I move—

Mr. Speaker, the object of this Bill is to restore the legal basis for the granting of participations in mortgage bonds which was recently upset by the Appeal Court in its judgment in the case of Lief, N.O. v. Dettmann. I may explain to the House that, based on a series of judgments of the Supreme Court starting as early as 1869, the impression had been created that a real right under a mortgage bond, i.e. the right to have recourse to realization of the property in satisfaction of the debt, could be obtained by an unregistered cession. Acting on this interpretation of the law the system of participation in mortgage bonds, whereby portions of the secured claim were informally made over to a number of participants, had become fairly widely established in the country. The rapid development of this system has taken place more particularly during the past two decades which is a clear reflection of the present-day need for investment channels in our economy. According to a conservative estimate R150,000,000 is at present invested in this manner in the country.

In the aforementioned case the Appeal Court decided that persons who participated in mortgage bonds in the manner which I have outlined had no secured claims and, in the instant case, were merely concurrent creditors in the insolvent estate of the registered bond-holder. The court found that a participation in a mortgage bond represented a real right only where there had been a cession registered as such in the Deeds Office. The judgment therefore removed the entire basis which had been accepted as affording security for this type of participation and the position has therefore arisen that all the holders of participations in mortgage bonds, which is quite a considerable number as I have pointed out, do not have the security which they supposedly had when the investments were originally made. The position requires to be remedied as soon as possible.

Firstly, we can never allow a body of investors of this magnitude becoming restive in regard to their investments and, may be, starting to demand repayment which may mean the calling-up of numerous bonds in the country. Moreover, the funds of many trusts have been invested in participations because it was thought that this type of investment complied with the special standard of care and diligence prescribed by the Courts for trustees—with which standards an unsecured claim would not comply. It is estimated that approximately 25 per cent of the total investments in participation bonds fall in this latter category. It is also obvious that if the facility of this type of investment were not restored, the small investor would be deprived of a very desirable form of investment and on the other hand the financing of many building projects—especially large buildings in our developing cities—would be either impossible or much more difficult. For these reasons this proposed legislation is rather urgent.

The way in which we propose to remedy the position is to follow fairly closely the precedent which exists in our law in respect of secured debentures, whereby the holder of a debenture gets a real right in fixed property mortgaged as security. This precedent is embodied in Sections 91 to 93 of the Companies Act. The system there provided for requires a debenture bond to be registered in the name of a trustee as nominal mortgagee who holds such bond on behalf of debenture holders. Each debenture holder is entitled to enforce personally his rights under the bond against the mortgagor, unless the trust deed provides otherwise. A register of debenture holders has to be kept by the company issuing debentures. Our proposals in this Bill bear a close resemblance to the various particulars of the system applicable in securing debentures by means of the mortgage of fixed property. We propose creating a special type of mortgage bond, called a participation bond, which will be specifically described and registered as such in the name of a nominee company. Clause 2 of the Bill deals with this aspect. The nominee company which will be the nominal mortgagee will be subject to certain definite requirements and restrictions, the most important of which is that it will not be able to incur any liabilities other than those to the persons on whose behalf it holds assets to the extent of their respective rights to and interests in such assets. All the expenses of management of the nominee company will be paid by the company or person who manages the scheme, referred to in the Bill as the manager. Our object is to make the nominee company a safe holder of the bonds outside the estate of the manager. Its position is analogous to that of the trustee in the case of secured debentures.

From the registration of a participation bond, which will be recognizable as such by anybody by mere reference to the Deeds Registry, certain legal consequences, which are in the nature of exceptions to the general position of the conventional mortgage bond, will flow; the most important being that a register of participants, indicating the extent of each participant’s interest in the bond, will be maintained, not in the Deeds Office, but in the registered office of the manager or at some other approved place. This register, which corresponds to the register of debenture holders, will be maintained by the manager in accordance with certain definite requirements of the law which are all prescribed in some detail in Clause 5 of the Bill. Clause 5 further provides that, like the records of the Deeds Office, this register will be open for inspection by the public.

The second important legal consequence which will flow from the registration of a participation bond is the removal of the common law right of the mortgagor to object to, what has been called, fragmentation of the bond. This provision, inter alia, is contained in Clause 6 of the Bill. I may mention that it is basic to the concept of a participation bond that the mortgagor will not be able to object to the granting of participations. It should be regarded that in agreeing to the registration of this special type of bond the mortgagor automatically waives his right to object.

