Mr. Speaker, I think you will readily agree with me that it would be almost impossible for me in my reply today to respond to all the various matters which have been raised, all the suggestions which have been made and all the arguments which have been advanced in the debate. I think that more than three dozen speakers took part in this debate. To those hon. members to whom I do not refer specifically, but who did make their contributions to the debate, I want to give the assurance that the various proposals or matters raised by them will certainly be considered by the department concerned. Where possible and where necessary, effect will be given to the proposals concerned.

To begin with, I want to inform hon. members that the State President has been pleased to extend the term of office of the Auditor-General, Mr. Gerald Barrie, to 30 June this year. He was to have retired on 31 March this year, but his term of office has been extended to prevent him from retiring during the Parliamentary session. I should like to take this opportunity of conveying the Government’s sincere thanks to Mr. Barrie for his long and dedicated service. His career in the Public Service has been one of great distinction. We greatly appreciate that. I think I am speaking on behalf of everyone in this House when I wish Mr. Barrie success, happiness and prosperity for the years to come. It is true that they will not be spent directly in the service of the State, but we nevertheless hope that he will enjoy a peaceful retirement.

Furthermore, I am glad to announce that the State President has been pleased to appoint as Auditor-General, in the place of Mr. Barrie, Mr. W. G. Schickerling, at present still a member of the Public Service Commission and formerly Secretary for the Interior. His appointment becomes effective on 1 July this year. I think I may rightly say that Mr. Schickerling possesses, to an unusual degree, the qualities required for occupying this high office. I therefore have no doubt that he will perform his important duties with great success.

Before I come to the budget itself, I should just like to raise one or two other matters. Hon. members may remember that in the course of the debate, reference was made to a remark which Mr. Watterson, a Natal MEC, allegedly made in connection with the closing of cinemas in Natal on Sundays. He allegedly referred to the fact that no exemption was being granted to Natal. Hon. members on this side of the House referred to this. The reaction to this on the part of members of the NRP, especially of the hon. member for Umhlanga—I remember—was that we should rather wait for the Hansard of the Natal Provincial Council to see what Mr. Watterson actually said. On one occasion I requested in this House that the Hansard concerned should be read out in this House. However, it was not done. I now have the Hansard concerned with me. I thank the hon. member for Vryheid for having made it available to me. It is the Natal Provincial Council’s Hansard of 21 March 1978. I am just going to read from it here and there. Mr. Watterson says, amongst other things—

This is the hon. the Minister of Justice—

Mr. Watterson went on to say—

I do not want to go any further into this. However, then he says—

On a question by Mr. Wessels whether he was speaking of the Methodist Church, Mr. Watterson replied—

Then he said—

†Mr. Wood, by way of interjection, said: “Hear, hear!” Then Mr. Watterson proceeded by saying—

*This was followed by interjections by hon. members. I am very sure they were made by hon. members of the NP in that council. They said Mr. Watterson’s remarks were irresponsible and disgraceful.

†Mr. Speaker, that is the story officially. I want to say at once that my quarrel is not with the hon. leader of the NRP. I have a high regard for the loyalty and the patriotism of the hon. member for Durban Point. I have never questioned it.

Is the hon. the Minister aware of the fact that Mr. Watterson has issued a Press statement in which he states categorically and unequivocally that he did not imply that English-speaking people would not be prepared to serve, no matter what the circumstances were, in the defence of South Africa?

Mr. Speaker, that does not seem to me to affect the issue at all. I have read verbatim what Mr. Watterson said. However, I want to say that my quarrel is not with the hon. member for Durban Point. This is what has been said by a member of the Executive Committee of Natal. I think the people of Natal, and of the whole country, will bear this in mind. I very much hope that the hon. leader of the NRP will take steps that, I would think, are necessary against a man who can talk like this. I want to say— and I think I, too, can speak for English-speaking people—that that does not represent the views of one per cent of the English-speaking people in South Africa.

*I also want to refer to another matter which has been much debated. I am referring to Mr. Donald Woods, who fled the country and who is saying the most reprehensible things about his country, South Africa, abroad.

†You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member for Pinelands has said that he admires Mr. Woods. There are a number of other members in that party, the Official Opposition, who obviously share his sentiments. I want to refer briefly to what Mr. Woods said to the United Nations in person. He called on the United Nations recently in person—and these are his words—“to intensify as soon as possible a policy of ostracism of the Pretoria regime”. He also recently took the lead in an important BBC feature programme, to persuade a panel of 100 people who act as judges in the debate, that economic sanctions should be imposed upon South Africa. I am glad to say, Sir, that he failed ignominiously, largely because of the excellent performance of those public-spirited people who opposed him in the debate in London, and partly because of the fairness and the good sense of that very large panel of judges. But, Mr. Speaker, that is not all. I have here a photostat of an article in the Sydney Morning Herald of 3 March 1978, by Mr. Donald Woods. In this article he says—

Can you imagine that, Sir? He continues—

He then goes on to say why he fled his country. It is quite interesting. He gives various reasons. The first reason, he says, is—

He then goes on to say how he was banned by the Minister of Justice so that he could not carry out his profession. He then gives as his third reason for fleeing the country the following—

He makes that as a statement of fact. He then goes on to say—

This is how he talks outside his country. He then gives various reasons why he went to Australia, and says how delighted he is to be in Australia. He had this to say—

He then goes on to say what a high regard Steve Biko had for Australia and what a high regard he (Mr. Woods) has for the Australian diplomatic mission in South Africa, and all that sort of thing. Then he quotes Mr. Oxlee, the South African ambassador. He says—

I would say that is one of the euphemisms of the century.

What was he banned for?

I quote further from the article by Mr. Woods—

He goes on to say—

I think it is a scandalous document, and I think it is high time these things were made known to the House and the country. I want to ask—and is it not a reasonable question?— how any person, whether he is an hon. member of this House or not, who associates himself with this man can be called a South African patriot. [Interjections.]

Or anybody who can ban him without trial.

I now want to come closer to the budget itself. It has been said that we have serious unemployment. However, I do not think we should overemphasize or exaggerate the situation. I have already furnished the official figures to this House. However, it is interesting that in the past day or two, a report has appeared in our newspapers which reads: “Werkgeleenthede in Suid-Afrika verbeter”. Perhaps I should quote a short passage from it—

Then he goes on to say that this is the case with a considerable number of other companies, including those which employ Blacks.

Then I should also like to point out, as I have already done on another occasion in this House, that the number of registered unemployed—Whites, Coloureds and Indians— has shown a fairly strong decline in recent months, and I think that this, too, is a tendency we have to take into account.

†Some hon. members, amongst them the hon. member for Amanzimtoti and particularly the hon. member for East London North, referred to the increase in the number employed in the Public Service. Indeed, the hon. member for Amanzimtoti said that the Government seemed to be the only growth industry in the country. According to official statistics of the Department of Statistics, however, the official position is that between 30 June 1975 and 30 June 1976 employment in the Government service increased from 272 300 to 295 400, an increase of just under 8½%, and from June 1976 to June 1977 from 295 400 to 305 900, an increase of 3,5%. If one looks at the figures, one will also find that the biggest increases were in respect of Bantu, particularly in education, and then also amongst the Coloureds and the Rehoboth and Nama people. So there again I think we must keep a sense of perspective. I do not think one can say that an increase of 3½%in a year is anything to talk about, unless one wants to say it is very moderate.

I now come to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and to what he said in his speech. He intimated that because my colleague, the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs, had said that America was at present a greater enemy of South Africa than Russia, we had no business to couple the rand to the dollar. He criticized us on that score. I think, however, that there is no logic whatever in that statement. We do not tie the rand to another currency because we like or dislike the country concerned; we do so because we want to choose a currency which is an important currency as an intervention currency. We have done it in the case of the USA because the dollar is, in fact, a very heavily traded currency and a large portion of South Africa’s foreign trade takes place in dollars. It is, in fact, to suit ourselves that we have done that. It is not the case that, because it may be said that at the moment America is a greater enemy of South Africa than Russia, we should, to follow the logic of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, link the rand to the rouble. That would make no sense at all. I just wanted to refer to that because he made that statement in his speech.

*I was also asked why the increase in social pensions was coming into effect on 1 October and not earlier. The answer is that it has become the custom over quite a number of years to make the increase effective as from 1 October. We do this once a year. We do not have unlimited means for making these adjustments more than once a year. A second reason is that it is impossible to finalize the very detailed data which has to be prepared in this connection before September or October. It is a major administrative task and we simply do not have the manpower required to do it any sooner. I think these are two good and practical reasons for doing it this way.

I was also asked—I think the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet asked this question— whether revenue from national defence and bonus bonds was earmarked for defence. The reply to that is that the revenue from those sources are not paid into a separate account. There is only one State Revenue Account, and that is the State Revenue Fund. However, the revenue concerned has directly contributed to enabling us to increase defence expenditure so phenomenally over the past three or four years. It has increased by no less than 235%. Therefore, although the revenue is not earmarked for a specific purpose or paid into a separate account, Defence benefits directly from this source of revenue. Without this source of revenue it would not have been possible to increase defence expenditure as we have in fact done over the past year or two. I may just say that national defence bonds have brought in an amount of R232 million from 1 June 1976 up to now, while the defence bonus bonds have yielded R28 million as from 1 October last year. The two together therefore amount to R260 million, and I can assure you, Sir, that this is an important reason why we have been able to increase the defence expenditure as we have in fact done.

I now want to refer more directly to one or two aspects of the budget itself. It is quite true that the budget has been well received, and I am very grateful for that. As regard the speeches which were made on the Opposition side, there is not much to which I really need reply. In any event, I want to thank the hon. members who contributed to the debate very sincerely for the trouble they took. I think that quite a number of excellent speeches were made in this debate.

†The budget is of course aimed to be a moderately stimulatory budget. It contains important elements of tax reform, which we think are certainly due. All this is to take place, as I have put it, within the constraints imposed by the need for financial discipline, because there is no doubt that we still have to watch that side of our activities very carefully indeed. The stimulation through the budget is not through an increase in the money supply or bank credit, although we have made allowances for moderate increases in these aggregates if necessary, and the Reserve Bank will see to that. It is being brought about by an attempt to raise the whole level of confidence in the economy, as the hon. member for Yeoville also correctly said, predominantly through a more active role by the private sector. That is what we are really aiming at.

As far as tax reform is concerned, we first of all want a more broadly-based tax. I think the time is past when a handful of people in South Africa must be responsible for paying 80% or 90% of all taxes. We want a more broadly-based tax and, secondly, we want a reform in the sense that we want a better relation between direct and indirect taxes. This relationship has got badly out of alignment over the last 10 or 20 years. For instance, 20 years ago the relationship of direct to indirect taxes was 56,5% to 43,5%. 10 years ago it was 62,5% to 37,5%. Today, after introducing the new general sales tax, it will be 66,5% to 33,3%. There is no rule of thumb, and I cannot say precisely what the relationship must be. However, I can say that it is generally regarded by all the experts on taxation that under present conditions a relationship of direct taxes to indirect taxes of 66,5% to 33,3% is not desirable. Indirect taxes should be a bigger proportion than that. That is what we are aiming at too in this particular proposal by introducing the general sales tax.

When one looks back over the years, one finds that in 1969, for example, Mr. S. F. Waterson, speaking on behalf of the then Official Opposition when the Minister proposed to introduce sales duty, said the following (Hansard, 8 April 1969, col. 3519)—

Ever since then, and indeed before that, one will find that the consensus of view seems to be in that direction.

As far as the general sales tax is concerned, it is interesting to see that Mr. H. A. van Hoogstraten in 1973, then speaking on behalf of the UP in the House, said the following (Hansard, 2 April 1973, col. 3857)—

That is exactly what we are aiming to do. In 1977—just a year ago—Mr. van Hoogstraten said the following in this House (Hansard, 12 April 1977, col. 5027)—

I had announced in the budget last year the idea of a general sales tax, and he is referring to that—

He therefore approved of that immediately.

The hon. member for Yeoville had the following to say in April 1976. He was giving me a whole list of things I should have done and said (Hansard, 5 April 1976, col. 4582)—

Right.

Right,—

He therefore asked for the sort of tax we are introducing now.

We would not have had double taxation.

Recently I introduced a completely innocent Bill aimed, in the interests of the public and in the interests of all vendors, under this new tax, at giving them the opportunity to register so that the head of the Department of Inland Revenue could issue them with exemption certificates, where necessary, but strangely enough, the whole Opposition opposed the measure tooth and nail. We had division upon division in the House over the matter. In 1976 the hon. member for Yeoville said that we should not only have a tax at retail level, but that we should also do away with the sales duty so as not to put up the cost of living. The implication is that the new tax, which will take its place, will not put up the cost of living, or certainly not to that extent. That is the implication of what he said.

You have not done away with sales tax.

The hon. member should remember what he said two years ago. According to Press reports and to what I have heard from the Secretary for Inland Revenue, there has been a very tardy response by certain members of the public to his request that they should give their names to him to be put on the register of vendors. It is entirely up to those members of the public, or businessmen, or whoever they are, to do so. I can tell them, however, that if they do not do so and if the Secretary for Inland Revenue draws up his register one of these days and their names are not on the register because they have not complied, there is no question that they can ask for an exemption from tax by the issue of a certificate, where it would otherwise be granted. It is therefore completely in their interests and I advise them to move very fast unless they want to land in a position which will be to their direct disadvantage.

The hon. member for Yeoville further says that it is an inopportune time to have this tax. In 1976 when things were tighter than they are now, the hon. member said that that was the time to introduce a tax at the retail level. That was his view in April of 1976; today he says it is inopportune. As some people say, the imposition of a tax is always inopportune. The hon. member for Yeoville also said that the tax rate is too high, and yet I can tell the hon. member that when we made the 4% sales tax known, it received general approbation from people who put it to me in writing and otherwise that they thought that it would amount to 5%. There was a very general expectation of 5%. We introduced a 4% tax and yet the hon. member for Yeoville maintains that it is too high. I do not think it is too high, but I shall come back to that point in a moment.

On the first day, immediately after the budget was introduced, the hon. member for Yeoville in a fairly emotional outburst made the remarkable statement that we are now taxing the poor. [Interjections.] The hon. member went further and said that the poor are being subjected to quadruple taxation.

That is right.

He said that the consumer was required to pay the import surcharge plus the sales duty plus customs duty plus the new general sales tax. We might add to that the dividend which he receives on his investment in shares is also an after-tax dividend and that he is also paying income tax on income. Does this mean that he is paying sixfold taxation? It is a completely nonsensical argument. I now want to come back to the statement of the hon. member, i.e. that we are taxing the poor. In this session, the hon. member for Hillbrow very emphatically said that the time had come for us to reduce the maximum marginal tax rate. It is in Hansard. Other hon. members on that side of the House have also said it and I can quote all of them if I have to. What have we done here? It is not only the maximum marginal rate that comes down; it runs right through. The hon. member for Hillbrow might like to comment on that when he gets the opportunity to speak perhaps during the Third Reading stage or when my Vote comes before the House.

The hon. member for Yeoville said that I was taxing away a further R500 million from the poor in South Africa. I challenge the hon. member across the floor of the House to justify that statement. He referred to the increase of R395 million brought about by this tax, i.e. the increase in revenue we are looking for. The amount is the net figure, after sizable concessions in respect of import surcharges and the sales duty, which is down by 5% all round. We have also made very important concessions on income tax, we have made an attempt to stabilize the price of staple foodstuffs, we have made the biggest pension and related benefit increases that I know of, we have abolished the so-called poll tax—i.e. the fixed tax on Bantu males—and, a point which has rather been lost sight of, we have also provided for the repayment of the loan levies not in February next year, but in July this year. I think that is a very considerable concession to the tax-paying public.

You see, Mr. Speaker, it never was a case of trying to compensate fully for the new tax. What is the point of introducing a new tax to increase one’s revenue flow if one is going to do so many things to balance it that in the end one is going to have no extra money? In that case it would be completely self-defeating. What does the Opposition really expect? It has merely been a case of softening the blow wherever we could. I think, if I may say so, that we have succeeded very substantially in doing so. This has certainly been the burden of the comment which I have seen throughout the country. The hon. member for Yeoville said—

It is certainly not a case of taking the goose and giving the giblets in alms, as he said. The R132 million that the hon. member refers to as a tax concession to individuals …

Is for the rich.

No, it runs right through and one cannot say that one must take that amount from the R395 million and that one will then still have R263 million left. That is the implication of the hon. member’s statement in this particular paragraph. It makes absolutely no sense at all. I would like to remind the hon. member for Yeoville that a large portion, indeed more than one-third, of the sales tax will come from the sale of capital goods, from Government purchases at all levels and from purchases of commodities by public and private corporations. In all such cases the tax content, if passed on to the consumer, ought to be negligible and spread over a period of time. The hon. member has left that out of account as well.

I just want to come back for a moment to the question of the alleged taxing of the poor. A survey was undertaken by the Department of Statistics, and these figures were used by the Department of Inland Revenue to draw some quite interesting conclusions.

I think we are tending to over-estimate the influence of the new 4% tax on the less privileged or lower income groups, as if 100% of their expenditure will now carry the full 4% tax. The Department of Inland Revenue recently made a survey of the probable effect of this tax on a typical wage earner in the lower income groups. The basis used was a Black wage earner, earning an average annual income in 1976 of R1 272, an average determined by the Department of Statistics for that year. Taking the expenditure pattern of Black families in East London as researched by the Bureau for Market Research of the University of South Africa as being reasonably representative of the position for Black wage earners it would appear that just over 60%, in fact 61%, of the Black wage earner’s expenditure will be subjected to the 4% tax, and nearly 40% will not come into the picture at all. If we assume that the full 4% will be levied and paid by him on three-fifths of his expenditure, this will mean about an additional R31 per year in tax.

However, that is not all. The 5% reduction in sales duty on items included in his expenditure pattern, will result in a reduction of about R7 in his outlay, which together with the abolition of the R2,50 fixed tax per annum, means that the additional taxation will only amount to about R21 per year, or R1,75 per month. That is the effect on the average Black wage earner as scientifically determined. Against this one has to consider two things. First of all one has to consider the sustained rise in Black wages in the last four years. This has been a very substantial and sustained rise to which I have referred on several occasions in the House. In real terms that is still, after adjusting for the rise in the cost of living, a very substantial improvement. At the moment I do not want to bother the House with all the figures I have.

You are speaking like Marie Antoinette.

Last year—and this is interesting—the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens, Mr. Van Hoogstraten, drew the attention of the House to the tremendous increase in buying power expected for the lower income groups during the next decade. He said that whereas by 1980 Blacks would have a purchasing power of about R5 000 million and Whites, Coloureds and Asiatics a purchasing power of about R10 000 million, by 1990 the purchasing power of all peoples in South Africa would be about R40 million, R20 million for Blacks and R20 million for the other three national groups. It is precisely because of this growing base—whether those figures are strictly correct or not, does not matter as we are looking at the trend—that I now have deemed it necessary to switch over to this new indirect, much more broadly based tax. It will provide the necessary flexibility for future adjustments with very little disruptive effect. In the case of Blacks it of course goes further, because hundreds of millions of rand are currently being spent on improving what has been called their quality of life. For instance, some R144 million is being spent on education for Blacks; R69 million on pensions and social welfare; R116 million on the self-governing homelands; R38 million on the subsidization of bus transport alone—and there is another big amount for rail transport; R71 million on housing and the re-location of people under that scheme. So one can continue. When one weighs that, together with the very big increase in their material improvement through higher real wages, against this small increase brought about by this tax and all the facts and arguments I have given, I challenge the hon. member for Yeoville to say that this is taxing the poor. It is absolute nonsense. [Interjections.]

The hon. member has raised various other points into which I unfortunately cannot go now. For instance, he referred to the allowances and the writing off of capital expenditure to the extent of 100% in the case of industrialists. The Department of Inland Revenue has in fact canvassed industrialists several times and has found out that industrialists prefer our system to the 100% system that obtains in a country like Great Britain. There are very good reasons why that is so.

The marginal tax rate is now 60%. One cannot possibly include the loan levy as that is a loan which is repaid with interest in a given period of time. It is not an income tax. The maximum marginal rate is 60%, which compares quite well with a number of other countries. If one says that in the USA it is 50%, one has to bear in mind that the USA has all sorts of taxes. There is taxation on State level and local authorities in the USA have all sorts of taxes. If one makes comparisons, one will find a very different state of affairs to what many hon. members have attempted to suggest. Let us take the case of a married man with two children who has an income of R5 000 per year. The tax paid on R5 000 is R270, or 5,4%. In the UK it is R756, or 15,1%. In Australia it is R753, or 15,1%, interestingly enough. In New Zealand he pays 20,4% on an income of R5 000 and in Canada, R324, which is 6½%. So of all those we are the lowest. On an income of R10 000, in South Africa the tax is R1 160, which is 11,6%; in the UK it is 24,5%; in Australia, 22,6%; In New Zealand, 34% and in Canada, 18,3%. On an income of R20 000, in South Africa he pays R4 720, which is 23,6%; in the UK, R7 014, which is 35,1%; in Australia, 31,4%; in New Zealand, 43,5% and in Canada, 29,7%. Again we are sizeably the lowest. These figures are for the income range R5 000 to R20 000, where the greatest proportion of taxpayers lie.

Are those figures only for direct taxation?

Those figures exclude the loan levy, which is not a tax. If I include the loan levy, I have to include all sorts of other things under the other countries’ taxes. However, it is not a question of looking at the marginal rate at R28 000, which misleads people when they do that; one has to look at the average effective rate of tax at a given income level, and the figures are exactly as I have given them to hon. members.

Unfortunately I do not have the time to deal with the points raised by the hon. member for Mooi River. I would have liked to refer to his references to taxation, but perhaps on another occasion I can do that. I would also have liked to refer a little more to what the hon. member for Yeoville said about tax concessions, where one can correct some of his figures. However, I shall have to be excused from that.

*I should just like to refer to what the hon. member for Algoa said about transfer duties. He said that where transfer duties on houses over R20 000 had previously increased from 1% on the first R20 000 to 3% on the amount exceeding that, it will now increase from a complete exemption to normal transfer duties. I have no fault to find with that. This is not the same as a rebate which is given on a tax. The intention is that all transactions under the prescribed norm of R20 000 for dwellings and R8 000 for building stands should be exempt from taxation. This was the intention, and not to reduce transfer duties in general. It is therefore wrong to infer that since a property transaction of R20 000 has been exempted from taxation and on a transaction of R21 000 an amount of R230 is payable in transfer duties, the R230 is payable on the R1 000 by which the amount exceeds R20 000. The tax is not progressive. There must be some limit to the exemption, and a phasing-in would involve a further tax reduction, which is not the intention. As regards the other two proposals relating to professional persons and married women, the hon. member’s proposals will certainly be kept in mind.

I should like to refer very briefly to what the hon. member for Paarl said in pointing out a loophole in the system of securities rand bonds. I shall scrutinize the matter with my officials and then we shall take it up again with the hon. member. I want to thank him for having brought this to our attention.

I now want to come to the last point in my reply. I apologize again for being unable today to deal with so many of the suggestions which were made, but I think there will be other opportunities for this, especially during the discussion of my Vote.

I now come to a matter which I believe to be a very important one for South Africa, i.e. the question of the revaluation of our gold reserves. The hon. member for Sunnyside specifically referred to this and I am glad to be able to make a statement on the matter today. We have drafted this statement very carefully and I should like to read it as it is. The statement is as follows:

On more than one occasion in the past I have stated that, once the proposed new Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund came into effect, the gold holdings of the South African Reserve Bank would be revalued at market related prices. The new Fund Articles came into operation on 1 April this year. This means, among other things, that the official price of gold has been abolished and that the monetary authorities of Fund member countries are now legally free to buy and sell gold at market related prices. I therefore propose to proceed immediately with the planned gold revaluation, and I hereby announce that South Africa’s official gold reserves will be revalued with effect from tomorrow, 11 April 1978.

Under the old IMF system of so-called “stable but adjustable exchange rates”, South Africa, like all other member countries, had to declare a fixed “parity” price of gold—as it was called—in terms of its own currency. In addition, legal provision was made in South Africa for a “statutory” price at which the Reserve Bank had to value its gold holdings. This latter price was based on the parity price but set at a slightly lower level to provide for the costs incurred by the Bank in realizing gold on overseas markets.

The statutory price was determined by Section 8 of the Currency and Exchanges Act, No. 9 of 1933, and, in the event of devaluations or revaluations of the currency, this price was usually changed by means of proclamations under Section 9 of the same Act. The last occasion on which this happened was on 25 October 1972, when the statutory price was fixed at its present level of R29,55 per fine ounce, based on a parity price of R29,75 per fine ounce. When the rand was devalued in September 1975, the parity and statutory prices were not adjusted in accordance with the usual practice, as the IMF par value system had by that time already fallen into disuse.

