I rise on a matter which I regard as a question of privilege. It has reference to the ruling which you, Sir, gave yesterday in respect of a motion of which I gave notice under Rule 27. You will recall, Sir, that I gave notice that I would move to-day for the adjournment of the House on a matter of public importance, namely the judgment in the Bultfontein trial. Under the rules I believed and hoped that I would be able to discuss this matter to-day. But, last evening before the adjournment, you, Sir, gave a ruling that you would not allow a discussion of my motion as you regarded the subject-matter of the motion which I hoped to move as being inextricably interwoven with the rest of the trial and more particularly inextricably interwoven with an appeal which had been noted by one of the accused. I accept your ruling, Mr. Speaker. Discussion in this House on this matter is forbidden until there is a decision on the application for leave to appeal. Sir, we on this side of the House accepted your ruling and we have refrained from commenting in any way in the Press on the judgment. Sir, imagine the situation when we see a statement in the Press this morning from the hon. the Minister of Justice whose Department is most closely connected with this matter, which amounts in a major degree to a discussion of subjects which you would not allow in this House. There are references to the judgment; there are quotations from the judgment. It seems to us that not only is there extensive reference to the judgment but there are cases where it seems that those references are used for the purposes of arguments advanced by the hon. the Minister, arguments which in some cases, it would seem from the way in which the report appears in certain newspapers, he expected me to put up, however erroneously he may have had those expectations. If I had had that opportunity to put my case, under your guidance, Sir, I am sure that I could have referred to many of those matters quite as adequately as the Minister without in any way infringing your ruling in this matter. However, your ruling is correct; I accept it. I go further, Sir. I say that the entire interview by the Minister would never have been given were it not for the judgment and perhaps were it not for the fact that my motion was introduced. Sir, may I direct your attention to a few quotations from that interview, as they appear this morning in the Government newspaper, the Burger. The report reads—

And then again—

One more example—

Sir, those are quotations from the judgment used for purposes of argument by the Minister when no discussion can take place on it in this House—quite rightly—in view of your ruling, Sir. We seem to me to be in an extraordinary position, when a discussion cannot take place in this, the highest forum of the land, and a debate can be conducted to the Press on matters connected with this trial and which must affect the consideration of any judicial official who is charged with considering the question of sentence, on which I understand the appeal has been lodged, because whether this practice is widespread or not is a matter which will naturally be taken into account by any judicial official in deciding what the sentence should be and in deciding whether he should make an example of the accused or not. Sir, I do not for one moment wish to question or reflect on your ruling; I believe it is correct, but I believe we are in an unhappy situation when this matter can be discussed outside and not in this House. It seems to me that there must be some clarity on this matter, and I wonder whether there is no possibility of your considering a variation of your ruling perhaps to the extent that you will allow us to discuss certain matters arising from this judgment and not other matters; or whether you feel that you have to stand by the ruling you have given; but must it be accepted then that Parliament is in a different situation from the world outside? Sir, I raise this matter, it is a matter which I think is one of order and of importance to the privileges of this House.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition has often raised matters in this House which made me wonder what made him do so. The allegation he made against me to-day makes me wonder more than ever before. Firstly I want to make the point that I did not discuss the merits of the Bultfontein case at all. I did not even refer to it. You will allow me, Sir, after what was said by the Leader of the Opposition, to read out a single sentence of what I did in fact say in regard to the Bultfontein case. I was dealing with allegations of assaults in general, about which the newspapers of yesterday and the day before were full. Such allegations also came from the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. I was referring to those allegations in general and I said this—

That is, assaults in general—

Then follow the words reported in quotation marks as having been spoken by me—

But I carefully refrained from referring to the merits of the Bultfontein case; I did not say anything in that regard. What the hon. the Leader of the Opposition blames me for is for putting into correct perspective certain statements made by the Judge in giving judgment. Let me tell you why I did that. Hon. members will be aware of the fact that the Cape Times devoted several columns to informing its readers about that judgment, but, interestingly enough, what the Judge said in favour of the police was consistently omitted by the Cape Times.

Shame!

I had the verbatim report of the judgment in my possession, and all I did was to give the correct judgment of the Judge to the Burger for the information of its readers. Since when has it been a contravention for a Minister of Justice to give a newspaper the correct judgment of a court? Or does the Leader of the Opposition condemn me for having rectified the distorted report of the Cape Times? Is that the reason why he attacks me? I welcome the opportunity to quote what I in fact said—

That is what I said and I make no apology for having said it, and I shall argue respectfully that this has nothing at all to do with the privilege of this House. I continue—

And the Judge did say that; it stands in the verbatim report of the judgment—

And here the Judge is being quoted verbatim—

But that is what the Cape Times left out. Is the hon. the Leader of the Opposition angry now because I put it in the correct perspective? But I continue with my interview—

That the Cape Times in fact published, but they did not publish the following, and that is what I gave the Burger from the verbatim report of the judgment of the Supreme Court—

That, curiously enough, the Cape Times omitted. [Interjection.] The Burger did not report the judgment verbatim as the Cape Times did. The Burger printed a brief report by Sapa in this regard, but the Cape Times published columns and columns in which they quoted the Judge. All I did was to give to the Burger what was omitted in the Cape Times’ report, without any comment, from the verbatim judgment.

But let me come to the other allegations made by the hon. member. It is correct that I granted an interview to the Burger. I considered it to be in the interests of the administration of justice and of South Africa to put matters in the correct perspective. I want to put it to you with all respect, Mr. Speaker, that the interview I granted to the Burger has nothing to do with your ruling or with the privilege of this House.

But it has everything to do with the Bultfontein case.

I did not discuss the merits of the Bultfontein case in the least. Sir, you gave a ruling, with which I fully agree, that the matter may not be discussed in this House. That is a ruling with which I agree but, with respect, your ruling in that regard goes no further than the confines of this House. With respect, if I discuss the merits of the matter and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition takes exception to what I say, then he knows what he can do; he can then lay a charge against me outside this House of being guilty of contempt of court.

Order! I think I have heard enough argument on this matter.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition was kind enough to notify me a short while ago that he proposed to raise this matter to-day. I do not think any good purpose can be served pursuing it at this stage. I am perfectly satisfied that the ruling which I gave yesterday was, according to the rules of this House, the correct one. If, however, hon. members feel that they are being placed in an invidious position in relation to people outside of this House in regard to matters which are held to be sub judice in this House, then I think the best course to take would be to refer the sub judice rule either to the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders or to a special select committee for consideration and report.

Let the Opposition ask for a select committee.

When the debate was adjourned yesterday, I had stated the proposition that the strange constitutional concept of a state within a state in fact lends itself to the situation we are dealing with in regard to the Coloured community, and I want to argue that the legislation before the House in five respects is excellently adapted to the specific requirements of this situation. In the first place I want to argue that logically and constitutionally it is quite possible and legally justifiable to define and limit the powers of a subordinate legislative body functionally instead of geographically. This council which is being established by this Bill is a subordinate body such as a provincial council. The Coloureds enjoy their share in the sovereignty of the Republic of South Africa through their representation here, where their representatives in fact constitute 2½ per cent of the membership of this House, and it should be borne in mind that, in spite of the large Coloured population we have, it may be said that there are possibly 30,000 Coloureds in South Africa who have reached a level of civilization on a par with that of any Western European. In other words, the class of Coloureds who really deserve representation here constitute only 1 per cent of the numerical strength of the White population. They have been given a fair share in the sovereignty of the Republic as such, and it is quite practicable to define the powers of a subordinate body functionally and not geographically. In the second place, this division of authority within the authority of the State creates a political structure which is in line with the social structure. The Coloured community of South Africa is in fact a Western community within the White Western community. Socially they constitute something like a state within a state, and it is only logical to adapt the political representation and the political concepts to the social reality. In the third place the opportunity is created in this legislation to distinguish between the various groups of the Coloured communities, where the large group of Malays and Griquas obtain separate representation and recognition. In the fourth place, the possibility is created in this Bill to tackle the position of the Coloureds on a national basis instead of on a merely Cape provincial basis, as is the approach of the Opposition.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, this legislation provides a political training stage for 1,300,000 of the Coloured population. In this regard I should like to emphasize that we so often regard the Coloured population as a homogeneous one; we like to look at the top 30,000 who have done well in life. But in fact there is no community in South Africa which is as heterogeneous as these very Coloureds, because in the Coloured community one finds some people on the lowest level of development and unfortunately some of the most degenerate types, whilst in the same community one also finds excellent types. Such a widely differentiated community obviously needs a political institution which can grant facilities for the development for its hundreds of thousands. We do not say for a moment that this legislation is the final word in regard to the Coloured’s share in the political life of South Africa. But we do believe in this concept that a functional division of self-government and a functional share of freedom for the Coloured will be a permanent characteristic of our constitutional structure. We say that this legislation fits in with the problem, with the situation where we have a small percentage of developed people and a large percentage of less developed people. It is adapted to meet the problems of the whole of the Coloured community. Whilst we admit that the whole solution for the Coloured’s political and social situation is not embodied in this Bill, I want to state that the real problem of very many of the Coloureds in South Africa is due to their lack of self-discipline in regard to liquor, procreation and other human relationships, the will to work, etc. Those are the real problems which have to be tackled on the other departmental levels where this Minister and this Government have achieved more than any previous Governments.

As against this undoubtedly sound and defensible approach to the problem and this undoubtedly excellent attempt in the right direction, the United Party rejects this policy in toto. However, they fail to grasp this opportunity to tell the country precisely what their concept is. They stick to their generalities, and what are those generalities? Firstly, replacing the Coloured on the Common Voters’ Roll, and, secondly, their critical attitude in regard to these positive and definite proposals. Therefore we can tell the United Party this: Your Coloured policy is nothing else but an attempt to seek voting allies against Nationalist Afrikanerdom. That is what they hope to achieve by means of their policy. If they could implement their policy they would discover that they have not gained political allies for themselves, but that they have given the franchise to new masses of voters in the Cape Province, as I indicated during this Session in the no-confidence debate, and that these new masses of voters will be numerically strong enough to breach the White control of the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, and thereby to destroy the White control of our country.

Seeing that the hon. member for Sea Point (Mr. J. A. L. Basson) concluded his speech on the note that the policy of the Government is leading South Africa into a vale of tears, I want to tell him that it is this irresponsible policy of theirs which will lead to that vale of tears. Our policy is a logical and practical one, a policy which offers hope and splendid opportunities for South Africa. The policy of that party is one of political opportunism which will lead to the certain doom of the White man and of the Coloured and of the Christian civilization which the hon. member for Sea Point so unfittingly made his theme.

The hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) in general stated his case in a very logical manner. I should like to reply to him in the same spirit. He said that this Bill should be seen together with and as supplementary to the representation the Coloureds have in this House. I then asked him whether the Government regarded the representation of Coloureds in this House as permanent. He was quite disturbed when I put that question to him, and his reply was that there has never been any doubt about it. I accept that as the opinion of the hon. member for Kempton Park. But then he should take my word for it when I tell him that we on this side of the House are honestly convinced that this Bill is not intended to supplement the representation of the Coloureds here, but eventually to replace it, and that that is one of the main reasons why we are opposed to this Bill. We do not believe that without reason.

The Government has been busy for a long time creating the impression that this is the Parliament of the Whites, and that gradually a separate “parliament” for the Coloureds will be established where they “will govern themselves” and will have a “cabinet” of their own. In fact, if that is not the theoretical object of the Government, then its policy of four absolutely separate streams with “the sky as the limit” for each one makes no sense to the Coloureds. The Prime Minister is a person who is precise and deliberate in choosing his words, and there is no doubt about how the hon. the Prime Minister feels in regard to this matter. In 1961 he expressed himself unequivocally in regard to this matter in this House. According to Hansard of 11 April 1961 the Prime Minister stated—

This is now the legislation which replaces the Coloured council, the development over and above the Coloured council—

i.e. the four Coloured Representatives—

In October of the same year we had a general election, and at a meeting held by the Prime Minister at Standerton he set out the policy of the United Party and then very pertinently added—I read from the Transvaler of 2 October 1961—

As against that, the standpoint of the Nationalist Party is that the House of Assembly should consist of the representatives of the Whites.

Note that he did not say that it should consist of White members, as we now have, with Whites representing the Coloureds; he stated that it was his policy that this House should consist just of representatives of the Whites, in conformity with the concept that this should be the Parliament of the Whites, and that he would establish another parliament for the Coloureds. On the eve of that election, on 16 October 1961, the Transvaler published a special election message from the Prime Minister, in which message the Prime Minister further emphasized that standpoint. We on this side of the House are aware of the fact that this attitude adopted by the Prime Minister had certain repercussions in the ranks of the Nationalist Party and that there are still deep-rooted differences inside that party in regard to this matter. In a speech made by the hon. member for Parow (Mr. S. F. Kotzé) at Tulbagh a few months ago, he even referred to a “divorce” in his party on this matter.

You are talking nonsense.

The hon. member was speaking about the Coloured policy of his party and then he said this—

Just imagine, he says not at this stage! We know there are serious differences of opinion in regard to this matter in the ranks of the Nationalist Party. As the result of these difficulties the hon. the Prime Minister remained silent for the time being and during the 1962 session he made certain reassuring statements in this House. The question which worries us is: For how long will the Prime Minister be satisfied? Every hon. member opposite knows as well as we do that the presence of the Coloureds’ Representatives in this House undermines the whole concept of the Prime Minister that this is the Parliament of the Whites. As long as they sit here it remains the Parliament of the Whites and of the Coloureds, and it cannot be said that this is the Parliament only of the Whites. Therefore we do not believe that the hon. the Prime Minister will rest before he has reached the logical point of his policy where those members are put out of this House of Assembly. If that is not so, then we ask the hon. the Minister who is in charge of this Bill to give us his solemn assurance that it is the policy of the Government that the members representing the Coloureds sitting here will be a permanent part of the future which the Government envisages for the Coloureds. If he cannot give that solemn and clear assurance, it will be all the more reason why we cannot support this Bill.

I give it now.

Will the Prime Minister also tell us that he no longer stands by what he said previously?

I have already said it here.

Has the hon. the Prime Minister then changed his standpoint? Then we accept it. The hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs will have the opportunity to tell us in his reply whether the standpoint adopted by the hon. the Prime Minister in 1961 has now been cancelled, and I hope he will do so.

The hon. member for Kempton Park commenced his speech by referring to the Government’s standpoint in respect of this Bill, viz. the standpoint of apartheid. He said that formed the basis of this Bill. He then said that the United Party also accepts apartheid in certain spheres, and that it will be illogical to try to achieve political equality unless one also accepts general equality. Superficially that is a good argument, but the trouble with that argument is this: We use words and concepts, but not all of us attach the same meanings to those words and concepts we use. In our opinion, apartheid is not natural segregation, but enforced segregation. Apartheid has introduced the element of compulsion into a situation which was formerly a natural one. As against the policy of compulsory apartheid, there is the policy of compulsory integration. We on this side of the House reject both. We reject compulsory apartheid and we reject compulsory integration. There is therefore no lack of logic in the standpoint of the Opposition, which is that the Coloureds should be represented in the same political institution and should be able to take their seats there just like the White man. The social relationships connected with that is a matter which can take care of itself. We do not believe that that is something which the State should try to regulate by legislation. It is a matter for every person and every group of persons to determine according to their own tastes and habits. I concede that in the beginning it will create certain unusual situations, situations which we will have to resolve, but South Africa will never be without difficult human situations. But surely it is better and much easier to base one’s policy on the realities than to try to evade the facts. As far as the Coloureds are concerned, apartheid in our opinion is not a solution but an evasion; it delays the solution and it makes the adaptation in future, which is inevitable, more difficult. Let us face that fact. We can do what we like, but in future the White man will have to make certain adaptations in regard to the relations between himself and the Coloured. The longer one postpones this adaptation, the more difficult it will be. Let us therefore face the problem and tackle it.