In Clause 3 we propose provisions to the effect that a manager will only grant participations equal in their aggregate value to the amount of the bond. I will deal later with the safeguards which there will be against fraud in this connection. Clause 3 also provides that a manager will be able to accept money in terms of a written agreement 60 days in advance of granting participations. This facility is considered necessary in order to marshal the funds in anticipation of arranging the registration of a participation bond. In order, however, to distinguish acceptance of moneys for this purpose clearly from accepting deposits under the Banking Act we provide that it shall only take place in terms of a written agreement and that repayment shall be made after 60 days if a participation is not granted within that period.

Clause 4 provides that every participant shall get a notification which will, inter alia, indicate the extent of his participation as a sum of money and state the conditions on which the participant may transfer, cede or encumber his rights. Like in the case of the ordinary mortgage bond, the participant will have the right to make his interests over to somebody else—even to the manager who may also hold participations—but he may not as of right demand of the manager the encashment of his participation. This arrangement corresponds to the position of the mortgagee under the ordinary mortgage bond. Clause 6 provides, inter alia, that a participant must obtain the prior written consent of the manager to the transfer, cession or encumbrance of his rights under a participation. This is necessary to ensure that a participant will not exceed his rights and interests at the time of transfer and moreover this procedure is very desirable from the point of view of the needs of our economy. It will serve as a brake on the negotiability of participations which is desirable and is, moreover, quite in line with the long-term nature of a mortgage investment. Clause 6 further provides that a participant shall have the right, unless otherwise provided in the rules of the scheme, to enforce his rights against the mortgagor. This is the basic provision in the Bill which gives the participant the real right, under a participation bond which has been removed by the Appeal Court judgment.

The question may be asked how this legislation handles the position of participation bonds issued in the past. The mere passing of an Act is no guarantee that the rights of a participant acquired in the past will be safe. The participant may share in a scheme which may be in a chaotic state. The way in which we propose to deal with this problem is briefly as follows: Each scheme will have to have rules for its operation which will have to be approved by the Registrar of Unit Trust Companies. I may mention in passing that a participation mortgage scheme is somewhat analogous to a unit trust scheme and for that reason the Unit Trusts Control Act provides that the Registrar shall exempt such schemes from the provisions of that Act on such conditions as he may deem fit. Now, in putting his conditions to a scheme the Registrar will require all past participation bonds to be included in the scheme of which he has approved the rules. This will ensure the orderly inclusion of such bonds and the proper maintenance of the register of participants to which I have referred earlier. Thereafter such participants will enjoy the rights conferred in this Act. We provide in Clause 2 that the Deeds Office shall make the necessary endorsements on such past bonds, in order that they may be included in a scheme, without the payment of any transfer duty or other fees.

Clause 9 of the Bill contains provisions in regard to the rules. It provides, inter alia, that every condition imposed by the Registrar shall form part of the rules which have binding force and a contravention of which will be a punishable offence. One of the conditions which the Registrar will as a matter of policy impose on every scheme, and which will thus have binding force, will be the requirement that the manager must take out adequate fidelity insurance in respect of all the members of his staff who handle money of or administer a scheme. This will be the safeguard against possible loss on account of fraud on the part of the manager, say, for instance, where more participations than the value of the bond, to which possibility I have referred earlier, are granted.

In Clause 10 we propose provisions concerning the auditing of the register and books of account relating to a scheme. This is an additional safeguard. The auditor will have to report every irregularity or undesirable practice, if necessary to the Registrar, and a copy of every auditor’s report will be available in the office of the Registrar for inspection by any interested person. This, together with the register which will be open for inspection, as I have mentioned earlier, should afford full disclosure of the position of a scheme to the public.

The remaining clauses in this Bill contain provisions in regard to the inspection of schemes in terms of the Inspection of Financial Institutions Act, the furnishing of information to the Registrar, offences and a small amendment of the Unit Trusts Control Act— all provisions which are necessary for the better achievement of the objects of this Bill.

I may add that I intend to move two amendments in the Committee Stage. They are not of very great importance. The one is merely to apply the Unit Trusts Control Act also to South West Africa. If hon. members will follow the provisions of this Bill, they will see that the provisions are very closely interwoven. Quite a number of the clauses refer to the Unit Trusts Control Act of 1947, and that Act is not applicable to South West Africa. This Bill is applicable. Therefore it is necessary that the other Act should also be made applicable, and I will move accordingly in the Committee Stage.