Now that the new Fund Articles have come into operation and the official price of gold has been abolished, the South African rand, like all other Fund member currencies, no longer has a gold parity. The existing South African statutory price of R29,55 therefore no longer has any international legal basis. Moreover, since the gold price on the private market is currently about five times higher than the present South African statutory price, the latter has clearly become totally unrealistic. I have therefore decided that the time has now arrived to value South Africa’s official gold holdings on a market related basis.

The necessary legal provision for the revaluation of our official gold holdings was made last year when Parliament passed the South African Reserve Bank Amendment Act, 1977. As provided for in section 6 of that Act, the State President has today, by proclamation in the Government Gazette, determined that the sections of the Act relating to revaluation and related matters— sections 3 and 5—will come into operation on 11 April 1978.

Under the new IMF Articles there is no prescribed method of valuing official gold holdings. For the time being, many countries will probably continue to value their gold reserves at the old official price—a price which, as I have said, has now become merely theoretical—a practice which will, no doubt, be encouraged by those who wish to reduce the monetary role of gold. However, countries such as France, Italy and Australia have already revalued their gold reserves on a market related basis, using different methods, and now that the new Articles are in operation I would not be surprised if several other countries were to follow suit.

After consultation with the Reserve Bank, I have decided that the new statutory or valuation price for the Reserve Bank’s gold holdings will normally be fixed at the end of every calendar month at a level equal to the average of the last ten London fixing prices during that month, less 10 per cent. The first price to be determined according to the latter formula, with effect from tomorrow, will be R141,97 per fine ounce, which at the present rand-dollar exchange rate is equivalent to the average of the last ten London fixing prices in March, less 10 per cent, namely $163,27 per fine ounce.

This is just one of several different valuation methods which could have been employed, but for a central bank which actually deals in gold on a substantial scale, this method has the advantage that the valuation price will tend to follow the movements of the market price reasonably closely. The 10 per cent deduction merely constitutes conservative bookkeeping designed to minimize the chances of the statutory price exceeding the market price by any significant amount for any length of time. In practice, therefore, the Reserve Bank’s gold holdings will normally still be undervalued, but, of course, to a much smaller extent than at present.

I shall be taking this action under the new section 17A(1) of the South African Reserve Bank Act, 1944, as amended, which comes into operation tomorrow and which confers upon the Minister of Finance the power to change the statutory price from time to time after consultation with the Reserve Bank. It follows from this that, if deemed desirable, I can at any time amend the valuation formula which I have just outlined.

In the present circumstances, the proposed revaluation of the Reserve Bank’s gold holdings will naturally result in a large book profit. The Bank at present holds nearly 9,5 million ounces of gold, which at the old price of R29,55 is valued at about R280 million. At the new statutory price of R141,97 this gold will have a value of about R1 348 million. This means that the revaluation profit on the Bank’s actual gold holdings will be about R1 068 million. To this must be added the profit on the gold involved in the Bank’s existing swop arrangements. In total, the revaluation profit will then amount to about R1 690 million.

In terms of Section 8bis of the Currency and Exchanges Act of 1933, any such profit shall accrue to the Government. This section is now being repealed, but the same principle is carried over into the new section 17A of the Reserve Bank Act which comes into operation tomorrow. In terms of this section, the Reserve Bank will be required to establish a new Gold Price Adjustment Account, in which it shall account for any profit or loss relating to gold as a result of a change in the statutory price, as well as any difference between the statutory price and the price at which it buys or sells gold, after due allowance for handling and realization costs. The gold revaluation profit will therefore immediately be credited to this Account.

From the point of view of monetary and fiscal policy, the way in which the large initial gold revaluation profit is to be used is a matter of the greatest importance. The use of any significant part of this profit to finance Government spending could, for example, have adverse consequences for the balance of payments and, in the long run, also for the rate of inflation. Using the gold revaluation profit in this way would increase the money supply substantially and be tantamount to using the printing press for creating money. It is therefore desirable to “sterilize” the profit to the fullest possible extent. The sections of the Reserve Bank Amendment Act which come into operation tomorrow have specifically been designed to provide for such sterilization, while simultaneously serving certain other useful purposes.

In terms of Section 8ter and 8quater of the Currency and Exchanges Act, which are now also being repealed, any profits or losses made by the Reserve Bank on its foreign currency holdings, its forward exchange contracts and its foreign currency borrowings are also for the account of the Government. In all these cases, as in the case of gold losses or profits, this principle is to be carried over into the amended Reserve Bank Act, namely in the new sections 17B and 17C. With effect from tomorrow, the Reserve Bank will be required to establish and manage, in addition to the new Gold Price Adjustment Account, a Foreign Exchange Adjustment Account and a Forward Exchange Contracts Adjustment Account. These accounts will be similar to the accounts kept by the Bank in the past to give effect to the provisions of sections 8ter and 8quater of the Currency and Exchanges Act.

A new and significant requirement is, however, included in the new section 17D of the Reserve Bank Act. This section provides that any credit or debit balance on the three adjustment accounts specified in the Act shall at the close of each financial year of the Bank, or at such other times as the Bank and the Treasury may determine, be transferred to a new Gold and Foreign Exchange Contingency Reserve Account to be established and managed by the Bank on behalf of the Treasury.

It is further provided in section 17D that any credit balance on this new Contingency Reserve Account shall accrue to the Government as a profit, but shall be carried forward into this Account until such time as the Treasury and the Bank deem it desirable to credit such profit or any part thereof to the State Revenue Fund. Similarly, any debit balance on this Account shall be a loss for the Government and shall be carried forward until the Treasury and the Bank deem it desirable to settle the outstanding balance.

When the relevant sections of the Reserve Bank Amendment Act come into operation tomorrow, all credit and debit balances presently existing on the accounts kept by the Bank for the purposes of the Currency and Exchanges Act, will also be transferred to the new Contingency Reserve Account.

The amounts involved here are substantial. The total amount owed by the Government to the Bank in respect of losses on foreign exchange holdings, gold transactions and forward exchange contracts is at present R1 132 million. In addition, account must be taken of the potential further loss, at present exchange rates, on existing forward exchange contracts, particularly in respect of foreign loans by public corporations denominated in German marks and Swiss francs. These losses could be substantial and, when they materialize, will also be a charge on the Government.

In these circumstances, the logical way to sterilize the gold revaluation profit is for the Government to use part of this profit to settle its outstanding debit balances on the accounts to which I have referred, and to transfer the rest of the profit to the new Gold and Foreign Exchange Contingency Reserve Account. In this manner two birds will be killed with one stone.

To attain these objectives the Treasury and the Reserve Bank have therefore decided, in terms of the new section 17D(1) of the Reserve Bank Act, that the initial gold revaluation profit, which will in the first instance automatically be credited to the Gold Price Adjustment Account, will thereafter also be transferred to the new Contingency Reserve Account. The net effect of all these credits and debits will be to wipe the slate clean as far as the three adjustment accounts are concerned and to leave a credit balance in the new Contingency Reserve Account of R556 million.

With effect from tomorrow, the Reserve Bank will also terminate the present gold marketing arrangements under which it buys gold from the mines at the old official parity price and subsequently pays them a premium on gold sold by it on their behalf in private markets. In future the Bank will buy gold outright from the mines at current market prices according to an agreed formula, which makes provision for the deduction of a small realization charge by the Bank to cover freight, insurance and related costs.

Now that the official price of gold has been abolished by international agreement, the existing arrangements in regard to gold sold in terms of the Mozambique Convention will also be terminated with effect from 11 April 1978. This means that the gold mines will no longer have to dispose of a portion of their output, via the Reserve Bank, to the Mozambique authorities at the old parity price, in order to comply with the section of the Convention dealing with the deferred pay of mine workers from Mozambique. In future the mines will receive the market price for all the gold sold by them to the Reserve Bank. This will obviously benefit both the gold mining industry and the balance of payments.

I turn finally to the effect of the gold revaluation on the official foreign reserves. Since South Africa always holds a substantial portion of its official foreign reserves in the form of gold, the past practice of valuing the Reserve Bank’s gold holdings at only R29,55 per ounce has obviously resulted in a gross undervaluation of the total reserves. This has at times created misleading impressions about South Africa’s reserve position. The decision now taken to revalue the gold holdings at market related prices will not, of course, by itself strengthen our reserves in any real sense. Throughout the period of undervaluation there has, in effect, been a “secret reserve”. But the use of the new valuation method will produce more realistic published reserves which will reflect the true state of affairs more accurately.

Following tomorrow’s gold revaluation, the Reserve Bank’s gold and other foreign reserves will amount to about R1 700 million, compared with R634 million at the end of March 1978. To this must be added the reserves of the central Government and the rest of the banking sector, which will bring the figure for South Africa’s total gold and other foreign reserves to the vicinity of R1 830 million, compared with R761 million at the end of February 1978.

†Mr. Speaker, I believe all members of the House will agree that the simultaneous introduction of the new gold valuation formula, the new gold marketing arrangements and the new legal provisions regarding the Reserve Bank’s accounting system, represents an important milestone in South Africa’s monetary history. It marks the end of one era and the beginning of another. The so-called Bretton Woods international monetary system has come and gone. But gold is alive and well, and the steps I have announced today serve yet another indication of its enhanced monetary role in a world of inflation and currency turmoil.

Question put: That all the words after “That” stand part of the Question,

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—104: Albertyn, J. T.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Ballot, G. C.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, C. J. van R.; Botha, S. P.; Clase, P. J.; Coetsee, H. J.; Conradie, F. D.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; Cuyler, W. J.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; Delport, W. H.; De Villiers, D. J.; De Villiers, J. D.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Durr, K. D.; Durrant, R. B.; Geldenhuys, G. T.; Greeff, J. W.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hefer, W. J.; Henning, J. M.; Heunis, J. C.; Heyns, J. H.; Jordaan, J. H.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Le Roux, Z. P.; Ligthelm, C. J.; Louw, E.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, W. C. (Paarl); Malan, W. C. (Randburg); Marais, J. S.; Marais, P. S.; Mentz, J. H. W.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Myburgh, G. B.; Nel, D. J. L.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Olckers, R. de V.; Palm, P. D.; Potgieter, S. P.; Pretorius, N. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Rencken, C. R. E.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Simkin, C. H. W.; Smit, H. H.; Snyman, W. J.; Steyn, D. W.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Swanepoel, K. D.; Swiegers, J. G.; Tempel, H. J.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht, A. P.; Uys, C.; Van Breda, A.; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, J. H.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Walt, A. T.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van der Watt, L.; Van der Westhuyzen, J. J. N.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J. (Mosselbaai); Van Rensburg, H. M. J. (Rosettenville); Van Vuuren, J. J. M. J.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Wyk, A. C.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vlok, A. J.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L; Wentzel, J. J. G.; Wessels, L.; Wilkens, B. H.; Worrall, D. J.

Tellers: L. J. Botha, J. H. Hoon, N. F. Treurnicht, W. L. van der Merwe, J. A. van Tonder and V. A. Volker.

Noes—28: Aronson, T.; Bartlett, G. S.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Dalling, D. J.; De Beer, Z. J.; De Jong, G.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; Eglin, C. W.; Lorimer, R. J.; Malcomess, D. J. N.; Marais, J. F.; Miller, R. B.; Myburgh, P. A.; Oldfield, G. N.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Rossouw, D. H.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Sutton, W. M.; Swart, R. A. F.; Van der Merwe, S. S.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Widman, A. B.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Wood, N. B.

Tellers: B. R. Bamford and A. L. Boraine.

Question affirmed and amendments dropped.

Bill read a Second Time.

Committee Stage

Schedule:

Vote No. 1.—“State President”, agreed to.

Vote No. 2.—“Parliament”, agreed to.

Chairman directed to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.

Mr. Chairman, after we had indicated that we should like to see a restriction being placed on the period for which persons might be appointed by the hon. the Minister to perform or exercise the duties, powers and activities of a school board, the hon. the Minister in his reply to the Second Reading debate said, inter alia, the following (Hansard, 7 April 1978)—

In actual fact we are not concerned here with the question of the bona fides of the hon. the Minister. If the hon. the Minister states that he personally regards this as a temporary measure, we shall accept that statement as his considered opinion. What is actually involved here, however, is the letter of the law and the main issue in connection with the legislation is that the involvement of the parent community is being replaced here by an appointed. As I indicated during the Second Reading debate, the impression might be created, or it might actually be the case in practice, that the appointment could be for an indefinite period. The hon. the Minister spoke of problems which he might experience, but I believe that if this appointment is going to be made without a time limit, he is going to facilitate the task of intimidators, who, as we know, concentrate and flourish on weak points in legislation. Therefore they are in fact able to exploit this provision.

The hon. the Minister told us that he had specific problems. At that stage I had an amendment on the Order Paper which would have amended clause 1 in such a way as to limit the appointment to a period not exceeding six months. I am convinced that without such a time limit the hon. the Minister is likely to have not only specific problems, but also problems in general.

†I, of course, realize that the whole intention of clause 1 is to meet an emergency situation. This is the whole motivation which the hon. the Minister gave us in the Second Reading debate. For that reason I quite frankly believe that the hon. the Minister should accept an amendment to this clause in order that it may be seen for what it is, i.e. an emergency measure. Originally I placed on the Order Paper an amendment which would have had the effect that the appointment would be for a period not exceeding six months. On reflection, and having listened to the hon. the Minister, I am prepared to assist him. I will, therefore, not move that particular amendment, but would like to move in this place an amendment as follows—

Quite frankly, 12 months should give the hon. the Minister and his department sufficient time to overcome certain problems they are experiencing in this respect. It should give him sufficient time to make adequate provision. The hon. the Minister has a choice. In the first place, he can revive the school board system, which will mean that he will have to try to get the school committees to function properly again within the period of 12 months. As I have pointed out, the school committees form the basis for the school boards, and without the school committees one cannot really have a school board. As the hon. the Minister has told us, the problem is that although sometimes school committees may exist, the people serving on them are intimidated and are not prepared to allow their names to be put forward to serve on the schóol boards. They are therefore not available for election. In the second place, the hon. the Minister can find alternative types of bodies in the meantime. The hon. the Minister has, for instance, mentioned the Community Councils. If the hon. the Minister accepts my amendment he will have 12 months in which to sort out this problem.

We should also bear in mind that Parliament will be sitting again within that period of 12 months, and the hon. the Minister will in the meantime have had the time to finalize the proposed new Bantu Education Bill which he intends to introduce.

*If we cannot get the school board system to function effectively once more within a period of 12 months, I believe that matter would be so serious that we should have to reconsider the matter by means of a specific amending Bill. A system such as the one presently provided for clause 1 in terms of which the duties of a school board may be foisted on to an appointee, will not be adequate under such circumstances.

†The hon. the Minister can surely have no problem when it comes to matters such as the payment of salaries, etc. I want to indicate quite clearly that in terms of the regulation of 28 October 1977, which concerns the creation of school managements, we already have the position that those school managements could consist of up to five members who are appointed by the Secretary, they can deal with these situations, such as emergency cases of payment of salaries. However, what I am aiming at now is not to have yet another piece of legislation which could be exploited by people who want to discredit the whole system.

Mr. Chairman, before I comment on the amendment which is before the Committee I should like to say to the hon. the Minister that I have briefly referred to the possibility of an alteration of the words “any person” in line 14 to “any suitable person”, or words to that effect. Having listened to his reply to the Second Reading debate I am quite satisfied that that is no longer necessary.

I now want to discuss the amendment before the Committee. I am grateful that the hon. member for Durban Central has withdrawn his original amendment, because we would not have been able to support it for the very reason he himself has given. When I spoke in the Second Reading debate on this Bill—I am specifically referring to clause 1— I mentioned that these were exceptional circumstances and that as a direct result of the disturbances which had been taking place in the townships in many parts of our country, extraordinary steps were required not only specifically with regard to education, but also with regard to a wide variety of areas. I then said too—and I reiterate it—that I had talks with parents and teachers who had to work under these conditions, and therefore felt that I could support the hon. the Minister in what he was asking the House to give him, namely powers which would enable him to appoint some person or group to take the place of those groups which at that moment were responsible, but which were no longer effective because of the circumstances of our time. I want to say again that this is an exceptional situation and should therefore not be regarded as the norm. I even urge the hon. the Minister to make as extensive an inquiry as possible and only to use this as a last resort.

Bearing in mind that this exceptional, temporary and arising out of an emergency, we felt that we could give our support to clause 1. I want to tell the Committee what my dilema is. I believe the hon. member for Durban Central makes a good point in saying that it should be enshrined in the amending legislation itself that this is only a temporary measure, i.e. until such time as things return to normal.

We must also bear in mind the hon. the Minister’s statement in his Second Reading speech—a statement we welcome—namely that he and his department are looking at the original Bantu Education Act and are hoping to introduce new legislation next year, that after very careful consultations with numerous people, including the Blacks, who are directly involved in education, he would be submitting new legislation. We welcome that. Obviously he, together with his department, his officials and Black educationists, will have to take this whole question of direct involvement into account. Therefore I think it is reasonable that a period of time, for example 12 months, be specified or some proviso introduced to the effect that providing this matter is reviewed on a regular basis. Having listened to the hon. the Minister’s reply in the Second Reading, I believe he is very sympathetic towards this dilemma of making the point in the legislation that this is an emergency, is temporary, and that the circumstances are exceptional. For the moment we are going to withhold our support or our rejection of the amendment until we have heard the hon. the Minister’s reply. Thereafter we shall decide how we shall vote.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to make this point very clear. Hon. members should not be under the impression that it is possible to do away with an existing school board without any further ado and to appoint a person in its stead. They will continue to function. It is in cases where a school board is no longer functioning at all, where there are not even people to negotiate with any more, that we want to appoint someone. I am quite prepared to accept the hon. member’s proposal of 12 months. I think it is much fairer than the six months which he had as an amendment and to which I actually replied on the previous occasion. This affords us the opportunity to carry into effect the objective I expressed on Friday, viz. to get the school boards going again and to obtain the involvement of the parents. This also affords us more of an opportunity in the event of this not being a school board, but perhaps another body, like community councils as is envisaged in their Act. I request the hon. member for Durban Central not to insist on our writing into the legislation that it will be for a short period only or as an emergency measure. I think it would be bad legislation if one were to write something of the kind into the legislation. Perhaps when we introduce the new legislation next year, as is being envisaged, one can debate the matter once more, that is if we should write it into the legislation again in one way or another without adequate guarantees with regard to the perpetuation of the power of that single person. I agree with the hon. member. This does not actually concern my bona fides, but it does concern the letter of the law, and in order to accommodate those hon. members and to prevent confusion, I am prepared to accept the amendment of the hon. member. If he does not have the exact wording as yet, we can submit it to legal experts and even have it introduced in the Other Place.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 3:

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister in his reply to the Second Reading debate responded to a query which I had in connection with the provision for penalties in the proposed amended subsection (3) of section 15. We find there that the fine is increased from R100 to R500 and the period of imprisonment from six to 12 months. In this connection I simply have a question which I hope the hon. the Minister can answer. He gave as his example—and a very serious example it was too—the fact that certificates which proved that the young man or woman had certain qualifications were very important, but that some of these were being forged and therefore, quite rightly, called into question even those who had worked very hard and had received their certificate on a genuine basis. In addition, he said a great deal of money was being made with these forged certificates and as a result it was only right and logical that the amount and the period of imprisonment should be increased. I agree with that. These are maximum penalties, but I wonder whether the hon. the Minister can tell us whether these penalties refer only to the conduct of examinations, his particular example, or extends far wider than that. In other words, is the net wider than what is apparent in the clause as it stands, in terms of the inactment or in fulfilling the regulations?

You are conjuring up spectres again!

Not at all! I am not even stating it as a fact.

Oh, of course it is one of your spectres again!

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke must realize that he is not the Minister. I am not talking to him. He knows nothing about the subject. He is merely trying to look for trouble.

Of course he is looking for trouble!

The hon. member knows nothing about the legislation we are discussing now.

I know it very well!

Anyway, I merely want to ask a question. Who else is involved in this? That is all I want to know from the hon. the Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to reply to the hon. member for Pinelands at once. The particular fines and prison sentences relate to contraventions of the regulations. They do not apply to that one only. Our biggest problem with regard to the contravention of regulations in fact relates to the case to which we have referred here and which we are consequently using as an example now.

Clause agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendments printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

1. (1) On page 5, in line 21, to omit “with the concurrence of” and to substitute “after consultation with”;
2. (2) on page 5, in lines 30 and 31, to omit “with the concurrence of” and to substitute “after consultation with”.

We have already raised this matter during the Second Reading debate. I should, however, like to request the hon. the Minister to consider our amendments with regard to this Bill favourably. Perhaps we dwelt at great length on the autonomy, etc., of universities on Friday, but the fact remains that this is a step forward. As I have said, the spirit of the legislation leads to more autonomy and greater independence. When it comes to the appointment of a rector, for which clause 5 provides, I want to point out that such an appointment has in the past been made by the Minister after consulting the council. Therefore the Minister, to put the matter thus, had the veto. The hon. the Minister now wants to effect a change and at first glance it seems to be a step forward, because he says that the appointment will in future be made by the council. However, he also uses the words “with the concurrence of the Minister”. Such a provision once again gives the Minister a veto as far as the appointment is concerned. Therefore there is no real change.

That is not correct.

The hon. the Minister says that I am not correct.

The Minister has not had the veto until now; he had the right to appoint.

The Minister had the right to appoint and the only obligation he has been under until now, was to consult. The words “after consultation” form part of the existing Act. I am approaching this matter from the point of departure of the council. The council was in the position where it could make a suggestion to the Minister, but the Minister was not compelled to accept that suggestion. The position is now being changed in that the hon. the Minister says that because we are now going to move forward on the road to autonomy and greater independence, the council will in future be able to make the appointment. He says, however, that such an appointment should take place with his concurrence. It seems to me that when one talks about “concurrence” it has, in fact, a much narrower meaning than it would have had should one have said “with the approval”. I do not want to leave the Minister completely out of the picture and therefore the words “after consultation” appear in our amendment. We believe that the Minister should be consulted in the matter.

And if the Minister does not agree?

Why has the hon. the Minister not simply kept the provision in its present form? Why does he come forward with an amendment which is not really an amendment? That is our problem. Why does he say that he is changing the system while it is merely an artificial change?

It now comes from the council instead of from the Minister.

The hon. member says it comes from the council instead of from the Minister. However, the question remains: Who is, in fact, the person who has to nod his head in agreement?

Both.

No, it is not both. The position as envisaged in the Bill will not really differ from the present position.

It has to do with who must take the initiative.

That is correct.

The hon. the Minister says it has to do with who takes the initiative. Suppose the council takes the initiative and suggests that a specific appointment be made, while the Minister does not nod his head in approval. What is the council to do then? Why are we creating such a position? Why should we create a position which may lead to friction? Surely that is not necessary.

†I want to point out that as far as other universities are concerned the present situation differs from that which obtains at this university. In the case of Unisa the rector can be appointed after consultation with the senate of the university. I must grant the hon. the Minister the fact that there is the University of Port Elizabeth. There the council makes an appointment with the approval of the Minister, but there is still a difference. This is still different to the term “with the concurrence of”. The term “with the concurrence of” is a much stronger term. One does have an example as far as the University of Port Elizabeth is concerned, I admit, but I do not want the hon. the Minister to come along and try to equate the University of the Western Cape with the one odd man out amongst the White universities. After all, we want to move forward along the road we are travelling to greater autonomy. I placed the amendment on the Order Paper, not because I want to score a point against the hon. the Minister or because I just want to have an amendment accepted by him. I did so because I genuinely believe that it would be in the interests of the hon. the Minister and in the interests of the university itself if we had such a system.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Durban Central raised quite a few of the points which I, too, wanted to raise in connection with this clause. I have already, during the Second Reading debate, adopted a point of view, and consequently I do not want to discuss that at length now. The points at issue here are in fact: What does “with the concurrence of the Minister” mean in practice? And secondly: Why would there, then, in this particular case, be a difference between, let us say, the University of Cape Town or the University of Stellenbosch and the University of the Western Cape? If my facts are correct, the rector of the first two universities is appointed by the council by statute. I see reference is made in this Bill, too, to “statute”, but then also to “with the concurrence of the Minister”. I should, therefore, merely like to repeat the point which I raised during the Second Reading debate. One tries to make the liberties of the universities equal liberties which apply to all the universities. In this regard I would have liked to have supported the amendment of the hon. member for Durban Central, because it brings the situation more into line with the situation, more or less, in all the universities. I admit that a greater degree of autonomy exists in this case, because, as the hon. the Minister has rightly said, the initiative for the appointment of a rector comes from the council of the university itself. After they have voted, they come forward with their candidate and say that that is the man whom they want. According to the practice in other universities the appointment is then made by statute. There is only one small point I want to mention in this regard. There is a section in our legislation according to which the Government may review the subsidy it grants to universities if there is anything with which it is not satisfied at a particular university. That applies to all universities. It is, therefore, unlikely that such malpractices are going to develop here that control cannot be exercised over a particular university. But I think that as far as this particular function, namely the election of a rector, is concerned, one should try to get the greatest possible extent of equal autonomy for all the universities serving the South African society. I should, therefore, support the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, what the hon. member for Durban Central and the hon. member for Rondebosch have said was discussed during the Second Reading debate. I think the hon. member for Durban Central has argued incorrectly. He started his speech by saying that as the Act read at the moment the Minister had the right of veto. I tried to explain to him, however, that that was not the position. The Minister does not have the right of veto. He has the absolute power to make appointments. The only proviso contained in the Act, as it reads at the moment, is that he has to select the person. Irrespective of whom his advisers are, the initiative is in his hands, but he must consult the council. The hon. member maintains, however, that there is no material difference. The proposal contained in the Bill before us at the moment, however, amounts to the fact that the initiative is now being transferred to the council itself. A totally different procedure is to be followed therefore. The initiative is to be in the hands of the council and not in the hands of the Minister. They choose the person and sort things out. Eventually, however, the Minister has to concur with their decision. The hon. member for Durban Central will agree with me that that is a totally different procedure. The council has to take the initiative. However, if the hon. member is worried because at this stage the Minister has to signify his approval—this also applies in the case of the argument advanced by the hon. member for Rondebosch—I cannot do anything about it.