In the case of the Coloureds we are not dealing with deep-rooted racial differences; we are not dealing with a numerical superiority which makes relations difficult. We are dealing here with a population group of our own kind. It is true that in the material sphere the Coloureds, as a group, have not been as fortunate as the Whites, but that cannot be levelled against them as a charge. They have not had the same opportunities; they have not been pampered and looked after in the same way that the White section of the population has been. Therefore there are great class differences, but in regard to his habits, his language and his needs the Coloured is just as European as the White man. He is an organic part of the White community. What is more, his roots in South Africa are deeply embedded alongside those of the White man. He is just as old an element as we are in what is regarded as White civilization. He has the same birthright as the White man. Therefore I find it so unreasonable on the part of the Minister of Coloured Affairs when he speaks about “the Coloureds in the area of White South Africa”, as if the Coloureds are foreigners here, as if we have a greater right to be here than they have. All the laws affecting the essentials of the life of the Coloured are passed in this Parliament. It will never be otherwise. One cannot imagine a plan which would change the situation where the laws affecting the crux of the Coloured’s interests are not passed in this Parliament. In regard to numerical strength history has, as it were, given it as a present to the Whites that the Coloureds constitute a minority of half the number of Whites. In the case of the Coloured the argument cannot therefore be used that the Whites will be swamped or threatened in the political or any other sphere if the Coloureds are granted wise and legitimate political rights in the right place. The question of the “continued existence of the Whites” is simply not relevant to an intelligent discussion of Coloured affairs. I want to tell this to those people who continually talk about the “continued existence of the Whites” when Coloured affairs are being discussed: If 3,0, 000 Whites cannot even maintain themselves in a free relationship as against less than 1,500,000 Coloureds, then the White man in South Africa is not worth a cent and simply does not deserve to continue to exist. If he cannot maintain himself against such a small minority, how on earth would he do so against another majority?

The Coloureds constitute the one section of the population in this country which is entitled to greater political rights, and to which these can be given without derogating from the political security of the White man, and which should be given these rights on the parliamentary terrain where they will have value and where the Coloured people will have the opportunity, together with the Whites, to gain the necessary experience. To me the greatest pity of all in regard to this Bill is the fact that the Government is missing a golden opportunity to do something great for South Africa. Intelligent people everywhere in the world have more sympathy than we imagine for the minority position of the Whites as against the Bantu. But all the sympathy we get in that sphere is destroyed by the unreasonable standpoint adopted by the Whites, through the Government, vis-à-vis the minority position of the Coloured. In so far as the Coloured is concerned the Government has no argument, and it is pure unreasonableness in so far as colour is concerned. This was an opportunity for the Government to think patriotically in these times in which we live to-day, with all the threats facing us, and to remedy the position of the Coloured by giving him representation in this Parliament through his own people. That would have been a breakthrough in the world such as South Africa has not had for years. If we had done that, we would have strengthened and improved the whole position of South Africa in the world overnight. It would have had a further effect. It would have had the effect, inter alia, of also putting the Bantu policy of the Government in a better and more sympathetic light. I go so far as to say that if the Government, instead of introducing this Bill, had taken the simple step of allowing the Coloured to be represented in this House by his own people, it would have meant more to South Africa than all the money we are spending on defence to-day. Instead of doing that, what do we have before us to-day? We have a Bill before us which is aimed at organizing the Whites and the Coloureds to move past each other in the same country as untouchables. They may not be allowed to try to co-operate in the same political institutions; the Coloureds are segregated; they must be moved to one side. And if one asks what the real reason is, it amounts to nothing more than the mere arrogance of the group of Whites who temporarily hold the power.

Now hon. members opposite want to know from me whether I did not vote in favour of the Coloureds having their own representation in this House. I was also in favour of a system which would hasten the day when the Coloured could sit with the White man in this Parliament. I believed, and I said so frankly, that the Coloured would get here sooner by way of group representation than by means of the old system in terms of which he formed the minority in every constituency, and would remain a minority. I did not hide that motive when I made my speech in this House and voted for the Separate Representation of Voters Act. I did not hide the motive that this should open the way for the Coloureds to get their own people into this Parliament. When I was a member of the Executive Committee of Sabra I never hid my opinion that the Coloureds should be represented here by their own people. Nor did I ever hide the fact that I was in favour of the Coloureds eventually being given the opportunity themselves to decide whether they wanted to remain on a separate Voters’ Roll with the right of direct representation by their Own people in this Parliament, or whether they later wanted to get back on the Common Roll.

Your whole past history is one of jumping about.

I always maintained the standpoint that I preferred group representation for the Colourwis because that would open the way to their being represented here by their own people.

Now, what is the simple position facing us to-day? [Interjections.] I shall quote the hon. the Prime Minister where he attacked me and said that the standpoint which I adopt would immediately lead to Coloureds sitting in this Parliament. Seeing that the hon. the Prime Minister has now closed the road to Coloureds being represented here by their own people, the United Party has opened the road to Coloureds sitting in this Parliament. The one closed it and the other opened it. Therefore I feel free to support the standpoint of the United Party. The United Party is also quite prepared to base the eventual arrangement in regard to the Coloureds on what the Coloureds themselves want.

Moreover, when the Separate Representation of Voters Act was before this House there was no talk of having a separate Parliament for the Coloureds; there was not the least reference to a state within a state or to their own parliament and their own cabinet. Dr. Malan and Mr. Havenga would have laughed at the constitutional fantasy of a state within a state. The whole spirit of the discussions of the Separate Representation of Voters’ Act was that any progress which was to be made for the Coloured in his political life in future should be in this Parliament.

A year or two ago there was in fact a bitter quarrel within the ranks of the Government party in regard to this matter. Every thinking member of that party began to realize that there was only one logical and inevitable course to be adopted in regard to this matter, namely that the Coloureds should make political progress in this Parliament and that they should be represented here by their own people. The campaign became so widespread that the Prime Minister was compelled to step in in an attempt to stop it. I therefore say that if it is an honest policy that there should be a separate “parliament” for the Coloureds, then the hon. the Minister should discuss it and analyse it and tell us what will actually be the position when he reaches the end of the road.

I am not a prophet.

One does not need to be a prophet. When it comes to Bantu affairs, they tell us they can see 1,000 years into the future; they can even determine the date in the distant future when the so-called flowing back of Bantu to the Bantu areas will take place, but when it comes to the Coloureds, which is a much easier matter, they cannot see into the future; then the Minister is like the horse outlined in white stones against the mountain at Calvinia and in regard to which the people have a song—

The Government is like the white horse of Calvinie; they are blind and cannot see. Now they tell us it is unfair to expect a man to tell us where his policy will lead. But if one introduces a Bill, a Bill which the hon. the Minister called a constitution, surely he must be able to tell us where it will lead to.

I again want to refer to the hon. member for Parow. At that same meeting he held at Tulbagh he said, “It is not possible for the Nationalist Party precisely to determine” whither its policy would lead the Coloured population in future! What an admission! What a reflection on the policy of the Prime Minister! The Prime Minister says: I know where I am going. His followers say: It is impossible for us to know whither we are going; and the Minister says he cannot see! Mr. Speaker, for a party to say it has a policy but it does not know whither it is going is, I think, a humiliating position for a great party to be in. And then the Government blames us when we refuse to help to erect a structure for which they cannot submit a plan, and which has no earthly future.

They talk about a four-stream policy; in theory every stream is equal, but is there a single hon. member opposite who will say that he believes that the Coloureds, in a multi-racial state, can become just as fully self-governing as the Bantu in his separate state? And if they know they cannot say so, then the whole concept of a four-stream policy, with “the sky as the limit”, becomes nonsensical. It is not fair of a governing party to ask an Opposition to vote for a Bill in regard to which it itself says that it does not know where it will lead to.

The truth is of course this, Mr. Speaker, that every thinking man knows that such a standpoint is not honest political science; it cannot succeed in respect of the Coloureds. There cannot be two Parliaments in the same state. We are faced with one of two alternatives in so far as the Coloureds are concerned, and nothing else. The one is increasing co-operation in the same political institutions with the Whites, and the other is the permanent domination of the Whites over the Coloureds. Those are the two alternatives, and we say one can evade it, one can speak of four streams and of a separate “parliament”, but sooner or later the Government will have to prove the honesty of its constitutional reasoning, and if it cannot do so it will be clear that its policy will lead to nothing else but that the Coloured will permanently have to remain politically subject to the Whites in South Africa. Therefore we on this side of the House have no doubt as to our attitude in regard to this Bill. We have no doubt that we have to oppose it in principle. The only honest course in regard to the Coloured is to give him, commensurate with the extent of his progress, a larger share in the legislative bodies of the country, which belong to him as much as they do to us, and in those bodies he ought to have the right to be represented by his own people if he so chooses. No policy which gives less than this has an intellectual or moral leg to stand on.

I have listened to the speeches of hon. members opposite, and not one of them could advance a single good reason why Coloureds and Whites should not sit together in the same political institutions. We listened to the arguments of hon. members opposite, but they were all excused, rationalization. The Minister expressed the fear here that the Coloureds would hold the balance of power in certain parts of the Cape Province. But the balance of power between which and what? He simply accepts that the Coloureds will always be unanimous. But in another part of his speech he tells us that the Coloureds constitute one of the most divided population groups in South Africa. And he simply accepts that the Whites will always be divided, whereas in respect of fundamental matters the Whites have always been united. But apart from that, there can be no talk of a balance of power when it comes to groups whose interests are similar, and because the interests of the Whites and of the Coloureds are absolutely similar, therefore there can be no talk of a balance of power in their case. The hon. the Minister has said: We have diversity, and diversity must be recognized. Of course we have diversity. Diversity is a fact. Nobody is against it. Nobody denies it. But that does not mean that a man must be penalized because there is diversity. It does not mean that a man must be avoided because diversity exists. Our diversity in South Africa is in fact one of our greatest assets, but then we must utilize that diversity in such a way that we complement one another, and not in such a way that we stand opposed to and segregated from one another. Nothing on earth will change the fact of a man being White even if he co-operates with a Coloured. We believe that the two groups have common interests and should work together in the political institutions of the country. Therefore we also feel that we should act as statesmen and look the facts in the eye, and that we should cut the knot now and do the right thing for South Africa.

The hon. the Minister also said: Where in the world does one find that people of different races co-operate successfully in the same country?

You are talking nonsense now.

The Minister did say so.

Just quote my words correctly.

That is what he said: Nowhere in the world has any plan of co-operation between races succeeded other than apartheid.

Quote me correctly.

That is how I wrote it down. I really want to appeal to the hon. the Minister. He really should not use that argument again, because people overseas who hear this type of argument think we are ignorant. One can go anywhere one likes in the world, to Eastern Europe, parts of Western Europe, Central America, South America, Asia, Southern Asia, and everywhere in the world one will find states where different peoples co-operate politically, people who differ from one another much more than do the White South African and the Brown South African. Here in our own country we have had the position all these years that the Coloureds and the Whites have sat together in the provincial council. No reasonable South African considered himself to be too important to sit together with a Coloured Representative. [Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat surely is one of the last members in this House who ought to dictate to us, a member such as he, a spineless fox who has already turned the full circle …

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “fox” (draaijakkals).

I withdraw. I say the hon. member has already turned a full circle in this House and has already supported every possible policy there has been. He is the last one who should come and dictate to us what we should do. Before 1948, when our party came into power, our party issued a statement of policy, a full statement of policy in respect of the Coloured people, and if that hon. member did not agree with that statement of policy, he should never have become a member of the National Party. But he, as an extreme opportunist, rushes to the side where it seems to him the climate is most favourable to him. Before 1948 already it was adumbrated that the Coloureds would eventually have a separate council in which they could assert themselves.

Balderdash!

How can the hon. member say it is balderdash? It merely shows his ignorance. I have the document in front of me now. This is the document drafted under the chairmanship of the present Minister of Lands, Mr. Sauer, and it reads as follows (translated)—

I do not wish to take up the time required to read the whole document, but had he wished to take the trouble on the day when he became a member of the National Party, he could have ascertained what the policy of this party was and still is at the present time.

I know it by heart.

A few years ago the hon. member voted in favour of separate representation for the Coloured people in this House. To-day he comes along here and wants to dictate the very opposite to us, and that according to him is now the proper policy. If the policy he is now supporting is not the opposte of that, what is he then doing on that side of the House; what is he doing in the midst of the United Party?

He obtained a seat there.

Of course it is because he has a seat there. The policy of the United Party is not separate representation for the Coloureds. Every member of the United Party rising over there advocates a Common Voters’ Roll as far as the Coloureds are concerned. But if the hon. member is still in favour of separate representation for the Coloureds, he should say so, so that his fellow-members in his party may at least become aware of it. The hon. member has referred to the “diversity” (verskeidenheid) mentioned by the hon. the Minister, and he said that there is diversity, but why should we penalize certain sections in our country because there is diversity? But what is the hon. member doing? Does his party not penalize? Does that party, including the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, pretend that in the application of their policy in respect of the Coloureds, they are not discriminating? They discriminate to a greater extent than we are discriminating, and I am not denying that we discriminate. We discriminate in our country because it is in the interests not only of the Whites, but also of the Bantu and the Coloureds and the Indians and everbody. That is why there is discrimination. But the hon. member also discriminates. He merely penalizes them more than we penalize them, that hon. member who is so boastful. He discriminates, but his discrimination is retrogression and oppression of those Coloured people whom we are uplifting to-day. He wants to use them on the day they go to the polls, but for the rest he wants to have nothing to do with them. In the days when the Coloureds were on the Common Voters’ Rolls, the cause of the Coloureds was not pleaded in this House in the way the Coloured Representatives at the present time are pleading for them in this House. I give the Coloured Representatives credit for that. That is their job. To-day we have people in this House who are championing their cause and they achieve something, but in the days of the United Party régime, nothing was achieved. Now the hon. member for Bezuidenhout refers to his policy, the policy of his party. What is the use? That policy of his will never mean anything, for they will never get into power. A policy means something only if there is a reasonable prospect that one can get into power, and that will never happen. As long as the United Party pursues a policy which aims at the representation of White people by Coloureds in this House, whereby Coloured Members of Parliament will be the representatives of White people in this House, how do they think they will ever come into power? I do not think it is worth while delating further upon this particular point. I merely wish to refer to the extremely relevant point raised by the hon. member, in all his ignorance, at the commencement of his speech, when he said that the hon. the Minister should make a statement and say unequivocally whether the Coloured representatives in this House will be abolished or not. Why are hon. members opposite so concerned about that? When we established the Coloured Representatives, they did not want them. When we introduced separate representation for the Coloureds they fought us tooth and nail. Now they are fighting again and they want the assurance that they will not be removed. If the hon. member is aware of what goes on in this House, he will also know what the Prime Minister said in this House on 23 January 1962 when that matter was dealt with specifically by the Prime Minister. It was during the debate on the motion of no-confidence, and the hon. the Prime Minister said this—

The hon. member for Boland (Mr. Barnett) then interjected and asked this question:

The Prime Minister then proceeded—

The hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) then interjected—

The Prime Minister continued—

Why did the hon. member for Bezuidenhout not quote that?

I think if it was not clear then, it should at least be clear now.

Next I should like to refer to what the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) said here yesterday in his speech on this matter. On that occasion the hon. member referred to the speech of the rt. hon. the Prime Minister before the Coloured council on 12 December, 1961, and he then argued that the hon. the Prime Minister there envisaged a council with a cabinet, with legislative powers, and that we know is far short of that, and that what the Prime Minister at that time envisaged is not being fulfilled. To explain this matter, I should like once again to quote what the Prime Minister said there. He said this (Translated)—

I am not reading the whole passage, but the hon. the Prime Minister then continued—and I should like to read this passage in English so that I can be very sure it will be understood fully. The Prime Minister continued—

I want the hon. member for Peninsula to listen to this—

Now the hon. member for Peninsula comes along here and he makes a big fuss because now, three years or not even three years but 2½years after the hon. the Prime Minister made that speech before the Coloured council, we have come forward with legislation 2½ years later and because everything the Prime Minister had promised here is not being given effect to in this legislation. But the hon. member has not noted that the Prime Minister said that these things must come about cautiously and slowly, and that the framework should be completed within five years, and that the entire scheme would possibly be completed within ten years. We have had only 2½ years as yet, and therefore the hon. member cannot now expect that everything that has to be done should now be brought about at once in one Bill. All this is preparatory work, and a gradual process to eventually give to those people what the Prime Minister adumbrated.