There is one other amendment that I will move and that is in the last clause. I shall move an amendment to the effect that this Act will commence as from a date to be fixed by proclamation by the State President in the Government Gazette. There is a practical reason for that. It cannot come into operation immediately. There are administrative difficulties, and when it comes into operation we must be able to function immediately. Those two amendments I propose to move at the Committee Stage.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to state that my Department has had wide consultations with interested parties in order to be quite sure that we are recommending a practicable scheme. We have closely followed the precedent in regard to debentures, and apart from that we have followed one guiding principle and that is to place a participant in a mortgage bond in all material respects in exactly the same position as an ordinary mortgagee under a mortgage bond. In that respect we are merely restoring the position which by many judgments everybody thought was the correct legal position until the recent judgment in the case that I have mentioned.

I am aware, however, of the attitude of certain interests who are not particularly enamoured of this measure, but having regard to the interests of the vast number of existing investors which are affected because of the considerable period this type of business has actually been conducted in the country and the general sound and straightforward principle on which this measure is based, I do not hesitate in commending this Bill to the consideration of the House.

We support the second reading of this Bill. We appreciate that this Bill has become necessary because of a recent court case which placed the fortunes of many persons who thought they were safe in jeopardy. While we support the Bill, I think we should make it clear to the hon. the Minister that we are well aware that there are certain interests who are opposed to this Bill. I am informed that the law societies of both Natal and the Free State are opposed to this Bill. They feel that all participants should be registered with the Registrar of Deeds. I understand that the Transvaal Law Society is in favour of the Bill and that the Cape Society is divided, and that therefore the South African Law Society as a whole have not expressed an opinion about this Bill. While it may be desirable from the point of view of the person who wants all participants to be registered in the Deeds Office, I think the hon. Minister has quite rightly said that we should recognize the impracticability of having every participant registered in the Deeds Office. Having regard to the amount of money which is involved and the number of persons concerned with this type of investment, it is better to look for the most practical way of ensuring that the investing public is adequately protected, and I think the investing public is adequately protected if the form of registration in the various nominee companies’ offices is properly maintained. For that reason I think it is essential that there be adequate inspection. It serves no purpose the Minister having an inspection office if the inspection office is only going to be an office to receive forms from time to time, only making an inspection when difficulties arise. Mr. Speaker, while I cannot refer in detail to the matter which was discussed yesterday, we know from the discussion we had under another Department of the hon. the Minister yesterday, when we discussed supervision in that Department, how careful one has to be. We indicated the danger of inadequate supervision. I think it is essential that where the hon. the Minister is introducing a system of inspection, that inspection should be adequate, it should be efficient and at the same time it should be sympathetic. It is going to take time for the various interests to acquaint themselves with this Bill, it is going to take time before the Minister’s Department is fully cognizant of the ramifications of the companies concerned with the type of investment. It would be a great tragedy if the public gained the impression that as a result of this legislation they are protected because there is the Minister’s inspection department and if that department did not properly operate. I think sometimes when we appoint under our statutes inspection departments there is a danger of those department becoming receptacles for numerous Government forms; most forms are not looked at and only when an insolvency occurs or when a fraud is perpetrated does the inspectorate come alive. The essential part of an inspection department is to prevent difficulties and not just to tell the public about them when the difficulties have arisen. We would like to see the Minister giving careful attention to this. We see the reference to the form of certificate the hon. the Minister has referred to, the audit certificate. I think that should be defined in more detail than it is defined in this Bill. The Companies Act, as the Minister knows, sets out a form of certificate. I draw the hon. Minister’s attention to Clause 10 which provides in (3) (b) (ii) “that the latest valuation of the immovable property mortgaged appears to cover adequately the interests of the participants”. That appears to give some safeguard, but when we examine this matter in the Committee Stage we would like the hon. the Minister to give us some information as to what is meant by the “latest valuation”. Is it contemplated that sworn Valuations will have to be made from time to time or is it contemplated that in every case there must be a sworn valuation before a bond is granted?