I want to return now to the argument we had during the Second Reading debate when the hon. member for Rondebosch assisted me to a certain extent and said quite rightly that nowhere in the world could a university have complete autonomy.

I accept that.

In view of the fact therefore that a university can never be completely autonomous, the implication is that there can be different degrees of autonomy. It also implies that the highest measure of autonomy is not something that just happens; it is something that develops on an evolutionary basis. The hon. member for Durban Central referred apologetically to the fact that he had used the University of Port Elizabeth as an example. I did not refer to that university at all. He referred to it himself. I know something about the history of that university. As a fairly new member of this House I participated in the debate at the time. I was the last speaker on this side of the House when the legislation dealing with the establishment of that university was before the House. That is one of the youngest universities in the country. Without going too deeply into the matter, I think that is one of the reasons …

It is one of the best.

Yes, I agree with the hon. member for Walmer: It is a very good university. I have a very high regard for that university. I have already paid it a visit. One of the reasons why the University of Port Elizabeth is one of those universities where the appointment of the rector and other senior office-bearers is subject to the approval of the Minister, is the fact that it is a young university.

RAU is even younger.

Yes, RAU is even younger, but, as I have said, not having had an opportunity of going too deeply into the matter I think one of the obvious reasons is that it is a comparatively young university.

How old must it be? 21 years?

Oh no, man! Mr. Chairman, the manner in which that hon. member participates in the debate and displays his ignorance compels me to address him simply as “man” instead of the customary “hon. member”. In case the hon. member does know it, the University of Port Elizabeth was established in the early sixties. It is consequently not even 21 years old. It is a young university.

How long must it wait?

Mr. Chairman, only that hon. member is capable of making an interjection like that. Has the hon. member taken the trouble to ask the council of that university why they are still waiting?

But you said it was too young.

I did not say it was too young. Had the hon. member been listening he would have heard what I said, namely, that because it was one of the young universities, it had not as yet reached that stage of development. Let us argue on the basis that it takes time for a university to attain the various degrees of autonomy.

What about the University of Fort Hare which is one of the oldest in the country?

I am not talking about the University of Fort Hare at the moment. I am talking about the University of the Western Cape. It is a well-known fact that this is the university which is financed completely by the State. In other words, at this stage of its development control has still to be exercised. I told the hon. member for Durban Central on Friday that should anything go wrong there, he would blame me for it or whoever was in charge of this portfolio, across the floor of the House. That is why there should at least be a measure of control. What happens in practice, however? Just as I do not quarrel with the university when it submits names of professors for my approval, so I am certainly not going to quarrel now. After all, I do not quarrel with the university about its choice of staff. In the case of the rector, I have to satisfy myself that he is someone who is capable of doing his work. The hon. member will concede, however, that with the provisions contained in this legislation—and I stated this clearly on Friday—the council instituted on 1 January is still a fully appointed council and is not yet a partially elected council. This is in terms of the legislation before us.

Surely it is obvious that as the university grows, as it becomes more capable of looking after itself and enjoys the support of the community, its autonomy will gradually increase. To that extent,—the Government has proved this—the Government grants autonomy and does not hesitate to do so just as my colleague, the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs is also doing at the moment I regret, therefore, that I cannot accept this amendment and this also applies to the other places where the hon. member has moved it.

Mr. Chairman, I would believe it is really a question of the hon. the Minister having confidence in the council that is going to be elected. I would believe that he would either be able to accept this amendment or give us some idea of a time scale in regard to this matter, because a recommendation or recommendations—I do not know what the procedure will be—will be made to him. In any event, he will have to take a decision as to whether the person put forward is a suitable person or not. In other words, the decision will be his decision. If two or three names are put forward, this decision will be the one that counts.

No. It cannot happen like that. You read the Act incorrectly. Only one name may be submitted to me.

Mr. Chairman, if that is the situation then it is even more in the Minister’s hands. He is reserving to himself the right to judge whatever is put forward by the council. Our contention of this side of the House is that he will, surely, be able to trust a council of elected people, of responsible people, to put forward a name after consultation with him. It is not a question of the hon. the Minister being left out of the thing altogether. He does not come in stone cold and a name he has never heard of is plonked on the desk before him. It is a question of consultation. Where you have a group of responsible people they will consult with a responsible Minister and so come to an agreement. I am quite certain they will. They will not come seeking a confrontation with the hon. the Minister. Why should they? It would be absolutely detrimental to the whole interest of the institution which they are wanting to serve, an institution they are very proud of and one they wish to build up. I think the hon. the Minister could therefore quite easily afford to accept the amendment that is being moved. We have had this argument many times. It is the same argument that we have conducted on many occasions. The hon. the Minister says that it is too young a university, as there are others which are too young. However, there must be some idea in his mind what they have to do to prove to him that they are capable of conducting their affairs in such a way that he will accept what we are now proposing and that they will be capable of handling it in consultation with the hon. the Minister. He is going to come to that stage. If he takes the powers that he has now and does not accept our amendment, he is going to face that situation within a short period of time. What are the indications the hon. the Minister can see? How is he going to judge that situation? We believe that he is going to have a body, an elected body and a responsible body which will consult with him and put forward a name to him which he will be able to accept. I think the rejection of this amendment is merely postponing a decision he is going to have to take sooner or later. The hon. the Minister says that the university is paid for entirely by the State. I do not think that that situation is going to change. The fact that it applies to other universities has no immediate bearing on this particular case. I think it is a question of the confidence the hon. the Minister has in the council where it is not a vestige of the paternalistic attitude which we have had in the past which prevents us from taking that kind of step today. However, the hon. the Minister can accept our amendment and prove his entire sincerity with the group of people who will be elected to run that organization.

Mr. Chairman, I really do not think it is unreasonable to ask the hon. the Minister to indicate to us what he regards as a satisfactory level of development at which a university can acquire full autonomy. I shall explain to the House why I say this. When we discussed the University of Durban-Westville Amendment Bill in this House, the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs implied that if that university showed sufficient self-confidence to ask for certain powers, he would be prepared to grant it those powers. He said that at this stage he was only going as far as they wanted to go. That being the attitude, the implication is that it rests with a university itself to decide upon the extent of the autonomy it is capable of exercising and then to ask for it. The other possibility is that the hon. the Minister, in his discretion, decides at a certain stage that a university is mature enough to have certain powers conferred upon it. Our dilemma in this connection is precisely this, that while the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs has given some indication in this regard, it is still not clear to us when the University of the Western Cape will reach a satisfactory level of development to justify autonomous status. That is one aspect.

The hon. the Minister has thrown a few bouquets in my direction from time to time for having said that autonomy is a relative concept. I do not want there to be any misunderstanding between us as to what that means.

There is no misunderstanding.

When I say that the autonomy of a university is a relative concept in any society, I mean that it is improbable that any university can be expected to become totally independent, if total independence implies autonomy. The ideal position we are striving for here in South Africa is that a university should be at liberty, should have the autonomous power, to determine for itself whom it appoints, what subjects it teaches and whom it admits as students. We do not have this measure of relative autonomy in South Africa. The largest measure of autonomy that does exist, exists in the case of the so-called White universities. What worries me about this clause, is that in the case of Coloured or Indian universities, South Africa may be accused of granting them a smaller measure of autonomy and that there are no obvious reasons to justify it. I honestly do not think the hon. the Minister will overcome this obstacle by arguing that the university is still too young and that it has to grow older, because the hon. member for Parktown has rightly pointed out that Fort Hare is one of the oldest universities. In spite of that, however, it enjoys far less autonomy than a White university.

Mr. Chairman, hon. members are now kicking up dust in connection with a matter which common sense tells us is being correctly handled. The fact that they are doing this will give rise to precisely those things to which the hon. member for Rondebosch has just referred, namely, that certain questions will be asked outside. I think this is an unnecessarily wrong interpretation of what is being proposed here. The hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs said that the legislation he was introducing related to a request made to him by the council of that university. Exactly the same applies in this case. I have not been requested to state the matter as the hon. member for Rondebosch and the hon. member for Durban Central have stated it here. The university itself is satisfied that there is nothing wrong at this stage and consequently they do not harbour the fears which these hon. members do. When the hon. member for Durban Central asks for a timetable—the hon. member for Rondebosch asked me in another context what progress I had in mind—I maintain that as far as this matter is concerned one cannot have a timetable. In this instance it is not merely a question of whether or not the university is too young or whether or not only the number of students and the number of faculties is growing but the university as a whole, but whether it shows signs of solidarity and a determination to exist. Hon. members are virtually forcing me to say something I am reluctant to say, i.e. that I had to take the initiative in this case, as I intimated in my Second Reading speech. The hon. member referred recently to the establishment of a convocation. The fact of the matter is that I appealed to this university to do so, and I took the initiative because I wanted them to realize this. When one has to deal with delicate matters such as these one finds out whether or not the necessary maturity is present. However, the university has not asked me to change these powers and that is why I am not prepared to accept the amendment at this stage.

Mr. Chairman, I am really sorry that the hon. the Minister is not prepared to accept the amendment, and I want to make one last effort to try to persuade the hon. the Minister at least to consider it. One of the problems the hon. the Minister is always confronted with—when he last spoke, he also referred to this—is the fact that the university is still subsidized 100%. This fact is given as the reason why full autonomy cannot as yet be given to the university. I think we must get away from this aspect once and for all. In my amendment I provide that there should be consultation and discussion with the hon. the Minister. I am aware that we are dealing here with a university which is still State-supported to a large extent. But we must remember that there is virtually no White university today that is not subsidized at least 80% by the State. Nonetheless they still enjoy a certain measure of independence. I think therefore that we should not be blinded by the consideration that the university is financed from State funds.

Lastly, I want to point out to the hon. the Minister that if people outside ask questions about the legislation there is no merit in saying that they ask those questions because we raise certain matters here in the House. The questions are asked because the legislation contains certain issues which give rise to those questions.

Have you heard those questions?

There will be people who will make a thorough examination of the legislation. Many of them will not look at the legislation from the same point of view as I do. They will look for weak points, for points they can use as ammunition against the Government. In this connection I appeal to the hon. the Minister and ask him: Why make it difficult for ourselves? I can see that I am unable to move the hon. the Minister to deeper insight but I think he will realize in due course that he has made a mistake.

Mr. Chairman, a very important element which one must always bear in mind here is the fact that this is a very young university. It is an institution which received university status less than ten years ago. The hon. member for Durban Central says he is satisfied that the older universities which receive a subsidy of 80% are still subject to consultation with the hon. the Minister.

No, I do not agree with that.

That is really what this is all about. We are concerned here with a young, growing, developing university, a university which suddenly, within 10 years, is being granted an enormous degree of autonomy. The autonomy now vested in it, and the wording of the Bill, is in fact what has been requested by the institution itself. It is not something that is being forced upon it by the hon. the Minister.

There is also another very important aspect. Let us look at one of the oldest universities in our country, the University of Stellenbosch, a university which started as a college in the previous century. The names of all professors and all members of the teaching staff have still to be submitted to the Minister after their appointment. The names are not actually submitted to the hon. the Minister for his “consent” but this does show the liaison that exists in respect of staff appointments between the institution and the hon. the Minister who has to know about them.

We are dealing here with an institution that has grown dynamically, an institution which within five years has already doubled its departments to 68, an institution from which we can expect tremendous growth in the future, but an institution whose management and control will be placed increasingly in the hands of the Coloured people and, in the new dispensation we shall shortly be entering will also be transferred to Coloured people who will exercise control. I do believe therefore that the Opposition’s amendments on the Order Paper is really not worthwhile in the circumstances. I think the hon. the Minister has given additional autonomy on merit to this institution in a special way and we must abide by that.

Mr. Chairman, I think that a possible source of confusion exists here. Did I understand the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Durbanville correctly to say that this is being done at the request of the university? In his Second Reading speech the hon. the Minister said that a request had been made that the university should make proposals in regard to greater autonomy. I quote what the hon. the Minister said (Hansard, 7 April 1978)—

They will do so a little later.

Yes.

The hon. member should read further. He has not done his homework.

I quote further—

Read still further.

No, because it goes on to deal with the report of the Theron Commission.

Read what follows that.

I quote further—

Read still further!

I am not going to read the whole of the hon. the Minister’s Second Reading speech. I quoted from it during my Second Reading speech. The point I want to clear up is a simple one. Did the university ask for this Bill as it now reads, or did the hon. the Minister takes the initiative? That is one question I want to ask. I want to point out further that the hon. the Minister said he was reacting to their request. The rector of that university served on the Theron Commission and it is clear for all to see how he voted with regard to the recommendations made in connection with the University of the Western Cape. Those recommendations regarding autonomy go much further than the provisions of this Bill. I do not want to refer to those issues here. The issue at stake and on which I seek clarity is: Who decides when a university, in this case the University of Western Cape, is mature enough to be granted autonomy equal to that, for instance, of the University of Stellenbosch? That is really what it is all about.

Mr. Chairman, I have something rather severe to say to the hon. member for Rondebosch. He is an academician. I want to ask him if it was deliberate, or was it neglect, that he quoted as he quoted here just now? I invite him to read further from the Second Reading speech. I was courteous enough to give him a copy of it. I quote from my Second Reading speech (Hansard, 7 April 1978)—

That is, with reference to the report of the Theron Commission—

I invite the hon. member to read that. I ask him as an academician whether it was deliberate or through neglect that he did not do his homework properly? When I made my Second Reading speech on Friday, the hon. member was one of the three favoured hon. members who had received an advance copy of my speech. Now he is trying to guide the House in a certain direction. I want to express my surprise that an academician who was a professor at a university should act in this way when he is in possession of precise information.

I think I have dealt adequately with the amendment. Everything that could be said about it has been said. I have told hon. members that the proposals contained in this legislation came from the former council of the University of the Western Cape. I have also said that I am not prepared to accept the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, …

Order! I want to appeal to hon. members not to repeat arguments.

Mr. Chairman, I shall not repeat any arguments. In his Second Reading speech the hon. the Minister indicated that the provisions contained in the Bill were included at the request of the council. It is true that the hon. the Minister has said that he has finished with this amendment, but I want to ask him specifically whether these specific provisions of clauses 5 and 6 were included in the Bill at the request of the council.

That is the question I asked.

This Bill introduces a vast number of improvements. The recommendations they made, may contribute towards the realization of autonomy. For instance, clause 2 refers to donations and power which is conferred on the council. This clause may perhaps have been requested specifically by the council. In this regard one could also refer to the convocation and other matters. The appointment of a vice-rector may also fall into this category. All of these may be specific proposals which came from the council and which were included in the legislation by the hon. the Minister. There would have been a great deal of appreciation if the hon. the Minister had indicated to us what the specific recommendations of the council were to which effect was given in the legislation, and had not merely said that the recommendations of the council were in fact given effect to, if it is only in some cases that the desires of the council are being given effect to. My question to the hon. the Minister in regard to clause 5 is very clear. Is it as a result of his initiative or is it as a result of the initiative of the council that we are dealing with the provisions of this clause?

Mr. Chairman, all I can tell the hon. member, is that I took the initiative in asking the council to make proposals. I took the initiative in asking the university to progress towards greater autonomy through these proposals and that they should establish a convocation for themselves. And these things must be set in motion. However, I did not prescribe to the council how they should make the proposals. The proposals were received and are contained in the legislation.

On amendment (1), Question put: That the words stand part of the Clause,

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—97: Albertyn, J. T.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Ballot, G. C.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, C. J. van R.; Botha, S. P.; Clase, P. J.; Conradie, F. D.; Cruywagen, W. A.; Cuyler, W. J.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; Delport, W. H.; De Villiers, D. J.; De Villiers, J. D.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Durr, K. D.; Geldenhuys, G. T.; Greeff, J. W.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hefer, W. J.; Heunis, J. C.; Heyns, J. H.; Jordaan, J. H.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Langley, T.; Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Le Roux, Z. P.; Ligthelm, C. J.; Ligthelm, N. W.; Louw, E.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C. (Paarl); Malan, W. C. (Randburg); Marais, J. S.; Marais, P. S.; Mentz, J. H. W.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Myburgh, G. B.; Nel, D. J. L.; Niemann, J. J.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Olckers, R. de V.; Palm, P. D.; Potgieter, S. P.; Pretorius, N. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Rencken, C. R. E.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schoeman, H.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schutte, D. P. A.; Smit, H. H.; Snyman, W. J.; Steyn, D. W.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Swanepoel, K. D.; Swiegers, J. G.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht, A. P.; Uys, C.; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Walt, A. T.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van der Watt, L.; Van der Westhuyzen, J. J. N.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J. (Mosselbaai); Van Rensburg, H. M. J. (Rosettenville); Van Vuuren, J. J. M. J.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Wyk, A. C.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vlok, A. J.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wentzel, J. J. G.; Wessels, L.; Wilkens, B. H.; Worrall, D. J.

Tellers: L. J. Botha, J. H. Hoon, A. van Breda, W. L. van der Merwe, J. A. van Tonder and V. A. Volker.

Noes—23: Bamford, B. R.; Bartlett, G. S.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Boraine, A. L.; Dalling, D. J.; De Beer, Z. J.; De Jong, G.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; Eglin, C. W.; Lorimer, R. J.; Malcomess, D. J. N.; Marais, J. F.; Miller, R. B.; Oldfield, G. N.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Swart, R. A. F.; Van der Merwe, S. S.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Widman, A. B.

Tellers: P. A. Pyper and W. M. Sutton.

Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Amendment (2) negatived (Official Opposition and New Republic Party dissenting).

Clause agreed to (Official Opposition and New Republic Party dissenting).

Clause 6:

Mr. Chairman, clause 6 deals with the appointment of a vice-rector. In essence, all our arguments on this matter will be precisely the same. That is why I do not want to elaborate any further on the matter. I therefore move the amendment which is printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

However, I just want to focus attention on the fact that there is a printing error in the English text of my amendment. So where the Order Paper refers to page 6, it should actually be page 5.

†The hon. the Minister indicated to me across the floor of the House that there is a possibility that these recommendations were made by the council. Nevertheless, I should like to hear from the hon. the Minister whether I understood him correctly and whether that is indeed the case. The fact still remains that in future we shall deal with a council of which more members will be elected than has been the case until now. Such a change will be brought about as a result of some of the amendments contained in the Bill. We are therefore of the opinion that it would be in the interests of both the council and the community if the hon. the Minister would accept our amendment.

Mr. Chairman, for the same reasons which I advanced earlier on, I am not prepared to accept the hon. member’s amendment. Since the hon. member asked me whether the suggestions did really come from the council, I want to state categorically: Yes, they did. The law adviser of my department confirms that the proposals did in fact come from the council itself. What has happened now? In reality the hon. member with his proposal and the hon. member for Rondebosch have, therefore, been agitating against the desires and the wishes of the council of the university.

They are agitators.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: Is an hon. member allowed to refer to other hon. members as “agitators”?

Order! Which hon. member referred to other hon. members as agitators?

I did, Mr. Chairman, and I withdraw the word “agitators”.

Mr. Chairman, I want to react briefly to what the hon. the Minister had to say. The hon. the Minister said that we want to dictate to the council, but I want to point out that I have sympathy for the council. The council is in a bargaining position with the hon. the Minister and that might be the reason why they suggested that the Bill should read like this. It does not, however, mean that we are dictating to the council when we come forward with a proposal which we believe will bring about an improvement from which the council will benefit.

Amendment negatived (Official Opposition and New Republic Party dissenting).

Clause agreed to.

Clause 7:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

senates”.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with an amendment.

Before putting the clauses, I want to express the hope that hon. members will not repeat the arguments of the previous Bill, although, of course, I cannot prevent them from doing so.

Clause 2:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

1. (a) The provisions of sections 20, 21, 22, 23 and 23bis of the Universities Act, 1955 (Act No. 61 of 1955), shall mutatis mutandis apply to the University of Durban-Westville

The amendment is designed to bring the University of Durban-Westville into line with the so-called White universities as far as the financial powers are concerned. The existing Universities Act of 1955 lays down certain rules and regulations, in the clauses referred to in the amendment, relating to access to loans or funds provided or voted by Parliament and lays down a strict code for the control of such loans. We on this side of the House see no reason why the same arrangements cannot obtain in respect of the University of Durban-Westville. The Bill before the House provides for certain borrowing powers to be given to the University of Durban-Westville, but only with the approval of the Minister. On Friday I listened with great interest to the hon. the Minister’s argument in which he stated that there is a difference between the University of Durban-Westville and the other so-called White universities because the University of Durban-Westville is totally financed by the State whereas the White universities are not. Is that correct?

Except for donations.

May I ask the hon. the Minister what then about fees? It is surely not a free institution. Students who attend the University of Durban-Westville also pay fees. I therefore think it is wrong not to add another exception. One should say except for donations and except for fees. It is therefore not a totally State-financed institution, any more than are the White universities. That, however, was the argument used by the hon. the Minister. On a number of occasions during that debate he indicated that his job as Minister, in regard to these matters, was to look after the interests of the taxpayer because he said the university was almost totally financed by the State and that he as the Minister therefore had to retain authority, in respect of these matters, to look after the taxpayers’ interests. It was a nice debating point, but I do not believe that it holds water when tested against logic or consistency in the light of what applies to other universities. I am not impressed with the argument at all. The fact is that the existing White universities are heavily subsidized by the State to the tune of something like 80% of their financial requirements. One consequently wonders what the principle is to which the hon. the Minister refers. When one advances 90% or more of a university’s requirements, it is necessary to look after the taxpayers’ interests, but when one advances 80% it is not necessary. I find no logic in that sort of argument. There is certainly no logic based upon a principle which obviously must remain the same. If the State is contributing 80% to a university, and the hon. the Minister is right about there having to be some sort of ministerial supervision for the spending of that money, the same applies in the other case and vice versa. There consequently seems to be no consistent principle involved here. If it is not necessary in the case of the existing White universities, which are subsidized to the extent of 80%, it ought not to be necessary in the case of the additional percentage expended in the case of the University of Durban-Westville. We know that, in so far as the existing White universities are concerned, because the State advances subsidies, the State ipso facto has considerable control over the manner in which those universities administer and run their affairs. That control will remain. I am not arguing that that is a bad thing. I am just saying that that is the existing situation that obtains in regard to the existing White universities. We know that the State has on a number of occasions exercised the power it has as a result of its providing subsidies to the universities. We know that it has even gone so far as to suggest to universities that certain buildings, which were built with funds obtained through subsidies, were to be put to a certain use and to warn the universities that, if they made use of the buildings for other purposes, the State would intervene. The State therefore already has very considerable power in regard to the existing universities. One wonders why in the case of the University of Durban-Westville one suddenly has to become very precious indeed and say: “We have to look after the taxpayer’s money and therefore, before the university is given any borrowing power at all, before it obtains any loans or makes any investments, the approval of the Minister of Indian Affairs must be obtained.”

As I have said, the object of the amendment I have moved is to bring the University of Durban-Westville into line with existing White universities. We believe there should be no difference between universities in South Africa. In fact, it is a tragedy that one has got to deal with legislation of this kind. Earlier this afternoon we dealt with a similar Bill relating to a different population group and introduced by a different Minister. It has been our view right from the start that, when it comes to education, this should be a matter for the Department of National Education and should not be departmentalized as it is at the present time.

It is discriminatory.

Yes, my hon. friend is quite correct: It is discriminatory. The danger is that it appears to be more discriminatory than it perhaps is, because a difference is indicated and, immediately when there is a difference between White university education and Indian university education, people ask questions and wonder why there is that difference. I want to ask why there should be that difference.

The hon. the Minister also used another argument on Friday. Dealing with this matter, he said that these were new and young institutions and that people would have to learn to crawl before they could walk—I think that was the issue.

No, I did not say that.

Yes, but that was the tenor of the debate. It was said that, because this was a new institution, it would have to evolve and in time it would get its authority.

I did not put it that way.

Did you not use that argument at all?

