Mr. Speaker, I move—

I want to start off by telling the House what the motion is not. I think that is important as it will eliminate a certain amount of confusion.

Firstly, this motion is not directed specifically at Green Point and Sea Point, because it is generally accepted that the sort of problem which we are concerned with in those two suburbs is to some extent also experienced elsewhere in the Cape Peninsula. However, it particularly arises in Green Point and Sea Point. Secondly, this motion is not an irrational reaction to the fact that there are persons of colour in the suburbs of Green Point and Sea Point, and thirdly, this motion is not a political vendetta against the hon. members for Green Point or Sea Point I do not believe that to discredit those gentlemen, it is necessary to introduce a private member’s motion. [Interjections.] However, in the proposal which is being made, in the case which will be presented and in the course of action it is hoped that the Government will take, and it is my sincere wish that they will assist the commission if it is appointed. While their help will not be essential, it will nevertheless be very useful to such a commission.

Let me now tell the House why I am moving this motion. I am moving it for mainly two reasons. Firstly, as a resident Parliamentarian I have received numerous complaints and representations from people in Green Point and in Sea Point. Also other MPs and public officials have received similar representations from those two constituencies. I want to give the House an example of the type of letter which I have been receiving. This particular letter was written on 19 February, thus when it was already known that I would be moving this motion. This letter is a fairly typical example—

Mr. Speaker, as I have said, this is a fairly typical letter and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition knows that I and others receive letters of this kind, because in many instances the people have the courtesy to send him carbon copies of that correspondence. This then is the first reason for my moving this motion.

The second reason for my moving this motion is the fact that the suburbs of Cape Town are functionally integrated. Sea Point serves a particular need in the Cape Peninsula. It is the suburb which has probably the finest collection of restaurants in Cape Town, if not in South Africa. It has excellent hotels. It is also a very important sporting area with very considerable amenities. In a sense, therefore, the concern of Rondebosch or Wynberg or Maitland or Gardens is also applicable to Sea Point.

What are the main complaints which eminate from these suburbs? I want to deal with them fairly summarily. The main complaints are, in the first instance, the inundation of the area by persons of colour, especially during the night, and by the presence in Green Point and Sea Point of persons of colour of a lower class. There are no hard statistics on the precise number of legally resident Coloureds and Blacks in Green Point and Sea Point, but the figure is officially put at 8 800. It is estimated that in addition to that there are an additional 10 000 people there illegally. There is a total population of approximately 50 000 Whites. In the second place there is very considerable concern at the vagrancy which there is in Green Point and in Sea Point During the day there are large numbers of work-shy people and won’t-works. Thirdly, there is an alarming incidence of public drunkenness which reflects itself in all kinds of unseemly public behaviour. In this respect there are some hard statistics. There are, in that narrow, compact area, no less than 11 liquor outlets serving persons of colour. Bearing in mind the population breakdown statistics I furnished a moment ago, it is interesting to note the distribution or sale of liquor to Whites and Coloureds. In the period 1 August 1977 to the end of July 1978 the breakdown is as follows: 156 000 litres of spirits were sold to Whites as against 51 000 litres to Coloureds; 86 000 litres of fortified wine were sold to Whites as against 68 000 litres to persons of colour and 533 litres of unfortified wine were sold to Whites as against 331 litres to Coloureds. Quite obviously the ratio of sales is out of all proportion to the population ratios, especially since there are, of course, many Whites who come into Sea Point and Green Point during the holiday period and should therefore not be included in those figures.

The prevalent drunkenness is responsible for large-scale unruly, obscene and generally anti-social behaviour of a deplorable kind in Green Point and Sea Point. The fact is, too, that there is a great deal of crime, particularly of the petty variety. There are assaults, crimes resulting from drunkenness and a great deal of intimidation, particularly of the older people living in the flatland areas of Sea Point Fifthly—and this is a manifestation in itself—there is a great deal of intimidation of elderly people in Green Point and Sea Point areas in general. In the sixth place there is enormous pressure on what public facilities there are for persons of Colour in the suburbs of Green Point and Sea Point, and this to the detriment of decent, domestic workers in the area. Here I am referring primarily to the use of Sunset Beach. The fact is that over certain weekends there are some 2 000, 3 000 or 5 000 people on that particular beach. There is an overflow, on to the street and on to the lawn, of people coming from as far away as Darling and places like that to Sunset Beach. There is even concern expressed by domestic servants about the use of that particular facility.

Tell us why it is so overcrowded.

In the seventh place there is a general sense of insecurity, particularly in the flatland areas and particularly amongst the old people. Despite the fact that the police and the reservists are doing a magnificent job in dispelling this, we are dealing here fundamentally with issues that are not law-and-order issues.

The hon. member for Sea Point has been sitting there smiling at certain of the points I have made.

I was not smiling at all.

It may well be that he does, in fact, doubt the evidence of these complaints. Let me tell him, however, that one merely has to go to the files for newspaper clippings, speak to the ratepayers’ association representatives in that area, or to leading citizens in that area, or to leading citizens in that area such as hoteliers, bottle store owners and others to obtain the evidence, and one gets a very bleak picture of Sea Point and Green Point.

Do you know what you are talking about?

I want to indicate some aspects of this. I have here a letter to the editor of a newspaper. The heading is: “Solving Sea Point’s vagrancy problem.” This comes from a man who has a business in Sea Point and who has expressed himself very strongly on these issues from time to time, a man who is obviously extremely concerned about the suburb. He makes the following point—

He then goes on to spell out the difficulties there are and the need to do something about the riff-raff, as he describes it, in the constituency. Then I have a report here from The Cape Times of 15 February 1977. The heading is: “Support for shebeen mop-up.” This refers to support that came from a special action committee formed to deal with the shebeen problem in Sea Point by Mr. Sam Gross, chairman of the Green and Sea Point Ratepayers’ and Residents’ Association. He indicated that he had received a letter from persons giving him their support. Then I have an article here which appeared in The Cape Times of 23 October 1976 on this question of shebeens. It begins in this way—

This comes from an investigation, carried out by The Cape Times, which reveals the extent of the illegal liquor trade in Sea Point and Green Point, something which is not taken into account in the statistics I referred to earlier. Many letters have also been written on the subject. A person who lived in Sea Point for 30 years had this to say in a letter to Weekend Argus—

I and many like me have enjoyed the courtesy of being able in our daily newspaper to blow off steam about the quality of life in Sea Point. That is all that happens; we blow off steam and the authorities do nothing. May I, before leaving the area after a total of 30 years, in steadily increasing frustration put a number of questions to the following institutions …

Then this person puts questions to a whole variety of institutions about the actual conditions in Sea Point.

If the hon. members for Green Point and Sea Point want further proof, I have here a notice of the annual general meeting, held on 29 May 1978, of the Green and Sea Point Ratepayers’ and Residents’ Association. What concerned them was the following—

Note that: “concerned at the intimidation of your servants by these subhuman characters”.

Do you live in Sea Point?

I continue—

Then they say you must attend the annual general meeting. So I can go on. As a matter of fact, even the hon. member for Sea Point and his MPC have expressed their concern. In a notice of their report-back meeting, which I recommend to members as very interesting reading, the MPC for Sea Point, Mr. Herbert Hirsch, devoted a whole section to vagrancy. In it he expressed his concern at the “antisocial behaviour of the won’t-works, can’t-works and unemployed who are causing Sea Point’s residents justifiable concern”. He went on to say that—

This was in July last year. Therefore, even the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, who is the MP for Sea Point, and surely also the hon. member for Green Point are particularly concerned about the situation existing in those suburbs. The fact is that there is a mountain of evidence that the complaints coming from Sea Point and Green Point are well-founded.

There have also at different times been suggestions on how to alleviate those complaints. There have been proposals made by the Ratepayers’ Association relating to liquor outlets and there have been proposals which have actually come from the city council in regard to better and more effective checks on the use of servant quarters. Such proposals have been discussed and bandied about. There have also been proposals in connection with the use of amenities. The fact is that these proposals have not actually gone to the root of the matter. They have, in fact, been piecemeal and in a way half-baked. I want to stress that I do not know what the answers are and I do not pretend to know what the answers are. However, what I do wish to say to the House, is that there are reasons which suggest themselves for the conditions in Green Point and Sea Point.

Green Point and Sea Point are high density areas and most of the residents stay in flats. Something like 30%—this is a 1970 figure— of the residents of Sea Point live in houses, whereas 65% live in flats. The balance of 5% of the residents presumably live in hotels. Of the dwellings, 22% were houses and 70% were flats. All these flats have domestic servant quarters. The fact is that this introduces a certain anonymity to that situation and a lack of control. It makes control dangerous, as a matter of fact. There is also further evidence that landlords and owners of blocks of flats are reluctant to exercise the sort of control which there should be over the sleeping quarters in those flats and over the people who use them.

A second factor which unquestionably contributes to the problem which has been experienced in Green Point and Sea Point, is the physical location. Green Point and Sea Point are situated, as hon. members know, like a narrow ribbon between the sea on the one side and the mountain on the other. It is a highly compact area. There is a limited access to the sea as most of that coastline is rocky. There are very few beaches and then there is the main swimming amenity, viz. the Sea Point pavilion. It is a very restricted area.

Thirdly, Sea Point is easily accessible precisely because of its physical location. There is an excellent bus service running through Green Point and Sea Point, a service which makes access to these suburbs very easy. In this respect I might just point out that segregation on those buses was abolished in August 1977 and that according to the bus company there have not been any serious or significant complaints about the bus service as such, which seems to indicate that this is not simply a question of colour, but that the problem has a far more basic socio-economic root.

A further problem which unquestionably contributes to the complaints, is the fact that the facilities for persons of colour in Green and Sea Point are limited. Sunset Beach, which is situated directly opposite a large number of luxury apartment houses and flats, is extremely small and very limited in respect of parking, and yet, according to certain residents of Sea Point who know the situation well, on high holidays up to 10 000 people squeeze into that very small area of the beach.

A further factor which unquestionably contributes to the conditions about which people in those suburbs are complaining, is the death of the centre of Cape Town as the heart of night life in the city. As a result of the decline and death of the centre of Cape Town, a great deal of the night life has moved out from Cape Town to Green Point and Sea Point. Another reason is unquestionably that there is a high number of liquor outlets in Green and Sea Point coupled with an inadequate number of policemen.

As I mentioned earlier, the police do their best, but are undermanned and depend rather heavily on reservists, who are doing a good job of work. So that, unquestionably, is also a factor. However, whatever the reasons may be, this situation reflects two basic things. In the first place, it is not simply a race relations issue. It underlines the falsity of the argument which is frequently used by the Opposition and by American politicians, like Senator McGovern, who visit this country and say that all our problems are due to race discrimination. That is not true. It is in fact a class problem; it is a social problem. To illustrate my point I wish to read from a statement which was contributed by a member of the executive of the Green and Sea Point Ratepayers’ Association. This man was proposing an ordinance and this is what he suggested it should include, and I want hon. members to listen carefully to this because this man is in no way racially conscious, but is simply aware of the kind of norms which do not prevail on Sunset Beach and the beaches of Green and Sea Point. In his proposed ordinance which should be displayed, he said—

This expression of concern and the implication in this proposed ordinance of certain norms, give an idea of the kind of problem with which one is faced with there. It is fundamentally a social problem.

In the second instance, whatever the reasons or the explanation for the situation may be, the fact is that the concern in Sea Point reflects something which the Government and no political party, whether at national, provincial or local government level, can lose sight of, and that is a sense of ordered community development, a sense of community pride. The fact is that the complaints which one is receiving from within Green and Sea Point reflect a pride in those suburbs. And it is a justifiable pride. The development of Green Point and Sea Point, that whole area along the Atlantic coastline, compares very favourably with, for example, Durban, which has been totally commercialized. This is a cosmopolitan community, with numerous religious denominations and numerous faiths; it is a community with good schools and a community which has every reason to have pride in itself. Their reaction, as expressed by these complaints to this inundation by persons of a much lower class, is I believe a factor which ought not be left out of account. Neither is this simply a straight racial issue, because when the city council suggested that amenities be provided for domestic workers, for Coloureds and Blacks living legitimately in Green and Sea Point, in the quarry site at the top of Strand Street, there was vociferous objection immediately from the Schotsche Kloof people, the Malays, who said that they did not want amenities being placed in that area. It was an expression of exactly the same kind of community feeling that the White people of Sea Point are expressing.

The implications of the situation in Green Point and Sea Point go much further than simply the suburbs themselves. It has implications for the residents and the domestic servants in those suburbs, but also for Cape Town as a whole, for visitors to the Cape from up-country and elsewhere, and for tourists, because in the built-up areas of the Cape Peninsula, Sea Point is one of the most attractive areas from a tourist point of view. Moreover, the circumstances that prevail in Sea Point and Green Point have profound implications for race relations in general. This does not apply only to the decent and respectable domestic workers in Sea Point and Green Point, but also to individual Coloureds of the middle class, those who can enjoy the facilities that are open to them in the form of restaurants, etc., in Green Point and Sea Point. They do find themselves embarrassed by the situation that exists there.

I do not believe that this is a situation that should be simply shrugged off. I believe that we can take the initiative in the situation. There have been previous inquiries in this regard. In 1969 the Liquor Board investigated the situation at a request of the hon. Minister of Justice, but no action was taken. In 1975 the then member for Green Point, Mr. Lionel Murray, requested another investigation into the distribution of liquor in those suburbs, but again no action was taken. In 1976 an interdepartmental committee of senior civil servants examined the whole situation and made certain recommendations, but these were not acted upon either. In June of last year the hon. Minister of Community Development announced the appointment of a committee to look into the matter. I should like a commission of specialists, including community leaders and MP’s, to investigate the whole situation and to defuse it. It is a festering situation and has enormous potential for causing racial harm and racial ill-feeling. Such a commission could defuse the situation by acknowledging file fact that the issue is not simply related to race relations and that we are as concerned with the rights and the privileges of those domestic workers who are legitimately in Sea Point or Green Point as we are with the rights and privileges of middle-class Coloureds who can enjoy the facilities which those suburbs provide, but who find themselves embarrassed and their enjoyment jeopardized by the under class who has come to predominate in those suburbs.

I therefore have pleasure in putting the motion before the House and in requesting the Government to give very serious thought to the appointment of a commission of the kind suggested in my motion.

Mr. Speaker, it is as well that we are being afforded this opportunity to give some attention to the problems that are occurring in Green Point and Sea Point. However I must also stress that the same problems are encountered in the areas adjacent to those areas mentioned in the hon. member’s motion. We must make no mistake. Those are problems that are not restricted to Green Point and Sea Point alone and occur over a far wider area.

I therefore want to react to some of the proposals read out by the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens. Indeed, he read out a whole series of proposals. If the hon. member takes another look at them—and I say this with all respect—he will find that the majority of them are already embodied in one or other form of legislation, whether at the national, provincial or local level. The question, therefore, is the implementation of those measures and not the creation of additional measures as such. Then, too, I should like to refer to the number of investigations to which the hon. member referred. He is right. There have already been a number of investigations of various kinds into diverse social problems. Investigations have been instituted time and time again into the same type of social problems, at governmental and local level and by private bodies and persons in Green Point and Sea Point Once again the hon. member made it clear—not intentionally, perhaps—that the stumbling block is not the identification of the problem and its investigation as such, but the lack of action to follow up the findings of such investigations.

I am pleased that the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens has moved this motion. It creates an opportunity for us to conduct a debate about this matter and give attention to problems which certainly affect all of us. However, I must point out that with a few exceptions the problems in Green Point and Sea Point and in the surrounding areas undoubtedly apply to the entire Peninsula, with the inclusion of Gardens. Indeed, they certainly apply to the majority of other urban areas in South Africa as well. Every investigation into the causes of those problems must therefore be carried out on a very broad basis, broader than the limited area of Green Point and Sea Point, so that in this way the benefit can ultimately be enjoyed by other areas as well. Moreover, it must be clearly stated that every investigation into the problems in Green Point and Sea Point must necessarily include the entire Peninsula, otherwise the situation simply cannot be seen in perspective, and we shall not be able to determine the causes properly. The final important point in this regard is that the identification of the problems is superfluous at this stage. They are clear to all of us, and the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens has already pointed them out. I can assure him that for every letter of complaint that he receives, the hon. member for Sea Point and I probably receive three. [Interjections.]

We are fully aware of the problems that exist, and in the difficult circumstances in which we have to act we try our best to give effect to actions which could contribute to the solution of those problems. However, it must be stated at this stage—and it must be very clearly stated—that it is not the PFP or I or the Leader of the Opposition that is in control of the Government. We are not in control of the police. [Interjections.] We are not in control of the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions. [Interjections.]

Order!

Nor are we in control of the Department of Community Development. Nor are we in control of the Department of Planning and of its Group Areas Act. After 30 years of rule, if there is anyone who should hang its head in shame about every problem that occurs at any place in South Africa, it is certainly every hon. member on the Government’s side, and not hon. members of the PFP. [Interjections.]

That is why people vote for us. [Interjections.]

Let us just take a brief look at some of the problems that do exist. It is necessary to give them serious attention. I refer briefly to the question of crime. There is no doubt that crime is a problem in Green Point and in Sea Point. We need not therefore argue about that. However it is as well that we place this matter in perspective. When we look at the crime statistics it is clear that Sea Point and Green Point are among the best areas in the entire Cape Peninsula. Perhaps the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens is in a certain respect the victim of a situation to which reference was made the other day by a very prominent welfare worker, on the occasion of a seminar on crime prevention. She made the statement that every crime in Green Point and Sea Point is front-page news, whereas a crime of the same nature in Manenberg does not even make the fifth page of the newspaper. That is true. That is why a mistaken impression is sometimes created that the crime situation in Sea Point and in Green Point is getting totally out of hand. It is bad enough to be a cause for concern. It is undoubtedly better than elsewhere in the cities, according to statistics. That is why it is still more important that any investigation of this nature be on a wider basis.

Why then are the voters so concerned?

What is the question?

Why then are the voters so concerned?

They are concerned about their own security, but who is primarily responsible for that? Is it I?

The hon. member for Gardens referred to the question of Sunset Beach and the beach there that is at the disposal of Black people and Coloureds. This gives rise to a tremendous problem. That is no secret. However, I want to point to the obvious mistake made there. It is often made at other places. People expect that if they make just one beach resort available to an enormous percentage of the population in such a massive area, the social circumstances there will be orderly. Surely that cannot be expected. Surely this must simply lead to a stampeding and overcrowding of the place. That is exactly what is happening there.

If all beaches were at the disposal of non-Whites, we should have a different picture, and I do not have the slightest doubt about that.

Is that what you want?

In this regard I want to congratulate the Cape Town City Council here and now, because they went to the trouble and expense of training beach constables to give special attention to the problems of behaviour one encounters on our beaches. They are acting very successfully.

Mr, Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question?

Rather not I do not have the time. The hon. member referred to liquor stores, particularly the large number of liquor stores in Green Point and Sea Point. That is a problem. It has often been the case that we have had to make representations to the effect that new liquor stores should not be opened in that area, since there is already a large number of them. However, I fear that the mere closing of liquor stores will not really get us very far. Nor is it any secret that a large number of the people who lie drunk in our streets, the layabouts, are, to put it very blatantly, people who drink methylated spirits. Today this is still a product one can find in any café. Indeed, there are certain cafes displaying such an entrepreneuring spirit—if one can use such a good word in this sense—that methylated spirits is now being sold in small quantities

Is that what you call a “compassionate society”?

… so-called “tots”. This of course contributes to the problem. Sea Point, and Green Point too, to a certain extent, are urban areas which, due to poor city planning, form a mixed conglomerate of residential and business areas. It is an area which is regarded as the playground of the entire Peninsula. The hon. member for Cape Town Gardens has already indicated this. It is an area where we all go to participate in the night life, to go and eat and go to bioscope. It is where the people go to see the city lights.

Finally, it is also an area which furnishes employment to large numbers of Black and Coloured people who, in many cases, live there as well. However, there are no adequate facilities for them there. These problems relating to facilities for Black people working in Green Point and Sea Point have a broad background. A very large percentage of these Black people employed by businesses in Green Point and Sea Point would not have to live there if their own residential area was within a reasonable distance from their place of work. Due to the Group Areas Act, the residential areas for Black and Coloured people are so far from Green Point and Sea Point that many of these people, who are not paid high salaries, simply cannot afford to commute daily to and from their work. The result is, quite simply, that there are far more domestic servants and other employees who are compelled to make use of small rooms in the backyards of private homes, flats and hotels in Sea Point and Green Point.