The hon. member for Peninsula next refered to Clause 20, and here I particularly wish to take him to task. He read Clause 20, but only the first portion which reads as follows—

The hon. member argued at length on that, and said that the Coloured council can advise the Government “on request” only. Unfortunately the hon. member did not go further. I must say it seemed to me almost like a deliberate misrepresentation I do not know whether that was the hon. member’s intention. I leave it to him to judge, but as the hon. member wished to state the whole matter fairly, he should have gone further and also read paragraph (b) of Clause 20 which provides—

not on request—

That is not at the request of the Government. Now I should like to analyse these two paragraphs briefly. Sir, when advice is given, when is it of value? Advice is of value only when it is desired by the person who wishes to be advised. If I go to the hon. member for Peninsula and say to him: “You should wear a red tie with that suit of yours” he could very easily turn round and say to me: “What business of yours is it?” But if he comes to me and asks me my advice on which tie he should wear, then the advice I give him is of some value. That is why in the first paragraph (a) provision is made for “on request”, whereas in the second paragraph “on request” is omitted. This Coloured council is completely at liberty to make recommendations to the Government on any matter affecting planning and the improvement of the Coloured community. Now I ask the hon. member for Peninsula, who was so critical and said it had no significance, whether that provision is not of great value to the Coloured community he has to serve? Here an opportunity is being created for them.

The hon. member also belittled Clause 21. Clause 21 provides for legislative powers conferred upon the council. Now the hon. member says: “Yes, but what is the value of these legislative powers, for they might be conferred by the State President by way of a proclamation”. But I wish to return to the point from which I started off, and repeat that these things cannot come overnight. That hon. member probably knows the Coloureds as well as we know them, and it goes without saying that it is impossible to confer upon these people all the legislative powers which we ultimately envisage, now at once, especially when the Prime Minister held out the prospect of ten years. I think the hon. member will agree with me that if we were to confer upon those people all the powers when they are not yet capable of exercising them, it may be that we shall be doing those Coloureds much more harm than good. No, wherever one hears of people who are not favourably disposed to this Government, one hears derogatory and sneering remarks in connection with the political advancement contemplated here for the Coloureds. And it is not only contemplated; it is actually there. The hon. member and other members opposite raised another objection in regard to this legislation. They say there has been no consultation, there have not been discussions with the non-Whites. I should like to deal fairly fully with this matter of discussion, so that hereafter there shall not be any doubt any longer. I should like to mention to what a great extent there have been discussions with the Coloureds on this matter. In the first place you will recall, as I said earlier, that on 12 December 1961 the Prime Minister adumbrated this undertaking to the Coloureds. About six months later, on 26 June 1962 the Minister of Coloured Affairs addressed the Coloured council. This matter was discussed specifically then. Amongst other things, the Minister of Coloured Affairs addressed the Coloureds as follows—

He then proceeded to ask the Coloured council the following questions. He said they should consider and discuss among themselves the following matters and make recommendations thereanent—

How many members should be elected, and should there be nominated members?

Should members continue to be elected on the basis of three per constituency, or should they be elected on a basis of one per constituency with a new delimitation?

The council will have to determine certain qualifications for councillors as regards age and other qualifications.

Who should be eligible to vote for members of the council?

The hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs continued in that vein and put to them these various questions, and at the conclusion of the discussion he suggested that they should give the matters further consideration. After he had put the questions, there was a full discussion on the matter in the Coloured council.

Where do you find that?

I have here in front of me the minutes of the Coloured council. Towards the end the Minister suggested that legal advice would be made available to them and Adv. Nel was appointed to act as legal adviser to them. Subsequently they had a further meeting, on 3 October 1962. At this meeting this matter was once again discussed very fully. In dozens of speeches suggestions were made for the constitution of this council, its functions and its nature. At the commencement of this meeting it was decided that a memorandum be drafted by the executive committee, and the committee collaborated with Adv. Nel in drafting this memorandum. The memorandum as drafted by the executive of the Coloured council was, after being approved by the Coloured council, referred to the Government. It was sent back to the Coloured council with very few changes, and once again the memorandum, with the amendments, was dealt with by the Coloured council, and thereafter this legislation was drafted. Now hon. members opposite do us the injustice of saying that there have never been discussions with the Coloureds. With due respect to them, I ask whether under the circumstances there could have been a greater measure of discussion.

I see this legislation as a constitution for the Coloureds in the same way that we have a constitution for the Republic of South Africa, and in the same way that we approved a constitution for the Transkei here, with the various departments they will administer. So I see this as a constitution for the Coloureds. I see that great progress has been made here as regards the political development of the Coloureds. This constitution of the Coloureds which we are asked to approve, provides for the establishment of a council, and for the registration of voters, the powers of the council; provision is made for an executive committee, for the functions of the council and the establishment of various departments; I see this as a great step forward. The fact that hon. members now complain that in reality the legislative powers envisaged are not yet being conferred upon it at this stage, surely does not mean that they will not be given those powers. I think it is the logical and proper and wise step. We must realize that these things cannot be given to them overnight, but that those legislative powers should be conferred upon them according as that council is in operation.

Why were they conferred upon the Natives in the Transkei?

According as that council comes into operation, these powers may be granted to them without having to come to Parliament again in order to draft a new constitution for them.

As I said earlier, it is no use talking about Opposition policy. It is no good talking about a United Party policy, for that policy can never be brought to fruition, as they can never get into power. I am quite prepared to have it printed in bold type in Hansard to-day, that they will never get into power. What is the use then of referring to an alternative policy, their so-called alternative policy of a Common Voters’ Roll? It is no good talking about it, because it can never be fulfilled. In the past the Coloureds have always been outcasts under United Party policy. Since the National Party came into power in 1948, we started at the bottom building up the political development of the Coloureds. Since 1948 we have gradually and to an increasing extent created opportunities for the Coloureds to become self-respecting to a greater extent, not to be suppressed and be merely an appendage to the Whites, and merely to be used on polling day, but in order to achieve something among their own people. As I have said, the United Party discriminates just as we do. It is no good trying to deny that. If they no longer wish to discriminate, they must say that they want to abolish the qualification franchise for the Coloureds. Now I ask hon. members whether they are prepared to do that. There is discrimination in South Africa, but they are also discriminating. Are they prepared to say that they are not only prepared to dispense with the qualifications for the Coloured vote, but also to give the Coloured female the franchise on the Common Roll? No, they will not say so, of course, because they want to discriminate. But their discrimination has always been concentrated upon subjugating the Coloured people and giving them none of the opportunities which he has under this Government. As I have said, the Coloureds have in recent times developed tremendously. He can now achieve the highest positions among his own people and in his own areas, and this legislation is a further step towards the political development of the Coloureds to make them useful citizens of South Africa. It is envisaged that we shall not only persist in what is in this Bill, but that the requisite legislative powers will ultimately be conferred upon them, and that they will receive everything the Prime Minister envisaged.

The hon. member for Ceres (Mr. S. L. Muller) said in his speech that advice was only good if you asked for it. Now I will give him some good advice, and as a lawyer he will appreciate it. Do not make statements unless you are sure of your facts. The hon. member made a lot of statements here without knowing his facts. He indicated—and he had a document which I would like to ask the Minister how it is that members on his side are able to obtain confidential minutes of the Coloured council, and nobody else, not even the Coloured councillors; certain documents are taken away from them and they cannot even take them home because they are confidential, and yet the hon. member for Ceres was able to quote from the minutes of this council, which is confidential.

Are you sure of your facts?

I am. The hon. member for Ceres indicated, and the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. J. A. F. Nel) gave the history of what happened when the Minister addressed the Coloured council. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) had a big document which he waved here, but when I asked him for a copy he said I could not have it.

Only the Broederbond may have it.

The hon. member indicated that the whole Bill, clause by clause, was made clear and discussed with members of the Coloured council. Now, may I just tell the hon. member and the Minister that something peculiar happened in this particular gathering. When the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) came to Clause 20 and Clause 21, every member of the council suddenly has amnesia and nobody remembers it! The Coloured councillors—not one of them —remember that Clauses 20 and 21 were discussed at that meeting. How funny it is that they should suddenly suffer from a blank mind. They can remember Clauses 19 and 23, but not Clauses 20 and 21. As soon as the council became aware of the contents of the Bill they were so surprised and disgusted and annoyed that they passed a resolution. [Interjections.] Let us look at this resolution. The Minister will laugh on the other side of his face when I read it. This is the resolution—

Here is a resolution by the council which says that they want to discuss matters which were not brought to their notice on 24 February. [Interjections.] And then, further—

I ask you, Sir, how does it come about that that resolution was passed?

You gave them the wrong information.

I did not. I never spoke to these people. This resolution was passed and I want the Minister to tell me this. Does he admit that this resolution was passed?

I replied to that long ago.

The resolution was passed, and I will tell you another thing, Sir. A deputation was formed consisting of the executive committee of this council, plus two other members. The Minister knows what they wanted to see him about, but he did not have the courage to meet them. You did not have the courage to meet them because they will tell you that you did not give them the full information they asked for.

That such a silly little man as you can accuse me of lack of courage!

I challenge you now. Get up in this House and agree to an independent inquiry …

Order! The hon. member should address the Chair.

I ask the Minister, through you. Sir, to accept my challenge and to have an independent inquiry instituted as to what happened at the meeting of the council when the Minister and the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) spoke to them. I want an inquiry of independent people. [Interjection.] The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) made great play of articles which were written by Mr. Fortuyn. I should like to tell you, Sir, that Mr. Fortuyn is a very able, clever and cultured Coloured man. I have reason to believe that Mr. Fortuyn would never have written that article had he known the contents of this Bill. [Interjections.]

That is an insult.

I want the hon. the Minister to tell me, and he is the only one who can tell me, whether I am right or wrong.

You are wrong, I will tell you.

Will the Minister tell me whether Mr. Fortuyn has changed his mind or not? I mean, since he wrote that article.

Tell us when you got hold of it.

I have never spoken to Mr. Fortuyn, but I say to the House that that Minister is the only man who can say whether I am right or wrong in my suspicions that Mr. Fortuyn has changed his mind about his article and about this Bill since he wrote it.

When did you speak to him?

I have never spoken to him.

Then how do you know he changed his mind? I think a judicial inquiry should be appointed to investigate your actions.

Sir, they are very worried because they know there is not a Coloured man in the whole of South Africa who supports this Bill, not even the Coloured council, since they found out what it means. And I want to tell you, Sir, that when they heard that the Minister was now going to amend that clause by bringing in the Administrator they said: “What a disgusting stab in the back!” They knew nothing about it. Not only does the Coloured council now have to have the goodwill of the Minister in regard to any law which this Minister wants them to pass, but they must now have the goodwill of the Administrators of the various provinces also. How many more barriers do they want these people to pass before they can pass a law? In any case, we have had previous experience of this Minister in regard to the Coloured council. When we came to this House with full powers from the Coloured council to ask that he should postpone the Committee Stage of the Coloured Education Bill, and when the hon. member for Peninsula, who incidentally I want to compliment on the very excellent speech he made yesterday. … [Interjections.] When we asked the Minister to postpone the Committee Stage of the Coloured Education Bill because the Coloured council wanted to make certain representations, do you know what this Minister said? “I am not going to be dictated to by any outside body.” His own council wanted to come and talk to him about something affecting the Coloureds, but he had the colossal impudence to say that he would not be dictated to by any outside body. Does the Minister want me to refer to his Hansard, or is his memory good enough to remember it?

I want to say something about this Bill. I want to say that from the information we have received from members of the Coloured council they did not know the effects of this Bill, or else they would never have agreed to support it. All they did on 24 February was that they discussed with the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) the resolutions which they themselves had submitted and which the hon. member had to put into legal phraseology. It had nothing to do with Clauses 20 or 21, the limitation of their powers, and if the Minister denies it I repeat my challenge that he should have an inquiry as to what happened that day.

I regard this Bill as one of the most important pieces of legislation that has ever come before this House in regard to the Coloured people. This Bill is the beginning of the end of the relationship between the Coloureds and the Whites politically. I believe that when the Prime Minister, with indecent haste, after Mr. Eric Louw came back from overseas to report on the unhappy time he had had at UN, and to appease the world, spoke about the Transkei, when he started the Transkei experiment, he sold the White man down the river, and he is selling the White man further down the river in this Bill, and he is dragging the Coloured people with him into a political quagmire from which they will never escape. What we must do in the interest of the Coloured people is to narrow the gap. We are chasing the Coloured man away from us, as the hon. member for Peninsula so rightly says. I want to tell the House that I attended a meeting a few days ago at which over 200 Coloured people were present and there was not one of them who told us to support this Bill. I have spoken to many Coloured leaders and there is not one who said: “Support the Bill.” I have had members of the Coloured council coming to me and asking me to oppose the Bill with all my might because they said they had been betrayed. [Interjections.] I am not prepared to disclose the source of my information. I do not want a heresy-hunt to be started. [Interjections.] I say that will happen.

But let me come to another point made by the hon. member for Ceres. He took the hon. member for Peninsula to task for daring to suggest that they should not accept this Bill because it is not what the hon. the Prime Minister promised them, and then the hon. member went on to say that what the Prime Minister said was that it would be an experiment. But they said the same in 1951. Look at your Hansard. In 1951, when the Separate Representation of Voters’ Act was passed, they made the same statement, that this must be an experiment, and that they will give them the power later on. Sir, how much longer must the Coloureds be experimented with? This Coloured council has now been in existence for four years already. Have they not yet passed the experimental stage? Or are you trying to bluff the Coloured people that they are not ready for political government? How long must these people be experimented with? The Minister told the Coloured people that the sky was the limit. He was playing political poker with them. He said: “Boys, come along, and let us have a game of political poker; the sky is the limit,” but unfortunately for the Coloureds the Minister had all the marked cards in his hand and they could not win the game if they tried. The Coloured people are not going to be misled by this sort of political chicanery. The Coloured man is to-day humiliated and disgusted, and my fight in this House, together with my colleagues, is to bring back to the Coloured people that dignity they had and which they wish they deserve to have but which was destroyed by this Government when they put them on a separate roll. We want to restore the dignity of the Coloured man.

You are the last one who can do it.

I may be the last one, but at least I am trying. I shall not cease my fight for the restoration of the dignity of the Coloured man, which is being further destroyed by this Bill. The hon. the Minister spoke about the White man in this country. I do not blame him, but he has indicated in that speech that “as long as I am Minister I will see to what the Coloured people will have in this country”. I almost thought the Prime Minister would jump up and say: “P.W., my friend, since when have you been Prime Minister?” He does not say the Government will do these things; he says he will do it as the Minister. I did not want to call him a dictator, but I am now going to call him one. He has unfortunately failed to become the greatest man for the Coloureds that ever lived in this country. He had the opportunity, but he lost that opportunity. He has let the Coloured people down. He has failed to uplift them politically. He is dragging them down. I want to say in favour of the Minister that if this had happened 15 years ago he would have been ashamed to introduce this Bill, but he is to-day the dummy of the ventriloquism of the Prime Minister. He is not the same Mr. Botha that we knew 15 years ago, when he had some sympathy for the Coloureds. He does this to-day not because he wants to, but he is forced to do it by a Prime Minister who has the impudence to say that when he talks of the South African nation he talks only of the White people. The Prime Minister said he denied the Coloureds the right of citizenship. What right had he to say that? These people who fought and died for South Africa have no right to be members of the South African nation. Having been made second-class citizens a few years ago, their position must be perpetuated. In which other country in the world are people who are born in the country made second-class citizens? But this Minister tells other South Africans that they cannot be members of the nation. I say that we can tear this Bill to pieces in the Committee Stage, as we will, to expose the hollow mockery of this Utopia which the Prime Minister offers the Coloured people.

