hon. members opposite can delude themselves about the unemployment position in this country. I hope the hon. the Minister will look into this and see if he cannot find a more reliable index of unemployment in this country so that the Government cannot keep on deluding themselves. They delude themselves easily enough and if the statistical information is not accurate the chances of their deluding themselves become so much greater. I remember the hon. the Minister of Labour comparing our unemployment figure with the American figure of unemployment and saying that whereas our unemployment figure was only 1½ per cent to 2 per cent it was 5 per cent to 6 per cent in America. But the American figures are census figures. They take a sample census every month over the total population and if the Minister were to do the same here the Government may realize what a dangerous position is developing in South Africa. When we look at the census figures for 1960 we find that far from our having one of the lowest unemployment figure in the world—I am talking about Western countries; I am not talking about under-developed countries—we find that our unemployment figure in respect of White was 3.6 per cent; the Coloured unemployment figure was 16 per cent; the Indian unemployment figure was 20 per cent and Bantu unemployment was 8½ per cent. The alarming thing is the fact that unemployment seems to be growing. It seems to have grown considerably between 1951 and 1960. Apparently the country is not generating enough jobs for the rapidly increasing population. We find, for instance, that in 1951 the unemployment figure for Whites, according to the census for that year, was 28,000 and in 1961 it was 41,000. The unemployment figure for Coloureds in 1951 was 41,800 and nearly 90,000 in 1960. We find the same tendency in respect of the Asiatic figure, which nearly doubled itself from 14,000 to 27,000. The Bantu figure nearly trebled from 118,000 to 334,000. I suggest that that shows a dangerous trend is developing in this country. This makes the remark of the previous speaker that there would have been greater unemployment under a United Party Government look rather silly, because the fact of the matter is that our economy is apparently not generating enough jobs for unskilled workers. While we have a great deal of unemployment as far as unskilled labour is concerned, everybody will agree that as far as skilled labour is concerned, we are really faced with a shortage. I can do no better than quote from the Prime Minister’s statement issued after his meeting with his Economic Advisory Council on 21 August 1962 where he said—

The problem to-day is skilled labour, technological labour. Just recently at a conference in Johannesburg of the Southern Transvaal Regional Development Association Dr. D. G. Gouws, of the C.S.I.R. is reported in the Rand Daily Mail as having said—

He then went on—

That is the position, Mr. Chairman. Surely the Government should have a policy in view of the fact that it sees what is happening in the country, namely that the figures of the unskilled workers are increasing far more rapidly than the figures of the skilled. That of course is partly due to the mistakes made in the past. If they had not killed the immigration policy of the United Party in 1948, we would not have been in this serious position. We are thankful that after 14 years they have come to realize how wise the United Party policy was. In how far the fact that the hon. Minister of Labour was a member of the United Party has anything to do with that change in policy, I do not know, but if he used his influence we are thankful. The more he can get his side to adopt our policies, the more grateful we will be for the sake of South Africa. The hon. Minister is now trying to increase the number of immigrants to this country. It is no use crying over spilt milk. We must give him credit for that, but we can only express the hope that he will push the immigration policy more energetically than he has done in the past. But that is only the one side of the equation. Surely the other part of the equation is that we should have no limitations on the skills of our non-Europeans. Leaving aside for a moment the Bantu who according to the queer logic of the apostles of apartheid are not part of South Africa, although we all know that in fact they are, even hon. members on the other side admit that the Indians and the Coloureds are an inherent part of South Africa, of so-called White South Africa. They have as much right to live here as the White people. Hon. members opposite have admitted that. The hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) and the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn), and other hon. members have posed the question; On what moral and economic grounds can you justify job reservation in respect of the Coloured and Indian populations. Not a single member has answered that question. We have had the preposterous answer that job reservation is protecting the Coloureds against the Natives in the Western Province. But at the same time they tell us that they are removing the Natives from the Western Province. Why do they need protection then? And they cannot cite one instance where job reservation has benefited the Coloured people, not one instance where they can show that job reservation has been applied to safeguard the Coloureds against the competition of Bantu labour [Time limit.]

I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether it is not possible for him and his Department to create more employment for the physically disabled and handicapped persons. We have sheltered employment to-day and we are grateful to the hon. the Minister and his Department for what they are already doing in this connection. There are already 14 factories in the country which offer sheltered employment and which are conducted on a non-profit making basis where the State carries the losses. There is a farm in the Transvaal were 100 of these handicapped people are employed. The State is doing more than is generally realized. The State has brought this group of workers under the protection of the Unemployment Insurance Act and by doing so has accorded them stability. The State also spends approximately R6,000,000 annually in subsidizing the wages paid by private undertakings, municipalities and other bodies who employ these people. I want to ask, however, whether more sheltered employment facilities cannot be created for these people, whether more people cannot be employed on the wage-subsidized basis by private organizations and private undertakings duly encouraged thereto by the Department. At the end of 1962 1,990 handicapped people were in sheltered employment namely 1,351 White males, 194 White females, 408 Coloured males, nine Asiatic males and 29 Bantu ex-servicemen. Everyone of them should at least be capable of a 50 per cent labour production. There is a great demand for this type of employment on the part of handicapped people. We have the problem in the western Cape that this work which would normally have been done by such handicapped people are eagerly snapped up by non-White labour. There is one such sheltered employment factory at Ndabeni where 256 of these people are employed and there is a further factory at Epping which employs approximately 150 Coloureds. But in Cape Town there is already a waiting list of 70 approved Whites and 80 approved Coloured applicants. They are people who have been found suitable for that type of labour by the selection committee but they have to wait for an opportunity and their chances of being placed are very slender. The local committee who has to select the type of applicant here in Cape Town have to deal with an average of 26 White applicants and an average of 43 Coloured applicants every month. That shows you, Sir, what demand there is for that type of work in Cape Town. I recently read in the “Digest of South Africa” that it was estimated that in Durban alone there were 5,000 White handicapped persons, people who could not compete in the open labour market.

Mr. Chairman, the products of these sheltered employment factories are mostly all purchased by Government Departments, such as uniforms for the Permanent Force and the police, various office requisites, etc., and the State Departments are encouraged to purchase from these sheltered employment factories. I do, however, want to ask whether the Minister and his Department cannot bring in more private undertakings under this system of sheltered employment. Can the Department of Labour not have centres where physically disabled people, even those with a productive capacity of less than 50 per cent, can be tested by trained employment officials as regards their dexterity, skill and aptitude and where they can be advised as to the direction in which they should try to get employment, or from where they can be placed in places where they can receive elementary training that will enable them to do that type of work, or from where they can be placed with local authorities or local undertakings which can make use of their services? It is better to assist these people to make an honest living than to keep them and their dependants alive by means of State allowances. Apart from rehabilitating these people and the upliftment work which will be performed by making those people regain their self-respect because of the work they are doing, the State will save thousands of pounds annually which it would otherwise have had to pay out in the form of special disability grants to those people who can now perform useful work. Over and above that those people can also make a very important contribution to the labour market. In this country with its unlimited source of cheap labour we are recklessly neglecting this very important labour potential. The Opposition asked in a previous debate where the workers have to come from to replace the Bantu in this area? If we give these people, who cannot compete in the open market, people who are physically disabled but who can still do constructive work, an opportunity and if we give other pensioners who leave their employment at a comparatively early age but who are still capable of doing a day’s work an opportunity, we shall be able to manage with far fewer Bantu here.

What can be done by these people was recently proved in Durban where a society which particularly looks after the interests of this group of people and which has 60 of these physically disabled people in its employ, has gained a contract to erect a building of over R100,000. All the work to that building, from the foundation to the roof, is being done by these handicapped people; they were formerly unemployed and they have now obtained that work. They are doing excellent work and nobody can pass any remarks on it. That shows you, Sir, what productive labour these people can still perform. That is an example which can well be emulated and such undertakings should be supported by the State. For the rest we have the work which is done by the Cripple Care Association. They give people elementary training in certain directions and they then place them in employment. This should also be supported by the State. But apart from what the State does I want to ask that more should be done to bring in private undertakings under this sheltered employment scheme. There should be more factories to utilize these people; I think that in the western Cape particularly there is not sufficient opportunity for this type of disabled worker. I hope the hon. the Minister will give his serious attention to this matter.

If I still have a minute or so at my disposal, I should like to reply to what the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) and the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) have said in connection with job reservation and how it affects the Coloureds. Mr. Chairman, this question of job reservation as far as the Coloured workers in the western Cape are concerned, is being exaggerated out of all proportion by the Opposition and the Coloured representatives. I can tell you, Sir, that it has become extremely essential to have job reservation in certain jobs because the chances of the Whites to find employment in certain jobs which they have done hitherto are becoming less and less because they are being replaced by Coloured. [Time limit.]