Do you approve of that?

No, I do not approve of it, but I have indicated the cause very clearly. Does the hon. member understand the cause? Like any normal people, these people wish to mix socially with their friends and spend their free time in a relaxed atmosphere. In the circumstances in which they live it is all the more necessary for these people to be given a place for recreation and relaxation in their free time.

There are possible solutions that could be suggested. Large reception rooms must be made available in certain blocks of flats where there is a large number of servants rooms. At the same time, some of these servant’ rooms should perhaps be cleared so that there is not such a crowd of people. Some of the people working in Green Point and Sea Point, owing to the lack of facilities, must go onto the street for their recreation. When they are not sleeping in their rooms they have no choice but to walk around in the streets or lie around in the streets and on the lawns. The bona fide workers must be distinguished from the bona fide layabouts, as the former Minister of Plural Relations called them.

The bona fide layabouts are a very major problem in Green Point and in Sea Point. They are also a very major problem in the Gardens and in central Cape Town. The solution to this problem is perhaps not so obvious and is certainly a subject for further study by authorities in this field. As far as layabouts are concerned I want to mention that the local authorities, to their credit, have established an overnight shelter in Green Point called The Haven where there is a place for these layabouts, these total outcasts from society. They can spend the night there, food is given to them once a day there and a certain degree of rehabilitation work is done. I can say to the credit of these people that there is yet another overnight shelter of this kind in my constituency. The other body has been created by the Organization for Crime Prevention, Nicro. These people are doing good work. In fact it is tragic that private bodies have to establish and maintain facilities of this nature. If ever there was a matter deserving of Government support and Government initiative, then it is this specific matter. We hope that as a result of this debate this matter will be looked at in depth. More night shelters of this nature can be established for layabouts, the unemployed and people who have reached a stage in their lives at which they are virtually past the point of possible rehabilitation. More money can be spent so that more intensive rehabilitation work can be done. We are saddled with a major problem in this regard. Not only Green and Sea Point, but the rest of the Peninsula, too, experiences this daily. We are dealing here with the kind of people who in the daytime, wander around even in the mountains, and at night, or even during the day in winter, come and seek shelter in the residential areas in places such as garages standing open, back rooms and many other odd places.

Another possible solution to which local authorities could perhaps give consideration, is the establishment of more recreation facilities in central Cape Town. I mention central Cape Town specifically because even under the vast number of restrictions due to the policy of the Government, it is possible and easier to establish these facilities in the central Cape Town area. These facilities can then serve for all the inhabitants of the areas surrounding central Cape Town.

The hon. member for Cape Town Gardens made mention of the possibility that facilities would be established in the quarry area next to Strand Street I was one of the people who joined the Schotsche Kloof citizens association and the Signal Hill citizens association in objecting to this plan. It is important, when the question of facilities for Black people is being discussed, that attention be given to the establishment of the right facility that is accessible to these people. However, there is one mistake one must not make. They must not think that facilities are necessary, and then create facilities which are not accessible, economically and otherwise, to the people for whom they are intended. For example, one plan included a large bioscope hall for about 800 people. However, it is well known that only a few blocks from there is a bioscope for Black people and Coloureds that is barely able to eke out an existence. This shows, for example, that in fact there was no lack in that regard.

A further problem in regard to that area was that it would give rise to the establishment of liquor stores, pubs and things of that nature. Again this is something to which the predominantly Malay Schotsche Kloof organization objected very strongly, for very understandable reasons, of course. If facilities are created in one place on such a large scale this would not satisfy only the local people, of course, but would also create an additional social problem in that it would attract people from throughout the Peninsula. The whole principle to be taken into account in the solution of these problems is that any facilities to be created should be created on a decentralized basis in order to ensure that the facilities created are those that are required.

In this case the solution is quite simple. There is the problem of drunkenness and vagrancy in the streets. However, for every drunk layabout lying on a lawn in Green Point or on a street in Sea Point, there is probably another drunk sitting in a bar in another area. I am not trying to condone drunkenness, but once again this underlines the fact that those people do not have a place to enjoy a drink. If a person wants to enjoy a drink during the day when he is not at home, he is compelled to do so somewhere on a pavement or in a comer. This, of course, creates a very unhealthy situation.

This brings me to the question of restaurants, particularly for domestic servants and other workers in that area who are not close to their homes. I refer, too, to those who live in very small servants’ rooms in other people’s backyards. It is vital that they should have a place where they can entertain their friends. They must have a place where they can sit and perhaps drink a cool drink, enjoy a meal or something of the kind. This is a tremendous problem, because once again we come up against the apartheid legislation. There are few entrepreneurs who are prepared to establish a restaurant for Black people only.

Why?

Because it is not a paying proposition. There is a very real danger that it would not be a paying proposition. A few such places have been established in the past Once again, if only one is established in a large area where there are perhaps 30 to 40 White restaurants, it is understandable that this could lead to overcrowding, that it could give rise to unhealthy social conditions and that people would complain; in fact they would complain so loudly that the place would be closed.

But you have just said that further facilities should not be created!

No, the hon. the Deputy Minister did not listen carefully.

He understands nothing.

If, therefore, the restrictive legislation can be abolished, this could make a very major contribution to the solution of that problem, because the people who could in fact afford it and did need it could then make use of the facilities that exist and this would totally eliminate duplication on a purely racial basis.

For the reasons I have already mentioned and particularly because I think that the identification of problems is unnecessary at this stage but that action is in fact necessary, I move the following amendment—

1. (1) remove the underlying causes of the unsatisfactory social conditions;
2. (2) combat crime and anti-social behaviour, and
3. (3) improve the quality of life and increase the personal security of the inhabitants,

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Green Point has by way of his amendment underlined his support for the motion before the House. In his amendment he speaks of “concerted action”. However, how does one achieve concerted action unless one knows what the objective of that action is to be? How can one solve a problem unless one first defines it? Sir Winston Churchill once said that “a problem well-defined is a problem half solved”. The hon. member’s amendment is not only an escape into the world of illusion, but in it the hon. member is trying to get us to remove the focus from Sea Point and deal with the matter in a blurred and general way so that the vague generalities and platitudes with which the hon. members opposite normally lace their speeches can be applied and they can run away from real issues. I want to say that, whatever may happen, that hon. member and the hon. member for Sea Point may run away from the problems in their constituencies …

Read my amendment.

… but if the local authority fails in its duty and if the hon. members fail to do their duty as members, I am afraid that this side of the House will have to do their duty for them.

You have not done it in 30 years, my friend.

We will not run away from the problems of Sea Point nor are we in any sense attempting to go on a witch-hunt of people of colour. The hon. member for Cape Town Gardens, who motivated his motion so brilliantly today, very clearly sketched the position, which has nothing at all to do with the racial situation. Having said that I think it is important that we should recognize that we have a duty to protect and defend employees, who are often people of colour, and to provide decent standards for them.

In 30 years of government you have been unable to do so.

We have that responsibility. One cannot evade the responsibility, one cannot run away from it.

Why have you done nothing about it so far?

I know that many of the nabobs of the beachfront, who are often supporters of the PFP, run around in circles, wring their hands and mouth all the ideals those gentlemen mouth while in the backyards of their flats there are crowded quarters and conditions that are unsatisfactory, unsavoury, unhygienic and dangerous both to the inhabitants of those quarters and to all the residents of Sea Point. We have a duty to protect the law-abiding inhabitants of Sea Point. It is easy for the hon. gentleman opposite to talk, but has he ever tried to run the gauntlet of those dark back alleys at night as the bona fide employees in Sea Point have to do? Has he seen what fungal growths grow in the shadows of those dark alleys? Let me tell hon. members what the norm is that is applied by the landlords in Sea Point. It can be put as follows: You come and stay in my room free of charge and work for me one or two days per week and for the rest of the time I shall turn a blind eye; you can sublet the room to two, four, six or eight of your friends and I shall turn a blind eye.

Can you prove what you have just said?

Yes, I can.

Well, prove it then.

Sir, the days of slavery are dead. William Wilberforce would turn in his grave if he had to listen to the arguments raised by the hon. members opposite. The pattern prevailing in Sea Point is a classic pattern. It is nothing new. In my constituency—Maitland—the pendulum has swung its full cycle. There one can see the result of what is beginning to happen in Sea Point today. The community and its quality of life are subject to an enormous assault, with the result that often the frail, sensitive, weak and fearful elements give way before the hostile elements in society. What happens?

One is confronted with falling standards of health, rising crime rates, decreasing rate structures and falling values. In an area with the density and population of Sea Point this process will be unstoppable if it gains momentum. We have a duty to do what we have to do now, because the momentum and vicious syndrome of crime perpetrated by the elements hostile to decent society, will become unstoppable unless it is nipped in the bud now. If we do not nip it in the bud now, we shall not be able to act easily in the future.

I do not want to say very much more about vagrancy and drunkenness which have been so clearly and well put into perspective by the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens, but I do want to say that action will have to be taken—I know the commission will also say that in its findings—to shift the onus firmly onto the shoulders of those landlords who, either through benign neglect or through outright exploitation, are taking advantage of helpless people. He says that the people of Manenberg cannot speak for themselves and that therefore the problems of Sea Point are more high-lighted, but the same is true of the backyards and backstreets of Sea Point. When Black assaults Black in the dark hours of the night and when an illegitimate vagrant assaults a decent legitimate worker, it also does not hit the headlines, often because that legitimate, decent and law-abiding employee in Sea Point is scared of the fearful consequences of making known the assault upon him. Often these people cower in their rooms for fear of the elements that gather around them.

You are very dramatic, but make a suggestion.

I will make some suggestions. I agree with the hon. member for Green Point—the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens certainly put this very graphically—that we have to look at the deep underlying problems of Sea Point. Action by the police, by local government, provincial government and the central Government is necessary. Police action alone will only be a palliative. In the long-term police action cannot solve the great problems of Sea Point.

Fundamentally, what has happened to the decayed and decaying areas adjoining Sea Point, namely parts of Green Point, the constituencies Groote Schuur, Maitland and Gardens, and in parts of Sea Point, is that the internal combustion engine, as a result of cheap fuel over the past 50 years, drew the people out from these areas along the great freeways that were built into suburban, periurban and dormitory towns. That very revolution brought about by the internal combustion engine is now creating an enormous back-lash due to the increase in the cost of fuel. Society is going to have to rearrange and re-evaluate its objectives, also in respect of the manner in which we live and where we live. I would say that the department, through the lifting of rent control, through the new sub-divisional norms which have been encouraged and promulgated, including the Sectional Titles Act, has already created important weapons for action which can lead to the upliftment of these depressed areas. Today people talk about cluster housing and group housing as if they were new concepts, but they are not new concepts. Just about the whole of Woodstock, much of Green Point, much of the Gardens and most of Maitland consist of group housing and cluster housing schemes. We hear appeals, also from the hon. the Minister and his department—and quite rightly—that people must live on smaller erven and that there must be shared services so that we can live more economically, but then the areas to which I allude are on smaller erven and they do have shared services. Over and above that, they already have schools, shopping precincts, hospitals nearby and the whole intricate infrastructure of society. It is cheaper to establish a housing unit in a peri-urban area than providing that same accommodation in the centre of these decayed areas of Cape Town, and if one adds to that the cost of freeways, railways and the whole infrastructure that must be provided, not to speak of the enormous consequences in terms of the consumption of fossil fuels which is forced upon the community, then one sees that these areas should be subjected to a long and hard look because I believe that in the upliftment of these urban areas which have been wounded and have great scars upon them, lies a great part of the solution to the problems which we had heard discussed today and which are symptoms of a wounded society.

We have seen enormous, dramatic and very effective urban renewal projects undertaken by the Department of Community Development By merely quoting the example of Epping, we can see how a whole town has been uplifted by means of large-scale urban renewal. I hope and pray and trust that we shall very soon see the same in my constituency, and in this instance I refer to the Good Hope model village, the upliftment of which is planned by means of a large-scale restoration programme.

When looking at the areas which we are discussing today, I believe that private enterprise must also play its role, and it must play its role by not discriminating against these properties and these areas. Many building societies will not pass bonds on properties that are held under sectional title. They discriminate against them. There are many building societies which will not, as a general rule, pass bonds on attached or semi-attached properties in the traditional sense. There are building societies that will not pass bonds on properties that are in depressed areas, because they regard this as a bad investment I believe that the building society movement should be encouraged, or it should be made possible for them, to pass bonds on properties that are now moving into individual ownership because of the new sub-divisional mechanisms which have come into being over the last few years. I would also like to appeal to the hon. the Minister of Finance through the hon. the Minister of Community Development that low rate of interest bonds be made available, bonds which are presently available through the local authority for the upliftment of this kind of property, of interest, because the returns and the potential, at least in the beginning, for these properties are lower.

We should consider subsidizing rates of interest where properties of this kind are being restored or renovated, or where properties are being built on an in-fill basis in those areas. Up to 40% of the buildings in these areas to which I have referred are either in a state of decay or no longer exist because they have been bulldozed.

In the remaining few minutes still at my disposal I should like to say that the architectural and environmental consequences of the restoration of these large Victorian precincts will also be of great benefit to a city such as Cape Town.

The last thing I want to say relates to what the hon. member for Green Point said and what the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens also referred to, i.e. the question of vagrancy. I do not believe that his approach to help under-privileged people is the answer. I believe that the proposed commission will have to investigate the whole question of vagrancy and the rehabilitation of vagrants. In that regard I should like to say that in the CRC the Coloured leaders themselves have expressed great concern about the fact of vagrancy and have made many recommendations for the rehabilitation of vagrants.

With these few words I wish to support the motion of the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens, a motion that he put very brilliantly. I cannot accept the amendment to the motion which was moved by the hon. member for Green Point.

Mr. Speaker, in a debate of this nature which, to my mind, is a politically inspired debate despite what the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens said in his introductory remarks, I think one should bear it in mind that when one is discussing the social conditions—those are the crunch words in the motion before us—one should not merely discuss them as they are today, but should look back at the past 30 years to see how those social conditions have developed during that period. One should look at the structure of society that has enabled these deplorable conditions to develop. We must look at a Government that has failed to create facilities in all the areas, a situation which enables the Coloureds to pour into areas like Green Point and Sea Point, a fact which seems to be one of the problems in the mind of the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens. One must realize that the Government is responsible for the fact that we have a shortage in the Police Force, with the result that the police is unable to cope with the volume of problems in those and other areas. We must remember that it is the Government that is responsible for the lack of transport facilities, a fact which causes many of the Coloureds who find themselves in that area to stay there overnight, because they cannot get back to the places where they live. In many of these fields the unsatisfactory situation was caused by faults made by Ministers of the Government. It is not a situation which has arisen overnight, but has steadily worsened over the last 30 years of Nationalist rule. I believe that the Government should be looking very hard at the results of their policies with regard to the whole structure and fabric of life in South Africa today. The quality of the life we lead is the result of the policies of the Government over the last 30 years. I almost regard it as hypocrisy to bring a motion like this before the House, as the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens has done.

You do not know the country’s history.

I do not want to become involved …

Order! Does the hon. member imply that the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens is a hypocrite?

No, Sir. My words were that I almost regarded it as hypocrisy that a motion like this should be before the House in the light of the circumstances. In no way do I wish to accuse the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens of being a hypocrite. I want to make that quite clear.

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

I do not wish to become involved in a discussion about one constituency being worse than the other, a discussion that can rage across the floor of the House for hours. I believe that we should rather be looking at the basic fundamental causes of those unsatisfactory social conditions. I think it goes far deeper than any of the reasons that have been advanced by anyone who has spoken in the debate up to now. If one looks at the history of the country, one finds that it is a young country that has developed tremendously quickly. We have achievements of which we can be enormously proud …

Of course, and that is the work of the NP!

All South Africans are proud of the achievements in this country, its growth and its progress in so many fields, in many of which we are in the forefront. Let not the Nationalists say that they have achieved those achievements, because very many of the foremost people are very strong opponents of NP policy, but have nevertheless managed these achievements. [Interjections.] Let us get beyond that point and say that this rapid growth and development has meant that we in South Africa have become rash and that we as a nation have become perhaps a little arrogant. We have tended to think that everything we do is right and that everything everybody else does, is wrong. I believe that what has been happening, can be seen as a crumbling of the social structure of the country. I believe that we as a nation are in danger of losing our way, that we no longer have a clear goal for the future, and because of this the whole structure of society around us is in danger of collapsing. We can see the result of this in the statistics mentioned by hon. members who have spoken in this debate. I think we should be looking very hard at this. We should be looking at the reasons why South Africa has probably the highest divorce rate in the world, a high suicide rate, very high rates of drug addiction—addiction to all the types of drugs—the high rate of alcoholism, pensioners living on a pittance, children growing up in concrete jungles, unsatisfactory social conditions right through the structure of the society in which we live. I believe that what is needed is a change of attitude, a basic change of attitude in the minds, not only of the Government, but of all of us. We here are the elected leaders of the country, and ultimately that lead must come from us. If the standards of a country are dropping it reflects badly on the elected leaders, the representatives here in this House.

I am one of those idealists who believe that there is something good in everybody. I believe that the system that we build should be aimed at bringing out the best in people, and nourishing it and encouraging it to grow and bring forth fruit for a better tomorrow. I am not alone in this. People will say it is an ideal which can never be achieved. I believe that one has to have some idealists who will look ahead and see how and where one can improve the structure. I believe some of the best entertainers of our times have, in their whimsical way through the music they have made famous, indicated that they also would like to see a better world. Surely, that is our goal. That is what we are working for. Bing Crosby sang about dreaming of a white Christmas. The Seekers sang whimsically of a world of their own, and the incomparable Roger Whittaker talks about a new world in the morning. I believe that these are the things we should be talking about Concrete ideas …

You are an idealist.

Of course, I am an idealist I am a dreamer. This country needs some dreamers, people with a vision. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I am accused of being an idealist I believe John Kennedy put it very well when he said—

It is high time that someone here in this country looks at tomorrow and say: “Why not South Africa?” I believe we should be exercising our minds in this direction. I believe things like this grow from an idea. People exchange thoughts. Like minds think alike. One drops a pebble in a pool and the ripples spread to the furthest perimeters of that pool. I believe that is what we need in South Africa today. We need new thoughts, new visions, new leadership, some compassion in our society. I believe it has to start right here.

What are the things that happen today? A new car is more important than an old friendship. A fancy house …

Order! The hon. member must come back to the wording of the motion.

Mr. Speaker, I believe this is the heart of the whole motion. I also believe I have made out a reasonable case for showing that this is what is at the heart of the whole problem. Not only is a new car valued higher than an old friendship, but a fancy house is sometimes more important than a reputation for integrity in business. R30 million on a newspaper is regarded as more important than 10 000 homes for homeless people. What I want to say is that I would like to see a change of mental attitude amongst the leaders of this country. I would like to see us getting back to some of the values that meant something to the people who built this country to where it stands today, so that the traditional values, the good things, the honesty and the loyalty that really meant something, can be built on for a better South Africa tomorrow. It is about time this country walks tall with the NRP.

Mr. Speaker, I am amazed at the hon. member for Green Point. I am amazed at the attitude the Opposition has adopted in this debate. Having begun the debate with the best of intentions and having said, too, that we do not want to make political capital out of it, but that we want to discuss the serious social evils, hon. members opposite saw fit to attack the Government by saying “It is a Nationalist problem.” They also saw fit to say that it was due to the policy of apartheid. The hon. member for Green Point saw fit to say that it was because they were not in control of the Government departments that these things took place. I do not wish to make political capital out of this. However, owing to the unexpected trend in this debate I consulted last week’s Hansard— Friday’s debate in particular, and in the light of that I am now going to say something which initially I did not wish to say. One of the major causes of the influx and overcrowding of White, Brown and Black is to be found in statements made by those parties, through which people are incited to break the laws of the land. I shall now quote a few questions which I put to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in this House last Friday. His replies constitute the clearest evidence of the causes of the problems in Sea Point. In column 849 of last Friday’s Hansard I asked the hon. member whether he was prepared to throw open the entire Sea Point as an open residential area for White, Brown and Black. His reply was: “Yes, including the whole of South Africa.” When I asked the hon. member whether he was prepared to throw open without restrictions, facilities including the swimming bath, beaches and parks, his reply was: “Yes, of course.” I also asked the hon. member whether he was prepared to throw open to all population groups without discrimination, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, sports clubs, public baths and dancing halls, and his reply was: “Yes.” When I asked the hon. member whether he was prepared to ignore the colour bar and permit people to court, marry, do what they like, live together and have children that would go to school there without restriction, the reply, by way of an interjection from the ranks of tire Opposition, was: “Yes, of course.” I also asked the hon. member whether, in the light of the present social evils in Sea Point, he was prepared to allow an uncontrolled Black influx into this area. He has not yet replied to me, because he is afraid of confrontation with his voters.

