as Chairman, presented the Report of the Select Committee on the Environment Conservation Bill, as follows—

Mr. Speaker, it is perhaps not out of place to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the manner in which opposition is conducted in this Parliament and in this debate and to compare it with the events which are taking place at the moment in Madrid, Spain. I believe the hon. the Minister will then appreciate the nature of the Opposition that he has here in this House compared with the nature with the Opposition which exists in other places.

What is your comparison?

Mr. Speaker, other people might perhaps bear that in mind when they tend to sit in judgment upon what goes on in South Africa and then compare it with what goes on in other countries of the world, compare the manner in which we conduct ourselves here in the Republic with the manner in which people conduct themselves elsewhere.

Perhaps it is also not inappropriate to deal with the good news part of what I want to say right at the beginning of my address. That is that I was a little disturbed with the manner in which the hon. member for Umhlanga referred to what he said was “the sloppiness” of S.A. Airways. I should like to state that as far as I am concerned, if we look at our air crews and our cabin staff and at the ground staff servicing the aircraft, there is nothing sloppy whatsoever about any of these people. [Interjections.]

I did not say that. Read my Hansard.

On the contrary, I think that in many respects these people— and I make no apology for saying this—can be compared with any of their equivalents anywhere in the world and they will come out tops. They will come out tops without any doubt.

Sometimes it is a little embarrassing to get a very efficient member of the S.A. Airways staff having to dish up some of the food that is served and sometimes it is a little embarrassing to have to have those people explain some of the things that go wrong. However, I should like to state that they do it very well and with a very good spirit. So I think there is nothing wrong with the S.A. Airways staff and there is nothing sloppy about the way in which they present themselves.

It just goes to show: It is a good Minister.

I shall come to the hon. the Minister in a moment. The hon. the Minister is the bad news part of this.

Yes, see how he is shaking in his boots.

The thing which I find most remarkable about this hon. the Minister is that he is the protagonist of private enterprise in South Africa. Am I right? Silence! Suddenly there is absolute silence. This lip-service which is paid by the Government of South Africa to private enterprise is virtually impossible to understand. This hon. the Minister, when he was Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, told us—and so did his supporters—that private enterprise was no good for agriculture. He told us we had to have control and control boards. When he was in charge of the portfolio of Agriculture private enterprise was no good. Now we come to transport, to the S.A. Railways and Harbours, to the Airways, and again private enterprise is no good. Now, where is private enterprise really good then?

He has forgotten all about the Carlton Centre.

Whatever this hon. Minister, who poses as the champion of private enterprise, touches does not turn into gold, as has been said here. It turns into a form of State socialism. That is the reality. That is bluff, and the sooner that is exposed in South Africa the better. While paying lip-service to private enterprise, what they are in fact practising is State socialism.

And you believe in financial socialism.

If he really believes that there should be private enterprise, let us hear him say, in his reply to this debate, that there is now a new approach to the use of air routes by private airlines, that there is now a new approach to road transportation and that there is now a new approach in respect of private enterprise.

Do you not believe in financial socialism?

Let us test the hon. the Minister on another ground. When he was in charge of agriculture this hon. Minister saw to it that we had the highest increases in food prices to the consumer that we had ever seen. Thus we had the highest increases in meat prices in decades. Now that he has left agriculture alone, this hon. Minister, the Minister of Inflation, comes into a new portfolio and wants to apply the same inflationary processes to the transport of South Africa that he applied to agriculture. I submit that we have to warn against this. We have to warn against it because inflation is the greatest danger that faces the economy of South Africa, and we appear to have people in charge of portfolios in South Africa who do not care about the control of inflation, who take no adequate steps in regard to inflation and who are leading us into desperate straits.

Last year was a boom year. According to the hon. the Minister of Finance, last year was one of the best economic years in the history of South Africa, economically good for some of the people, but economically bad for many, many other people in South Africa. Now we have a situation in which exports are falling and in which imports are also dropping. If, in these circumstances, a rail tariff increase is announced, at this time of the year, the question I have to put to the hon. the Minister is whether this is not just the tip of the iceberg. Is he going to come with another surprise for us after the election, with even greater increases? The hon. the Minister has come to this House today and he has told us that he is going to impose increases in tariffs without producing a set of accounts, without producing a budget and without producing any figures to justify what he is going to do. All he says is that he wants this little increase now. What is going to happen after the election? I think that perhaps the hon. the Minister should get up in this House today and give us some undertaking as to what is going to happen during the rest of the year. We want the hon. the Minister to put his signature on the line to the effect that this will be the last increase that we shall have for a period of time. We want that undertaking from him and we are not going to let him off the hook in this regard.

May I ask you a question?

Certainly.

Mr. Speaker, does the hon. member think that I will be in a position after the election to increase fares further? Is his party not going to take over?

Many a true word!

If the hon. the Minister would care to choose a different seat perhaps we could deal with the situation. However, he seems to like it in those areas where he operates so that is a different matter. [Interjections.]

Sir, the reality of the situation in which the hon. the Minister finds himself is that obviously he has to do something urgently otherwise his Cabinet would never have allowed him to come forward with these increases now. We are fearful as to what is going to happen. You see, Sir, it is not only the direct effect of these increases that we have to worry about; we also have to worry about the indirect effect of these increases on the inflation figure and the hon. the Minister knows that this effect will only be felt after the election. We have to worry about what he is going to do when he actually presents his Railway budget. We demand that he gives us some indications and some undertakings in regard to this matter. The hon. the Minister chose his words very carefully because he said—

Those were the words the hon. the Minister used. Having heard what the Government is going to do in regard to inflation, how can 12,8% be substantially below the anticipated inflation rate? I challenge the hon. the Minister to get up when he replies to this debate and tell us what the inflation rate is that he anticipates will prevail for the rest of this year. What is that rate? The hon. the Minister must tell the South African public what he thinks it is going to be.

Not more than last year.

Not more than last year? [Interjections.] So what in effect the hon. the Minister is saying to us is that perhaps meat will go up to the same extent, perhaps food will rise by 30%. Is that what he is telling us? After all, the hon. the Minister has just told us that the figure will not be more than last year. Has the hon. the Minister changed his mind in this past minute?

The inflation rate will remain at about 15%. It will not be more.

In other words, Sir, the hon. the Minister is prepared to tell the public today that they have to face an inflation rate of at least 15,8% overall and that food may increase to the same extent as it did last year, another 30%, and meat by another 57%? That is what the hon. the Minister is saying to the public of South Africa. [Interjections.] I want the hon. the Minister to say that from every platform when he goes to the country. We want him to tell the country: I, the Minister, and this great NP Government are offering you a 57% increase in meat prices once again; I did it last year and I shall do it again this year. [Interjections.] Sir, I believe that this Railways and Harbours Part Appropriation Bill only tells half the story in regard to what is awaiting South Africa as far as inflation is concerned. It is as the hon. the Minister says: Inflation is like a sin. He condemns it but he also practises it. That is the reality in regard to the question of inflation in South Africa today.

I have indicated that this hon. Minister is a master when it comes to inflation and also when it comes to a question of State socialism. I believe that as far as this election is concerned the Government has to go to the people and tell them precisely what is really going to happen after 29 April. They must give the people the true picture because there is a reason why all these things are taking place now and why this election is soon to be held. If the Government wishes to be honest with the public of South Africa it will come out with the story now and not in August when it will be too late for the public to change their minds.

There are one or two other matters I should like to discuss with the hon. the Minister. We are concerned about the disruption that was caused as a result of hail damage to our aircraft. What concerns us is not the fact that such a situation can arise because it is an unforeseen circumstance. However, what happened in those circumstances was that the S.A. Airways was not in a position to handle the repairs to those aircraft locally. We immediately find ourselves dependent upon having to get spare parts and equipment from overseas. Does he regard it as satisfactory, in the present international situation, that we should be put into that position in regard to our fleet of aircraft? We are calling them to account now, because now is the time to put things right, while one still can. He must not come to us in the future with excuses, saying that because of factors he cannot control, he cannot get the equipment and spare parts to keep our aircraft in the air, and keeping them in the air is vital.

There is a second aspect I should like the hon. the Minister to assure us about—and I think it is important and should be dealt with—and that is the security of the airports. I do not want to enlarge on this to any great extent, but it is necessary to ensure that aircraft can continue to take off and land safely at South African airports, and the responsibility lies with the hon. the Minister to ensure that that can, in fact, take place. I therefore want him, when he replies to this debate, to tell us that we can rely upon all the steps having been taken to ensure that there is adequate security. I do not want to go further than that. I do, however, want him to give us that undertaking and to deal with the matter.

Thirdly, I want to ask him to deal with some of the pool arrangements and to tell us where all this is heading at the moment. When he does deal with South Africa’s contribution to the pool arrangements, perhaps he could deal specifically with Al Italia. Perhaps we could come back to that during the Committee Stage.

Then there are two points I should, in conclusion, like to touch upon, and one of them is very short and to the point. When he replies, I should like him to deal briefly with the development plans for the Victoria Basin of the harbour here in Cape Town, and also elaborate on the Granger Bay situation, a topic which obviously interests the public of South Africa.

This brings me to the last item. An article appeared in one of the overseas newspapers dealing with the insurance available, in terms of the Warsaw Convention, to people travelling on S.A. Airways and other airlines. There is, however, something in the figures quoted that is remarkable, or perhaps I should say shattering. Looking at the list of compensation paid by the Airways of various countries, one finds that the compensation to be paid to someone travelling on S.A. Airways, in the event of something going wrong, does not compare at all favourably with that paid by other airlines. I have a schedule here. For example, if one is travelling on S.A. Airways from London to South Africa, and there should be a mishap, the maximum compensation payable is £8 368. If one looks at one’s ticket, one sees that we limit the amount in most cases—unless one is going to the United States—to either US $100 000 or US$200 000. That is, of course, a bit of archaic history, if one bears in mind the rate of inflation, and yet, without any adjustments being made, these conditions continue to be foisted on an unsuspecting public. I think that is scandalous. I think the figures should be revised. We have a good safety record, and we hope that record will continue, but other airlines pay twice and three times the compensation. There is consequently something wrong. [Interjections.] I therefore want to ask the hon. the Minister to deal with this in his reply, and not only to deal with it, but in fact to make clear adjustments to the amount of compensation payable to passengers, in terms of the Warsaw Convention, as stipulated in the small print on the tickets that are sold.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs is an excellent Minister. The fact that the hon. member for Yeoville became hysterically excited about what had been announced in the budget can only be a good sign to the hon. the Minister. If the Opposition had sung its praises, that would have augured ill for the hon. the Minister. Therefore the tirade with which the hon. member began his speech is proof of the competence and efficiency with which the hon. the Minister is handling his portfolio.

As so often in the past, we are faced again with the outworn double talk of the official Opposition, and when I say that, I want to include the NRP, which has joined the bandwagon this session as far as this subject is concerned. What does the official Opposition say through the mouth of their chief spokesman on Railway affairs, the hon. member for Orange Grove? On the one hand, he attacks the hon. the Minister and the Government because of the increased tariffs, as the hon. member for Yeoville has just done again. They allege that the increased tariffs are inflationary and will result in price increases. That, according to the hon. member for Orange Grove, is the Government’s fault. But he does not blame only the Government for the price increases. In this morning’s Cape Times he says—

This is an accusation against the private sector, after all, so it is not only the Government that stands accused, but commerce and industry as well, and perhaps even the hon. member’s own people in the private sector.

However, the hon. member not only inveighed against tariff increases, but also used electoral tactics by saying that the salary and wage increases were inadequate. If he wants to play Father Christmas without increasing tariffs, he should tell us where he is going to get the money for granting bigger salary increases.

The unbalanced nature of his financial approach is also manifested in the contradictions of his party’s political impotence and political activities. There, too, there are always more negative than positive aspects.

When we look at the role of the S.A. Railways in the national economy, it is so overwhelming that most people cannot grasp its dimensions. The Railways has become such an integral part of the South African national economy that it has come to be taken for granted by the general public. The fact that the Railways is one of the biggest employers in the country, with its almost 300 000 employees, is in itself enough to emphasize the importance of this enterprise. These employees are spread throughout the country and their spending power is not limited to a few big cities, but is used to the advantage of the whole country and is ploughed back even in the smallest village in our country.

Let us take this idea a little further. At the moment, this country is governed by the NP, as it will continue to be in the future. After 29 April this party will still be in power, and there are several reasons for that. One reason why the NP will still be governing the country after 29 April is its realistic approach to the country’s administration and the way in which this is enhanced by the implementation of NP policy and principles.

The NP goes to the electorate with the 12-point plan as explained by the hon. the Prime Minister. When we look at the components of the 12-point plan and at their implementation, one of its realities becomes especially clear when we take cognizance of the role played in this by the Railways. We may look at point No. 3, for example, which provides for the creation of constitutional structures for the Black nations to make possible the greatest measure of self-government within those States and to consolidate them as far as possible. The creation of geographical areas for the various population groups would not have been possible if the Railways had not been the link, the umbilical cord between the national States and South Africa’s industrial centres. For commerce and industry—in fact, for the total economy in the White area and the various Black States—the Railways remains an indispensable and vital factor. It is not only important for the transportation of goods. Dependence on labour also requires a sound and regular transport service for commuters. In this connection, too, we must thank the hon. the Minister and the Administration for the speed and the efficiency with which the Mabopane-Belle Ombre railway line was made available. The first scheduled train began to operate on 27 December 1980. There are bound to be teething troubles during the commissioning of this railway fine, but the fact is that the trains have begun to operate and that there will gradually be a perceptable easing up in road traffic.

For this reason it is important that attention should be given well in advance to other growth points in Black States where services will be required. As far as Pretoria is concerned, I should like to request the hon. the Minister to give attention in good time to a proper railway link between the South Ndebele homeland and Pretoria. Road traffic can very easily become congested if too many buses are allowed. It sounds only logical to me that there should be a rapid and efficient railway connection. There is probably no need to argue the merits of such an effective railway fine. The request is only that it should receive high priority. We have learnt a great deal from the lessons of Mabopane-Pretoria.

In order to give effect to the development of the National States and economic interdependence, proper transportation is essential, and here the Railways naturally plays a very important role. This links up with another point in the 12-point plan, i.e. the recognition of economic interdependence and properly planned utilization of manpower. The Railways relies heavily on long-term planning in this connection. Growth points must be identified well in advance. This is in fact done by the Railways and planning is undertaken accordingly. The Railways will henceforth have to concentrate more and more on this long-term planning.

The proper utilization of manpower does not depend only on its physical availability, but will increasingly revolve around the mobility of the available manpower. The faster and more effective the transport is going to be, the more successfully the labour can be used. The commuter who is already tired when he gets to work because of an unnecessary wait for transport or because of congestion of road traffic is no longer ready to do his work properly, and productivity is bound to suffer. For this reason, it is inevitable that increasing use will have to be made of rail transportation.

Let us consider a further point in the 12-point plan, i.e. the ideal of a peaceful constellation of Southern African States. The network of railway communications in South Africa should link up with those in our neighbouring States. The creation and achievement of such a constellation of States will be much more practical, effective and possible if this can be successfully achieved. In fact, without the specific railway connections it would be very difficult to launch such a constellation successfully.

The Railways is establishing a closer bond and interdependence between nations and countries. On these bonds a solid foundation can be laid for healthy co-operation.

My time has almost expired. The Railways, with its purposeful planning and business principles, will lead South Africa into a promising future, as it has done in the past.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to congratulate the hon. the Minister on his appointment as Minister of Transport Affairs and on his first very important budget. I have come a long way with the Railway people and I want to tell the hon. the Minister that I like a man such as he, a man who, in his own words, is simple and without pretentions. I predict that the Railway people are going to be happy with the hon. the Minister, just as happy as they were with his illustrious predecessors.

The hon. member for Yeoville made a first-class election speech today. He was lavish with his compliments in order to impress the Airways people. However, that will not help the hon. member. These people vote for the NP. The hon. member for Yeoville asked the hon. the Minister to give certain undertakings about what the hon. the Minister was going to do after the election. However, the Railway staff know that the Government has never let them down and will never let them down. The voters, and they include the Railway staff, trust the Government. But they do not trust the Opposition. During all the years I have participated in Railway debates, the Opposition contribution has never been as feeble as it is this year. Sir, the debate from the Opposition side is like a train which cannot get up the hill. It puffs and blows, but the wheels keep sliding. The reason for this is that the Opposition lacks arguments for conducting a profitable debate. From the outset, therefore, the hon. Opposition has lapsed into hopeless contradictions and political expediencies with a view to the election. On the one hand they complain about the tariff increases and on the other hand they say that too little is being done for the Railway-man. Surely the simplest logic tells one that one cannot increase salaries to give the Railway employees better benefits without increasing tariffs as well. Where else is the money to come from? Surely it will not fall like manna from heaven; surely someone has to pay for those benefits, and the obvious person to pay for them is the person who makes use of the Railway services. I want to ask the hon. member for Orange Grove if he would have been more satisfied if the tariff increases had been only 6%. Would he have been more satisfied with that?