Then the way in which the register is kept. Clause 5 provides for the rules and there is also provision for a register to be kept and various requirements in respect of that register. Mr. Speaker, the hon. Minister will appreciate that in modern times a register may not just be a book to which a clerk commits certain details to writing. A register could be a loose-leaf system of cards, and I think that before we reach the Committee Stage the hon. Minister should give some consideration to this matter. Many of these financial institutions have quite a considerable number of participants. I know of one office in my own city that has 5,000 participants and those participants are registered on cards. Now if the hon. the Minister will examine the definition of the Bill regarding the rules for the registered office of a nominee company, he will see that there is provision not only for the name and details of all participants, but there is provision that there must be a copy of the rules. The Minister will appreciate that it is quite impracticable to have a copy of the rules on the back of every card concerning every participant. Yet at the same time there must be some arrangement whereby the rules can be brought to the notice of the participants concerned so that a participant is well aware of the rules. These are practical difficulties which we will examine during the Committee Stage of the Bill, but I do suggest to the hon. the Minister that when introducing a Bill of this kind which, as the Minister says, has as its objective the protection of the investor, it should be practical and at the same time the investor should have not only the protection of audit, but also the protection of the Minister’s Department.

The hon. Minister’s reference to the Unit Trusts Control Act was brief, but we appreciate that the Unit Trusts Control Act does not apply to South West Africa and therefore it has to be extended so that these partition bonds which are already known in South West Africa can be registered under the Unit Trusts Act.

As we know, there are people who object to this form of registration because they feel that the maximum security can be obtained only if each person’s name is registered in the Deeds Office. But as the hon. Minister has said a debenture holder does not have his debenture registered in the Deeds Office. A debenture holder has his debentures registered in the company’s office in terms of the Companies Act, and his title is shown in the appropriate company’s register. So too in this case a participant’s certificate and a participant’s rights can be properly shown in the register of the participating company. I think consideration also should be given during the course of the Committee Stage, or alternatively a later date, for a form of certificate which has the Department’s approval. I think it will be much better to standardize the certificate and have a standard wording on a certificate so that as far as possible the public can become acquainted with the standard form of certificate. There is a tendency on the part of certain companies to have a very attractive certificate, a certificate to convey the impression that all is well because the certificate is done on the best modern paper and with the best modern printing and looks very impressive. As the hon. Minister will know quite often some of the most impressive certificates are the least valuable, particularly when you have some of these ambitious gentlemen trying to sell something quickly to the investing public. I would suggest that having regard to the very unfortunate experience which we have had over the last three or four years with certain financial institutions, here, while we are providing for adequate control over a particular type of investment, we should take all possible steps to ensure that there is maximum security for the public and that the investing public can have the assurance from the Minister’s Department and from the Minister that adequate control will be maintained of those concerns which are going to come under this Bill.

There is no doubt that the practice whereby several investors participate in one mortgage bond has grown very extensively throughout the years, until to-day there is the vast sum of R150,000,000 invested in this way, as was pointed out by the hon. the Minister. This practice is undoubtedly a desirable one but it is also economically necessary, because on the one hand many bonds to-day are of such a magnitude that one investor alone cannot cope with the amount, and on the other hand there are many people with a limited amount of money who wish to enjoy this type of investment. That being so, the large number of persons involved are entitled to the protection of our law, and the type of protection to which they are entitled is that their investments should be as secure under a participation bond as under an ordinary mortgage bond. There are of course several methods in practice at present under which persons may participate in one bond, and on the basis of several judgments referred to by the hon. the Minister it was thought that these various methods did provide the type of protection which I suggest these persons are entitled to. The Appellate Division has decided otherwise in the case of Lief, N.O. v. Dettman and has found that a mortgage bond gives a real right, that is to say a preferential right, only to persons who are on record in the Deeds Registry as being participants. In the case of a company which invests the moneys of a number of clients in a bond which is registered in its own name, that money or those moneys are safe under the law as it is held to be by the Appellate Division only for as long as that company remains solvent, and this of course is a most undesirable situation which must be remedied by legislation as soon as possible.

At the same time I think it is important to see this in its proper perspective. Although R150,000,000 is invested in this type of investment, there is no need for panic, as has been suggested by the hon. Minister, because on the one hand the vast majority of this money is invested by trust companies which are very sound and which operate by the most conservative methods, and on the other hand there are many companies that have already adopted the practice suggested under this Bill whereby their participating bond investors are registered in the name of the nominee company which does not incur any liabilities. The object of this Bill has been stated by the hon. the Minister and has been referred to by the hon. member for Pinetown and I do not wish to elaborate on it. It is quite clear that its object is to provide the type of security which I suggested investors were entitled to and it has been drafted along similar lines to the legislation applying to debenture bonds. In the view of this side of the House, the Bill deals with this subject as well as is possible. There are some suggestions which will be made in the Committee Stage and to which reference has been made by the hon. member for Pinetown, but in the main we agree that this subject is adequately dealt with and well dealt with in the Bill which is now before us.