I want to conclude by giving this message to the hon. the Minister. We speak here today for the Coloured people, and with their support, and we tell this Minister: The Coloured people reject your Bill completely and with contempt. They do not want second-class citizenship; they do not want this mockery of a parliament. They want you to say to them: If indeed it is your policy that we shall be a separate group, then give us the power, and we will be able to govern. But do not tell them that you require another 10 or 15 years of experimenting. They have had their chance, and they have shown that they are capable of doing it. Do not give them a cake with beautiful icing and cream, but when they cut the cake they find that the icing was just on cardboard. If any member opposite has any doubt that the three of us sitting here to-day are voicing the feelings of the Coloured people, let me tell them that they are wrong. Never in the history of our membership of this House have we had a more solid case to present, a more unified case, not only between the three of us …

What about the fourth one?

… but we have the solid support of the Coloured people of South Africa to reject this Bill, which we do with complete contempt.

I wondered while the hon. member for Boland (Mr. Barnett) was speaking what was really going on in his mind. Is he really afraid that under this new deal for the Coloureds he will be pushed out of this House? Because he had a hand in passing the apartheid measure which gave the Coloureds separate representation in this House. If that legislation had not been passed he would not have been sitting here to-day. He talks about the political maturity of the Coloureds. I believe that they are mature. As a matter of fact I believe that there are many who are more mature than he is and who could represent the Coloureds much better than he does. If he feels so strongly with regard to this matter, he should not have co-operated with the Government in giving the Coloureds representation in this House on a basis of apartheid. That is what I hold against him. He ought to resign immediately.

The hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan), who was the first speaker on that side, said at the outset of his speech that the Opposition was not in favour of this Bill because it is a further step on the road of parallel development. That is quite correct; that is the object of this Bill, and that is precisely why this Bill is such an excellent measure. The hon. member tells us by implication that he and his party are following the path of integration, and they do so without knowing apparently where that road must lead to. Hon. members opposite who spoke after him were afraid to state their policy as against our policy. Sir, we do not only want to be told how bad separate development is; we also want to be told how good their policy of integration is. But I do not think they have the courage to deal with this matter. I am sorry that the hon. member for Gardens is not here at the moment, because I recall a meeting which he addressed in the north-west during the 1953 election campaign, where he said this to a platteland audience—

Times change and we change together with the times.

The hon. member over there, a segregationist, has now become an integrationist. He has knuckled down to the Left Wing of the United Party without knowing where that road is going to lead him. Sir, in this Bill—let us admit it—we are dealing with the most difficult aspect of our Coloured policy and that is the extension of political rights to the Coloureds. In the case of the Bantu we can recognize and develop their homelands; we can place those people in their homelands where they can live according to their cultural and political traditions and their own way of life. The Coloured are differently situated. He has no other geographic destiny because he has no homeland; his geographic territory is the same as ours; culturally and linguistically he has close ties with us; he has accepted our way of life. There are many Coloureds who can even lay claim to blood ties with the Whites. Sir, the Government has decided to extend the political rights of the Coloured on the basis of parallel development. Let hon. members opposite call it a “State within a State” if they like. Nationalist thinking has always been courageous and dynamic; our outlook is not a rigid one. There are only two alternatives to parallel development. The one is partnership and the other is integration. The United Party have chosen partnership for the Bantu and integration in the case of the Coloured; as far as the Indian is concerned they have not yet made up their minds; they still have to consult with the Indians, and in the meantime their policy for the Indians is to leave them suspended between heaven and earth like Mohammed’s coffin. I have always been puzzled to know why the United Party did not accept partnership as their policy for the Coloureds because the deep-seated basic race differences which made partnership such a hopeless failure in Cyprus and in Rhodesia and other parts of Africa do not exist to the same degree between Whites and Coloureds. That is the first point. In the second place the Coloureds are of Western orientation. It could be argued that the ethnic differences between Whites and Coloureds will not prove irreconcilable in the long run and that for that reason co-operation between the two major parties, which is so essential in these matters, would not be entirely excluded. But what is even more important is that the United Party would then shake off the suspicion that it is being dishonest in its policy in respect of the Coloureds and that it is misleading both the White man and the Coloured. The United Party are not prepared to accept the consequences of integration and yet they have been forced by liberals in their ranks to accept integration as their policy. Sir, on the basis of integration the two parties will never find common ground. We on this side of the House reject integration because it can only succeed if it is carried through to the stage of biological integration. After all, integration as a political concept in a multi-racial country is just a euphemism for assimilation. America is heading in the direction of integration and is probably the only country in the world which will ever make a success of it, but it will not make a success of it by resorting to violence; I am thinking, for example, of the fact that she has to send along a few thousand soldiers to force a White school to admit one single Negro. Along those lines America will not make a success of integration; integration will only be a success when every drop of Negro blood has been absorbed into the blood steam of the White man. Their position is more favourable than ours for the simple reason that they have not only had more success than we have had in wiping out language and cultural differences but also because their so-called Negroes—they prefer to be called “Negroes” there (mulattoes)—comprise only one-eighth of the population. There is not enough Negro blood in America to give the Americans wavy hair! What is our position? The ratio of White to Coloured is two to one, and there is every possibility that by the end of the century there will be as many Coloureds as Whites in this country because the Coloured population can be supplemented on the one hand by Whites crossing the colour line (in spite of the legislation we passed in an attempt to prevent this) and on the other hand by inter-marriage with Natives. My submission is that integration can only succeed if it is carried to the point of biological integration. Sir, there are certain stages that we can distinguish in this process of integration. There is cultural integration, economic integration, political integration, social integration and biological integration. Once the stage of political integration has been reached, then social integration and biological integration follow automatically. If one wants to call a halt at all, then one must call a halt at the economic stage already, and that is precisely where the United Party slipped up in its assessment of the situation. In the case of the Coloureds they want to call a halt at the stage of political integration by placing the Cape Coloureds, and possibly also the Coloureds of Natal, on the Common Voters’ Roll in the hope of then being able to call a halt at the social stage and at the biological stage, as though such a thing is possible! Let me mention two examples. You will recall, Sir, that when we discussed in this House the desirability of self-government for the Coloureds in their own towns, the Opposition fought that measure tooth and nail. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) who is not here at the moment did not, as far as I know, take part in that debate but the next day an article written by him appeared in the Argus in which he gave the assurance to the White voters that in spite of the wild allegations made by the backbenchers on the other side of the House, residential segregation and social separation was still the policy of the United Party. The Karoo by-election to elect a Coloured representative then followed—and I am very sorry that the hon. member for Karoo (Mr. Eden) is not here at the moment The hon. member for Karoo issued an election manifesto, presumably with the approval of his party. It is interesting to see how he approached the question of integration in that election manifesto. He makes the promise to the Cape Coloureds that they will be put back on to the Common Voters’ Roll, but he excludes the northern provinces. The reason for that is obvious. There are so few Coloureds in the northern provinces in any case that they will not be able to influence the result of an election. Then he comes to the question of colour legislation and he says this—

Sir, that is brave integration language, but listen to the details now: He then deals with the question of group areas and in that connection he promises that injustices will be eliminated; that adequate compensation will be paid, and that the sting of compulsion will be taken out of it. But does he promise a repeal of the Group Areas Act? Not on your life! No, he is not going to repeal the Group Areas Act because, after all, he has already promised the Whites that there will still be residential segregation and social separation, and, moreover, there must also be protection for the White economy. For those two reasons then he makes no promise that the Group Areas Act will be repealed. Then he comes to the question of education. One would expect an ardent integrationist to say immediately, “We are going to abolish separate schools; we are going to have mixed schools”. But not on your life! What he does is to promise two small things; the one is that the curricula in the Coloured schools will be of the same standard as those in White schools —although that is not the case already! Then he promises compulsory education although he knows perfectly well that even if a United Party Government were in power it would be impossible for it to make more rapid progress with the implementation of compulsory education than this Government has done. Sir, one is reminded of a certain bishop who caused a placard to be put up in front of his church which reads, “You are all welcome here all races, all languages, all colours at all times”. Just around the corner, however, there is a church school, but there one does not see that placard! Oh no, there we do not want to mix the races! The hon. member then goes on to deal with industries. He promises the Coloureds more employment opportunities and he also wants mixed trade unions, but he goes no further than that. Here too apartheid is too useful for the protection of the interests of the Whites. Sir, have we had clear proof of the truth of the saying that one cannot deceive all people all the time! The hon. member found that he was able to retain that seat with a majority of just a few hundred votes whereas his predecessor had retained it with a majority of a few thousand votes. Just how honest is the United Party with this policy of integration? Which section is it misleading? Does it wish to mislead the Whites by making them believe that a halt can be called to this process of integration at the stage of political integration, or does it wish to mislead the Coloureds by making them believe that there is going to be total integration? One would also like to hear from the Coloureds whether they are satisfied with the prospect of committing suicide through assimmilation. Nowhere in the history of the world do we find that any nation which constituted a minority in a multi-racial country was able to save itself by means of integration. On the contrary, there are countless examples where such national groups disappeared. The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) and I know of at least one nation which saved itself through apartheid, a nation which believed in apartheid so much that it made a religion of apartheid and saved itself by means of apartheid from extermination. I refer to the Israeli nation. But the hon. member must not make the mistake of trying to make us believe that Israel patented apartheid! Our attitude is that the Coloured must be given the opportunity to emancipate himself by making up his leeway. If he wants equality with the White man, if he wants to acquire equality, then he must make the fullest use of the opportunity which the Government offers him and he must be prepared to work hard and to work with devotion, and if ever he is tempted to heed the attractive voice of the liberals and the integrationists, he must remember that it was these very people who in the past exploited his vote every five years and then promptly forgot him as though he did not exist at all! Sir, the Government has already completed the framework of Coloured development. Just think of the Coloured towns which are being established and which are under the control of the Coloureds themselves; think of the development of their rural areas; the encouragement of Coloured business and industrial enterprises; think of the establishment of the Coloured Education Department, and all the opportunities of employment which go hand in hand with these things. And the Government now comes along with this Bill to extend the political rights of the Coloured in such a way that he will be able to exercise control over those services.

Mr. Speaker, time does not permit me to go into the provisions of this Bill, but I just want to say this in conclusion: The reaction of Coloured leaders to this Bill, as one would expect, differed widely, but I do want to refer to a bit of sober realism which appears in the Banner of December 1961. Here the writer, referring to what the Coloureds are being given in this Bill, says—

He then goes on to say—

Sir, this is realistic language which gives one hope for the future. Let us go and build where there is room to build!

The hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Stander) may have made a detailed study of anthropology, sociology and economics, but one thing of which he has not made a study is the Bill that we are discussing in this House.

He knows it by heart.

I want to tell the hon. member that to represent this Bill, as he has attempted to do, as yet another step forward for the Coloured people will not deceive anybody who has studied this Bill and it will not more deceive the outside world than the Transkei Constitution Bill deceived anybody. Nobody was deceived by that measure as a quid pro quo for the depriving the Bantu of rights in South Africa, which is a multiracial country, and nobody will be deceived by this Bill as a quid pro quo for the deprivation of rights which the Coloured people enjoyed in this country for many years.

What do you mean by “deceive”?

I mean exactly what I say. Hon. members should not deceive themselves into believing that this Bill will deceive anybody else.

The hon. member who has just sat down made a great deal of reference to the maintenance of the identity of racial groups, etc. I want to tell him from personal experience that it does not require laws for a race or a nation to maintain its identity. If it desires to do so it will do so and it will continue to do so throughout the centuries. If it does not desire to do so no man-made laws will preserve its separate identity for that nation or that race. None of the laws made in this country will eventually make any difference to the racial composition of South Africa. Laws such as the Mixed Marriages Act and the Immorality Act, etc. will not make any difference. If people want to maintain their identity they will do so, and the very fact that before there was any law against mixed marriages in this country, in fact very few mixed marriages took place in proportion to the total population, is in itself evidence of that fact.

I want to come back now to the hon. the Minister and sum up the remarks that he made in his opening speech on this Bill. To me, of course, it is particularly ironical that it should be this particular member of the Cabinet who is introducing this Bill. He told us in his opening speech that from long experience of the Common Roll franchise for the Coloured people, nothing resulted except bitterness between Whites and Coloureds and bitterness between Whites and Whites. Well, I want to say that if there is anybody at present in this House who did his utmost to create hostility between Coloureds and Whites and between Whites and Whites on the subject of the Common Roll franchise for the Coloured people, it is none other than the Minister of Coloured Affairs himself. Sir, in the years preceding the removal of the Coloured voters from the Common Roll in South Africa, if there was one man who wore out his shoeleather stumping up and down the length of the Cape Province telling the Whites that they were about to be swamped by Coloured voters, in telling the Whites that Coloured voters were going to take over the reins of Government from them, it was none other than the hon. the Minister himself, leading the vast battalion of paid organizers of the Nationalist Party from constituency to constituency, from platform to platform, telling all the White voters that the presence of the Coloureds on the Common Roll caused friction. The fact that the Coloureds had been on the Common Roll for well nigh a century before they were removed from the Common Roll and that indeed there had been very little friction, is something which the hon. the Minister did not stress in his campaign in those years.

You are not sticking to the facts at all.

I am indeed keeping to the facts, as anybody who has studied the records and reports of meetings held in those days will know. The hon. the Minister is one of the persons who was most culpable in causing friction between White and non-White in this regard. He painted vivid pictures of the drastic consequences to the White people if the Coloureds were left on the Common Roll; he drew up arithmetical tables of the increase in the numbers of Coloured voters every year and the numbers who would qualify; he compared constituencies showing how White voters were gradually being swamped by the Coloured voters of the Cape Province. Sir, I do not want to go into the whole sordid history of this period and the eventual removal of the Coloureds from the Common Roll; there is no time to do that, and in any case I believe everybody in this House and in the country should be very well aware of that history. But I believe there is time to ask one very pertinent question in view of the allegations made by the hon. the Minister when he introduced this Bill, and that is whether the hon. the Minister seriously thinks that removing firstly the Africans from the Common Roll in the Cape and then later the Coloureds from the Common Roll in the Cape, has in fact resulted in improved race relations in South Africa?

Oh yes.

Can he honestly say that? Can the hon. member who is so voluble honestly say that race relations in South Africa are better than they were in 1936; that they are better than they were in the ’fifties when the Coloureds were removed from the Common Roll? All I can say is that it is extraordinary that it is in these years that we have experienced the most difficult race relations problems in South Africa; that we have experienced sabotage in South Africa, and what is more, that this Government has found it necessary to place the massive sum of R212,000,000 on the Estimates for the provision of defence and the police.

It has nothing to do with that.

No country which is confident of its internal security finds it necessary to increase, out of all proportion, the Vote for defence and for its Police Force.

All countries do it.

I want to tell the hon. member that if it is external aggression that we really fear—and I do not believe that that is so because there is not an African state that has any intention …

What is the position in Rhodesia?

You will see one of these days!

Order! The hon. members for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) and Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) must give the hon. member an opportunity to proceed with her speech.