From what we have heard here this afternoon, it is quite obvious that our big problem in South Africa to-day is the shortage of manpower which is skilled and the failure of this Government to do something to repair this shortage. Our problem is not the replacement of the one racial group by another to do the same job. Our problem is to find the best material amongst our working people to do the particular job. Mr. Chairman, as long as we encourage the people of South Africa, whether they be White, Coloured or Black, to buy the products that are manufactured by the skilled White man, so long will we have this shortage of skilled manpower. We have plenty of people here to carry the boxes containing the products made by the skilled workers, but as long as we debar one race group from helping to manufacture the product which is made by the skilled individual, so long will you have this shortage of manpower which we so badly need in our country. How are we going to overcome this? Because it is not only in the trades and industry that we are having this shortage. You get it in the professions as well. Right through trade and industry that require skilled labour, we find advertisements asking for the skilled people to come forward. There are more and more people leaving our country to-day who are skilled in particular work, and others are not coming in to replace them. The doors are open to these people right through the world, and we in South Africa are losing skilled people. Very few of the skilled are coming back, and very few of the limited number of immigrants are skilled in the particular types of work that we want to be done. Job reservation cannot solve this problem. All we do is to replace one group by another group, but it does not give us more workers of a particular kind that we require. It is no assurance against unemployment either for the Black man or the Coloured man, and certainly not for the Black man. It cannot be. So it means virtually that from our small reservoir of people that we have got, we have to use the people to the best advantage. That brings us to the problem of conserving our manpower and immediately I say that no longer in South Africa at any rate, can a person be judged by the number of birthdays he has had. A person should only be retired if he wants to be retired, or if it is found that he is unable to do his job properly. It is a pity to find so many people who are 60 or 65 who have stopped working because we have a rule that they must retire at that age in certain industries, in certain commercial houses and in the Government service.

In industry it is a question of production.

Yes, but the hon. member for Vereeniging and I know that certain people retire at the age of 65 while they are fit and well enough to do a good day’s work, and we cannot afford at this stage to allow anybody to retire if he can still produce good work.

But what do you want us to do to get the industries to keep on employing these people?

What does the Government do to encourage industries to keep on these people? Remember the Government itself sets a retiring age, whether it be in office work or in production work. How can you expect industries to do so if the Government itself does not set an example?

The position of an industry is quite different.

No, we are trying to solve a problem, and it is no use us trying to set one group against another. We must face the problem and say: Let us allow all people who are able to work to continue to work, whether it be in the Government’s service or in private enterprise.

Then you will have to support greater protection for industries.

That is the one end, the people who are at the retiring age. But what about the other end where we have a shortage of apprentices joining the trades and joining industry? What are we going to do to encourage youngsters to become apprentices. I said on an earlier occasion that we have got to break down the prejudice in South Africa of looking down upon the boy who wants to join a trade. On the one hand we should encourage children as far as possible to pass matric, so that they can enter the scientific and skilled field, but that does not mean to say that because a boy has passed his matric he should not enter a trade. In my opinion the higher his education, the quicker he will reach the top in his trade and the quicker he may become an executive. He may start off as a fitter and turner, which is at the bottom of the rung, but the higher his education the quicker he will be able to get to the top, in the same factory perhaps where he started I say that these boys must be encouraged to get as much education as they possibly can at school, but they should not be afraid then to enter industry or a trade. The basis of our trouble to-day is the shortage of White people in our country because the White person is carrying the burden of the Whites, the Coloureds and the Bantu and the Indians because of the policy of the Government which refuses to break down barriers, and as long as we have those barriers, as long as we talk of job reservation and the protection of the White man’s job, so long will we have these shortages. In all sincerity I say that it is up to the White man in this country to take up the challenge and to show that he is a better man than any of the other Coloured races here, and if he cannot do that, he will fall by the wayside.

As for instance in the mines.

I want to deal with this once and for all, this question of job reservation in the mines. Job reservation was introduced in the mines and it has become a custom since the early 1920s. The second point is that those people who are to-day in reserved jobs are specialists in their work, they are dealing in the main with explosives. Does the hon. member want to break that down?

I do not want to break it down. You want to break down barriers.

If that is the example of job reservation that this Government want to follow, there is no reason whatsoever for job reservation and the sooner we return to the rate for the job, the better for all of us. That is the solution. Give them the rate for their job and they will do the job.

I want to come back to what the hon. member for Parow (Mr. S. F. Kotzé) has said about the disabled people. I want the hon. Minister please to prepare a register as soon as possible, of those people who are partially disabled, but who are still able to do work and who are put on the register of unemployed. These people should be employed as far as possible in temporary work. The disabled man should be placed in temporary work and the man who is still able to do a full day’s job of work should be drafted into other types of work. [Time limit.]

I do not want to dwell on the subject raised by the hon. member who has just sat down (Dr. Fisher) except to say that it struck me that the hon. member has justified job reservation in the case of the mines because according to him there are certain jobs which are too dangerous to entrust to other races. He stated, for example, that you could, therefore, not abolish job reservation in the mines because explosives were handled so frequently. It is quite clear that the whole argument of the hon. member collapses on the strength of his own remark. It is clear that he too wants job reservation because he and his party are not prepared to abolish job reservation in certain respects. I think I can leave the hon. member at that.

I want to bring another matter to the notice of the Minister in connection with the Workmen‘s Compensation Act of 1941 as far as farmers are concerned. We know farmers are obliged under the Act to insure their farm labourers who operate mechanically driven machinery or vehicles. But when you study the definition of “vehicles” and “machinery” you find that due to the mechanization that is taking place to-day there are few, if any, farm labourers who do not at some time or other and in some way or other come into contact with farm machinery and whom the farmer is not obliged to insure. In other words, it amounts to this that the farmer must insure every farm labourer of his if he wants to remain within the limits of the law. It was originally provided that a farmer could insure all his labourers in terms of an agreement with the Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner and that he could do so at half the ordinary tariff in operation at the time which then amounted to R1 per R100 wages. The result was that if a farmer wanted to insure all his labourers he could do so at 50c per R100 wages. That position obtained all these years until suddenly in 1961 when the farmers received their assessments they found that the premium of 50c per R100 wages had been increased to R1.50, in other words, an increase of 300 per cent. But there was further increase. Where the farmer previously had the privilege of insuring his labourers for a certain period only—he could, for example, insure them for only six months if they only worked with machinery for six months in the year—he found that that privilege had also been taken away from him. I take, as example, a farmer who has paid R3,000 in the form of wages. He could insure his labourers who came in contact or worked with machinery for only six months by paying a premium on R1,500 only. That was also abolished in 1961. In other words he now has to pay a premium on the full amount of R3,000. This means a 600 per cent increase in the insurance premium which the farmer has to pay under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. I do not think there is another increase to be compared with this. We often complain about the increase in the third party insurance premium but I think this is the worst there is. We all know this is a fund which is dependent on contributions only and that it has to carry itself. We are informed that there have been deficits since 1951 to 1960. Farmers have also been warned that if the tempo of accidents continued there would have to be an increase. A sword therefore hangs over the heads of the farmers that this high premium which they have to pay and which has already been increased by 600 per cent, may be increased still further. I have the official figures from the Department and according to the data 150,000 employers are registered with the Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner but there were 200,000 accidents in one year. I am not quite sure which year it was but it maybe that the number was particularly high that year; I do not think that is the average. However, when you think of it that there are 200,000 accidents in one year you realize that the figure is alarming particularly bearing in mind the fact that in many cases the compensation paid to a workman who has been seriously injured, or where a person has perhaps lost his life, is exceedingly high. The point I want to make is this: I know that in many areas practically all the farmers are insured against accidents. They are compelled to insure but they seldom if ever make a claim. When you think of the terrific number of claims that are submitted the question arises whether there should not be some incentive in the form of a reduction in premium in respect of those people who are more careful and who practically never claim. Is it not possible to introduce a kind of “no claim bonus” system. I know the administrative costs of the scheme as it operates to-day are already high and that as a result of the change I have suggested the administrative costs may be increased further but I do think that if we encouraged people to take all the precautions they possibly can we would cause a considerable decrease in the number of accidents and claims.

Mr. Chairman, I think I should at this stage answer certain questions. Before I do so, I think I should pay tribute to Mr. Hannah, the Secretary for Labour. This will be his last session, and as hon. members know, he has been in the Department of Labour all his working life, and he is now retiring in October. I should like to place on record the thanks of this Government and of the previous one for the services that have been rendered to this Department by him. [Hear, hear!] All I can say is that since I took over this portfolio he has been a great pillar of strength to me, and I shall miss his wise guidance. I think I express the sentiments of all hon. members when I say we wish him well and hope he will enjoy his leisure.

I want to deal with hon. members more or less in the order in which they spoke in the debate. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) has raised the question of the Unemployment Insurance Fund. He wanted to know whether I had any information as to what the effect has been of the amendments which were passed last year. Sir, I have the report of the Unemployment Insurance Board with me, and with regard to the financial position of that fund this is what it says—

That is the latter part of last year. I think the amendments came into force on 1 August last year—

In other words, there was a decrease of roughly R16,000,000—

I should like to point out to hon. members that we have hardly had an opportunity yet of evaluating more or less accurately what the effects of those amendments are, but we will know more about it when we come to the end of the year for which they have been in operation.

The hon. member then dealt with Indian unemployment, amongst other things, and he expressed some concern at the increase in Indian unemployment. I think he made the point, which was later emphasized by the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) that the figures published from time to time concerning the unemployment of Indians, particularly in Durban, or rather in Natal, were not accurate. I think I should just pause to deal for a moment with this question of Indian unemployment which is of great interest to the Government, and is of particular interest to my colleague the Minister of Indian Affairs. This question of Indian unemployment has been raised here, and it was also raised in the Other Place when my policy motion was being debated there, and in this connection a number of hon. members made reference to the survey which was undertaken by the Institute for Social Research of the University of Natal. It was also reported in the Natal Mercury of 19 January this year, in an article dealing with this question, that there were 78,000 Indians who were hit through unemployment. Subsequently my Department got into touch with the editor of the Mercury and he informed my Department that the reporter who was responsible for this article merely multiplied the estimated number of unemployed, i.e. 15,000, by 5.2, which was the number of dependants of each work-seeker, and he then arrived at the figure of 78,000.