I want to come back to the hon. member for Green Point He saw fit to state here that the crime rate in Sea Point is in fact lower than elsewhere. I want to make the statement that the hon. member does not know what is going on in his own constituency. Due to the social evils, the crime rate is not only higher there, but is increasing very rapidly.

Look at the figures.

What are the figures?

The hon. member for Bryanston wants the figures, and I shall give them to him. I shall begin with simple drunkenness. In the 12 months up to 31 July 1977 there were 2 900 cases, and in the subsequent 12 months up to and including July 1978 the number rose to 3 900, an increase of 1 000 within a year, an increase of 35%. The Police say that they cannot handle all the cases of drunkenness and cannot even lock them all up.

As far as lesser crimes are concerned, the statistics are as follows: During January 1978 the figure was 489. A year later there were 634 cases in the corresponding month. This represents an increase of more than 30%. The police launched an intensive campaign against lesser crimes during the four days from 3 to 7 April 1978. They arrested 259 people, viz. an average of 65 per day. If one were to project this over a month this would amount to 2 000. Where does it end?

As far as more serious crimes are concerned, crimes including burglary, rape and murder, there were 214 cases in January 1978. During the corresponding month, a year later, there were 232 cases, viz. 18 more.

The most important reason for our introducing this motion today is that we do not want this good Opposition of ours wiped out entirely, because where would we get another one? If they disappear, we shall have to advertise for an Opposition in this country, and we cannot afford to do so. That is why this side of the House is stepping in to save the Opposition in its own constituency, where it is unable to save itself.

Analysing the type of crime committed in Sea Point, one encounters two clear trends. Firstly, the lesser crimes of today are the serious crimes of tomorrow, because the offender loafs around, keeping his eyes open for a place where he can pounce and commit a serious crime. Then he is charged for a lesser crime. The second clear trend in the case of serious crimes is that the serious crimes are in virtually all cases committed by the person, the infiltrator, who enters Sea Point, stays there for some time, sleeps there, commits his serious crime, and then leaves, to return later. These are two specific characteristics attaching to the crimes in Sea Point.

Can these evils and these increasing crimes be tolerated further in Sea Point? I ask whether the time has not come to take a very serious look at this matter. There is a clear impression that the PFP is wary of acting because they do not want to take unpopular action for the sake of law and order. Therefore the Government has to come and haul the chestnuts out of the fire so that the hon. members of the Opposition can batten on the fat of the land in Sea Point and flourish in the sunshine.

Because it is so much more important— and here I differ with the hon. member for Sea Point—that crime should not be combated purely by the presence of the Police but that it should be prevented, I ask in all sincerity whether the time has not come for us to say that ten to twelve off-sales liquor outlets for non-Whites are unnecessary within a coastal region of a few kilometres where there is no zoned residential area for Brown or Black people? If one looks at the 8 800 Brown and Black people who are lawfully in Sea Point, one sees that the majority of them are women. Why do they need ten liquor outlets? It is so that Brown and Black purchasers of liquor come from elsewhere to make their liquor purchases in the fresh sea air of Sea Point Can we continue to tolerate this?

I have tried to find out what action has been taken in the political sphere. I have traced a letter which appeared in The Cape Times of 5 July 1978. In this letter, a Mrs. Margaret A. Laidlaw complains about the ridiculousness of a so-called protest meeting held to register protests at the problems experienced in Sea Point. According to the letter, Mr. Sam Gross, the former MPC for Green Point, said the following at that meeting—

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition must tell the House whether he looks after the liquor interests in Sea Point or whether he looks after the social security interests of his voters in the constituency which he represents.

Why don’t you go and talk to the Coloured Development Corporation?

Crime apart, I say that it is also necessary for an effective investigation to be instituted into the urgent necessity of preventing a further influx of Blacks into Sea Point. I could mention Muizenberg as the clearest example of such an influx. Twenty-five years ago there were 12 licensed hotels in Muizenberg; today there are only two hotels. There were approximately 40 private hotels, and today they are old-age homes. The people moved out of Muizenberg because of the influx of Blacks into Muizenberg, and they went to Sea Point, where we now have a repetition of the situation. Has the time not come for us to take urgent steps to combat this problem?

Hon. members on the other side of the House spoke in apologetic terms about the small servants’ rooms and argued that servants were in fact innocent I have traced a booklet entitled Domestic Servants written by Michael G. Whisson and William Weil. This book was distributed by an organization in which the hon. members of the Opposition have a great deal of confidence, namely the S.A. Institute of Race Relations. The authors carried out an investigation into the social conditions obtaining amongst servants in Goodwood, Bishopscourt and Sea Point. They found that apart from the fact that the servants in Sea Point work the shortest hours, have the longest holidays and the biggest increases, and that they remain in service there for the longest periods, termination of service due to pregnancy is far higher in Sea Point than in the other places. The percentage was 18% for Sea Point as against 8% for Goodwood. What do these percentages point to?

They point to a high percentage of sexual intercourse. Moreover, if one speaks to the police, they tell one that more than 90% of the servants in Sea Point have people sleeping with them on a permanent basis. That is why there are 10 000 or more illegal Brown and Black inhabitants of Sea Point.

If one takes a further look at this authoritative inquiry one finds that it occurs more frequently in Sea Point that the services of servants are terminated as a result of pass offences. One also finds that termination of employment without provision of reasons occurs on a far wider scale in Sea Point than in all the other places. This therefore points to irresponsibility and a lack of discipline among the servants. That is the situation there. We are confronted with the fact that servants’ rooms are used or misused to accommodate people unlawfully. Looking at the statistics, one finds that although only 15% of the population of Sea Point are non-Whites, 66⅔% of all the passengers in the buses are non-Whites. What does this indicate? It indicates only one thing very clearly, and that is that the Black and Brown permanent inhabitants of Sea Point leave their dwelling places on the coast by bus every morning to go and work elsewhere. This points to serious social malpractices occurring there. This is a matter which must be investigated urgently. Unfortunately I gain the impression throughout that the inhabitants of Sea Point have been so indoctrinated that a number of them play ball, in the sense that they turn a blind eye to the unlawful occupation of servants’ rooms by families. This of course is something that must be eradicated root and branch. The community must be disciplined. Moreover, I always gain the impression that there is encouragement for people who break the laws of the land, and even to encourage this monstrosity. Now this Government is saddled with the problem. That side of the House states that it is this Government that does not establish facilities and that is the reason why these circumstances have occurred. However, what action has been taken by that side, apart from action in a few individual cases?

I now want to level a serious charge against the city council of Cape Town. These problems are problems which are better handled by a city council, a lower level of government, than by a higher level of government. However, it is very clear to me that the city council of Cape Town refuses to place an effective regulation on the Statute Book. Do hon. members know what regulation exists to attempt to prevent illegal residence? It is regulation 38(1) and (2) provincial notice No. 905 of 1973 which falls under building regulations. And what does that regulation provide? The regulation provides the following—

However, the courts have difficulties with the interpretation with the word “gebruik” because sleeping is not regarded as “gebruik”. Apparently if one sleeps one cannot “gebruik” a thing. I just want to quote one example. In November last year the police tried to prosecute in 80 cases of people sleeping there unlawfully. They were unable to succeed in doing so because the cases were rejected by the court.

The taypayers’ association of Sea Point then decided that if their representatives could do nothing, they would have to do something. In consultation with lawyers they drew up a draft regulation in order to establish an effective regulation. They submitted it to the city council and requested that the city council please to give them legislation with teeth. They asked the city council to give them a regulation which they could implement. According to my information, that regulation was rejected by 16 votes to 14. My submission, therefore, is that the city council of Cape Town is not prepared to co-operate to provide an effective regulation with teeth. I also submit that the city council of Cape Town is trying to create the impression that it takes action, whereas it knows that it is not taking action because it does not want to take action.

According to newspaper reports the city council wanted to render a service by making liquor and recreation halls available, but due to rebellion within its own ranks and among the voters, they had to drop that attempt. It is crystal clear to me that the PFP, the city council and others are quite prepared not only to tolerate, but even to aggravate a situation of chaos. With this record of theirs, they now come up with an amendment to the motion and suddenly take an interest in the security of the voters and wish to institute an investigation into the causes of the unsatisfactory social conditions, and all this after the Government has taken the initiative into its own hands. According to the PFP the ideal solution is, of course, that the disorderliness of the situation should increase so that the Government and the Minister of Justice may be blamed. That is why it is important to us that at this critical stage, while the MPCs and MPs concerned are unable and unwilling to do their job, and while the city council is not providing effective regulations, the Government should step in to ensure the security of the people beyond all doubt and to ensure that there is decent and orderly occupation. In order to protect the 9 000 to 10 000 PFP voters, good people, in those constituencies, and in the interests of the approximately 6 000 to 7 000 Nationalists whom the Progs have to tolerate, I want to request the hon. the Minister, in the interests of Sea Point and the surrounding areas, in the interests of order and security, to appoint this commission as a matter of urgency.

Mr. Speaker, we have listened to the contributions of three hon. members on the Government side. They were different in style and contradictory in some of their arguments. The hon. member for Cape Town Gardens, who introduced the motion, went to some lengths to define the problem of the Green Point, Sea Point area under seven heads. He ended up by saying that, although he could define the problem, he did not have a solution for it. The hon. member for Maitland also said he did not have a solution, but he was also unable to define the problem in spite of what the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens had said. Then the hon. member for Durbanville produced as his definition of the problem “die antwoorde wat die Leier van die Opposisie verlede Vrydag hier in die Raad aan my gegee het”. So, Sir, one really wonders what this is all about.

You wonder!

Perhaps it has something to do with the political conscience of the NP Government who have seen conditions deteriorating in the Cape Peninsula over the past 30 years. While there may be implied criticisms directed at public officers and public officials at various levels of Government there can be no doubt that the situation in the Cape Peninsula has evolved over 30 years under the impact of the policies and the administration of the NP Government. Criticism of individuals there may be, but this motion is in fact an indictment of the NP Government.

I want to try to deal with this matter as objectively as I can in the light of the circumstances and especially in the light of the provocative racial and political arguments put forward by the hon. member for Durbanville. This problem affects Sea Point Green Point the Gardens and other areas. Incidentally, lest the hon. ex-Senator who is now the MP for Cape Town Gardens feel that he is a forgotten man, I should inform him that I have had a number of telephone calls from people in the Gardens who, reading that he was moving a motion in respect of Sea Point, said: “Get this man to come and sweep in his own backyard and not go into yours”. I am not complaining. He did at least talk of “Sea Point, Green Point and environs”. He tried to expand the scope of the analysis and the identification of the problem. I intend doing so too. I want to try to put this in its perspective and I shall conclude with a series of specific concrete proposals for the attention of the Minister.

First of all, the problems are there. But let us be very, very frank: Viewed either quantitatively or qualitatively, the problems of Sea Point are relatively small compared with the problems of Bonteheuwel, Manenberg, Hanover Park and Guguletu. When one is concerned, as the hon. member said, not with race but with order, with communities, one should in fact also be concerned with the conditions that exist in those areas.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question?

I do not have the time to answer questions. The problems of Sea Point, Green Point, the Gardens, the city centre and other built-up areas of the Peninsula are an overspill of the problems of the townships around the built-up areas of the Peninsula. They are an overspill of the problems encountered elsewhere. Having said this, let me also say that to the people in Sea Point the problems are real. They are entitled to live in safety and to feel secure in the suburb they have made their home. All citizens are entitled to expect that a reasonable standard of behaviour be maintained.

The situation in Sea Point and Green Point is of importance, not only because it is the visible interface between people of different communities and of different socio-economic backgrounds, people who have been sucked together under the impact of urbanization, but also because it points to the fundamental, social and economic problems that exist in the wider Cape Peninsula community.

Earlier on I referred to the problems encountered in these areas concerned and said that they were the overspill of the problems of the townships. I want to look at this further. If there is violence, crime, frustration, alcoholism, anti-social behaviour, unemployment, overcrowding, squatting, broken families and disrupted communities on the Cape Flats, the echo of that situation is heard in the streets, alleys and backyards of Green Point, Sea Point, Gardens and elsewhere in the Cape Peninsula. It is a situation which we have to bear in mind. If we are going to do any forward planning, we have to regard the Cape Peninsula as a single, integrated, regional unit, and if we are going to examine and attempt to deal with the problems of any one area, we shall have to examine and deal with the problems of the region as a whole.

You believe in an open society.

Yes, I do. I shall come to that Secondly, this motion referred to social conditions. To the extent that there are problems in the areas mentioned, I believe that they are essentially socio-economic in nature. While the hon. member for Durbanville does not agree, the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens at least does. At this moment of time or in the future we shall fail to come to grips with the problem if we regard these socio-economic problems primarily in terms of race or colour. It is true that they may have racial overtones. They are certainly complicated by racial prejudices and attitudes. Undoubtedly they have been aggravated for years by the discrimination against people on the grounds of their race. But, nevertheless, at this moment they are essentially problems of a socio-economic nature. We of the PFP believe that the socio-economic problems can best be resolved in an open society. We believe that in an open society one has the best opportunity and prospect of solving one’s socio-economic problems. Hon. members on that side of the House might disagree, but nevertheless this disagreement as to whether it should be within the framework of an open society or a racist society, should not affect the analysis I am going to make or the recommendations I want to put to the hon. the Minister. I must say again that if we are going to do any medium- or long-term planning, we should assume that in due course—in a relatively short space of time—the Cape Peninsula is going to become an open society. I believe it is going to move in that direction. I believe that if the Government’s new constitutional proposals are accepted by the Coloured people, they are going to be accepted on the basis that this is going to move us to an open society in the Cape Peninsula. Therefore, if we are going to plan for the future, I believe that this House and the Government would be wise to assume that in a relatively short time the apartheid barriers in the Cape Peninsula will be brought down.

Let me identify some of the problems in order to put forward some proposals. Sea Point is, as the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens has indicated, still a fine residential area. I believe that it is the finest high density residential area not only in South Africa, but in the world.

Except for Yeoville.

The hon. member for Yeoville says: “Except for Yeoville,” but after hearing harrowing stories told by him about the problems in that area, I do not know. Sea Point has an equitable climate, effective transportation, excellent shopping and eating facilities, easy access to amenities for both urban and outdoor living and an extensive community infrastructure. These attractions, which are natural and special to Sea Point, accounts for its popularity, its growth and some of its social problems.

I want to put forward what I believe are the four key areas in which these problems have arisen. First of all it is a high-density residential area. It has grown fast, it is close to town, there is easy transport in and out of that area and, I believe, it suffers from the problems which arise in high-density residential areas—the problems of overcrowding, noise, traffic and parking and of refuse, sanitation and other services. These are very many of the problems—I am not even mentioning the problems of the loiterers and the drunks—that create a situation of social tension in the Sea Point community.

Secondly, the area has been blessed—or cursed—with a town plan which was both bad and short-sighted. There is no effective separation between the various forms of land usage, especially between the residential and commercial usages. In that sense the Sea Point town planning is a shambles. There exists there a high-density commercial zone which is active until late in the night and runs like a ribbon right through the prime residential area. Take, for instance, the end of Sea Point at Regent Road. There are cafes, shops, a furniture mart operating at night, a bus terminus, an off-course tote and two hotels with bottle stores which function at ground level, and three metres above this people and families are trying to live a normal family life in flats and apartments. Added to this, the permanent residents, many of whom are elderly people—and in fact in the main area of Sea Point between 25% and 30% of the people are retired ladies and gentlemen so there is a high proportion of elderly people living there—have, during the holiday season, to share the facilities with thousands of people who come from all over the country to have fun and enjoy their holidays. Added to that there are the extra thousands of people who descend on the limited facilities on the few public holidays at the height of the season. Once again, this creates social tension between the residents and the out-of-towners.

Thirdly, in this town planning field, Sea Point has been allowed to change, from a single unit residential area to a high-density flatland and commercial centre, without any proper consideration having been given to the impact this would have on the growing numbers of people who would be required to provide the domestic and menial services. Hence so-called servants’ rooms have been attached to huge blocks of flats without any provision having been made for the leisure-time activities of the people living in them, without any thought having been given to a community life for that class of people and without any adequate provision having been made for the effective control over the use to which those particular premises have been put.

In the fourth instance I wish to refer to the impact of the application of the Group Areas Act. Whatever the intention of the people who applied that Act might have been, I believe that it is that Act that has added materially to the social problems of the Atlantic seaboard area. The simple fact is that with the application of that Act, over a period of many years, the community bases of the working class people who serve the Atlantic seaboard area have systematically been destroyed, the bases being pushed further and further away from the Atlantic seaboard area to a point which, for all practical purposes, is beyond the daily reach of the people who live and work in Sea Point and Green Point. That is the reality of the situation.

There was once a community living in Tramway Road in Sea Point, there was an established community living in York Road, there were communities living in the harbour area, in Loader Street and in the areas of Signal Hill and District Six. Here were communities of working-class people, with the workers who serviced the flats, the houses, the garages and the shops by day being able to return to a community base and enjoy a community life. However, the application of the Group Areas Act has caused these people to be stranded at some distance from their families, to be cut off from their communities without the prospect of any community life of their own and to find themselves sharing the same living space with the employer-class of person.

This has once again led to social tension which, at times, has had racial overtones although it is essentially a socio-economic problem. Into these unnatural circumstances, in which these people have had to live, has come a flow of friends, families and contacts which has led to crowded servants’ rooms and backyards. It has led to street life instead of home life and to a social degeneration. Added to that there have been the vagrants, the ne’er-do-wells and the layabouts. This has eventually reached the point where the standard of servants—if I may use the word in the general phrase—in Sea Point has deteriorated because many people would prefer not to live in these social conditions. They would prefer to go to a community base of their own. The incidence of serious crime in Sea Point, compared with that in other residential suburbs or in the townships, is not high. It is a matter of concern for the people there, but it must be admitted that the incidence of petty crime, of loitering, of prostitution, of pilfering, of drunkenness …

You apply strange standards.

That is the standard of the crime. We ask for the crime figures each year for serious crimes and not so serious crimes. The incidence of trespassing is high, and the level of anti-social behaviour visible in the streets at certain times of the day and night, is to my way of thinking, unacceptable. The law-abiding residents and other people, whether they are Black, White or Brown, deserve better.

Much has been done or attempted by local people. The Green Point and Sea Point Ratepayers’ Association tries to act as a vigilant body looking after this situation. The churches and the religious bodies have each tried to make their contribution towards improving the quality of life of the domestic employees of that area. The fact is, as the hon. the Minister might know, that the largest religious congregation, the Sea Point and Green Point Hebrew congregation, recently applied to get a permit to use the Weizmann Hall for multiracial functions. The application for this permit was, however, turned down, but at least it was an attempt by this important community to try to make facilities, which they have built, available to other people and not just their own community. Organizations such as Lions, Rotary and the Round Table have all contributed in this respect. The following are examples of what has been done: There is the night-shelter for vagrants, the police reservists, 47 Sea Point inhabitants volunteering, raising almost R5 000 to get intercom systems going, etc. The PFP, under the supervision of Mr. Hirsch and myself, run a full-time advice office. We are inundated with people who come along seeking advice and assistance, and we channel them through to the various departments to try to help them. The PFP committee for social action has also examined the situation and brought some of the problems to the attention of the various authorities concerned. I do not believe that a commission of inquiry, such as the one envisaged by the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens, is required at all. What has happened in the case of Sea Point, in fact, is that there have been far too many investigations and not enough action. There have been environmental studies by the Jaycees and studies on the position of domestic servants by UCT. The city council has also conducted innumerable surveys. There have been surveys by the action committee for crime and vagrancy in the peninsula, a vagrancy study by Nicro and a victims of violence study by the Jaycees. More recently there has been the committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Fouché. What is required in this respect, however, is concerted action at all levels of government, bearing in mind not only the socio-economic problems that are manifesting themselves today, but also the fact that the population of greater Cape Town will be nearly double in 20 years’ time, having reached by then a figure of 2 million people. So I think we have to see this as a regional problem, with Sea Point as the visible evidence of the problems manifesting themselves elsewhere in our society as well.