There is no African State that is in any position to attack us, and if we are attacked by any of the great powers, we may just as well take this R212,000,000 and throw it into the ocean for all the use it will be to us. This money is being voted therefore for the preservation of internal security. To say that race relations are better because the Africans and the Coloureds have been taken off the Common Roll is to delude oneself. I do not want to devote much more time to this section of the hon. the Minister’s speech. I only want to comment on one extraordinary statement that he made when he introduced this Bill. He said that “White South Africa must gradually free itself of the possible grip of a Black proletariat over its economic future because otherwise an urban Black proletariat will through admixture with the Coloured people achieve a position of superiority over the whole of South Africa”. Sir, I do not know where the hon. the Minister lives; he certainly does not seem to live in this country, because what does he mean by saying that in the future the economy of South Africa will be in the grip of a Black proletariat? What does he think the present economy of South Africa is in, if it is not in the grip of a Black proletariat? The whole economy of this country is dependent to the very greatest extent on the use of Black labour, and what ever you call them—permanent dwellers, temporary sojourners or migratory workers—the fact remains that it is the Black workers who are in fact developing the economy of this country and without them we cannot exist, and therefore the grip of the Black proletariat, to which the hon. the Minister referred, is already assured. If the hon. the Minister thinks that the setting up of a Council for Coloured Representatives is in any way going to alter the labour ratio in this country then again he is deluding himself. Sir, it is time we came back to some realities in the situation in South Africa, and one of the realities is that the Coloureds do not share the hon. the Minister’s view that relations between them and the Whites have improved since their Common Roll franchise, limited though it was, was removed from them. They do not approve of the so-called four-stream policy. They know perfectly well that this is nothing but a fancy name for race discrimination, and they have shown this by their rejection of every single step that the Government has taken to remove them from the Common Roll, and by every subsequent step that the Government has taken. That is why the registration of Coloured voters is down to its very lowest in the last registration. Out of a possible 120,000 I believe there are 10,000 Coloureds left on the Voters’ Roll, which shows that they do not in fact agree with this method of representation. I think it is a pity that in this case at any rate they do not use the forum which remains available to them, the forum in which the laws are made in this country. I think this is a pity. I fully understand why they have rejected the existing Coloured council, because they realize that this has meant nothing at all in their lives; it had no real function. I fully appreciate that they are not going to take much part in the so-called management committees, which represented the next stage—the setting up of local government bodies or separate municipalities for the Coloureds. As I read my news a great deal of difficulty is being experienced in even getting nominations for those management committees.

Only in Cape Town where the City Council consists of liberals.

I believe the council has even attempted to co-operate with the Administrator in this regard …

We have dozens and dozens of other committees working well.

I take it in areas where there are no liberals at all? Sir, whenever it suits the hon. the Minister then people are not liberals; then they are sensible, intelligent people. When they do not happen to agree with his views there can only be one reason for it and that is that they are liberals.

I am referring to the City Council of Cape Town. They do not want to co-operate and you know it.

It so happens that the Coloured people of Cape Town …

They did agree to a point.

You are too gullible.

Sir, may I get on with my own speech? Hon. members can make their own speeches later on. Sir, the point is, of course, that it happens to be in the Western Cape which is the most developed industrialized area, where Coloureds live, that they are the most developed people and the most mature, and shall I say, the most sophisticated people, and of course they are not going to co-operate with these management committees.

There are quite a number of committees in the Peninsula.

I understand that out of 13 ratepayers’ associations, two have put forward nominations. The hon. the Minister must not tell us that he is getting full co-operation from the Coloured people in this regard. At every step they have opposed his implementation of this so-called four-stream policy which I say is just a fancy name for race discrimination. They have refused to co-operate with the hon. the Minister in this regard. The Coloureds are not as naïve as the hon. the Minister thinks they are. They know the difference between regional planning on the one hand and racial planning on the other and they object to racial planning. The hon. the Minister should also not delude himself into believing that the Coloured people accept that this Bill before the House is a step forward for the Coloured people. They are not going to be deceived by this, just as little as they were deceived by separate representation, just as little as they were deceived by the setting up of the original Coloured council and just as little as they were deceived by the setting up of separate management committees. They know it is just another step in isolating the Coloured people from political rights to which first-class citizens anyway are normally entitled. And they know full well. Sir, that no representative council can ever take the place of participation in the election of representatives on a Common Roll to the body that actually makes the laws that most intimately affect the lives of the people concerned. I believe that such a council as a substitute for ordinary rights on the Common Roll would be rejected by every self-respecting group in this country. If it were offered to the English-speaking section they would reject it out of hand and if it were offered to the Afrikaans-speaking group they would reject it. That is exactly how the Coloured people react. This is rejected by every Coloured man worth his salt, because he knows what in fact the Minister is asking, is for him to assist the Minister in administering certain areas in which his group areas legislation has placed them.

Of course, the hon. the Minister may find superficial signs here and there of people accepting his council, just as he keeps quoting the existing council as evidence that the Coloured people have accepted it. The fact that one ticket was put up and no opposition was put up never seems to occur to the Minister as evidence that the Coloured people as a whole reject his council. He will always find a few people Who are prepared to play along with him because the fruits are sweet, and the penalties are great if one does not co-operate with the Government in power. There are always attractive inducements to co-operate with the people who are there to hand out the fruits of office. But no Coloured man alone with his conscience can accept this Bill. It reasserts the Government’s determination to isolate him from the main political stream. It offers the Coloured man even less constitutionally than the Transkeian Constitution offers the Africans in the Bantustans because there they at least have certain limited legislative rights in their so-called homelands where they are at least first-class citizens. But this Bill does nothing of the sort as far as the Coloured people are concerned.

I now want to turn to the actual terms of the Bill which the Minister says is a step forward for the Coloured people. When one examines the details of this Bill one finds it is no such thing. The hon. member for Peninsula yesterday produced the document issued by the Department of Information—the S.A. Digest. It says “Country-wide representation: Coloured council announced”. As the hon. member rightly pointed out this is really one of the few truthful exposés of what was going to happen in this House. It struck me that the hon. Minister was not very pleased with the wording used in this Digest. Somebody’s head is going to roll as far as this is concerned. The Minister of Coloured Affairs did not like the phraseology used by the Department of Information where he said the Minister of Coloured Affairs would be able to have “Bills of his choosing” passed by the council instead of by Parliament. It is very nicely put really, all the way through. It very carefully describes the circumscribed powers that the hon. the Minister is giving to the council. It mentions that legislation in specific areas will have to be approved by both the Minister of Coloured Affairs and by the Minister of Finance before the Coloured council can discuss them; that they can give advice to the Government when asked to do so; that they can recommend plans. I do not know how you recommend planning; it is such a vague term as to mean nothing at all. Finally the council must serve as a link—another famous missing link that the Government is so fond of introducing info this House. The sky is the limit, Sir!

I want to point out again that absolutely no legislative power as such is granted under this Bill. The only legislative power is that which the hon. the Minister may decide to delegate and then only in a very specific field and only in respect of Bills of his choosing. Then after a measure has been passed it has to be submitted to the Secretary for Coloured Affairs for transmission to the Minister for transmission to the State President and if the State President assents it becomes law. But incidentally, unlike this Parliament which also has to get the assent of the State President for any Bill it passes, special machinery is set up for referring the whole matter back.

Exactly the same machinery.

This is much more elaborate machinery.

The Secretary passes it on to me and I pass it on to the State President and the State President passes it on to the Secretary of the Council.

And the Coloureds pass out!

What happens then, Sir. In the case of the Coloured Council Bill there is special machinery for referring it back to the Coloured council, but that is not the position in our case. Assume in our case a Bill is passed by this House, it will have been instituted by the Executive-in-Council and the State President will sign the Bill. This is not the case in respect of the Coloured council at all.

[Inaudible.]

Order! If the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) continues to make interruptions of that kind I shall ask him to leave the Chamber.

Quite different machinery applies in this case. It is clear if the Government does not approve of a Bill and if the State President does not sign it that will be the end of that Bill. What is more, if anything is passed by that council which is repugnant to this House, it gets thrown out as well and does not become law.

What all this amounts to, of course, is that when these legislative powers have been conferred on the council, the hon. the Minister will only allow them to proceed with Bills of his own choosing. In other words, the Minister can by-pass this Parliament. That is what it amounts to. If he decides to choose a Bill for the Coloureds he does not even have to come to this Parliament with this Bill, as I read this. The Minister shakes his head. As far as I know everybody reads it this way: The Minister can by-pass Parliament, this body which is the supreme law-making body in the country and which has four Coloured Representatives sitting within its walls.

As I said yesterday by way of interjection, as far as I can see the only thing the Coloured council can really do is to thank the Minister. It has no other powers that have any value whatsoever. There is something else we should note about this Bill and that is that the executive powers of the council are in the hands of a small coterie of people very carefully controlled indeed by the hon. the Minister. The chairman is nominated by the Minister; the other members are elected by the council but the chairman is nominated, and this is an important distinction, because finance falls in the hands of the chairman, that all-important blood-stream of this council. The nominated member controls the finance of this council. What is more: although the council can elect and remove the other members of the Executive only the Minister can nominate the chairman and only the Minister can remove him. So that the Minister has seen to it that the key figure in the Executive Council is in fact controlled by himself and not by the council. The whole of the Executive is forced to accept joint responsibility for all decisions taken and are bound by oath to keep quiet about the attitude of the minority. So the Executive Council is under oath bound not to disclose what goes on in the council or to disclose the particular views of the minority; they may not report back to their own council because they are under oath not to do so, yet they are forced by law to accept joint responsibility. What sort of a representative executive body is this going to be, Sir? What interests me is the fact that neither the Minister nor the Secretary of Coloured Affairs is bound by this secrecy oath. They can go all over the country and disclose anything they want to disclose from within the councils of the Coloured Represented Council, just as the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. S. L. Muller) was apparently given documents to-day which nobody has been able to get hold of. The same position is going to obtain in respect of the Coloured council. The Minister and his chief officer are in a very strong position indeed in this council.

All in all, one can only say that this whole plan is so circumscribed as to make an absolute mockery out of any claims that this is an advancement for the Coloured people. To represent this Bill which gives the Coloured people universal franchise to elect an utterly impotent body (which is what the Coloured Representative Council is) as a worth-while substitute for Common Roll rights to elect members to represent them in this Parliament, as far as I am concerned, is a hollow sham. The real things that matter to the Coloured people such as group areas, job reservation and things of that nature, will never fall within the province of the Coloured Representative Council. They will only be discussed in this Parliament. If the Government were really concerned about advancing the Coloured people and if the Minister were serious about his “the sky is the limit” claim, he would surely realize that what the Coloured man wants and needs, is exactly the same as the White man wants and gets in South Africa. In other words, education, free, compulsory and universal, so that their children may be able to develop to the greatest possible extent, their potential abilities. Secondly, unrestricted economic opportunity so that they may thereafter use their training and their ability to the greatest possible extent. Thirdly (this is important) real political power which will mean something to them; that means a vote on the Common Roll for the Parliament that makes the laws that govern the lives of these people. Some hon. members have quoted from Mr. Long’s book to prove that the old Common Roll franchise had failed. They pointed out that no Coloured had ever become a mayor and that no Coloured, even when he could in the old days, became a member of Parliament and that very few Coloureds had become municipal councillors or provincial councillors in the years when they could, in fact, occupy those positions. Well, of course, I am not saying that the old Common Roll system was satisfactory per se but not for the reasons the hon. the Minister and his supporters advanced. I think it was unsatisfactory because it was so limited; it was deliberately limited so as to make the Coloured vote of less value than the White vote. That was certainly the position when White women were put on the Voters’ Roll and Coloured women were left off. There was a deliberate intention in that and that was to water-down the effect of the Coloured vote. Equally, Sir, when all qualifications for Whites disappeared, but remained in the case of the Coloured voters; that too watered-down the importance of the Coloured vote. My point of view is that the old Common Roll system certainly had its limitations, but surely the way to improve that is not to remove what the Coloured had, but to extend existing Common Roll rights so as to give them what they did not have. That was why the old Common Roll vote was unsatisfactory. You might just as well say because a White woman has never been appointed to the Cabinet—and since this Government came into power there has never been an elected White woman Member of Parliament on the Government side—White women should be disfranchised. Is that a good reason to remove the vote from White women? Certainly not. It is ridiculous to use the analogy which Government members have used about a Coloured person never having become a mayor, etc. I say that if the Coloured vote, as it was, had its limitations and its shortcomings, which it certainly did have, the way to set those right is not to remove what existed but to extend the system; to give Coloured women the vote, as they well deserve to have the vote, and to extend the vote to the northern provinces. The party to which I belong is committed to this policy for the very good logical reason that that is the right thing to do. If the Common Roll vote is right for the Coloureds of the Cape Province it is right for the Coloureds in Natal, in the Free State and in the Transvaal. If the Common Roll vote is right for Coloured males, it is also right for Coloured females. That is the policy of the party to which I belong; in other words, the removal of race discrimination. We do not go for universal franchise. We say, yes, for qualified people but this is not a racially discriminatory measure. As far as we are concerned the qualification should apply to everybody—Coloureds, Whites, Indians and Africans. Thereafter, on individual merit, as a person reaches a certain stage of development he or she should be allowed to exercise a franchise on the Common Roll throughout the length and breadth of South Africa if they are citizens, if they have reached a certain age—we believe 21 to be the better age—and irrespective of colour or race.

For these very good reasons, because I believe this to be a racially discriminatory measure, because I do not for one moment believe this is for the advancement of the Coloured people, because I do not in any way believe that separate representation of any kind can ever be a compensation for the right to elect people to the House of Parliament which actually makes the laws that govern these people, I am most emphatically against the passing of this Bill.

The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) who has just sat down, more or less told us what will happen to the Coloured vote if it were restored to the Common Voters’ Roll as advocated by the United Party. Only two things can happen—I shall deal in greater detail with that at a later stage —and that is that either under pressure from the group to which the hon. member belongs and which is still represented in that party, it will be extended to the extent she pleads for or the Coloured will again be bluffed to his own detriment, something which she herself has condemned in the old system. The hon. member seeks reasons to prove why responsible Coloureds do not support this legislation. She, inter alia, finds a reason in the decline in the number of registered Coloured voters for Parliament on the list which was something like 48,000 in 1953 but which dropped to 9,839 at the last registration. I want to tell her that she must not seek the reason for this terrific decline in the fact that the Coloureds are not an favour of this legislation we are dealing with to-day. That decline took place before the introduction of this legislation. There is only one reason for that decline and that is because White political agents no longer hold the hand of the Coloured voter so that he can register. It also proves another fact and that is the extent to which the Coloureds, even the small group who were on the Common Voters’ Roll, were politically insufficiently mature to take part in the election of a body such as this House.

I do not want to deal further with the hon. member. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. D. J. du P. Basson) made a strange submission here. He said the whole opposition of the official Opposition to this measure was because they suspected this measure to be the beginning of the end of the Coloured Representatives in this House.

Inter alia.

Yes, inter alia. He then made the point that they particularly opposed this legislation because they suspected it to be the beginning of the end of the Coloured Representatives in this House. Surely the hon. member knows better than that; he was mischievous this afternoon. The hon. member for Ceres (Mr. S. L. Muller) quoted to him from Hansard what the hon. the Prime Minister said in 1962 already in connection with this matter.

What did he say before that?

What did you say ten years ago?

The hon. the Prime Minister said nothing different the previous year from what he has said so far. As recently as 21 January this year the hon. the Prime Minister reiterated what his standpoint was and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout was in the House at the time. The Argus reported on that matter and I wish to quote from the speech of the hon. the Prime Minister as it appeared in the Argus—

Order! The hon. member may not quote something from a newspaper which was said in the House this year.

I abide by your ruling, Mr. Speaker.

Quote from Hansard.

Yes, it also appears in Hansard but I thought it would have greater significance to the hon. member if I quoted from a newspaper which supported his attitude. I wanted to show him that that newspaper also understood it that way and why would the hon. member have understood it differently from the newspapermen in the Press gallery?

Was the speech made outside?

It was a speech made by the hon. the Prime Minister in this House. For the umpteenth time he repeated that the representation of the Coloured people in this House would not disappear. That being the case, Mr. Speaker, surely the entire opposition of the Opposition to this legislation comes to nought.

That brings me to another point. The hon. member went to great pains this afternoon to prove that the attitude he adopted in the 1961 election, when his party put up candidates, and when he was an advocate of separate Voters’ Rolls. … [Interjections.] No, I am not wrong. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout then had his own political party and that party was an advocate of separate Voters’

Rolls. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, a candidate of that member’s party of the day opposed me and that was also the policy he advocated. I find the two policies very far from each other: separate representation and the one he now supports, namely, back to the Common Voters’ Roll. The hon. member says he supported that attitude in 1961 because he believed that would be the quickest way of getting the Coloureds to sit in this House. He nods his head; he agrees. I cannot understand how the attitude a person adopts in respect of two such extremes can mean so little to him …

May I ask a question? Did the hon. member not read in the statement of policy of the National Union Party that it should ultimately be left to the Coloureds to decide whether they wanted to remain on the separate roll with direct repesentation or whether they wanted to be restored to the Common Roll. That was the official attitude of the party.