I would be more satisfied if there were to be no tariff increases at all.

I want to ask the hon. member for Amanzimtoti, too, whether he would have felt happier if the tariff increases had been only 6%.

I would have been happier if there had been no increase at all.

Judging by their arguments, I am convinced that the hon. members would have been much happier if the tariff increase had been only 6%. However, hon. members must bear in mind that every 1% increase to the staff requires a tariff increase of approximately ½%; in other words, granting an increase of approximately 12% to the staff requires a tariff increase of 6%. That means that the hon. members on the Opposition side would have been happier if there had not been any increase in salaries and pensions, for in order to grant the Railway staff a 12½% increase, tariffs have to be increased by 6%. Surely hon. members cannot have it both ways. With the exception of the salary increases, the real tariff increase to cover increased operating costs is only about 6%%, as against an inflation rate of 15%. If this does not testify to efficient administration, I do not know what efficient administration is. The inflation rate was 15%, but the Railways has succeeded in containing the inflation rate to such an extent that a tariff increase of only 6% has been necessary to cover the increased operating costs.

What percentage of the total cost is wages?

What is more, when one adds the higher salaries and the pensions, one arrives at a tariff increase of 12,8%, and this is still below the current inflation rate. This testifies to sound administration. For this the hon. the Minister and the Administration deserve the highest praise, and not criticism, from the Opposition side. If there had not been an election in the offing, the hon. members on the other side might have been prepared to be a little more appreciative and to say that this is a good budget. In the present election climate, however, they cannot say that.

I want to come back to a fallacious argument advanced by the hon. member for Amanzimtoti. If he would listen to me, I wish to speak to him. I say he advanced a fallacious argument in this debate. He said it had been a good year and large profits had been made in the private sector. Then came the barb in his speech. He asked why the Railways, which is operated on a business foundation, cannot make the kind of profits which the private sector can. The hon. member for Amanzimtoti wants to know that of this House. One is really a staggered at such ignorance on the part of a senior member of this House and a man who professes to be a spokesman on economic affairs and who should be fairly well versed in economic matters. Does the hon. member not know that the Railways is a non-profitmaking organization which does not budget for profits? Is the hon. member still ignorant of that at this stage? I want to ask him whether he thinks that a private enterprise would convey goods at a loss and would continue to do so. The hon. member shakes his head. No private concern would transport goods at a loss and continue to do so, because it would go bankrupt if it did. No private concern would do this, but the Railways is expected to do it. Then the hon. member expects the Railways to make the same fat profits as the private sector does.

Surely the hon. member knows that the Railways conveys passengers, exports, agricultural products, food and livestock at a loss. This has been the case throughout the years. Surely we are aware of this. This being the case, how on earth can the Railways show profits like a private concern while it has to render these services, very important services, to the country? The hon. members opposite are usually the first to complain that transport costs are so high that the farmers’ livestock can no longer be conveyed to the markets. The Railways is subsidising the farmer, as it were. It is subsidizing the food of the poor in this country by transporting it at a low cost. Then the hon. member expects the Railways to show profits the way the private sector does.

In spite of the fact that the Railways allows private carriers to transport as much livestock as they like, a great deal of this traffic is returning from the private carriers to the Railways. What does this mean? It proves to us that it is not profitable for them. That is why they are returning it to the Railways.

I want to accuse the hon. members of the Opposition of making misrepresentations in this debate for the sake of political expediency with a view to the election. It is a great pity that they have done so. We had expected better from them. How can these people look after the interests of South Africa? They would like to look after the interests of South Africa and perhaps sit on this side one day.

Never!

How can they do that if they behave the way they have been behaving in this debate by making misrepresentations with a view to the election?

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bloemfontein North must please excuse me if I do not follow up what he has said. I do want to deal for a few moments with the speech made by the hon. member for Yeoville when he criticized, earlier on this afternoon, the hon. member for Umhlanga.

He never mentioned your colleague.

I believe that it ill behoves an hon. member to play petty politics in this debate, in any event to make wild statements, statements which cannot be justified in any way whatsoever. If he would do that on a platform outside of this House in the coming election he might be able to convince the people that what he is saying is correct. I am going to tell him now what exactly the facts are. If he had read the speech made by the hon. member for Umhlanga he would have seen that the hon. member specifically criticized an area of operations in the S.A. Airways which he defined as being the conditions under which the Airways staff worked on the ground. I should just like to repeat what the hon. member said just to show to hon. members of this House how wild and unjustified the hon. member for Yeoville can be. What the hon. member for Umhlanga in fact said was (Hansard, 23 February)—

The hon. member for Yeoville picks out a central sentence in the speech made by the hon. member for Umhlanga. This is the old story, viz. to quote a part of a speech and to leave out the rest.

You have just done it.

And it is like that hon. member’s party, because what they do is that they go to the people of South Africa and tell them a part of their policy, but they do not spell out . . .

That is a lie.

Order! The hon. member for Bryanston must withdraw those words.

I withdraw them, Sir, but it remains an untruth.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the words unconditionally. [Interjections.]

I withdraw the words “That is a lie” and say it is an untruth.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the words unconditionally.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: With respect, it is perfectly proper to withdraw certain words and to substitute parliamentary words. And it is also perfectly proper to say that what an hon. member is saying is an untruth.

Order! The hon. member is merely using other words. The meaning remains the same.

No, it is not.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw those words. I have given my ruling.

Sir, I withdraw the words “That is a lie”.

I say that it is an untruth.

I repeat the fact that those hon. members go to the public and tell them part of their policy, but they do not tell them what the effects of their policy is going to be on the rest of South Africa.

When the ability to tell the truth was dished out, you were last in the queue.

As a matter of fact, I would have expected the hon. member for Yeoville to have got up now and apologized to the hon. member for Umhlanga, and I still expect him to do so. He has lots of opportunities of doing that. I know why he is looking like that. It is because he knows he is wrong.

I have very little time and I still want to talk about harbour utilization. The figures that are printed on page 46 of the S.A. Railways and Harbours annual report of 1979-’80 indicate that with regard to cargo that was handled at our various harbours there had been a tonnage increase in all the harbours except that of East London. The report indicates that a decrease of 9,58% in tonnage of cargo handled at East London was recorded. I want to put the record straight. If one looks further at the report, one will find that on page 106 there is a detailed analysis of the cargo that was dealt with at various harbours. In this analysis it will be seen that in point of fact at East London the amount of cargo that was landed increased, but that the amount of cargo that was shipped out, in other words exported, decreased. It was because of the net result of these two figures that East London showed a net decrease in cargo handled. This is disturbing because we believe that East London harbour is one of the harbours well known to be most effective and efficient in the handling of cargo itself. We believe that the Railways should take another look at the rationalization of the harbour utilization of all our harbours. Again, if one looks at the same page of the report, one finds there a very interesting graph, in which is reflected the amount of cargo that was handled at the various ports. One will see that at Port Elizabeth the cargo handling remained fairly constant over the years. Although there has been a dynamic increase in our economy in the country, Port Elizabeth harbour has remained virtually static. There has been no increase in cargo handling there. The two that have gone up dramatically are the two harbours handling ore and coal. That is Saldanha Bay and Richards Bay. In fact, the handling at Durban harbour has increased considerably as well. Incidentally, Cape Town harbour has shown a gradual decrease from 1974 right through to 1979. I believe there is not a rationalization of the use of our harbour facilities in the Republic, and we appeal to the hon. the Minister, on behalf of the people of East London and surroundings, to have a good look at the situation to see whether this could not be improved in regard to the very fine harbour facilities that we have there. At the moment the harbour operates on a Ro-Ro basis and on a coastwise containerization basis. It will obviously, we believe, be far too expensive to install, at this stage, a full containerization unit at East London harbour. We do believe, however, that pressures could be brought to bear on certain people who deal with shipping activities, e.g. the Conference Lines. Something should be done to encourage them. The hon. the Minister should use all the persuasive powers at his disposal to bring about investment in more Ro-Ro ships, because, at the East London harbour, we can handle full traffic by way of Ro-Ro vessels. In that way, we believe, we will be able to utilize the harbour facilities to a far greater extent.

There are three major export-orientated types of goods with which we deal at the East London harbour. They are maize, copper and wool.

In regard to maize the dominant factor, of course, is whether the producer, the farmer, has had a good year, whether he can produce masses of maize which can be exported via East London harbour. There are times, however, when in the Free State—obviously, our trade emanates from the Free State—they do not have the crop that they have expected. Consequently our wonderful facilities for the handling of maize cargo in the East London harbour are under-utilized. This is where I believe that a rationalization process can come into effect. Then the maize products produced in the Vaal Triangle area can be diverted to East London harbour with the result that the facilities existing there can be utilized to their fullest extent. I believe too that this country is going to develop as far as maize production is concerned, and that we may well require further facilities in East London harbour. I should be glad to hear from the hon. the Minister whether these facilities are in fact going to be provided, and when they are going to be provided.

The second main export component with which we deal at the East London harbour is copper, and we have heard that copper may well be diverted from East London to Port Elizabeth. This is a drastic step, and I should like to quote to the hon. the Minister what an erstwhile colleague of his said at a meeting held in September 1980 by the Chamber of Industries in East London. On that occasion the then hon. Minister of Economic Affairs, said the following in regard to the utilization of the East London harbour—

Here I believe that rationalization can again come into the picture. We believe that the copper has been handled well and efficiently and to the satisfaction of the people who send it via our port in East London. We also believe that under no circumstances should the authorities in Zambia and Zaire be permitted to divert this traffic through to Port Elizabeth. If, in fact, it is going to be cheaper to go via Port Elizabeth than East London, we believe that there must be an adjustment of the rates in some way or other so as to make it just as advantageous to those exporters to send it via East London as to send it via Port Elizabeth.

In the last minute I have left to me, I should just like to mention the question of wool exports. The hon. the Minister knows the picture in regard to wool. We have been waiting and waiting in East London to obtain a final decision from the Wool Board in regard to what is going to happen as far as wool exports are concerned. This is vital to our harbour. We have all the facilities, we are knowledgeable about the handling of wool in East London and, although wool is now to be transported in containers, we believe that we can still deal with the wool export trade in East London. I want to ask the hon. the Minister please to give us a decision today or, if not today, as soon as possible as to whether he has been influential enough in persuading the Wool Board to decide that East London should retain its wool export opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, it has been quite interesting to witness the election skirmish between the hon. member for East London North and the hon. member for Yeoville. As regards the contributions of Opposition speakers in this debate— and this applies to the official Opposition as well as the NRP—I just want to say that it would be useless to expect them to show any understanding of the position of our Railways as our country’s national transport medium. Even less can they be expected to show any sympathy for it or to give it any credit. It is no use expecting those hon. members to identify themselves with the interests of the S.A. Railways, in spite of the fact that the interests of the Railways are identical with the interests of our country, South Africa. Nowhere in their contributions do hon. members opposite show any understanding of the key role played by the S.A. Railways in the economy of the country. They fail to recognize the fact that as a former Minister of Transport once said, the country’s transport system is the artery of economic activity of any country. Those hon. members did not recognize the statutory obligation of the Railways to promote development and more specifically its statutory obligations in respect of socio-economic services. The hon. member for Bloemfontein North has just dealt with these matters in full, so I shall not elaborate on them again.

Nor do the hon. members opposite concern themselves with the demands which the obligations in respect of socio-economic services are bound to make in order to produce operating results such as those to which the Railway accounts testify year after year in this House. They show no understanding of the strategic role which the country’s transport system has to play in respect of the total strategy to which the Government has committed itself to ensure prosperity and security and our survival in this country in the future; nor of its role in respect of the constellation of Southern African States which forms part of the Government’s policy today, a policy which our present Prime Minister announced in his first important policy speech in this House in 1979, when he spoke of a constellation of Southern African States and of economic interdependence but political independence. Those hon. members do not recognize or understand that.

What must also be remembered in this connection is that as the economies in our neighbouring States to the north deteriorate and their transport systems collapse everywhere, the involvement of the S.A. Railways will correspondingly increase. This is a matter of vital importance to the Railways in these circumstances—that it should maintain its ability to retain a share in the total transport market of Southern Africa, and not only to retain it, but to expand it. The Opposition does not understand that important fact and they do not recognize and sympathize with it. This is evident from the amendment of the NRP, for example, in the second part, in which it is said—

This testifies to that inability to understand the position of the Railways with regard to this very important aspect.

The fact is—as patriots we must all recognize this and feel concerned about it—that this is a matter which is giving cause for alarm at the moment. In fact, it is a worldwide phenomenon that all organizations involved in rail transport have reason to feel concerned about their relative share in the total transport market. We now have the position that the share of the S.A. Railways in the total transport market is in fact shrinking. According to studies first made in 1957-’58, and later by the RAU in 1971-’72, and projections based on these, the position is briefly as follows: I shall first give the position with regard to people who transport their own goods. In 1957-’58, the figure in this connection was 34,8%, and in 1971-’72 it was 37,2%, while the projection for the year 1987-’88 puts it at 41,2%. For private transport, the corresponding figures are 3,7%, 7,3% and 14,4%. For the S.A. Railways, the corresponding figures are 61,0%, 51,1% and 40,0%. For the road transportation and pipelines of the S.A. Railways, the corresponding figures are 0,5%, 4,4% and 4.4%. When one sums up the situation and adds up the rail, road and pipeline transportation of the S.A. Railways, this means that in the year 1957-’58, the S.A. Railways still had 61,5% with its rail, road and pipeline transportation. In 1971-’72 it had already dropped to 55,5%, and the projection for 1987-’88 puts it as low as 44,4%. It is estimated to be about 45% at the moment. There are factors which may counteract this tendency, such as the Richards Bay coal line and the Sishen-Saldanha ore project. It is possible that these may improve the position.

One can understand that this change in the relative share of the various transport media is certainly alarming from a railway point of view. Then one should also bear in mind that improvements which may be effected by Saldanha and Richards Bay will be mainly an improvement in volume. It will mainly be an increase in low-rated traffic. It is even possible that the revenue per ton kilometre will decline in spite of the fact that the contributions of the two projects will improve the position with regard to volume.

There are various factors which are responsible for these tendencies. There is the fact that the mobility of rail transport is not as adaptable as that of road transport, because it is tied to a permanent way. I have already referred to the statutory obligation to develop the country and consequent obligations with regard to socio-economic services. Furthermore, the S.A. Railways is bound by other statutory injunctions as well, for example, that its tariffs should be published. The result of this is that its competitors are able to underbid it. There is the position that as the national carrier, it is not allowed to refuse or turn down any business. Furthermore it is bound, in the determination of its tariffs, by the test of “what the traffic can bear”. These problems are to some extent overcome by the process of cross-subsidizing, but I do not have time now to discuss that in detail. However, we have the position that cross-subsidizing takes place between commodities, for example, and as a result, up to 63% of the total traffic during 1974-’75 was conveyed below cost. By 1978-’79, this figure had dropped to about 43%.

I should like briefly to bring certain ideas to the hon. the Minister’s notice, and these are concerned in particular with what the Railways can do to retain or improve its share in the total transport market. There are two main schools of thought on this subject. The one is that there should be greater protection for the Railways. However, this is a solution which I suppose nobody would advocate, least of all the Railways itself. A more acceptable alternative is probably freer competition, which will undoubtedly be of greater benefit to the country as a whole, because it will mean that the traffic will go to the medium which is able to convey goods at the lowest cost. However, we realize that it is impossible to achieve something of this nature overnight. There are certain conditions which will have to be met. After all, the Railways will not be able to switch over to a system of free competition overnight. One requirement will be, for example, that the Railways will to some extent have to be relieved of the financial burden imposed by the rendering of socio-economic services. There will also have to be an increasing movement towards tariff structures based on cost. In the light of these circumstances, I should like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that attention be given to the way in which this problem may best be handled. Perhaps the hon. the Minister could give us an indication of the present thinking of the Government and his department about this matter, for example, what has already been done and can still be done to solve this vital problem of securing for the Railways its rightful share in the total transport market. Perhaps the hon. the Minister could also indicate what his personal attitude and that of the Government are with regard to the question of free competition. Last year there was an important shift of emphasis through the Railways and Harbours Acts Amendment Bill. Socioeconomic services are no longer so strongly emphasized. Of course, I realize that this is a question which cannot be corrected overnight, but perhaps the hon. the Minister could indicate to us the thinking and future planning of the Government in this connection.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Algoa has shown a much better understanding of Railway affairs than the hon. members on the Opposite side. Their performance today made me feel wistful. Driving past Touws River, one sees the rusty locomotives standing along the line over a distance of a kilometre. These locomotives have no driving force or carrying power left, and the same will happen to the hon. Opposition members after 29 April. If hon. members on this side would only remember how their forefathers had to travel. When the NP came into power, there were no locomotives or rolling stock, and if the hon. Opposition members would keep that in mind, they would not voice these silly criticisms today.