I should like to just deal briefly with the subject of registration which has already been referred to in some respects by the hon. member for Pinetown. I do so because it is the case that there is a difference of opinion on this subject. The suggestion is that the Bill should provide for registration of the participating interests in the Deeds Registry. There are of course arguments both for and against it, but we on this side of the House agree that on balance it is better to adopt the approach suggested under this Bill for, among other reasons, the following: Investors clearly want this type of investment; it suits them that participants can be substituted for each other fairly readily, subject to the restrictions which are being suggested—I do not suggest that they should be able to substitute other people indiscriminately, but in the main it is a satisfactory practice that substitution should be fairly readily granted. Thirdly, I suggest, that it would not suit persons who like this type of investment to bear the cost of registering changes in participations as and when they occur. So on balance we think the system suggested by this Bill should be adopted in preference to the other whereby all the participations must be registered in the Deeds Register.

There is one final point which I would like to deal with and that is the question of making the provisions of this Bill retrospective. As the hon. Minister is well aware, efforts were made to try and make this Bill retrospective in some way so as to protect those investors who invested in the particular company which was the subject of the Appellate Division decision. I am aware of the discussions on the subject and that there again on balance it has been decided that this cannot be done. I would suggest to the hon. the Minister respectfully that it might be in the interest of the persons concerned that the hon. the Minister should explain for the purposes of the record the reasons why this Bill is not being made retrospective for the purpose of covering this particular group of investors.

I want to thank hon. members very much indeed for their contributions to this debate. This is the sort of legislation in regard to which one Would like as much assistance as possible from people who have to deal with some phase of it or other. I shall be pleased if hon. members will discuss their ideas or any proposals which they want to put forward at the Committee Stage with the representative of the office of the Registrar of Financial Institutions who will be here until to-morrow.

This legislation restores the position to what it was before that Appeal Court judgment was given, but with this difference: Under the old set-up there was no security. The various safeguards for which provision is made in this Bill were not complied with. We did not merely want to restore the status quo we wanted at the same time to give greater security to the people who participate in these participation bonds. The hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Hopewell) spoke about regular inspections. That is quite correct, but I do think that in their own interests one can expect the participants to inspect the registers from time to time themselves and, if there is anything which gives them cause for suspicion, to bring it to the notice of the office. They must see to it that the money given out under any particular participation bond does not exceed the total amount of the main bond. They can ensure that the rules are applied properly. If there is a certain amount of co-operation on the part of the participants themselves, they can greatly simplify the task of the Department and enable it to take more effective action. I would like the participants to take more interest in the register in their own interests so that they can see what is happening to the scheme of which they are members. I just want to say that one of the conditions will be that sworn valuations will have to be made. As far as the certificate referred to in Section 10 (3) is concerned, the Auditors’ Board has been consulted in regard to the auditor’s certificate and they feel that the present wording of Section 10 (3) is in conformity with the duties of an auditor as laid down in the Public Accountants and Auditors Act of 1951. Then there is the question of the participant’s certificate. I agree with the hon. member that one should try to make it a document which will not only have the appearance of a valuable document, but which will also be fairly durable. Our idea is to make the participants’ certificates uniform so that there will not be different forms for the different schemes. This will have to be approved by the Registrar as part of the rules.

The hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) (Mr. Hourquebie) spoke about panic. I had no intention of holding out the prospect of a possibility of panic. What I did have in mind was that if this legislation was not introduced, there would be panic; that people would begin to have their doubts in the light of that judgment. It was precisely in order to avoid any possibility of panic that I stated a month or two ago that I was going to introduce this legislation. I made that statement with the express purpose of avoiding any possibility of doubt or panic. But I think the other idea which he put forward that the persons affected by the judgment should be informed as to why they cannot be included, is one that I can convey to the Registrar to see whether that cannot be done. Perhaps the hon. member can also convey that to those people if he knows any of them. The reasons given by him were perfectly correct. We actually came up against the same difficulty. I thought originally that this would be a very simple Bill. All we are doing is to restore the position to what it was before the judgment. But what was the position? We had no legislation; we were faced with a series of judgments and the first difficulty we experienced was to bring them up to date. But we also experienced another difficulty. What about the existing schemes which do not have these safety-valves for which we are making provision here? We felt that by passing this legislation, which will be retrospective to a certain extent, we would enable the older schemes to adapt themselves to the conditions that we are laying down here and to enjoy the same protection as the others. I think this is the only practical solution to this problem which has given us quite a number of headaches.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

I move—

Mr. Speaker, the fact that I have to introduce this Bill to amend the Housing Act, 1957, does not mean that the Housing Act is bad legislation, it rather proves that conditions in the Republic are changing so rapidly that the arrangements in connection with the provision of housing out of State funds in terms of the Housing Act have to be adjusted from time to time to cope with the special needs of the present time.