I do not distinctly remember having read that in their statement of policy but that is not relevant. What is relevant is that it is characteristic of the party to which the hon. member belongs to-day, when they are confronted with a problem such as this, to say: We shall consult the electorate in connection with this matter and see what they say. That is running away from the problem. The point I am trying to make is this: In 1961 the hon. member for Bezuidenhout was an out-and-out advocate of separate Voters’ Rolls which is directly opposed to what they advocate to-day. That reminds me of the fact that a number of years ago the hon. member issued a pamphlet in South West Africa during a by-election at Otjiwarongo. That pamphlet was headed “White domination (Baasskap): Our Policy”. The hon. member who referred in such a belittling way to the policy of the Government then said—

The Bill with which we are dealing to-day deals with positive steps in the Government’s programme of separate development for the Coloureds, with the emphasis on “development”. This Bill testifies of positive thinking in order to try to cope to the best of our ability with the racial situation history has left us. Where we are often accused by members on the other side that the Government is only concerned with negative measures in respect of the various non-White groups, this legislation offers another portion of the positive programme which was held out to the Coloured people at the time when they were placed on the separate Voters’ Roll. What do these people do who every now and then accuse us of negative measures? Do they avail themselves of this opportunity to take part in these positive steps to remove this particular minority group of our population from our guardianship, a minority group which history has left in a position of subordination to the White guardian? No, hon. members opposite are the very people who have a negative reply to this positive measure. Their reply to this measure is “back to the Common Voters’ Roll with all its unpleasant memories; its frustration for the Coloureds; its bitterness between White and White as well as bitterness between White and Coloured”. Basic to the problem which the Whites, as the guardians of the non-White groups in South Africa, have to handle is the fact that there are four different, totally different, groups, namely, the Whites, the Bantu, the Coloureds and the Indians. Nothing can argue this fact away, nor the fact that the various groups differ totally from one another in various respects, such as their standard of education, their way of life, their political traditions, etc. Nor can this fact be argued away by those people who advocate the idea of equality, because in our neighbouring state, Northern Rhodesia, where it is stated everybody should be placed on an equal footing, they have a list to-day which is reserved for Whites, in other words, they admit the fact that they constitute a totally different group for whom provision has to be made, a group totally different from the Bantu.

The solution the Government offers for an orderly arrangement between the various groups is the separate development of each group within his own circle and the development of the necessary machinery for consultation between those groups with their White guardian. The negative attitude the Opposition adopts in respect of this measure inevitably reminds one of the fact that that has consistently been the attitude the official Opposition has adopted along the road of development in South Africa as far as the Whites have been concerned as well. Sir, one thinks of the days when the first National Party Government started to develop South Africa industrially; then they were the drag (remskoen). One thinks of the time when the Hertzog Government came forward with the idea of self-determination for South Africa; then they were the drag; they did not want to acknowledge it. One thinks of the constitutional struggle to become a Republic; then they were the drag. The only answer they had on each occasion to those virile and new ideas for the future was “back to the obsolete things of the past”. To-day they likewise cling to the Commonwealth idea as practical politics while the Commonwealth is already disinter-grating; its older members talk amongst themselves to-day and say: “Would it not be better if we allowed the whole thing to disintegrate?” Because of the negative attitude the Opposition adopts towards the Coloureds it may be well to remind them of the fact that the presence of the Coloureds, who in the social field have so far always lived their own social life, on the Common Voters’ Roll of the time, was always a source of friction in regard to race relations and the cause of far-reaching measures in the past. The hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) said yesterday that while the Coloureds were on the Common Voters’ Roll there was peace for 100 years. Is he totally ignorant of what happened during that time? With the granting of representative government to the Cape in 1854, when the franchise was also given the Coloureds, a new principle was introduced which was not South African, because the granting of the franchise to the Coloured at that time was not something which came spontaneously from the people of South Africa. Since that time there have from time to time been quarrels and attempts to bring about a change in the situation because, rightly or wrongly, the White voter regarded the presence of the Coloured on the Voters’ Roll as a potential danger to himself. Before Union various legislative measures were passed, such as the Franchise Ballot Act in 1892, the Constitution Ordinance Act of 1893 to which the hon. member for Hottentots-Holland (Mr. de Villiers) referred yesterday in connection with the case of the Malay Ahmed Effendi. The same process took place in Natal in order to try to neutralize the influence of the Coloured voter on the Voters’ Roll. May I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that Union was nearly wrecked at the National Convention because of the insistence on the part of Britain that the Coloured voters should be retained on the Common Voters’ Roll.

That is not true.

It is true. If the hon. member studies his history he will see that Union was nearly wrecked on that issue.

Not because Britain insisted on that.

The hon. member should do some homework then he will follow better what we are talking about. May I remind you of the franchise which was extended to only White women in 1930 and to which the hon. member for Houghton referred a moment ago. May I refer to 1931 when the qualifications in respect of White voters were done away with but not in the case of the Coloureds? May I refer to the 1948 election when the presence of the Coloureds on the Common Voters’ Roll was one of the fundamental points on which that election was fought?

For whom did the Coloureds vote?

May I remind you, Sir, of the constitutional crisis which this country experienced in the early fifties in respect of this matter because the White people were up in arms on account of the way the Coloured vote was used for political purposes?

Who was the cause?

May I point out that the party opposite itself bears the marks of the struggle for the Coloured vote because it was on this issue that the Conservative wing of the United Party splintered off in 1954 when the hon. member for Fort Beaufort and the hon. member for Vereeniging and others left the party. May I also point out that it was because of the struggle in connection with the Coloured vote which alienated a further group of which the hon. member for Houghton is a member to-day, when they protested against the hesitant attitude the then Leader of the United Party adopted towards the question of whether the Coloureds should be restored to the Common Voters’ Roll once they have been removed.

It was in connection with the Bantu. You are wrong.

No, I am not wrong. If the hon. member goes into the matter he will find that the then member for Queenstown (Dr. Steytler) put an ultimatum to his party leader in that connection. Dr. Friedman fought a by-election in Hillbrow at the time on that issue. Dr. Friedman would still have been in this House to-day had it not been for this struggle over the question of whether the Coloureds should be restored to the Common Voters’ Roll and in respect of which the Opposition refused to adopt a clear attitude. The hon. member for Parow clearly indicated yesterday how, in the fifties, they changed their attitude on three occasions on the question of the Coloured vote. I also wish to refer to the various election results on this issue. After what has happened one would have expected the official Opposition, if they wanted to do the best thing possible for the Coloureds, to accept the will of the people on this issue and to co-operate with us in regard to positive measures in that regard. The positive undertakings given to the Coloureds at the time of the Separate Representation of Coloured Voters’ legislation have so far been carried out and this legislation is another step in that direction. The Common Voters’ Roll with its detrimental consequences was a source of growing and continual disputes and the Coloureds were the unfortunate victims; his position became progressively more inferior. At meetings addressed by the hon. member for Peninsula in 1947, I personally witnessed what happened when the Coloureds were on the Common Voters’ Roll. I attended that meeting as a reporter for a newspaper and seven years later a reporter of the same newspaper who had also attended a meeting of the hon. member said to me: If ever there was a reason why the Coloured vote should be removed from the Common Voters’ Roll it was the way in which politicians such as that hon. member dealt with the Coloureds at such meetings. All of us have been witnesses at polling booths on election days how Coloured voters, as they got off at the stations, were invited over microphones to come to the shining motor cars which were waiting to take them to the polling booths only to forget all about them the following day. We were eye witnesses how ladies with black sashes appointed themselves as the apostles of morality and stood in front of the Houses of Parliament and elsewhere in protest against the measure to place the Coloureds on a separate Voters’ Roll. I want to put this question to those hon. ladies: Have they ever thought about mourning and bewailing the immorality of the way in which the Coloured man’s vote is used the one day and how he is completely forgotten tomorrow and left to his own lot and that nothing is done to improve his lot? That is why I maintain that their retention on the Common Voters’ Roll will only bring about peace if the Coloureds were completely and in every respect accepted in White society, as the hon. member for Kempton Park very clearly indicated yesterday. But members of the Opposition are not prepared to do that. To-day they even differentiate between the child at school and the student at university. Their attitude is that there need not be any separation at university level but that there should be at school level. The hon. Minister and I once addressed a meeting and with reference to the United Party policy he asked what the difference was between a matriculation scholar and a first year student and a student from the University of the Free State very amply replied: “Three months holiday”. That is the only difference hon. members opposite make between the two. The official Opposition says to-day: Back to that system with all its evil influences, back to the reckless exploitation of the Coloureds only to forget all about them afterwards!

During all the time that system operated the Coloured was the one who suffered. The bitterness on the part of the White was also partly directed at the Coloureds although the Coloured was not to blame but was forced into the position because of the system. What new avenues for development were opened up to them under that system? I make the allegation that in those days they even cheated from within the executive bodies and congresses of the United Party. That was the reason why there was no hope under that set-up for the Coloured for the future.

I submit that if the relationship between the Whites and the Coloured deteriorated under the old set-up of a Common Voters’ Roll, it will deteriorate twice as fast if this country, for some reason or another, were to return to it, as advocated by the United Party to-day. The clock of the development of the Coloured people as a nation in the economic and social field, will be put back tens of years if they were to be restored to the Common Voters’ Roll, because the political position and the economic and social position of the Coloured people simply cannot be separated from one another. If they were to go back along that road we will again have the position which we had prior to 1948 when the United Party loaded certain constituencies with Coloured votes during the two months immediately prior to the election. In that year, for instance, more than 1,100 Coloureds were added to the constituency of Parow, 607 to Paarl, more than 500 to Stellenbosch, 196 to Malmesbury. But at Sea Point where they did not need the Coloured vote a mere six were added, ten to Rondebosch, and 19 to Mowbray and Gardens each. If we were to revert to that position I envisage incidents such as those which are to-day happening in America, because the Coloured will simply not be prepared to allow himself to be used in that way at an election. If we were to revert to that position I foresee that the dedicated upliftment work done by Coloured leaders will be nullified because one of the major problems which confronts them to-day is the reluctance on the part of the Coloureds to work, a fact which makes the Coloured a weak link in our economy and which has caused him to be ousted by the Bantu from his traditional fields of employment. I maintain that there is a connection between the reluctance on the part of the Coloured people to work and the Common Voters’ Roll system of the past. Those two are related because the Coloured was brought under the erroneous impression that he need not exert himself to work because there were people who would look after him, people who only looked after him the day of the election and forgot about him the next day. I submit that if the Coloureds were to be restored to the Common Voters’ Roll they will, under pressure from the economically stronger Whites, be relegated to a permanently inferior position in the political, social and economic fields. Or if another element in such a party, which will then be in power were to take over, that integration would be hastened in which case the Coloured leaders would be rendered helpless, those Coloured leaders who are concerned with uplifting their own people.

With reference to the positive aspect of this legislation, the hon. member for Sea Point (Mr. J. A. L. Basson) said yesterday the Government were not taking these steps out of love for the Coloureds but out of fear for the future. I say this morning that we are doing it because the Government realizes its responsibility towards the Coloureds and that it is proof of our good faith. It flows from the undertaking the hon. the Prime Minister gave the Coloured council in 1960 and 1961, an undertaking which is being carried out step by step. Goodwill flourishes under this set-up.

A very prominent Afrikaner of Cape Town sat in the gallery this afternoon. He gave up a very good position in order to take up a managerial position in the Coloured Development Corporation, not because that meant any personal gain to himself, but because he wanted to promote the progress of the Coloured community. So there are many who throw in their weight and energy into the attempt to assist the Coloured forward. With reference to the allegation of the hon. member for Sea Point that these things are not done out of love for the Coloureds, I wish to make the counter-allegation that neither does the United Party offer this negative programme of back to the Common Voters’ Roll out of love for the Coloureds. I maintain that they are being bluffed into believing that they will acquire White status in that way; the prize held out to those who strive for it and leave their own people in the lurch is status. The hon. member for Peninsula said yesterday afternoon that this legislation deprived the Coloured of his status. I maintain that this legislation does exactly the opposite. It will precisely give the Coloured the status of a leader in his own community. To that I may add that to restore him to the Common Voters’ Roll will mean a permanent position of inferiority to the Coloured. Hon. members opposite do not say that. They do not say that their only object is to promote the interests of the United Party in certain selected places. The hon. member for Sea Point said yesterday that we should not only accept the Coloureds as belonging to us in times of stress only to reject them afterwards. But that is precisely our complaints against hon. members opposite, namely, that they only know the Coloureds when they need them politically but that they consistently reject them afterwards.

The only criticism levelled at the contents of this Bill was that it did not confer the right of self-determination and complete legislative power on the Coloured Representative Council. That was what the hon. member for Peninsula said yesterday afternoon. But I maintain this afternoon that a guardian— that is the position in which we act—who realizes his responsibility towards a minority group, does not act recklessly. Surely we have sufficient examples in Africa of how wrong it is to hand everything over to the minor overnight. The guardian rather assists step by step to prepare the minor for his task and to hand over responsibility to him gradually. Although I readily admit that there are numerous Coloureds who are very mature it is precisely the responsible ones amongst them who every now and then in discussions warn against a progress which is too rapid. They who have the weal and woe of their own people at heart and do not simply strive to better their own position, often warn against too rapid development. Such development will amount to the giving of responsibilities to a Coloured population which is not ready to assume it.

The task of the guardian is therefore not to listen to the agitator and even to be ahead of him. That is why I subscribe completely to the attitude of the hon. the Minister in this connection because he knows how the responsible leaders amongst the Coloureds feel. Individual status in a national group is not something which is attained overnight. It has to grow. Individual Coloureds are beginning to acquire status in a wonderful way under the existing arrangement and this legislation gives them a further opportunity to blossom forth as leaders. It also gives their nation an opportunity to acquire a status as an individual nation. I think the very difference between the approach under United Party policy and under National Party policy is this: The United Party policy is to return to the racial friction and bitterness and the withdrawal of guardianship, the reward being the acquisition of a supposed White status, a status which will mean that they will leave their own people in the lurch, as opposed to the policy of the National Party of progress for the Coloureds in the political, social and economic fields, the reward being the acquisition of status as responsible leaders in their own circle and the reward of rendering a service to their own community. To us as guardians and to all responsible people in the Coloured community there cannot be any doubt as to which road should be followed.

Listening to hon. members on the other side, one gets the unavoidable impression that they are making very heavy weather out of the debate on this Bill. I could not, for instance, help noticing that the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Smit) during the course of his 30-minute speech, apart from the fact that he said nothing of importance, only made one brief reference to the Bill which is now being discussed. And I cannot help reminding him that it was one of his predecessors in office who was carried shoulder high into this House by the Coloured people and that the hon. member and his colleagues were only too happy to have the support of the Coloured people while they were on the Common Roll at that time.

Mr. Speaker, the fact that hon. members opposite are making heavy weather of a debate of this kind, is a phenomenon which is familiar to us and this is what we have had the privilege of witnessing during the last two days. When our friends opposite have to defend a bad case, as they had also last week in connection with another measure, they often indulge in a series of generalized accusations against the Opposition—a form of aggression in fact. The hon. member for Ceres (Mr. S. L. Muller) went so far as to talk about the United Party never coming back into power. [Interjections.] But may I just say that the hon. member, together with quite a number of others on that side have displayed a form of arrogance over this matter which many of us in this House find extremely unpleasant. In this connection I also wish to say this, namely that, to me at any rate, the surest sign of a great man, is to be possessed of some degree of humility and not merely to be arrogant. There is of course no sign of humility on the part of other members on the other side. When the Nationalist Party chooses to change its policies, as in fact it is doing under this Bill, then it is given out by the hon. the Minister and other hon. members on that side as a great sign of strength and a sign of confidence. Then they are adapting themselves to changing conditions in a changing world. That, in any event, is what we are being told. The hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Stander) was at one time a colleague of mine in the provincial council and he described the policy behind this Bill as being “moedig en dinamies”. That is all well and good but when the United Party changes its policy, what do hon. members on the other side say about it? They then accuse us of being nothing more than a lot of chameleons. But they are the chameleons if ever there were any. In any event, their’s is not a very impressive or intelligent argument.