Well, I shall not use those particular words, but I believe that that was the tenor of the hon. the Minister’s argument. He said it was a new institution and a young institution and that it would need time to evolve. I want to say that the people for whom this university is intended in terms of Government policy are the Indian community of South Africa. These are the same people to whom the Government is now proposing to give a separate Parliament in terms of other proposals of the Government. Why then can they not run their own university? Why can they not have a greater say in the running of their university?

A number of statements were made on Friday during the Second Reading debate relating to matters dealt with in this clause. The hon. the Minister said in the first instance that the Indian people wanted this legislation in its present form. The hon. the Minister said specifically on Friday that the request for this legislation in its present form came from the university itself and he suggested that it came from the Indian people. I want to ask the hon. the Minister in all seriousness whether he does not believe that the Indian community would have wanted more if it had been offered to them. Surely they did not come to the Minister and say: “We want it, but it must be restricted to what is being given to us …”

They did not want what you are asking for here. I can tell you that specifically.

Was it put to them?

They specifically did not want it.

Did they specifically say: “We do not want it?”

Yes.

Was that the university authorities? Sir, I do not believe …

Oh well!

I do not believe that this represents the views and requirements of the Indian community as a whole as regards university education.

The hon. member for Umhlatuzana and others used this Bill as an example to indicate how generous the Government was towards the Indian population. Other members lauded the whole institution and said that this was an example of what the Government was doing for other racial groups and for minorities in South Africa. In response to that argument, I want to say that it is no more the right of these people to receive university education. The Government is not doing them a favour by providing them with a university institution. In fact, our whole argument has been that these people should be just as entitled as any other people in South Africa to the right to go to university. That has always been the standpoint of this side of the House. Therefore, the Government are not doing them a favour when they set up an institution like the University of Durban-Westville.

Other arguments have been advanced. One was that this measure vindicates the Government’s pursuance of separate universities in South Africa and negates our opposition to these. This was used by the hon. member for Umlazi who said that our whole attitude had changed because of this legislation. This is not the case.

Order! The hon. member must not deliver another Second Reading speech.

Mr. Chairman, with respect, I am the first speaker on this side of the House. There was a very wide-ranging debate on the Second Reading on Friday but I will certainly try to confine myself as much as possible.

Precisely the opposite is the case. As we said when we voted for this Bill during the Second Reading, it is a move in the right direction, and I believe that it absolutely vindicates the attitude taken by us on this side of the House through the years. However, if an institution is to be run properly it must get away from an ethnic atmosphere and it must get away from being an ethnic institution. It must allow the admission of people of other racial groups. After all, if we are talking about the South African Indian community, how can we say that the university is based on an ethnic community? They are a people of different religious persuasions. Where is the ethnic grouping of the South African Indian community?

As far as we are concerned one must get away from ethnicity and in the sense that the administrations of this and other institutions have done that, we have welcomed this as a move in the right direction, but it is a move away from the original Government policy. We also say that the university should also receive the same degree of autonomy which is enjoyed by other university institutions of South Africa. That is why I say that the whole question of the arrangement and control of finance should be placed on the same basis as that of the existing White universities of South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I am replying to the hon. member immediately because I think it will assist us in any further discussion that the Opposition may regard as necessary. I want to say immediately that in order to appreciate the hon. member’s amendment we should look at the sections of Act 61 of 1955 which deal with old established universities. We should look at the sections in that Act which he proposes should become part of this Bill. Section 20(1) of the Universities Act, No. 61 of 1955, provides that—

1. (a) the erection of buildings …
2. (b) the acquisition of land …
3. (c) the payment of the capital outlay on the fencing …
4. (d) the purchase of movables of a capital nature;
5. (e) the repayment of any loan (other than a loan … provided by Parliament for the purpose)…

That is very similar to what is in the Bill before us today. As a matter of course we give the money to the University of Durban-Westville when they require it for capital purposes such as this.

Why should it not be identical?

I am coming to that; give me a chance. We give that money and we have on our estimates today, the estimates currently being discussed by Parliament, an amount of R8 650 000 for the capital purposes of this university. My hon. friend thinks that we are now discriminating against Durban-Westville University because we are doing it directly on our annual budget after full discussion and determination of the needs of the university itself. It is really what they ask that we give them.

However, their position differs from the positions of, for instance, the universities I studied at, the University of Cape Town and the University of the Witwatersrand. Their position differs from the position of those two universities and others. Those two universities have tremendous capital assets. The University of Cape Town possesses tremendous grants from Cecil John Rhodes and his estate at Groote Schuur—or rather a large portion of it—is their property. They also have tremendous grants from people like Jagger, Baxter and others. They are a wealthy institution. In one of the clauses that the hon. member wants to have included in this Bill, the original Act provides that the Minister can require that the assets of the university should be pledged as security for loans. I cannot do that in the case of the University of Durban-Westville because they have not yet built up their assets, although they have started doing so.

You are still giving them an 80% subsidy.

I shall deal with each one of the hon. member’s arguments. All I want the hon. member to do now, is to appreciate that there is a substantial difference in this regard. We do give those universities an 80% subsidy, but they can make their own arrangements for loans because they have assets which they can pledge for security. The hon. the Minister of Finance can compel them to pledge those assets as security, but the University of Durban-Westville has nothing of that nature. In each case they will have to have a Government guarantee for the loans they obtain.

In my Second Reading speech I said that the financial provisions in this Bill were the result of a request by the university. I also said that we had a request from Indian leaders not to do what the hon. member is asking us to do now for the simple reason that the fees of this university—although they do pay fees—are considerably lower than the fees paid to universities under the provisions of the Act of 1961. The fees are lower because it is a State institution and Parliament votes the money. We regard this university as being in a transitional stage. It is growing from a university college of Unisa, as it started, into a fully autonomous university as the hon. member opposite wants it to be, but it has not arrived there yet.

What will make it arrive there?

It will arrive there as a result of donations, bequests and assets of its own. What is more important, however, is the fact that—I want to emphasize this and I want to assure the hon. member that I am not bluffing him—proportionate to the population there is a larger number of poor Indians than there are poor White people in this country. Except for the elite their standard of living is lower than that of the White community. They are grateful for the fact that they pay lower fees than those who attend White universities.

Surely each university decides its own fees?

Yes. The fees of other universities on the whole are higher than that of the University of Durban-Westville, because they have to find 20% of their own expenditure. That is to the advantage of the Indian community. I have had this request from the authorities of the university itself and I have had these requests in personal intimate discussions from the leaders of the S.A. Indian Council. Some of the Indian leaders pointed out to me that if it were not for this particular arrangement thousands of Indians who have enjoyed university education during the last 15 years would not have had it, had they to go to the old universities under the circumstances that obtain there. The hon. member must now tell me which leaders of the Indian people, which authorities of the University of Durban-Westville, advised him to move this amendment. I am really interested to know. Did the hon. member discuss the issue with the Indian leaders?

Why do we have to do that?

The hon. member need not do it; I am merely asking and not saying that he should do it.

We have our own native intelligence.

In South Africa the word “native” has an interesting connotation.

Why should this amendment entail an addition to present fees?

It is an old axiom of our capitalistic system that if one spends money, one has to find it to spend it. We are now giving them the money because they are a fully assisted State institution …

You can still do so.

Does the hon. member not understand that if they are a fully assisted State institution the State and Parliament have responsibilities towards them that they do not necessarily have to other universities? That is a simple fact. It is accepted by the Indian leaders and by the university itself that if it were not for the system that we have today, they would have to pay higher fees. That to me is conclusive and I am certainly not going to budge on this issue, and the university appreciates that I wish we could have given them more, because they are using the money to the tremendous advantage of the Indian community. As long as I have to find the money from Parliament and from the members on that side of the House, I feel that I must be able to account to Parliament why the money is being used, how it is being used, and for the security of any loans.

But if you have to find 80% you do not have to?

I am dealing with a 100% institution. [Interjections.] The hon. gentleman is going a bit too fast, even for me. He is jumping the gun so fast that even I cannot keep up with him. The hon. member asked that sections 20 and 21 of the 1961 Act should be included. Section 21 defines how an application for a loan by a White university should be introduced and provides that the Minister can ask for any information which he may require in order to decide whether such a loan should be granted. There are similar powers for the White universities. Section 22 provides that the Treasury may lay down terms on which the university may borrow money, section 23 defines how a loan should be repaid, and so it goes on. It does not mean that the White universities have full autonomy and can do what they like. It means that they are also under control, but because the relationship between a State institution and an autonomous, established university with its own assets must be different, there is also a difference in the way we apply this control.

I do not say that the hon. member has to do so or that there is a compulsion on him to do so, but if he could have stood up and could have said, as I can say, that these provisions are included with the full knowledge and approval of the people concerned and that the system has the full support of the Indian community and the university authorities …

You cannot say “the Indian community”.

I can say it has the support of the university and the people representative of the Indian community because the S.A. Indian Council is elected by the local authorities who are representative of the people. If it is not representative then, surely, I would have had some approach by some Indian somewhere against the provisions of the Bill, and I have had nothing of the kind. All I have had is the PFP, who have no connection in this particular instance with the Indian people, coming ex parte and making these demands. I have not had a single sign or signal that they are supported by the Indian community, whereas I have had very powerful signs and signals that my attitude is supported by the Indian community, and I think that is definitive.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? The hon. the Minister made the point that the English, or rather, the White universities had assets which they could pledge as security for loans. Must I take it, therefore, that the ground, buildings and other assets at the University of Durban-Westville are not owned by the university itself?

It is owned by a State institution.

By whom? By the university or a department?

It is owned by the Department of Public Works.

Why?

It is owned by them, because it is a State institution. This is the sort of argument where the question, “Why does the sun shine?” is answered by, “Because the sun shines”. [Interjections.] I am dealing with facts and the fact is that this is a State institution …

May I ask you another question?

Let me finish my answer to you first.

You have finished it.

How do you know? [Interjections.] I do not want to conduct this argument with people who do not want to understand. I want to try to bring home to the hon. gentleman opposite that I am dealing with a State institution, I am dealing with something which is owned by the State, I am dealing with assets and property of the State. Until the Indian people show me that they support the attitude of the PFP, the hon. member’s attitude is worthless as far as I am concerned because there is no logic or force in support of it. They are just trying to pose as the champions of the Indian people without the knowledge or the consent of the Indian people.

Mr. Chairman, I understand from the hon. the Minister that one of his main arguments is that one cannot expect an institution of this kind to be able to conclude loans because it does not have its own assets—land or buildings. When I asked him whether the University of Durban-Westville itself owned the grounds, buildings and assets, he actually did not know.

I knew, but…

Well, the hon. the Minister cast a very questioning look around him.

I certainly did. I wanted to know which State agency owned it.

I just want to tell the hon. the Minister that he very quickly looked to a certain direction before he gave an answer. He did not turn to his right, but to his left. If that is the reason, why in heaven’s name is it not possible to vest those assets in the university as a body corporate, as is the case with the Universities of Stellenbosch, Cape Town and Potchefstroom? What is the objection? If it has mushroomed into an institution, of which the hon. the Minister is now so proud, in terms of numbers, intake, service to the Indian community and the distinguished service rendered by the council, what more is required of the university itself, the Indian community or Parliament before all these assets are vested in the university as a corporate body? Then the hon. the Minister’s argument falls away because it will have the assets to pledge—this is the argument he has used—in order to acquire loans and obtain other capital. The question I want to put to him is: What is actually at the present moment preventing the full development of this university as one equivalent to a White university? In other words, why must the property remain vested in the dominium of the Department of Public Works? What is the reason for it? Why does he not hand over these assets to the university? If he did, this kind of legislation would not be necessary and the hon. the Minister would in fact have the confidence of the Indian community. They are probably accepting this kind of legislation because they have Hobson’s choice. They know they do not have full university status and that is why they have to accept this kind of legislation. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister a question. He has put the cart before the horse. He must analyse the status and functions of the university before he introduces piecemeal legislation like this. He still has not given us a proper answer to the question why he is not prepared to grant equal status to the University of Durban-Westville. Until he gives that kind of answer we shall continue to criticize it. It is no good if he blows his top about the PFP and its “friends”. He must answer that question.

Mr. Chairman, I want to tell my hon. friend that I am going to answer the question once more, but that he cannot expect me to keep on doing so.

This university is a State institution and its assets belong to the State. It is progressing very fast towards greater autonomy. The rate of that progress is determined in consultation between the education section of my Department of Indian Affairs and the university authorities who have the interests of the Indian people at heart. Because they have the interests of the Indian people at heart they have requested us not to be over hasty in bringing about this development, because at the moment the Indian community and the children of the Indian people in South Africa are deriving tremendous benefit from the fact that it is a State institution and for that reason is treated far more liberally than are the White universities, especially the English language universities in South Africa, as my hon. friend has inadvertently admitted. That was a very interesting slip of the tongue, and it is still part of the PFP’s whole attitude that the Indian people must become imitation Englishmen in South Africa.

Oh no!

Of course. I said that the other day too. One must look at the illogicality of the opposition. Look at how illogical they are. Here we have an institution which is partly an apartheid institution, but also something more. It is also a service institution to the community concerned who have not yet on the average achieved the same standard of living as the White people in this country.

Because you took away their rights …

It has the two capacities. Now we have the PFP today arguing with me for the mere sake of posing as special friends of the Indian people, and trying to persuade me that I should make it a complete apartheid institution and forget about the social function and the assistance function of that university.

Complete apartheid?

But of course! That is what you are asking for. The PFP is asking for the apartheid aspect of this university to be taken to its final conclusion. I am saying not yet, because first I want to make sure that they continue to render an essential service in the interests of the Indian community. That is the trouble with the PFP. They are like some of the lawyers who practise at the bars of South Africa who are not lawyers; they are pointsmen. They try to find a mere point with which to impress the court for a moment and to achieve immediate results if possible. They are not arguing this on principle; they are arguing it in order to achieve a certain image with the Indian people; they are currying favour with the Indian people. They will not, however. I am more keen than they are that this should become a fully-fledged autonomous institution, as they are pleading today. But I shall delay that action until I am satisfied that by doing so I shall not be doing a disservice to the community immediately affected, i.e. the Indian community.

Mr. Chairman, I have listened with great interest to the arguments advanced by hon. members on this side of the Committee as well as to the replies of the hon. the Minister, and I must say that basically the hon. the Minister comes back time and time again with his only justification, viz. that this is a State institution.

It is not my only justification.

Well, that is the very first one the hon. the Minister mentioned. Secondly, he creates the impression that should the council be vested with borrowing powers without first receiving the approval of the hon. the Minister, for some unknown reason the students will be penalized. I cannot understand his logic. He is not going to embargo loans. He is merely proposing an enabling borrowing power. In other words, the universities are going to borrow money, and if by borrowing that money they are going to reach the stage where fees have to be increased, this will be true in any case, whether he gives the approval or not. We must understand this issue clearly. Status has been granted to the University of Durban-Westville many, many years ago. Quite frankly, this whole matter boils down to whether the hon. the Minister has sufficient confidence in the council which is to be elected to give them the power to do what is suggested in terms of the amendment. The hon. the Minister read from section 20, of the Universities Act No. 61 of 1955, which deals with the purposes for which loans may be granted to universities. He read the first list and asked: Why worry? These are catered for anyway in the amending Bill. However, he did not read out section 20(2), which is the issue at stake. Section 20(2) reads as follows—

And then we come to the section—

Let us have clarity on this point. What the hon. the Minister does not want to see is that the council of this university has the power to borrow moneys from any source for the purposes of the university. He does not want to see that unless they first receive his approval. His justification for that—the way I see it—is that there is some magical difference in that some State universities receive subsidies of more than 80%. Their own financing is only in the region of between 5% and 7% on the average. The other 13% is paid by students in the form of hostel fees and tuition fees. Therefore this figure of 80% given every time is irrelevant. It is the principle which is being affected here. We have to get an unequivocal answer from the hon. the Minister. We have to get an unequivocal answer from the hon. the Minister. He must tell us whether he believes that, as things are today, the council of that university cannot be given the power to borrow money without first obtaining the approval of the hon. the Minister himself.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to put on record that I totally fail to understand the logic of the hon. the Minister’s argument when he says that we on this side of the House are advocating an apartheid institution. I do not understand his argument. He has not motivated his statement. It has been dropped right out of the blue and contains no basis of logic whatsoever.

Quite clearly, what we want—and it is evident in the amendment which we have moved to this clause—is to see a situation in which this university can move towards being an open university, free of any ethnic ties, a university with a maximum possible autonomy, identical to that enjoyed by the so-called White universities in South Africa. That is what we want to see. If that entails an additional and increased subsidy by the central Government, because of the particular sociological conditions—the wealth or lack of wealth of the particular community concerned—such a subsidy has to be provided. However, we deal with this matter on the basis of the principle that there should be as much autonomy for the Durban-Westville University as is enjoyed by other universities. We believe it is totally wrong that there should be a difference in the way in which these universities are administered, because we believe that, apart from any factual considerations, and the lack of autonomy is a very factual consideration … However, the very fact that there is a difference makes of this university an institution which is seen by the Indian community and others as a university which is not of the same calibre, not of the same standing, as the White universities. It puts that institution at a disadvantage.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to make one statement. The hon. member for Musgrave went too far. He said at the outset that the Government discriminated because it was taking a different course of action in regard to the University of Durban-Westville. So where a person is different and different action is taken in regard to such a person, it amounts to discrimination. In other words, it is the Government’s fault that people are different. If a person has different colour, different culture and different form of dress, if his food is different, his taste in food is different, his taste for music is different, and that difference is provided for in legislation, that amounts to discrimination. The hon. member for Musgrave, the lone wolf of his party in Natal, discriminated today, and in the worst form imaginable at that. [Interjections.] That is what he did. The PFP maintain that the University of Durban-Westville should be placed on the same level as the White universities, universities with a long history, with a background and with funds that have been accumulated over many years. It is a matter of record today that students at the university have to pay the same fees and that the PFP is discriminating against the Indians of Natal. That is what it amounts to. The PFP have shown us today that it is they, and not the Government, who discriminates against people. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion I want to say that I found the re-entry of the hon. member for Musgrave into the debate very interesting. They spoke about the matter for a long time, but never thought that their own standpoint was contradicted by their plea that this should become a full apartheid institution. He has now tried to talk away their earlier standpoint. But it is on record that it was only when I drew his attention to the fact that he made an attempt to get away from it.

I really expected more of the hon. member for Durban Central than his contribution today. He first said my only reason—later he had to qualify this and say it was the main reason—was because it is a State institution. But that is not true. My main reason is that the Indian community who are involved here, and the university which is involved here, asked me to retain it as a State institution because of the great benefits they derive from this fact.

But that is not at issue.

That is precisely what is at issue. My argument with the PFP is that they summarily, ex parte and with no authority whatsoever adopt an attitude which does not accord with the wishes, the desires or the interests of the Indian community. When they talk, they clutch at straws and it becomes more and more important to them that the students pay fees. They pay fees and I am grateful that they do. It is in the nature of the Indian people to want to contribute their share. To show the sort of problem we have, let me point out the following: In 1976-’77— which is the last year for which I have figures—the students paid the very impressive amount of R573 442 by way of fees, but in the same year the Department contributed R6 773 712 towards the running of the university. The Indian community are aware of this and they are grateful that the State makes this sort of contribution. They want to retain this privilege until such time as their average living standards compare with those of the Whites. I do not begrudge them that, but apparently this is not so with hon. members opposite. That is where we differ. I am acting in the interests of the Indian people, in consultation with them and at their request, but hon. members opposite think they are all-knowing and know what the Indians need so they need not consult the Indians and can come and talk a lot of hot air here in Parliament. But that is not our attitude.

There is a last point I want to stress. The University of Durban-Westville has up to now not had the right to borrow money. That right is now being given to the university for the first time. In terms of the provisions of the Bill the university is now being given bor rowing powers, and the Minister is prepared to underwrite those loans which the university incurs. They will only borrow money in cases where the State itself will not advance the necessary finds. In this connection I refer again to the amount of approximately R9 million which I mentioned previously. The fact that the universities will now be granted the right to borrow money is a sign of progress. However, I determine the rate of the progress in consultation with the university and the Indian community. All I ask my friends opposite is that before they come here and lay claim to being the spokesmen for the Indian community, they consult the Indians in an attempt to ascertain what that community’s wishes and aims really are.

Amendment negatived (Official Opposition and New Republic Party dissenting).

Clause agreed to.

Clause 4:

Mr. Chairman, we now come to clause 4. This clause deals again with the appointment, by the council, of a rector. In this regard I move the amendments printed in the name of the hon. member for Umhlanga on the Order Paper, as follows—

1. (1) On page 5, in lines 20 and 21, to omit “with the concurrence of” and to substitute “after consultation with”;
2. (2) on page 5, in line 30, to omit “with the concurrence of ” and to substitute “after consultation with”.

The motivation here is very much the same as in the case of the previous Bill, except that I am very grateful to the hon. the Minister for giving us that information. We have consequently made so much progress that I do not expect him to again put forward his arguments about the university being fully subsidized. I say this because from the figures he made available to us, it can be seen that the university is 93% subsidized, 7% coming from fees. In fact, this compares very well with other universities. On average about 13% of university expenses are covered from their own funds, i.e. from students’ tuition fees and hostel fees. So now the whole argument no longer boils down to the magical assertion that one set of affairs applies in the case of an 80% subsidy and another in the case of a 100% subsidy. We now know that that university receives a 93% subsidy. Here it is purely and simply a matter of confidence in the council, no more and no less.

Have you moved both the amendments?

Yes, I have moved both the amendments. I still feel, however, that there should be liaison with the hon. the Minister and that he should at least be placed in the position of knowing what is going to happen.

Mr. Chairman, I move the three amendments printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

1. (1) On page 5, in lines 20 and 21, to omit “with the concurrence of the Minister,”;
2. (2) on page 5, in line 24, to omit all the words after “shall” up to and including “Minister” in line 26 and to substitute:

   be as prescribed by statute

3. (3) on page 5, in lines 30 and 31, to omit “with the concurrence of the Minister”.

These amendments go further than the amendments moved by my friend, the hon. member for Durban Central. Let me say that we would certainly find his amendments and improvement on the existing situation in the Bill, but we do not believe they go far enough.

What my first amendment implies is that we believe that it should be left to the council of the university, in the normal way, to decide on the appointment of the rector, as prescribed by the statute of the university. We think that that is absolutely sufficient and that there is no need for the hon. the Minister to be brought into the matter at all, in the same way as there is no need for the hon. Minister to be brought into the matter of the appointment of rectors at White universities. We also believe that the conditions of service, the powers, the privileges, the duties and the functions of the rector concerned are purely domestic matters which should be determined by the council of the university and need not have the concurrence of the hon. Minister, nor for that matter even the approval of the hon. the Minister. If this is a real university institution, and if the Indian community is worthy of having an institution of its own, it should be within the powers of the council of this institution to determine the conditions of service, the privileges, the powers and the functions of the rector whom the council is going to appoint to run the institution.

The same applies to the third amendment which relates to the appointment of the acting rector. Again we believe that if the institution is to have an acting rector, this is a matter which should be decided by the council of the university and need not have the hon. the Minister intruding into the making of that decision.

Mr. Chairman, the amendments are very closely linked. The hon. official Opposition would like the council of the university to act without taking any cognizance of the standpoint of the Government, the Minister, when a rector or a vice-rector is appointed or their duties are determined. The hon. members of the NRP are taking a more reasonable view. They also wish the council to make the appointment, but after consultation with the Minister. I am sorry that I cannot accept the amendments. I think that we are taking a great step forward with this amendment Bill. Up to now the law provided that appointments must be made by the Minister after consultation with the council. The initiative rested with the Minister while the council was only consulted. Now, however, the position changes completely and the ball is in the university’s court. They select the rector, they recommend him and the Minister is consulted and has to grant his approval. In practice, as hon. members know, a Minister will not lightly reject such a recommendation by the university. There will have to be very strong considerations which I will have to be able to defend before this House, before the university and before the Indian public. The provision is only there as a precautionary measure until such time as the university has progressed further and makes its own request for greater powers. I think that I can, in all fairness, ask the Opposition to realize that this is a step forward. It is in fact a very important step forward. Therefore I hope that they will see their way clear to supporting us and not insist that we should go further than our ability perhaps allows at the moment.

Amendment (1) moved by Mr. P. A. Pyper negatived and amendment (1) moved by Mr. R. A. F. Swart dropped (Official Opposition and New Republic Party dissenting).

Amendment (2) moved by Mr. R. A. F. Swart negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment (2) moved by Mr. P. A. Pyper negatived and amendment (3) moved by Mr. R. A. F. Swart dropped.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 5:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendments printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

1. (1) On page 5, in line 39, to omit “with the concurrence of the Minister”;
2. (2) on page 5, in lines 42 and 43, to omit “with the approval of the Minister”.

Precisely the same principle applies here in that we believe that these powers should be enjoyed by the council and that they should not have to rely upon the concurrence of the Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed in the name of the hon. member for Umhlanga, as follows—

The motivation for this amendment is precisely the same as in the case of the previous clause.