The purpose of the Bill now before the House is therefore to bring the powers which the principal Act confers into line with present-day requirements and to streamline procedures which tend to militate against its effectiveness. I am sure that hon. members will agree with me that with the great demand for housing being experienced at present no encumbering factors based on minor niceties can be permitted to thwart our endeavours to speed up housing.

The amendments proposed have this object in view and fall into two categories, namely, those which will result in important additions or modifications to some provisions of the principal Act and provisions required to bring the Act up to date as well as consequential amendments and provisions of an administrative nature.

In my remarks to the House on this Bill I propose to deal only with the more important provisions which embody questions of principle or the extension of existing principles since: the other matters can be dealt with adequately during a later stage.

With the exception of one clause the principles involved or the extension of already accepted principles envisaged in the other clauses are of a minor nature and need not be dealt with at length now as I will deal with them fully when dealing with the various clauses which need elaboration.

The one aspect that needs special mention is that contained in Clause 4 of the Bill in terms of which powers are created for the Housing Commission with the consent of the Minister and the Minister of Finance to amend the conditions or to substitute conditions or to impose new conditions in respect of already approved housing schemes out of the fund with or without the consent of the administering local authority or utility company.

Mr. Speaker, I must warn against any wrong impressions as far as this clause is concerned. It is simply an enabling measure for application generally or in a particular case if it becomes evident to the Department of Housing that by adhering to conditions initially laid down anomalies are created, such as, for instance, when identical dwellings in the same township or scheme have to be let at different rentals due to the fact that the cost of erection of the dwellings varied as a result of tender prices received at different times. Powers are necessary in such cases to equate costs and accordingly also the rentals, as tenants compare the dwellings and rentals and not the tender prices.

Another type of contingency that has to be provided for is the reserve funds which local authorities are enabled to build up out of percentages allowed in the rentals by the commission for a bad debts reserve maintenance fund, etc. It has come to the notice of the commission that a large number of local authorities have built up substantial funds of this nature which are far in excess of the amounts which they may ever require to meet expenditure of the type intended. In such cases it may be desirable to cease the collection of such funds, or to reduce the approved percentage and thereby benefit the tenants by charging lower rentals or giving more elaborate services and amenities.

As the Act now stands such funds may not be used for any other purpose than that for which they were originally instituted. When the amendment becomes law the commission could authorize a local authority which has such funds to utilize it for other purposes, such as, for instance, the improvement of the scheme in question or the provision of additional amenities. Mr. Speaker, I am sure that hon. members will agree with me that such powers are urgently necessary in the interests of tenants who usually are not well-to-do people and should only be required to pay the minimum rental which will suffice to meet any expenditure incurred by a local authority in connection with the administration of the accommodation provided.

The first of the other provisions which I must mention is contained in Clause 1 in which the definitions of the terms “approved dwelling” and “approved scheme” are expanded to include also a dwelling or scheme approved by the Administrator. The effect of this amendment will be that when a local authority with the approval of the Administrator borrows money from sources other than the National Housing Fund, the dwelling or scheme it may construct therewith does not necessarily have to comply with the conditions and standards, etc., laid down by the commission, but must comply with standards laid down by the Administrator which may be higher than the standards of the commission. However, the scheme or dwelling still has to be technically examined by the commission to ensure that such dwellings or schemes will represent good value for the money to be spent.

This provision is desirable to enable local authorities which experience a demand for housing by a possibly higher income group than that catered for out of the Housing Fund, to meet that demand if they are so inclined, and the persons involved cannot obtain assistance elsewhere.