That is the same thing the hon. member for Jeppe did this afternoon.

Now that is the basis on which this article was written. In so far as the survey of the Natal University is concerned, I think I should say something about that. There appears to be no real evidence for many of the findings of the Institute which, I think, are based largely on hearsay and on ex parte statements. They have apparently made no attempt to verify any of those statements. I think it is also significant that no mention is made in the report—and may I say that the University sent me a complimentary copy of the report which I studied very closely—of the Indians who are employed in the Pinetown and the New Germany areas, most of whom are living in Durban. The statement that the 15,000 estimated unemployed Indians are all actively seeking employment is very much doubted, as there are indeed very few people who will openly admit to not seeking work or wanting work. I think I should point out that the survey related to approximately one in 60 of the Durban Indian population and that it covered only 931 workers out of a total adult working force of over 56,000 Indian workers. I think this survey is an extremely small sample. I think we all know that it is also a fact that Indians are most reluctant to perform manual work and that they are more attracted to the commercial and distributive trades, and of course to the catering trade. According to the unemployment statistics maintained by my Department, over 2,000 Indians were registered as unemployed in Durban as at 30 April 1963. Of this number 2,338 were males, 341 were females, 29 were boys, and 19 were girls. It is also stated in this report that unemployment was most heavily concentrated among those trained in skilled, industrial occupations, namely 30 per cent, and among the unskilled labourers it was 32 per cent. This conclusion is not borne out by my Department’s statistics for 1962. The skilled industries, of course, are the building, the engineering, motor, furniture, printing and leather trades. Unemployment in the building industry reached a peak during January 1962 whilst a certain amount of short time was worked by artisans in the furniture industry, and I think also in the leather industry. In the engineering industry the unemployment figures were extremely low, and in the printing and motor industries there was in fact no unemployment. The maximum number of unemployed skilled workers in these industries I have mentioned was never higher than 500 out of a total labour force of approximately 6,000, i.e. about 8.3 per cent. It appears, as I read the report, that the interviewers took it for granted that all the employees employed in these industries and whom they interviewed were skilled artisans. It is also mentioned in the report that only 47 per cent of the Indian working population had been in continuous employment for the period January 1959 to December 1961, and that the average duration of employment for the remaining 53 per cent was less than 12 out of 36 months. This finding, I think, confirms the view that the Indian worker is prone to changing his employment very frequently. My Department’s records show that the number of Indians who had drawn, or who had applied for, unemployment benefits in Durban since 1949 to date is 67,000. This, I think, shows that approximately 67,000 Indian workers have at one time or other been in touch with my Department in connection with benefits over a period of 14 years.

Another conclusion reached is to the effect that the survey revealed widespread failure to use the Department of Labour as a means of obtaining employment. I think that is a fact. This finding, apart from not being based on facts, is of course completely misleading. My Department’s records show that during the last ten years about 50,000 Indians registered for work in Durban, and that we were able to place 24,000. New registrations for work number approximately 2,500 a month. During 1961 the monthly average number of Indian unemployment insurance beneficiaries was 1,246, while the average number of registered unemployed work-seekers was 3,585; and during 1962 the Indian beneficiaries averaged 1,166 a month, while the average number of registered unemployed remained more or less the same as in 1961. In other words, according to our figures the position in 1962 was more or less the same as it was in 1961.

Apart from confirming the general theory that this report is based on very flimsy evidence, I think attention should also be drawn to the following incorrect statements contained in this report. In paragraph 31 it is stated that casual workers are excluded from the provisions of the Unemployment Fund. The majority of casual workers are in fact contributors to the fund. Only certain relatively unimportant categories are excluded, e.g. a casual worker employed for purposes other than the employer’s business, and also persons employed for less than one working day per week. In paragraph 42 the view is expressed that the Unemployment Insurance Act is inadequate to meet the needs of the Indian community because it would seem that the Act limits the payment of benefits to 26 weeks in every year, and does not provide for the payment of a dole to persons who have never worked. It is also stated that provisions for assistance to those who are willing and able to work but cannot be offered work has become accepted policy in most industrial societies. Sir, I think I should point out that the Unemployment Insurance Act contains safeguards expressly provided for by the International Labour Convention, No. 44 of 1946, which are common to most systems of unemployment insurance; and from reports which I have from the International Labour Office it is clear that in most countries the payment of unemployment benefits is limited to persons who are in employment for reasonable periods.

To me it would appear that the sole object of the investigation by the University of Natal was to substantiate the claims that there are thousands of Indians unemployed in Durban. As far as I am concerned, the findings of the Institute are to me of very little value, as the investigation in the first instance covered far too small a sample of the Indian population, and secondly, little or nothing was done in the way of verification of the information furnished to the investigators. I think the fact should also be stressed that in the labour field Indians have proved themselves to be a group apart, particularly when it comes to separating non-working persons from unemployed workseekers. The investigators of the Institute do not seem to have appreciated this aspect of the matter or to have been correctly informed. However, I want to stress that the Government’s concern for the welfare of the Indian community has, I think, been clearly demonstrated by the establishment of the Department of Indian Affairs, and as hon. members know, this Department has hardly had time to find its feet.

After 15 years.

But my colleague said during the debate on his Vote that he was giving full attention to the task he had been set.

In view of the doubt which the hon. the Minister has placed on the research done by the University of Natal, is he prepared to institute a similar investigation through his own Department?

No, not at this stage. As far as my Department is concerned, I think all I can be expected to do is act on the registrations that we have in the various labour bureaux. It is up to the workseekers to assist us by coming to the bureaux to apply for work and to be registered there, because the bureaux are there for that purpose. But I would like to say, too, that I think it would be wrong to expect the Department of Indian Affairs to produce a ready-made solution for the problem of Indian unemployment. We all know that the Government’s economic policy is so to order the affairs of the country as to ensure the maximum employment of all sections of the population. This of course does not mean that unemployment can be eliminated entirely, nor can any system be devised which will eliminate unemployment such as that which exists among the Indian population in Durban. It is true that the Unemployment Insurance Act provides temporary assistance for those who are temporarily unemployed, but it does not cater for those who have never had employment. It is assumed that there is a large number of unemployed Indians in Durban who fall into the latter category. That there are probably large numbers of Indians who have never worked and therefore cannot get any benefits.

Then how do they live?

I think I should add that one of the obvious steps in the direction of trying to solve the problem of unemployment amongst the Indians is to increase the educational facilities. In this connection I am thinking particularly of the expansion of technical college facilities and the encouragement of Indian children to remain at school until they have passed at least Std. 8. Of course, tied up with this matter is the question of compulsory education up to the age, say, of 16 years. This may not be a practical proposition at this stage, and in any case, it is a matter for the Provincial Administration of Natal, but I can assure hon. members that the Provincial Administration of Natal has been doing everything in its power for some years now to provide all the educational facilities possible for Indian children. I think that more or less covers the questions in regard to the unemployment amongst Indians, but I just want to emphasize that the Indians themselves would help my Department a great deal if they would register when they are unemployed. I think it must be obvious to hon. members that it is most difficult for my Department to assist them in any way whatever if in fact there are thousands of unemployed Indians who do not register as such.

Hon. members may be interested in a cutting which I have pinned to these notes and which I took from the Sunday Tribune of 10 February. The heading is: “15,000 Indians Jobless. Where?” It goes on to say—

So, is unemployment as serious as hon. members say it is? The next question raised by the hon. member was that the statistics furnished by the Department of Labour from time to time are not informative enough; in other words, we do not state in those statistics what the ages are of people who register as unemployed. Well, in fact we do that. I have these statistics here. These statistics are in fact kept and a copy is issued by the Department of Labour every month. It shows not only the age groups, but also the various occupations, and if the hon. member is interested I can show him this. I am not going to weary the Committee by reading the statistics, but the statistics are issued under various headings, such as (1) Professional and semi-professional; (2) administrative and clerical; (3) commerce; (4) skilled artisans, and applications for apprenticeship, etc. It is then set out in the age groups, under 19 years, from 19 to 35 years, from 35 to 50 years, and 50 to 65, so that we do in fact keep a complete record of the age groups who are unemployed and who are able to see at a glance in respect of what age group unemployment is increasing or decreasing. If the hon. member would like to see this, I will show it to him.

Surely people of 35 years and those of 50 years have not much in common.

Perhaps we can alter that and make it from 35 to 45 years. The hon. member also raised the very important question of the shortage of skilled manpower, and he referred to a statement made by the hon. the Prime Minister on 23 April this year. I think the hon. member also said that there were 2,000 vacancies for skilled men in the steel industry. Well, I am fully conscious of the shortage of skilled manpower, particularly in the steel industry, because representations have been made to me, and in fact a deputation came to see me last November from the steel industry, which included Iscor. They put forward a scheme. They of course made the case that there was a terrific shortage of skilled workers in the steel industry and that the shortage would probably increase as time went on. They put forward a case that the Government should consider training skilled operatives in the steel industry, and as a result of their representations and the case they put up I took up the matter with the Department of Education, Arts and Science, and it was obvious that there was indubitably a very real need to develop the manpower of the Republic to the very highest level of efficiency. As the result of the negotiations between the two Departments, Labour and Education, a Curriculum Committee was established consisting of representatives of Iscor and the steel industry, for the purpose of drafting a suitable curriculum, and as the result of these negotiations we have agreed upon a training scheme for these operatives in the steel industry. The course will be commenced at the Pretoria Technical College on an experimental basis and will be extended to other centres where the iron, steel and engineering industries are strongly represented—such as at Johannesburg and Vanderbijlpark. I need not weary hon. members with details of the course. The effect, however, will be that a maximum of 30 persons will be trained every three months during the year. They will be paid during the period of their training, and will be absorbed in the steel industry after they have had three or four months’ practical training. We will provide for the necessary expenditure.