Mr. Chairman, in order to save time, I only wish to say that I reject the amendments by the Opposition for the same reasons which applied in respect of the previous clause.

Amendment (1) moved by Mr. R. A. F. Swart negatived and amendment moved by Mr. P. A. Pyper dropped (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment (2) moved by Mr. R. A. F. Swart negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause agreed to.

Clause 6:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

This clause deals with the composition of the university council in that it reduces the number of appointees by the State President. I want to deal with the university council. In the discussion on the previous clauses, the hon. the Minister talked about what the Indian community wants. He says he knows what the Indian community wants and that he is here to plead for them. I want to ask why it is necessary, in comparison with other universities, to make such an exception of the University of Durban-Westville when it comes to the composition of the university council.

What are we going to have left if this clause is passed? Of what will the council comprise? The council will comprise of a rector, a vice-rector, six nominees of the State President, two representatives from the senate and one from the convocation. It is a very narrowly constituted university council. I want to know why it is that we cannot follow the example in the legislation proposed by the hon. the Minister of Coloured Relations in regard to the University of the Western Cape. I speak under correction, but I believe this university has a council which comprises some 21 members of whom only 10 can be held to be nominees of the Government. The other 11 come from other bodies which, if my memory again serves me correctly, include the University of Cape Town, the University of Stellenbosch and other local bodies of that nature who are interested in the community. This is in addition to people who are responsible for donating money to the university. I have here a list of the composition of the councils of various other universities including the older South African universities such as Stellenbosch, Cape Town and Witwatersrand, as well as the University of Port Elizabeth, which is a more recently established university. This university Has a council far more widely constituted than is ever intended in this legislation before the House at the present time. The new Medical University of Southern Africa is even more recently established than that, viz. in 1976. This university has a council with representation from various other authorities within that region representing a wide range of people. However, when we come to the Durban-Westville University, no provision is made in the composition of its council for any representation from the local authorities. No particular provision is made for any representation from people who donate money to the university—and I believe money is being donated to the university.

The question is why this exception is being made in the case of the university designed for the Indian community when it does not appear in legislation applying to any other university? I would like the hon. the Minister to respond to these questions because I think he is taking this community for granted. We are dealing here with the South African Indian community, who are very responsible people and who play a very big part in the life of our nation. Why are they not given greater opportunity to serve on the council of a university which is there particularly to serve the interests of their community?

Mr. Chairman, the Indians are represented in the council. What we are doing now, is to reduce the number of members appointed by the State President by two. We are also enabling the convocation to appoint one or even two members.

I am sorry, I left that out.

It is not important and I know you realize that. In other words, two alumni of the university’s convocation are added and this strengthens the Indian representation on the council.

Who is on it now?

There are 16 but I cannot remember them offhand. However, there are some very interesting people. There are five Indian people, and they will now comprise seven of the 16. The State President, can, of course, in his discretion appoint more. Other universities allow universities with which they are associated to have representatives on their council. In the case of the university of my friend, the hon. Minister of Coloured Relations, the University of Cape Town and the University of Stellenbosch are represented on its council because of its association with those two universities. In my case the State President has seen to it that representatives from the University of Natal and Unisa are appointed. These are the two universities most closely associated with the University of Durban-Westville. However, I want to make the point again that we have progress here and we are making provision for fewer State appointed representatives. The Bill makes provision for one—and soon it will be two— members of the convocation who will be members elected by themselves. This is an advance, but the Indians concerned with the university have not asked for more. This is what they want. After all, this is their Bill and it is not for me to take the initiative to force them to take more. Hon. members must see the development of the University of Durban-Westville as a dynamic process. I will come with two amending Bills to this university’s statute in this session. These matters are under review all the time. There is constant discussion and we are alive to the need for development and the growth in stature and status of this university. However, let us do things as they become necessary. I would like to know that I can rely on the support of the Opposition in these positive things as we move forward. I hope we are not going to have this sort of auction every time I come here with a positive measure.

It is all much too slow and much too little. [Interjections.]

How can I possibly be doing too little? If those hon. gentlemen had their way, there would have been no university of Durban-Westville at all.

Exactly!

If I had had my way years ago, there would also have been no University of Durban-Westville at all. I admit that I was wrong. Will hon. members have the courage to say that too? They are by their actions today admitting that they were wrong in their argument when the university was established 15 years ago. They now want to cherish this university and demand from us that we do more for this university, the creature of the NP Government. They now want to take it over and pretend that the university is under their wing, but it is not. It is under the wing of this Government and it is a creature of this Government. The Government is proud of it and we shall do what is right by it as time permits, as needs demand and in accordance with the university’s requests to us.

Mr. Chairman, I feel that I have to make a few comments on the latter remark of the hon. the Minister. As far as we are concerned, we did not see the need for ethnic universities. In the first place we believe that there should be normal progress made in the establishment of universities when the population demands are there for the establishment of those universities. In any normal sort of society that would have been the attitude followed by the Government of the day.

We now have the situation where we are dealing with the University of Durban-Westville which was established on an ethnic basis, but which the Government itself is beginning to relieve of its ethnic composition more and more as time passes and as the demands of the society are felt by the institution concerned. That really is the situation in its proper and true perspective.

It will always be an Indian university.

Will Whites be admitted? More and more other racial groups are going to be admitted to that university, but that we shall leave to the future. The fact of the matter is that here one has a university institution which is providing for the university needs of sections of the South African population, and it is a good thing if such a demand exists.

I want to return briefly to the hon. the Minister’s comments on the composition of the council of this university. I said that as I looked at it, the council was a very restricted one. I think the hon. the Minister mentioned that the council would consist of 16 members. If I am wrong, I would like the hon. the Minister to tell us, because I think this is a matter which does need to be looked at. To my mind the council is far too small when related to those of other universities. As I read the Act, provision was made for the rector of the university, which gives us one; we now have a vice-rector, which gives us two; then there were not less than eight members who were to be appointed by the State President—it is now going to be six, so that gives us eight; then there were two members of the senate, which would make it ten; and now, according to the provisions of this legislation, we are allowing for one and possibly two members from convocation which would make the number 12. I think the hon. the Minister mentioned the figure 16, but if I look at the provisions of the Act and at the proposed amendments, I see only 12.

A maximum of 12.

Yes, a maximum of 12. In all earnestness, I believe this is totally inadequate for a university of this kind. I believe it is the community at large which is going to be involved more and more in it and therefore I believe that the scope of the composition of the council should be considerably expanded. I would ask the hon. the Minister to give consideration to this matter and, if necessary, to introduce amending legislation some time in the future. I believe there is a real need to make it a council which is far more representative …

May I ask the hon. member why he thinks there is that need?

I think one needs to involve, to a far greater degree, the interests surrounding the university, for example, donors who make donations to the university. One would like to involve them in exactly the same way as one has done with every other university. They have councils which are far larger than that of the University of Durban-Westville …

The Durban City Council could be included.

Yes, institutions such as the Durban City Council and the local authorities could be included. I therefore ask that consideration be given to this aspect.

Why should the Indian university be an exception to any other university?

Mr. Chairman, having heard that last interjection, I would like to put the following question: Why should the Indian university have to follow lavishly the example of any other institution in this country? Why can it not have a character of its own and take its own decisions? Why can it not be a university developing towards autonomy? Why can it not take autonomous decisions in the meantime where they are relevant and where it is wise to do so? That is my problem with the hon. members on that side of the House; they have no arguments and then they come with this sort of meaningless interjection which contributes nothing to the virtue or the value of the argument that we are conducting.

As far as the size of the council is concerned, I have a perfectly open mind. If the university comes to me and makes out a case for a larger council, they can have it immediately; they have not done so, however. The hon. member must know that I as Minister and my department work very closely with this university, through our education division. We have found that the Council is a very efficient organization which gives us excellent results. No case has yet been made out for a larger council and that is why I asked the hon. member why he thinks they need a larger council. They do not seem to think so and I and my department do not find that they are suffering any disadvantage because they have a small, efficient council doing the job for them. I am not there to appoint people just for the sake of creating jobs. However, as I say, I have an open mind and if a case is made out for a larger council I shall certainly come to Parliament and ask Parliament to give us the authority to do so.

Amendment negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause agreed to.

Clause 9:

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

The amendment follows the same pattern as previous amendments. The clause relates to the establishment of the university and the determination of that establishment. Again we on this side of the House feel that this is purely a function of the council of the university and that the Minister need not be consulted before that establishment is determined. That is the reason for my amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the arguments which we have been putting forward all afternoon, also apply in this case and I do not wish to elaborate on them. The hon. member must accept that there are good reasons for the provision. This is a Bill which emanates from the university itself and I stand by that.

Amendment negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause agreed to.

Clause 10:

Mr. Chairman, I wish to move the following amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper—

In regard to this clause we have the same line of argument, but it is on the very important question of determining fees to the university. We again believe this is an entirely domestic matter to be determined by the council of the university, which does not require the involvement of the Minister in any case.

Mr. Chairman, I briefly want to say that this is a very important matter indeed. In normal circumstances, if all things had been equal and if the Indian community as a whole enjoyed an equal financial status with the White people of this country, there would have been no answer to the hon. member’s argument. However, we are dealing here with a special community which is still developing and which has not yet achieved full economic equality with the White people and until that happens, I as the Minister of Indian Affairs, would like to take care of their interests and be quite sure that the university, by unilateral action, does not impose an unconscionable burden upon these people.

Amendment negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Mr. Speaker, if this had been my maiden speech, I could really have spent a pleasant half-hour talking about Church Square. However, I do not wish to waste the time of this House.

Then you may as well resume your seat.

First give me a chance. I shall resume my seat in a moment. I can give the assurance that unless I can make some constructive contribution to this debate, I shall prefer not to participate in it. The NRP supports this Bill without reservation and with pleasure.

Mr. Speaker, there is very little for me to react to. In the first place I should like to thank the hon. members on the other side of the House for their support in principle for the Bill.

I really only have to reply to certain matters raised by the hon. member for Johannesburg North. His first objection is that too many civil servants serve on the committee. I do not think that is fair criticism of the Bill. The officials are mainly departmental heads, or otherwise very senior civil servants. This is by no means a political matter. In other words, it may happen that the opinions of these senior civil servants or departmental heads will in many cases even meet with the agreement of their Minister. These are responsible people who hold responsible positions and who must reach finality on a non-political matter. For that reason I place a high premium on their opinion. It is possible that their opinions are in all cases independent and autonomous. I cannot therefore agree with the hon. member’s criticism.

I looked up in Hansard the debates conducted in 1972. According to Hansard nobody objected to the composition of the Church Square Committee in its present form, and the committee was even referred to as a committee of experts. Everybody was happy about the composition of the committee.

The hon. member said further that the chairman ought to be elected by the committee and not be designated by my department. I am definitely not prepared to change my mind and amend the law. This legislation falls under my department and it is surely not too much to expect that the Minister should have the right to appoint a senior official from his department as chairman, someone who has the task, among other things, of coordinating activities. For that reason I think that the argument by the hon. member for Johannesburg North lacks substance.

I further want to point out that in the first instance, in terms of the Bill two architects are nominated by the Council for Architects. These people are experts specializing in the field of restoration and architecture. They are independent people. They are people over whom I as the Minister have no control. I also want to point out that I have already accepted an amendment in the Other Place to the effect that instead of designating one additional member, the Minister will now designate two additional members.

I do not wish to bind myself now as to the type of person I am going to designate or as to what their connections will be. But it stands to reason that they will also be people who to a certain extent have an independent view on this matter. Hon. members will notice that it has once again been expressly stated in the Bill that before the Minister may take a final decision on plans submitted to him, written advice will be obtained from the city council. Via the city council, via the city councillors, who represent the whole of Pretoria, the matter is made wide open to advice which has nothing to do with any Government organization. In that way advice can be obtained via the city councillors, valuable advice which would have nothing whatever to do with any Government organization.

I should further like to point out to hon. members how this committee goes about its task and also how the department operates as far as these matters are concerned. During November 1973, certain proposals in connection with the development of Church Square were announced in the Press and bodies and persons were invited to give their opinions. In consequence thereof the following, for example, furnished commentary: the Krugergenootskap oud-Pretoria, the S.A. Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, the Chamber of Commerce, the Afrikaanse Sakekamer, The Property Owners’ Association, the Study Group of Pretoria Architects, the Transvaal Provincial Institute of Architects and the Simon van der Stel Foundation. Apart from that, written comment was received from the Pretoria Chamber of Commerce, from numerous Rapportryerskorpse, from lecturers in history at the Rand Afrikaans University, from the Genootskap vir die handhawing van Afrikaans, the Lynnwood Study Group, the Voortrekkerkommando Danie Malan and the Burgerspark D.R. Congregation; in other words my department or the Church Square Committee does not try to limit advice to certain Government organizations. The department throws the matter as wide open as possible for all sorts of organizations which have an interest in the matter to come forward with advice.

In view of all these circumstances I am not prepared—that I can tell the hon. member for Johannesburg North in advance—to accept the amendment of which he has already given notice. I think that the legislation, as it stands before the House, is reasonable.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The Bill is intended to amend various statutory provisions relating to the Railways. Since the implications of the various amendments are explained in the explanatory memorandum which has already been tabled, I shall merely refer briefly to the more important aspects.

The Bill makes provision, inter alia, for the amendment of section 10 of the Railways Control and Management (Consolidation) Act, 1957, (Act No. 70 of 1957), in order to eliminate certain repeated amendments of the law for the purpose of adjusting the excess charge levied in cases where a passenger travels in a train without a valid free pass or ticket, or with an insufficient free pass or ticket or beyond the authorized distance. In future the amounts will be adjusted from time to time by way of amendment of a clause in the official Railway Tariff Book.

Legal authority has already been granted for the establishment of a South African Railways Police Reservist Force and in order to ensure the maximum preparedness of the Force in case of emergency, it is envisaged by means of the amendment of section 57 of the Consolidation Act, further to extend the composition of the Force to make provision for a South African Railways Police Reserve, on the same pattern as the South African Police Reserve. With a view to uniformity, it is the intention to bring section 57B of the Consolidation Act into line with the provisions of the Police Act, 1958, in so far as the imposition of penalties for certain contraventions are concerned.

Some of the other proposed amendments relate to the conditions of service of Iscor staff who, as a result of the Sishen-Saldanha project, transferred to the Railways, as well as the improvement of the pension benefits payable to widows with effect from 1 December 1977, and the authority of the Railway Administration to establish and manage Sick Fund dispensaries.

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. the Minister has said, this Bill contains amendments to four Railway Acts—the Railways and Harbours Control and Management Consolidation Act, 1957, the Railways and Harbours Service Act, 1960, the Railways and Harbours Pensions Act, 1971, and the Railways and Harbours Pensions for non-Whites Act, 1974. It contains a number of different provisions which the hon. the Minister has outlined very briefly. They are also outlined in the explanatory memorandum. The amendments have to do with various facets of the activities of the Administration. We in the Official Opposition will be supporting the Bill at Second Reading, although there are some amendments to certain clauses which, it is our intention to move at Committee Stage. This is largely a Committee Stage Bill.

Clauses 1, 5, 6, 7 and 8 are of a technical nature. They deal with the method of handling lost property. We have no quarrel at all with clause 1. It is a very short clause. However, I have a minor query with regard to clause 6. This clause deals with an amendment to section 2 of the Control and Management Act which deals with the auctioning of lost property which is being detained. Among other amendments to subsection (2) of this particular section of the Act, it appears that it will no longer be necessary to give notice in newspapers circulating in the district of any intended auction.

I do not know why it was necessary to alter this provision. I believe such a sale should be advertised. I also believe that the advertisement should state the name of the consignor or the consignee, if they were known. I would be interested to hear from the hon. the Minister why this change has been suggested. It seems rather pointless to change something which has in fact appeared to be a good practice. On the surface it has appeared to be a good practice. Clause 5 lays down procedures in connection with lost goods, and clauses 7 and 8 are merely consequential thereto.

As the hon. the Minister has said, clause 2 of the Bill has to do with excess charges in addition to the ordinary fare levied on passengers who either travel without a ticket or who travel in the wrong class. Instead of laying down what those excess charges should be, the amendment provides that the excess charges shall be determined by the General Manager. The existing Act has limitations set on the amount of such excess charges, but the suggested amendment has no such limitation at all and therefore the General Manager can decide to impose any penalty which he sees fit. I believe, however, it is Parliament’s duty to set limitations on this sort of thing; Parliament has to judge just how serious any offence is. I therefore believe that we ought to limit the charges. Such a limitation should be embodied in the Act. I therefore intend moving an amendment which will place a limitation on the General Manager’s power. The amendment I intend moving does away with any necessity to effect an amendment to the relevant section time and time again as has been the case in the past, but it places a top limit on the penalty which can be imposed. In fact, there is just a slight rephrasing of the last part of the provision which is now being done away with. It also allows the General Manager to prescribe particular circumstances under which no excess charge should be demanded. It is obvious that there may be circumstances in which it will be manifestly unfair to charge somebody a laid down levy and I think there should be latitude for absolution in circumstances like those.

Clauses 3 and 4 are consequential to this clause and we have no problem in so far as they are concerned.

The next clause I should like to discuss is clause 9. This clause makes it possible for anybody to be licensed by the Administration to act as a pilot at a particular harbour. The explanatory memorandum claims that the amendment seeks to make it possible for a port captain to be licensed to act as a pilot, but the actual wording of the amendment is broader than this and I therefore feel that the intention may be to make it possible for other officials as well as port captains to be licensed as pilots. I would have thought that it would have been an easier way of conducting matters if in the existing section 43(1) one just added the words “and port captain” to the word “pilot”. This would have been sufficient.

I now come to clauses 10 and 12 which have to do with the establishment of a S.A. Railways Police Reserve Force. Such a force is to be made up from ex-members of the Railways Police Force. In principle we have no quarrel with it at all, but I think the hon. members should be aware of the fact that there are quite onerous responsibilities placed on the shoulders of anyone belonging to such a reserve. So onerous are they that I think it quite possible that one may have recruitment problems in the future in so far as the Railways Police Force is concerned. Firstly, reservists are people who have had 12 months’ service in the force and who have terminated their service or have been discharged or dismissed or have retired on pension. Such persons can be called up for 30 days per annum for five years after such discharge, dismissal or retirement. This is fair enough; it is fairly onerous. Further, however, in terms of the proposed section 57C(7)—

Presumable this only applies to property of the SAR and H and not to all property—

This is very wide indeed. “For a period which he thinks fit” could be years. I believe it is only fair to put some sort of limitation on the period for which a reservist can be made to serve. In the Committee Stage I shall move an amendment to that effect. Subsection (8) provides that the provisions of subsection (7) shall be in addition to and not in substitution for the provisions of the Defence Act, 1957 (Act No. 44 of 1957). I think it is manifestly unfair to expect from a person not only to do his duty under the Defence Act and to fulfil his responsibilities towards the Department of Defence, but also to be subjected to a further call-up as a Railway Police reservist. I think such a person is being very unfairly treated. He is having a more onerous responsibility placed on his shoulders than is the case, for example, for an ordinary Defence Force trainee. Possibly the hon. the Minister thinks of subsection (7) call-ups—“for a period which he thinks fit”—as being very short-duration call-ups, i.e. just for a few days or maybe a couple of weeks, but the clause does not state as much. It allows for call-ups for unlimited periods, in fact for as long as the hon. the Minister thinks fit. Surely it is only fair, if people are called up for a long period, that this should be taken into consideration and credit given for the call-up period so that there is not an additional responsibility over and above the responsibilities an individual has in terms of the Defence Act. In other words, one does not want him to do his full Defence Force training and then be a police reservist on top of that. One does not want him to have to be called up for a month per year as a Railway Police reservist, for example, and then still have to fulfil his full Defence Act obligations. I shall be moving an amendment in that connection during the Committee Stage.

Clause 11 is consequential upon the amendment passed last year for the Police Amendment Act. It had to do with various offences such as impersonating police officers, suborning members of the force in the course of their duties and plying members of the force with intoxicating liquor. We have no quarrel with any of that. Our quarrel is with the proposed new subsection (7) which deals with the sketching or photographing of prisoners. This is an offence if it is done without the written authority of the Commissioner. It is also an offence to publish any sketch or photograph. I know that a similar clause is now contained in the Police Act In fact, this clause is taken word for word from that legislation. We argued against this clause at that time, however, and we are still worried by its effects.

Let me give hon. members an example. A photographer could photograph a riot which is in progress. He might do so in good faith and the photograph could be published in a newspaper. Quite inadvertently that photograph may be of people in the crowd who have subsequently been detained. The relevant photographer and publisher would then be guilty of an offence without any real knowledge of having committed the offence. This places newspapers and newspaper photographers in an impossible situation, and again it is my intention to move an amendment in the Committee Stage, an amendment I hope the hon. the Minister will allow. Many of these amendments are not very important, and this is why we have decided to support the Second Reading. I think this is, at any rate, largely a Committee Stage Bill. I know that there are many subjects that I have raised, but it would be very useful to have a few comments from the hon. the Minister if he can do so at this stage. Otherwise the matter could certainly wait for the Committee Stage.

Clauses 13, 17 and 19(1)(b) are consequential on a decision to improve the pension benefits payable to widows who become entitled to annuities after 1 December 1977. Apart from an improvement in the benefits themselves, the clauses are of a technical nature, merely simplifying the formula to assess benefits and protecting the said benefits, and consequently they have our unqualified approval. We are grateful that benefits for Railway widows, who have sometimes in the past not had the protection they deserve, have been improved for the future, although I must say the improvement is a very small one.

Now I come to clauses 14, 15, 18(b) and 20 of the Bill. They are consequential on the transfer of staff from Iscor to the service of the Railways Administration because of the purchase of the Sishen-Saldanha Bay project by the Administration. Perhaps I may use this opportunity to point out to hon. members the seriousness of the consequences of having allowed Iscor, instead of the Railways, to proceed with this scheme in the first place. It is obviously leading to endless trouble. This was a bad decision, and we are going to have to live with the consequences for quite some years, not only as far as staff employment problems are concerned, but also because of the departure from standard Railway practice and standardized equipment.

In the long run this will undoubtedly cost the Railways Administration and the country a considerable amount of money. I just hope that the price paid to Iscor took this into consideration. Returning to the Bill before us, clause 14(1)(c), which amends section 16 of the Railways and Harbours Service Act, makes special allowance for drivers and drivers’ assistants, who have been transferred from the employ of Iscor, to have the option of retiring at the age of 63 years instead of the normal retiring age of 58 years. In other words, drivers who were employed by Iscor and who are now in the employ of the Administration, instead of retiring at the age of 58 years as the other Railways employees do, have the option of retiring at the age of 63 years. Perhaps the hon. the Minister can tell us whether this will mean increased pension benefits. I presume it must, and obviously this will cost more money. People are not going to choose to work for an additional five years for nothing. So, presumably, this is going to mean additional pension benefits in respect of the man who retires five years later.

With regard to clause 15, perhaps the hon. the Minister could outline some of the more important differences in the service conditions of Iscor and of the Administration. It is common knowledge that the vast majority of the senior staff employed by Iscor on the Sishen-Saldanha project did not wish to be transferred to the Railways Administration. Perhaps the hon. the Minister can tell us exactly what the situation is with regard to the old Iscor staff. It is obviously highly undesirable to be in the situation where certain employees of the Administration are employed under different service conditions to those employees who have been employed by the Administration from the word go. I presume that Iscor’s conditions of service were in many instances much more favourable. If one is going to make special allowance for individuals, I think this could well lead to a considerable amount of discontent among the people who have been employed by the Railways Administration from the word go.

Clause 16, which is a very small clause, gives the Administration the right to establish dispensaries for the sick fund. I do not know why it is necessary for the Administration to take over this function which I believe could be handled by private enterprise. The job of the Railways is to run the railways and harbours and I do not see why the dispensing of medicine should not be done, as it is for everyone else in South Africa, by private pharmacists or by hospital dispensaries. I should like the hon. the Minister to explain to us why he has to make this inroad into a field which could easily and very successfully be handled by private enterprise. I frankly think that this should not be allowed at all.

Finally, we get to clauses 18 and 19 of this Bill which have to do with procedures to be followed with regard to interest on or contributions to the New Railways and Harbours Superannuation Fund, which incidently was constituted under Act No. 24 of 1925 so that it can hardly be said to be new anymore. Perhaps we should think of a new name for it. When money is transferred from the New Fund to the other State-administered funds, these amendments ensure that the New Fund will not be prejudiced. We have absolutely no objection to these two clauses at all.

All in all, this Bill is a mixture of good and not-quite-so-good provisions and, as I have said, we shall support the Second Reading and move certain amendments at the Committee Stage.

Mr. Speaker, I do not intend giving a verbatim repetition of each clause of the Bill and then finally stating that I agree with it. I take great pleasure in referring to two matters only. They concern clauses 10, 12, 13, 17 and 19(1)(b), which to me are surprise packages in this omnibus legislation and in my view deserve special mention.