The hon. the Minister has introduced his first budget and he deserves great praise from all the world, including South Africans, and especially all Railway officials. I say this because it is the General Manager and his team that have put the S.A. Railways on the world map, and this means a great deal to South Africa’s status in the future. I should like to refer to a report that appeared in the Sunday Times on Sunday: R350 million South African Order for Locomotive and Coaches. It is the S.A. Railways which is giving the industries a R350 million boost with the manufacture of new locomotives and other rolling stock. It is an English newspaper which says this—

This is what the Sunday Times said. They are referring to the biggest conceivable bonanza the engineering industry in South Africa is getting, thanks to the S.A. Railways. Of course, we must also bear in mind the additional job opportunities which are being created. Our Railways has put our country on the world map, as I have already said. The poor economic conditions abroad have had a depressing effect on the low-rated traffic of the Railways, of course, and here I am referring specifically to the exportation of raw materials.

Thanks to the powerful lead taken by the Railways Administration, the Railways, during the first nine months of the present financial year, exceeded the revenue of the previous year by R67 million. This is the kind of pace that is being set. This is also reflected in the improvement of the operating budget to the amount of R53 million. The coal exported from Richards Bay and the iron ore exported from Saldanha Bay have already earned more than R2 700 million in foreign exchange.

I should also like to refer to what is going on in Africa. I refer to an article in the Rand Daily Mail of 31 December 1980. On that day, big posters announced: “South African exports to Africa hit R1 000 million mark.” I quote—

Then it says—

The following, however, is the biggest compliment to the S.A. Railways, and in an English-language newspaper at that—

We could go on like this, from one point to another, to show how the S.A. Railways is making progress. The Tanzam railway line to Dar-es-Salaam handles 5 200 tons of goods every day, while the main line from Johannesburg to Durban carries 43 000 tons every day.

Now we can see why tariffs have to rise. After all, we are planning for the future, for the industrial development in South Africa as a whole, and for the whole economic development of Africa. We must remember that there are 16 countries south of the equator which do not have their own commercial harbours. The entire sub-continent is served by 15 harbours, six of them in the RSA and one in South West Africa.

Those hon. members opposite are going to ride on the Blue Train on 29 April, because a tramp with a bottle of methylated spirits is riding on the Blue Train and is well fuddled, but if one wants to be on the right track, if one wants to go full steam ahead with the white plume of a locomotive, the NP Government will give one the right course on 29 April. Then one does not have to ride on the Blue Train like a tramp with a bottle of methylated spirits. It is very clear that the NP Government with its proud Railways means a great deal to us. When I was in America recently in the company of some of those hon. members, by the kind offices of the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the people of the United Nations Business Council, with whom we were talking, asked me to what study group in Parliament I belonged. I replied that I belonged to the Railway group. Then I asked whether I could perhaps sell them the Blue Train, to which they smilingly replied: “Mr. Van Rensburg, you do not have to sell the Blue Train to us; the Blue Train has already sold South Africa to us.” This is the spirit which prevails in the world today, and that is why we say with great joy that it is wonderful that it has been possible to increase tariffs for a luxury train, because the Blue Train is worth it.

I also want to repeat a request which I addressed to the previous Minister of Transport, namely to consider the possibility of using the Drakensberg, one set of which is keeping a lonely vigil at Braamfontein, as a luxury train again. He can call it the Hex River, or any other name, but put that old Blue Train back on the Cape Town run. It is standing at Braamfontein, and we should be glad if it could be used again.

I come now to the railway line to which I personally attach great importance, i.e. the line between Touws River and Ladismith, which was completely destroyed during the recent floods. One can only hope that that line will be repaired again, because many tales are told in connection with that railway line. The train which was used on that run was known as the Makadas. There is another train, known as the Wildedas, which runs in the vicinity of Carnarvon and Calvinia. I hope the “wildedassies” sitting over there will be tamed after 29 April and will not hide in the caves there. Where does the name Makadas really come from? It is said that a train was standing on a siding near Carnarvon, known as Louwsplaas. Because of a gradient, the load had to be divided. While the first part of the load was being drawn up the gradient and the last part remained at Louwsplaas, the passengers occupied themselves by having a braai. When the locomotive came back to pick up the second half of the load, it is said that an English gentleman called out: “Make a dash, make a dash”, hence the name “Makadas”.

There is another story that is told in this connection. It is said that a driver was stationed at a certain station on a branch line. He had a very pretty wife, but she was something of a flirt. [Interjections.] She was not such a terrible flirt, she was a respectable flirt! An elderly English gentleman began to pay court to her. When the driver was at work, the gentleman got someone to knock on his window when the driver was coming back with his train. This person then shouted: “Make a dash, make a dash!” This is supposed to be the origin of the name “Makadas”.

There are many other stories which are told in this connection. The names “Wildedas” and “Makadas” are a part of our language and culture on the Railways and should be preserved for the future. This is the terminology and the culture which live on in the hearts of our Railway people who work day and night to make a success of our transport organization. They are close to our hearts and it is their diligence which gives the Railways a good image. People like the shunters are the legs of the Railways, for without its legs the Railways cannot walk. They are simple but dignified people who keep our wheels rolling.

I come now to passenger trains. The number of passenger trains cannot be reduced. One hears so many complaints about trains which often do not run according to schedule. A week before the Laingsburg disaster I came to Cape Town on the Trans-Karoo train. The train left Johannesburg a quarter of an hour late, but arrived in Cape Town ahead of schedule. I have never seen a train running so beautifully as that Trans-Karoo. It really was a case of “make a dash”, of a Makadas train running from Johannesburg to Cape Town. This is a train we can really be proud of. More and more families are making use of trains these days and the passenger numbers are rising. We now have high-speed trains, some of which have already achieved a speed of 250 km per hour on trial runs. We also have electronically controlled systems.

That is why I say: “Let the hon. the Minister put up those buildings; it is for the future and the security of the country.” Let there be no criticism of it, not from the hon. member for Orange Grove nor from the hon. member for Yeoville. No one will stop us. The public will tell us: “Go ahead with those projects. You are doing something for the future of South Africa which will affect commerce, security and all related matters.”

With regard to the high speed of modern times, the electronic image of the Railways and all those things, I want to say that they have become familiar to our people. We hope that with this hon. Minister, the General Manager and the top management, the S.A. Railways will go from strength to strength, not only for this country, but for all of Africa and for the world.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Rosettenville referred to one very important matter, and that is the kind of person who is today employed in this huge transport enterprise. While I was listening to this debate and to the proposals put forward by the Opposition, I felt that the man who works for the Railways ought to be concerned. When the Railwayman considers the alternatives and when he considers that the people who want to take over come forward with ideas such as the ones we heard expressed here, he must be concerned. The various organizations, the trade unions, the General Management, the commissioners and all of us met around a conference table and agreed, at their request, to salary increase of 12,5%. However, the Opposition says that the R225 million which we are setting aside for salary increases is not enough. According to their amendment we should set aside R257 million for that purpose. It must be R257 million, but there must be no tariff increases. Every Railwayman in the country will be very uneasy indeed today when he considers that motion.

Who told you that?

Hon. members said the Railway staff should receive salary increases equal to the inflation rate. We gave them 12½% but hon. members on the opposite side asked for 15,9%.

That is last year’s inflation figure. We want it to be this year’s figure.

That is what they asked for. You can read it in Hansard. They are asking for a salary increase amounting to R257 million but they do not want tariffs to be increased. The man who is working for this organization out there in all kinds of weather has to take cognizance of the fact that it has been suggested that although we must not increase the tariffs, we must increase the salaries beyond the increases requested by the Railway staff. If that is the situation, I, if I were a Railwayman, would be very uneasy. However, the Railwayman knows that this matter is in good hands and that it is being approached in a realistic way.

Let me refer to another matter. The hon. member for Yeoville and all hon. members of the Opposition keep on shouting “free enterprise”. By the way, let me ask the hon. member for Yeoville whether he is opposed to the system of control boards in South Africa.

You know what my attitude is.

All he need say is “yes” or “no.” [Interjections.] I have been asking for that answer for 12 years now, but they will not give it to me. He talks increasingly about the control board system, but he is neither for nor against it. He is without rhyme or reason. One cannot want to be an alternative Government in that way. One has to be able to adopt a standpoint. I would rather leave it at that, before I start making an agricultural speech again. I want to get round to discussing this matter of free enterprise.

But you are not in favour of the free market.

I want to make an offer today to the hon. member for Yeoville, to hon. members of the Opposition and to any business in South Africa. When free enterprise is being discussed, I should like to make the following offer: They can have all the capital invested in passenger rail transport in South Africa, Whites and non-Whites, without having to invest a cent, and all I will ask, is interest on the investment and I shall impose the condition that they may not increase their tariffs by more than 15% per annum. Then they can take over this enterprise as it is.

Right, we shall negotiate on that.

I shall be very pleased. It will, as long as I am the Minister, be a weight off my shoulders.

So you are prepared to give away the Railways.

Now the hon. member wants to play politics again. We are discussing a free economy. The hon. member wants to practise a free economy, but he just wants to skim off the cream. There is no one in South Africa who would be prepared to convey passengers in South Africa for the price at which the Railways are doing it. That businessman who says that he will take it over and that he will not increase the tariffs by more than 15% per annum and still pay my interest on my investment, must have his head examined. He is really not in full possession of his faculties. This budget is a tip-top budget. What you lose on the swings you make up on the roundabouts. You make a small profit here . . . [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members are making too many interjections.

Mr. Speaker, I am looking forward to tomorrow and therefore I should like to move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, when the debate was adjourned I was busy dealing with the first point raised by the hon. member for Houghton, namely that the hon. member made representations that the Department of Prisons should be restored to what it was before and should be a department independent of the Department of Justice. Unfortunately the hon. member did not advance any argument as to why she put forward the suggestion. I would have expected the hon. member to tell us that she was satisfied with the efficiency of the prisons service as it had been. She should have argued that the Department of Prisons, as it was before rationalization, had been very efficient, had functioned extremely satisfactorily and that she was so pleased with that state of affairs that indeed she wanted that situation to be restored. If the hon. member is going to say that that was not her consideration, I want to say to her that her argument is opportunistic. That being so, there can only be one reason for it, and I shall say why. Rationalization is aimed at bringing about a higher degree of efficiency. This means that the Department of Prisons and the Department of Justice were combined to promote rationalization, to give it momentum, but at the same time to bring about efficiency. If that has not been the result, if we have not achieved higher efficiency as a result, then we shall obviously have to consider the matter. However, the fact is that the hon. member who is now putting it to me so loud and clear that she wants to fall back onto the status quo ante, in other words the situation as it was, should argue that the Department of Prisons was an extremely efficient department, that it functioned very efficiently and that consequently she wants to restore the status quo ante. I should very much like to hear—she has the opportunity to tell me during the Third Reading—how happy she was with the Department of Prisons and why she does not say so to the Press as well. Why is she not much more outspoken about it? In the past she has been very loud and clear in her criticism whenever the Department of Prisons was unjustly criticized.

It was not my argument at all.

I should like to give the hon. member the opportunity of telling me that.

With regard to the implementation of the scheme, the hon. member also asked me whether there is to be a different dispensation for the various groups. I do not know whether the hon. member wants to argue that there will be an unfair dispensation for any group. The fact is that in terms of the old dispensation, members could not exercise a free choice with regard to their medical services. This is now being rectified as regards the Whites, the Coloureds and the Indians. There is now, an element of—I do not want to call it discrimination, but rather preference—in relation to Blacks, in the sense that the hon. member for Yeoville argued that it is wrong that Whites and others are now required to make an extra payment of 10%. He says it is wrong that they should now pay an additional amount. I gathered from that that he means that White members are being discriminated against. Now the hon. member for Houghton tells me in advance that she wants to know whether we have a different dispensation with regard to other race groups. Therefore, what she is opposing by implication, is exactly what the hon. member for Yeoville wants to see retained. If the hon. member for Houghton will be so kind as to tell me, when we come to the Committee Stage shortly, which dispensation, according to her and the hon. member for Yeoville, is the one which results in discrimination— discrimination among Whites, Coloureds and Indians on the one hand and Blacks on the other—I shall be much obliged. I hope that she will tell me during the Committee Stage.

The hon. member for Houghton supported the remainder of the provisions in this Bill. I therefore regard it as unnecessary to elaborate on it further.

Mr. Chairman, I should just like to express my regret, and that of hon. members on this side of the House, at the untimely death of the Commissioner of Prisons, Gen. W. M. du Preez. We were very sorry indeed to hear about that.

Coming to clause 1 of the Bill now, I would like to point out that the hon. the Minister does not appear to have understood what I said the other evening. I forgive him, because it was very late in the evening, and I think we were all rather exhausted.

I never, in any way, intimated . . .

Do you remember what you said?

Oh yes, very well. I have a copy of my speech here in front of me, in case the hon. member for Pretoria Central does not remember what I said. [Interjections.] What I said was that we did not approve of the idea of the Department of Prisons being integrated with the Department of Justice. The hon. the Minister says that I therefore want the status quo ante restored. That is not so at all. I mentioned to the hon. the Minister that I had objected to the previous dispensation, which put the Department of Prisons . . . The hon. the Minister is not going to know what I say now either, because he is having a conversation with the officials of his department. I shall wait for him to resume his seat.

You do not seem to be sure yourself of what you said.

I am very sure of what I said. Therefore, you should just keep quiet and listen. [Interjections.]

What I was saying to the hon. the Minister is that I was not asking that the status quo ante be restored when I objected to the integration of the Department of Prisons with the Department of Justice. Indeed, it falls away as a separate department per se, and there is one Minister who now looks after both those departments. There is a separate Vote, for which I am duly thankful. So we can, when we come to debate the budget proper during the next session of Parliament, at least raise objections and make suggestions as far as the department is concerned. When I say that we in these benches do not want the department integrated with the Department of Justice, that does not mean to say that we want to go back to the old system in which, although three separate departments, they were all still under one Minister, the Minister of Justice, Prisons and Police. We believe that to be wrong. We believe Prisons should be a separate entity, because . . .

Does that mean you want a separate Minister of Prisons as well?

Yes, a separate Minister of Prisons as well. We want that because the Ministers should be responsible for different categories of people. Let us begin at the beginning. The police apprehend the people who are going to be charged in the courts of law, and that falls under the Minister of Police. Then we get to the courts of law, which is to say if we are not dealing with one of the many laws which allow detention without trial, and which allow for people to be held indefinitely by the police without being charged or brought to trial. Let us rather take normal cases in which habeas corpus is in fact relevant. The next thing which happens is that people are charged in a court of law, and that comes under the Department of Justice. People appear in court, where they are found guilty or not guilty and sentenced accordingly or released. When people are found guilty and are sentenced to a period of imprisonment, they then come under the authority of the Department of Prisons. I believe it should be therefore the responsibility of a different Minister altogether; in other words, a Minister of Prisons.

What I am saying, therefore, is that the people who are responsible for apprehending individuals should fall under the Minister of Police, the people responsible for charging such individuals in our courts of law should be under the Minister of Justice and that thereafter the people who are found guilty and sent to prison should fall under a different Minister altogether. They should all be divorced from each other. They should not all fall under the same administration.

But why?

Because these are different categories of persons altogether and they require different treatment. Therefore, a Minister whose responsibility it is to look after prisoners should not confuse those responsibilities with those of the Minister of Justice or, as was previously the case, the Minister of Police. I cannot understand why that hon. member does not realize that there is a conflict of interests in this regard. It is as simple as that. We are dealing here with the interests of a certain category of people and the department is being administered by one Minister who has different objectives altogether.

The other matter I wish to discuss is the hon. the Minister’s request to know more about this question of discrimination.

Say something nice about prisons at least.

Let us not be silly about this, Sir. When the Prisons Department does something good, I am the first to give it credit for so doing. Indeed, the hon. the Minister’s predecessor who was the Minister of Justice, Police and Prisons combined, was very pleased during the last budget debate when I had some very nice things indeed to say to him during the discussion of his Vote in regard to prisons and the improvements that I had found on Robben Island. Has the hon. the Minister forgotten that? I said how very pleased I was that he had restored the rights . . .

Its so nice, I want to hear it again.