This is one of the schemes we have embarked upon in order to help the industries which I have mentioned.

Is that an entirely new training scheme?

No, it is somewhat similar to the COTT training system. The hon. member also raised various points about matriculants but those I think were effectively answered by the hon. member for Pretoria (West) and I need not repeat what he has said. Then the hon. member raised the perennial question of work reservation with which I propose dealing when I reply to the hon. member for Peninsula. I intend dealing then with work reservation particularly in the building industry. That is a question which was also raised by the hon. member for Yeoville; so that I think my reply to the hon. member for Peninsula will also cover his points. The hon. member also raised the point—I think he quoted from some Press report—that in Durban Natives were being employed to drive petrol tankers because there were no Whites available to do that work. Well, that report is completely wrong. There is, first of all, no job reservation relating to drivers of these petrol tankers. A certain petrol firm in Durban decided to employ Native drivers as an experiment. That experiment, however, failed. The firm was dissatisfied with these Native drivers and it then decided to employ White drivers. Apparently there was a good supply of White drivers because they were able to get White drivers for all their tankers. So that there is no truth whatsoever in that story. The hon. member is, of course, not responsible for that because it appeared in the Press. It is from there that he quoted it.

I think I should also deal with a question which the hon. member raised obliquely, namely the question of recognizing Native trade unions. He did not raise it directly but asserted by implication that the Government should change its policy in this respect. He said the Government should assist these Native workers to learn what collective bargaining means and that they should be given the responsibility of running trade unions. What the hon. member did indicate directly was that in his opinion as well as in the opinion of other members of his side, these Bantu trade unions should be given some responsibility so that they could be trained in the art of collective bargaining. The hon. member knows just as well as I do that that can mean nothing less than official recognition of Bantu trade unions by registration. That is all it can mean. I think it is a matter I should deal with. It is a matter into which I have gone very closely and one which is of some concern to the Government, and to hon. members, particularly in view of the fact that the Trade Union Council at its conference last year, and again this year, decided to affiliate certain Bantu trade unions. I will, therefore, be justified in dealing fully with the question of these Bantu trade unions. I should emphasize at the outset that Bantu trade unions are not prohibited in South Africa. This, I think, is an important point. The Bantu can form their trade unions and in that way learn the art of trade unionism and collective bargaining. Bantu workers are free to form their own trade unions and, as hon. members know, many of these trade unions have in fact been established. There are no restrictions on Bantu trade unions as such and the principle of freedom of association is, therefore, not involved. These trade unions have, however, not been granted the statutory recognition accorded to other trade unions. There are, of course, reasons for withholding such recognition and these reasons must be considered against the background of the conditions obtaining in South Africa. The statutory recognition enjoyed by trade unions in South Africa is in the form of registration under the Industrial Conciliation Act coupled with the right to use the machinery of that Act for the purpose of regulating relations between employers and employees.

As hon. members know, various requirements must be complied with before such registration can be granted and a certificate of registration can be cancelled where the body concerned is not functioning as a trade union. Every registered trade union is also required to function in accordance with a constitution which must provide for certain specific matters listed in the Act—such as the method of electing office bearers and officials, the calling and the conduct of meetings, the keeping of minutes of meetings, the holding of secret ballots, the purposes for which funds may be used, etcetera. In addition certain obligations are placed upon these registered bodies by the Act itself with regard to the keeping and auditing of books of account, the submission of annual membership returns to the industrial registrar, etcetera. Rights conferred upon the registered body entitle them to participate in the formation of industrial councils or to apply for the establishment of conciliation boards for the purpose of determining conditions of employment for workers employed in the industries concerned. It follows, therefore, that registration alone does not carry the full advantages of trade unionism without the ability to use the machinery of the Act, because if it is not a registered trade union, it cannot use the machinery provided by the Industrial Conciliation Act.

According to my records, the first Bantu trade union came into existence in 1918. It catered for heterogeneous interests and its objects were as much political as the improvement of conditions of work. It clearly was not a trade union in the ordinary sense and after a process of disintegration it disappeared from the scene without having accomplished much of lasting benefit to the Bantu population. The organization was, however, replaced by a number of smaller unions organized on industrial lines and further unions have since come into being.

Successive Governments devoted attention to the question of the recognition which might be granted to these unions having regard to the fact that the Bantu had not yet reached that stage of development where they could adapt themselves to the system in operation in respect of trade unions composed of employees of other races. Protracted discussions took place between the Government Departments concerned and eventually a representative conference of trade union leaders, including Bantu representatives and other interested parties, was convened in order to discuss the matter in all its aspects.

We all know this!

If the hon. member is not interested he need not listen. I, however, want this to be on record. At this conference which was convened by the Government—and the previous Government was interested in it too—it was made quite clear on behalf of the Bantu unions that they were not prepared to accept anything short of full statutory recognition under the Industrial Conciliation Act. The Government of the day was not, however, prepared to concede such recognition. This Government was the United Party Government. When the present Government came into office in 1948, it gave consideration to the whole matter and came to the conclusion that the Bantu had not yet reached a stage of development where they could without harmful results to themselves and to the country exercise the functions and rights normally conferred upon trade unions. Experience had shown that the unions which had been established had a precarious existence. The Industrial Legislation Commissioner found that some 66 Bantu trade unions had become defunct in the years prior to its investigation. There was evidence also to show that the trade union movement was not spontaneous amongst the Bantu and that it was frequently sponsored by agitators for their own purposes.

In general the Bantu outlook is not reconcilable with the underlying principles of trade unionism. The average Bantu expects something in return for every subscription which he pays. If his conditions of employment are satisfactory, he has no further interest in any trade union. The Industrial Legislation Commission found that in the case of some 13 trade unions with a total membership of 6,651, only 40 per cent of the members were in good standing as far as subscriptions were concerned. Moreover, an examination of the financial management of 35 Bantu trade unions revealed that the management of the affairs of 20 was completely unsatisfactory. The Commission was informed that in many instances Bantu trade unions were organized as a source of income for the organizers themselves rather than as a measure of protection and promotion of the interests of the workers.

I want to make it perfectly clear that this Government is not prepared to encourage a movement of this nature by giving statutory recognition to Bantu trade unions. It is also felt that recognition alone will not be of any benefit to the Bantu worker unless such trade unions are able to use the machinery of the industrial law which is intended for trade unions functioning on traditional lines. One of the basic conditions precedent to the use of the machinery of the Industrial Conciliation Act is that the unions must be sufficiently representative of the employees in the industries concerned. Representativeness is determined on the basis of the active membership of the union and trade unions with a fluctuating and unstable existence obviously cannot meet this requirement. I think all of us know that the overwhelming majority of the Bantu workers have no knowledge of and cannot appreciate trade union responsibility and discipline. As pointed out by the Industrial Legislation Commission, the theory and practice of trade unionism and the implications therein are matters which require the attention of leaders of experience and knowledge—qualities which are not readily to be found amongst Bantu workers. [Interjections.]

I have some further notes here but I think I have said enough on this question.

If the Minister of Labour of the Transkeian Parliament decides to allow registered trade unions in the Transkei, will you recommend to the Cabinet that such legislation be vetoed?

I will consider that when it becomes an issue. I am not prepared to answer a hypothetical question on it at this stage.

I now come to the hon. member for Peninsula. This hon. member made a serious contribution to the debate and dealt first of all with work reservation generally as it affected the Coloured community. He submitted that work reservation weighed very harshly on the Coloured people, that there was really no lucrative employment for the Coloured worker, that it was the despair of young Coloured people because there were no opportunities for them after leaving school, etc. He also raised the question of the rate for the job. I am not going to deal with this question of the rate for the job because the hon. member for Vereeniging dealt with that very effectively. Moreover. I went into the whole question last year and I do not want to do so again this year.

What I do want to deal with, however, is the important question of job reservation in the building industry. This affects principally the Coloureds of the Western Province although also to a certain extent the Coloureds in Durban and elsewhere. The hon. member dealt with five or six activities in the building trade which are at present reserved for Whites. Let me deal for a moment with the determination in the building industry. First of all, I should like to reiterate that the Government realizes fully that all races in South Africa are entitled to their rightful place in the field of labour and that work reservation cannot lightly be applied, i.e. without taking into consideration established rights and certain economic effects. The main consideration, however, is that all races must be afforded an opportunity of contributing their share to the economic and social development of the country. On this we all agree. With this in mind, it has been my task as Minister of Labour to maintain industrial peace by means of wage regulating measures and the elimination of friction between the races in the field of labour. Although it has been said over and over again, I want to repeat that work reservation is resorted to only after all other methods of safeguarding the employee against inter-racial competition have failed. Quite often cases of displacement are dealt with administratively. Where that is possible, we do so—sometimes after protracted negotiations between the Department and the employers concerned.

Work reservation in the building industry took over two years to investigate. The investigation was set afoot by my predecessor and the industrial tribunal took more than two years to determine what the reservation in the building trade should be if any. I think it will be of interest to hon. members to hear just a short extract from the report of that tribunal— an extract which was not quoted by the hon. member for Peninsula. By saying this I do not want to create the impression that the hon. member deliberately did not do so. At any rate, according to this extract—

I now want to give hon. members the relevant percentages: bricklaying 1 per cent Whites and 99 per cent Coloureds; plastering 1 per cent Whites and 99 per cent Coloureds; carpentry— 1 per cent Whites and 99 per cent Coloureds; plumbing—40 per cent Whites and 60 per cent Coloureds; and painting—2 per cent Whites and 98 per cent Coloureds. Now, it is obvious that in these particular occupations the work is almost entirely being done by Coloureds. Consequently work reservation does not affect them but they just go on as they have been doing.