In the first place there are the clauses in connection with Railway Police Reserves. To me it is a positive, but also a sensible development that members of the Railway Police who have had at least 12 months service, can be called up. According to available information, it will mean in practice that we shall have about 1 715 White as against 885 non-White employees available for that reserve service.

It is especially gratifying to learn that in spite of the military obligations of these people, they will also be entitled to the basic daily wage of their rank and term of employment on the day they leave the service. Unfortunately we are not aware of the average age of these people. Nor do I share the viewpoint of the hon. member for Orange Grove in connection with—as he put it—the unlimited power which the hon. the Minister is taking upon himself to determine, at his own discretion, for what period such a reserve Railway Policeman can be called up. I do not think that the hon. the Minister will take pleasure in calling up such people willy-nilly. This will rather be determined by the circumstances and the purpose for which it is done. We must trust the hon. the Minister and his staff in this matter because these are matters about which they will decide.

The second positive aspect of the legislation is to me the improvement in the widows’ pensions. It will amount to a sum of approximately R15 million per annum. If one takes into account that no widow of an official of the Railways was entitled to pension moneys before 1967, I think that the improvement which is now taking effect, deserves more than the usual mention. It is a positive step forward to the benefit of the dependents of officials who made a solid and devoted contribution to the Administration. We cannot but congratulate the Administration as well as the staff association, which have campaigned for this through the years. This is a praiseworthy breakthrough, and we can only hope and trust that in the future as circumstances permit there will be improvements in this, in this case as well, as in all other cases, for the people who need it so badly.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to support the Second Reading of the Bill with special reference to the two surprise packages, the two rays of light which I have found in this omnibus law. The remaining clauses are purely of a consequential nature. These are important changes and adaptations which, in my view, do not justify any debate.

Mr. Speaker, we, in these benches, will also be supporting the Second Reading of this Bill, a Bill which, as has been said by the hon. member for Orange Grove, is mainly a Committee Stage Bill.

I would first of all like to refer to clause 5, which is designed to clarify in an unequivocal manner the method of handling and disposing of lost goods. Unlike the hon. member for Orange Grove when he referred in this connection to clause 6, we have no problems in this regard. I would like to point out that clause 6 is a good clause in that it will no doubt prevent a lot of perishable goods being lost due to perishing. One had to wait for ten days to advertise the fact that these goods were going to be sold, and I would like to put this fact to the hon. member for Orznge Grove as a reason why clause 6 has been put into this amending Bill. Anyway, as far as lost goods are concerned, there is one point I would like to ask the hon. the Minister. Perhaps he can come up with some answer. I would like to ask him whether the Administration makes any attempt at all to trace owners of lost goods.

We are aware of the fact that a tremendous amount of goods is being left on trains and on aircraft. It amounts to a considerable volume of goods, and I am quite sure that the Administration cannot in every case try to trace the owner. However, I do believe that a case could arise where the goods that have been found have some sort of identification on them which could be used to trace the owner. Does the Railway Administration do this, or is it entirely up to the person who lost the goods to go to the lost property department to establish whether his goods have in fact been found? I would also like to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to a recent report in the Press about the amount of lost goods which have been found in the London Underground, and the great variety of lost goods found from time to time. I am sure that the S.A. Railways are plagued by a similar problem. Among these items are artificial limbs, false teeth and even, I believe, unmentionable articles belonging to ladies who left them on the trains there. I would like to know whether the hon. the Minister knows of similar circumstances on the railways in South Africa.

I would now like to turn to clause 12, which provides for the establishment of a S.A. Railways and Harbours police reserve.

Business suspended at 18h30 and resumed at 20h00.

Evening Sitting

Mr. Speaker, before we adjourned for dinner I had referred to clause 6 of the Bill and particularly to something which the hon. member for Orange Grove had said earlier on. He wondered why the hon. the Minister had seen fit to remove the time limit for the advertising, in local newspapers, in respect of goods which are going to be auctioned. I said that it was probably so because the provision was applicable to goods of a perishable nature. After having read the clause again, I see that I was in error and not the hon. member for Orange Grove and I thought it well to let the House know.

Clause 12 of the Bill is designed to establish a South African Police Force Reserve. We find that this is entirely in line with what has happened in respect of the S.A. Police, the Department of Prisons and also the S.A. Defence Force. We in these benches therefore welcome this clause in that it does bring all these Government departments into conformity. This, to my mind, is a good thing. If one studies the clause, one finds that it means that every ex-policeman, who was employed by the S.A. Railway Police for a period exceeding one year, will now have to register with this reserve force irrespective of how long ago he resigned from the force. This means that there are going to be many ex-policemen all over the country, who may have resigned from the force five or 10 years ago and who are now going to be called upon to become members of this reserve force. What is of particular concern to us in this regard, is that there is a penalty if such a person does not register with the S.A. Railway Police Reserves within a period of three months. I would like to know from the hon. the Minister how he is going to inform these people. Is he going to conduct a large publicity campaign? Maybe we could ask for assistance from the Press in that they are able to inform these ex-Railway policemen that it is now their duty, in accordance with this Bill—once it becomes law—to register with the S.A. Railways and Harbours Police Reserve.

I would now like to move on to clause 11, which is consequential upon the 1977 amendment to the S.A. Police Act. We, like our fellow Opposition members in the PFP, agree that there is a certain merit in these new provisions, which clearly state that anybody masquerading as a Railway policeman or who incites others to do certain things, is guilty of an offence and will be subject to the full power of the law. We agree with this, but we are also a little concerned about the provisions in the proposed new subsection (7). We accept the principle that people who are awaiting trial should not be exploited by the media, especially through the taking of their photographs and the publishing of sensational stories about them, as has happened in the past.

This is especially undesirable if one considers that these stories could prejudice cases before the courts. We are concerned, however, as the hon. member for Orange Grove has mentioned, that there could be a case where a person unknowingly contravenes the provisions of this proposed amendment, and therefore we too shall move an amendment in this regard during the Committee Stage.

In regard to clauses 13, 17 and 19(1)(b), which are consequential upon a decision which was made earlier on to improve the benefits to widows who became annuitants after 1 December 1977, I would like to say on behalf of this party that we welcome these improvements very much indeed. The pensioners have in recent years been very hard pressed due to the high rate of inflation and I am quite sure that they will welcome any small mercy which may come from the hon. the Minister. However, this particular subject is a speciality of my colleague, the hon. member for Umbilo, and I believe he would like to say a few words on this, so I shall leave this particular subject for him to speak on at a later stage.

I would now like to refer to those clauses which affect ex-employees of Iscor working on the Saldanha-Sishen railway line. This line, which was owned by Iscor, is now being bought by the S.A. Railways. As a result of the transfer of the staff to the S.A. Railways there is a great need that their conditions of service should be brought into line with those of the S.A. Railways. I should just like to say that one might recall the debate which took place some years ago, and especially what the Opposition at the time had to say, when the establishment and construction of the Sishen-Saldanha railway line was proposed by the then hon. Minister of Economic Affairs. We at that time felt that this railway should be built by the S.A. Railways, and now the hon. the Minister has found that we were possibly correct at that time. [Interjections.] As the hon. member for Mooi River said during the budget debate, the only time the Government makes progress is when it goes backwards and corrects the mistakes of the past. [Interjections.] This is another example of that pattern. However, now that this is going to be corrected by the amendments which are being proposed, I should like to say that we accept this. I should just like to ask the hon. the Minister to assure the House that those employees which the Railways are taking over from Iscor will not be worse off than they were before and that all their conditions of service will be respected.

In conclusion I should like to refer to clause 16 which clarifies the Railways’ right to run dispensaries for the purposes of a sick fund. I am quite sure that all hon. members are aware that the S.A. Railways has run these dispensaries for many, many years. I cannot recall in my lifetime a time when they did not do this. However, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister for his assurance that this is not going to result in a propagation of even more and more Railways dispensaries. In other words, I would like to have the assurance that the Railways are not going to move more and more into the private sector in this respect. I sincerely hope that this is not going to be the case.

With these few comments I should like to repeat that we shall be supporting the Second Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, it is gratifying that there is so much accord between the parties on this Monday night. However, a few statements were made to which I should like to react, especially as regards the speech made by the hon. member for Orange Grove. In the first place, I want to refer to clause 2 of the Bill which deals with the determination of the excess charge payable. In my modest opinion, it is simply more elegant to determine the excess charge on a tariff in this way. This is what it ultimately amounts to. The issue here is a person who does not have a ticket, or who does have a ticket, but is actually being fined because he has either travelled too far or does not have the correct ticket. In other words, he is merely paying an excess charge. The question is: Is it not more elegant to enter the provision of that excess charge in the tariff book? Surely this is where the provision belongs. This is all which is envisaged by this provision in the Bill. Instead of the legislator, Parliament, having to determine the excess charge every so often by means of an amending Bill, in future—as is stated in the Bill—

this provision is then entered in the tariff book and everyone will then know what the position is. It is not Greek so that no one can understand it. That is why this principle is not a key principle to me. Indeed it is correct.

I want to refer to the argument which the hon. member for Orange Grove put forward about the question of lost goods. The purpose of clauses 5, 6 and 7 is to streamline the question of lost goods. Never before has specific provision been made in law for the handling of lost goods. In fact, there was doubt about the disposal of lost goods. In the past, lost goods were disposed of in terms of section 23 of the Railways and Harbours Control and Management (Consolidation) Act. Section 23 deals with the disposal of unclaimed goods. I quote from section 23(1)—

This shows that what is actually relevant here, is goods which have come into the possession of the Railways in its capacity as carrier, as stated in the explanatory memorandum. In the past, however, the Railways dealt with unclaimed goods which were handed in and which were found on Railway property, in terms of the words “whether for transport or otherwise” and doubt arose about the legal correctness of this. What is more, it was not expressly specified what exactly the legal consequences of this would be. I want to take a situation as an example. Say someone picked up a R10 note on a railway station and handed it in and then after a month or two came back and asked whether anyone had yet claimed that R10 note. If not, he claims it for himself. The question then arises whether the Railways has the right of disposal in terms of common law or in terms of section 23. In order to eliminate the doubt which arose, clause 5 of this Bill provides for the introduction of a new section 21A, which now places beyond doubt what happens to lost goods found on Railway property. I think this is to be welcomed.

However, the hon. member for Orange Grove now points out that the necessity of an advertisement in a newspaper, etc., is now being done away with in terms of clause 6, and that it is now only provided that goods may be sold on a public auction “in the manner prescribed by regulation”. However, I just want to point out to the hon. member that clause 6 deals with the amendment of section 22 and that this section deals with the lieu on rail freight on goods transported by the Railways only. In other words, a person has received an account, but has not paid it although he knows that he must pay it If someone does not pay and the Railways has other goods which must be conveyed for that person, goods which it can seize in order to recover the debt, what legal justification is there for claiming that an advertisement must be placed in the newspapers and that that person should also be notified of the way in which the auction is going to be held. That person has no grounds for insisting on a notice like this because he knows exactly what is going on. All that is being demanded of him is that he pay his debt, and if he does not pay his debt, he knows that the Railways can take action against him. I have no doubt at all about clause 6. I feel it is correct that it should be prescribed by regulation what the method to be followed will be in a case like this in order to exercise this lieu.

The same holds good for clause 7. As I have already said, clause 7 deals with the amendment of section 23, which concerns the disposal of unclaimed goods. I can well imagine that there are different categories of goods which are transported by the Railways. There are not only perishable and non-perishable products. It cannot be so simple. There are various categories of goods which are transported, and is it not more correct and elegant to indicate by regulation how one is going to dispose of them?

I did not object to that.

This is all that is happening here. Therefore the streamlining which is taking place here, is only to be welcomed.

I want to refer briefly to the establishment of the Police Reserves, which is mentioned in clauses 10, 11, 12 and elsewhere. It is only to be welcomed, as the hon. member for Amanzimtoti correctly remarked, that as far as the Police Force is concerned, the Railways is now coming into line by establishing a reserve force, as the S. A. Police has already done. That is why it is not surprising that the legislation which is before us at the moment, is in line with the legislation concerning the S.A. Police; in fact, the wording of the clauses of the Bill is the same as in the Police Act of 1958. It is necessary for the police force of the S.A. Railways to be prepared at all times. The strategic position which the S.A. Railways occupies in the South African transport network, and the fact that the Railways must be able to arrange and provide urgent transport in emergencies and states of emergency, as well s the fact that the Railways has valuable properties at its disposal, requires its Police Force to have at its disposal the manpower to establish a reserve force which may assist it to do so in emergencies and to protect its properties. The hon. member for Orange Grove objected and said that they would move an amendment to subsection (7) of the new proposed section 57C during the Committee Stage. This is the subsection which reads—

The hon. member says that it gives the hon. the Minister too wide a power to call up a person for an unnecessarily long period of time, and he wants to limit it. Why make flesh of one and fish of the other? If the hon. member had done his homework, he would have seen that clause 12, which establishes the proposed section 57C in subsection (7), is exactly the same as section 34A(7) of the Police Act. It is word for word the same. If this is the case, why should the Railway Police be treated differently to the S.A. Police?

Two wrongs do not make a right!

The hon. member says “two wrongs do not make a right”. But let us argue the point on merit. What is at issue here? An emergency. The issue here is when the country is in a state of emergency or when the Railways is in trouble. The hon. the Minister will not call up a reserve force or a member of the reserve force merely because he feels like doing so. He will not do so merely because he takes pleasure in doing so. If he had read the clause properly, the hon. member must remember that this member of the reserve force must be paid by the hon. the Minister for as long as he is called up. Where is the hon. the Minister going to find the money to call people up for no reason? No, Mr. Speaker, I do not think that the hon. member’s argument holds water. In terms of this clause it is very clear that the hon. the Minister calls up members of the reserve force only when he considers it to be in the public interest, when public security and the maintenance of public order is at stake, and when there is a danger of lives or property being seriously threatened. In no other case will the hon. the Minister do so. In other words, in terms of this subsection, the hon. the Minister is limited in any event to the emergencies mentioned here.

I could continue in this way to refer to all the other clauses which have been mentioned. For instance, if I understood him correctly, the hon. member for Amanzimtoti said that he would move during the Committee Stage that clause 11—which envisages the insertion of a new section 57B(7) into the Act—should be amended too. The hon. member must take note, however, that the proposed new section 57B(7)—on page 15 of the Bill—reads exactly the same as section 27A of the Police Act. The wording is identical in all respects. Therefore, the question arises once again: If this provision already appears in existing legislation, and holds good for the S.A. Police, why on earth should it not also hold good for the S.A. Railway Police, on the same conditions? We are dealing here with the combating of exactly the same problem which is to be combated in terms of the S.A. Police Act.

It is true that in a Bill of this nature, most of the clauses really lend themselves more to discussion during the Committee Stage. Therefore I want to let that suffice. I just want to conclude by saying that we on this side of the House find no fault with the Bill as it reads at the moment. I should therefore like to associate myself with the hon. member for Witwatersberg in welcoming the streamlining of the existing legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Koedoespoort has dealt with a number of matters pertaining to the Bill now before the House. He did not refer, however, to the aspect to which I should like to refer to now. That is the question of pensioners and the clauses dealing with the rights of those who were previously employed by Iscor but who have since been transferred to the Railways Administration.

There are certain aspects here which require clarity. The clauses I have in mind are clause 13, 17 and 19(b), as far as they concern widows. I might add that this is an improvement which we welcome. We are looking forward to the day when the hon. the Minister will perhaps come forward with legislation which will improve the position of the pre-1973 Railway pensioners, granting to them too improved benefits.

However, the improved benefits to widows include among other things that they will receive 80% of what a deceased husband had received at the time of his death. In terms of these clauses the situation of widows is vastly improved. As the hon. member for Amanzimtoti indicated, we are fully in favour of these improvements.

However, when we look at the practical application of some of these improvements it would appear that an anomoly could exist with regard to certain widows. I should like to refer in particular to a circular notice No. P35/71/R.46 of the S.A. Railways. This circular indicates the practical application of the improvements which are being provided for in this Bill. It gives two examples. One example given is that of a widow whose husband died after 1 December 1977 while receiving a pension of R300 a month. In terms of the new provisions the widow would now receive 80% of that amount. That means she will receive an amount of R240 a month. That is in the case of a husband who died after he had retired on the grounds of reaching the statutory age limit. Another example is quoted of a person who has retired prematurely due to permanent ill health. If such a person were to die on or after 1 December 1977, the date on which the legislation will come into operation, it would appear, on the basis of the formula that would apply in the calculation of the widow’s pension, that his widow would receive a pension of R320 per month. The calculation is based on a ratio equal to his number of years and months of pensionable service plus the remaining years and months of service up to his normal retirement age divided by the actual number of years of pensionable service. The example quoted is that of a man who retired due to ill health at the age of 50 years. He had a pensionable period of 30 years’ service. His age at death was 53 years. According to the calculation of the department of the hon. the Minister this person’s widow’s pension would amount to R320 per month which is R20 per month more than they received while they were living together as a couple, because at that time they were only in receipt of a pension of R300 per month. It seems to be an anomalous position that the widow of a person who has had fewer years of service should qualify for a higher pension than a person who retires on reaching the statutory age of retirement. I hope that the hon. the Minister will give us some indication as regards the practical application of the concession which is to be granted to widows.

The Bill also deals with the transfer of those persons who have been employed by Iscor, but the provisions in this regard require careful consideration. It should be realized that it is important to ensure that people who are employed by a certain organization and who are subsequently transferred to another employer because of certain negotiations, do not lose any salary and that their fringe benefits are protected adequately by means of suitable provisions. In past years, although we had legislation passed by this House to provide for persons who had been transferred to the Government Service Pension Fund or to some other pension fund administered by the Government, we found certain practical difficulties.

I remember the situation in which the Durban telephone employees found themselves. They were employed by the Durban Corporation, but when the telephone service of the Durban municipality was taken over by the Post Office, these people were given the option to remain members of the Municipal Superannuation Fund or to transfer to the Government Service Pension Fund. Some of them opted to transfer to the Government Service Pension Fund, but after having done so, they decided to resign from the service. On their resignation they found that the resignation benefits to which they were entitled under the Government Service Pension Fund were not in any way near the resignation benefits they would have received had they remained members of the Municipal Superannuation Fund. Their fringe benefits in so far as resignation was concerned were more advantageous under the Municipal Superannuation Fund than under the Government Service Pension Fund. As a result there were cases where persons received less from the Government Service Pension Fund than the total amount of the contributions which they had paid into the Municipal Superannuation Fund. That is why it is important to study clauses 14, 15, 18(b) and 20 of the Bill. We must ascertain whether the fringe benefits of the previous employees of Iscor are being fully protected. A matter which comes to the fore is the whole question of the age of retirement. The fund to which they belonged, the Iscor Pension Fund, being a private pension fund provides for the retirement of an employee attaining the age of 63, but the Bill makes it possible for ex-members of the Iscor Pension Fund to opt to retire on attaining the age on which footplate personnel of the Railways can retire. Footplate personnel of the Railways can retire before they attain the age of 63 years. It is therefore necessary that a proviso be inserted into the legislation. Clause 14(1)(f) deals with the position of persons who had worked on the Sishen-Saldanha project as employees of Iscor and who were subsequently transferred to the Railways Administration. There is a proviso that such a transferred servant, who has elected to retire from the service on attaining the retirement age of 58 years, shall be retired from the service on attaining such age. Therefore these former employees of Iscor will have the right to elect to retire at the said age. Here I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he can ensure that these people will be given adequate time to consider whether they should retire at 58 years of age or whether they should exercise their rights of retiring at 63 years of age. I think this aspect is indeed an important one because we have seen, in many pieces of legislation, that members of a pension fund make the wrong decision and then regret that decision when they realize its implications. Then they have to try to reverse such a decision, and one knows that it is invariably impossible, once they have made a decision in terms of a provision in the law, to reverse such a decision. Therefore it is of vital importance that these employees be fully aware of what their rights are in terms of electing to retire at a certain age, bearing in mind the proviso in this particular clause. I hope that the hon. the Minister will be able to indicate what period of time they will be given to decide whether they should elect to retire at 58 years of age or 63 years of age.

There are also the aspects concerning the pension benefits they are entitled to if they elect to retire at 63 years of age rather than at 58 years of age, and there are many aspects that have to be taken into consideration when an employee comes to that decision.

Then there is also the resignation benefit that I have mentioned. I am unable to ascertain, in the Bill before us, what they would be entitled to in terms of the resignation benefit. There, too, I hope that the hon. the Minister will be able to give some indication of the resignation benefit that would be applicable if a person were to decide to resign his position after having transferred to the Railways Administration. There is a resignation benefit in terms of their existing scheme, the Iscor Pension Scheme, which is a private scheme. There could be a different method of calculating the resignation benefit in that case, however. We are grateful to the hon. the Minister and his department for having made the explanatory memorandum available to hon. members. It does indicate that persons who are transferred will be transferred on the understanding that there will be no prejudice as far as their fringe benefits are concerned and that such transfer includes the retention of their various pension rights.

I have not yet had time to look at the pension scheme applicable to Iscor, but I do hope that the question of the resignation benefit can be clarified at this stage.

There is also the question of the interest to be calculated on the antedating of pensionable service. This is another aspect that requires consideration. It is indeed a very welcome provision allowing servants of the Administration to purchase back or antedate their pensionable service to 18 years of age. It does appear, however, from clause 19 of the Bill, that the calculation of the rate of compound interest is to be revised. It seems that employees will merely be classified under the rates applicable to the antedating of pensionable service, as determined in the regulations. If the rate of interest—being compound interest—is high, it does not encourage the employee to antedate his pensionable service and thereby to improve his own position, giving him that added degree of security in the knowledge that he is contributing towards a better pension. If he realized this, he could remain in the service of the Railways Administration knowing full well that he would be adequately provided for when he reached retirement age and that the pension he received would be to his advantage. I hope that the increasing rates of interest applicable to the antedating of pensionable service will be fully taken into consideration with a view to assisting employees who are looking for ways and means to improve the pensions they are entitled to.

We believe that this is a positive and constructive Bill. It is improving the situation, particularly as far as widows are concerned. The people previously employed by Iscor on the Sishen-Saldanha Bay project have to see to it that their fringe benefits are fully protected in terms of the legislation that is before us. To these words, let me add that we hope that that protection is fully provided for in terms of the legislation now before the House.

Mr. Speaker, I think that some of the matters raised here can be discussed and answered to advantage in this debate, the Second Reading debate. At the same time one is aware that this Bill is actually the General Law Amendment Bill of the Railways. Of course, various laws are being amended in this Bill. This Bill may not be nearly as bulky as it has been at times in the past, but it nevertheless contains some important provisions.

Let me begin with clause 6, to which the hon. member for Orange Grove also referred. I think the hon. member for Koedoespoort gave a very clear exposition of this clause and the amendments arising out of it. He referred, inter alia, to clauses 5, 6 and 7 as well. Until now provision has been made for a period for advertisement. As the hon. member for Koedoespoort quite correctly said, we are trying to formulate the relevant legislation in a more elegant way here. There are three clauses now, i.e. clauses 5, 6 and 7, appertaining to the prescribed regulations. If one looks at clause 6, one sees that in the first place it does not only refer to perishable goods, but to other goods as well. Clause 6 is specifically geared to recovering the costs incurred by transporting goods and not only to get those goods sold. In that respect it is probably different to the other clauses. The intention is that regulations will be formulated, and those regulations will in all probability correspond, basically, with what has been stated in the Act so far in connection with placing advertisements when necessary. Instead of the relevant provision appearing in those sections of the Act where reference is made to sales, it is more elegant to refer to a regulation in which provision is made for time limits concerning the selling of goods and the advertisements connected therewith. That is why the amendment is being made here.

The hon. member said that no limit was being imposed on the levy which can be imposed by the General Manager. Up to now, provision was made in legislation for the levies which could be imposed. If the hon. member had looked at this matter and made a study of it, he would have seen that there is a large variety of provisions concerning these levies, provisions which provide for all the different circumstances and factors which may arise. Nor is it elegant to include all the various provisions concerning all foreseeable circumstances which may lead to a levy having to be imposed, in the legislation. Apart from that, it is also considered essential to have the power to change the levies which are imposed from time to time.

I have a fine, elegant argument in this regard which I shall advance during the Committee Stage.

If the hon. member thinks that the provision which appears in the Bill, is too unlimited and he wants to impose a limitation on it, which will be capable of being implemented in a practical manner, I shall be prepared to look at it and we can consider it during the Committee Stage. But I really do not believe that it is necessary in the circumstances. The hon. member for Koedoespoort also pointed this out. Nevertheless, the hon. member must go ahead and move his amendment during the Committee Stage and then we can look at it.