You want to hear it again? I would sing it to the hon. the Minister except that I have an awful singing voice! Sir, I told the hon. the Minister’s predecessor how pleased I was that post-matric studies had been restored for security prisoners and how pleased I was that they were going to be allowed to have newspapers. That has come to pass and I am very pleased about it. If the hon. the Minister wishes it, I shall give him due credit for what his predecessor did. Now I am hoping that I shall be able to obtain concessions from this hon. Minister when the time arrives and I am able to discuss these matters with him.

I asked the hon. the Minister some questions to which he has not replied. I wanted to know something about the scheme that is being introduced in terms of this legislation that is before us today. However, since we are in Committee, I shall raise that matter under the relevant clause.

Mr. Chairman, if you will allow me, I wish right at the outset to express my deepest sympathy at the death of the Commissioner-General of Prisons, Gen. Du Preez. I should like to convey my sympathy to his widow, his daughter, his son-in-law and his grandchildren. For the past 11 years I had the privilege of knowing Gen. Du Preez well. He was undoubtedly an excellent official and a dedicated custodian of the interests of the State. In addition, he was an exceptionally pleasant and strong person. His death is a great loss to the Department of Prisons in particular and I think also for the country in general.

With regard to the argument raised by the hon. member for Houghton that prisons should be a completely separate category and should not fall under the same Minister, her argument will only make sense if she can prove that a conflict exists between the interests of the Department of Justice, that part of the Department of Justice concerned with the administration of justice, and the Prisons Service. She claims there is conflict, but she does not say what the conflict is. With respect, I suggest that there is no conflict and that the objection raised by the hon. member in this regard is not a valid one.

I should like to discuss a matter with the hon. the Minister with regard to the question of whether the Prisons Service should be a separate department or not. It is true that in many countries of the world the Prisons Service is not a separate department and that the Police is not a separate department either. For example, take the position in France. There the police forms part of the Department of Internal Affairs. I am convinced that the present arrangement in South Africa where the Police form a separate department, is the correct one. I feel very strongly in favour of the position remaining as it is. However, before the rationalization process began, the Department of Prisons and the Department of Police were on an equal basis and the heads of the two departments enjoyed equal status. Since then the situation has changed. The result is that the status of the Commissioner of Prisons in relation to the status of the Commissioner of Police has changed and diminished.

While I am on my feet, I just wish to point out that the Department of Prisons is a specialized department with highly qualified staff who are not interested only in the detention of prisoners, but in the rehabilitation of such people as well. I am, therefore, of the opinion that the Government should consider restoring the previous status of the Prisons Service so that it will have equal status with the Department of Police.

If it is impossible for the Government to comply with my request at this stage, I suggest as an alternative—I wish to make an earnest appeal in this regard—that the Government consider changing the name of the Department of Justice to that of the Department of Justice and Prisons. I feel that in this way more justice will be done to the situation than is the case at present.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the fact that the hon. member for Pretoria Central sympathized with the department and the family of the late Gen. Du Preez. I can confirm that his demise was a loss to the department. He was an official who, as they say, came up through the ranks. He made his mark and knew everything there was to know about all sections of the prison service. He was someone who accepted that the prisons service was more than just a custodial task and also had to perform a rehabilitatory and educational task.

I can testify to the fact that in the short time my association with Gen. Du Preez lasted, it was clear that the rehabilitation and education of prisoners were matters of deep concern to him. He so organized and equipped his staff that detention was undertaken in a way that bore the stamp of refinement. I know that visitors expressed their surprise to us that under his guidance our prisons service had gained the reputation of being a civilized institution, despite the problems which are usually endemic to a prison and which are sometimes also of an external nature, for example the lack of funds which make it impossible for people always to do as they would like to do. Despite these factors he gave our prisons service this image and added to the good work already done by his predecessors towards the goal of a service which not only enjoyed the respect of all Government departments, but that of South Africa and visitors as well. I can testify to the fact that he convinced his staff of the need, especially by way of rehabilitation, to help ensure that prisoners were better citizens when they left the prison one day. Gen. Du Preez was especially bent on training prisoners so that they could leave the prison as tradesmen. There were restrictions. However, they were not imposed by the prison service as such, but had to do with the regulation of labour matters outside the Prisons Service. I am aware that he applied himself to improving this situation. Consequently I echo the sentiments expressed by the hon. member for Pretoria Central and confirm that this was a great loss to the Prisons Service.

In pursuance of what the hon. member for Pretoria Central asked, I must point out that if there are so many common factors in the activities of Justice and that of the Prisons Service it can be demonstrated in practice that rationalization was justified. Consequently, if we can succeed in co-ordinating these activities in a meaningful way we would be able to say that rationalization brought about greater efficiency.

For this reason I wish to touch on a very practical matter I should like to bring to the attention of the hon. member for Houghton. We are worried about our large prison population and accept that it is not due to factors in the Prisons Service, but to outside factors, in other words crimes that are committed under the present socio-economic set-up as well as statutory offences. Let us discuss this matter scientifically. If we accept that, it is self-evident that the prison service has an interest in those bodies creating the flow of prisoners. The Department of Justice is such a body, because it is in the courts, which fall under Justice, that the sentences are passed. It is, therefore, the courts that are responsible for a prompt flow or for delays, again because of various factors. These two disciplines, i.e. the courts and the Prisons Service, were previously independent of each other and did not always take cognizance of each other’s problems. But the position in this regard has now been rectified. This is the one practical advantage. As a result of our attempt to reduce the prison population, we shall not necessarily establish more prisons, although a process of improvement and expansion is typical of any country.

Because the Department of Justice has now become involved in this problem it will gear its approach to that angle. For example, evidence was given before the Hoexter Commission with a view to assisting in the investigation of the operation of our courts with regard to our large prison population. Another aim was to ascertain which categories were being referred to when we spoke of the pressure of numbers, and here I can give a practical example. We have already identified specific bottlenecks and I announced a few weeks ago that we were going to appoint a study group consisting of Justice and Prisons officials to investigate the factors, within the two components of the department, i.e. Justice and Prisons, that could be dealt with in an attempt to reduce our prison population.

Just do away with the pass laws and you will have it.

Once again the hon. member is raising an issue to which I am not going to react, because it is not relevant. Besides, her information is not correct.

As regards the two departments, guidelines on achieving a better correlation between the meeting out of punishment and the serving of punishment have already been identified. It is an area on which we can reflect fruitfully and meaningfully. In the administrative field consideration is being given to the possibility that court orderly services might also be taken over by the Prisons Service too, inter alia, to deal with the transfer of prisoners among the various services, something which up till now has not been the case. Then we are also considering the integration of personnel services, for example work study, computer and data services. Perhaps the hon. member for Houghton approaches this aspect from a different angle, but seeing that we have to introduce computerization in both components of the department, we would be doubling the cost factor if we were to do it separately. I hope the hon. member understands that.

I come now to the hon. member for Pretoria Central. If this exercize does not achieve the higher degree of efficiency envisaged, we shall obviously have to consider adjustments and will have to go into the matter in greater depth. He asked that we should add “Prisons Service” to the name of the department. It is a fruitful thought. I cannot commit myself to a reply now, but we shall consider it.

Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the NRP I rise to convey my sympathy to the family of the late Gen. Du Preez. I do not want to imply that we knew him personally, but the Prisons Service and the persons at the head of it are in the forefront as far as the rehabilitation of prisoners is concerned. Therefore, a person who has reached the top in such an organization, must of course be someone to whom many people today owe a debt of gratitude for the fact that through him they were granted a second chance to make a success of their lives. It is for this reason that I wish to take this opportunity to say that we in this party convey our sympathy to his family and that we are grateful that there was a person like him who could make such a contribution.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 6:

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister did not reply to my question, the very simple question that I put to him during the Second Reading debate. I would therefore like him to reply to it now.

It was not perhaps a naive question?

The question was simply whether the scheme, as evolved, implies any discrimination, on racial lines, amongst members of the Prisons Service.

Mr. Chairman, in my reply to the Second Reading debate I told the hon. member that there was a difference between the contributions made for medical services by the White, Coloured and Indian members and those made by the Black members. I asked her to sort out with the hon. member for Yeoville against whom they thought discrimination was being practiced. The hon. member for Yeoville argued that the White members were being discriminated against because they had to pay a surcharge of 10% on all services. He demanded that they should, in exactly the same way as Black members, receive free treatment from district surgeons and only contribute an amount of one-seventh as a surcharge, as in the old days. That was his argument. However, the hon. member for Houghton argued that other groups were discriminated against. What group did you specifically have in mind.

Let us say against the Blacks.

The hon. member is asking if Blacks are being discriminated against.

Or Coloureds.

I do not want to become technical, but she must please sort out with the hon. member for Yeoville what they actually mean by discrimination, because he said that White members are being discriminated against because they do not receive the same treatment as Blacks.

Right.

However, she is asking whether Blacks are being discriminated against. Blacks pay a surcharge of 10% for the services of specialists. They receive an allowance in respect of their dependants and as for their personal medical needs, they receive free treatment.

The hon. member must now decide whether it is discrimination or not. A distinction is being drawn which is based on the history of the scheme and this is considered from time to time.

Mr. Chairman, there is no problem at all. We want no discrimination in regard to pay, conditions of service, pensions schemes or medical schemes. Does that answer the question? Whichever way the hon. the Minister does it, whether he discriminates by paying the Black members of the Prisons Service less for the same job . . .

All I am asking is unity in your party.

The hon. the Minister must not worry about unity in my party. There is unity in the party, but the hon. the Minister must achieve unity in his department. The only way to get unity and, shall we say, satisfaction among members of the Prisons Service, is to treat everybody on an equal basis as far as salaries, conditions of service and benefits are concerned until there is no discrimination and nobody has any problems. It is as simple as that.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

As hon. members know, civil litigation between Blacks takes place in Commissioners’ Courts and not in magistrates’ courts. This has the one result that civil actions, of which the vast majority are based on Black customary law, are decided with reference to the content of that law.

The procedures in Commissioners’ Courts are not only considerably simpler than those in magistrates’ courts; they are also far less expensive, and prospective litigants are served by an office in which the legal proceedings may be prepared on their behalf by officials of the court at minimal office fees.

However, there is also an increasing number of Black people in South Africa who are not South African citizens and who, by virtue of the official duties they are discharging here, are entitled to immunity from the jurisdiction of the courts of the Republic. Although these people are seldom involved in litigation, this can happen, inter alia, when a person surrenders his immunity.

The considerations which necessitated the constitution of Commissioners’ Courts and which still have the result today that those courts are rendering an essential and sound service to Black people, do not apply to persons who are entitled to immunity from the jurisdiction of the courts.

It is the case in practice that legislation which draws a distinction between the various population groups and which seeks a better organized society, is not applicable to persons who are entitled to immunity. This state of affairs is at time regulated by practical measures and at times by provisions in specific laws, for example the Diplomatic Privileges Act, 1951.

The spirit of the Diplomatic Privileges Act is also such that all persons who are entitled to diplomatic immunity, ought not only to eenjoy equal treatment from South African Government institutions, but also the same treatment.

Consequently the proposed statutory amendment seeks only to implement this principle consistently and to cause all civil actions involving persons who are entitled to immunity and which are not settled in the Supreme Court, to be conducted in magistrates’ courts and not in Commissioners’ Courts. It has been suggested that such a state of affairs would be more in accordance with the considerations to which reference has already been made than the present arrangement.

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the explanation which the hon. the Deputy Minister of Co-operation gave as to why this Bill is being introduced. Naturally one welcomes any arrangement whereby foreign representatives are exempted from the normal operation of the courts in South Africa. One is grateful that we in South Africa have indeed continued to maintain the tradition of providing foreign representatives with the necessary immunity in all respects, particularly if one considers what is happening to foreign representatives in the world these days. Consequently we welcome the Bill in principle.

My problem lies on a totally different level. I cannot see the need for the Bill. I listened carefully to the hon. the Deputy Minister. The Bill applies only to the people who do in fact enjoy diplomatic immunity. If I recall correctly, the hon. the Minister said as much. Furthermore the Bill makes it very clear that it applies to the person who “is immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of the Republic . . . and who is not a South African citizen”. Section 2 of the Diplomatic Privileges Act makes this very clear—

The logical interpretation I attach to this is that all persons who enjoy diplomatic immunity are obviously exempted from the jurisdiction of Commissioners’ Courts under the Black Administration Act of 1927 as well. I can attach no other interpretation to the words very clearly stated in section 2 of Act No. 71 of 1951. I repeat that section 2 of that Act reads—

This is not relevant here—

One of those courts is the Commissioners’ Court established in terms of the relevant section of the Black Administration Act.

The second point in the Bill is concerned with the words “and who is not a South African citizen, is a party”. That point is also covered very clearly by section 10 of the Diplomatic Privileges Act of 1951. That section stipulates emphatically—

This is the case unless I have not quite understood the hon. the Minister. The only persons who are affected by this measure are those who enjoy immunity under the 1951 Act. However, the 1951 Act stipulates that those persons do not fall under the jurisdiction of any of the courts of the Republic. The 1951 Act also stipulates that South African citizens are not entitled to that immunity. In other words, I cannot understand the desirability, the necessity or the rationale for the introduction of this legislation. In my opinion it is totally unnecessary and quite tautological. Consequently I should very much like to hear from the hon. the Deputy Minister why the legislation is really necessary.

Finally I just wish to say that if we do this here with the Commissioners’ Court, for it is a court of the Republic of South Africa, I cannot see why we should not do the same in respect of magistrates’ courts. The hon. the Deputy Minister will be aware that the cases which are excluded from the jurisdiction of the Commissioners’ Court are virtually consequential to those cases which are excluded from the jurisdiction of magistrates’ courts. Consequently it would only be logical for us to insert the same exemption in the case of magistrates’ courts. Otherwise it becomes nonsensical and the words in the 1951 Act—that people who enjoy immunity are immune from the jurisdiction of the South African courts—mean nothing.

Consequently I am saying that the principle is in order, but the principle is already contained in the Act. The Act stipulates that such persons who enjoy immunity are not subject to the jurisdiction of the courts. Consequently I cannot understand the necessity for this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member Prof. Olivier expressed reservations concerning the necessity for this legislation, but the reference he made to the question that a person who enjoys immunity cannot be brought before our courts, has nothing to do with access to a court. The reason why this amendment is being effected is the fact that a local Black person may summon a Black person with immunity before a Commissioners’ Court. The reason why this amendment is being effected is to prevent this. The amendment is in accordance with the historic course of international diplomacy and protocol which has evolved in Africa over the past two decades. Two decades ago there were few diplomatic representatives of African countries in other countries of the world for virtually the whole of Africa was still colonialized. Nor were there any negotiations with those countries on a diplomatic level. Consequently there was no immunity for them in that sphere either, for these countries were not independent. The general view, and I want to say at times also the unsavoury propaganda, that South Africa, and more specifically the National Party regime, did not communicate or negotiate with Black States in Africa because of our policy, is not correct. It is false. The rules of international diplomacy and protocol prevented us from being in a position to negotiate openly and directly with African States. Allow me to give hon. members an example. If we wished to negotiate at that time with a neighbouring State, for example the former Bechuanaland, on locusts, say, which hatched out there and had to be controlled, we had to conduct negotiations through the British ambassador, for it was a colony of Britain. Consequently it was not necessary to make provision for a clause of that nature in the Act on Black people from abroad who could be summoned by local Black people to appear before a Commissioners’ Court, as it is stipulated for them in the Act. In the meantime, however, virtually all the African States have become independent and consequently, to make provision for the immunity which is accorded diplomats of other countries, we now have to provide additionally that when a civil action arises between two parties—that is, two Black people in the Commissioners’ Court—and the one party enjoys diplomatic immunity, that party may decide that it does not wish to appear in a Commissioners’ Court, but in fact wishes to conduct its case in a magistrate’s court, and that this will then be made possible. That, I believe, is the reply to the hon. member Prof. Olivier. That also explains the need for this statutory amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that we all accept that the Commissioners’ Courts were established with the purpose of endeavouring not only to assist our Black people in conducting law cases on a cheaper basis than they could possibly be conducted in the magistrate’s court but also to enable the courts hearing the cases to be knowledgeable about Black laws and customs. That, I believe, was the basis for the establishment of the Commissioners’ Courts.

We can understand that there will be Black people from other countries who will have no idea of the laws and customs of the Black people of this country. We can therefore understand the reason for the introduction of this particular amending legislation and we support the principle thereof. In regard to the argument advanced by the hon. member Prof. Olivier, however, I am afraid that I cannot agree with him. I believe it is necessary to give this protection because of the fact that section 3 of the Diplomatic Privileges Act specifically points out that a person who may be immune in terms of section 2 or 2A of the Diplomatic Privileges Act, 1951, will not have that immunity in respect of any tax he owes. I do not have the Act with me at the moment. If I recollect it correctly though, I believe it deals with taxation and also with any private matters of a contractual nature, for instance, which he might wish to bring before the courts. Therefore he can in fact enter into legal procedures, and if he is a Black person—a Black diplomat—and if he has a private matter which he wishes to bring before the courts, and if the other party to the action is also a Black person, he is bound by the jurisdiction of a Commissioners’ Court.