Does that apply to both Whites and Coloureds?

The existing ratio has been frozen—in other words, we are maintaining the status quo. We need, therefore, not concern ourselves with these particular occupations because they are almost entirely occupied by Coloureds and are not reserved in the Cape.

The hon. member for Peninsula then complained about the few trades in which the workers were for the most part Whites. These trades are: masonry—98 per cent Whites and 2 per cent Coloureds; joinery—85 per cent Whites and 15 per cent Coloureds; wood-machining—85 per cent Whites and 15 per cent Coloureds; shopfitting—95 per cent Whites and 5 per cent Coloureds; and electrical wiring— 95 per cent Whites and 5 per cent Coloureds. In all the circumstances, the tribunal decided to recommend that the majority of trades in the building trade in the Western Cape should be left unreserved. Consequently, only the work done by skilled artisans in the following trades was reserved for Whites only: stone masonry, marble masonry, joinery in a workshop, wood-machining in a workshop, electrical wiring, letter cutting and stone decorating, shop, office and bankfitting. Coloureds who at present practice the trades in the areas concerned are, however, to continue their work. In effect, therefore, as far as the first-mentioned trades such as plastering, carpentry, painting, etc., are concerned, no work reservation will apply. In regard to the other trades where I have shown the majority of workers to be Whites, the rights of the White worker are being reserved because it was being found that they were being pushed out of those trades in the Western Province.

The hon. member for Peninsula argued his case on the evidence which was placed before the tribunal. My attitude of course is that that industrial tribunal has been put there for that purpose, i.e. to investigate the question of work reservation. In the course of that investigation evidence is placed before that tribunal and on the evidence so placed before it the tribunal decides to make or not to make a recommendation. Hon. members will realize that it is quite impossible for me to say whether an industrial tribunal is correct or not. The case is argued before that tribunal and I as a Minister have by law no right to amend the recommendations of a tribunal. I must accept either the whole of the recommendation or reject it in toto. Now, can hon. members imagine what a position the Minister will place himself in if, faced with a unanimous decision of an industrial tribunal for a work reservation, he says he is not prepared to accept it? After all, the object of the Act in establishing an industrial tribunal is that such tribunal should sit there as a trial body, hear the evidence, and make its recommendation to the Minister. The hon. member for Peninsula said that this was not a unanimous decision of the industrial tribunal concerned. But that is not correct because it was a unanimous decision. The tribunal itself made the recommendation. It is true that the assessors sitting with that tribunal—four of the employers and four of the employees—made a minority report. To be more precise, only the employers’ assessors made a minority report. The assessors acting on behalf of the employees made no minority report. The tribunal itself, however, made a unanimous recommendation to the Minister. Now, I, as the responsible Minister appoint this body to investigate these matters and if that body places before me a unanimous recommendation as to what the reservation should be, am I entitled to reject it and say that I am not prepared to accept it? I say that it would be a serious matter for me to reject a recommendation of an industrial tribunal. Consequently, I am not prepared, where I get a unanimous recommendation from a tribunal which as in this particular case has spent over two years on the investigation, to reject it. Hon. members will see that this particular recommendation is fully documented and in drafting it the greatest thought and consideration were required. If hon. members study the reports, they will see that the recommendations are very fair having in mind that the tribunal was not prepared to allow the White artisans in the particular trades I mentioned, to be pushed out of those trades.

I accepted the recommendation and I am satisfied conscientiously in my own mind, that it was a fair recommendation. As a matter of fact, it may be of interest to hon. members to learn that I have received representations from workers from certain parts of the country objecting to the determination not on the grounds that it was unfair to Coloureds, but on the grounds that it did not go far enough to protect the White worker.

I now want to come to the hon. member for Jeppe (Dr. Cronje). The hon. member realizes, of course, that figures that are given by the Department of Census which are three years old are of absolutely no use to us whatsoever. We can only deal with the figures as we get them from month to month through registration. What can I do with figures which are now three years old? What can I do with figures which the Department of Census found on investigation three years ago? How am I to act on those figures? As I said before I can only go on the figures which I have now; these figures in respect of the registered unemployed. Obviously a Department of Labour can only go on registration figures. Every country in the world goes on its registration figures.

[Inaudible.]

The Census Department must have got their figures on investigation—when the census forms are filled in. Unless they can give me those figures almost from month to month it is quite impossible, of course, for my Department to react to those figures of unemployment. As I say in all countries in the world they work on their registration figures.

May I ask the Minister a question? Is the Minister not perturbed at the fact that at the time there was such a great discrepancy between the census figures which were found on a general investigation and the registration figures?

I am prepared to accept that. I put it to the hon. member that I am not in a position to deal with figures other than those I get from my Department. Those figures come from the Bureau where they register as unemployed and then I endeavour to place them in employment. I cannot wait for the Census Department to give me figures which are three years old and obsolete and then try to place these people in employment. That is the point I am trying to make.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? If the figures three years ago were completely unreliable is it not possible that the figures that you are giving us to-day are completely unreliable?

The hon. member misunderstands what the hon. member for Jeppe intended. I do not say the figures are unreliable. The figures are probably correct. I have not suggested for a moment that they are unreliable. I say they are out of date; they are completely out of date as far as my Department is concerned.

May I ask the Minister a question?

No. I am sorry; I am not carrying on an argument with the hon. member. I accept that three years ago there were 136,000 unemployed, but the hon. member also knows that in the last year, for instance, there has been a dramatic change for the better in unemployment in South Africa. So what is the use of my comparing figures which were taken three years ago when I know that in certain industries in South Africa there is no unemployment at all to-day? That is the only point I am making. The hon. member for Jeppe also made the assertion that there was not a single instance of work reservation for the protection of Coloureds. The hon. member is talking without his book. Perhaps the hon. member does not know that at the moment the Industrial Tribunal is conducting an investigation to protect the Coloureds in the Cape in the catering industry from Bantu infiltration. That investigation is taking place now.

The hon. member for Parow (Mr. S. F. Kotze) raised a matter which is receiving the serious attention of the Government, namely, the question of work for handicapped people and the whole question of sheltered employment. He asked whether we could not extend the facilities for sheltered employment. As the hon. member knows, we are doing that in various ways, but unfortunately, of course, the only customer which the workshops under sheltered employment have is the Government, which is a limited market. The Government buys their products and the market is limited. The hon. member will see that there is an amount of R680,000 on the Estimates representing a subsidy which we pay to local authorities who employ handicapped people. I can tell the hon. member that we are completely sympathetic to the ideas which he has on this question. I am making further investigations as to how far we can extend the facilities which we are giving to handicapped people. I might add, for instance, that we have taken over from Social Welfare the workshops in which the blind are being assisted. My Department has now taken those workshops over, and we hope to extend that system of sheltered employment further. So far we have made quite a good contribution, but it is a matter which my Department takes very seriously and I can assure the hon. member that it has our fullest attention.

The hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) also raised the question of work reservation. He said we were not using the best material to do the work in South Africa. He also said that apprentices should be encouraged. If hon. members want further information on what we are doing in order to assist apprentices in their technical training, the hon. the Deputy Minister, who dealt with the Apprenticeship Bill, which is now law, will be able to give them that information. The hon. member for Rosettenville evaded the question put by hon. members on this side in regard to the question of work reservation on the mines. I view this matter seriously, because the case that the Opposition puts against work reservation is based on moral grounds, at least that is what they assert. That word is used time and time again by the Opposition. They say on moral grounds there should be no work reservation. In other words, it is immoral to have work reservation. I have put this question on various occasions: If it is immoral in certain industries why is it not immoral in the mining industry? That is the question they must answer.

It is also immoral in the mines.

The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) would say that because her policy is quite clear; I appreciate her bona fides. But the United Party will not answer this question. I say that if work reservation is immoral in the building industry, in the clothing industry and in any other industry, why is it not immoral in the mining industry? That is a question that party must answer. I have not had an answer yet. If hon. members can tell me what difference there is between work reservation in the mining industry and in other industries I would like to know it. The hon. member for Rosettenville attempted to draw a distinction. He said there was work reservation in the mines because workers had to handle dangerous explosives and therefore you must have a highly skilled worker to handle these explosives. Well, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) effectively replied to that. He said because it was a highly skilled job it was reserved for Whites. That is what the statement of the hon. member for Rosettenville means: Because it is a skilled job it must be reserved for Whites. What about all these other industries; are they not equally skilled?

They are a lot of hypocrites.

Sir, on a point of order.

Order! Did the hon. member for Cradock say they were a lot of hypocrites? The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it, Sir.

Sir on a point of order, must the hon. member not rise properly in his seat when he withdraws a remark?

Order! The hon. member must rise in his seat and withdraw that remark.

I withdraw it, Sir.

The hon. member for Somerset East raised the question of workmen’s compensation in regard to farm workers. As the hon. member knows the Department has recently gone very fully into that question. I have a copy here of what I said to the Agricultural Union on this question. I can save time by reading an extract quickly—

I can assure the hon. member that the position is being closely watched and no injustice will be done to the farmers as far as that point is concerned.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? I want to ask the hon. the Minister, notwithstanding the assurance he has just given us, to go into this matter again. What is happening to-day is absolutely impossible.