When are you going to come to the Bill?

It certainly is not going to take me 30 minutes to get to it! Mr Speaker, the hon. the Minister was perfectly correct when at the end of his speech on the second reading he said that there were no easy answers to these questions which were facing us in South Africa. He was quite correct. In fact, I was glad that the hon. the Minister admitted as much. At any rate, we agree with him. It seems to us, however, that this Bill makes it unequivocally clear what the basic differences are between the two main contending parties in South Africa at present. I want to remind the House of what the hon. the Prime Minister said in a speech at Swellendam on 19th October last year. He said this on that occasion—

There must have been some very serious doubts in the minds of the members of the Nationalist Party in the Cape Province when the Prime Minister made that speech. In fact, it was the serious doubts which existed in the minds of the members of the Nationalist Party in the Cape which prompted the Prime Minister to make that speech. This speech was, very significantly, headed in the local Afrikaans newspaper as follows—

The Prime Minister also said this—

But the doubts which existed in the minds of the Cape members of the Nationalist Party— doubts which we know still exist—account for the lack of conviction in the speeches they have made in this House on this Bill. In this connection I must point out that the Minister himself sounded extraordinarily unconvincing when he moved the second reading of the Bill a few days ago. We, of course, take exactly the opposite view to him. We recognize the Coloured people as a Westernized people, and we have said so over and over again in this debate. As far as we on this side are concerned, they will therefore have their political rights restored to them and they will be allowed to sit in Parliament if elected. On this point there is a basic difference between us and the Nationalist Party. In so far as this Bill is concerned, there is no common ground between us and the Nationalist Party and it is just as well that the entire country, and particularly the Coloured people, should know this.

In spite of the smooth talk we have had on the part of some hon. members opposite, including the hon. the Minister, about the opportunities that are going to be extended to the Coloured people so as to enable them to realize their aspirations—all this wonderful talk about socio-economic uplift—I should like to say that this legislation is a political deception. That has been said already, but it can bear repetition. Who does the Government think they are bluffing? With its few electoral trappings—that is what they are—this Bill is nothing more than a rehash of the old 1951 Coloured board and the Coloured council of 1956. If hon. members do not believe me, let them have a look at the relevant statutes. I have been through them all.

Is it not strange that this Government should be quite satisfied to talk about helping the Coloured people to realize their aspirations by means of an advisory council—because that is all it is—with no powers to initiate discussions, and without any real freedom of speech, while it is quite content to give the tribal Bantu people, with no political experience at all, a Parliament overnight with four or five portfolios and several Cabinet Ministers with full Cabinet status? Hon. members know very well that the people of the Transkei are not competent to manage a large municipality on their own, and yet they are being given a special status …

Why slang them?

I am not slanging them, Mr. Speaker, I am dealing with realities. As against the people in the Transkei, our Coloured people living in the Cape have been exercising political and municipal voting rights with the Whites for more than a hundred years. Now they are going to be given a powerless advisory status, in which they will not even be free to criticize the Government and its policies. In this connection I should like again to ask the Minister the question which has already been asked: What is the purpose of all these electoral trappings if this council is not meant ultimately to replace the Coloured representatives in this House? Why all this palaver about elections, constituencies and all the rest of it? How many more insults of this kind does the hon. the Minister think the Coloured community will be prepared to accept? What kind of people does he think they are? How well does he know them? Does he think they are people without pride? Does he think they are a people without any tradition? Does he think they are people without stability and knowledge of a sense of responsibility? Because the extent to which their powers are being curtailed by this Bill, is in fact a vote of no confidence in the Coloured people.

Many Coloureds here in the Cape have served on school and hospital boards and on municipal councils together with the Whites for many years. I know because I myself have served on some of these boards with them and I just want to say, as my own personal testimony, that a more responsible and levelheaded group of people I have seldom had the privilege of working with. So we have the position in which the Coloured people, a loyal and God-fearing community, speaking the same language as most of us, with the same cultural and religious background and having reached a very high degree of development, continue to have their rights diminished and continue to be rejected by the Nationalist Party politically. That is what it means. The Prime Minister, being a trained psychologist, ought to know what a dangerous form of psychosis is created in the hearts and minds of people who are being continuously rejected. That is what is and has been happening to the Coloured people for many years.

The hon. the Minister in his speech claimed wide and general support for this Bill. I wonder how far he is correct in that assumption. I wonder what kind of backing his present council has got. The hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) was correct in stating that the elections for this council were boycotted in the first place. And I also want to remind the hon. the Minister what type of backing the Coloured representatives in this House have had over the last few years. In 1955, when the Coloured voters were first removed from the Common Roll, there were more than 40,000 of them on that roll in the Cape Province alone and 1,200 odd in Natal. Three years later, i.e. by the time we got to the 1958 election, for the four Coloured seats only 14,500 Coloureds voted.

And how many voted before that?

By 1961, according to the electoral office, there were only about 23,000 on the roll, i.e. slightly more than half the number registered in 1955. By 1963-4 the number on the roll had dropped to under 10,000.You have therefore a drop from 40,000 in 1955 to under 10,000 in a period of nine years. That is what the Coloured people think of the Government’s system of representation for them. They simply are not interested: they have lost heart. When other members on that side of the House to-day make such play of their apartheid plans for the Coloured people, then we have to be realistic. Then we find that the Nationalist Party’s real reason for taking the Coloured voters off the Common Roll in the first place was because these voters held the balance in a large number of seats in the Cape Province seats then held by the United Party. In order therefore to entrench itself in power, the Nationalist Party removed them from the Common Roll. Now we are faced to-day with another of these glorified advisory councils, but what has been the position of every advisory council that has been set up by any Government in South Africa over the last 12 or 15 years? We all know what happened to General Smuts’s Natives’ Representatives Council, because hon. members opposite have told us so often why it failed. Why did it fail? Because it was never given executive responsibilities, which it would have had if General Smuts had remained in power. Let me remind hon. members opposite of what powers the old Natives’ Representative Council had. The Minister was empowered to issue a certificate to the effect that any Bill or draft ordinance which contained provisions especially affecting the interests of the Bantu should be brought to the attention of Parliament, as well as to the attention of the Council. After such a certificate was issued, Parliament, or the provincial council concerned, was not in a position to proceed with any draft legislation until it had been submitted to the Natives’ Representative Council, and further, Estimates of Expenditure, which had a bearing on Native Affairs, had to be placed before the council for its consideration and comments. Can hon. members tell me that there is anything in this Bill even remotely comparable to those rights which the Bantu had in those days? The provisions were much more generous in those days than anything that is offered to the Coloured people in this Bill to-day. But when the Natives’ Representative Council was abolished by the present Government in 1956, the hon. the Prime Minister was then Minister of Native Affairs and I want to quote from Hansard what he had to say about the reasons he gave for abolishing that council (Hansard 25.3.56)—

The Minister then went on to say that a council created in this way will ultimately end up as a body of agitators. That was his main reason for abolishing it. That was his main reason for abolishing the old Natives’ Representative Council, whose powers were similar, and wider than the powers given to this advisory council. If the Prime Minister and his followers are logical, then they must in anticipation admit that this council will be ineffectual.

Then, what about Mr. Harry Lawrence’s Coloured Advisory Council? That failed also. The hon. the Minister dealt with it in his speech. It was boycotted by the Coloured people, in spite of the assurances given to the Coloureds at the time when that council was first formed. I want to remind the hon. the Minister of the conditions under which that council was first established. I have its first report here, dated 1943, and let me just remind him of the different circumstances under which it was introduced. I quote here from an extract from an official statement issued by the Minister of the Interior on 27 March 1943 in regard to the more important aspects of the Government’s assurances to the Coloureds—

1. (1) The Government will not deprive the Coloured people of their existing polical rights and will resist any proposals to change their franchise in a manner which would diminish their rights;
2. (2) The Government has at no time contemplated the establishment of a Coloured Affairs Department;
3. (3) Existing organizations will retain their present rights of making representations to the Government and of continuing their work on behalf of the Coloured community;
4. (4) The Government has no intention of introducing legislative or other measures to enforce compulsory residential segregation;
5. (5) The Coloured people will not, by reason of race or colour, be debarred from engaging in any forms of industrial occupation or employment.

Those are very interesting assurances. There would be no diminution of political rights, no group areas, no job reservation and none of the other handicaps with which they are faced at present, but still that council failed. The hon. the Minister in his speech made the point that the Coloured Advisory Council had failed because the system of Common Roll representation had Droved not to be a success, and he said: “Waarvoor het hulle anders die Raad ingestel?”. May I just remind the Minister that he conveniently forgot to tell the House that one of the chief reasons for forming the C.A.C. in 1943 was that it would assist the Government—and I am quoting again from the official report—in its efforts to give effect as far as possible to the recommendations of the Cape Coloured Commission of 1937. The Cape Coloured Commission made some first-class recommendations as to the future of the Coloured people. It would take too long to tell the House what they are, but they had to do with the provision of facilities for education, medical training, nursing, trade unions and a whole host of things. One of Mr. Lawrence’s chief objects in forming this council was to assist the Coloured people, in conjunction with the Government, in carrying out the recommendations of the 1937 Coloured Commission. The establishment of that council had practically nothing to do with the system of Common Roll representation, so we refute the Minister’s argument in that regard entirely. In spite of all this, the Coloured people considered that the formation of this council might lead to the establishment of a separate Department of Coloured Affairs and they boycotted it. They did not wish to become either a separate political or economic entity.

Now, what does this Bill give to the Coloured people? I said that it gave them no power, and it also gives them no freedom of speech. The hon. member for Ceres (Mr. S. L. Muller) contested our point when we said that they would have no power to initiate discussions themselves. He is a lawyer, and I suggest he reads that clause again. But what is interesting is that Clause 20 (1) (a), the wording of it, is absolutely identical with Section 18 of the Separate Representation of Voters’ Act of 1951. It is nothing but a rehash of that. There is nothing new about it, and there is no obligation on the Minister or upon Parliament to refer all matters relative to the Coloured people to this council in terms of this clause, nor is there any mention of putting before them the Estimates of Expenditure under the Coloured Affairs Vote. In spite of the elaborate election machinery, nobody can tell us that this council is to be anything more than an advisory council. That is borne out by Clause 18, in terms of which each member of the Executive Committee swears an oath—and I am quoting the clause —“to be a true and faithful adviser”—not a legislator, but an adviser. And when we come to Clause 16 (3), which deals with freedom of speech, what do we find? The wording of the first half of this clause is almost identical with Section 75 of the Republican Constitution Act permitting freedom of speech in the provincial councils. And then we get the proviso to Clause 16, which in effect will prevent these people from reflecting upon the Senate or the House of Assembly or upon Government policy. In other words, the Prime Minister’s fears with regard to the Natives’ Representative Council, and in fact his main reason for abolishing it, i.e. that it would become a body of agitators, seems to be implicit here. The Minister quite clearly seems to be afraid of that, because they will not be allowed to criticize Government policy. And if one looks at Clause 13 (b) it is equally interesting. If there should be any question of members of this council accepting office and then boycotting the sittings of the council, then provision is made here to deal with them summarily. The clause says that if they fail to attend one meeting of any ordinary sitting without have asked for leave of absence, they will be turned out summarily. That is a very harsh clause, unnecessarily so. Can it be that the Government anticipates trouble here as well? It looks to us very much as though that is the case. What else can it mean? Perhaps the Minister will explain.

There are various other little things which give the Government’s game away. We have heard a lot about a state within a state, and there was talk about a Coloured parliament, but they would be very foolish indeed if they thought in terms of a parliament in years to come. Look at Clause 9 (2) (b), which deals with the handing out of the electoral rolls. It says that that section of the original Electoral Act which requires that copies of the electoral rolls be handed to the different political parties or groups shall be deleted from this Act. In other words, the Coloured people serving on this council, although they will have been elected in their constituencies, will be able to go to the Electoral Office and buy these rolls if they wish to, but it is clearly not anticipated that there will be political parties or groups in this Council, groups holding different views and campaigning for different policies. The Transkei can do that, but it is quite clear that this Coloured council cannot, which makes nonsense of all the talk of the powers this council will have.

The most impressive clause of all is Clause 21 (1), which talks about their powers to make laws. That, as we have already said, is completely nullified by sub-section (2), which says that nothing can be done without the permission of the Minister, and it has various other qualifications. So all this talk about the power to make laws really amounts to nothing. What is the procedure to be in the end? Any measure put before the council must be referred to the council by the State President in the first place. They have no powers to initiate anything. The Minister of Coloured Affairs and the Minister of Finance must approve the draft legislation, and so must the provinces, before it is introduced, so that the whole thing is cut and dried. The measure must then be approved by the council. It must not be repugnant to any Act of Parliament, and the State President must give his assent to the measure. Finally, in terms of Clause 23, just to make quite sure that the Council does not insist on too many views of its own, the State President may refer any Bill back to the council if he does not approve of anything they might have suggested in regard to it. So there you have it, Sir, all nicely safeguarded, with all the trappings of modern electoral machinery but with no legislative powers at all, no right to advise except on request, no reflection upon Government policy permitted, and certainly no increase of rights, and then we have the Minister telling us that maybe by 1966 he will have thought about how the council shall function. The thing is a farce. The Minister referred to the proposal to set up a Joint Select Committee of Parliament to deal with some of the matters relevant to the Coloured community, but he rejected that proposal on the grounds that it was in conflict with what he described as the spirit of Parliament. Immediately after that he made the point that direct access to various Ministers was of greater value to the Coloured community than any standing select committee appointed by Parliament. In other words, the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) was quite correct when she said that Parliament was to be by-passed and that, in terms of Nationalist thinking, is entirely in line with the Government’s views on democratic procedure. I want hon. members to look at Clause 20 (c), which says that the council shall have power generally to serve as a link and a means of contact and consultation between the Government and the said population, i.e. the Coloured people. I want to ask the Minister what link there will be between this council and the Coloured representatives in this House, because that is the only thing which is really relevant in terms of proper political representation? There is no machinery whatever for that link to be maintained. The real link, as far as we are concerned, should be between the Coloured voters and their representatives in this House where the laws are made.

What is the Government’s ultimate aim for the Coloured people? If one examines this Bill carefully, one finds it is based mainly upon three statutes, the Separate Representation of Voters’ Acts of 1951 and 1956, and the Electoral Act of 1946. The elaborate attempts made to base the election provisions of the Bill upon our Electoral Act seem clearly to point to an intention on the part of the Government in time to do away with the Coloureds’ representatives in this House. That is inherent in this Bill. [Time limit.]

I to-day again became aware of the fact that my inherent courtesy and good breeding could be an obstacle to me, because I have always been taught that when a lady has spoken one must say something courteous, and I am afraid I am going to find it very difficult to do so now, but at least I can pay one compliment to the hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor). She really voiced something priceless when she read that quotation from what the Prime Minister had said. I shall not follow hon. members opposite in their arguments because I am afraid that the sum total of their arguments just amounts to this, that they asked that the Coloureds should be put back on the Common Voters’ Roll—of course, with the exception of some of them who went out of their way to say things here which could disturb race relations in South Africa and besmirch our name overseas. In this respect, of course, the hon. member for Sea Point (Mr. J. A. L. Basson) wins the prize for what he said. It is difficult to understand why he said these things, except that he proved to us to what extent racial feelings had been disturbed in the days when the Coloured vote was still used as a football in the politics of the Whites. I really think that was not relevant, and it proved precisely the opposite of what he tried to prove. I therefore want to appeal to hon. members to be careful in this debate and not simply to say things in order to disturb racial feelings and to besmirch our good name abroad.