I believe that that is in fact what this amending measure is endeavouring to achieve. It is endeavouring to allow that action to be heard in a magistrate’s court.

You have understood a great deal more about this than the hon. the Professor did.

Mr. Speaker, I am really pleased to see that I have some support from the hon. the Minister of Internal Affairs. I know the hon. the Deputy Minister is a medical man. He probably has some difficulty in understanding what we are talking about here. After all, it is a matter of law, and I believe it is a matter which is of great interest to us. [Interjections.]

We believe, however, that the wording of the proposed new section 10 is unfortunate. For the purposes of clarity, we believe, the wording should actually be as follows—

That means that all reference to section 2 or 2A should be left out, because in point of faci section 3 of the Act also applies. We believe therefore that if it were worded in this way it would be clear to everybody, including the hon. member Prof. Olivier.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just resumed his seat said that I had had medical training and would probably not understand what was going on here. The hon. member should not condemn me on the grounds of what happens in his profession where many attorneys express opinions on medical matters and do not know what it is all about either. [Interjections.] I did not think . . .

Do not take it amiss of me.

I do take it amiss of the hon. member. The hon. member takes it amiss of me if I want to discuss this legislation. What really surprises me is the attitude of the hon. member Prof. Olivier. I am so grateful that this sentence is not longer, for it seems to me that any sentence which contains more than 10 words is not clear to them. Apparently one must drag out and describe the whole matter. What does this proposed amendment actually stipulate? It reads as follows—

All that is intended with this reference to the Diplomatic Privileges Act is to give a definition of the specific persons to whom this provision will be applicable. In addition the hon. member should not lose sight of the fact that the claimant in a case may be a diplomat of a Black country. Clause 10 of the Black Administration Act of 1927 stipulates inter alia as follows—

In other words, in terms of this statutory provision a Black is not entitled to have recourse to any court other than the Supreme Court. He is compelled to conduct his cause in the Commissioners’ Court as a result of the fact that he is Black. What we are stipulating here is that persons who are Black and who have diplomatic immunity in terms of the specific statutory provision, are not subject to the jurisdiction of the Commissioners’ Court. It is as simple as that. It surprises me that that hon. member cannot be made to understand it. We did not simply fabricate this provision. To tell the truth, there is in fact such a case in progress. We have a problem at the moment where a firm of attorneys is acting on behalf of a Malawi diplomat in a civil cause. In terms of section 10 which I have just quoted, such a person is obliged to state his cause in a Commissioners’ Court. That Black man from Malawi has nothing to do with the morals, the customs and the traditions which form part of Black law. Why should he then be subjected to them?

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

Yes, certainly.

Why does the hon. the Deputy Minister deem the Commissioners’ Court to be obliged to apply Black law—which is in any event a very ugly appellation but that is how it is stated in the Act? Under section 11 of the Black Administration Act the Commissioners’ Court has full discretion to decide whether or not it is going to apply Black law. In other words . . . [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asked whether he could put a question to me and now he is addressing me. [Interjections.] I am not going to allow it. The fact remains that the position here is purely and simply a question of jurisdiction. In terms of the 1927 Act, if it is a case between two Black persons, then they have no choice and have to go to a Commissioners’ Court. Whether that Black man is a Malawian or whether he comes from Ethiopia or from Brazil or anywhere else for that matter, he is then, in terms of this statutory provision, subject to the jurisdiction of a Commissioners’ Court. It is as simple as that, Sir. Why must one then repeat oneself, and to an hon. member Professor what is more? We simply want to change the Act in such a way as to exempt a Black man from another country—and that Black man is defined by the reference to the Diplomatic Privileges Act—from the statutory provisions pertaining to Commissioners’ Courts. This does not encroach in any way upon the rights of the people who have diplomatic immunity. We are defining these people who will now be entitled to invoke their diplomatic immunity so that their cause need not be heard by a Commissioners’ Court, but by a magistrates’ court.

Mr. Speaker, I move subject to Standing Order No. 56—

Mr. Speaker, I am merely rising to reiterate that we accept the principle. What I reacted to just now, was the motivation of the hon. the Deputy Minister—he must not become angry with me now—when he said that the reason was that the people of Malawi and elsewhere know nothing about the traditions, or whatever, of the South African Black people. I know that too. The hon. the Deputy Minister used that as a motivation, but the motivation was irrelevant because the Commissioners’ Court has full discretion to apply either Black law or White law. Consequently I merely wanted to say that the motivation was incorrect. But I shall leave the matter at that.

Since we have now stated the principle here I wish to express the hope—I know this is not relevant either—that we shall also go further and in future give our Black South African citizens the right to have recourse to magistrate’s courts whenever they wish to do so. They too should not be required, as the Act provides at present, to have recourse only to the Commissioners’ Courts. I trust that this will be borne in mind when future amendments to the Act are being contemplated.

Mr. Speaker, I am merely rising to point out to the hon. member prof. Olivier that the Bill has nothing on earth to do with the rights of the Black people of South Africa. This is not an opportune moment to discuss this, and therefore I shall not reply to him any further in that respect.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

In terms of section 11(1) of the Marriage Act, 1961, a marriage may be solemnized by a marriage officer only.

Under section 2(1) every magistrate, additional and assistant magistrate shall by virtue of his office be a marriage officer for the district or other area in respect of which he holds office. Section 2(2) provides that any officer or employee in the Public Service may also be appointed as a marriage officer.

Under section 3(1) clerical marriage officers are appointed to solemnize marriages according to, inter alia, Christian rites. In terms of section 3(2) this authority may be limited to a specified area for a specified period and for marriages between persons belonging to a specified population group and may in terms of section 9(1) be revoked for any good cause.

It happens from time to time that for some reason a marriage is solemnized by a marriage officer who was not authorized to act as a marriage officer or who exceeded the provisions of his appointment as marriage officer. The unlawful solemnization of a marriage means that the marriage is void unless the irregular conduct of the marriage officer is condoned under section 6(1). Section 6(1) stipulates that if the Minister or any officer in the Public Service authorized thereto by the Minister is satisfied that such person did so under the bona fide belief that he was a marriage officer, he may direct that such person shall for all purposes be deemed to have been a duly designated marriage officer. When he has so directed, such a marriage is deemed to be a valid and binding marriage in terms of section 6(2).

If, however, the marriage officer did not act in good faith, his conduct may not be condoned in accordance with the provisions of section 6(1), and it follows that the marriage is invalid or void ab initio.

The appointment of a minister, who was appointed as marriage officer on 1 February 1957, was revoked as from 20 January 1969 on the recommendation of his church after he had for a long period neglected to forward marriage registers to my department. On 24 January 1969 the minister in question was notified in writing that his appointment as marriage officer had been revoked, after which he returned his letter of appointment as marriage officer. However, in December 1974 it came to light that the minister in question had during the period 1 July 1972 to 30 August 1974, i.e. after his appointment as marriage officer had been revoked, solemnized 15 marriages without having been re-appointed as a marriage officer.

Because the minister in question was aware that his appointment as marriage officer had been revoked and that he had no authority to contract marriages, the argument could not be advanced that he was under the bona fide belief that he was a marriage officer when he contracted the marriages in question and consequently his irregular conduct could not be condoned under section 6(1). The parties who had been married by him were notified that the marriages they had contracted were invalid and that they would have to remarry if they chose to do so. In one case the husband in the marriage had already died. A similar case which resulted in the two couples having to remarry came to light in 1976.

In order to protect parties in such cases and to save them the embarrassment and moral humiliation of remarrying, it is proposed in clause 1 that if the Minister, or an officer in the Public Service authorized thereto by the Minister, is satisfied that both parties to the marriage were unaware that the person who solemnized their marriage was not a marriage officer, he may direct that such person shall be deemed to have been a marriage officer at the time of the solemnization of the marriage. This is the case provided such marriage could in every other respect have been solemnized in accordance with the provisions of the Marriage Act and that there was no lawful impediment thereto.

To prevent, as far as possible, a person lacking a valid appointment as marriage officer from solemnizing marriages, it is further proposed that the Marriage Act be amended to provide that the marriage officer in question must certify that he had a valid appointment as marriage officer on the date of the marriage. This will go a long way towards preventing cases such as I have described from occurring.

Under section 26(1) no boy under 18 years and no girl under 15 years shall be capable of contracting a valid marriage without the written permission of the Minister. Section 26(2) stipulates that if such a boy or girl contracted the marriage without the written permission of the Minister, the Minister may direct that such marriage shall for all purposes be a valid marriage, provided that he considers such marriage to be desirable and in the interests of the parties. If the Minister so directs, it shall, in terms of section 26(3), be deemed that he granted written permission to such marriage prior to the solemnization thereof.

In virtually all cases in which applications are made for ministerial permission, the girl is pregnant. For the consideration of such applications, an official report is obtained from the Department of Health, Welfare and Pensions in which the professional officer, among others, makes a recommendation as to the desirability of granting permission for the proposed marriage. The recommendation is checked by the Department of Health, Welfare and Pensions and supported in virtually all cases. Because it is usually a question of pregnancy and such applications are recommended as a rule—in any event, a small percentage of all applications are not granted—I believe that the Minister must be empowered to delegate his authority for the consideration of such applications.

In this regard the Minister may still exercise his discretionary power by, for example, giving personal consideration to cases in which the girl is not pregnant or the application is for some reason not recommended.

Mr. Speaker, the PFP finds nothing with which we cannot associate ourselves in this relatively short Bill. I believe that the amendment in connection with marriage officers is meaningful and will serve to eliminate any uncertainty when the status of the marriage officer has to be ascertained and consequently the status of the marriage itself which is solemnized by the person in question. It would be ridiculous if the marriage, which is of such enormous personal, religious and social importance in our society, were to be dependent purely and simply on something of such a technical nature as the appointment of the marriage officer concerned. It is understandable that certain formal requirements are stipulated for the marriage so that recognition may consequently be granted such a marriage by the authorities. However, it is equally important that the status of the marriage not be sacrificed to the subtleties of the law or to the irresponsibility of the odd marriage officer who solemnizes the marriages in question, without a discretionary remedy existing to set matters straight. As the hon. the Minister has indicated, the provision in clause 1 extends the hon. the Minister’s authority to act more widely to place the status of marriage officers, and consequently of the marriage in question, beyond reproach. In this regard I should just like to ask the hon. the Minister a question. In what way do cases of this nature usually come to his department’s attention? I take it that attention is sometimes drawn to such cases by a congregation in which a situation of this nature has arisen, but I should also like to know whether the parties to a marriage, i.e. the couple, may also draw his attention to this situation in certain cases and whether this situation is dealt with the necessary urgency when it does come to his attention. In common law there is already, of course, recognition for certain types of putative marriages, i.e. forms of marriages contracted bona fide by the parties concerned, but in respect of which some lawful impediment exists. We agree with the hon. the Minister that all doubt must be eliminated from a situation of this nature and the matter must be stated with absolute clarity.

I now turn to the proposed section 6(5). We agree that it will serve to draw a marriage officer’s attention once again to the fact that he must ensure that his own status is above reproach in this regard. It will also compel him to ensure that he will not be exposing himself to prosecution as a result of the fact that he had not acted correctly. One trusts that something of this nature will only be necessary in the minority of cases, but it is as well that the legislation does provide for such cases, for the very reason that an omission in this regard can have such far-reaching social effects in our community for people who marry.

This brings me to clause 2. We are satisfied that the hon. the Minister may delegate to certain officers his authority to grant permission to minors to marry. We just want to express the hope that the hon. the Minister will take care with regard to this delegation and will grant the powers in question to very senior officers only, in recognition of the importance of the decisions which have to be taken in such cases.

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the hon. member for Green Point. From the question which he asked the hon. the Minister I could not quite make out what his actual problem was. I did not quite understand what he meant when he asked whether a couple who believed that they had been married could bring their problem to the attention of the hon. the Minister. I think this is usually where something of this nature comes from. While I was listening to the hon. the Minister’s Second Reading speech and to the examples he gave of problems which had arisen, the old saying: “Marriage is a lottery” came to mind, although they also say that now and again one can still strike it lucky in a lottery.

I now want to analyse clause 1 of the Bill and in the first place look at subsection (1) of the proposed new section 6 which deals with the case where a marriage officer acts in good faith. The proposed subsection (2) deals with the very case where the parties marry in good faith and the marriage officer is not in fact acting in good faith. An interesting case which I want to add as an example to those quoted by the hon. the Minister is a case which occurred in the Cape Province in 1974 when a so-called marriage officer solemnized the marriages of 15 couples in bad faith. The person was charged and found guilty and immediately after the conviction the magistrate remarried five of the 15 couples. The interesting aspect of this story is that the magistrate in question who found the man guilty in 1974, is today the parliamentary officer, Mr. At Tredoux, who dealt with the preparation of this legislation for introduction in this House.

I want to associate myself with the hon. member for Green Point on the possible consequences of the putative marriage and the uncertainty, particularly in respect of the legitimacy or otherwise of children, the rights of intestate succession, and so on. If the proposed subsection (2) is not inserted in the Bill, it would mean that a couple may only contract a lawful marriage if they were in fact remarried, even if they were doing so lawfully for the first time. But then one can also get the case where one of the two parties has died and the rights of the children in respect of intestate succession are placed in dispute. I think hon. members will agree with me that it is not possible to marry posthumously, unless, of course, one believes in ghosts.

Sir, I should also like to refer briefly to clause 2 of the Bill. Subsection (1) of the proposed section 26 deals with cases in which the Minister grants prior permission, whereas subsection (2) deals with cases in which the Minister declares a marriage valid. While reading through the 1979 annual report of the Department of Internal Affairs, I noticed that the statistics indicated that in 1978 50 applications were received in terms of section 26(1) and in 1979, 45. The percentage of applications rejected, was 28% in 1978, and 27% in 1979. During the same two years there were seven and eight applications respectively in terms of section 26(2), all of which were approved. The point I want to make is that if one adds up all the applications which the Minister had to consider, then he had to consider at least one application a week. To give proper consideration to an application of this nature and to study the report takes up a great deal of one’s time, which could be spent more productively on other important matters. That is why I think it is meaningful to grant the Minister a power of delegation here. Naturally this is something one shall have to keep an eye on, but the relevant statistics to date are available. I think that hon. members of this House could also keep an eye on the reports in future to examine the statistics which become available in order to ascertain whether the persons to whom this power is being delegated, are in fact exercising their power in the way in which it has until now been exercised by the Minister.

Mr. Speaker, we agree with the principles involved in this Bill. We have, however, just one or two questions we should like to put to the hon. the Minister.

The proposed section 6(2) provides as follows—

In order to establish those bona fides, obviously evidence of some sort would have to be produced, presumably by both the parties giving evidence, that each of them bona fide believed that the person concerned was in fact a marriage officer. If it emerges that the marriage officer was in fact not a marriage officer at the time of the marriage and at that moment only one of the parties is still alive, it would be difficult to find out whether both parties in fact held the bona fide belief that that marriage officer was in fact a bona fide marriage officer. In terms of the proposed subsection (5) of the same section the marriage officer has to complete a certificate on the prescribed form stating that he was entitled to solemnize that marriage. Perhaps that certificate could be extended to include some form of acknowledgment by the parties who are being married that they in fact bona fide believe that the marriage officer is authorized in terms of the law to marry them. That is the only suggestion we have to make.

We would also agree with the official Opposition that any officer who is appointed by the Minister should be a senior man because of the vital importance of the function he will have to carry out on behalf of the Minister.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the support which all the parties in this House have pledged for the Bill before us.

I want to reply at once to the question put by the hon. member for Green Point as to how such cases come to my department’s attention. In terms of the letters of appointment of the marriage officers they have to supply their designation numbers upon the registration of a marriage at the department. This enables the department to ascertain whether the officer was authorized to solemnize the marriage because the department has a record of his number. This is primarily how these cases come to the attention of the department.

The hon. member for Randburg made the important point that section 6(1) concerns the case where the marriage officer acted in good faith. As opposed to that, the case which we are really dealing with at present is that in which the parties acted in good faith, and the other person did not. Besides the effect of such a marriage on the parties themselves, it also affects the children who are bom of such a marriage. This is another reason why one should consider the validation of a marriage. Consequently I agree with him.