I will now make some proposals, both regional and local, of which some are remedial and others preventative. I believe that right at the top of the list—and this is the Government’s responsibility—is the upgrading, on a massive scale, of the quality of life in the Black and Brown townships in the Peninsula. This involves housing, the granting of job opportunities, family and community life, services and facilities and a whole socio-economic upliftment. It also involves seeing that these people experience the reality of having an equal opportunity of being full citizens in all these fields. That is priority No. 1, because until one has had that socio-economic upliftment, the basic problems of the Peninsula cannot be solved.

In the second place I believe that there should be the development of a community base either in, or easily accessible to, the Atlantic seaboard, where those people who make up the working class, the service personnel, can enjoy a normal family and community life. The Government has destroyed the community bases of the people working there. I believe nothing was worse than the destruction of District 6—in which it destroyed the biggest community base to the people working on the Atlantic seaboard and in the central city area. Thirdly, I believe there should be a re-examination of the townplanning scheme for Sea Point with a view to ensuring greater separation of commercial and residential usages in the future. Fourthly, I believe there has to be more adequate police protection of the public against crime. I am not dealing with race laws; I am dealing with crime. I view it as a disgrace that the conditions of service in the S.A. Police should have been permitted to deteriorate in the way they have. Policemen should be paid more. There should be improved conditions of service. Their numbers should be increased and the foot patrol as the only means of dealing with anti-social behaviour in the streets, should be reintroduced on a far greater scale.

Fifthly, I believe there should be more effective enforcement of municipal by-laws and regulations by municipalities themselves. I see no point in Cape Town City Council having municipal by-laws, health regulations, building regulations, and then doing nothing to enforce them. I believe that is the responsibility of the local authority. In the sixth instance I believe there should be better supervision by the owners of flats themselves over the so-called servants’ quarters belonging to those flats. It should be the responsibility of the owner who has acquired that flat in terms of certain town planning and building and health regulations to see to it that that accommodation is used in a proper way and for the purpose for which it was intended. Seventhly, there should be an alteration to the municipal regulations to require that blocks of flats provide accommodation where employees and their friends can enjoy social intercourse in congenial conditions. I believe that every block of flats where a significant number of domestic servants are employed, should also provide a living room, a sitting room or a community room where people can enjoy the normal social intercourse they are entitled to.

Ninthly, provision should be made for night shelters for vagrants. One such night shelter, The Haven in Green Point, has already been provided, but added to that, there should be rehabilitation centres for the down and out and for habitual vagrants. At present these are not available, with the consequence that the vagrant, the man who is really down and out and who cannot stand up to the strains and problems of city life, has no way of rehabilitation.

Finally, we need to draw up and implement a master plan to ensure that there are adequate amenities to meet the needs of the Cape Peninsula community as a whole. A gross imbalance has developed in the quantity, the quality and the distribution of amenities over the last few years, an imbalance which is going to be even worse when one considers that a million people will be living on the Cape Flats in 10 years time. The imbalance that there is at the moment has to be eliminated. In this field the first action should be a dramatic upgrading of amenities within the various community areas, upgrading of amenities within each of the community areas of the Cape Peninsula. Furthermore, what is needed is the construction of strategically located amenities, which can be used by people from a number of residential areas. Added to that, there should be the provision of adequate and inexpensive transportation to enable residents to make use of these suitably located amenities.

I think it was the hon. member for Gardens—perhaps it was the hon. member for Maitland—who indicated that Sea Point and the Atlantic seaboard has limited beach accommodation. It is already becoming crowded. The City Council is doing work in the Maidens Cove area to try to provide more accommodation. Nevertheless, in the summer season it is under pressure. I believe that Sea Point and environment can absorb the people from the centre of town through to Maitland and places like that, whether they be Black or White or Brown. They can be absorbed there without undue overcrowding. However, what are we going to do with 1 million people on the Cape Flats in five to 10 years time? I believe there should be an imaginative new approach towards really first class holiday resorts in the Mitchell’s Plain area along the False Bay coast. By this I do not mean the opening up of a small stretch of beach, but the spending of millions of rand on a promenade, on swimming poos, restaurants, cinemas and amusement arcades, as well as providing a train service to take people directly there.

Nonsense, they need simple facilities not luxuries.

Of course, they do want it.

All beach users only need essential basic facilities.

This is a difference of opinion. I would say that a million people in that area will want fairly sophisticated, promenade-type beach facilities, and I believe that this should be provided. I believe that on the Sea Point side there should be an investigation of the use that could be made of the old Green Point track. This might well provide a community base or another community centre for the working-class people of the Atlantic seaboard.

The proposals that I have put to the hon. the Minister are, I believe, based on sound socio-economic and regional planning concepts. Of necessity they have to be relevant to the situation that obtains today; but I am afraid they will have to take into account the obstacles which the Government’s overall policy places in the way of sound regional planning and the healthy, natural growth of the community in the Cape Peninsula.

I believe that positive proposals like this will also be helpful in the situation that is going to arise, a situation that we in the official Opposition want to arise—and I believe that the Government is going to be compelled to accept it—and that is that the apartheid barriers in the Cape Peninsula are going to come down. We are going to become an open society. What we do not want then, however, is that the Government has done no forward planning and has not seen to it that there is the correct number of facilities and amenities available. The beaches are going to be open to all race groups within the next few years. In fact, they are starting already. Let us therefore see to it that there are sufficient strategically placed beach facilities to accommodate the reasonable needs of all the people of the Cape Peninsula. Let us anticipate the future situation.

May I just end with a word of warning. Let us not try to deal with any of these problems while intensifying race laws and putting up more race barriers. We cannot rely on dehumanizing laws to deal with a human problem. It will not help us to intensify race laws and administration in a matter which is partly or largely the consequence of race discrimination. We can improve socio-economic conditions. We can do something, and this Government owes it to the Cape Peninsula—particularly to the Coloured people of the Cape—to do more than it is doing now. It must try to redress the imbalance which has developed between their opportunities, their quality of life, and the quality of life of those of us who happen to be White. We can improve social conditions in Sea Point, Green Point, Gardens and Cape Town as well as in the Cape Flats, if we approach the problems from the socio-economic point of view and look into sound urban and regional planning, and if we improve our protection services. I think that the hon. the Minister will agree with me that we can, in due course, improve the quality of life by pulling down the barriers of apartheid which have, inter alia, mutilated the fabric of society of the Cape Peninsula. We have got a job of reconstruction to do, and I hope that this debate on the problems of Sea Point will focus the attention of this House not just on Sea Point, but also on the society of the Cape Peninsula as a whole and that some of the imbalances of that society can consequently be removed.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to express my appreciation to the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens, the hon. member for Maitland and the hon. member for Durbanville, who took the initiative in making this discussion possible today. I also want to express my appreciation to the hon. members of the Opposition who took part in the debate for the constructive proposals made by some of them. I think the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is right in saying that one should not consider Sea Point and Green Point in total isolation, because their problems form part of problems which are probably not limited to that environment. However, I think we will all agree that the degree of concentration of these problems and evils in the Green Point and Sea Point areas is extremely advanced and perhaps greater than in any other part of all South Africa.

Business suspended at 12h45 and resumed at 14h15.

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Speaker, this motion has at least served its purpose in demonstrating to us the concern felt by the hon. members of the PFP for the interests of their electorate. The hon. member for Green Point said that the PFP was not in control of matters in South Africa and therefore they could demand that the Government and other bodies should do the work required in Sea Point. We accept the responsibility. However, we must draw people’s attention to the fact that Sea Point is represented by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and that Green Point is also represented by a member of his party. I often received representations from Mr. Lionel Murray, the predecessor of the hon. member for Green Point in that constituency. I often had the opportunity of discussing with him the problems of Green Point and Sea Point. But since the constituencies of Sea Point and Green Point have been represented by the present two members, I have not received a single representation or heard a single word from them.

That is a lie.

Mr. Speaker, I am the Minister of Community Development and as such I am responsible for the matters which are being discussed here today …

Order! Did the hon. member for Green Point say: “That is a lie?”

Yes, Mr. Speaker.

The hon. member must withdraw those words.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw them.

Mr. Speaker, if I remember correctly, the hon. member came to see me once—not about this matter we are discussing here today, but about people in certain flats here in Cape Town. That was the only time he came to see me. I have never heard a word from the hon. member about the circumstances and social evils we are discussing in this debate. The hon. member can call that a lie again. [Interjections.]

†Mr. Speaker, in order to put this discussion in a true perspective, I want to deal very briefly with the interesting speech made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. In my humble opinion it was one of the better speeches that he has made in this House. He made one or two statements with which I cannot associate myself. The main one is that he has tried to give purely South African causes for something which is a world-wide phenomenon. He tried to look only at the conditions and policies in South Africa to explain conditions in Sea Point and in Green Point, conditions which pertain everywhere in the world where similar causes apply. I want to remind the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that there are many open societies in this world, with very severe race differences. Even though we are regarded as being a wicked country by some of the presumptuous, smug people of the world, it would not happen here that, if the lights of Johannesburg or Cape Town should fail as the lights of New York failed last year, that within a few hours the Blacks would come out in their masses and cause 350 million dollars worth of damage. This is what the Blacks of Harlem did in New York. I was in London during June last year and I saw what happened to the business area of a suburb in the East End of London because of race riots in an open society where there were no restrictions of any kind. So there are other universal causes which pertain also in Sea Point and not only the limited causes to which the hon. member for Green Point referred. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition says the solution is a truly open society. I want to ask him whether he truly and genuinely wants a completely open society in Sea Point?

We want an open society in the whole of South Africa. [Interjections.]

I believe that he wants that only because he knows that in his lifetime he will never be called upon to carry out such a policy in South Africa. It is all very well for him to sit there and mouth these beautiful sentiments knowing that he will never be called upon to carry them out. Let us for the moment imagine—and I admit it requires a tremendous amount of imagination— that that policy is carried out in the Peninsula, with all the Black people from Langa and Guguleto, people whom I respect, having special railways built for them and being invited to make use of all the amenities and all the beaches of Sea Point.

No, in the whole Peninsula.

We are talking about Sea Point for the moment [Interjections.] Suddenly Sea Point is no longer part of the Cape Peninsula! [Interjections.] Let us imagine that the amenities of Sea Point, as part of the Peninsula, are thrown open to people of all colours in this area.

That is right. You have got the message now.

Let us then imagine that they all flock to that area. What will the consequences be? The consequences will be the same as they were in New York and Chicago. In Chicago I saw how the White people moved out of certain suburbs because the Blacks had moved in, and that happened in that open society. I saw how they established the beautiful town of Winetka 20 miles outside Chicago because they thought that was far enough away to escape the Negro encroachment. If facilities were thrown open, property values would depreciate and there would be unrest, distrust and racial friction, and I am not speculating. That is what happens everywhere in the world where one has this form of uncontrolled integration which is the policy of the PFP.

You did not think so five years ago.

I say with great confidence that the people of South Africa will never tolerate it, and the PFP will therefore never succeed in getting this done. I say that the Leader of the Opposition’s approach is superficial. [Interjections.] Even in dealing with Sea Point only, his approach is superficial, because all the evidence I can find seems to agree on the causes underlying the creation of slums. According to all the experts I have consulted in regard to the causes underlying the creation of slums, the first and foremost reason is the development of areas that are mixed—I am not referring to race—residential, commercial and industrial development areas.

That is what I said.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, he mentioned that and he was quite right I did say, did I not, that he made a better speech than he normally makes? [Interjections.] The second factor is that slums are occasioned by ethnic mixing amongst communities that do not mix naturally. That has been shown again and again, but yet that is the policy he wants for South Africa …

You have got race on the brain.

… contrary to all the evidence and knowledge acquired about this problem throughout the world.

You are just a big racist.

He did, however, make specific suggestions too, and many of them are in accord with Government thinking.

Well, do something about it then.

I shall tell that hon. member about doing something in a moment. I am thinking for example of his suggestion that some of the mistakes made in the planning of Sea Point should be looked at again with a view to replanning, if possible. There was also his suggestion about better police protection, the enforcement of municipal by-laws and better supervision by owners. I take it he will now get his supporters on the Cape Town city council to support the registration of employees in the servants quarters of Sea Point. That is what he suggested, but because of them it failed last time.

What about No. 1?

Oh, I am coming to that. [Interjections.]

You have left it out up till now.

There was the suggestion of more amenities in their own areas, etc. These are all things that are common cause, but there are things which I have now heard for the first time from the PFP, thanks to the initiative of the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens. I am grateful for the fact. It is the first time the Leader of the Opposition has spoken to us about Sea Point He was not the one who took the initiative in raising the matter of Sea Point in this House. He is not interested. He had to be forced into it.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition asked me: “What about my first suggestion?” Some suggestions come strangely from that hon. member. This is one of them. His second suggestion was another. I shall take them together. He suggested that we should upgrade the quality of life of the Coloured people of the Cape Peninsula and, secondly, that we should establish new community bases for them on the pattern of what happened in the Cape Peninsula in the past.

I did not say that. Read what I said.

Sir, he referred specifically to Tramway Road in Sea Point and to District 6 in Cape Town and said he regretted that they were ever removed. In other words, he suggested new communal bases on the pattern of Cape Town in the past.

I did not say that.

He did, Sir. It appears that the English language has different meanings for him and for me. Let us just look at his suggestions. His first suggestion was we should improve the quality of life, and that suggestion comes from the leader of a party who in session after session of this Parliament has attacked me across the floor of the House because they want to see squatter camps, with all the misery and the squalor attached to them, to be legalized in the Cape Peninsula. Yet he has the effrontery to come here and talk to me about raising the quality of life of the Coloured people. I will tell him what one does if one wants to raise the quality of life of people. One does what the Government, with the Cape Town municipality as a partner, achieved here in Cape Town only last year.

With front-end loaders.

Order!

We sold homes to 8 000 Coloured families in Mitchell’s Plain alone, 8 000 people who came from the squalor and the slums he wants back. That number of people have in the last year become homeowners in their own area.

How do they get to work?

If one adds to that Belhar, Macassar and Atlantis, one sees that he has no right to talk to me critically about improving the quality of life of the Coloured people while he wants to farm with squatter camps in the Cape Peninsula. [Interjections.]

The hon. Leader of the Opposition went on to talk about new community bases. The PFP is always reproaching the NP for having cleaned up District 6. The hon. member reproached us today for having eliminated the Tramway Road settlement in Sea Point. What is the truth about Tramway Road?

“Clean up?” To clean up means to destroy.

Tramway Road was an uglier slum than District 6—if such were possible—and it was removed by this Government in 1960 under pressure from the MP, the MPC and the people of Sea Point. It was filthy and squalid.

Will you provide a community base …

I am coming to that. The hon. member must not make my speech for me. I shall deal with every point that needs to be dealt with. Mr. Speaker, people do not remember what District 6 was like.

Oh yes, we do!

Oh no, Sir! I know what happened there and I shall tell hon. members how I know. Racketeers bought houses in District 6 and let them at exorbitant rentals. Up to 10 people lived in one room of a house. I think in 1933 my own brother had to do 24 confinements in District 6 towards his medical degree and he told me about delivering a baby on a rainy night in a room with seven or eight little children sitting watching him because there was nowhere else for them to go. That was their only home and it consisted of one room. [Interjections.]

Order!

Hon. members opposite say we must give that area back to the Coloured people. If we were to bring back the Coloured people who were exploited in the slum of District 6 … [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members must please give the hon. the Minister a chance to make his speech. Otherwise I shall be obliged to forbid interjections.

If all those people were to be brought back, District 6 would be infinitely too small to hold them all. One would need half the suburbs in the direction of Claremont in order to rehouse the people who lived in the overcrowded conditions in that area.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister is being very provocative.

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I have never heard anything so ridiculous, so superficial and so thoughtless in my life.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Are you ruling that there are to be no interjections?

No. I am just asking hon. members to give the hon. the Minister a chance to carry on with his speech.

Mr. Speaker, I shall come back to the motion now. As a result of constant representations to me and to other Ministers—these representations do not come from the members of the PFP, but from other people and other bodies—the Government appointed an interdepartmental commission about a year ago to investigate this matter. That commission made good recommendations. I also appointed a committee in June last year, consisting of senior officials of my department, of the province and of the Cape Town city council. Mr. Louis Fouche, the Secretary to my department, was the chairman and the two other members were Mr. Gie, the Provincial Secretary, and Mr. Heugh, the Town Clerk of Cape Town. They consulted 12 or 13 parties, including the police, the Departments of Plural Relations and Development and of Social Welfare and Pensions, and the Liquor Licensing Board. They did very good work and they published a report which is very valuable indeed. They ascertained what the conditions in Sea Point were and they made recommendations concerning them. This report confirms, almost in detail, the sad story of Sea Point and Green Point told to us today by three hon. members on this side of the House and confirmed by hon. members on the other side of the House.

They probably read the report.

They probably did. The hon. member can also read it.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member should read it too; not that it will help, because some people are educatable while others are not. [Interjections.]

*The committee found, as hon. members said, that it was not only a problem of colour which was being experienced in Sea Point, but also a problem created by circumstances caused by incorrect development, incorrect planning, overpopulation and overcrowding and a whole series of other factors. It is true that the problem has an element of colour; one cannot avoid that. I am glad that one of my hon. friends referred to liquor consumption, liquor sales in the retail trade and bottle stores in the Sea Point area. There are 50 000 Whites, 8 800 legal non-Whites and 10 000 illegal non-Whites in Sea Point. These 18 000 non-Whites buy almost as much liquor as the 50 000 Whites in Sea Point. It is unhealthy and wrong. Hon. members pointed out other malpractices as well, but the worse one is that in Sea Point, as in District 6, there are people who sublet servants’ rooms, with the result that four or five people live in such a room instead of one. That kind of thing is fairly common and creates intolerable conditions. For that reason the committee made certain recommendations after having examined the problem. I want to point out a few of them. They recommended that we approach the Liquor Licensing Board—we are doing so— to limit liquor sales on the scale I have mentioned, especially sales to non-Whites. I think the hon. the Leader of the Opposition will agree with me that drastic steps have to be taken to provide recreational amenities, decent seaside resorts, proper esplanades and lidos for our non-Whites, but in their own residential areas. We of the Department of Community Development have indicated to the provincial authorities and the city council that if they want to co-operate with us in this connection, we shall assist them with funds, with funds from the National Housing Commission or perhaps with funds from the Community Development Board, to accelerate this work. We are willing to help in a practical way to create decent, adequate alternative facilities for the non-White population of the Cape Peninsula.

I was very glad to see that the idea of establishing rehabilitation centres for the vagrants and the dangerous “won’t-works” in Sea Point received general support. However, I think we should go further. We should approach the Ministers concerned— and we are doing so—to see to it that legislation is introduced to make it compulsory for such people to be referred to rehabilitation centres where they can stay until they have acquired different habits and have become decent citizens again.

The committee also recommended that we should not close Sunset Beach to the non-Whites before proper beach facilities have been created to be used in a decent and acceptable way by the non-Whites of the Peninsula. I am grateful to be able to say that the Administrator of the Cape Province has indicated that he will fully co-operate with us in order to achieve this aim.

The committee also recommended that illegal occupants of the servants’ rooms in Sea Point and Green Point and elsewhere in the Cape Peninsula be prevented from continuing their illegal occupation, that the necessary legislation be introduced to make this possible and that the Cape Town city council be asked to do the work. If the city council refuses to do this work, it will be done for them and, if necessary, they will be debited with the cost entailed by the performance of that work.

These conditions cannot continue. In Green Point and in Sea Point there is a warning of what will happen to South Africa—in every city, virtually in every town—if the policy of the PFP were to be carried out in South Africa. I am glad that we have had the opportunity and I am also grateful to the hon. the Leader for the Opposition for having reconfirmed that if South Africa should suffer the disaster of having them come into power, they would do the things he mentioned today, especially the first two suggestions which he made. Then South Africa would experience a period of struggle, discord, strife and unrest such as very few countries of the world have ever experienced. I honestly think that this motion today taught us that we should thank Providence for what we have in South Africa in the shape of the powerful and determined NP which is doing justice to all the communities of South Africa and which will not tolerate or allow in South Africa the abuses they are indirectly advocating.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to wind up this debate and I wish to thank those hon. members who spoke on behalf of my motion, the hon. member for Maitland and the hon. member for Durbanville. It is not quite clear to me whether the hon. the Minister has decided to accept the motion, the recommendation of the appointment of a commission, but I do trust that this is something that will be referred to the Government. The Minister nods his head. I believe that it means either that the Government is prepared to accept the motion and the recommendation or that the matter will be referred to the Government.