The substitution of a new Section 40 by means of Clause 6 of this Bill has two main objects, both of which are not inconsistent with the provisions of the existing section. In the new clause the principles contained in the original section are merely expanded or amplified for the sake of greater clarity. The only new principles contained therein are that the Minister may after consultation with the Administrator authorize the transfer of a scheme erected by the commission to a local authority, the old section provided for the prior consent of the Administrator to such transfer;

The new sub-section provides adequate safeguards as it cannot be envisaged that the Minister will without special reasons act contrary to the advice of an Administrator. However, not all local authorities support the State’s policy that all families should be adequately housed and that slum conditions should be eliminated. Some actively oppose, for instance, the rehousing of members of their community in areas demarcated for specific groups or are so dilatory in carrying out their functions under the Slums Act that the Department of Housing may of necessity have to step in and provide the required housing, possibly in areas where the Department will have difficulty in administering such housing schemes owing to their situation in relation to the Department’s regional offices; In such cases it may then be in the interest of the community and the Department to transfer the housing which has been provided to the local authority for administrative purposes. Where provision is made for such transfer to be effected without the concurrence of the Administrator who may have reservations as regards the financial ability or stability of the local authority to undertake such administration, the Minister is empowered by the new provision to stipulate terms and conditions regarding such transfer, whereby he will be able to render such assistance to such local authority as he may deem necessary to enable it to undertake the required administration.

The other new provision is contained in sub-clause 2 which enables the Minister in certain circumstances to direct the commission to undertake a scheme in any locality which he considers necessary. This provision is necessary to expedite the provision of housing for persons who require accommodation as a result of the application of State policy or other legislation in areas in which the commission would not normally undertake housing schemes on its own initiative.

Since, introducing the Bill a defect in the original as well as in the new Section 40 relating to the persons to whom dwellings erected by the commission may be sold or let has become apparent. The commission and the Department have always viewed and acted since years ago on the assumption that the categories of persons to whom it may sell or let dwellings erected by it were the same as the categories determined in respect of housing loans, in terms of paragraph (a) of sub-section (1) of Section 18 of the Act, viz. persons with a monthly income not exceeding R180 per month at present. It now appears that no provision exists in the Act for dwellings sold or let by the commission itself to be made subject to the same conditions as those applicable in respect of housing loans.

I therefore propose, during the Committee Stage, to introduce an amendment to subsection (5) of the proposed new Section 40 to make dwellings sold or let by the commission subject to the same conditions as those applicable in respect of persons to whom housing loans may be granted. The practical effect of the amendment will be that the same limitations in regard to income, etc., will apply in respect of all dwellings financed by the commission by way of housing loans or erected by the commission itself and sold or let.

A further amendment of import is that contained in Clause 7 of the Bill: In terms of the new provision the Minister is empowered to appoint an Executive Committee and Regional Committees of the National Housing Commission. This function could previously be exercised by the commission itself. It is, however, viewed that with the coming into being of a Department of Housing with seven regional offices which are fully equipped to deal with matters of a day-to-day nature, with a consequent diminution of matters falling to be dealt with by the commission that an Executive Committee and Regional Committees with limited functions will suffice, and that the Minister who is responsible for the administration of the Housing Act should be empowered to appoint such committees as are required to deal only with matters as cannot be dealt with adequately by the Department of Housing. The National Housing Commission fully supports the provisions contained in: this clause.

By the insertion of sub-section (1 )bis in Section 49 as contained in Clause 9 of the Bill an anomaly existing in the present legislation is removed. According to an interpretation of the relevant section of the Act, as it now reads, a utility company which erects a dwelling for sale to a natural person, I may state for the information of members that according to the Housing Act a natural person is a human being, and a person, then presumably a statutory body or corporation on land which is registered in its name is unable to grant to such person credit facilities in excess of the cost of erection of the dwelling as the cost of the land may not be included for loan calculation purposes. Such facilities are then usually less than those available to natural persons who may obtain 90 per cent loans calculated on the value of the land plus improvements. As a result, a person purchasing a dwelling from a utility company has to find a greater deposit than the 10 per cent which an applicant for a loan ordinarily has to find. The amendment proposed makes provision for the granting of a loan to a utility company which will enable such company to grant credit facilities to the purchaser of a dwelling erected by it, which will equal the facilities available to other borrowers, subject, of course to the maximum loan available which is the same in respect of all types of loans out of the National Housing Fund.

Clause 10 inserts sub-sections (55)bis and (55)per in the principal Act. The proposed subsection (55)6/.$ is of an administrative nature and needs no further comment. Sub-section (55)per whilst, it contains no new principles is also one of the important provisions contained in this Bill. It extends the powers already conferred on the commission by Section (30)bis, to acquire immovable property including existing dwellings and to use such property for the purposes of the Act also to local authorities. This provision will enable local authorities to acquire existing dwellings and other property out of advances out of the National Housing Fund, where such acquisition is necessary to facilitate the resettlement of persons in any area which has been demarcated for their occupation or to acquire existing dwellings in an area where a scheme is to be erected if such acquisition, would facilitate the proposals of the local authority. Any dwellings acquired in terms of this section may then be used for the purposes envisaged in the principal Act and may be sold or let on an economic or sub-economic basis in accordance with their nature and the nature of the demand.