†With regard to the point raised by the hon. member for East London North, I should like to explain that normally the circumstances determine whether one can accept that the parties to a marriage have been acting bona fide. In the particular case I quoted to the House the parties were married by a marriage officer who in fact was a member of a church denomination. He had before held a proper appointment. The parties could not possibly have anticipated that he had in fact had his appointment withdrawn by the department. Therefore, quite apart from their own mental attitude to the marriage, the evidence would rest on the circumstances surrounding the case.

As regards the proposed section 6(5), I should like to explain, although I think the hon. member understands it, that this is a precautionary measure for the future. It does not help me in respect of what has already happened. The problem, however, is that the banns officer in this particular case is the man who is at fault, not the parties. Therefore the bona fides of the parties in this particular case need not be proved.

Does the marriage officer not in any case have to sign a marriage certificate?

Of course he has to sign it. He must also certify when he signs it that he is a properly appointed banns officer. That is the whole point. It is not the attitude of the parties that is at issue; it is this man’s appointment that is at issue in this particular clause.

*With these few words I believe I have replied to hon. members. I just want to tell the hon. member for Randburg that we are still approaching the approval or rejection of applications with the same circumspection. This power to be able to delegate must not be interpreted as the power to obtain consent more easily. The norm for doing so is laid down by National Welfare officers on the basis of the interests of the parties as well as of any children who may be born of the marriage.

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

I should like to motivate the amendment briefly. Firstly, the official Opposition supports the principle of the Bill and of this clause in that we support the establishment of a medical aid scheme for the Police. Secondly, we believe that there should be equality of treatment for all people in terms of this medical aid scheme, and this applies even to the dependants of past members where there is a degree of difference in the treatment of those individuals. Thirdly, at the present moment services are provided in the main free of charge, or substantially free of charge, although with some exceptions. But substantially medical services are provided free of charge even though they are of a different nature. In other words, the freedom of choice that will exist in terms of the medical aid scheme does not apply in that form here, because, quite obviously, when one uses a district surgeon or when one uses a provincial hospital the situation is somewhat different from what exists in terms of medical aid schemes. However, there are certain free services clearly available. In terms of this scheme, as it has been announced by the hon. the Minister and in the light of the wording of this clause, it implies that at any time there should be a contribution paid by the individual policeman. In other words, it says in so many words that in such a scheme “portion of the costs of the provision of such treatment, etc.” shall be payable by any member. The hon. the Minister said in his speech that it would be 10% at this stage. But there is no guarantee that at some future date it will not be more or that it cannot be varied. The view that we take is that there may well be services which in these circumstances should be free. In other words, we are giving the discretion in terms of the amendment that we propose that it is possible to provide services which are free, either wholly or partially. Some services could be free and others not. It happens very often that there may be certain basic services that should be free, where there should be no contribution, and others where there should be a contribution. It may also be that the contribution varies, but the essential factor that we see is missing from this clause at the present moment is that it is not actually essential to make a policeman pay something in respect of every single service that is rendered. We believe that there is a case to be made out for certain services which should be free or could be free in the circumstances. That is why I ask that this should be done.

It may be argued that it is advisable to make somebody pay for a portion of his medical treatment. That argument could be put forward and I agree that there could even be some validity in that argument, depending on the circumstances. We are however, in the present instance faced with the situation of a service in which it is absolutely vital that we make it attractive to people to join. It is absolutely vital at the present moment for the security of the country, for the safety of the people and in order to stamp out crime in South Africa that we make service in the S.A. Police attractive. That is why we believe that whatever the argument may be in other circumstances, when people are made to pay for a portion of their medical treatment, there should at the very least be a discretion here in terms of which there can be some services which can be rendered free of charge to the Police. That is why we urge the hon. the Minister to accept this amendment. It is a discretionary amendment and I believe it will be welcomed by the Police Force.

It may be argued, of course, that this is the result of negotiations. It may also be argued that this is a measure which is acceptable to the majority of the policemen. I do not dispute that. In the circumstances such as they exist here, however, it will in fact convince policemen that we are concerned about them, that we want people to be attracted to the Police Force and that we will try to make service for them in the Police Force as attractive as possible. I must stress that if we do not preserve the stability of the country, if we do not ensure that crime in South Africa is stamped out to the extent to which it is reasonably possible to do so, if we do not ensure that people have a feeling of safety in South Africa, we will in fact be failing the people of this country. That is why I urge the hon. the Minister—in a spirit of goodwill, which I have displayed speaking here now—to consider this amendment and to accept it.

Mr. Chairman, unfortunately I did not have the opportunity of being present here in the House earlier this afternoon. This was due to other official obligations that I had to fulfil here in the building. That is why at this stage I should just like to ask the hon. member for Yeoville whether he or any other hon. member of the official Opposition moved an amendment earlier this afternoon, when the Prisons Amendment Bill was dealt with by the hon. the Minister of Justice, similar to the one on clause 6 of that Bill. I know that the hon. member cannot rise to his feet now. I am just asking him to indicate by way of nodding his head or making a gesture whether they did so.

I was not here.

The chairman of the study group concerned is present here in the House. It is the hon. member for Musgrave. He was probably in the House too at the time. Can he perhaps give me an indication of whether this was done? I just want to say something pertaining to it. I just want to know whether hon. members of the official Opposition raised a similar argument with regard to clause 6 of the Prisons Amendment Bill and whether they suggested a similar amendment. According to my information that particular Bill went through all its stages this afternoon. The wording of clause 6 of that Bill is exactly the same as that of the clause that is now being discussed. There is no difference.

Judging by the facial expression of the hon. member for Musgrave, I accept that such a proposal was not made earlier this afternoon and that the same standpoint was not adopted with regard to the abovementioned Bill. Now I want to know from those hon. members why they adopted this standpoint with regard to the Bill under discussion and not with regard to the Prisons Amendment Bill as well.

Speak to your chaps, Van Zyl.

This is what I should like to know now, Mr. Chairman. During the Second Reading stage I already said that this standpoint is being adopted with a view to politicking; for no other reason. This is exactly the same legislation as the one to which I have already referred. However, those hon. members are not interested in the Prison Service. In any event, they cannot lake the same political capital out of it as out of the Police Force. The salaries and conditions of service of the Police is now being presented to the public as an emotional matter, and from this emotional matter they now want to try to gain a few votes before the election. [Interjections.] This is what it is all about.

No, surely that is absolute rubbish.

It is about nothing else. I now put it to hon. members of the Opposition that, since there is no merit in this matter and in the way it is being dealt with, I am not prepared to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Yeoville.

Mr. Chairman, I find the outburst of the hon. the Minister a little strange. Firstly, he had the audacity to say that we did not take the same interest as in the other matter when he is the man who does not even bother to turn up to this House when his own additional estimates for the Police are being discussed; who does not bother to turn up when budget Votes are being discussed that concern the Police. He is so concerned about this and yet he has the audacity to make this sort of remark.

I want to say to you, Sir, that I am sorry that I was not in the House when Prisons were discussed.

Where were you?

I was dealing with other equally urgent business. [Interjections.] Look at your benches! Look at those benches and see how empty they are, Sir. Three-quarters of those hon. members do not even bother to turn up to this Parliament. The hon. Whip on the other side is looking at me. He should well look at his benches on that side of the House. They are the governing party and yet those hon. members do not even bother to turn up here. [Interjections.] And then they have the audacity to comment in regard to other people who are attending to their parliamentary duties outside of the House! [Interjections.] Where are your people? We have even had a situation here where we have not even had a quorum. Those hon. members do not even bother to turn up. They have a Minister who does not even bother to turn up when his own additional estimates are being discussed and then they have the cheek to raise this issue! I want to say that the hon. the Minister in charge of Prisons should have taken the same view. [Interjections.]

Order!

Those hon. members opposite are getting excited. They know that this is hurting them and they know it is true. They are not doing their job.

Speak a little louder.

Yes, I shall speak a little louder for that hon. member’s benefit because there are none so deaf as those who will not hear. Look at those benches over there. Those hon. members do not even bother to turn up to Parliament. They think that they can get away with this sort of thing. Oh, no, Sir! They cannot do it. The reality of the situation is that this sort of thing is symptomatic of this Government. It is a Government that does not care, that thinks that it has power in South Africa and that it can override everybody.

That is not true.

Of course it is true. Those hon. members do not care for people, they do not care for anybody, they do not care if there is crime. As long as they are in power, they are all happy. That is all they are looking for. [Interjections.] That is why, when one gets up in this House and quietly motivates an amendment, puts a case for a sound amendment, we find a Minister trying to turn it all into politics. Well, Sir, if he wants to turn it into politics, let him get up now and explain to us where he was during the discussion of the additional estimates; let him explain to us where he was during the discussion of the part appropriation and let him explain to us why he does not do his job as Minister of Police. In fact, that hon. Minister should be removed from office and the sooner he is removed from office, the better it will be for South Africa. I say this because at the present moment the public are not getting the service from the Minister of Police that they should be getting. That is the reality of it and that is what the situation is. That is why, when one argues the matter logically, when one puts a case which is in fact in the interests of the Police, that hon. Minister gets up and talks politics. He does not deal with the merits of the argument because he is unable to do so. I challenge him to get up now and to deal with the merits of this argument and tell us why this amendment should not be accepted. That is what he should deal with and not resort to this cheap politicking, and even that he is not able to do successfully.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Yeoville is the last man in this House to talk about audacity. This House has never before experienced such audacious opportunism as has been displayed by the hon. member. What is more, if that hon. member wants to talk about audacity then I tell him that he is one of the most audacious members in the sense that for 10 days he has repeatedly been telling a calculated untruth in this House and I shall identify it for him. [Interjections.] I shall identify it for him and then the hon. member can raise a point of order.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: Is the hon. the Minister permitted to use the term “’n berekende onwaarheid”? [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. the Minister must withdraw the expression “calculated untruth”.

Mr. Chairman, may I address you on the point of order?

No. It is an unparliamentary expression and the hon. the Minister must withdraw it.

Mr. Chairman, if you request me to withdraw the word “calculated”, I shall do so.

Over a period of approximately 10 days, the hon. member has told an untruth in the House four times, and I say he was aware of the fact that he was telling an untruth.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman . . .

Order! The hon. the Minister may not say that the hon. member told a calculated untruth, because this amounts to saying that the hon. member is telling a lie, that he is lying, and this is unparliamentary.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw it. I am not accustomed to circumstances of this nature in the House. I do not want to argue with the Chair or abuse the situation, and I offer my apologies. I want to continue with my argument. [Interjections.] I have nothing to withdraw. I say the hon. member told an untruth; in fact, he did so four times within 10 days. The untruth that the hon. member told was to say repeatedly that I had put a stop to overtime payment for policemen.

†The hon. member said I issued an instruction to that effect, and he knows that is not true.

There is a written document.

Where is your written document? Show it to me. I will tell him what the written document is. Here is the written document, a statement that I issued to the Press explaining the position and also making it very clear that there was no stoppage of overtime payment to the Police. The hon. member knows that very well.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order . . .

Order! I have permitted enough interjections with regard to this subject now and hon. members must please give the hon. the Minister an opportunity to continue his speech.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member must not talk to me about audacity.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: You cannot allow the hon. the Minister to discuss overtime pay to the Police in this debate, because should you allow the Minister to do so I too want to discuss it. Either it is in order or it is not.

Mr. Chairman, if you allow the hon. member to attack me and to accuse me of audacity because I was not present when a certain Vote was discussed, then I am entitled to defend myself. I am doing so and I shall drop this point as soon as I have defended myself. This is what I want to say to the hon. member with regard to this point, and I shall leave it at that. [Interjections.] However, he knows that he was telling an untruth.

Mr. Chairman, I once again rise to a point of order . . .

Mr. Chairman, I shall say this to the hon. member in public too.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: According to the rules, when a point of order is raised, the member who has the floor has to resume his seat. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister said that I knew that what I said was untrue. You have warned him three times, Sir, and in ordinary circumstances I would have asked that he be thrown out of the House. [Interjections.]

Order! Did the hon. the Minister repeat that the hon. member knew that what he said was untrue?

Mr. Chairman, I did not intend to say that. However, I have already withdrawn it. I want to raise another point. The hon. member now wants to accuse me during the Committee Stage of making political capital out of the amendment that he is moving, but how did the hon. member begin his Second Reading speech? In the second or third sentence he said it was very clear that some hon. members on the other side were in fact really disappointed because this was the only measure that had been submitted during this session by means of which the conditions of service of the policemen were being improved. From the very outset, therefore, he began politicking. Now the hon. member is crying here, and what is more, I am forbidden to quote the rest of the speech. I cannot quote the rest of his speech. The hon. member is aware of the rules for a Committee Stage debate. We simply have this amendment before us, and not a political discussion to consider. However, I am entitled to reply in a few words to the accusation which the hon. member directed at me. The rest of his speech is there for everyone to read. I am not going to digress on this, because the rules do not allow me to do so. However, the hon. member must definitely not think that I will allow myself to be frightened by him in this House. He must not think that I will rise to my feet here like a little boy and apologize to him for my absence. I can assure you Mr. Chairman that in the few days that I was absent, I was working for 14 hours a day at my official duties, and I shall not apologize to that hon. member, or anyone on his side, for the fact that I was involved with my official work.

He is a huckster; that is what he is.

However, for the record, I want to explain to you, Mr. Chairman, and to the House what the situation was. [Interjections.]

Order! I want to ask hon. members on both sides of the House to allow the hon. the Minister to state his case.

Mr. Chairman, I must say that chance remark is one of the truths that has been raised over the last 10 minutes. I should like to confirm to the Chair and the House, with the full responsibility of the office that I hold, that I was not present in this House when the Additional Appropriation was discussed. The hon. the Leader of the House was informed by me in advance and the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs was adequately informed by me in order to participate in the debate and reply to any questions by the official Opposition. However, if the hon. member thinks I am going to offer him an apology, and give him an explanation, he still has a few things to learn in life. During the Second Reading debate I said—and the hon. member knows very well why I adopted this standpoint— why this amendment or any amendment that they had in mind with regard to this specific point, is not acceptable. I say once again that his amendment is not acceptable. I shall not accept it.

Mr. Chairman, there are a couple of points that have to be dealt with. Firstly, the hon. the Minister has still not given any explanation of any kind to indicate why he does not accept this amendment. The only reason I can assume—and this can be the only reason—is that he wants no situation in which it is even discretionary or permissible to have service rendered to any policeman without some payment, because that is the implication of what he wants to do at the present moment. That is beyond question.

Secondly, it is no use hiding behind semantics. Every single policeman knows that irrespective of what is said, everybody refers to the four-hour shift and the eight-hour shift as overtime, and everybody knows that that is referred to as overtime. So it is no use hiding behind semantics and accusing me of telling untruths. The reality is that every policeman who has complained to us, in fact every policeman who has spoken to us about it, has not used any fancy name. He uses the simple term “overtime”. If one works the extra four-hour shift or eight-hour shift, one was entitled to payment. There was a circular to that effect and the powers that be did put a stop to it. That is a reality. Every policeman referred to it as “overtime”. There is no use getting excited about it. The hon. the Minister can play the game here, but every policeman outside knows what the truth is.

Order! I want to ask the hon. member to return now to a discussion of his amendment or of the clause.

There is a third point I want to make in reply to what the hon. the Minister said. I want no apology from the hon. the Minister. I never asked for one.

I do not see that in the clause.

I do, however, think he owes an apology to the S.A. Police. They will not forget this.

Mr. Chairman, since the hon. member for Yeoville has used up all his opportunities to speak, I should like to put a question to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. However, there are also many other hon. members who are still able to speak, but I should like to know from the hon. the Leader of the Opposition why his party did not adopt the same standpoint with regard to the Prisons Amendment Bill, which was dealt with earlier this afternoon, if they are so concerned about this particular aspect.

We did in a broad sense.

Why did they not show an interest in the prison officers too? The hon. the Leader of the Opposition can still tell the House why. I repeat my accusation. During the Second Reading debate on this Bill, the hon. member for Yeoville raised this point with the sole purpose of making a little political capital out of it before the election. This is what I said to him during the Second Reading debate. I want to repeat it once again and unless the hon. the Leader of the Opposition can give us any acceptable reason to explain this specific aspect, I am afraid I can come to no other conclusion but that I am correct and that he has an hon. member in his ranks who wants to play a simple political game with an extremely important piece of legislation regarding the S.A. Police.

Amendment put and the Committee divided:

Mr. Speaker, I move—

As hon. members will know, the Regulation of Functions of Officers in the Public Service Act was placed on the Statute Book last year to provide for the administration of Acts by officials in the Public Service in the case of a reorganization or rearrangement of the activities of public servants.