Various speeches were made about the police reserves. In this regard too, the hon. member for Koedoespoort drew the attention of the House specifically to the fact that the provisions concerning the police reserve correspond word for word with what holds good for the S.A. Police. I want to say here and now that I will be very hesitant to deviate from this, because I should like to see the provisions we lay down for the S.A. Railways Police Reserve corresponding with the provisions which hold good for the S.A. Police Reserve, and I should like to see uniformity as regards these two forces. For that reason in particular I shall be very hesitant to state our provisions in terms different to those which apply to the S.A. Police reserve. Nevertheless, it is the hon. member’s right to move amendments during the Committee Stage and therefore we shall have to give it further consideration and argue about it then. At this stage I am not going to go into the details to which the hon. member referred. He referred to clause 12(7) and 12(8). The arguments in connection with this would be better dealt with when we come to the Committee Stage. However, I have conveyed my feelings about these provisions to the House and to the hon. member for Orange Grove in particular.

A great deal has been said about the transfer of Iscor staff, which the hon. member for Umbilo, too, has just spoken about. I think there is just a single, brief reply which one can give to this and it is that an undertaking was given to the staff of Iscor which will remain in the service of the Railways after the take-over to the effect that they will not be worse off than they were under Iscor. This holds good for all the various circumstances, and this undertaking will be honoured.

The hon. member for Umbilo, as well as the hon. member for Orange Grove, referred to the retirement age. The retirement age on the S.A. Railways is 58 and in Iscor it is 63. In order to rectify this position, the drivers are given the choice of retiring at the age of 63 or 58. The hon. member for Orange Grove asked me whether it would make any difference to the pension. The answer is “yes”. Of course it will make a difference in the pension of a man who stays on until 63 instead of retiring at the age of 58. He will have five years extra service and during those five years he will make additional contributions towards the fund and therefore towards the pension which he will ultimately obtain. The fact of the matter is that if he remains until 63 instead of retiring at 58, it will influence his pension. The hon. member for Umbilo spoke about the time which he should have in order to decide whether to retire. I am speaking under correction, but I assume that when he reaches the specific age, he can decide when he wants to retire. It is for him to give an indication. But when we come to the specific clause during the Committee Stage, I can elaborate further on the practical implementation rather than elaborating on it now. The hon. member for Umbilo will also understand that the number of figures which he mentioned in connection with the R300 and the R240, etc., make it impracticable for me to give a meaningful reply now. Nevertheless, I have taken note of his remarks and we shall give this matter the necessary attention.

The hon. member for Orange Grove asked me what the difference was in conditions of service, and I want to assure him that there are various differences in the conditions of service. I do not think it will be any use taking up the time of the House by making an exposition of everything submitted to me at the time when the matter was being considered. I shall just read a few of the differences which were pointed out to me at the time. In the first place, in terms of section 4(1)(a) of Act 22 of 1960, no one may be appointed in a permanent or temporary capacity unless he is a citizen of the Republic of South Africa and does not suffer from any mental or physical defect, disease or infirmity. This is the position as regards the S.A. Railways. It was different at Iscor, and therefore it was necessary to make the change. Another difference was that the calculation of time of project train staff did not correspond with the principles of staff regulations numbers 75(1), 76(4) and others.

It was considered desirable not to change the conditions of service of project train staff at that stage. The intention was to revise the conditions of service of the relevant staff at a later stage. But in the meantime recommendations were made in regard to overtime, off days worked instead of Sundays, which apply to Iscor, but not to the S.A. Railways. So there is a large variety of differences in connection with the conditions of service, but I think it is unnecessary to refer to them in detail now.

The fact of the matter is that we undertook towards the staff of Iscor that we would naturally like the conditions of service to be uniform and therefore no one would be worse off.

The hon. member for Amanzimtoti asked me what we do about lost goods. I should like to assure the hon. member that when lost goods are identified, i.e. when the name or address of the owner or an indication thereof appear on these goods, we try to trace that owner if at all possible. When, on the other hand, the lost goods cannot be identified, they are referred to the lost goods office and then kept there for a period of three months so that the owner can come and claim them there. If he does not come and claim them during that period, they are dealt with in the prescribed manner.

The hon. member also wanted to know how the Police are going to know whether people have in fact previously been employed by the S.A. Railway Police. Firstly, when it is agreed to, this legislation will naturally be published in the Government Gazette and after that no one will have the excuse of not being aware of the legislation. The hon. member probably knows the expression that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Once the legislation has been agreed to, the provisions apply to the relevant people. I also take it that the Commissioner of the S.A. Railway Police and his office will be able to determine who have previously been members of the S.A. Railways Police so that these people can be contacted and, as far as possible, they will in all probability be contacted. However, the people themselves have a responsibility to report if they become members of the S.A. Railways Police Reserve in this way, on the promulgation of the legislation.

The only other matter which I have not yet raised, is in regard to taking photographs and making sketches of people awaiting trial. As the hon. member for Koedoespoort correctly said, this is entirely in agreement with the provisions of the S.A. Police Act. The hon. member for Orange Grove said “two wrongs do not make a right”. It depends on him whether he wants to argue against this or not In any event, we can argue further about the merits of the matter when we come to the Committee Stage. However, I want to repeat that the provisions are precisely the same as those contained in the S.A. Police Act and that is why, for the sake of uniformity, I shall be very hesitant to put it differently.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The existing Act provides for the implementation of the three international civil aviation conventions dealing in one way or another with terrorism involving aircraft. In consequence of the growing problem of terrorism, both internationally and locally, of which terrorism involving aircraft represents one aspect only, it has now become necessary for adjustments to be made to the Act.

Before dealing with the clauses of the Bill in greater detail, I have to indicate three principles which form the basis of the Bill. The first concerns the prevention of deeds of terrorism, and in this regard an attempt is being made to provide a firm security base. The second concerns the handling of contingencies, and consequently provision is being made for the granting of the necessary powers rendering it possible to handle such contingencies. The first principle concerns action following a contingency. What is involved here is the appointment of boards of inquiry. I am now going to deal with the main characteristics of the amending Bill in sequence.

As far as the definitions are concerned, hon. members should take special cognizance of the fact that the Bill may be made applicable also to airports not under the control of the State. The definition of “air navigation facility” covers all systems at and away from an airport in respect of which security is necessary as well, but at which access control measures have not been instituted or cannot be instituted.

A restricted area must be established at the directive of the Minister and authorized persons may include persons who are not policemen. As far as these persons are concerned, it is the intention to appoint them only after they have been properly trained and screened and to have them do security work only and not police work.

In clause 2 the qualifying provisions to the definition of certain existing offences are being deleted. The definition rendering the communication of false information which may endanger the safety of an aircraft in flight an offence punishable with imprisonment for a period of not less than five years, is being deleted and a similar but wider definition of the offence is being substituted therefore, one for which no minimum period of imprisonment is being prescribed, but imprisonment for a period not exceeding 15 years.

What this Bill is concerned with is not so much the protection of property, but the safe operation of airports and aircraft. Consequently the list of offences is being extended in this clause. Examples of this is the declaration as offences of the placing of explosives in or at an airport and the wilful pollution of aviation fuel.

As far as precautionary measures are concerned, clause 3, by means of the insertion of the proposed new sections 2A to C, regulates access control to aircraft, restricted areas and air navigation facilities. In addition this clause provides, inter alia, for searches, without a warrant, at and even away from an airport, for the seizure of harmful articles and for arrest without a warrant. For contingency action the proposed section 2J empowers the Minister of Transport, or a person designated by him, to deal with an emergency situation as circumstances may require and as this is a drastic power, provision is also being made for compensation to those who, as a result of the execution of an order, have suffered any damage or bodily harm or have incurred costs.

As far as measures concerning after-care are concerned, the proposed section 2K renders it possible to appoint a board of inquiry to investigate any offence that has been committed or any emergency situation that has been dealt with, and to report to the Minister of Transport.

†This Bill makes in some instances provision for drastic measures to be taken. I can, however, give hon. members the assurance that these measures were not included on the spur of the moment. The Bill is the result of a thorough study of similar legislation in other countries, e.g. Israel, the United Kingdom and the USA, and of ideas proposed at various international meetings. At home, the following departments and organizations were also consulted: The S.A. Railway Police, the Departments of Customs and Excise, Defence, Prisons, the Public Service Commission, the Treasury, the S.A. Police, the S.A. Airways, the Bureau for State Security and the Department of Posts and Telecommunications.

Mr. Speaker, in the main the Bill provides for the more effective and efficient control of security on aircraft and at airports. It is one of the more unpleasant facets of modern-day life that we are faced with the problem of hijacking, a form of modern-day terrorism to which society has as yet found no real answer. All that can be done, is to tighten up security procedures at airports and on board aircraft to the point where it becomes more difficult for hijackings or sabotage to take place.

The Margo Commission, which is at present sitting, has as part of its term of reference the control of admission to State airports. I think this piece of legislation does of necessity jump the gun and lay down fairly stringent security precautions at all airports. I think we will all agree that such precautions are an urgent necessity.

The Bill deals with false alarms, false bomb alerts, sabotage and other offences which impinge on the smooth working of air navigation facilities. Heavy penalties are laid down and we agree that they are necessary. The transport by air of harmful articles is strictly controlled and authorized persons are empower to demand identification and to search persons and things without warrant. Hijackings and similar acts of terrorism are, as I have said, difficult to fight. We believe that the provisions as laid down in the Bill are drastic, but reasonable in the circumstances. It is not my intention to take up the time of the House on a measure we agree with. We shall support the Second Reading of this Bill in the belief that it is urgently necessary to do what we can to protect airports and aircraft which are particularly vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Mr. Speaker, I think that we on this side of the House, and probably the hon. the Minister as well, are glad that the Official Opposition is supporting the Bill before the House in principle. I do not wish to discuss the matter at length. As a result of the experience which one has had in the past in that one has been present at many unpleasant occasions at which people have expressed themselves very strongly against the kind of measure applied to them as individuals, one wonders whether one cannot advance arguments in order to seek from a legal point of view—I am not a lawyer, but I have seeked some advice—further justification for such drastic measures than purely in the matter of security against terrorism. I think we all agree—in this case I want to agree with the hon. member for Orange Grove—that it definitely is one of the most reprehensible forms of terrorism one can encounter in the world to threaten an aircraft full of innocent passengers while the aircraft is in flight. I have done some research and I should like to quote from an authoritative work in respect of the arguments that are advanced that to be searched constitutes an infringement of the individual privileges of an individual and that such legislation is of a drastic nature. I should like to quote from the work Law and Public Opinion in England by an eminent authority, A. V. Dicey. From this work I should first like to quote the view of a certain authority, Mill. He makes the following statement as a “simple principle”—

He continues—

This pronouncement concerns only conduct affecting the person as an individual. I should like to quote a further pronouncement by the same person where the issue is the question of “public opinion”—

I think that when we examine the principles of this legislation, this is basically what is at issue. Basically it is concerned with “public opinion”. I think I can speak with authority on behalf of the public and say that the hon. the Minister will have public opinion behind him as far as this legislation is concerned. Public opinion therefore justifies the drastic nature of these measures. From the point of view of protection, it is justified to infringe to this extent upon the rights of people who wish to make use of the airways, and consequently the legislation may be introduced in this form. I do not want to dwell on this for any length of time, and I only want to refer to a few of the clauses.

In the first place I refer to clause 2, which inserts a new paragraph (g) in section 2(1) of the principal Act. The paragraph deals with an aircraft in flight or an aircraft in service. During the Committee Stage I shall move that the words “in service” be substituted for the words “in flight”, and at that stage I shall motivate the amendment. This also applies to the proposed section 2(3).

The principle contained in the proposed section 2K(7) concerns the powers of the chairman of the board to direct that certain information may be withheld from the courts. We on this side of the House have no objection to that principle either, but only to the method according to which this will be done. When one compares this to subsection (1) of the same section, one notes that the principle essentially amounts to a report being made to the Minister, who will then decide whether to direct that information be withheld or not.

With these words we on this side of the House should like to support the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, although we welcome it, I do believe it is most regrettable that a Bill such as this has to come before this House. I say it is regrettable because I think it is indicative of the state to which certain sections of our society, and other societies, have sunk in the way they use innocent people to further their own ends. I refer now to the hijacking of aircraft and the taking of people and holding them for ransom to further the ends of terrorists and of people who have their own ideas of how things should be. Therefore, we welcome this legislation because it will certainly give the powers that be at our airports and on our aircraft the authority to take the necessary steps to prevent such persons from achieving the ends they have in mind.

I wonder how many members of the public are going to be aware of the extent of this Bill once it is promulgated. Authorities are going to have the power to search people at airports. They will also have the powers to search people’s luggage. In terms of one clause in this Bill responsible persons will have the authority to enter any building and to search such building for weapons or other articles, and even for information which might prevent a disaster from taking place. However, as I said earlier, this is what we have to resort to in order to ensure that atrocities and tragedies of this kind are not committed on our airlines. We welcome this Bill and we will be supporting it at Second Reading.

Mr. Speaker, since we are all agreeing so wholeheartedly about the necessity for the legislation before the House at the moment, I do not wish to waste the time of the House. Nevertheless I think there are certain facts which I should like to place on record. When one notes the long title of the Bill, it is stated, inter alia—

To me, what is concerned here is first and last the security aspect. When one looks at the statistics, one immediately notes that 36 aircraft have been hijacked to Cuba alone during the past two years. Approximately 2 500 people were involved in the 36 hijackings. If one goes on to look at what has happened during the past year, and also at the factors which contributed towards endangering the lives of people as a result of aircraft hijackings, it is immediately evident that legislation of this nature is vital. In the light of what I have already mentioned, we will agree that it is essential to adopt exceptionally vigorous measures and that severe punishment will be imposed upon transgressors of the proposed measures.

In the recent hijacking of a Lufthansa aircraft at the airport of Mogadishu, it is evident that as a result of the publication of certain confidential information by the Press, the hijacking in fact progressed further and lasted longer than should have been the case. This brings one to the realization that measures such as these are vital. This also brings one to the realization that cases of this nature cannot be dealt with according to the legal rules that usually apply, but that we are here in fact dealing with emergency measures applicable to an emergency situation. When one looks at the legislation, one notes that there are certain measures contained therein which perhaps do not go far enough. In Britain, for instance, a levy on passenger tickets is being considered at present, in order to defray the expenditure incurred when passengers are searched. There is no such provision in the legislation. One wonders whether this is not perhaps something which will have to be considered later. Will it not be necessary for us, as a result of the additional expenditure we have to incur to compensate other air services for delays and problems which may be caused in the field of security, to impose a levy as the Israelis did to be able to afford security?

When one looks at the legislation as a whole, one realizes that the further into the present technological era we get, the more people have the opportunity of availing themselves of the privileges arising therefrom and one asks whether we can still, in these times, afford to place the rights of the individual above those of the community. Should one not perhaps return to the old Roman philosophers, the so-called Sophists, who said that the individual has no rights, but only obligations and privileges which are nevertheless subject to the happiness of the community. When one asks oneself this, one realizes that when it comes to aviation and congregation on premises, something to which the legislation refers, it is never the individual who will be affected by this, but always a group of people. As one has to protect the interests of such a group of people, one will be forced to subordinate the rights of the individual to those of the community.

As far as the legislation itself is concerned, I wish to support the hon. member for Wonderboom wholeheartedly in the suggestions which he put forward and the amendments which he intends moving during the Committee Stage. I should like to draw attention to a further matter. In this regard I refer to the proposed section 2H(2) which reads as follows, inter alia—

One wonders whether the matter should not be stated in stronger language by amending the provision in such a way that the authorized person will have the right to order anyone. Perhaps such an amendment will make the provision stronger to an extent, but we should not forget that we are dealing with strong legislation here. The circumstances to be met by the legislation, are also strong and exceptional and therefore the phrasing of the measure should also be strong.

I support the legislation wholeheartedly.

Mr. Speaker, in supporting my colleague, the hon. member for Amanzimtoti, and in supporting this Bill and the reasons behind it, which one can well see, I should nevertheless like to probe one or two items which have struck me as perhaps needing a certain amount of probing, and I should like to have the hon. the Minister’s reaction to these various points. One of the things that struck me, when the hon. the Minister was giving his Second Reading Speech, was that he went through a list of people or organizations which he had consulted before the Division of Civil Aviation presumably drew up this Bill. There is, of course, a standing commission, I understand, in connection with civil aviation, and I wondered if that commission was consulted, because this commission has, as its members, a number of people connected with aviation in all sorts of capacities, people whose advice, I would have thought, could have been very welcome.

I have tried to look at this Bill through the eyes of a pilot. My licence, in fact, lapsed only a very short while ago. As such I did feel that there were some extremely good things but also, as I have said, one or two things that perhaps need probing.

When it comes to definitions one is, of course, delighted to find that air navigation facilities will now be covered by these regulations because one knows the importance of various air navigation facilities to pilots and to the safety of the people involved. It is therefore a very good thing for these aspects to be covered as well. This would, of course, cover a number of different types of facilities and installations.

The first aspect I want to really probe, however, is in connection with clause 2 on page 7 of the Bill. I quote clause 2(a)(e) which states the following—

What, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister, is the definition of “in service”? I wondered why, in fact, it was necessary to put “in service” there at all, and whether there should not have been a fullstop after “aircraft”. I say this because an aircraft is presumably anything that is basically capable of flying, with passengers obviously, and as such any old scrap aircraft that might be lying around in used car lots or scrap heaps somewhere would not be covered by this. If one simply put a fullstop after “aircraft”, instead of adding “in service”, I wonder whether one would not, in fact, have accomplished a somewhat better bit of legislation.

Just the opposite.

Someone has shouted “just the opposite”. I wonder if he has really read the Bill?

Again I merely want to make a comment, and not a probe, in connection with clause 2(a)(fA) which states—

I must confess that I am most surprised that there has not been anything in the legislation to have made this an offence before, because probably the most dangerous thing that can happen to an aircraft pilot is that his aviation fuel should, in fact, be polluted, and it can be very easily polluted. Water is sufficient and, in fact, is one of the main causes of aircraft fuel pollution. That being so, I am surprised that there has not been a provision in force beforehand. As I say, we welcome this enormously.

Then at the bottom of the page …

Which line?

In line 50, for the information of the hon. member opposite. We see that a person is committing various offences is—

That is indeed a heavy sentence, but if anyone wilfully tries to commit an act of terrorism in the air, he deserves every bit of that sentence without the option of a fine. However, there can be a number of occasions in which there are mitigating circumstances and we of this party have always said that the courts are perhaps the best people to judge what the minimum sentence in fact should be. We have always acted on the premise that it is impossible for us here in Parliament to decide what mitigating circumstances could in fact occur.

This is the maximum sentence. It could be less.

Yes, this is the maximum sentence and it could be less, but in terms of this provision it has to be imprisonment.

It can be suspended.

Perhaps one ought to make provision for the option of a fine. We do not necessarily intend moving an amendment to this effect, but I should like to hear the hon. the Minister’s reaction to this. There could be mitigating circumstances as a result of which one might in effect not want to send a man to prison for the act he committed, but where a heavy fine could serve as a salutary lesson and could be a far better and more suitable punishment for the relevant offence.

Something which, I think, has not yet been mentioned in this Second Reading debate and which could be of interest to various members in the House is that if there is someone on an aircraft in a state of intoxication he is in fact committing an offence. We welcome this and we welcome the fact that any sort of disorderly behaviour can lead to a fine not exceeding R100. On how many occasions has one not seen groups of young men, perhaps celebrating after some sporting occasion, making a nuisance of themselves in a SAA aircraft. I believe it is right that the people who cross the borderline of acceptable behaviour should in fact be fined.

There is another thing I wish to canvass from what may perhaps be considered the pilot’s point of view. I refer to the proposed new section 2C(1) on page 11 of the Bill. For the information of the hon. Chief Whip opposite, I am referring to line 29 onwards.

In the English text or the Afrikaans text?

It is line 29 in the English text and line 32 in the Afrikaans text. The provision reads as follows—

This we agree with, but at the same time we believe there could be certain practical difficulties experienced by pilots who wish to file flight plans, get information on the weather or perhaps get a number of items of information from the control tower as in the case of some smaller civil airports like East London. One has always had fairly ready access on a fairly easy basis to these control towers and I simply want to try to ensure that the department does make the necessary regulations to enable the pilot, who may be a stranger to the particular airfield or airport, to get quickly and easily the information he needs, to file his flight plans, etc., without having to go through some long-winded procedure in order to get the permission of the person in charge of an air navigation facility to visit the necessary place in order to be able to take to the air and fly off to his desired destination.

I was concerned to see on page 13 that we are doing away with search warrants. In a number of instances a warrant is not necessary. Fortunately, however, subsection (6)(a) of the proposed new section 2F provides that the person who does not wish to be searched can in fact leave the facility. In subsection (4) on page 15—on line 15 in both the English and Afrikaans texts—it is provided that—

may be searched without a warrant. We believe that this is very wide and I should like the hon. the Minister to react and tell us why he feels it is necessary for this provision to be so wide. You see, Mr. Speaker, this covers not only an airport or an aerodrome, but any building anywhere. If an authorized person has reason to believe that there is a problem in connection with air safety in a particular building—the building might be a long way away; it might be right out in the country—he will have the right to search that building without a warrant. It is possible that this might be necessary but I would certainly like the hon. the Minister’s viewpoint on exactly why these wide powers are being given to search any building anywhere.

On page 17 there is another matter I would like to probe and this concerns the proposed section 2J. Section 2J(1) provides that the Minister or any person designated by him—

“Such action” refers to action at an airport which might endanger the safety of any person. I wonder if the hon. the Minister considers that he has, in fact, provided for sufficient indemnity in that provision. He has, of course, provided for a certain amount of indemnity by way of funds or money, but I wonder if money can cure all the problems that might be caused. A person may have many court cases against him as a result of action he has taken on the orders of the authorized person. I would like to have the hon. the Minister’s comments in this regard.

The last matter which I would like to probe appears on page 19. I refer to the proposed section 2L(1) which provides that—

1. (a) the measures to be adopted and to be complied with, and the staff to be employed, by any air carrier undertaking flights within, and to and from, the Republic;

My question is simply this: What is an air carrier? I have looked at the definitions at the beginning of this amending Bill and I have looked at the relevant Act itself and there does not seem to be a definition of an air carrier. I therefore assume that an air carrier is anybody who flies an aircraft within the confines of the Republic. The Minister is being given very wide powers as far as an air carrier is concerned—and this could be a farmer in the Karoo who owns an aeroplane, basically to fly around his own farm and occasionally to visit the big towns. However, the hon. the Minister may make regulations in regard to the measures to be adopted and the staff to be employed by him, the modifications and the alterations to be made to or the equipment to be installed in his aircraft, the measures to be adopted and to be complied with, the changes to be made and the equipment to be installed and operated, etc. While one can see that these regulations are certainly going to be necessary as regards airlines and charter air carriers who basically carry passengers for hire or for reward, I believe that the private pilot who perhaps utilizes his aircraft for one or two hours per months is in a different situation, and I hope the hon. the Minister will bear this in mind when making these regulations. I would not like to prescribe his powers because I can see that they will be necessary. However, at the same time, I believe that there will have to be two categories which the hon. the Minister will have to consider in making these regulations. As I have said, the private pilot is in a different category to the person who hires out his aircraft or his services in an air charter firm, for a scheduled flight or anything of this nature.

Mr. Speaker, those are the questions to which I hope the hon. the Minister will react in some way. Basically, to repeat what my hon. colleague, the hon. member for Amanzimtoti has said, we in these benches welcome the Bill. We do regret the necessity for it, we regret the war psychosis that seems to be sweeping the country at the moment, we regret, in fact, that this Bill has to be passed, but we can well see the necessity for it.

Mr. Speaker, I really have great appreciation for the fact that this legislation enjoyed the support of the House to such an extent. Surely this is a sign of the times, for hon. members realize that although one would have preferred not to adopt these more stringent measures, circumstances have forced us to do so. It would have been very easy for me to express my gratitude to hon. members for their support for the legislation if it had not been for the attitude of the hon. member for East London North. This hon. member once again, in his usual manner, put a whole series of questions to me to which I now have to reply one by one. [Interjections.]

I want to start by saying that certain suggestions have been made here, amongst others by the hon. member for Wonderboom and the hon. member for Vasco. On the face of it the amendment moved by the hon. member for Wonderboom will be an improvement of the clause. The Bill refers to an aircraft “in flight”. The hon. member wishes to change this to an aircraft “in use”. The concept “in use” is a wider concept in this regard. The hon. member for East London North also referred to the words “in use” in another clause and he suggested that we should place the full stop after “aircraft”, which would mean that it could be any aircraft. On the face of it seems as though we will experience problems in this regard as it could cause slight confusion as to the precise intention of the legislator. However, I do not wish to reject the recommendation out of hand and I will examine all the suggestions made here very carefully.