In referring to the contribution made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and that by the hon. member for Green Point I should like to say that we have really seen a rather remarkable performance. These hon. members, in particular the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, have frankly admitted all the complaints which have been made. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition might just give me his attention for a moment—they have admitted that there is a high incidence of crime, the presence of drunkenness to a very considerable extent and the general unruliness which exists in those areas. They also acknowledged the fact that the suburbs are overrun by persons who ought not to be there. The leader of the Opposition went on to say that what was needed was concerted action. He then introduced his amendment in which he calls for concerted action, but there is no reference whatever in his amendment to the appointment of a commission of inquiry. He says there are enough bodies that have studied this, e.g. the Jaycees’ study group of Sea Point and a study group at the University of Cape Town.

I have the greatest respect for the Jaycees as an organization, but quite frankly it is not a sociological organization. It does not have the means, nor the instruments or anything, to study the kind of problem with which we are faced. If he acknowledges that this is a real and substantive problem, the question which hon. members on this side of the House must at this point still have with them is: Why is it that the hon. member for Sea Point and the hon. member for Green Point are so reluctant to accept a commission of inquiry into the circumstances which they themselves acknowledge are serious? Why are they so reluctant? I want to suggest that the reason for this attitude is simply the fact that they do not want to come to grips with the problem. They like talking about it in general and abstract terms and they like talking, as the hon. the Minister pointed out, in broad sociological concepts and in sophisticated terms, but they do not want to get down to the reality of their own constituencies. They do not want to do that for the simple reason that they know that that can compromise their support at a certain level in their society. The hon. member for Sea Point has not forgotten what happened to him in the 1974 general election when the whole question of amenities arose just before election day and he found himself on the wrong end of the Rand Daily Mail, because the Rand Daily Mail published editorials which criticized him.

At that time he had a fight with the mayor of Cape Town who was critical of his stand. He had a fight with The Cape Times because it asked him to state his position and indicate where he stands as regards to the question of amenities in his constituency. The reason why those hon. members are not prepared to recommend a high-level commission of inquiry into these circumstances, circumstances which they acknowledge exist—there was absolutely no denial of that fact—is because they are reluctant to come to grips with the real issue of our politics. In moving this motion I am very pleased to have put the suggestion to the House and I trust from the response of the hon. the Minister that this is something which will be treated very sympathetically and that we will get this commission. I very sincerely hope that the hon. members for Sea Point and Green Point will have the guts to serve on that commission, because I believe they have a contribution to make, although, as I have said just now, it is not essential that they serve. Nevertheless they can be useful.

Order! The time for this debate has now expired and in accordance with Standing Order No. 34 the motion and the amendment lapse.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Could you indicate at what time exactly the time expired?

At 14h43.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Did you not give the ruling that the time is expired a minute before that time? It is not yet 14h43 and it certainly was not 14h43 when you indicated that the motion had lapsed.

Mr. Speaker, may I at this stage request that I may be allowed to withdraw my motion?

Why? [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens allowed once more to address the House?

Mr. Speaker, I was addressing you on a point of order. [Interjections.]

Order! It was not a point of order. The hon. member cannot withdraw his motion now. I uphold my ruling that the time for the discussion of this motion has expired.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 34 and motion and amendment lapsed.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

1. (1) stimulating research into the production and cost of ethanol and methanol fuels derived from agricultural crops such as maize, timber and sugar cane; and
2. (2) introducing production control mechanisms in the form of grower and manufacturer quotas so as to ensure a stable and equitable return for all concerned in the production of such fuels.

After the Press conference of the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs yesterday, I am quite sure that no one can deny the magnitude and importance of liquid fuel to South Africa and its economy. The hon. the Minister on that occasion announced additional expenditure of R3 276 million on the Sasol 2 project. This will be in addition to the R2 500 million already being spent on this project. The additional expenditure will result in the doubling of this plant’s production capacity within the next three years. To finance this additional expenditure the hon. the Minister has increased the price of all liquid fuels by 6 cents per litre. From figures given to me I estimate that South Africa consumes some 14 000 million litres of fuel per annum, which, at 6 cents per litre, amounts to a total of between R800 and R900 million per annum. I will only be too happy if any hon. member on the other side can prove that these figures are wrong. In any event, it is clear that the users of liquid fuel in South Africa are now going to be shocked good and solid. We can expect the motor industry to cry out because of this additional burden which is being placed on them.

We in these benches are not prepared to accept the Government’s liquid fuel policy without a debate. We acknowledge all the inherent problems in the acquisition of crude oil from overseas and we acknowledge that we have to pay extremely high premiums for our present supplies. However, we question whether enough has been done to research other sources of liquid fuel. We intend proving in this debate that more could have been done in this regard. We contend that the Government has committed itself almost entirely to the production of oil from coal. We want to know just how much effort, just how much research funds the Government has spent in investigating other methods of liquid fuel production. We hope that hon. members on the Government side will provide us with answers to these questions. We hope that the hon. the Minister, in due course, will see the wisdom of this particular motion and of this debate. We hope he will concede what I am asking him to do.

In spite of South Africa’s vast resources of solid fuel and of our hydro-electric power sources, we still depend upon liquid fuel— crude oil—for about 20% of our total energy requirements in South Africa. In this respect South Africa is vulnerable. Firstly, the problems in Iran and the Middle East have disrupted our crude oil supplies, and future political developments could deny us access to imported crude oil. Secondly, the ever-increasing crude oil price is acting as a brake on our ability to expand our economy and to achieve the growth that we need in South Africa in order to meet the demands of the rising aspirations of our increasing population. A mere seven years ago our import bill was R200 million. Last year— 1978—it was R1 300 million, and in the light of the new premium, this price is still going to rise. So we find that this is having an adverse effect on our balance of payments, especially as far as the current account is concerned.

It is also interesting to note that our bill for importing crude oil alone accounts for 3,8% of our current gross domestic product. Such is the importance of liquid fuel. It is my intention, however, in moving this motion, to confront hon. members of this House with the fact that there is another source of liquid fuel, one which, unlike coal which is not renewable, is constantly being replenished through the harnessing of the origin of all our energy, namely, the sun.

I now refer to the production of alcohol fuel from agricultural products. However, before I do so I should like to give some perspective to our oil-from-coal processes to which, I believe, many people have now committed themselves. The Petrick Commission report of 1976 estimated that South Africa’s total coal deposits amounted to 94 000 million tons, of which 24 000 million tons were then estimated to be recoverable. Today the Chamber of Mines, because of new techniques, estimates that this can be increased now to 40 000 million tons. I know that a study is currently being conducted by the Geological Survey of South Africa, which could show that even a higher amount will be recoverable. However, we know that South Africa’s coal-mining rate will rise from its present figure of 85 million tons a year to at least 180 million tons a year by 1985. If we were able to maintain this for the next 100 years or so, this would give a life-span to our coal resources of approximately 220 years. However, I believe it is ridiculous to expect that this will be the case, because of the great potential for growth in South Africa. Therefore I am of the opinion that our main coal resources today have a probable life-span of somewhere between 100 and 150 years.

I take time to dwell on this matter to show that in time South Africa must find another source of liquid fuel. It is also important to consider that the possible escalating costs of constructing oil-from-coal plants, such as Sasol 2, will in time turn the whole economics of the production of liquid fuel in favour of alcohol fuel plants.

It is also worthwhile to remember that the first oil-from-coal plant was built in Johannesburg approximately 50 years ago. This shows that it is never too soon to start with research and development. Just as South Africa is today the world’s leader in the production of oil from coal, so I believe that, providing we start now, South Africa could quite possibly, within the next 50 years, lead the world in the production of alcohol fuel from agricultural crops. This is the objective, which is the prime motive behind my motion this afternoon.

Through the motion, I ask the hon. the Minister to stimulate research into the production of ethanol and methanol fuels derived from agricultural products. Let me say at the outset that I am aware of a number of objections that have been raised to such a proposal. The first objection is from people who believe that it is basically immoral to use a food product as a source for producing fuel. However, we must accept the fact that these days we do convert maize into rations for chickens, and that we export these chickens to places like Iran from whom, until recently, we purchased our fuel. I could go further with this line of thought, but I do not have the time to do so. However, the NRP believes that South Africa must always come first, and if Iran, or any other oil supplier, denies us the fuel required for the production of our food, we must face this reality and, if necessary, convert the maize, which we now turn into rations for chickens, into the fuel that is now being denied us.

It is the chicken or the oil.

A second objection is that because of South Africa’s unreliable climatic conditions, it would be unwise to place too great a reliance on the fuel supplies derived from agricultural products. I am prepared to concede that this might be the case, possibly in the maize-producing area which, comparatively speaking, has a low rainfall. However, I disagree that this applies to higher rainfall areas where timber and sugar cane are grown.

I have also been informed that there are people who believe that it is useless investigating the production of ethanol fuel from agricultural products because to do so would require as much fuel, in the form of diesolene, to produce the crop as would be produced from the crop. I believe this type of thinking is too simplistic, as I hope to show during the course of this debate.

I now want to return to the first leg of my motion. I am aware that some research has been done by the CSIR and certain universities. However, I question whether enough importance is being attached to this field of research and whether enough incentive has been given to private enterprise to get on with this particular job. I do not believe that this is the case.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question?

I have very limited time.

It is not a difficult question. I just want to inquire whether the hon. member is aware of the fact that the process of producing alcohol and ethanol from an agricultural product is an already known process?

Mr. Speaker, yes, I concede that and I shall come to that later on. At the moment I am talking about the economics of the production of ethanol. I believe this is where a lot of people are going wrong. I do not believe; as I was saying, that enough attention has been given to the entire subject of the production of fuel from agricultural crops. In order to put the potential of this fuel resource into perspective, I should like to start with the sugar industry. Let me start off by saying that I have spent most of my adult and professional life in the sugar industry and am a sugar farmer. Today South Africa produces some 2 million tons of sugar, one million tons consumed locally and the balance exported. The 1 million tons we export could produce 1 000 million litres of ethanol. This is equivalent to approximately 7% of South Africa’s total liquid fuel requirements. There is no doubt in my mind that the sugar industry in South Africa can be expanded. It is estimated that the cost of producing this fuel varies from about 17 cents per litre to as much as 25 cents per litre. It is interesting to note that Brazil—the world leader in this field—last year converted 2,1 million tons of sugar into 2,3 billion litres of gasahol, the term now given to this type of fuel. A certain pubic chemical company is reported to have already completed studies which show that it can produce 10% of South Africa’s total diesel and petrol consumption from 10 factories costing R350 million, using maize and sugar-cane as raw material. It is interesting to know that this capital cost is relatively low in comparison to what it is costing to establish Sasol 2.

As far as timber is concerned, there is a firm in Natal which claims that for R50 million it could build a plant which could produce 190 million litres of methanol from 560 000 tons of oven-dried timberwood waste at a cost which is competitive with the cost of the oil-from-coal process. The facts are, as the hon. the Minister has said, that the basic technology required for the production of gasohol is already known. I appreciate that, but we still have to learn how to integrate this knowledge into existing industries in the most economical and efficient manner. I hope that this is what this debate will help to achieve. In a conventional sugar-cane mill with six mills with three rollers each to crush and extract sucrose from the cane, 80% of the available sucrose is extracted in the first mill. The remaining five mills are used to raise the extraction to, a desirable economic figure of about 95%. But in the process of extracting this 95%, impurities are also extracted with the juice. These impurities complicate the boiling-house operation, thereby requiring extensive plants at the back-end of the factory eventually to recover the sucrose in the form of sugar. One might ask what the effect would be on the cost of producing a ton of sugar, or a litre of gasahol, if only the high quality juice was extracted at the first mill used for sugar production and the remaining sucrose and the total cane fibre were used for fermentation and eventual gasahol production through the distillation process. One must of course also give consideration to the value of existing plant should it become redundant through any development of this kind. Much research is also required to be done on the effluent disposal problem which results from such an industry.

On the agricultural side, a farmer normally plans to harvest his cane at an age of growth which gives him the optimum return in terms of, firstly, tons sucrose to tons of cane, and, secondly, in terms of the amount of tons of cane produced per hectre-month of growth. While this often creates many problems in the harvesting and transport operations because of the greater bulk, it does give a greater economic return in terms of sucrose production, than if a less mature cane was harvested. However, by allowing the cane to mature, the average rate of growth, in terms of tons vegetable matter grown per hectare for each month of the crop’s life, is actually less than if the crop had been cut at a younger age. Further in this process of harvesting, the cane is burnt before cutting in order to remove the dead leaves. Another alternative is to remove these dead leaves by hand, using a cane-knife. After cutting the cane the green growing top is also removed as this is low in sucrose and high in impurities. This process of removing the dead leaves and the tops is expensive. However, if it is not removed its passage through the mills create milling problems. If, on the other hand, the cane was used for both sugar and gasahol production in a single factory, the cane could be cut at an optimum age in terms of vegetative growth per hectare-month. The entire plant, including the dead leaves and the tops can be sent to the mill since all of this could be converted either into sugar or gasahol. This results in no wastage or vegetative material, whereas today, it is burned and allowed to go up into the air in smoke.

Other advantages arise in that since the weight of the younger crop is less than that of the mature crop, the physical task of handling the crop is made easier and in all probability less expensive, especially when the cane is harvested mechanically. Research into these aspects could, I believe, yield good results in the sense of promoting the more effective utilization of our land, and therefore a greater return on our investment in land, as well as lowering the cost of the production of our sugar and/or ethanol.

There are many other similar research projects that could have a considerable influence on the economics of gasahol production. I do not, however, have the time to go into them all. I believe this research can be done by existing research stations which are already acquainted with this type of technology. I am referring to institutions such as the S.A. Sugar Association’s Experiment Station, the Sugar Milling Research Institute and also the Wattle Research Institute in Pietermaritzburg. I am aware of the fact that there is legislation governing some of these industries. However, the first part of my motion asks the hon. the Minister to review this with a view to stimulating this research, possibly by granting research funds from his Strategic Oil Fund if this is found to be necessary. We certainly gave him the power to do so just a week ago with the amendment to the Act concerned.

I now come to the second leg of my motion asking the hon. the Minister to investigate the required legislation under which any future gasahol fuel would be produced and controlled. We believe that this should only be done by the allocation of production quotas to the farmers supplying the raw product for gasahol manufacture and the manufacturer concerned. Only in this way will continuity of supply, and the overall stability of the industry, be achieved. I am thinking of existing production quota systems, e.g. the system at present applied in the sugar industry in terms of the Sugar Act. I do not intend to expand upon this particular subject because one of my colleagues will do so later on in this debate. I also believe, however, that the economy of any future alcohol fuel industry should be based on lines similar to that in the sugar industry, i.e. there must be a price formula which, whilst stabilizing the price of the product, would also provide an equitable return to both the farmer and the fuel manufacturer. Only in this manner will stability be brought to the gasahol-from-sugar-cane industry, or any similar industry based on agricultural products. In fact, as far as the sugar industry is concerned, I firmly believe that it is absolutely essential to have any future gasahol production tied to the existing sugar industry legislation by way of an amendment to the Sugar Act, which would allow the allocation of gasahol quotas to the cane grower and to his respective cane miller. Only in this way will the future stability of the industry be achieved, and it is the fear that this would not be the case which could be an inhibiting factor in present developments in this particular field.

In conclusion let me say that I believe that whilst at present oil-from-coal production offers the immediate answer to many of our fuel supply problems, I also believe that there is a case to be made out for an alcohol fuel industry. Such an industry must, I believe, be firmly based in the private sector since it involves the farming community, and history has shown us that farmers are the people who have solved the problems in that field. I also believe that South Africa must immediately commence with an in-depth research programme using existing research institutions which are well equipped and staffed for this purpose. I do not mean to pass any disparaging remarks about any other research institutions, but research institutions such as the Experiment Station at Mt. Edgecombe, the Sugar Milling Research Institute and the Wattle Research Institute are directly concerned with the problems involved and are administered and directed by the people concerned. As such they are more effective and highly motivated.

Since the timber and agricultural sectors are, at present, experiencing difficult times financially, I make the suggestion to the hon. the Deputy Minister, whom I believe is going to take part in this debate, and through him to the hon. the Minister, that he use the powers we granted him a week or so ago, in terms of the amendment to the State Oil Fund Act, to utilize some of the funds that are now being obtained from the public, in the form of fuel levies, to initiate research grants for some of the institutions I have mentioned. I think this should be done in order to stimulate the proposed alcohol fuel industry. I also believe that legislation is necessary in order to bring long-term stability to such an industry and to provide continuity of supply.

Finally, while oil-from-coal production is now entering its age of maturity and is on the minds of all of us, we must not lose sight of the fact that some time in the future—if not in our lifetime or in that of our children, then most definitely in our grandchildren’s lifetime—what we are now debating will be of equal strategic and economic importance to South Africa as crude oil and oil-from-coal production are to South Africa today.

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that modern mankind and the peoples of the 20th century, including the hon. members of this House, are taking the ready availability of energy for granted. To prove this point, we need merely look at our attitude towards the use of available energy in our day-to-day lives. First of all, consider the washing machines in our homes. They are not using electricity: they work automatically. Water is taken in automatically and the machines wash and stop automatically. Similarly, our deep-freezes and refrigerators do not work with energy, but with thermostats. Our cars are not running on energy: the engines and five-speed gear-boxes pull the cars along.

Fuel must be available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and in the remotest parts of the country. Thus the availability of energy is taken for granted. The man in the street should be made to realize that the standard of living and the quality of life which we are enjoying today are solely dependent on energy being available in abundance. We should and must accept the hard fact that without energy the world faces chaos, poverty, famine, revolution and a continual struggle for the control of the food supplies and the depleted or declining energy resources of the world. It is an accepted fact that the world, including South Africa, is facing an energy shortage. It is therefore important that all possible energy carriers should be considered and carefully investigated. Hence the importance of the motion before the House today, even if it only serves the purpose of bringing the seriousness of this problem to the attention of the country.

*The crux of this motion lies in the investigation requested into the manufacture of methanol and ethanol from wood and agricultural products. The first point I wish to make in this regard, is that for the manufacturing of these products, old and known processes must be utilized; that the fermentation processes utilized in the manufacture of these products, as can be deduced from the motion, are not the only methods of production, but that the technologies for the synthetic manufacture of these products are also known and already proven. Ethanol has been produced since as far back as 1930 by the process of chemical synthesis. On the other hand, however, even a few thousand years ago, Noah also came across the production of ethanol by fermentation and also experienced its effects.

This motion does not, therefore, refer to new technologies and to an unknown branch of industry, but to known technologies and branches of industry. The hon. member for Amanzimtoti also referred to that. In his motion he concentrated particularly on the sugar industry.

If one examines the manufacture of methanol from wood, one must also examine its practicability very carefully. I want to illustrate the importance of this statement by means of an example. For example, Australia’s energy consumption is 80 million tons equivalent coal per annum, and that country has a surface area of 7,7 million sq. kilometres. As a result of research carried out there, they found that in order to supply 50% of the energy from methanol, they would have to cover 3% of Australia’s surface area with forest and that by the year 2000 it would have to be done purely for purposes of methanol production.

One can project this example on South Africa. South Africa’s energy consumption is 67,6 million tons equivalent coal per annum and this country has a surface area of 1,22 million square kilometres. In order, therefore, to meet 50% of South Africa’s energy requirements, 16,5% of the country’s surface area will have to be afforested. If we take it that we want to manufacture only 50% of South Africa’s fuel requirements from methanol, this means that 4,1% of South Africa’s surface area will have to be covered by bush by the year 2000. Furthermore, if one takes into account that natural and cultivated forest in South Africa take up a mere 1% of our surface area at the moment and we also propose to extend this afforested area, so that by the year 2000, we may have 2% of the country’s surface area afforested, it would appear that the practicability of a project to manufacture methanol from wood, is questionable. In this regard special attention will have to be given to any such investigation to which the hon. member for Amanzimtoti requested.