This Bill makes a great contribution to the regulation of racial relations and to fostering good racial relations in South Africa. The Coloureds have reached a stage of development where we have to give them certain-political rights and powers to govern. But when we do so—and this is the crux of the matter, to which hon. members opposite tried to shut their eyes—we must realize two things very clearly. The first is that the future and the continued existence of the Whites dare not be endangered by it, and secondly, that when granting powers to the Coloureds we should do it in such a way that those people will not feel frustrated, but will feel, as the result of the powers granted to them, that they can do something positive and that their leaders can do something to help them. I think that was the standpoint from which this legislation set out, that on the one hand we do not want to endanger the existence of the White man in South Africa, but on the other hand we want to give the Coloureds that which will make them happy citizens of this country because they feel that they have the opportunity to serve their compatriots also in the political sphere and to uplift them. [Interjection.] It is difficult to understand the Opposition. The trouble with them is that they refuse to accept the judgment given by the public at the polls. They refuse to accept the judgment of this House, viz. that the development of the Coloureds should take place on the basis of separate development. That is why we have already been debating this matter for two days without getting anywhere, and no really positive argument has come from the Opposition, because they are afraid to say what they really want to say, and I shall tell them in a moment what that is.

If I were to make the allegation to-day that those hon. members advocate racial integration, a few of them would almost have a fit, but that is precisely what they are doing. We have in this House the tragic-comic phenomenon that those people in the past, when it came to racial legislation, followed the guidance of the defunct Liberal Party. They always remind me of an old neighbour of mine, Oom Koos, who has since died. He was a dear old man, but he had one fault. He thought he could do everything better than anybody else and therefore he preferred to do everything himself. Then he became ill and when he was on the point of dying he called his children and said: “I want to give you instructions. When I am dead you must prepare a grave for me and then you must inspan the black horses in the wagonette and take me to the cemetery, but you must be very careful when you come to the little bridge in the valley because the horses are very lively—no, there I will take over the reins myself.” That is what happens every time in this House when we discuss racial matters. Then the defunct Liberal Party comes to life again and takes over the reins from the Opposition. I want to allege that the Opposition refuses to realize that we have now arrived at the crossroads on the road of racial relations in South Africa. They shut their eyes to the fact that we now inexorably have to choose between the road of race integration and the road of separate development for the races. They are seeking a middle road which does not exist. History has proved, also in other countries as well, that there is a choice of only two roads in countries with mixed populations: either the road of separate development or the road of integration. It is because they refuse to recognize these facts and that they draw up a new racial policy every few months, and if things are a little difficult they draw up another in the meantime as well. That is also why they have one policy for the rural areas and another for the cities. If the hon. member for Yeoville goes to the north-west they have one policy, but when they assist the hon. member for Wynberg to catch the votes of the liberals they sing another tune. They try to do the impossible; they try to propagate something which does not exist. I want to say that those people will find themselves in a very difficult position. I want to ask them this: Do they adopt this standpoint of the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) as she expounded it to-day? Do they adopt the standpoint expounded by Professor Cowen in his book, “The Foundation for Freedom?” I want to quote a passage from that book—

He goes further and says this—

Do hon. members subscribe to that? Why do they not want to say that they subscribe to it? They know they have come to the crossroads on the road of racial relations. There are hon. members on those benches who feel as we do in regard to this matter, but there is also an undertone of liberalism which rises up from the grave every time to take over the reins, and that is why we have this comic but at the same time tragic phenomenon that those hon. members cannot adopt a standpoint in regard to a matter such as the one before the House to-day, and therefore they have to resort to commonplaces and pettiness to stir up feelings between Whites and non-Whites. I say that an honest policy of separate development is the only alternative for the policy propagated by Professor Cowen, and I know the hon. member for Houghton subscribes to it; she is honest enough to say so. Hon. members opposite will have a fit if we ask them before the electorate whether they accept it and subscribe to what Professor Cowen said. Not a single one of them has said to-day that they do not subscribe to it. I want to tell them that the people outside know their policy. They can no longer bluff the public, and this sort of thing is inexorably leading them increasingly further towards disaster until one day they will disappear.

Why is it that the Opposition continually tries to keep alive these political bogies when they know in their hearts that this policy is slowly but surely being accepted by the Coloureds of South Africa, in spite of the propaganda and the venom with which they are continuously being injected? Is it perhaps because they are afraid that their last prophecy of doom will be proved wrong and they will have no political platform any more? Then I want to tell them this. The country outside knows that the old prophets are dead and the United Party no longer has prophets. The Coloureds of South Africa are starting to realize that their only salvation lies in this policy of separate development. There was an incident recently in my constituency at Springbok when a certain school was taken over by the Department of Coloured Affairs. Various eminent people were present and speeches were being made, when out of the blue we heard a voice from that group of people who never speak politics but only religion, and this man said that he could not help saying that there was a stigma attaching to the school because it represented that evil concept of segregation. Do you know what happened then, Sir? One of the Coloured leaders from Nababeep got up and said that he regretted that speech, because had it not been for the policy of separate development—and I shall mention his name; he is Mr. Cloete, who has a shop at Nababeep—he would not have had that shop to-day because he could not compete in a free economy, and he said that is why the Coloureds accept the policy of separate development and support the Government and its policy. Where did those people have an opportunity to make progress in life in a common economy where they were not protected in terms of this policy of separate development? It is because hon. members opposite refuse to accept that picture that one to-day has the position that they make a great fuss in regard to this Bill, which is a positive forward step along the road of separate development. We are establishing a new pattern of race relations in South Africa, a pattern which I am sure the world envies us for. I am certain that the world will accept this pattern because it offers a solution to a problem which the world has not solved yet.

Now the Opposition tries to allege that there is only one basis on which one can have political rights, namely on the Common Voters’ Roll. Let us look at other countries. There we find that some votes count for more than others. There are all kinds of political representations, but if South Africa does not adhere to a certain old system that we had here then it is said that we are depriving people of all their political rights. Why should we have these illogical arguments and this failure to recognize everything done in South Africa in the interests of the non-Whites, and why try to enforce on us a certain system which is just impossible in South Africa? Is it due to obstinacy, or what is the reason? Why does the Opposition not admit that they are prepared to abandon this midway path they are seeking and say they want political integration which will result in biological integration? Then we would know where we are. I want to make this statement to-day. We cannot predict precisely what the position will be in this country in 100 years’ time, but it is nonsense to allege that we are following a course without knowing where it will lead. We are following a course which we planned previously, the road of separate development. We are also busy giving separate political rights to the Coloureds along with those of the Whites. It is important that the Whites should continue to exist in this country, because one does not like to lose one’s identity, but in my opinion it is equally important that the Coloureds should continue to exist as a race, and therefore it is our duty to assist to give the a racial pride of their own and not to break it down by saying that they are inferior and must be absorbed in our ranks, otherwise they will be lost. My standpoint is that they should be taught that they have something to be proud of. If one day the continued existence of a pure White race here is ended, the Coloureds as a race will also cease to exist, because if there is intermingling both the White man and the Coloured will be swamped by the numerically superior Bantu. That is the crux of the matter, and the Coloureds are realizing it. I wish the Opposition would be just as open to conviction as the Coloureds. One finds many thousands of Coloureds to-day who clearly realize this and say that they support the policy of separate development because they know that if the White man can no longer exist here the Coloureds cannot do so either and will be swamped by the Bantu mass. That is the whole basis of this Bill.

When we now come to the Bill itself we are told that the Coloureds are being given no political rights. The hon. members for Wynberg and Houghton and all the others to whom I have listened say that we really give very few powers and rights to the Coloureds in this Bill. Let us look and see whether they really enjoy so few rights as a minority group.

In the first place they have their representation in this House and there is no idea of depriving them of that, i.e. their representation by Whites in this House, except by the Opposition, which always sees bogies. I do not know where they get those bogies from. Here they have representation by Whites which gives them a say in the making of the laws. But apart from that, they have a Department of Coloured Affairs which concentrates all its efforts on catering for the interests of the Coloureds alone, and I want to say that that Department has done wonderful work and has succeeded in gaining the confidence of the Coloureds as no other Department has ever done, and I want to congratulate it for that. That Department and the Minister of Coloured Affairs deserve our congratulations for the great work they have done in gaining the confidence of those people. In the third place, they are being given a representative Coloured council, to which certain legislative powers will be ceded from time to time, and the hon. member over there may laugh, and the hon. member for Wynberg said that nowhere in the Bill is it stated what powers will be given to it. But are we not on the road of development, and has this Government not proved that it is treating these people very honestly, and has the Minister not said that those powers will be ceded as and when these people become mature enough to handle them, when from time to time they will be granted certain legislative powers in respect of matters affecting their interests? [Interjection.] We give the Minister power to delegate certain legislative powers, and Parliament always has the right to criticize it, because we are not a police state. We are at liberty to criticize the Government, and if the Minister does not cede such powers, or if he cedes too many, this House and the country outside can call him to account. Is this not a democratic country in which we live? I say that we are establishing this machinery to cede those powers to them when the time is ripe for it.

They want to delegate South Africa.

Yes, it looks like that. We give them a fourth thing. We give them an executive body which will be administrative, where those delegated powers can be controlled as they are by a Minister in our Cabinet. We give them all these things. These powers will be delegated to them. But the hon. members are dissatisfied because we do not do it all in one piece of legislation, as they did in the Congo, where they granted power to immature people. We are creating machinery to do it as it should be done in a democratic country. Here we are creating the machinery to handle a political situation as intelligent adults, and then the Opposition says: Why do you not simply hand over a whole number of things? Sir, we are creating machinery for responsible development along that road. [Interruption.] We did the same in the case of the Bantu; we are still advising them and giving them guidance, if only the hon. member for Houghton could understand that.

We are dealing here with a bit of legislation of which I am proud. I have seldom in my life been so proud of any legislation as I am of this Bill, because it proves the maturity of the Government; it proves its political maturity and its political honesty. What we are giving to the Coloureds we are giving as fast as possible without endangering their future and that of the Whites. I should like the Opposition to tell us whether they find fault with that? They have not yet suggested any alternative; they just say, “Back to the Common Voters’ Roll.” I have become tired of that already. They know what that system was. If that was not a fraudulent system from beginning to end, then it was as dangerous a system as to be found anywhere in the world. Choose for yourselves whether you want to go back to the old fraudulent system a system which will lead to the doom eventually of both the White man and the Coloured and which will hand them over to the Bantu masses of Africa. This legislation is the only sound basis on which we can grant political representation to the Coloureds in South Africa.

The hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. G. de K. Maree) had much to say but he said very little about the Bill itself. I shall deal with the reason for that during the course of my speech. Unfortunately the hon. member used the reprehensible argument that the efforts of the Opposition in this debate were to give South Africa a bad name overseas. I say that is reprehensible and it is made more reprehensible because it has in fact become standard practice on the benches opposite.

Malpractice.

My hon. friend corrects me and says it is standard malpractice.

Order! The hon. member should not allow himself to be misguided.

I did not think I was being misguided, Sir. If you think I was I shall accept your ruling. What the hon. member seems to have overlooked and forgotten is the fact that it is excessive legislation on ideological matters, and particularly legislation of this kind which is the optimum cause of what he is complaining about. It is legislation of this kind which gives South Africa a bad name overseas. I hope that he and hon. members opposite will bear that in mind. I said once before in this House that the Government’s policy of apartheid or racial discrimination was a policy with an insatiable appetite for laws and more laws, for new laws and amending laws and laws to amend amending laws.

The hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. van Staden) was full of predictions for the future when he spoke. I hope he will also permit me to make one prediction. It is easy to predict that the greedy appetite of which I have spoken will not be satisfied with the passing of this Bill, this new oddity in South African constitutional law. The hon. the Minister in introducing it used the term “grondwet”. As a legal oddity this Bill is a new beginning to yet another course of legislation of colour discrimination, starting, as it does, with the setting up of two novel constitutional devices for the country. I call them novel constitutional devices, Sir, because the first is a toy-Parliament in the form of a Representative Council for the Coloured persons with no distinct legislative powers. The second is a toy-Executive Committee which may function with up to five members but which can function with only one member as long as he happens to be the Government’s nominee on that body.

I accept that considerable drafting care has been taken throughout the 31 clauses of the Bill (a) to provide elaborate electoral and nomination procedure for the setting up of the Representative Council and the Executive Committee; (b) to regulate the conduct of procedure of these two bodies; (c) to require oaths of office to be administered to its members and (d) to arrange for their remuneration. When, however, you turn to the provisions of the Bill which are to engender legislative powers and executive functions in respect of these two bodies, all I can say is your search is brief and is soon ended. There are, in fact, only four provisions in this Bill of 31 clauses which engender power, i.e. three sub-clauses and one clause. The main oddity of the arrangement is that there is to be no distinct or conventional division of constitutional functions between the council, as a legislative body, and the committee, as an executive body. I should like to deal with the committee first because the next odd thing about the proposed arrangement is that the prime function of the committee will be to substitute for or to take the place of the council whenever that larger body is not in session. It is quite obvious, Sir, that the council will function sporadically during the year and that the committee will have to function for the rest of the time. It is quite true that the committee will be debarred from making laws, vide Clause 17 (1), but on the other hand it is equally true that the council can make no laws unless and until the State President, as the titular head of Government acting on the advice of the Minister, chooses to confer limited powers on that council in terms of Clause 21. I think it is advisable to have Clause 21 on record. It reads as follows—

1. (1) The State President may by proclamation in the Gazette confer upon the council the power to make laws in respect of any specified subject falling within any matter referred to paragraph (a) of sub-section (6) of Section 17 and thereupon the council shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, have the same power to make laws in regard to such subject as is vested in Parliament.
2. (2) No proposed law shall be introduced in the council except with the approval of the Minister granted after consultation with the Minister of Finance.

I shall later come back to this provision on account of its vagueness and the little value it has for the council.

Coming again to the committee, I wish to point out that in respect of it too, the functions as set out in this Bill are very vague. It may, for instance, deal with such matters affecting Coloured persons as can be grouped under five headings which are very wide in scope and equally vague in terms. These functions are finance, local government, education, community welfare and pensions, and rural areas and settlements. What is comprised within these headings is so vague that the Minister was forced to say that he would adjust matters because Administrators themselves were concerned about the vagueness of the provision. Sir, in addition, members of the committee may be assigned, not jointly but severally, certain administrative functions either by the Minister or by an Administrator. But how such delegation of authority is to take place, and how it is to be effected, what safeguards are to be applied and what laws are involved, are matters which are completely vague and unspecified. I hope, therefore, that the hon. the Minister will find it possible to give greater clarity in this regard when he replies to the debate.

The last oddity of this arrangement—I have already briefly referred to it—is that the committee even when it is functioning in the place of the council, can be a one-man show, provided that one man is the Minister’s nominee. Normally the committee will consist of a chairman, nominated by the Minister and four elected members, of whom three shall form a quorum. Clause 17 (5) (c) of the Bill then provides—

A more extraordinary executive committee as a constitutional body, I have yet to see.

The singularly few clauses in this Bill which generate power and define functions, may be summarized as follows: Sub-section (6) of Clause 17 which relates to the committee; Clause 20 (1) which relates to the council; Clause 21 which I have read; and Clause 22 (2) which allows limited spending authority to the council of moneys appropriated for the purpose by this Parliament, subject always to the control of the Minister. Consequently I think it is fair to conclude, as has been stated, that in terms of this Bill the proposed council will essentially be an advisory body operating through the Minister. The point has already been raised, but I think it can bear repetition, that it can only be advisory if requested to give advice—not otherwise. It is also designed to provide some sort of liaison between the Coloured community and the Government.

Now, it has been claimed by hon. members opposite that it is not intented that those hon. members in this House who represent the Coloured people should disappear. It is quite obvious, however, that in terms of this Bill the recognition of that representation by the Government is going to disappear. Finally, this council is to have fairly wide but ineffective debating powers. Whilst it will be able to debate, the purpose of such debate is not clear from the Bill. But it will have wide debating powers and, as I have already said, some limited spending powers.

Let me now come back to the legislative aspect in Clause 21. For me it is perfectly clear that the legislative powers which are to be conferred upon this council are not delegated legislative powers by this Parliament such as those granted to the Transkei or even to lessor subordinate bodies, such as an irrigation board.