Since the Act will only be employed as an interim measure until such time as staff movements due to the rationalization process to which the Public Service is being subjected, have been completed, or until individual departments have been able to propose specific amendments to the Acts administered by them, it is effective only until 1 March 1981. However, due to the late rationalization of certain departments on 1 November 1980, it is necessary to extend the duration of the Act. It is also as a result of the short duration of the present session that it has been impossible to effect improvement timeously to Acts that are affected by this.

As proposed in the amending Bill, the Act in question will continue to be operative after 1 March 1981 and will cease to have effect on a date fixed by the State President by proclamation.

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the hon. the Minister’s explanation of the need for this Bill, but there is something I want to say to the hon. the Minister. By this time, viz. by the date of the expected termination of the principal Act, the hon. the Minister ought surely to be able to determine a new date, for example, a more realistic date or a date with a view to the late reorganization of certain departments. We are dealing here with a principle, because Parliament laid down a specific date for the termination of the period of validity of an Act and now it is being changed from a definite date to an indefinite date.

The fact that this is a short session of Parliament and that statutory amendments cannot therefore be effected, is not in my opinion entirely relevant. The fact is that until 1 March, viz. until next week, the State President would have had the power to effect transfer of functions and duties and responsibilities at his own discretion, viz. on advice. He would have been able to continue until 1 March, and if the hon. the Minister were to have proposed 1 September as the date, he would have been able to continue to do so for a further period of six months. The question I want to ask is, therefore: Why is it now becoming an indefinite date?

Mr. Speaker, this amending Bill is of a purely administrative nature and I think the question which the hon. member for Johannesburg North has just asked the hon. the Minister, is a purely academic one. I do not believe that it is relevant now whether a specific date is to be determined when the principal Act will terminate or whether it will be determined by proclamation. I think that this is a purely academic argument which is not relevant in this connection. I think that the hon. member for Johannesburg North should confine himself to the activities pertaining to the role he is now being offered as a film star, since he has been invited by Sonneblom Films to act in a film in the role of a judge. [Interjections.] I can imagine that he might put up a far better performance there than he does in this House.

The rationalization of the Public Service has already progressed a long way. There are certainly growth pains in this regard but the benefits of this rationalization are enormous. They are benefits which probably cannot be fully utilized as yet, but we nevertheless look forward to the time when rationalization has been fully completed and the State machinery is running smoothly.

We take pleasure in supporting this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very brief amending Bill. The hon. the Minister’s Second Reading speech was also very brief, although it marked the start of a very long process. The NRP has no objection to the indefinite postponement of this date. However, we do express the wish that this process of rationalization will in the course of time become more efficient and that the introduction of an indefinite period, as is envisaged in terms of this Bill, will give us a better result.

The NRP wholeheartedly supports the process of rationalization and sincerely hopes that the indefinite period envisaged in terms of this Bill will produce the expected result. We support this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to convey my sincere thanks to the hon. members who took part in this brief discussion. As regards the question asked by the hon. member for Johannesburg North, I can understand that one would prefer to have a more definite date. However, I believe that the hon. member will also understand that we are dealing here with a process, a process of rationalization, the date of final completion of which we cannot determine with precision. If the hon. member is content with that, I should be much obliged. However, I can give this House the assurance that as soon as this process of rationalization has been completed, the Act will be repealed. The Act will be repealed, but at the moment we cannot predict when exactly the process will have been completed.

With that, I think, we have reached the end of this discussion. In any event, it is not a controversial measure. I thank hon. members for their obligingness and their consent to the Second Reading of this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

This Bill is aimed at effecting improvements to the Wage Act, which was promulgated as far back as 1957 and has not been revised since then. The purpose of the principal Act is to regulate, by way of wage determinations, the wages and other conditions of service of employees who are not subject to industrial council agreements or other wage regulating measures.

The aims of the Bill are, chiefly, to expedite the making of wage determinations, to eliminate differentiation in wage determinations on the basis of sex and, where possible, to rationalize and alleviate the obligations that are at present imposed on employers by the Act. I have already tabled an explanatory memorandum in order to explain the proposed amendments. I should now like to furnish further details with regard to the more important amendments envisaged.

The procedures prescribed by the Act for determination of conditions of service are cumbersome and have a delaying effect on wage determinations. The most important single factor in this regard is the fact that recommendations made by the Wage Board after an investigation must first be published for objection in the Gazette before a determination can be made. In terms of the Bill the publication of Wage Board recommendations for objection has now been done away with, which will expedite the process of wage determinations to an appreciable extent; this will be to the benefit of both the country’s economy and the labour force.

As regards the obligations of employers in terms of the Act, section 28 of the Act requires that employers subject to wage determinations have to register with the Department of Manpower Utilization and furnish certain data. The registration of employers no longer serves a useful purpose, and accordingly the section in question is being repealed. This will result in the elimination of a considerable amount of administrative work for both employers and the Department of Manpower Utilization, and rationalization will in this way be effected. Section 30 imposes further obligations on employers, in that they are required to put up notices in the prescribed form on their premises containing summaries of or extracts from the Act and the relevant determinations. Few employees make use of these notices, and due to developments in the labour field and the development of effective channels of communication, employees prefer to make use of other sources of information, such as trade unions. In the light of this and since this legal requirement is burdensome to employers, this section is being amended to provide that it will only be necessary for an employer to keep available on his premises a copy of the relevant determination and to make it available to an employee on request.

In order to accommodate employers further with regard to the storage space taken up by wage records which they have to keep for a period of three years for inspection purposes, it is now being provided that such records may also be kept in microfilm or other microform reproductions thereof.

To eliminate unnecessary administrative work and reduce the duties imposed on me by the Act, provision is being made for the chairman or the temporary chairman of the Wage Board to be vested with some of the powers which are at present vested in me, while some of my other powers may be delegated to senior officials of my department.

Apart from the amendments mentioned, persons in the service of registered welfare organizations receiving financial aid from the State are excluded from the scope of application of the Act, as in the case of the Shops and Offices Act.

As matters stand at present, any method of differentiation may be applied in a direction to the Wage Board and in Wage Board recommendations, excluding those based on race or colour. At present, wage determinations contain provisions drawing a distinction between men and women. In terms of the Bill, differentiation on the basis of sex is now also being prohibited. This amendment is being effected in view of international developments, the entry of women into the labour market on a larger scale and representations received from time to time concerning the position of working women. A prohibition is now also being imposed on any differentiation on the basis of sex, race or colour in the granting of exemption to the provisions of a wage determination.

The remaining amendments for which provision is made in the Bill are not substantive and accordingly I do not deem it necessary to elaborate on them.

I trust that the amendments envisaged will enjoy the be granted of this House.

Mr. Speaker, this Bill is closely related to the Industrial Conciliation Act in that both provide the machinery for wage regulation measures. The difference in principle between the two Acts is that under the Industrial Conciliation Act provision is made for the establishment of voluntary associations of employers and employees and industrial councils. Under the Wage Act, however, wage determinations are made and administered by the State acting through the Wage Board and the Department of Manpower Utilization. In other words, the Wage Act is applied where there is no organization between employers and employees.

For us to approach this Bill, one has to understand how important this measure is and how important any amending legislation is because it affects so many hundreds of thousands of people. The majority of the amendments to the Wage Act are not of great significance. Amendments are made to several definitions and titles, the constitution of the Wage Board and board report requirements. Ministerial delegation to inspectors is also being provided for. Included furthermore are references to the maintenance of records, using new methods of microfilm and microform.

It is quite clear that the hon. the Minister and his department have sought to streamline the administration of the Wage Board and its investigations and recommendations. We are very supportive of that approach.

The most important clauses, however, are those that deal with the repealing of sex discrimination. I think this is a milestone in the history of labour legislation in South Africa. In clause 4 sex discrimination is repealed and prohibited in regard to the Wage Board’s investigations and recommendations, respectively. The hon. member for Houghton is going to speak to this as well, and most fittingly, I think, but I want to stress that this is a fundamental change of far-reaching significance. This party has maintained since its inception that it is wrong and self-defeating to discriminate against workers in terms of their opportunities, their training and their rewards in terms either of sex, colour or race. We have maintained over many years that the determining factor ought to be and must be merit. Therefore we welcome this amending legislation which makes it impossible to discriminate on the grounds of sex both in regard to the investigations and the recommendations made by the Wage Board. I am convinced—I say this with respect—that the hon. the Minister must be a very happy man in his own home; I am quite convinced his wife must be very pleased and delighted with this change, and I know that he is going to make the hearts of many women throughout the country very happy. I am not sure whether that is his intention, but I want him to know that there are thousands of women who are probably going to drink a toast to the hon. the Minister tonight. This happens so rarely that I hope he is going to accept this in the spirit in which it is said.

Unfortunately, there is a qualification to this provision in clause 7(c) where it is clear that prohibition of the differentiation on the basis of sex shall not apply in respect of requests made to the board under section 4(1) or 15(2) prior to the commencement of this subsection. I appreciate that there are far-reaching financial implications for employers in instances where big differences still exist in terms of prescribed wages for males and females. Nevertheless, I am very unhappy about this limitation and I want to ask the hon. the Minister approximately how many women are involved, how many directives or determinations this will affect and how long this is going to continue. I think it is important for the House to know this before it accepts this qualification and, whilst I appreciate that one cannot make certain changes overnight without doing some violence to the whole substructure and infrastructure of the Department of Manpower Utilization, nevertheless I think it is important to place on record these questions and ask the hon. the Minister to respond to them in his reply. Just how many people are going to be affected by the fact that there will still be discrimination on the basis of sex in respect of determinations made prior to this Bill becoming law? In other words, how many determinations does this cover and how long is that situation going to continue? Is it possible that some of these women are going to be affected for a considerable time? I think this will be a grave disappointment to many who, whilst welcoming the new move, are still going to be stuck with discrimination on the basis of sex. I hope the hon. the Minister understands the direction of my questions.

It is a fact that many employers have deliberately employed females to do the same job as that done by men, simply because of the differentiation in the reward laid down by the Wage Board recommendations.

We know this to be a fact, and I hope there is going to be some measure of protection for women who will now qualify for equal pay for equal work. We simply cannot afford to have large numbers of women dismissed simply because of this change. I should like to appeal to employers not to misuse this very excellent change to be brought about by the proposed legislation. The whole practice of discrimination against women simply because of their sex— over which they quite clearly have no control—is outmoded, outworn and indefensible. I therefore think that the hon. the Minister and his department are to be congratulated on bringing this legislation before us.

There are a number of other important aspects I want to refer to. Firstly I want to refer to clause 8(b) which deletes subsection (7) of section 11 of the principal Act. This refers to the requirement that Wage Board reports and recommendations be tabled in Parliament. I said initially that we have no problem with wanting to speed up the work of the Wage Board, but notwithstanding this, I would still ask that these Wage Board reports and recommendations be tabled without delaying the work of the Wage Board. What I am saying is that the report and recommendations could still be submitted to this House, without the work of the Wage Board necessarily being held up. I have no doubt that it is of vital importance for this Parliament to be informed of both reports and recommendations.

This brings me to clause 10 which repeals section 13 of the principal Act. The effect of this will be that Wage Board recommendations will no longer have to be published in the Government Gazette. The hon. the Minister referred to that in his Second Reading speech. Again I can appreciate the arguments raised, both by the hon. the Minister and in the explanatory memorandum. I am not at all sure, however, nor have I yet been persuaded, that it is no longer necessary to publish these, for all to see, in the Government Gazette. It may well be— and the explanatory memorandum does make out a case for it—that this is redundant, that it is no longer necessary, because there are other channels through which people can make their recommendations. It is, however, a time-honoured tradition to have a warning published in the Government Gazette so that labour organizations can read the warning, decide whether or not they are going to give evidence and make representations accordingly. I therefore wonder whether, in this whole matter of streamlining, we are not in danger of doing away with certain practices that have proved to be invaluable in the past. I should therefore like to hear the hon. the Minister’s comments, because we are still contemplating the possibility of an amendment in the Committee Stage.

I now come to clause 19 relating to section 25 of the principal Act which forbids victimization by an employer and defines a trade union, not in terms of the Wage Act, but in terms of the Industrial Conciliation Act. My reading of this is that in terms of the existing section 25 an employer may not victimize an employee, as defined in the Wage Act, because such an employee belongs to a registered trade union, and I emphasize the word “registered”. In terms of the amendment before us today, however, the employer may not victimize an employee even if he belongs to an unregistered trade union. That is how I understand this provision. If my interpretation is correct, this is a very significant improvement, and I should like to commend the hon. the Minister and his department for it. If I am wrong, however, I would obviously like more details from the hon. the Minister. If I am right, then this brings matters into line with the provisions of the Industrial Conciliation Act. I do not want us to move beyond this point without underlining the fact that this is a very big step forward indeed.

Fourthly, I turn my attention to clause 21 repealing section 28 of the principal Act which provides for the compulsory registration of employers. The motivation is that the repeal of this section would be conducive to rationalization. I want to be assured by the hon. the Minister that the information which normally flows from this compulsory registration will be available from other sources. That point is made in the explanatory memorandum, but I am not yet persuaded. It is one thing to scrap the red tape and administrative snarling, but it is another not to be in possession of knowledge which enables the Wage Board to do its work satisfactorily. I want to be sure that we are not letting employers get away with it. The point is made in the explanatory memorandum that employers have simply disregarded, that they have not filled in the forms and have not given the information. It may well be that we can get all the information or, rather, that the Wage Board, the hon. the Minister or the department can get the information from other sources. However, I want to be assured that that is the case and that it will not simply go by default.

Fifthly, clause 23 repeals section 30 of the principal Act. The employer no longer needs to have the determination fixed “in some conspicuous place upon his premises”. Sir, I have worked in an industry, in factories and in mines in parts of South Africa and I know how important this notice has been. It is true that in recent years certain communication committees have been set up in South African industry and that downward and upward communication has received a higher priority than before. It is also true that-the trade union movement has been extended much more widely than ever before. But once again I wonder whether all workers will have the kind of relationship with their employers where they will feel free enough to go to their employers and ask or demand to see a copy of such a determination. I know the employer is required to have a copy of such a determination upon his premises and he is required to make it available to an employee upon request. I should, however, like to hear from the hon. the Minister whether in the experience of his department these determinations no longer serve any purpose by being prominently displayed in the workplace. I appreciate that the present requirement might be of some nuisance value to some employers, but I hope we are not taking away the right of employees to be aware of wage determinations without having to ask for that information.

Finally, clause 28 refers back to clause 7(c) and provides that the provision of a wage determination made before the Wage Amendment Act of 1981 comes into operation and which differentiates on the basis of sex shall remain in force until amended, cancelled or superseded. I want to repeat what I said earlier: I want to know how many people will be involved before these determinations based on differentiation will be amended, cancelled or superseded. I hope that we are not talking about years ahead, but rather that this excellent move of scrapping discrimination on the basis of sex will affect all, or as many as possible, and as soon as possible. We support the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, allow me to avail myself of this opportunity to express my appreciation for the goodwill and friendliness that all hon. members have displayed towards me on my accession to this House. Hon. members may deduce from this I am now making my maiden speech. Nor can I overlook thanking hon. members from the Transvaal for the honour that was bestowed upon me on the occasion of my election as a member of the House.

Sir, as is the case with other labour legislation, particularly with the Industrial Conciliation Act, the Factories Act and the Shops and Offices Act, the Wage Act is a very important one, in the sense that it makes minimum conditions of service possible for workers. After the tragic mine strike in 1922, the South African Government realized that legislation is essential to ensure labour peace, although this strike was not related to wages. After Gen. Hertzog formed the PACT Government in 1924 together with the leader of the South African Labour Party at the time, there was a grave awareness of the need for such legislation. The first Industrial Conciliation Act appeared in 1924. Let me say at once that even before 1924, officials from the Labour Department were involved in drafting suitable legislation to promote labour peace. The first Wages Act appeared on the Statute Book in 1925 and was piloted through the House by the late Minister Walter Madeley who was a good friend to the workers. Important amendments were made later on, in 1937 only—we can actually talk about a new Act that contained provisions which were a considerable improvement on the original Act. Twenty years later, in 1957, a further improved Wages Act was placed on the Statute Book by Parliament. The 1957 Act followed on the recommendations of the Botha Commission of Inquiry into Industrial Legislation. The same Dr. Botha was one of the chairmen of the Wage Board, the third in fact.

It is a good thing for us to pay tribute from time to time to people who carried out important services. I should like to pay tribute to the chairman and members of the Wage Boards over the years. They carried out valuable work without ever really coming into the limelight. So far there have been eight chairmen, viz. Mr. F. A. W. Lucas, who was the first chairman, Mr. F. McGregor who succeeded him, Dr. J. H. Botha, Dr. S. P. du Toit Viljoen, Dr. W. F. J. Steenkamp, Mr. H. W. Tindale, Mr. H. J. Bohnen and the present chairman, Mr. I. J. Claassens.