A further aim of this motion is to institute an investigation into alternative energy sources, with special reference to the agricultural industry. The hon. member for Amanzimtoti referred to a few objections in this regard. I should like to deal with one or two of these objections in more detail. This motion has its origin in the fact that it is doubted whether there will be a continued availability of known energy carriers, and in the fact that the energy carriers of the world are going to become scarce. Scarce energy supplies can have a marked effect on the food production of the world, and, therefore, on South Africa as well. In the process, therefore, food can also become scarce. The question we have to ask ourselves in all seriousness, is whether it is morally right for any nation, in a world becoming increasingly hungry, and with an energy crisis in the offing, to convert food into fuel, particularly in the case of South Africa, where we have the will and capacity to supply food to an increasingly hungry world, particularly to Africa. The question is whether it is morally justifiable to exchange our food bargaining position in the world for our capacity to provide for our energy requirements. In South Africa agriculture is 89% dependent on oil, in other words 30% of South Africa’s oil is used for agricultural production. Investigations in other parts of the world where circumstances compare with ours in South Africa, have been carried out, and it was found that 45% of the fossil fuel utilized for agricultural purposes, is used in the form of fertilizer, and 49% in the form of fuel. We can take this picture further and analyse it in greater depth. For example, two kilograms of fuel are required to produce one kilogram of carbon-dioxide. A quarter kilogram of fuel is required to make one kilogram of phosphorous. We can carry this picture through to its final consequence.

Unfortunately I could not obtain all the information, but with the information at my disposal, it would appear that we are dealing here with a closed energy cycle. This means that the energy inputs in agricultural production plus the inputs for the conversion of agricultural products into energy, will constitute a very large percentage of the final energy output from agricultural products. We shall also have to examine very carefully the type of investigation requested by the hon. member. I want to add at once that I have no objection to the conversion of the residues of agricultural products, particularly in the sugar industry, to which the hon. member referred, into energy. This is already done on a large scale in South Africa, although it is not converted into methanol or ethanol. In view of what I have said, I wish to conclude with just a few general statements which are certainly important in the type of investigation requested by the hon. member. In the first place I want to ask what priority this source of energy, to which this motion refers, occupies in South Africa’s search for alternative energy sources. The second statement I wish to make is that the economy of any alternative energy source must fit into the total economic structure of the country as a whole. The third statement I wish to make, is that in order to be of any value, any energy carrier has to be continually available. There must, therefore, be no uncertainty as a result of climatic conditions. On the basis of these statements it would seem that the motion before us, for the manufacture of ethanol and methanol, is not very soundly based.

Mr. Speaker, the debate in the House this afternoon will, to my mind, cover a subject which will probably end up being the second most widely discussed issue in South Africa, and probably in the world, during the year 1979.

I think the House can be pleased at the fact that we have person with the background and the professional knowledge of the hon. member for Amanzimtoti, who is able to come to the House with some practical and sensible suggestions and present them dispassionately and logically to make out a good case in this respect. I shall be dealing with the issues raised by the hon. member for Wonderboom in the course of my speech, but not right at the beginning.

I think that a lot of the discussion that centres around the production of the alcohol fuels, is dealt with in an emotional way by people who are perhaps not quite sure of what is being aimed at I think that one should establish one’s parameters clearly. When one talks about the necessity for the production of these alcohol fuels today, I think it must be clearly understood that one is not in the first instance, suggesting that the alcohol fuels, methanol and ethanol, are intended to replace the oil-based fuels in any way. I think that point must be made absolutely clear. The second point that one should make, is that although producing these fuels not the number one priority, it certainly is a very high priority. That is an issue that we shall be dealing with in the course of the debate.

The hon. member for Wonderboom presented a somewhat simplistic case by giving the number of hectares or the percentage area of the country that would have to be planted with timber to be able to produce 50% of our liquid fuel needs through methanol. I do not believe that this type of argument is valid. I must say that I have to reject this form of argument because one must not make it a simple argument of having to provide 50% of the methanol needed or else it will not be a viable proposition. The point is that methanol, in its place, can contribute towards the total supply of alcohols which, in their turn, will supplement the present oil-based fuels we are using. We are talking of an augmentation of the order of 10% to 20% of the alcohols, made up with the balance of oil-based fuels. I think we should look at the arguments in that light so that the people realize that there is no threat to oil-based fuels and that there is absolutely no threat to our Sasol projects which are vital to the whole future of fuel production in this country. I do feel that these points should be made absolutely clear.

When one has made that point, however, one must come back to the tremendously important contribution that ethanol and methanol can make. To say that we shall have to put 16,5% of South Africa under timber to be able to supply 50% of our liquid fuel needs, is an argument that, to my mind, is invalid. I say this because, in the light of the modern processes, one can use the waste from the hard and soft woods. This is the point. One would not be using the structural and other timber which is used for other projects. Modern techniques enable us to use the waste products, the by-products, of the timber industry for producing fuel. While I am dealing with this issue, let me also say that one does not have to make one’s sugar and one’s maize into fuel—a lot of people did raise this point—because it is wicked and criminal to use food, which could be used in a hungry world, for fuel to be burned in motor cars. I accept that point of view. I agree with it wholeheartedly. The point I should like to make is that if it were essential, if we faced a total oil boycott today, we could do that, and I think the hon. the Minister and the hon. Deputy Minister agree with me wholeheartedly. I do not, however, believe that we should do that except as a last resort. What I wonder is how much attention they and their researchers have given to the use of the by-products of the sugar and the maize industry. There is very clear evidence, from eminent South Africans whose word is acceptable worldwide, that the by-products like the bagasse from the sugar and the cellulose containing by-products of the maize plant, generally known as maize stover, and the maize cobs, are a very, very rich potential source of fuel. One of our eminent scientists has calculated that municipal and other waste, the waste from the hard and soft wood industry, three million tons a year of bagasse from the sugar industry, the 10 million tons of maize stover and the 1 million ton of maize cobs could, in total, produce 25% of South Africa’s liquid fuel needs. Does the hon. the Minister want to put a question?

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member whether he would concede that the whole scheme should be tested against its economic viability …

I am coming to that, because obviously that is where the crunch lies. When we talk of the economy and the costs of the project per litre, I think we have to be talking the same language.

That is right.

One does not compare a litre of ethanol with a litre of petrol because their energy output and calorific values are different…

And the input as well.

I will come to the whole lot. Just give me a chance. The calorific contents of a litre of ethanol differs significantly from the calorific contents of a litre of petrol. Because of this people talk of the energy equivalent. They relate this back to the cost of alcohol and attempt to give a cost which is not the true cost per litre of ethanol produced. Let me say right here and now that I believe—and I believe the hon. the Minister will have a great deal of difficulty proving me wrong—that we can produce ethanol right here and now in South Africa today at a cost of round about 14c or 15c a litre.

Nobody stops you.

Yes. The hon. the Minister disagrees with that I would be very interested to hear …

All you must do is prove your point.

I believe that that will be the cost. That is significant.

Why do you not do it then?

If we can produce …

How much tax will the Government levy on it?

Now, there you are! I thank the hon. member for East London North for his support. If the unit cost is 15c a litre, may I make a point? We are paying approximately 25 dollars a barrel for imported crude oil. Am I correct? The hon. the Minister does not disagree with me.

Of course I disagree with you.

Right Well, the publicity surrounding the costs of our oil imports at the moment does not disagree with me. However, let us assume that it is roughly in the region of 25 dollars a barrel, because these costs have been quite widely quoted. At that rate the cost per litre of crude oil is 12c. Now, 12c is not very far off that cost of 15c a litre for ethanol. That is why I say it is an economic proposition today. However, a lot depends on the smiling face of the hon. the Minister over there, and on how much he is going to take in excise. If he is prepared to accommodate the local industry, I believe they can put ethanol on the market to be mixed with our petrol and to be used as a mixture of up to 20%. That can be done right now very competitively, and certainly at a lower price than that of petrol. It will not help the hon. the Minister of Health to sit there shaking his head. I must remind him that union spirits have been marketed in this country for 30 years. 20 years ago union spirits was competitive with petrol. However, my conclusion is that vested interests suppress the production of union spirits. Some very far-sighted people have the idea that it could augment our fuel needs. The cost of cane, the raw material for union spirits, has gone up perhaps 300%, while the cost of a barrel of oil has gone up perhaps 1 000% in the same time. My contention is that the cost of ethanol is more competitive than the cost of buying imported crude oil at 25 dollars a barrel.

That is a wrong comparison.

I believe it is a very valid comparison, with all due respect. If the hon. the Minister can prove me to be wrong, and if he can tell us that we are getting crude oil at 18 dollars a barrel, I would be only too pleased to hear it.

You cannot compare it with imported crude oil. You have to compare it with other raw materials in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, since the hon. the Minister is giving me a hard time, I am going to come to the issue … [Interjections.] … of the statement he made yesterday. This, of course, is where the bad news comes into it I think hon. members will agree with me that in the light of what happened yesterday, our motion must necessarily overlap and touch on all sources and supplies of fuel and on all the types of fuel we use. I am sorry to have to say to the hon. the Minister that I believe he put a very good case yesterday, a very polished case, but that the choice of doubling the production at Secunda is a disastrous choice. [Interjections.] I think the hon. the Minister should know that from a strategic point of view, I believe, this is a disastrous choice for this country. I want to go even further than that. I want to state that it was a desperate choice, because the hon. the Minister, as no one in this House, knows just how tricky the situation regarding fuel and regarding the supplies of crude oil in this country is today. He had to make this decision in desperation.

I want to come back now to the whole aspect of planning over the years. This is where the crunch lies. How many more warnings must we have before we get on with the production of these alcohols? We had a warning in 1973. In 1974 Sasol 2 was announced. Now we have had yet another warning, and we double the production of Sasol 2. However, we are using commodities that are finite. We should be concentrating on, and we should be producing, fuel from substances that are infinite. I want to know why the hon. the Minister has thrown a wet blanket over the tremendous potential of the production of alcohol. I believe he has done so. I believe, in all his announcements yesterday he tried to play down the influence that the alcohol fuels could have on the fuel situation we are facing today. I would indeed be interested to hear some of his motivations for this case because if South Africa could supply the raw materials and compete as far as price is concerned, I believe we should be going ahead with it now. I believe the hon. the Minister knows that there are industries which are putting up pilot plants.

Why do they not go ahead with it?

They probably will, but why does the Government not give them permission to go ahead. They are looking for just a fraction of encouragement from the Government to invest R350 000 000. The information I have is that they are meeting with obstacles instead of encouragement.

That is not true. Nobody is stopping anyone putting up a plant.

I am very pleased to hear it. I think it should be made clear to the people who can produce ethanol and methanol that it is the policy of this Government to encourage it, and I am pleased that the hon. the Minister has indicated that it is, in fact, his policy to do so, because I am obviously misunderstood. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister gave us two reasons for expanding the process of Sasol 2, i.e. that it would save us two years and a certain amount of money. Fair enough. Both are very important factors. However, I believe very strongly indeed—and there are a lot of people who support me in this—that a better situation for a plant would have been in northern Natal or somewhere apart from where Sasol 2 is situated. On strategic principles alone I think one could justify that point.

We have a very wide-ranging motion before us today, a very wide-ranging motion indeed in the light of what happened yesterday. So I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to keep the public better informed about the true state of affairs. It is no use saying that people will abuse this. From what one picks up in the newspapers everyday, one realizes that the international oil companies know exactly how much oil we are getting and where it is coming from. I am not suggesting that the hon. the Minister divulge information which can be of use to our enemies, but there are certain things apparently commonly known to everyone except to the public of South Africa. If the hon. the Minister came clean with the public however, informed the members of the public of our position, telling them what the Government was doing, what he wanted industry to do and asking them for their cooperation, I believe the hon. the Minister would get more co-operation. I want to point out to the hon. the Minister that even the editorial of The Citizen told him to keep the public better informed, and if that is not good advice for the hon. the Minister, I do not know what is.

A country like Japan is prepared even to give the number of days of oil supply reserve it has left I am not suggesting we do that, but I am saying there are some countries that come clean, and I am sure the Japanese Government can rely on the goodwill of its citizens more because they know exactly where they stand.

We dealt very thoroughly with the whole question of the alcohol fuels. I believe the hon. the Minister should be encouraging the production very much more than apparently he is, and I should like him to inform the House of his attitude towards the amount of excise he would be prepared to impose on all locally produced fuel. These are things we would like to hear. There are enormous advantages in going ahead now and not waiting for another crisis. Industry would be glad to co-operate if they were assured that they would not be legislated out of the particular position in which they find themselves. We are not even looking at all the sources. If one were to use one’s imagination and look at the residue, from the pineapple canning plants in the Eastern Province—and there are other aspects that can be looked at—one would find an enormous source of raw material for production of ethanol fuels.

Coming back to the question of using food to produce fuel, let me say that it would appear that we exported our maize last year at a loss of some R60 million. If, however, we could have converted that 2,7 million tons of maize into fuel, at the kind of cost involved in a local company, we could have provided thousands of desperately needed jobs in South Africa and saved a enormous amount of foreign exchange. I see the hon. the Minister smiling. He can see the advantages; he, at least, is prepared to agree with me. I am very pleased he is coming round slowly. I am sure that he will be agreeing completely with us in another half an hour. I cannot emphasize too strongly that it is an offer we cannot refuse. We have got to produce the alcohol fuels. The sooner we get on with it, the sooner the Government gives the go-ahead, the better. I know the hon. the Minister will raise the point that one cannot use agricultural waste, because the supply is irregular. One cannot guarantee what one’s sugar crop, or maize crop or timber crop will be. That may well be if one had an enormous plant which was working to absolute capacity. However, I think the people who have gone into this are thinking in terms of smaller plants with a capital cost of something like R35 million. They do realize that the source of their raw material supply is of great importance. I believe that by concentrating on the smaller plants, instead of on one gigantic plant, it would fit in very well with the geography of South Africa and the relatively large distances would become a problem if one is transporting bulky raw material. I believe that one way of overcoming this problem is to have regional plants of a smaller nature. We have such an accumulation of bagasse and other waste bio-mass that I do not believe that that argument can be strongly held today. I really do not think that one can say that the resources are irregular. The quantities may vary from year to year, but the total amount of bio-mass available for conversion into alcohol fuel is enormous and will continue to be enormous, because it is replaceable every single year. I believe that that is an enormous advantage.

In terms of our energy needs, I think the debate this afternoon will turn out to be one of the most important debates that this House has listened to. The whole country is looking to the future. We are all wondering where our fuel supplies will come from, what the average motorist is going to have to pay for fuel for his vehicle and whether rationing will be imposed. All these sorts of questions are being asked. If we accept that alcohol fuels have their place and we take them in as part of the overall approach to our future need for liquid fuel, we will be doing ourselves a favour in the long run. I know that the hon. the Minister will have problems in that the capital cost will be high, but I want to say that if we do not do this, in the ultimate the costs will be even higher.

It gives me great pleasure to support the motion moved by the hon. member for Amanzimtoti.

Mr. Speaker, I move as an amendment—

1. (1) To omit “investigate the need for legislation aimed at—(1) stimulating” and to substitute “stimulate and co-ordinate, within a national programme for the development of additional fuel sources, continued”; and
2. (2) to omit paragraph (2).

The effect of this amendment is that the motion will read—

In moving this amendment, we are not unsympathetic to the object of the original motion. In fact, we sympathize with a good deal of it. Our amendment is motivated by what we see as the importance of viewing the fuel situation as a whole. We must look at each element in that fuel situation in its full context. We believe that the liquid fuel problem at the moment forms a most important aspect of the overall fuel problem and should indeed enjoy a high degree of priority. Other elements, such as the capital costs, the price of the product, the time in which the objectives can be achieved in relation to the urgency of the situation and the needs of the country, and the ability of the country with its technological resources, to achieve certain objectives realistically and economically within a certain space of time, need to be taken into the most careful account when one looks at any particular project, at any particular proposal for the development of our energy resources.

While we are persuaded by the eloquence of the hon. member for Amanzimtoti and his very impressive knowledge of the sugar industry and the contribution it can make to solving the energy problem of South Africa— and we are not saying that this is a marginal exercise and as such not important; we believe that marginal exercises can be very important—we say that any exercise in respect of fuel economy, and particularly of liquid fuel economy, needs to be looked at within a broad context in relation to all other possibilities: in relation to capital costs, in relation to price, in relation to the exigencies of time and circumstance, all of which play an important role. This is why we, through the amendment which I have moved, are introducing the concept of co-ordinating within the national programme. We therefore want to amend the motion, not because we are opposed to the idea of developing ethanol and methanol resources—during the course of the debate we shall explain why we think these are indeed important—but because we consider that they must await their due order in the scale of priorities. This being so, we support the idea, but we believe that the motion as it stands indicates a higher degree of priority within the time scale and within the economic scale than can at present be justified in the light of existing knowledge.

Where do we stand now in our fuel economy situation? It is true that our oil imports, considered on a basis of international comparison, constitute a relatively low percentage of our total fuel needs. We are fortunate that this is so. Although this element provides only a quarter of our energy needs—it is nevertheless a very important and essential part of our entire fuel economy. It is all very well to say that we are less dependent than other countries on oil imports because our percentage need is lower. The fact is that in a sense we are just as dependent as any other country, because that 25% is an essential need.

I have said so.

I agree with the hon. the Minister.

Relatively our need is lower, but in terms of essentiality, in terms of essential need, we are just as dependent still on oil imports as any other country in the world. Since we have this situation and because our transport system governs the growth rate of our country and the ability to employ people in a growing population situation, it does form a key factor in our economic planning.

Therefore, if we look at our precise needs within that oil spectrum, we find that petrol and diesel oil constitute 70% of our liquid fuel needs, and when we get to petrol and diesel, we are getting to the name of the game: What exactly do we need; in what form do we need it and how is that need to be satisfied, not in a general theoretical sense, but in order to fulfil the immediate and essential requirements of our economy as it is now. This is the immediate, the short-term scene. It is all very well to talk about other possibilities which may arise. One can talk about solar energy, a very promising energy source, and a discussion of it will be very applicable now in low-intensity heating applications. However, at the moment we must concentrate on high-intensity heating for industry, and fuel for the propulsion of motor vehicles. As far as this is concerned solar energy cannot replace the 70% requirement for fuel in the field of transport. In that field the fuel required is in the form we use it at present.

You are talking about liquid fuels.

Yes. Solar energy cannot resolve this problem in the present circumstances, nor can nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, geothermal energy or any of the other promising things we see for the future. We are dealing with the situation as of now, which I believe to be a critical situation. We have to find answers that are realistic and practical now. This is what it is all about.

One talks about liquid fuel as being essential. Reference was made by one or other speaker to the importance of liquid fuels 200 years from now, and even by the year 2000—20 years from now. It may well be that by the year 2000 liquid fuels for the propulsion of transport will no longer be required. We are possibly but a short step away from the breakthrough to electrically driven vehicles. Electricity does not need liquid fuel, but can be produced from coal, nuclear fission and a variety of other sources. What we lack is the means of accumulating the energy produced by electricity. If we had a better battery to replace the rather antiquated box we carry about in our cars and one which could hold a charge sufficient to propel a car for a full day before going back to the garage to be recharged overnight, we would in large measure succeed in ridding ourselves of the burden of having to produce liquid fuel. Therefore, all these problems are relative in terms of time and in terms of actual needs at a certain time.

The name of the game therefore is to settle for the right priorities now. It is absolutely essential that, in looking at the whole energy spectrum, the whole tempting range of possibilities should be weighed in their proper economic order with due regard to the questions of time, practicability and cost so that we can do the right thing on the right scale at the right time. If we do this, I believe we will go a long way towards solving our present energy problems.

In saying this I am not suggesting that research into ethanol and methanol fuels is unimportant. I agree with the hon. member for Amanzimtoti that marginal developments are very important, because we find ourselves in a position where every kind of improvement or addition to the energy spectrum can cumulatively be of crucial importance. Therefore, to say that a development is marginal is not to use an insulting word. To take another example; I believe that paraffin used for heating and lighting, which constitutes only about 5% of our fuel requirements, could in the case of our urban Black townships, where it is mainly used, be replaced by electricity. Electricity derived from coal, if supplied to these townships, could in fact greatly reduce the dependence of 5% on heating and lighting paraffin presently used in the townships. 5% is a very large figure if we have regard to our present energy problems.

I think we should discuss that under the other motion which is to come before the House.