I want to tell the hon. member and the hon. member for Somerset East that the speech which the hon. member for Somerset East has made will be studied very closely in Hansard and that we shall give attention to it.

Has the hon. the Minister considered compulsory cover for all agriculture?

Yes, that is being considered.

May I ask the Minister a question? Will the hon. the Minister investigate the question of job reservation in regard to heavy vehicles and cranes in the Vaal basin area?

As far as that is concerned the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Van Staden) also raised the question of job reservation in respect of petrol pump attendants. My attitude is this: that I am prepared to investigate these matters if I get a request to do so. We usually get requests from certain representatives, certain trade unions and so on. If the hon. member would put in a request that that matter should be investigated, also the question of the petrol pump attendants, they will have my attention.

I just want to deal shortly with the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross). The hon. member for Benoni, apart from raising the question of pensioners which is not my job, it is the job of my colleague, the hon. the Minister for Social Welfare and Pensions, raised the question of a certain petition which he says had been sent to me from 30 persons requesting either a repeal or an amendment to the Unemployment Insurance Act which was passed last year. He read a reply which they had received from me to the effect that the petition had been noted. The reason why the reply was sent in that form was that I was not prepared to amend or to repeal the Unemployment Insurance Act. The hon. member then went out of his way to be insulting as far as I personally was concerned. He added this just for good measure which I think was a vile insinuation and probably just worthy of that hon. member. He said this: “Probably if the 30 names had not been English names the Minister would have attended to it properly.” Hon. members will see what a vile insinuation it is but I expect that sort of thing from that hon. member. What I want to tell the hon. member is this: I do not propose to answer any of the questions which he has submitted to me as Minister. I also want to tell the hon. member this that if his constituents wish to raise any matter with me as Minister of Labour and Immigration they must do so through some person other than the hon. member. I want to tell them that if that hon. member raises any matter with me as Minister of Labour and Immigration, they will not get any sympathy from me whatsoever. I am going further, I am giving instructions to my Departments that if that hon. member raises any matter concerning my Departments it has to be referred to me personally; I will attend to it.

I shall be very brief. I just want to place on record immediately the feeling of shock and disappointment which the last part of the long speech of the hon. the Minister of Labour aroused in one. If a speech of an hon. member in this House is insulting the Rules of the House provide for it that the Minister can be protected. If the hon. the Minister feels that he has been insulted he has the fullest right to draw your attention to it, Mr. Chairman, and you will protect him. But for the Minister to report to what amounts to a boycott of a chosen member of this House is something completely unheard of. It is something so petty, Mr. Chairman, that I still cannot believe my own ears. I can only hope that with the passage of time, when this cry of pain of the Minister’s has subsided, he will come to his senses and once again act like a responsible Minister of the Republic. If the hon. the Minister takes exception to anything which an hon. member on this side says he ought to object immediately and seek protection. But to penalize the constituents of the hon. member to compensate himself for his feeling of inferiority is something unheard of. One can understand the Minister feeling ashamed of himself in certain respects but how dare he take it out on a free member of a free House of Assembly of a free country?

The hon. the Minister raised one matter which perhaps deserves a little attention. That was his accusation that we were double faced in regard to job reservation on the mines of the Witwatersrand. I want to react briefly to that. The Minister has, of course, made far-reaching accusations. He has betrayed seven-eighths of his own political past. He got up here and as much as said that for the major part of his political life he had been a dishonest and double-faced person. I cannot help that; that is the Minister’s own affair; that is a matter for his own conscience. It is quite clear that a special position has developed on the mines over the years. A special position has developed on the gold mines over the years and that position was due to two major facts. The one was the objection of the mineworkers to the fact that primitive tribal Natives, all migrant labourers.…

Not all of them.

In 1922, when the matter was raised, it was proved that all the Natives concerned in the gold mines on the Witwatersrand were migrant labourers. [Interjections.] What is more, I go so far as to say that even to-day 98 per cent to 99 per cent of the Natives who work underground in the mines are migrant labourers. With the development of the gold fields of the Orange Free State there was an attempt on the part of the mines to reduce the number of migrant labourers and to create an established permanent Native working class, as the Government is doing in the case of Sasol. But when the mines wanted to do so in the Free State this Government stopped them. However, I do not want to go further into that. The fact is that the mineworkers objected to primitive tribal Natives handling explosives. That led to a bloody strike; it stopped just this side of a revolution. Blood flowed and as a result of that a National Party Government passed an Act shortly after that whereby certain work was reserved in the mines for the Natives. That was approximately 35-40 years ago. That pattern has become part of the mining organization. [Interjections.] I am not saying it is right; I am not saying it should not be changed. If it is changed it must be changed as a result of the employers and the employees coming to an agreement. I personally hope such an agreement will become possible because I do believe that the time will arrive when it will not be possible for us to maintain that colour bar and maintain a sound economy in South Africa at the same time. As practical people we must accept that we are dealing here with an established position under an established set of circumstances.

And you do not touch that?

You do not touch that unless there is an agreement between the parties concerned. When this position developed in 1922 as a result of an attempt to change a series of conventions.…

Three cheers for the status quo!

It is not often that I ask for your protection Mr. Chairman, but when the hon. member gets too rude.…

Order! I shall maintain order.

Three cheers for the status quo!

Order, order!

What happened was this: That was the first attempt to get Natives to do that type of work and the position was frozen because of tremendous industrial unrest; the existing position was frozen. People were not deprived of existing rights. The position in regard to job reservation is that it is an attempt—the courts shattered that hope at one time—to deprive people of their existing rights. A few years ago the Minister lost a case in Johannesburg when he tried to interfere in organized factories there; he wanted to put the clock back by depriving people of positions they had occupied for years. To-day an attempt is still being made to do so on a percentage basis. It will have this result that people will be deprived of the jobs which have been theirs traditionally. There is no comparison between that position and the position which exists on the mines. I think it is unworthy of the Minister to advance this superficial argument and to level unfounded accusations in view of the fact that for 20-30 years of his political life he has had the opportunity of agitating for a change in order to establish his moral superiority over us. Why did he not do so? I can only express my extreme disappointment in the attitude of the Minister, firstly, because of his threats and the boycott he has promised the voters of Benoni, something which he, as a servant of the State, has no right to do, and secondly, because of his superficial betrayal of his own past in order to get out of an embarrassing political situation.

The hon. Deputy Minister…

Mr. Chairman…

Order! Is the hon. member rising on a point of order?

Yes, Mr. Chairman. The point of order is that the attack has been completely uncalled for…

Order! That is not a point of order.

Then I shall raise it on a later occasion.

We have to-night again had an exhibition of the double game played by the United Party. We have already had a few examples of that. I shall begin with the admonition of the hon. the Minister to the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross). He reprimanded the hon. member for Benoni for his insinuation that because the names were those of English-speaking people the Minister was not concerned about it. That is a reprehensible insinuation. The Minister was quite right in expressing himself strongly in that regard. It has a double meaning to intimate that the Minister acted against the constituents of Benoni. On the contrary, the Minister said that the Benoni constituents should in the future approach him through other channels. That is what he said. Why are his words now being distorted.

Which channels?

They can make use of a stamp. They can approach other members of Parliament.…

On a point of order, the hon. the Deputy Minister has just said, “Why are his words now being distorted?”. Thereby he has implied that the last speaker on this side distorted the words of the hon. the Minister.

Order! Did the hon. the Deputy Minister say that the Minister’s words were being distorted?

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I did say that. I withdraw those words. The fact is that the hon. the Minister said that he would respond to those constituents if they approached him through other channels. The accusation made here by the hon. member for Yeoville was that the Minister was now going to take action against the voters of Benoni. If that is not an unparliamentary distortion, then it is a definite misrepresentation. That is not the only instance of this double game on the part of the United Party that we have had in this debate. The other double game we had was in connection with work reservation. The one moment work reservation is branded as immoral, as the worst thing in the world. When we come to the first work reservation determination laid down in this country, namely the Colour Bar Act of 1926 which affected the mining industry, then it is suddenly perfectly all right and the hon. member for Yeoville has nothing to say in that regard. Do principles not count at all with him? It is, after all, precisely the same principle which has been applied right up to the present as far as work reservation determinations are concerned. But, naturally, because they have so many friends in the mining industry, and because they probably feel as we do that the mining industry should carry on as it has been doing, they suddenly change their sense of values and say they cannot expatiate on that. These are not the only instances of double standards and double play that we have had here. We have encountered it in connection with the so-called “rate for the job”, which has been raked up ad infinitum as the solution. The hon. member for Yeoville said again to-night that it was the solution. I would very much like to know if the hon. member for Yeoville can answer this question for me: Is it still the aim of the United Party to protect the White worker by the “rate for the job”? Is that still your objective?

To protect any worker against unfair competition by people on a lower level.

Not to protect the White worker?

To protect people against those on a lower scale.

Mr. Chairman, here you now have an interesting example of double talk. I have here an extract from the Speaker‘s Guide of the United Party—you will remember this famous document with which they attempted to fight us in 1953. In relation to the “Protection of the Rate for the Job Principle”, the United Party then said the following—

In other words, on the one hand they want to pose as the people who protect the White worker because, as they put it, the work cannot be offered at a lower rate of pay. I wonder if the United Party, including the hon. member for Yeoville, who now takes such an interest in labour matters, have ever taken the trouble to ascertain how the United Party’s “rate for the job” works? I took the trouble of asking my Department to investigate the question as to how the “rate for the job” operates here in the Cape and how it provides protection. Now I would just like to give a few instances to illustrate how the “rate for the job” works. In the engineering industry the minimum wage, the so-called “rate for the job”, is 39 cents per hour here in the Western Cape, but the Whites get 45 cents per hour. But do you know what the Coloureds get? They get 42 cents per hour. Now what sort of “rate for the job” is that? What sort of “rate for the job” is it that has a minimum rate of 39 cents per hour, and the Whites get 45 cents and the non-Whites get 42 cents?