The hon. member for East London North raised various other matters. In the first place he referred to the maximum penalty of 15 years which can be imposed on a person who furnishes false information with regard to aircraft in the full knowledge that the information is false. Hon. members will agree with me that we have experienced tremendous problems in this regard in the past. Not only have we experienced tremendous problems in this regard but conditions of danger have been created in this manner and vast and unnecessary expense has been incurred in this manner. Therefore we regard the matter in a very serious light. The hon. member suggests that there could be extenuating circumstances in this regard. I do not wish to dispute this, but as the definition of the provision reads, there are certain basic and inescapable concepts contained therein. If these basic circumstances arise, for instance where false information is furnished in the knowledge that it is false, then I can scarcely allow someone like that to escape without imprisonment However, I wish to assure the hon. member that where there is no provision for a minimum penalty, but only for a maximum penalty, it is within the discretion of the court to decide that such a person should, for instance, only be detained until such time as the court proceedings have been concluded. Therefore I do not foresee the problems which the hon. member for East London North foresees with regard to this penal provision. With regard to the proposed new section 2(C) on page 11 of the Bill, which reads as follows—

The hon. member felt that I was taking action which may perhaps be too strong. However, this is not my opinion, for the first few words of the provision reads—

It should be made easy for him to get it.

We should take care not to become too accommodating and in so doing water down the measures which we should like to make effective.

The hon. member also referred to the proposed new section 2F(4) on page 15 of the Bill, which reads—

1. (a) at any place any building, structure, equipment …

The hon. member wants to know why it is necessary that the necessary search can take place without a warrant. The hon. member will realize that situations often arise where time is of the essence and where it is vital that the search take place at once, immediately. There is not always an opportunity to obtain the necessary warrants first. The hon. member also referred to page 19 of the Bill and then made a strange statement. He said that a monetary reward is probably not enough to compensate people who may suffer damage or be injured. In what other way is one to compensate a person? The usual compensation is surely monetary compensation and there is no other way. Surely one cannot present such a person with a buck-wagon or a motor-car to compensate him for the damage he has suffered.

The hon. member raised only one other matter to which I wish to react, viz. his reference to an “air carrier”. I shall investigate this matter. I have an idea the word is defined somewhere. I shall make sure of this, but I am under the impression that the expression “air carrier” refers to someone who conveys goods or people for remuneration. The hon. member indicated that if this is the interpretation, he does not really have any problems within that regard.

I wish to repeat that I greatly appreciate the support given to the Bill. In view of the present circumstances, I think that the implementation of this legislation will stand us in good stead in the future.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Since it came into operation on 1 January 1960, the Merchant Shipping Act has been amended several times in order to keep pace with developments and to provide for changing circumstances in the field of merchant shipping.

During the 1976 Parliamentary session, a new section 304A was inserted into the Act, authorizing the Minister of Transport, among other things, to have wrecks or stranded ships removed if such a wreck or ship constitutes a danger or potential danger to navigation in the territorial waters of the Republic. It has since become clear, especially in the light of the stormy seas which were experienced last year and which led to many standings and other mishaps, that wider powers are required. It is necessary to have certain wrecks removed in the public interest because they form an obstruction or because they are unsightly, although they do not constitute a danger to navigation.

The Government departments and other South African shipping interests involved in this, such as the Maritime Law Association, have been consulted on the matter, and everyone agrees that this amendment is essential.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very short, one-clause Bill which does give the hon. the Minister wider powers. As the hon. the Minister has just told us a ship no longer has to be a danger to navigation before the hon. the Minister is entitled to destroy it. I think experience has proved that this is on occasions necessary. I believe the Maritime Law Association has been consulted and has no problems with the Bill. We in these benches are quite prepared to support it through all its stages.

Mr. Speaker, I just rise to say that we also can see the merits of the Bill and therefore we shall be supporting the Bill through all its stages.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Committee Stage taken without debate.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The Bill I am now dealing with is to amend the Compulsory Motor Vehicle Insurance Act, especially to give effect to the recommendations made by the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Aspects of Compulsory Motor Vehicle Insurance, 1974, recommendations which I declared to be acceptable during last year’s session. The Bill also contains other amendments which have become necessary and to which I shall come back later.

During the discussion on the Vote of my Department of Transport last year, the report of the Commission of Inquiry was debated at some length. I indicated in detail with which recommendations I was in agreement. The acceptable recommendations of the commission, which had to be put into effect by means of statutory amendments to the Compulsory Motor Vehicle Insurance Act, have been embodied in the Bill. I shall only point out a few of them. In the first place, effect is being given to the recommendation that insurance should only be tied to the motor vehicle and that it should not lapse when the motor vehicle changes hands. Furthermore, it is being provided that the right to institute a claim on behalf of third parties and to enforce it is with few exceptions to be reserved for the legal profession. The commission’s recommendations that if an authorized insurer does not within 30 days after receipt of a third party claim object to the validity thereof, the claim form will be deemed to be in order and acceptable in all respects, has been written into clause 12. However, we have deviated from the recommendation in providing that an authorized insurer must object to the claims within 60 days and that it is only applicable to claims instituted within six months after the date of the accident.

Provision is being made for third party cover in respect of national servicemen who are undergoing their initial training period, as well as the motorists who give them a lift. The cover is subject to the condition that the transport must take place in the prescribed way. This concession arises from representations received from the Chief of the Defence Force. I think that in the times in which we are living, there is sufficient justification for the inclusion of such a provision.

Section 22(1)(a)(ii) of the Act is being amended by clause 9 to provide that compensation will now only be payable when a person has been injured or killed in the course of the business of the owner of the motor vehicle which is insured. This amendment has become necessary because of the wide interpretation given to the words “business of the driver” of the vehicle. Compensation has been granted in cases where this was never intended by the Act. One example is the case where a court granted compensation to a farmer who was injured in his own vehicle when it was being driven by the foreman on his farm and collided with a train. The court ruled that the farmer had been transported in the course of the business of the driver and ordered that compensation be paid to him. In this way, the Act has been used to provide accident insurance to an owner of a motor vehicle, which was never the intention.

The change which is being proposed with regard to prescription means that all claims shall become prescribed upon the expiration of a period of two years from the date of the occurrence which caused the injury or death. However, claims of minors, persons detained in terms of the Mental Health Act and persons under curatorship are excluded from the two-year period, provided that notice of the intention to institute claims on their behalf is given to the authorized insurers within two years of the date of the accident.

Because the expression “from the date upon which the claim arose”, where it occurs in section 24 of the Act, has given rise to a variety of interpretations, it is now being stated beyond all doubt that the two-year period runs from the date of the accident.

Finally, I want to draw attention to one aspect of the Bill. Clause 11(b) amends section 24(2) by providing that the inability of a third party, by reason of special circumstances, to comply with the provisions of the Act, includes the inability of a person whom he has instructed to act on his behalf. Since the intention is that the handling of third party insurance claims should henceforth be left almost exclusively in the hands of attorneys, the motorist cannot be expected to provide them with professional indemnity insurance. A claimant is protected against the attorney’s negligence by the professional indemnity insurance of attorneys.

The above aspects represent the most important principles contained in the Bill. The aspects I have not mentioned will be discussed during the Committee Stage.

Mr. Speaker, this Bill, too, is a comprehensive measure. I should not like to call it patchwork legislation, as other legislation was called earlier this afternoon, because there are many good things contained in the legislation and we should like to support the legislation in principle. It is right that basic legislation such as this should regularly be examined and revised. The Compulsory Motor Vehicle Insurance Act has served us well, and we must constantly try to keep the legislation up to date and to adapt it to the requirements of the times, so that the public may derive the maximum benefit from it.

I shall deal briefly with a few aspects of the Bill, starting with some that are largely of a procedural nature. The first is that a summons may now be served immediately after liability has been repudiated in writing. This is obviously a measure which is going to save time, and in these cases, time is of the essence. In some of the aspects for which compensation is paid and for which compensation is awarded by our courts, time is not such an important element. These are losses which will really manifest themselves in the future. However, there are many of these losses which take effect immediately and which prejudice the victim immediately, for example, medical costs, hospital expenses, immediate loss of income, which makes it important for court cases of this nature to be dealt with as soon as possible and for damages to be awarded immediately. For this reason, any procedural measure which would save time is to be welcomed here. This is also one of the recommendations which were made by the Wessels Commission of 1974.

Secondly, there is the question of the prescribed claim form and the fact that an objection must be lodged against the validity of such a claim within 60 days. After that, if the insurer has not objected, the claim shall be deemed to be valid in law. This new fact also arises from the recommendations of the Wessels Commission and can only ensure security of justice and eliminate anomalies, especially in the case of prescription.

The third aspect—also of a procedural nature—is the examination which can be conducted by medical practitioners designated by the insurer and which is to be paid for by the insurer concerned. The latter provision can be enforced. Furthermore, there are the measures making it compulsory for medical information obtained by the claimant by having himself or the injured person examined, as well as hospital records, to be made available to the insurers. It is obviously reasonable that these measures should be introduced. They would seem to promote greater security of justice, the elimination of unnecessary witnesses and a greater tendency on the part of the respective parties to settle the matter at an earlier stage of the process.

Furthermore, there are two aspects which are of more fundamental importance, questions which are not merely of a procedural nature. The first is the question of ownership, something which is mentioned by the hon. the Minister as well. The relevance of this in the legislation is important, since it is a fact that insurance has hitherto been tied to ownership. However, motor vehicles, especially some of them, change hands very rapidly. This may mean that at any given stage there may be quite a number of motor vehicles on the South African roads, even if only for a few days, which are not properly insured. Therefore the new arrangement in terms of which the insurance is rather tied to the motor vehicle itself can only lead to a considerable improvement in the situation. A further aspect of the amendment is that it will reduce legal expenses.

There is no doubt about the fact that an extra onus is placed on the claimant when he has to prove who the owner of the vehicle concerned is. Sometimes he has to incur extra costs in order to trace the owner. These problems can very largely be eliminated for the claimant, and this again will serve to reduce expenses and to streamline the whole legal process. A further fundamental aspect of the legislation is the question of future medical expenses and a future loss of income. This is a very important measure. It is actually a fairly drastic deviation from the legal position up to now.

In the first place, as far as future medical expenses are concerned, it has always been customary for a court to make a forecast on the basis of the evidence available, a forecast of the future medical expenses of a claimant, and then to make an award on that basis and to force the insurer to pay the estimated expenses to the claimant. However, claimants have often failed to make use of this availability of further medical treatment. Often, too, they have made use of it and found that it was not sufficient. Indeed, the Wessels Commission found that the fact that the court had to make a forecast of the possible expenses at an earlier stage was often to the advantage as well as the disadvantage of the claimant. Consequently the position is now that as far as future medical expenses are concerned, these must only be repaid by the insurer after they have been incurred.

I have already said that in my opinion, this is a fairly drastic deviation from the present situation. I therefore think it is necessary to remove all uncertainty. Consequently I want to ask the hon. the Minister to explain one or two questions in this connection. Firstly, it seems to me that this may give rise to a duplication of court action. In fact, it is stated in the Bill that future medical costs will be repaid only if they have been incurred and if it has been proved that they have in fact been incurred. I therefore want to know from the hon. the Minister whether it is the intention that this, too, will have to be proved in a court of law, whether he envisages that it will be necessary in terms of this legislation to go back to court to make such a provision.

Secondly, we have a problem of evidence here. At what stage are the merits determined? If a second court action were to arise, would the fact that the court had ruled in the first instance that the insurer was in fact liable according to merits, be sufficient if, for example, there is a claim for medical costs five years later? Would the question of the merits have to be determined once again or would it be sufficient for a court to rule merely on the question of whether these extra medical expenses were in fact justified and, secondly, whether they were related to the original accident or the injury sustained? We should just like to have a little more clarity in that connection.

Another leg of this new provision which is being introduced is the loss of future income or support. The same principle applies here. Up to now, the court has had to make an award on the basis of an estimate of the person’s life expectancy, his future income and the actual losses he would suffer. In that case, a court would order damages to be paid which would compensate the person for that loss. Once again, the Wessels Commission found that this system led to problems, including the unjustified enrichment of the claimant in particular in many cases. Here we have an amendment, therefore, which tends to eliminate this.

The position will apparently be that it will henceforth be possible for payments to the claimant to be made by an insurer on a monthly, quarterly or other periodic basis, as long as the claimant lives, subsequently perhaps to be reduced, in certain cases, to provide for the support of his next-of-kin. However, the present position is that if a large amount is paid out by the insurer, the claimant will have an interest benefit. He will be able to invest a large sum of money and to derive an interest benefit from it. He can then plan to have a certain income over a long period. In terms of this amendment, however, he losses that possibility. Here, too, I want to ask the hon. the Minister to clarify the matter for us. What would the position be with a court ruling in the first instance? Would the court lay down a specific amount to be paid on a monthly basis in the future, and would the insurer then pay that amount merely until the day the claimant dies, or would the court be able to rule that the amount should gradually be increased as required by changing circumstances? Inflation is a fact of life—although we hope that it will be reduced in the future—and there is no doubt about the fact that the cost of living is steadily rising. Will it therefore be taken into consideration in such a case that the cost of living is rising and that the payment made in the future will therefore have to be increased? We should like some clarity in this connection. We should like to know exactly how this situation will work in practice. I believe this will contribute to the clarity which the hon. House needs in this connection.

Another matter which is very important is the fact that since the position has hitherto been that a large amount of money has been paid out in a lump sum, the claimant had the certainty, if the case had been finalized and he had received his money, that his grievance had thereby been removed. Therefore he was immediately compensated for any harm he had suffered. Now, however, the position has changed. As in the case of someone who receives a pension, he will be paid back over a long period. He will also be paid back by a private party, which the insurer in fact is. I believe that it is necessary to point out in this connection that an additional responsibility will therefore be placed on the Government to ensure that the insurance companies are on a very sound financial footing in order to prevent a repetition of the case which occurred a few years ago. I am now referring to the case of the insurer that went bankrupt, causing certain people to suffer severe losses. One can imagine that if such an occurrence were to be repeated, the loss that is suffered will be much greater in the case where the claimant has already incurred the cost of going to court and his claim has already been granted, but where, at the order of the court, the amount concerned is to be paid over a period. If such a company goes out of business a few months after the court order has been granted, the claimant will indeed find himself in a very difficult position. I believe it is necessary to point out that in this connection a great responsibility is being placed on the companies and that the Government will very definitely have to play a part in this respect.

Finally, I just want to mention two matters which I believe will have to be looked at in the future. They have nothing to do with provisions contained in the Bill, but I believe that the Bill might well have provided for them. I understand that in other countries, such as New Zealand, there is a system in terms of which the taking out of third party insurance is combined with the taking out of motor vehicle licences. This has the advantage of greatly reducing red tape and costs. I believe that this is something which could fruitfully be considered in South Africa and perhaps introduced in the future. Hon. members who drove through Cape Town a few weeks ago saw what it was like at the Revenue Office. People literally queued around the block to take out licences. Of course procedures are being followed which are aimed at eliminating this state of affairs as far as is practicable, but I believe that there is still room for streamlining the system.

There is a second question which I want to raise and which may perhaps be examined later on. It concerns the medical costs which have already been incurred when the claims concerned are instituted. It often happens that someone who is injured in a motor vehicle accident deems his immediate injury to be of much greater importance and suffers much more severely as a result of it than because of any long-term injury he may suffer. The fact that he has to incur medical costs amounting to R1 000, R2 000 or even R3 000 within the first few months after the accident is actually more important to him at that stage than the fact that he may have to go about for the rest of his life with one leg which is slightly shorter than the other or with an arm which is a little stiff. All these are things which may in the long run be corrected by means of therapy. Man is also adaptable and therefore he is able to minimize this kind of injury. However, his immediate expenses create tremendous problems for him. Now, the fact is that third party actions take a very great long time. There is no doubt about this. Then we have the situation that medical schemes refuse to reimburse people for this kind of medical costs before a ruling has been given in connection with the third party action if such an action is pending. Because of these circumstances, many members of the public find themselves in extremely distasteful situations. I am not sure whether this legislation is the kind of legislation in which provision can be made for that question and whether we shall have to look to another form of legislation, but I do believe that this matter deserves the attention of the Minister and of the House in the future.

Mr. Speaker, we shall support the Second Reading of this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Green Point has indicated that his party supports this Bill. In the course of his speech, as befits him as a lawyer, he made certain statements and put certain questions to the hon. Minister of Transport in respect of the legal aspect of this matter. I believe that the hon. the Minister will reply to that in the course of this evening or in a day or two.

In spite of the fact that we are nearing the end of the day’s sitting, I wish to say that we are dealing here with legislation in respect of third parties which, I believe, closely affects each one of us in this House. In other words, we are in actual fact dealing here with extremely important legislation. As the hon. the Minister said, a commission of experts was appointed—the Wessels Commission— who investigated all the aspects of third party insurance. After their investigation they published a report and we have this report on hand here. Certain recommendations were made in that report which the hon. the Minister of Transport accepted and about which I wish to express a few brief thoughts this evening. Other recommendations are contained in this report which were not accepted by the hon. the Minister, and there are still other recommendations which, I believe, are still being examined.

It is unfortunately true that in the modern world in which we live, as a result of the technological development which is taking place, not only in South Africa, but, I believe, throughout the whole world, we are confronted with road accidents every day. It has in fact become a part of our pattern of life. It is something which we simply accept and it is something which we regard as inevitable. That is why the legislation is before us this evening. On the one hand we are faced with inflation as we know it in South Africa today and on the other hand we are faced with a shortage of trained manpower, and therefore I believe it is necessary that we should look at the implementation of existing laws from time to time, particularly with a view to eliminating problem situations and stumbling blocks which could handicap a claimant or defendant in the handling of his case. Certain recommendations by the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Aspects of Compulsory Motor Vehicle Insurance are therefore welcomed as they are aimed, I believe, at implementing the generally accepted principle that we are dealing here with social legislation. Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to discuss in detail all the aspects set out in this legislation this evening. The hon. member for Green Point pointed out some of these like a lawyer. I actually wish to mention a few principles, as I see them, which are important to me and which are contained in the legislation. I believe that the finer details can be ironed out later in the Committee Stage.

To me—and the hon. the Minister referred to this—the first important principle in this legislation is that the insurance of a vehicle will henceforth be tied to the vehicle as in the case of the licensing of such a vehicle and I believe that this is a great improvement on the existing legislation. In the past many problems were experienced in this respect in the sense that when a vehicle changed hands, and the new owners neglected to obtain insurance, that vehicle was uninsured. If such a vehicle was involved in an accident, the injured person had to take action against the owner of the vehicle. Although it is provided in the regulations that if the owner of such an uninsured vehicle is unable to pay the claim, the Motor Vehicle Insurance Fund will accept responsibility for the payment of compensation, it could place the owner of a vehicle in a very difficult position and could even sometimes ruin such an owner financially. On the other hand, the claimant has a problem in taking action against the owner of a vehicle. It often happens that such an owner simply disappears. The proposed amendment is, to my mind, a step in the right direction and one asks oneself why this has not been noticed in the past. However, in this regard it can be said, quite rightly, that all good things take time.

Another important aspect which I wish to raise this evening is something which specifically affects every one of us who has a son serving in the Defence Force. I am referring to the important provision in the legislation aimed at covering national servicemen when they are transported as hitch-hikers. I believe that those of us who are sitting in this House are not always in favour of our sons hitchhiking. I have a son who did his national service at Simonstown and it happened—this is, to my mind, part of their experience and part of the whole set-up in which they find themselves—that when I opened the door in the morning, Gielie was there because he had hitch-hiked from Cape Town. Therefore I say that we simply have to accept this. To me the principle is that we should not make this a broad principle and, thank God, there is nothing of the kind contained in the legislation. Therefore we should not try to establish a general principle according to which everyone in South Africa, or a large proportion of our population, should be allowed to hitch-hike.

There is another aspect which I should like to raise this evening and to my mind this does not perhaps fall under the hon. the Minister of Transport, but rather under the hon. the Minister of Defence. The principle which we have to accept is that our young men do hitch-hike. In the first place they do this, perhaps, because they do not have enough money to use public transport. In the second place the time factor is perhaps not always on their side and they perhaps wish to spend weekends at their homes. The question has now occurred to me whether their hitchhiking cannot take place in a more orderly manner. I have already said that this may not fall under the activities of the hon. the Minister of Transport, but perhaps he can take the matter up with the hon. the Minister of Defence. We must find out whether we cannot perhaps negotiate with our oil companies in this regard. I am of the opinion that our oil companies will give their active support to such an undertaking. I am thinking in particular of something such as the following: We should negotiate with an oil company to make certain facilities available to our young men, for instance at Colesberg, so that the young hitch-hiker coming from Cape Town may know that certain facilities have been created for him at Colesberg which he can use, should the people with whom he is travelling perhaps go in another direction. I believe that we also have a responsibility towards those young men. I do not have to elaborate on this, for it is an acknowledged fact. Should I travel from Cape Town to Welkom and, for instance, stop at Colesberg to take in fuel, I must know that I can give some of these servicemen a lift from there. In this manner I can help them in an orderly manner to reach their destination. I believe that the provision under which our young men are also covered now when they are picked up as hitch-hikers is a very important provision.

There are another few important aspects which I should like to raise. Another important task of the commission was to investigate whether claimants were being exploited by their representatives and, if so, whether control measures should be adopted. My hon. legal friends who are sitting here in the House this evening can listen to what I am going to say now and invite me for a cup of coffee or tea around 6 o’clock tomorrow evening. They have to judge for themselves whether it would be worth inviting me. We can divide the representatives acting on behalf of claimants into two groups: The so-called claim consultants and our good friends in the legal profession, the attorneys. I do not want to generalize, for I believe that there are claim consultants who did very good and— please note—honest work in the past. I concede this readily, but it is a fact—and I wish to state this in all seriousness here this evening—that there are some of them who sometimes exploited our people in a scandalous and abominable manner. This is an acknowledged fact. Unrealistic fees were levied for services rendered. Sometimes one even found that a part of the compensation paid to the representative was withheld by him and not paid to the claimant. About a week ago I read a newspaper report about a case here in Cape Town where one of the so-called consultants was criminally indicted for having illegally withheld an amount of R53 000 from 12 claimants. I wonder whether those 12 people will get a cent of that amount back.

I now wish to state a few facts to which my attorney friends would do well to listen. An attorney is, in the first place, entitled to fees for his services according to a tariff determined by the authorities. Furthermore, the profession is subject to strict internal control measures. If an attorney does not adhere strictly to his ethical codes, he can be punished and his name may even be struck off the roll. My hon. attorney friends must now decide for themselves whether they are going to invite me for a cup of coffee or tea. Without generalizing, I wish to point out once again that the fact of the matter is that there are also attorneys—I have had practical experience of this in the area where I come from—who, like the claim consultants, have certain contacts and touters. It is an acknowledged fact that the claim consultants had such contacts. They have their man at the hospital, among the police and among the doctors. Although they are the exception to the rule, there are also a few attorneys in South Africa who have their contacts at the hospitals and with the medical profession. I am sorry to say this, but they have also been hand in glove with those people. In other words, the doctor sends the third party claimant to the attorney and he in turn receives a cut of the income.

However, the fact is that as a result of the control exercised by the Law Societies and their ethical codes, the public is at least protected against this type of thing. We are dealing with an important matter here, for the Bill provides that the attorneys in South Africa will henceforth have the monopoly in respect of third party claims. I know the attorneys in South Africa—my son is also an attorney—as honest men …

Hear, hear!

I fully accept the bona fides of these people. Now that the hon. the Minister has placed a responsibility on them, I have the greatest confidence that they will assist in maintaining these ethical codes and this fine proposed legislation. In spite of the fact that the claim consultants have made representations to the hon. the Minister—and are perhaps still doing so—that they should be granted another opportunity, I think it is in the interests of every inhabitant of South Africa that he should be protected in this manner.

In order not to waste the time of the House, I am not going to discuss this Bill in detail. This is a fine Bill which the hon. the Minister of Transport has introduced. It actually affects every one of us in this House and I believe also many people outside from day to day. It is my sincere desire that this proposed legislation may help to expand third party insurance in South Africa on a happy and a sound basis, in the light of the fact that there are people who unfortunately become involved in motor vehicle accidents and suffer extreme hardships as a result. Therefore it gives me pleasure to support this Bill wholeheartedly.

Mr. Speaker, this Bill contains a number of amendments. Some of these amendments are very good, namely the ones the hon. member for Welkom referred to, in connection with our trainees. However, some of them are bad and some very bad. I am surprised that this Bill has reached the stage it has with such a degree of accord in this House, because in my estimation this proposed legislation is going to cost a section of our community something between R3 million and R4 million per year. It is going to cause a section of our business community, already overburdened with bureaucratic licensing instructions, etc., to have to submit approximately—again in my estimation—an additional 2 million filled out prescribed forms. The last bad thing this Bill does, in my view, is that it is going to cause a number of people, who are currently working well and efficiently and who are fulfilling a real need, to lose their jobs and so become unemployed. I do not think we in the House should lightly skip over that. I am very glad the hon. member for Welkom has brought up the question of the claim consultants and has himself said that while he agrees with the Bill, he recognizes that certain claim consultants have done a very good job. However, instead of filling in these broad outlines with detail, and with a view to the time, I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.