Very well, we shall come back to it then. I am now merely touching upon the question of marginality in respect of various alternative proposals and am saying that a marginal advantage is an important advantage, even though it may affect only 5% of our requirements.

Quite clearly, therefore, no promising avenue must be neglected in our exploration of our present fuel resources, their more effective utilization, their conservation and their replacement as far as may be possible by other or more economic means. Ethanol and methanol fuels should not necessarily be seen as a replacement for present liquid fuels, but rather as an additive, a useful supplement, a “stretcher” of the available fuels. I think that important research has been done, firstly at Centrachem, where private enterprise has launched what might be described, I suppose, as a pilot plant for the production of these fuels from vegetable matter.

This is a very important line of development and deserves every encouragement. It is part of the object of our amendment to encourage the hon. the Minister to continue to co-ordinate and stimulate research of that kind. Important research is also being undertaken at the University of Cape Town energy research unit, research which concerns the mixing of methanol with conventional liquid fuels in order to stretch the availability of these fuels and to make motorcars run farther on petroleum fuel if it is mixed with methanol. I believe this is most valuable work, because, as I say, marginal improvements are very important in our present situation. When one looks at ethanol and methanol as they are presently produced in relation to the present kind of transport which is used, we realize that this type of research is most important, aiming as it does at the production of methanol and ethanol at a cheaper and more competitive cost than the cost of traditional fuel as now calculated, and making improvements in the economic production of the product so that eventually the product can be used as an additive to standard fuel, thus enabling one to drive a motor-car a longer distance economically. All these things are most important and deserve every possible encouragement. They deserve to be fitted into the overall energy programme and to form a part of it, with every possible encouragement from the authorities.

I shall not go any further into the question of the possibilities of ethanol and methanol as the hon. member for Orange Grove will make a further contribution along that line.

I think it needs to be explained what our difficulties are with this motion, although, as I have said, we generally sympathize with it. We do not agree that at the present time the kind of proposal made by the hon. member for Amanzimtoti requires legislation. In the motion the Minister of Economic Affairs is requested to investigate the need for legislation. I think that in respect of the first leg of the motion—asking for stimulating research to be undertaken—there is no need for legislation. The hon. the Minister has found that by stimulating research in various fields by various bodies, he can encourage it in the desired way. If he thinks that a line of research deserves State support, all that is necessary for him to do is to come to this House, state his case and ask for additional funds. But I believe that legislation as such is not needed.

The motion’s second leg, which we have asked to be struck out, asks for the introduction of production control mechanisms in the form of grower and manufacturer quotas. I think this also is premature. Until we have actually developed the ethanol and methanol line to the point where it becomes an economic factor in the production of liquid fuels and until it reaches a scale where production in South Africa of these products has to be controlled with a view to their widespread application in the fuel industry, I think it is premature—in fact, misleading—to introduce legislation at this stage to introduce such control mechanisms and quotas.

Why is it premature and misleading?

The reason is that we are discussing legislation to control agricultural products years before the actual need has been proved or has become economically viable. I believe that existing legislation in the hands of the hon. the Minister of Agriculture may well already be adequate to do most of this job as far as it is necessary. I do not believe we should encourage the people of South Africa to believe in myths. I believe there exists far too much confusion in the public mind already. They seem to think that we do not need to worry about the oil prices, because shortly we will be using nuclear fission.

We have a nuclear power station down the road, therefore why worry about a shortage of oil? This form of energy is very promising and everybody speaks most highly of it, so why worry about oil? They read a “popular science” article about geothermal possibilities and say that we can get heat right out of the core of the earth, so why worry about oil? I think all this is misleading. However, there is a time-scale in this matter. There is a choice of economic possibilities. All these matters have got to be considered realistically and in the light of technological advances made, in the light of capital available to develop these things and the cost and price of these things, and I believe that we must take these things in due order. I believe, and this is the point of our amendment, that it is the responsibility of the Minister of Economic Affairs—and I know he agrees with me—to establish the right order of priorities, all these elements being borne in mind: the time, the cost, the price and the technological availability. When these things are established and if the hon. the Minister can take the right decision, he will have led us a long way dong the path away from economic dependence on foreign sources of supply. This is the name of the game. We shall support him in his efforts. We believe and argue frequently from these benches that a high degree of co-ordination is required of both public and private resources in order to ensure that the right order of priorities is achieved.

In this spirit and in this sense we support the motion with the qualifications which I have mentioned.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to say that I differ very little, if at all, from what the hon. member for Constantia had to say. He and I have never agreed with each other in such a way on a subject as we indeed do in regard to this subject.

To return to the original motion before us, I must add that the hon. member for Amanzimtoti who proposed the motion, worded it so well that, strictly according to the wording, it is as uncontentious as it could possibly be. Let us examine what he is asking. He is not asking for research. He is not asking for the protection of profits. He is merely asking that an investigation be instituted into the need for legislation which, in the first place, will stimulate research and, in the second place, ensure a reasonable profit. In other words, he is not even asking for specific legislation. He is merely asking for an investigation into legislation. There is probably no problem in that regard. The Government will always be prepared to investigate any matter if it has any merit at all and to ascertain whether that matter should receive further attention, except in exceptional cases where the solution is obvious and the matter so clear that it is not really necessary to institute an investigation into it. One need only really sit quietly for a while and think about the matter and to find the answer. I am of the opinion that perhaps this is, in fact, the position in this particular case. Whilst I agree with the motion and do not actually differ from it, I do feel that the motion is a little unnecessary because there is already provision for all the things being requested. Nevertheless, it is good and proper that we discuss these matters here today, because it is a very important matter, a matter affecting every member of our population and the entire economy. Our economic position in turn affects our military position and other important aspects of our community. All of us are aware of the seriousness of the fuel shortage; we are aware of the unfortunate position in Iran and the fact that this is creating problems for us, and we are aware of the premiums which must be paid in order to obtain oil. For that reason, because the matter is a serious one, it is as well that we debate this matter and it is also as well to investigate all possibilities. Now, in the first place, the question arises which legislation is perhaps in fact necessary for the purposes of research and the stimulation of the research requested? It is appropriate that we should examine the overall position in our country and consider which preventative measures have already been taken for the stimulation and regulation of research. Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will permit me to speak a little wider of the point, but I shall most certainly remain within the scope of the motion. I want to spend a little time tracing the course of history by examining what exactly we have arranged and what exactly we have done to be able to provide for research in this regard. I should also, in particular, like to investigate the determining of priorities as far as research is concerned, because, as the hon. member for Constantia said, it is a very important aspect today. The situation is such that we are fortunate to stay in a country of many possibilities, resources and facilities. Naturally, this has resulted in the fact that there are many researchers working in our country.

We are also aware that members of our population have achieved great successes and are leaders in the field of research. According to history the first research was done on a somewhat personal basis, without there being proper co-ordination. It is interesting to note that the first association which sought to coordinate research and arrange for the stimulation of research projects, was established in Cape Town in 1877. This association was known as the Philosophical Society. After that, various other associations were established, of which one of the most important was the “S.A. Akademie vir Taal, Lettere en Kuns” of 1909. In 1924 this association acquired in addition a scientific, engineering, and medical wing. In 1924 the Associated Scientific and Technical Association of South Africa was established. The purpose of this association was specifically to co-ordinate these activities. In 1962 the very important Scientific Advisory Council, with the abbreviation SAC was established. The function of this council was specifically aimed at promoting the utilization of scientific knowledge to the benefit of the country as a whole. This council formulates a national scientific policy and revises it regularly. It also draws up a national research programme of study about the country’s scientific and technological potential. Because it is such an important body, it functions under the direct control of the hon. the Prime Minister. The SAC represents all Government departments and statutory boards concerned with research, as well as universities and industry. The scientific adviser of the Prime Minister serves as chairman of this board. This chairman’s responsibilities were specifically laid down in 1973, viz. that it is his duty to lay down priorities with regard to the appropriation of Government money for scientific research. Here, therefore, a body has already been created whose task it is to ensure that priorities be laid down and, should the priority entail research into ethanol and methanol, this body will determine that priority. This chairman then appointed a priorities committee from the members of SAC, a committee which is not representative of the organizations which already receive money for research purposes. Expert opinions with regard to research spending are, therefore, acquired in a very independent way. All applications for funds for special research—and this particular case will be classed under that—which are received by the Treasury, are referred to the scientific adviser. In 1945 the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the CSIR, was established by means of legislation. The duty of this council is, briefly, to examine basic scientific knowledge and to encourage research. In 1976-’77 the budget of this council was R57 million, and in the following year R66 million. In the 1976-’77 financial year the establishment provided for 4 500 posts. The following year it was 4 600 posts. This council has 16 national research laboratories and institutes. The CSIR has many other functions and other branches. It also encourages industry and the private sector to establish subsidized co-operative scientific research institutes. One of the most important of these is the Leather Industry Research Institute, attached to Rhodes University in Grahamstown, in the Albany constituency. The CSIR also supports approximately 25 separate research units which do further research, and, although I am tempted to refer to three other important ones in Grahamstown, I shall leave it at that. However, I want to refer specifically to one which, at this stage perhaps, and for the purposes of this debate, is more appropriate. It is the one which operates under the auspices of the University of Cape Town— the Fuel Research Institute of South Africa, an institute established by way of legislation of 1930, as amended in 1963 and again in 1973.

Therefore, the statement ensuing from this is that, under the auspices of the Government, it is not just a case of research taking place in a haphazard way, that there is no proper pattern according to which priorities are fixed. Those things are, indeed, properly organized, and we see, therefore, that sufficient machinery actually exists which can lay down the priorities and the needs for stimulating each form of research. I am just a little afraid—although I am delighted that the hon. member proposed this motion—that, perhaps from the motivation it reveals, and perhaps also in general from the content of the motion, the impression may be created that the Government is not really aware of the necessity and importance of carrying out research with regard to all aspects of fuel, specifically methanol and ethanol. In order, therefore, to ensure that this misconception is removed, I think it is necessary that I refer to a few other aspects and draw the House’s attention to the steps already taken and the pronouncements already made by the Government.

In order to show sufficiently well that the Government is on its toes, and to show how aware the Government is of the situation, I need only refer to the special Cabinet Committee constituted to give attention to an energy policy. It is a Cabinet committee consisting of senior Ministers, among whom are the hon. the Minister of Environmental Planning and Energy, who is also the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs, the hon. the Minister of Transport, the hon. the Minister of Mines and the hon. the Minister of Finance. The matter is regarded as being of such importance that a special Cabinet Committee was appointed to give attention solely to the energy policy. To assist and advise them, an energy policy committee was also constituted to give constant attention to these matters and to keep an eye on all aspects of this matter and to consider the matter and furnish advice.

Furthermore, I should like to refer briefly to some of the steps already taken by the Government and to the now well-known points of view adopted. As far back as March 1978, on the occasion of the opening of a Sanso congress, the hon. the Minister of Finance emphasized the necessity for and the importance of research in connection with ethanol and methanol, and emphasized the studies which must be undertaken as far as the utilization of maize, sugar cane and other agricultural products are concerned. At that stage, therefore, there was a definite pronouncement by the Government that it was very important and that, of necessity, it had to be proceeded with.

At the beginning of this year the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs and of Planning and Energy announced that the Energy Policy Committee was to appoint a subcommittee which also specifically had to deal with the resources of wood, maize and sugar cane as possible sources of fuel in the future. At the end of January the hon. the Minister also mentioned this important aspect in a Press statement. He specifically referred to the methanol and ethanol matter and to certain problems in that regard. He proceeded to say that in spite of these problems, the Government would ensure that investigations in this regard would continue. Unfortunately time does not allow me to quote him in full.

I rather want to refer to something more recent, something which actually sums up the matter. If the hon. members read Die Burger this morning, they would have taken note of an important report that has been made available. The committee has reported and a statement was issued by the hon. Minister in this connection. He states, inter alia—

It would appear that there are hon. members in this House who should perhaps give evidence before the Erasmus Commission. There are also hon. members who, due to the special knowledge they have revealed this afternoon, ought to give evidence before the Theron Commission, in connection with this matter. My impression is that this would only be to our advantage.

Despite the fact that this commission of experts investigated this matter thoroughly, they came to the conclusion that the supplementing of South Africa’s crude oil provisions by the establishment of methanol and/or ethanol plants does not offer a solution at this stage. The committee is of the opinion that the research work on this matter must proceed, and I want to emphasize that. In spite of the findings already made, the committee is of the opinion that the research work must still continue. If this committee, which is the immediate responsibility of the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs, recommends that research should proceed, all hon. members in this House may certainly rest assured that that research will, in fact, proceed.

As far as the first leg of the motion is concerned, I do not think that further legislation is really necessary, and the matter is under control. As far as the second part of the motion is concerned, the hon. member who proposed it, did not make much of it, and I, too, like the hon. member for Constantia, felt that the proposer of the motion had made a big jump. One moment he is still asking for and stimulating research, and the next moment he is already concerned about the profits which could be made. I do not think this is necessary and, in any case, I do not have sufficient time to go into the matter, except to say that at the moment there is no real need for anything of that nature.

Thus, many things have already happened which have resulted in our public being aware of the problems. We must just be careful that the public does not now reach the conclusion that everything is under control and that it is no longer necessary to be concerned about this matter. They must not think that we may now carry on consuming as much petrol as we wish. For that reason this debate must, indeed, cause the public to continue to be aware of the necessity to conserve fuel, to continue to take all possible steps in this regard and to encourage one another to conserve fuel so that the high morale of the whole population may be maintained in respect of this matter.

When I was much younger I read on many posters during the war: “Do not talk about ships or shipping.” I think that we have now reached the stage where everyone should say: “Talk and think about fuel and fuel conservation.”

Mr. Speaker, the sentiments expressed by the hon. member for Albany appear to indicate that we have the support of that side of the House for the amendment moved by the hon. member for Constantia because he, too, believes that the motion before the House was a little more specific than it should perhaps have been at this stage and that the second half of the motion, especially, is possibly premature at this stage. The hon. member also seems to feel that research in South Africa into all aspects of fuel alternatives was quite adequate. He went through a whole string of steps taken and measures adopted by the Government. I am, however, not quite sure that I agree with him. I do not necessarily believe that the research is adequate. I am aware of the fact that many of the research organizations who are looking into this question are doing so on shoestring budgets. When one gives consideration to the tremendous importance of the work that they are doing, I believe that it is vitally necessary for more money to be pumped into research for fuel substitutes. We have to be hard headed about this. Research has to be directed to a choice of economic possibilities. As the hon. member for Constantia said, there is a lot of loose talk about fission, fusion and solar energy, but we have to look at economic possibilities. We have to look at the two materials that are the specific subjects of the motion before the House and see whether an economic case can be made out for the use of either of them.

The motion before the House deals specifically with two alternative transport fuels, and they are ethanol and methanol. I believe that it is important to look at the research that has been done on the possibilities of using these substitutes for oil. Before going into the economics of these possibilities, I must say that I was most interested to hear the hon. member for Berea talking about the production of ethanol at a price of 14 cents per litre. I think the hon. the Minister and the hon. the Deputy Minister must have become quite excited because if the hon. member for Berea has the secret at his fingertips, as he obviously has, I think it is his patriotic duty to go to the Government immediately and tell them about his system of producing ethanol at 14 cents per litre. Frankly, from what I have seen I do not believe that this is a realistic figure at all. I see that sentrachem fairly recently suggested that they might be able to produce ethanol at a price of between 20 cents and 24 cents per litre. My own feeling; however, is that it is probably going to be somewhat more expensive than that. As the hon. member for Constantia said, we are comparing different things.

Mr. Speaker, I very briefly want to go into the technical difficulties which would confront us if we used either of these two alcohol fuels. I am indebted, for much of my information, to various papers on the subject produced by the Energy Research Institute of the University of Cape Town. Let me start by saying that the synthetic crude oil and petrol manufactured by Sasol has a considerable advantage over any other fuel, because no modification is required for engines that use petrol. They can use Sasol products without any modification.

If one is giving consideration to using straight ethanol or straight methanol, one must bear in mind that extensive engine modifications would be necessary and this would involve such considerable expense that at this stage it really would not be an economic proposition at all. I think if one were to set any goals at this stage, one should do so on the basis of the use of methanol or ethanol blended with petroleum. It appears to be possible to use blends of up to 25% with only relatively minor modifications being necessary. As far as methanol is concerned, its use, blended with petroleum, has already been very successfully tested, and it is in the process of even more extensive testing, again by the institute at the University of Cape Town which has been running a car on methanol for some length of time. I was also most interested to hear that Cape Town City Tramways, together with the Energy Research Institute, will shortly be undertaking an experiment with one of their diesel buses operating on a percentage of methanol that is fed in separately into the cylinders.

I think it is true to say, looking at the percentages of transport fuels used in South Africa, that the situation with regard to diesel is far worse than the situation with regard to petrol. On that basis I think this experiment is tremendously important because it would enable us to extend the usage of diesel. Unfortunately, however, very little research in this respect has been done in our country so far. I would therefore commend the hon. the Deputy Minister to keep his eye on this whole question of experimenting with methanol blended with diesel. It should be watched very closely.

It is felt by protagonists of methanol that a start should be made with blended fuel, but they do add that it would be logical to move on to the use of pure methanol in engines designed for the use of this fuel. Obviously, if one is going to go into the use of a fuel which would involve major modifications to all the engines now using normal petroleum products, one is talking about a considerable financial investment. I should therefore like to leave that out of my argument at the present time. There is, however, no doubt at all that methanol has advantages over petrol. In the first instance it has a higher octane rating. In higher compression ratio engines it was found to operate at an efficiency rate of something like 40%, which is a good deal higher than the efficiency rate of only 20% of most petrol engines. Indeed, it compares very favourably with the efficiency rate of diesel-operating engines.

On the other hand there are disadvantages and technical problems, one of these being that the calorific value of methanol is much less than that of petrol so that the fuel flow will have to be much increased. This would mean almost doubling the size of fuel tanks. Furthermore, there are cold-start problems, problems of higher flashpoints and other technical problems, but all these technical problems could be overcome.

To sum up the technical content of what I have been saying, I want to say that it appears to me that methanol could be used to advantage without major technical problems. The question of the economic implications and feasibility I should like to discuss a little later in my speech.

First I just want to deal briefly with ethanol as a petrol substitute since it appears that ethanol, especially when blended with petroleum, seems to be a feasible proposition. Its fuel characteristics are similar to those of methanol and it has a higher calorific value than methanol. There is, however, no doubt that technically ethanol, like methanol, could be used as substitute motor fuel.

Next I should like to take a look at the manufacturing processes for the production of these fuels and the economic feasibility of these production processes. Methanol can be made from low-grade coal, oil shale, wood and various farm waste products. We have heard quite a lot this afternoon about the possibilities. This motion is, however, particularly directed towards the utilization of agricultural crops. I would say that at this stage the cheapest way of producing methanol would be from low-grade coal, very much the sort of coal the Sasol process uses. I am told that it is quite possible that a major methanol plant could be built at a lower cost than a Sasol process plant but, again, there is no clarity about the economics of this. I have reservations about the use of agricultural crops on a large scale for manufacturing fuel. I am not going to be quite as dramatic about this as the hon. member for Berea who said it was a great mistake to go ahead with Sasol 3. He was very dramatic about it indeed. He said it was a tactical mistake. I finally came to the conclusion that perhaps he was merely plugging Natal as a site for Sasol 3.

Are you against that?

I am not against it at all. I think that possibly the hon. the Minister hits looked into the possibilities of placing it elsewhere, but in view of the urgency of the present situation I am not prepared to criticize his decision.

What about Robben Island as a likely site?

The hon. member suggests Robben Island might be the place for a plant.

In conclusion, I want to come back to what has been said by the hon. member for Constantia and myself, viz. that what we are confronted with is a choice of economic possibilities. There is a tremendous urgency attached to this whole matter. I do not think the time is ripe to start introducing legislation laying down agricultural quotas for the production of ethanol. This is just not on at the moment. As regards the immediate future, I think our prospects lie in the exploitation of low-grade coal deposits and I should like to commend to the hon. the Minister the production of methanol as well as the Sasol process for producing fuel. Research must continue—here I am at one with the mover of the motion—but I think we have to be very careful about the economics involved in the major use of agricultural products.