Who determines it?

It is a question of wage determinations and wage agreements. But my point is that despite a minimum wage being laid down for the so-called “rate for the job”, the employers pay the White workers somewhat more than the so-called “rate for the job”, and they pay the non-Whites at a lower rate.

Allow me to mention another two or three more examples. Take clerical posts. In the trade the minimum wage for clerical posts in the Western Cape is R12 per week. Do you know what the average weekly wage is for Whites here? It is R25 per week; but the wage of the Coloureds is R15 per week. That is how the “rate for the job” works in practice. It is just bluff; it is a fraud. We call it swindling (boereverneukery). And what do the Coloured blockmen get? This “rate for the job” means that 92 per cent of the Coloureds here in the Western Cape receive the minimum wage. They receive the “rate for the job”. But only 13 per cent of the Whites receive the minimum wage: 13 per cent of them receive the “rate for the job”. Precisely what the hon. member for Vereeniging said: the minimum wage is laid down, “the rate for the job”. A higher wage is paid to the Whites, and it is constantly used as a sort of threat, as a sword hanging over their heads: “If you do such and such, then either you go, or we will reduce you to this wage”. What sort of protection for the Whites is this then? This is nothing else but fraud, and it is just one of the many examples of the double game played by the United Party. We had this double game in another sphere as well, and that was in connection with the Native trade unions. The hon. member for Yeoville pleaded that we should now allow the Bantu workers’ interests to be served by the existing trade unions, so that they could also then have collective bargaining. That means only one thing. If you take part in collective bargaining in this country, then you must, as the hon. the Minister said, belong to a recognized trade union. There is no other way in this country of taking part in collective bargaining. The hon. member knows that as well as he knows his own name. But if it is pointed out that they are pleading for the recognition of Native trade unions, then the hon. member is quick to say to the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. Van Rensburg): No, he did not plead for the recognition of Native trade unions. On the one hand he wants them to participate in mutual competition, and that necessarily means that he recognizes trade unions. And if it is then put to them, they are too afraid to admit it. So long as a party like the United Party plays this double game as far as principles are concerned, and so long as principles are to them just so many trade commodities, to be handled for the sake of opportunism, for so long must they also expect their standpoint to be treated with contempt both by this House and by the workers themselves.

I will be very short. All I want to say is that I regard the speech of the hon. Deputy Minister as an accolade and that every English-speaking person in the country, bar two,—the hon. Minister and one other, will agree that I have been done honour by his speech. My constituents will not be terrorized or intimidated by his speech, and I hope that one day he will have the guts to come and stand on the East Rand again, and I know what is going to happen to him then.

I want to congratulate the hon. the Minister of Labour most heartily this evening on a brilliant exposition, but I particularly wish to congratulate him wholeheartedly on having pulled up the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) in the way that he did. I know that hon. member; I lived in his constituency for a long time.

Not so “honourable”.

Order! The hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) must withdraw that.

I withdraw it.

I said the “honourable member”, Mr. Chairman, but I just want to say that the rules of this House are cruel to one. I resided in the hon. member’s constituency.

On a point of order, the hon. member for Vereeniging insinuates that he only shows courtesy because he is cruelly compelled to do so by the rules of the House.

I am taking into consideration the rules of the House, Mr. Chairman, and there are many cruel things in the Rules of the House. For instance, there is the rule that limits me to ten minutes, which is very cruel. I should like to talk for 20 minutes. The hon. member for Yeoville must not be so pusillanimous. I shall come to him in a moment. But I should just like to say to the hon. member for Benoni that I lived in his constituency for a long time. He need not tell us that his constituents will be prejudiced. His constituents take no notice of him.

He challenges you to come there.

Oh, he challenges me? I shall go to Benoni, but not with him. I am not going to give him an audience. He cannot get an audience. I do not believe he has ever had an audience of more than 20 people in Benoni, and he is regarded by his own constituents as just about the most useless member they have ever had. They do not make use of his services. They make all their representations through Morrie Nestadt. They don’t want to know anything about him; they do not wish to see him, and I know of no United Party member who has any time for him. I think the hon. member, who was offensive here to the Minister by suggesting that the Minister refused to give attention to a certain matter because it concerns an English-speaking person, deserves nothing less than the Minister gave him, and I want to urge upon the Minister to adhere to what he said.

Now I should like to come to the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn), this man of high morals. Take his defence of job reservation in the mines. I want to ask the hon. member for Yeoville this: Why will his policy of the rate for the job not work in the mines? Surely a rate is fixed, is it not? He says that primitive people are employed in the mines; that it is migrant labour from other territories that is employed there; that they are foreign Natives; that they are primitive people. Assuming he introduced his rate for the job; who would make use of this primitive labour to handle explosives there? Why would the rate for the job not work there? This only goes to show that his whole argument that this is based on tradition, does not hold water. The hon. member now sits there talking; I appreciate it very much that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is trying to save the hon. member from his embarrassment. But what is the basis of the rate for the job? The basis is that once a rate has been fixed, an inferior person will never be used for the job. One uses the person who can best do the job. His argument therefore that primitive people are being employed in the mines, migrant labourers, semi-barbarians, demonstrates that that is the obvious place where the rate for the job should be applied. Surely that is the place where the rate for the job will give complete protection to the White workers, according to his own reasoning. The hon. member now says that it is a mistake; that there must be no job reservation in the mines. He says it must eventually disappear, but if it has to disappear it must be done away with as a result of discussions between the employers and the employees. Did I understand him correctly?

By agreement, yes.

Agreement between the employer and the employee. Which employer? Presumably the Chamber of Mines, the Gold Producers’ Committee and the various mining companies? And which employee?

The trade unions.

Oh, not the ordinary employee; not the primitive employees; in other words, the veto must be given to the Mineworkers’ Union. Is that correct? In other words, unless the consent of the Mineworkers’ Union has first been obtained, job reservation must retain in the mines. Is that correct?

Yes.

Splendid. He says that this flows from the fact that there was a strike in 1922.

I did not say that.

Very well then, it suits my argument better if he did not say that. The hon. member now says that there must be an agreement with the Mineworkers’ Union. What greater right has the Mineworkers’ Union to safeguard their interests than the Steelworkers’ Union in Vereeniging and in Vanderbijlpark and in Pretoria have to safeguard theirs? Why should they have more protection? The hon. member talks about principles. Is it on principle, on moral grounds, that they should enjoy greater protection? The hon. member admits that the Mineworkers‘Union will retain the veto in regard to job reservation in the mines. Is that correct? The hon. member for Yeoville is not a member without courage. I should like to ask him this: Suppose the Chamber of Mines (and they would gladly do so) were to agree. The Gold Producers’ Committee would gladly agree that Bantu labourers should also be able to do skilled work. The only body against it is the Mineworkers’ Union. Now the hon. member says that it must by agreement between the employers and the employees, and the only employees organization that he recognizes is the Mineworkers’ Union. In other words, the Mineworkers’ Union must have the last word as to whether there shall be job reservation in the mines. Is that correct or is it not correct?

The hon. member is now trying to make my speech!

Let me ask him a further question then: If it is not the Mineworkers’ Union he wants to consult, is he willing to consult the Bantu workers? Is he prepared to give them a say?

You are arguing a point which I never raised

I shall resume my seat so that the hon. member can tell us who is to be consulted. I just want him to say very clearly who has to be consulted before job reservation is removed in the mines. He says he is going to tell us now. I am going to resume my seat therefore.

I devoted almost my whole ten minutes to the point that the position at the mines was perfectly clear. The whole matter was regulated after the strike which took place as long ago as 1922, when a fixed pattern of industrial relationships arose on the mines. That was my main argument. I say that since there is this fixed pattern of relations, it can only be modified or varied by the operation of industrial democracy; that means agreement between the organized workers and the organized employers. Nothing can be clearer. I also emphasized that in the case of the mines there was an existing position which the employers sought to change, and the employees objected. In the case of job reservation, what has already been achieved is being undone. And that is the difference. But if the hon. member wishes to argue with me and wishes to ignore these two critical differences, then he is not arguing with me; he is knocking down skittles which he himself put up.

I have put a very simple question to my hon. friend, namely who had to be consulted. There are only three groups that can be consulted. The one is the Gold Producers’ Committee. We know they are in favour of the abolition of job reservation. The other body that could be consulted is the Mineworkers’ Union, and the third group that could be consulted is the unskilled labourers in the mines, namely the Bantu, the migrant labour as he called it. The hon. member is not in favour of the Bantu being consulted. Or am I saying the wrong thing now?

Organized labour.

Precisely, so I am correct. I am quite correct in saying that the hon. member for Yeoville is willing, as regards job reservation in the mines, to give the veto right to the Mineworkers’ Union and to nobody else.

Is the Mineworkers’ Union the only one? There are seven unions.