The Wage Board investigates an industry and then makes its recommendations to the hon. the Minister who in turn makes a determination. The Wage Board attempts to recommend fair wages and other conditions of service, taking into account the industry’s ability to pay and the cost of living in the area concerned. In earlier Acts it was provided that the industry’s ability to pay should be taken into account in recommending a living wage for the worker. However, this was impractical because the standard of living of the workers differed and wage differentiation on a racial basis was not permitted. In industries where there is no trade union or where no agreements exist, wage determination is of cardinal importance. Even where agreements do exist, determinations are also necessary from time to time because the period of an agreement often expires whilst negotiations have already reached a deadlock. The determination of wages protects the workers from exploitation in the interim until an agreement is made once again.

The hon. the Minister of Manpower Utilization explained the Bill so thoroughly that it is not necessary for me to deal with it clause by clause. I apologize to the hon. member for Pinelands who spoke before me for not reacting to the points that he made. I leave it to the hon. the Minister to reply to the hon. member’s speech point by point. I am sure he will do so. I shall just emphasize a few extremely important aspects of the legislation. Firstly, it is a good thing that the position of registered welfare organizations is now being put right. The provisions of the Wage Act will no longer be applicable to them. Then it is also pleasing to see that differentiation on the basis of sex is now being eliminated in respect of directives to the board for the purpose of an inquiry.

As far as clause 7 is concerned, I am largely in agreement with the previous speaker. This clause provides that the prohibition on differentiation does not apply with regard to directives that were issued before the amending Bill came into operation. However, I understand what the problem is. All of us understand it very well. However, I want to express the wish that the Wage Board will not find it necessary, or will very seldom find it necessary to make use of this concession.

Furthermore, the radical decrease in the period of time that it takes to make a determination, is very welcome. The procedures that have to be followed at the moment by both the Wage Board and the hon. the Minister before a determination can be made, are clumsy and the improvements in this regard will accelerate matters considerably to the benefit of all concerned.

We on this side of the House welcome the amending Bill and we are pleased to support it. I also thank the Opposition for the support that they have granted to it.

Mr. Speaker, in the first instance I should just like to thank the hon. member Mr. Van den Bergh for an interesting review of the functions and origin of the Wage Act and of the various people who were involved. It is always interesting to note that in many respects South Africa has some of the best legislation in the world, and although from time to time we may disagree with the hon. the Minister and hon. members opposite with regard to specific matters in legislation, I must say that I believe that we do have one of the best Wage Acts in Africa, indeed in the world. I thank the hon. member for his review and I also congratulate him on his first speech in this House.

†The question of amending the Wage Act, 1957, as contained in the legislation before us today, introduces quite a number of innovations which have probably been long overdue in the South African setting. Before going on to a discussion of the various clauses which we would like to discuss with the hon. the Minister, I should just like to thank the hon. the Minister and his department for so timeously providing us with an explanatory memorandum. Such a memorandum always makes it so much easier to understand what the intentions of the hon. the Minister and his department are. I should like to say: Thank you very much indeed for it.

We have very little difficulty with most of the clauses in this amending legislation, but I would like to highlight certain specific aspects of it and then come back to one or two clauses which I think are of major importance and therefore require some discussion with the hon. the Minister and hon. members on that side of the House. First of all, I just want to say that we welcome all of the innovations regarding the structuring of the Wage Board itself and of subsidiary bodies of the Wage Board. As I said in a previous debate, one of the hallmarks of a mature legislative programme in any democratic system is the introduction of legislation aimed at the devolution of power, for the delegation of power without abrogating the responsibility of the Minister at the top. In the functioning of the Wage Board we find that this principle is now being introduced so that the Minister himself need not be belaboured with certain specific responsibilities referred to in the earlier clauses of this Bill. In fact, the Wage Board itself may now issue directives in this particular regard. Then, also the question of the tabling of the recommendations in Parliament, which will no longer be enforced, we believe, is quite an important change as well. I know that this was questioned by the hon. member for Pinelands. In practice, however —and really, efficiency is all about improvement in practice—one must be realistic regarding the effectiveness of a procedure which may have been established by precedents or by convention. At first reading it seems to be quite a significant change being recommended here by the hon. the Minister, that the recommendations of the Wage Board should no longer be tabled in Parliament. On practical examination, however, we believe that the innovation is going to be an improvement, and that it will in particular cut down the time delay in the effective implementation of a wage determination recommendation. Although at first glance it would appear that this is a radical departure from the parliamentary procedure, we do not think it is so, and we certainly welcome that clause.

Then, regarding the publication of the recommendations of the Wage Board in the Government Gazette, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister to confirm the fact that the amendment here, according to our interpretation, is only the publication of the recommendations of the Wage Board in order to invite comment, to invite criticism and to invite specific interested parties to express their opinion about it. We want confirmation of the fact that it will be true that the wage determination itself will still have to be published in the Government Gazette in order to make it effective. Therefore it is only the question of interested parties having the opportunity of commenting upon a wage determination, which is being changed here today.

The legal instrument by which a wage determination will be implemented will obviously still be the Government Gazette, with the signature of the State President affixed to such notice, and the date on which such determination becomes operative included as well. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether that is in fact also his interpretation of clause 10 of the Bill. As I understand it it is only the recommendations which will not be published in the Government Gazette, while the final Bill itself will be published in the Government Gazette.

Furthermore it is also very interesting to note the following. There is an old saying which says the sun never sets on the British Empire. I do think, however, that certain of the rays of the old Union of South Africa will also never be eclipsed. There are certain remnants of the old Union of South Africa on which the sun will also never set. In this respect I should like to refer hon. members to clause 15 of the Bill, which seeks to amend section 21 of the principal Act by the substitution in subsection (3) of the word “Republic” for the word “Union”. This on the 20th anniversary of the Republic of South Africa indicates that the legislature does ultimately catch up with amendments which are necessary. Similarly we find, in clause 25 of the Bill, which seeks to amend section 36 of the principal Act, that the reference which has been made until now to the “Governor-General” is finally changed into “State President”. Let it never be said that details escape the attention of Parliament.

What concerns most people, however, revolves, I believe, around clause 7, in which is contained the removal of the differentiation or discrimination based on sex when a wage determination is put into operation. I should also like to refer briefly to clause 5 and clause 7 simultaneously, because we are dealing here with a very important principle, not only in terms of the moral attitude of treating males and females equally, but also in terms of the repercussions of this on the economy, as well as the possible disfunctions that could arise from this measure. Let me say quite clearly before I proceed that we do support these clauses. My party stands for merit on the job and equal pay for equal responsibility irrespective of race, creed, colour or sex. I do think, however, that one must have a look at the implications of the amendment as it is contained in this Bill now before us. In the first instance I should like to refer to clause 5, because that will lead me on to a discussion of clause 7, specifically to where it deals with the proposed new section 8(5).

The Wage Board, which until now has been required to take into consideration a number of factors in determining a wage classification, had to consider, for instance, the cost of living in the specific area in which the trade in question was being practised, as well as the surrounding industries, etc. There has always been the danger though that a wage determination can perpetuate poverty. Strange as that may seem, it is one of the possible results of a wage determination. One only has to look at a depressed area with an oversupply of unskilled labour because the wage determination in terms of the existing Act and in terms of the amending legislation always refers to unskilled labour. There may be categories of unskilled labour, however, in which a certain amount of experience is required in order to earn a higher wage. Skilled workers are very seldom affected by the Wage Act because the market supply and demand factor take care of that in the free enterprise system. There has, however, always been the possibility that a wage determination in a depressed area can perpetuate poverty, and that is why we welcome the recommendations of the Wiehahn and Riekert Commissions which have made it possible, through the hon. the Minister’s department and through the Manpower Planning Commission and the Wage Commission, to have trade unionism established in South Africa because, as trade unionism grows in South Africa, fewer and fewer people will actually remain under the umbrella protection of the Wage Act; at least we hope that will be the case. Overseas, in the maturer industrial areas of the world like America, England and Germany one still finds that 20% of the workers are outside the trade union movement. Fortunately, however, that 20% are normally to be found amongst the white collar workers and not among the blue collar or unskilled workers. It is our sincere wish that the Wage Act itself will become less and less important as an instrument for negotiation and the determination of wages.

Having said that, I would like to indicate that the implication of clause 5, the removal of the considerations the Wage Board had to take into account when determining a wage structure, will not in fact be that the wage determinations drawn up in future will perpetuate poverty, particularly in the depressed areas of South Africa.

This brings me finally to clause 7, more particularly clause 7(c). In South Africa today the most exploited worker is the unskilled Black female. We only have to look at certain industries. I want to mention some of them here today but they are only a representative sample of the companies concerned. Take, for example, the wage determination in the textile industry. It is sometimes unbelievable what minimum wages are prescribed for Black female workers. I know that the hon. the Minister is concerned about this. It is pretty obvious that he is. In many of these wage determinations we find that the minimum wage is the actual wage paid because of the oversupply of unskilled Black females and the economic pressure that drives them into the market place. Many of these wage determinations prescribe a wage which is 50% below the poverty datum line, and those wages are actually being paid. There is nothing the State can do about that because the employers are subscribing to the minimum wage determination. I believe therefore that we have had an unnecessary exploitation of Black female workers in South Africa and, when this clause comes into operation, I trust it will also be brought into a conjunction with a review of the minimum wages in order to increase the minimum wages to at least the poverty datum line which in the urbanized areas of South Africa today stands at R150,00.

Hear, hear!

Yet it is recommended by the Sullivan Code and other codes that one should not even be looking at the poverty datum line because at that level a man just exists. If one also takes inflation into account one sees that even this level of existence is being eroded by about 15% per annum. What one should therefore be looking at is the mean living level, and that means a wage today in the region of R225 per month. We must bear in mind that there are still industries in South Africa that are covered by wage determinations in terms of the Wage Act and that are paying 50% less than the poverty datum line. This means that there are companies paying R50 or R60 per month for Black female workers. We welcome the recommended changes, and I should like to ask the hon. the Minister to confirm to this House that as each wage determination expires—and in most cases a wage determination is for a period of three years; very few of those I know of are for longer than that—his department will ask the Wage Board to pay particular attention to the question of minimum wages so as to bring them into line with at least the poverty datum line but preferably with the mean living level, because when these wage determinations expire the proposed amendments come into operation. My party is always in favour of innovation and improvement in the quality of life of people. We therefore welcome and wholeheartedly support the provisions of this amending Bill.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister will not be surprised to know that I intend to devote the major part of my speech to the clause which removes sex discrimination from the Wage Act. I want to say at once that I think we are indeed today taking a very big step forward in South Africa in labour relations. For many a long year women’s organizations, women in employment and in the trade unions and individual women for that matter have campaigned for equal pay for work of equal value and, until now, I may say, they have campaigned to no avail. Both the Industrial Conciliation Act and the Wage Act, the Magna Chartas of labour in South Africa, have permitted the Industrial Councils and the Wage Boards, in laying down Industrial Council agreements and Wage Board determinations, to use any method of discrimination based on age, sex or experience in determining minimum wages and conditions of employment. It is true that discrimination on the basis of race is exeluded in both the Industrial Conciliation Act and the Wage Act in the proviso’s to the relevant sections in those Acts.

As a result of permitting sex discrimination, in many occupations the wage rates for women are anything between 25% and 35% lower than the wage rates laid down for men in equal occupations. Let me give a few examples. I want to quote from an article “The Woman Worker in South Africa” which appeared in the February issue of this year of New Era. A male machinist earns a minimum wage of R36,30 per week while the corresponding wage for females is R28,20, a difference of approximately 21%. Female laundry workers in the Cape earn 10% to 20% less than their male counterparts. Women textile workers in Durban earn 20% less than male workers in the same occupation. In the commercial distributive trade the minimum wage for a female clerk or sales assistant is set at R170 per month, while a male in the same category earns R242 per month.

This is all a part, I believe, of the long-standing myth we have had in South Africa, and indeed still have in many respects, that a woman’s earnings are only supplementary to a man’s earnings—almost like extra pocket money for the household. This is, of course, absolutely not the case. Women, especially Black women, are very often the sole breadwinners in the family. The recent “Maids and Madams study” in the Eastern Cape showed that 58% of the women in domestic service interviewed were the sole supporters of their families. A West Rand Administration Board survey which was done a few years ago in Soweto revealed that 30% of the households in Soweto were entirely supported by the earnings of female wage earners.

The differentiation between male and female wages presently affects a large number of occupations. Something like 240 job categories exist for which the minimum wages for men and for women differ, the wages for women sometimes being 75% to 85% that of men. In 1976 women formed about 38% of the gainfully employed population. Now I believe it is up to about 40%. According to the Manpower Utilization report, the latest one, in 1979 there were 1 045 929 workers under Industrial Council agreements of whom a very considerable number must have been women. I do not know the exact number. The hon. member for Pinelands has asked the hon. the Minister to give us that figure for the Industrial Council agreements. The information is not broken down in the report but the report does break down the number of women in industries and trades regulated by wage determinations. There were 418 130 workers in industries and trades regulated by wage determinations of whom, according to the report, 83 430 were women. The point that I am trying to make is that the important principle which is being established today by the relative clause in the Bill will affect a considerable number of women workers. I welcome the change that is being introduced by the clause, although I know, of course, that it is going to be phased in and that it is going to take some time before it is operative.

There are a few comments I want to make in this respect and there are also a few reservations I want to voice. Firstly, it seems obvious to me that if the principle of no differentiation on the basis of sex is valid for workers under Wage Board determinations, it should also be valid for workers under Industrial Conciliation agreements. I should therefore like to ask the hon. the Minister if it is his intention in the next session, or as soon as possible anyway, which will be the next session, to introduce the same amendment into the Industrial Conciliation Act as he is introducing today into the Wage Act. In other words, he has to bring the Industrial Conciliation Act into line with the Wage Act as far as the removal of discrimination on the basis of sex is concerned. Secondly, is the hon. the Minister ever going to include farm workers and domestic workers under the protection of the Wage Act? I believe it is high time that this happened. It affects thousands upon thousands of workers, many of whom are Black women who have absolutely no protection whatsoever and many of whom, I want to say, are among the most exploited workers in South Africa. A very simple amendment to section 2(2) of the Wage Act would do the trick.

I now want to make a few observations, some of which are in line with the observations made by the hon. member for Durban North, about the possible repercussions of the removal of sex discrimination in setting up wage rates. Of course, some of the unions have actually expressed fears that instead of female wages going up to equalize wage rates between female and male workers, male wages may well go down. I presume this is not going to be the intention and I hope very much that the hon. the Minister will keep his eye fixed on Wage Board determinations to make sure that this does not happen. The other possibility, of course, is that as a result of equal wages some women may be replaced by men. In other words, because employers now have to pay the same wages to women as they pay to men, they would rather employ men in those occupations. I think the history of the Garment Workers’ Union perhaps bears this out in reverse. In other words, the garment industry was taken over, firstly by male Blacks from Whites because Whites moved out into other occupations after World War II, but then Black women took over from Black males because the sex discrimination which was allowed meant that Black women were paid lower wages than males and gradually the industry became almost entirely an industry occupied by Black women. That is fine. They have acquired skills and I doubt very much whether anything is going to happen to skilled workers as a result of the removal of sex discrimination in the Wage Act. I believe that the acquisition of skill by workers is something that employers value. They will not readily replace women by men because wage rates are now equalized. But I do not think the same thing necessarily applies in unskilled occupations. I think it may very well be necessary to watch carefully when this provision is introduced and implemented on a large scale, particularly if there are areas of depression, to see that this does not happen. If it does happen I hope the hon. the Minister will consider firstly extending the victimization clause to cover such an occurrence or secondly, make sure that the unfair labour practices section which is contained in the Industrial Conciliation Act but not in the Wage Act, is extended to cover the Wage Act although it is a very wide definition. Thirdly, examine the Sex Discrimination Act which was introduced in Great Britain in 1975 and the Equal Pay Act which was introduced in 1970 and finally implemented in 1975, to see whether we cannot learn something from those Acts which were specifically introduced to cover discrimination on the grounds of sex, so that women will not find themselves replaced by males simply because wages have been equalized. I know it is not easy to implement this. It is very difficult to prove whether an employer is engaging or not engaging an individual on the basis of merit or whether it is simply personal choice with discrimination as its base. But I think the very fact that the law is against an unfair practice of this kind is educative—it educates people into thinking that way and ultimately people become used to non-discrimination. Therefore I ask the hon. the Minister to keep an eye open for any unfavourable repercussions which might occur more particularly in the hiring of workers in the unskilled field and maybe even in the firing of workers in the unskilled field. I do not believe that this will apply to skilled trades.

I have a number of other reservations which I shall raise in the Committee Stage.