Mr. Speaker, I find it rather disturbing to note that the hon. members for Orange Grove, Albany and Constantia obviously overlooked the reason for the second leg of this motion. They consider it to relate merely to the profit motive, but that is not what it is all about. The hon. member for Orange Grove has just said that he does not see the need to introduce legislation, at this point in time, in order to commence with research. What the hon. member for Amanzimtoti aims to demonstrate with this leg of his motion is that there is, at present, legislation covering quotas and that this legislation should be adapted. That is what I intend dealing with in my speech. I think it would be a tragedy to omit the second leg of the hon. member’s motion. I have no argument with the amendment to the first leg and I do not think the hon. member for Amanzimtoti has any argument with it either. However, that is for him to decide. After all, it is his motion and he will speak to that when he winds up the debate.

Do you want legislation now?

We have the necessary legislation already. I intend to prove that. If the hon. member for Constantia will be patient, I will demonstrate that we have, in effect, got the necessary legislation already.

I am looking for information.

The hon. member for Albany commented that the hon. member for Amanzimtoti did not ask for a specific legislation. That is quite correct. He has not asked for a specific legislation for the reason that it is available. He only asks for research into production and for a reasonable return. Again, this reasonable return, this “billike wins” seems to worry the hon. member. That is, however, not the point at issue. We want to ensure that there is stability in the industry, stability for the grower, the miller and also for the producer of methanol or ethanol.

Last Sunday evening I watched with great interest the interview given by the hon. the Minister on television. The interview ranged broadly across the subject of fuel and briefly touched on the area we are discussing here this afternoon. The hon. the Minister, inter alia, made the following significant statement, and I think I have his words verbatim—

He was referring, of course, to the fact that he felt that this was the least attractive source for the provision of raw materials that could be utilized in the manufacturing of alternative fuels, fuels such as ethanol and methanol.

I want to point out to the House that due to the work done by the hon. the Minister, his predecessors, this Government and previous Governments there is one sector of agriculture that has controls which ensure a great measure of continuity of supply, and unless growth is seriously affected by adverse weather conditions, continuity of supply practically eliminates the uncertainty that seems to worry the hon. the Minister.

In all fairness, I have said that one should test it while taking into account certain technical and economic factors and also the availability of supply.

Will the hon. the Minister allow me to develop my arguments?

Yes.

I am, of course, referring to the sugar industry. This industry originally laid down a quota system for both growers and manufacturers, thereby doing exactly what is asked for in the second leg of this motion before the House.

In respect of sugar.

Yes, in respect of sugar. This ensures a stable and equitable return for all concerned in the production of the commodity, sugar. This is due to the foresightedness of this industry and the encouragement and support of the Department of Economic Affairs. The whole thing is wrapped up in the Sugar Act of 1936 as it has been amended from time to time. I must add I can hardly tell the hon. the Minister anything about this Act; after all, last year there were amendments to it for which he was largely responsible. The Sugar Act, No. 9 of 1978, was published on 10 March 1978.

I want to refer the hon. the Minister to the words contained in the annual report of the South African Cane Growers’ Association. I should like hon. members to listen to them. Talking about the promulgation of the Act last year, it is stated—

I think it is well to add in this respect that over a period of some 40 years the original Act was amended only twice; once in 1955 and once in 1958. I say this in order to highlight the effectiveness of the controls the industry has in respect of quotas in particular, pricing and a multitude of other facets which affect the sugar farmer and the sugar industry in general. This report contains another significant paragraph. It refers to the Sugar Bill of 1978. I quote—

I highlight this point because it emphasizes the fact that this industry works at all times in the closest co-operation with the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs.

I am their best friend.

That is open to question! The Sugar Act clearly spells out the modus operandi—it is in fact a handbook— for every sugar grower and miller. One cannot go into a sugar farmer’s library, or anywhere where the industry is situated, without finding a copy of it. Every one possesses a copy of the Sugar Act, which is virtually his Bible.

An examination of this Act will demonstrate exactly how the quota system is applied in respect of both land and crop. It also illustrates clearly that the disciplines contained therein are self-administered—this is important—in the sense that it is the growers and the millers themselves who set, allocate and maintain quotas. There is no control board, and heaven knows, we have enough control boards in this country.

However, there are many elected bodies that appoint people from within the industry to carry out the requirements in terms of the Act. They discipline themselves, they train their own people, they set up their own research institutes, and this is what we are talking about here this afternoon. This is what this industry does for itself. In doing all these things, which are based on the production of cane on a quota basis, they always have, and always will, maintain the stability of the industry and ensure an equitable return for all. That, in reply to the hon. member for Albany, is what the second leg of this motion is all about.

I know that it may be argued that the sugar industry is not exactly flourishing at the moment I agree, but we must remember that this is due to worldwide over-production and a consequent worldwide drop in the price. It is not, however, due to uncertainty of supply. That, I say again, is the point that bedevils the Minister. It is not due to an uncertainty in supply.

In all fairness, you are taking it out of context.

Maybe I am, but that is the way I think the whole of South Africa saw it. I submit that the hon. the Minister has, virtually at hand in the Act, the means to ensure stability and an equitable return for all. He certainly has these means at hand. All that has to be done, is for this modus operandi to be adapted for, and extended into, other agricultural crops such as maize, timber and many, many others. Surely we can look forward to an expansion of all these industries with additional set quotas allocated so as to ensure that a certain percentage of every man’s total quota, be it for whatever crop it may, is channelled into the production of ethanol, methanol or any similar fuel alternative. I think the terminology used is power alcohol. Checks and balances could be introduced in order to compensate for shortfalls and over-production and the farmer would thus be given that measure of security that would flow from the awareness of these provisions. It would naturally follow that the final say and appeal would rest with the hon. the Minister. The sugar industry has happily accepted this situation. As I pointed out earlier from this report, the sugar industry will happily continue to accept this situation. I should like to add that I know the hon. the Minister’s door is always open to representatives and individuals from the industry. I have had the pleasure of being in the hon. the Minister’s company on a visit to my constituency. I know the regard in which he is held, but I also know that the grower and the miller are deeply conscious of the fact that his stability and viability are ensured, to a great degree, because of the provisions of the Sugar Act. Before I conclude, I should like to refer once more to this report, because I think this is significant. I want to quote the closing section of a paragraph dealing with power alcohol. The report states—

That was written in this report of 1977-’78, a report stamped: Durban, 18 May 1978. Many months before we were faced with the critical situation we are faced with at this moment, months before the developments took place in Iran and months before any of us gave more than a fleeting consideration to the production of any alternative power alcohol, the sugar industry was talking about the fact that such an alternative could probably assist them in the dilemma in which they found themselves. But now the boot is on the other foot in the sense that it would not only help the sugar industry, but also South Africa as a whole. I therefore make this appeal. Give this matter urgent consideration.

In conclusion, let me add that the grower, the miller, the refiner and the ministry have proved conclusively that quota control systems and mechanisms can insure a stable and equitable return. All we ask today, is that these methods that have been outlined, should be extended in order to achieve the same results in respect of other agricultural products. The same should apply to other agricultural products that might be used for the production of alternative fuels. It is for these reasons that I have much pleasure in supporting the motion.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for Amanzimtoti for introducing this motion and, by doing so, creating an opportunity for a very positive discussion in the House today on a subject that is of vital importance for South Africa. Much has been said lately in the Press, on television and at various symposia and meetings about what at first glance might appear to be an apparent lack of recognition by the Government of the potential of ethanol and methanol for alleviating the country’s problem of securing a sufficient amount of liquid fuels. I welcome the hon. member’s motion in that it creates the opportunity for me to describe more fully the present situation regarding these potential motor fuels.

*I have reason to congratulate hon. members on both sides of the House who participated in the discussion of this motion today very sincerely on the standard of the discussion which was maintained here. It is a technical subject which is under discussion here, and I do not intend to give a technical reply to it. There are other hon. members here, such as the hon. member for Amanzimtoti and the hon. member for Wonderboom, who are very well equipped for a very technical discussion of this matter. I do not have that background, yet I want to tell hon. members that I think each one of them made a thorough study of this technical subject before they entered the debate. In general the discussion was of a very high standard and I believe it was a good thing that we discussed this important matter.

With his amendment the hon. member for Constantia came very close to the actual situation prevailing in this connection in South Africa. I have no fault to find with the amendment of this hon. member, just as I do not really have any fault to find with the motion as a whole. The hon. members, in the nature of things, covered a very wide field, while the motion in my opinion covers a very limited field. At this stage I just want to point out to hon. members that another motion dealing with energy appears on the Order Paper for next week. Because I expect many of the arguments which were used today to be repeated, I want to suggest that hon. members should wait a while until they are then able to obtain replies from the hon. Minister on the wider and very interesting aspects that were raised here today. I shall simply confine my reply to the subject of the motion.

When discussing such a motion one must always begin at some point. I want to say that, apart from the oil crisis which exists in the world today and which had its origin in conditions in Iran it is a fact that experts on this subject throughout the world warn us that we are going to experience oil shortages by the end of this century in any case. In view of this, and also in view of our particular position in South Africa, it is obvious that there will be general and wide-spread concern—as there ought in fact to be—at our dependence on imported sources of energy. I accept this motion as an outcome of the prevailing concern, on the part of the hon. Opposition as well, including the hon. member who introduced the motion. In my opinion this motion covers a limited area in our search for and our efforts to find alternative fuels in South Africa.

As I understand the motion, it is limited to the possibility of legislation to stimulate research into the manufacture, the cost and the distribution of the fuels ethanol and methanol, which are to be manufactured primarily from agricultural crops and timber. I believe that these two products are probably receiving the most attention today as possible alternative fuels because it has become apparent that they may be utilized without any need for us to make any substantial changes to the internal combustion engines which are being used in our motor vehicles today. The project therefore has potential. In this connection I just want to emphasize what the hon. member for Wonderboom said, i.e. that ethanol has for a long time been known as a supplementary fuel. The manufacturing process of ethanol is relatively simple, and as old as the hills. No research in this connection need therefore be carried out. Ethanol has also been used on a commercial basis throughout the world. During the last World War Germany supplemented its oil supplies by mixing ethanol, which they manufactured from potatoes, with petrol.

And it was good.

In Nebraska, in the USA, a mixture containing 10% ethanol and 90% petrol is being marketed today. One of the hon. members on that side of the House correctly stated that Brazil is today engaged in a project—Brazil is dependent on imports for 80% of its oil—by means of which it is trying to replace 25% of the oil which it imports with ethanol by 1985. In South Africa Sasol petrol still contained ethanol until recently, and even today—for the information of the Natalians—a mixture of 50% ethanol and 50% petrol is marketed in Natal.

I should like to raise three important aspects. In the first place I want to confirm what the hon. member for Constantia has already said, i.e. that no legislation is needed to enable research to be done. In South Africa research is constantly being done to develop alternative fuels for providing the motive power for vehicles. This research did not begin yesterday or the day before; it began a long time ago and dates back much further than the 19/3 oil price crisis, which brought the world’s dependence on imported oil so emphatically to our attention. As far as these particular products are concerned, very specific and extensive research is in fact being carried out in South Africa. The hon. member for Berea wondered whether we were in fact doing enough research in this connection. The hon. member offered an excuse for not being able to be present in this House now. I want to admit candidly that South Africa cannot undertake all the research in this sphere alone because we simply do not have the means and the manpower to do so. However, I can give hon. members of the Opposition the assurance that there are many countries that find themselves in the same position as we are in. All countries which are dependent on imported oil are assiduously doing research over a wide field. South Africa is taking cognizance of what is happening in this sphere in the world, and if it should appear to be necessary, we obtain this knowledge from abroad. As far as these two particular products are concerned, however, specific research over a very wide sphere is being done in South Africa, particularly by the Research Institute for Mechanical Engineering of the CSIR and by several universities, including the University of Cape Town, which is doing very good work in this connection, the University of Natal and the University of Fort Hare.

With the exception of the work which is being done by the Energy Research Institute of the University of Cape Town, I want to emphasize that virtually all the research projects in regard to these commodities are being financed by the State under the supervision of the CSIR. The State is therefore spending money and is playing its part. The State is making funds available to the various bodies interested in doing research, and cannot be blamed for not doing enough in this connection.

The second point I want to emphasize here arises out of what the hon. member for Berea said. No individual and no organization is prohibited from undertaking any project for the manufacture of methanol, ethanol or any other alternative fuel in South Africa. Any person who thinks he has the necessary funds and can afford to do so, can do these things. There are no legal obstacles to prevent them from proceeding with the production of these substances. That is therefore no reason for people to reproach the Government All I can say to hon. members is that according to my knowledge such plants and projects will be capital intensive. A great deal of money will have to be invested in them, and it will take between 2 and 2½ years before they can be brought into proper production.

I want to tell the hon. member for Amanzimtoti that in view of the financial obligations which the State has taken upon itself and is already engaged on with the expansions at Sasol 2, I cannot see that a project which has commodities such as sugar, maize and timber—which the hon. member has in mind—as raw materials will be initiated by the State within the foreseeable future. If it is ultimately decided to utilize agricultural crops for the production of ethanol and methanol it is far too soon to ponder, at this stage already, the desirability and nature of the mechanisms for the production of agricultural crops which could perhaps be used for that purpose. Nevertheless the hon. member’s proposals are very interesting and could perhaps be far more relevant at a later stage. However, it will only be possible to consider them when it is decided that agricultural crops should be specially cultivated for such a purpose.

Despite the arguments advanced by the hon. member for Amanzimtoti as well as other hon. members here, I cannot omit to mention that it would today be far more than a gamble, under the climatic conditions in South Africa with its periodic crop failures and droughts, to establish a capital intensive manufacturing process based on raw materials which are dependent on the overproduction of maize or sugar cane for example.

Another point I want to make proceeds directly from what the hon. member for Wonderboom said, and has frequently been argued. That does not mean to say that this is such an exceptional basis for our argument. Nor is it the argument which we advance for not proceeding with the production of these substances. However, one must appreciate that food is an extremely important priority in the world today. As far as Africa, and specifically Southern Africa is concerned, it is of so much strategic importance to us that, seen as a whole, it would be a little short sighted if one were now to convert this food into liquid fuel and alcohol while we have more than enough other raw materials which could be utilized for the same purpose. We have these in our coal deposits.

Thirdly I want to point out that ethanol and methanol have interesting possibilities for utilization in internal combustion engines by mixing them with petrol and diesel oil. However, to evaluate these possibilities properly, three aspects must be examined:

1. 1. The raw materials from which this alcohol can be manufactured, from the point of view of availability, stability and price;
2. 2. The technology and the economy of the manufacturing process; and
3. 3. Their suitability in the sphere of distribution or final consumption.

After the Government had, through the Energy Policy Committee and in co-operation with the Department of Industries and the CSIR, Sasol and the private sector, studied this matter in depth along these guidelines, it was concluded, firstly, that the possibility is promising enough and the practical problems sufficiently possible of solution to study these possibilities on an on-going basis and to accumulate knowledge and information in regard to them. Secondly, ethanol and methanol can be manufactured from a large variety of raw materials. But studies have very clearly demonstrated that the best, easiest and most economical raw material which can be utilized for this purpose is coal. Fortunately South Africa is richly endowed with large deposits of this product, particularly low grade coal which is extremely suitable for this purpose. Thirdly, the latest studies in regard to the cost factor have shown that ethanol and methanol can be manufactured from coal at a cost which amounts to approximately one third of the cost of manufacturing these products from other materials—for example agricultural crops including maize and sugar. When they are therefore manufactured from coal, the cost amounts to only one third of the cost at which they could be manufactured from agricultural crops. It is therefore clear that as we overcome the problems which we still have in regard to the addition of these substances to diesel oil—the problems of distribution and storage—and eventually reach the stage where we decide to commence such an additive process, the product from which the raw material for the mixing process will be derived will not be an agricultural crop, but coal. In the process of the manufacture of petrol and diesel oil from coal at Sasol, large quantities of ethanol and methanol are released as by-products. If we continue with research in this connection, overcome our technical problems, and eventually decide to mix one of these products with fuel, I can tell hon. members that it will be only logical, and desirable, that the ethanol and methanol which are used will be by-products of Sasol. If one subsequently needs more of these liquid substances, alternative sources, including agricultural crops, may of course be considered. I think that this is the process which we will adopt in this connection, and for the modus operandi in this connection no additional legislation is required.

Our vulnerability in the sphere of fuel lies in our transportation system. The transportation system in South Africa is still up to 75% dependent on the import of petroleum products. Therefore we must realize that whatever we do, plan or undertake at this stage, our transportation facilities will still for many years to come be dependent on diesel oil and petrol to keep the wheels rolling. In this connection we must therefore have a short-term policy, and that is fuel saving. Consequently this aspect is being accorded the highest priority. The other aspects are medium- and long-term projects.

I must concede that the hon. member for Orange Grove is correct when he says that we have the problem, and we have to take this into consideration, that if we wish to reduce the imports of crude oil we must not only save petrol, but diesel oil as well. The consumption of diesel oil has increased more rapidly than that of petrol during the past few years. If we were now to undertake a project to save petrol by means of the addition of ethanol, we could at this stage merely aggravate the disparity which exists in the supply and demand of petrol and diesel oil.

†Quite recently the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs said—

*Yesterday the hon. the Minister announced a project by means of which the private sector will be afforded an opportunity of having a share in Sasol 2. I think that there is a golden opportunity here for the private sector to demonstrate their loyalty with enthusiasm by sharing in this project, side by side with the State, in the interests of South Africa

Since the position of liquid fuel is so changeable in respect of price and availability the Government will, if circumstances so require, take the necessary steps as soon as new facts come to light.

I am indebted to the hon. the Deputy Minister for having five minutes to reply to this debate. I would like to thank all the hon. members who have taken part in this debate for their contributions. I believe the discussion has aired this whole subject of the production of ethanol and methanol as alternative fuels for South Africa. The hon. the Deputy Minister said that the hon. the Minister had called upon the private sector to assist in the production of fuel for South Africa. I want to ask the hon. the Minister: If the private sector found that they could produce an ethanol and methanol fuel—not utilizing all the agricultural crops, which in many respects would be an immoral thing to do—by using the waste products from agricultural processes, would the hon. the Minister be prepared to encourage such development and would he be prepared to give the private sector his support?

I would suggest that if the private sector sees fit to do it, that they can get on with the job.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the hon. the Minister says that the private sector can get on with the job if they think they can do it I have asked for funds for research. I am pleased to hear from the hon. the Deputy Minister that it is not necessary to introduce new legislation for this. When I moved this motion, I thought that there was legislation to cover this and this has now been confirmed. This means that if a particular industry, e.g. the wattle industry—which has its own research institute—feels that it could—I am not speaking on their behalf—produce ethanol by using waste products, then the hon. the Minister could consider giving a research grant to such an institution. I have no authority to speak on behalf of the sugar industry other than to say that I know that these people are very independent and that they would like to do their own research. I am quite sure that they would proceed if they felt that the incentive was there.

With reference to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Constantia, I am afraid that he has broadened my motion through his amendment. He has taken it out of the area of interest which I wanted to put to the hon. the Minister. I was only interested in research in respect of those industries which felt that they could use agricultural crops or agricultural waste products, for the production of ethanol. He has moved an amendment to include the whole national planning, for which I believe the hon. the Minister has already set up committees to investigate.

I also cannot agree to omit the second part of my motion as his amendment proposes. I should like to put it to the hon. the Minister that if a sugar company decided that it was far more economical to develop along the lines on which I elaborated in moving my motion—to alter the whole method of growing and processing cane so as to have a more economic production of sugar and the by-product, ethanol—it could not do this under the existing legislation.

I should like to put it to the hon. the Minister that under present legislation it cannot do that, because the quota of the grower in terms of the Sugar Act is limited to the production of sugar and not ethanol. I think the hon. the Minister understands what I am driving at. If the sugar industry decided that it would like to embark upon this development and produce ethanol, as Brazil has done, out of sugar cane, an amendment would have to be made to the Sugar Act to accommodate such a development. The reason for putting this in my motion is that other industries, such as the timber industry, might decide to use their waste products, such as the cuttings of trees, by feeding them through a shredder and into an alcohol plant. The experience of the sugar industry operating under the Sugar Act shows that similar legislation applied to gasahol production, would bring stability, as well as an equitable distribution of the income of the industry between both the growers and the manufacturers.

I have run out of time. I do think this subject has been well aired. In the circumstances I am happy to withdraw my motion in the hope that the hon. the Minister will think about all aspects of this debate so that, when he meets the people in the sugar and timber industries in the future, he will have a great deal more to talk about in this regard.