All of them are affiliated to the Mineworkers’ Uuion. It covers all the White labourers. Now I ask the hon. member this: If he wants to protect the workers in the mines, if he wants to give those workers the veto right, why cannot I have that right for my steelworkers in Vereeniging and Vanderbijlpark and in Mr. Van der Walt’s constituency? They want the same right. Why cannot we have the same right for the engineers? Why cannot we claim the same right for the transport services? What happens to the moral basis now? The United Party is willing therefore, for political reasons, to give to the Mineworkers’ Union, the White workers in the mines, the veto right to discriminate against Black labour in the mines, to give them the full power to say: “We refuse to allow any Black man to come and do this job we are doing at the moment.” But they refuse to give that right to any other worker. Where does the moral basis come in? What is the economic basis for it? Is there any basis at all for such an attitude? It only exposes the absolute bluff on that side, and the hon. member for Yeoville ought to be ashamed of himself. What happens to the rate for the job? He does not have a rate for the job. Their whole case simply is that they are willing, when it does not affect them politically, to throw the White labourer on to the open market in competition with Black labour, and they do not care what becomes of the White workers. Never since I have been in this Parliament, has the absolute immorality of the United Party, the absolute lack of principle, been exposed so damningly as the Minister of Labour has exposed it during this debate to-day, and the hon. member for Yeoville has helped to destroy them completely.

I am sorry to interrupt this private argument between the hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Vereeniging, but I want to come back to this very important subject of job reservation. Before I do that, I would like to associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. Minister in paying tribute to Mr. Hannah, the present Secretary for Labour, who. I understand, is facing us in the Gallery for the last time in that capacity. My colleagues and I have had on numerous occasions to interview him in regard to labour matters affecting the Coloured community. We have always found him very courteous and a painstaking official, and he carries with him the goodwill and good wishes of my colleagues and myself, and we wish him a very long and happy retirement.

I would also like to thank the hon. Minister for the very courteous way in which he replied to the observations that I made earlier this afternoon on this very important matter of Job reservation. I do not for a single moment agree with the hon. Minister’s contentions, and I want to show him in the course of a very brief speech where he has erred. But nevertheless the hon. Minister was very courteous in his reply and I am grateful to him for the way in which he dealt with the observations I made.

The hon. Minister pointed out that this tribunal (I want to deal with job reservation particularly in so far as it affects the building industry in the Cape) was established by his predecessor in 1960. I accept that position, because I am absolutely satisfied that the present incumbent of that office, the present hon. Minister, would not have established this tribunal on the very flimsy request that was made at the time. The hon. Minister himself has pointed out in reply to a question that was put to him in this House that the tribunal was established because of a request made by the South African Operative Masons Society and the South African Electrical Workers Association. It was significant that the tribunal was not established to inquire into the affairs of those two associations, but was established generally to inquire into the building industry. I want to refer again very briefly to the terms of reference of that tribunal. The chairman of the tribunal, Mr. Potgieter, indicated that the tribunal’s terms of reference were to investigate whether as a result of inter-racial competition the white worker in the building industry in the Cape needed protection. Those were the simple terms of reference of that tribunal. I venture to suggest that the weight of evidence, Mr. Chairman, and the weight of representations laid before that tribunal in no way justified the majority finding of that tribunal. On the contrary, it was pointed out right throughout the whole of that evidence that until this tribunal was established in 1960 absolute peace existed in the building industry in the Cape. I refer to the statement made by the representative of the Employers’ Association, who in no uncertain terms said this—

That is to say racial legislation. Then he went on to say, and that is very important—

This was the situation that existed in the industry when the Minister‘s predecessor suddenly decided to establish this tribunal. Peace had reigned in the industry since 1922. The workmen were happy and satisfied. The employers were happy and satisfied. But for some reasons, which I suggest can only be attributed to a political innovation on the part of the then Minister, he decided to establish this tribunal to investigate whether as a result of inter-racial competition the White worker in the building industry in the Cape needed protection. I say that there was no evidence whatsoever that there existed any inter-racial friction between the various races, or that the position of the White worker was in any way in jeopardy. I say it was unnecessary to establish this tribunal in the first place. But, in any case, once the tribunal had been established, it was abundantly clear from the evidence which I have read here, and which my colleagues have read, and which I am sure the hon. Minister has read, that the weight of evidence clearly indicated that there did not exist any justification whatsoever for the introduction of this job reservation policy in any industry where peace had reigned since 1922 without the necessity of having this obnoxious form of legislation introduced. The hon. Minister has pointed out…

Order! Did the hon. member say “obnoxious form of legislation”?

The obnoxious policy on the part of the Government in the form of job reservation, Sir. I referred previously to the obnoxious policy of the Government to introduce job reservation. The hon. Minister has pointed out in the course of his long reply that he was not affecting any particular people, because where the vast majority of workers in any particular industry happened to be White the job was reserved for the White people, but where the vast majority happened to be Coloureds it was reserved for the Coloured people. He pointed out, for instance, that the bricklayers consist of one per cent Whites and 99 per cent Coloureds, and that this trade under job reservation was reserved for the Coloured people, and so on. But what the hon. Minister has overlooked is that in this determination the hon. Minister has unwittingly precluded men who are qualified in particular jobs, for example, as carpenters, from carrying on that job in any part of the Cape Province. He has restricted them to the region where that person is or was employed at the date of this proclamation. I do not think the hon. Minister appreciates this very important aspect that I want to raise now. There are many Coloured artisans—I take carpenters as an example—who have been in the employ of some of our big European establishments in the Cape for generations. These people work in Cape Town and they work outside Cape Town, they work all over the Cape Province. They tender for jobs in all parts of the Cape Province. In terms of this determination a Coloured man who has worked for, say, 25 years as a carpenter, and who is probably the most efficient carpenter in the employ of the White organization, could not be taken by that White organization when it is carrying out a contract in East London. In terms of this legislation that man would be restricted to Cape Town, because this is the place where he was employed at the time of this determination. It means that that carpenter in those circumstances…

That is correct.

I am glad that the Minister confirms that, and I hope that the hon. the Minister will bear this in mind because this is a very important aspect. It means that that poor unfortunate carpenter who has given his entire life to the service of his employers would be deprived of his livelihood if that firm has to take on a job outside of the region where this man was working at the time of the determination. This is one of the instances of many which affect the Coloured people here, and I would urge the hon. Minister to reconsider the matter. He has received representations from Coloured organizations. Time does not permit me to deal with it at great length. But he has received these representations and I ask the hon. Minister to give his most careful attention to it, because he is doing, unwittingly perhaps, a disservice to a large section of law-abiding Coloured citizens of this country who are being most adversely affected by the determination in its present form. [Time limit.]

I should like to discuss with the hon. the Minister the matter of labour in the Western Province, farm labour. I was shocked to hear—but this is not official— that the Department of Labour has no knowledge of the shortage of Coloured labourers in the Western Province.

Order! The Department is not charged with farm labour.

Under what Department does it fall then? Under which Vote may I discuss it?

Farm labour is specifically excluded from the legislation administered by the hon. the Minister. The hon. member will have to ask his Chief Whip under which Vote he can discuss it.

We on this side of the House feel, after the action of the Minister and his reply to the debate and after his unfortunate attitude to the member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) and to the public in a very important industrial centre such as Benoni, that we should express our displeasure with the Minister in a more tangible manner and for that reason I should like to move—

I wish to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) and the hon. Minister in regard to Mr. Hannah. I have had many occasions to deal with him personally, and I appreciate all the help that he has given me and I also wish him well in his retirement.

I also want to say to the hon. Minister that the point raised by the hon. member for Peninsula just before he sat down is one of the most important aspects of this legislation, and the hon. Minister should give us a full explanation as to why he restricted skilled Coloured artisans to an area in which they are now employed. The hon. Minister gave the impression that the status quo is being maintained. I contend that that is not so. I want to tell the hon. Minister that not only has he brought in his job reservation in the building industry, but the aspect raised by the hon. member for Peninsula has made it impossible for a Coloured man to go to other parts of the country, mentioned in this determination, to legitimately carry on his trade. The Coloured people do not deserve that. Which White man is refused the right to go from Cape Town to East London or Port Elizabeth to pursue his calling or the work he is engaged on. But a Coloured man is prevented from doing so. Why? The hon. Minister owes an explanation to the Coloured people of South Africa as to why that is taking place. I go further: The Coloured boy who is to-day an apprentice in the building industry cannot go there after he has finished his five years of apprenticeship work in Cape Town if he is apprenticed in Cape Town. So we have the position that a Coloured man is apprenticed in Cape Town and that when he is finished he is told that he has to go outside the area and work somewhere else. What sort of legislation is this? Who is the hon. Minister protecting? The White people? I say that it is absurd. He is bringing in a vicious system which curtails the right of a citizen of this country from carrying out his work and from carrying on the traditional occupation for which he has studied and to which he has devoted most of his life. Now the Minister also says that he is maintaining the status quo, but has the hon. Minister realized what he has done in regard to East London? In East London to-day there is complete job reservation in favour of the White man. No Coloured man can work in the building industry in East London. What evidence is there to justify such a determination? I think it is necessary to say that the employers in the building industry have made it clear to the hon. Minister and the Industrial Council for the Building Industry has made it clear to the hon. Minister what the position is. What other evidence does the Minister want? Does he take no notice at all of the Industrial Council of the Building Industry of South Africa? Is this a body to be treated with contempt? They wrote to the Minister and they wrote to the tribunal and they made it perfectly clear that they are against job reservation. On 11 December 1960, the Industrial Council for the Building Industry in the Western Province wrote a letter to the tribunal.

At 10.25 p.m. the Deputy-Chairman stated that, in accordance with Standing Order No. 26 (1), he would report progress and ask leave to sit again.