Another important provision is contained in Clause 12 which inserts sub-section (59)bis Powers are created in this new sub-section for the Department of Housing to obtain a measure of control over housing moneys advanced to local authorities to acquire land in terms of the Slums Act, 1934. Cases are known where local authorities have possessed land acquired in this way out of sub-economic funds for about 20 years without putting it to any beneficial use or even clearing the slums existing thereon. This provision empowers the Minister and the Department to take action to cause local authorities to use such land for the purpose for which it was acquired or to dispose of it and to repay the housing funds tied up therein. It also provides that when a local authority makes a profit on the sale of such land that a reasonable share of the profit should accrue to the National Housing Fund.

Clause 13 inserts Section 60bis. The object of this section is to expedite the provision of housing where such provision is delayed by the inability of the local authority which has to supply it, to provide any services required in connection therewith. This section empowers the Minister to instruct the Secretary for Housing to direct any adjoining local authority which is able to provide the required services to provide such services as may be necessary to make the carrying out of a scheme possible in the area of the first-mentioned local authority. Any local authority supplying services in this manner will be allowed to charge the usual tariffs applicable in the same area for any services made available by it. Fears have been expressed regarding this provision but I wish to give members the assurance that it will only be applied in cases where housing is urgently required but cannot be provided because of the inability of the local authority who has to provide it to make such services available timeously or at reasonable cost, its application need not be permanent or cost the supplying local authority anything as it will be permitted to cover its costs.

Whilst it is not anticipated that use will be made of these powers in many cases, it is nevertheless considered that such powers are desirable in times of a housing shortage that has to be coped with in the least possible time on a national basis, surely petty jealousies should not be allowed to stand in the way of national interests.

Clause 14 substitutes a new Section 65 for the existing section which has proved to be inadequate. The object of the new section is the curbing of certain malpractices being perpetrated by a few individuals. It has come to the Department’s notice that there are persons who buy up debts of persons to whom the commission has granted housing loans, either directly or through a local authority or building society, and then, although that person may not be in arrear with his payments in respect of the dwelling, obtaining an order of court attaching such dwelling when the borrower is unable to meet such debts and selling the dwelling in execution. Such persons very often then buy the dwelling themselves at sales in execution at low and unrealistic prices. In this way the borrower is often ruined and the Housing Fund, the local authority or the building society as the case may be exposed to financial loss. The amendment contained in sub-section (1) of Section 65 endeavours to curb this practice by providing that before a dwelling may be sold in execution, the mortgagee must either agree in writing to such sale or the balance of the bond must be guaranteed by the person seeking the sale in execution.

A further undesirable practice being experienced is that certain persons are registering orders of the court attaching properties against the title deeds of dwellings in respect of which the commission, building society or local authority is the mortgagee in terms of the Housing Act. Should it then happen that the commission, local authority or building society has to take any action under their bond they find that they first have to obtain a release of the property by either paying the amount involved in the attachment or having it set aside in the Supreme Court. Both these methods involve the mortgagee in extra expense. The provision contained in sub-section (2) stipulates that any attachment shall lapse whenever the holder of the first mortgage bond has to exercise his rights in terms thereof.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that hon. members will agree with me that the security offered by a first mortgage bond should not be subject to malpractices of this nature as the whole object of obtaining security for a debt by a first mortgage bond is thwarted thereby.

As I said initially one of the objects of this Bill is to remove anomalies. The amendment of Section 72 of the principal Act by Clause 15 is such a case. It appears that in terms of the rents legislation a landlord who wishes to undertake a reconstruction scheme can give his tenants six months’ notice to vacate. In terms of Section 72 of the Housing Act, 1957, however, an owner wishing to carry out a reconstruction or conversion scheme is required to obtain the Minister’s prior consent.

It now happens that an owner of leased property gives his tenants six months’ notice to vacate in terms of the Rents Act and only towards the end of the period of notice approaches the Minister in terms of the Housing Act. The result is that the tenants have vacated in the meantime and are caused hardship unnecessarily as the owner has no certainty that the Minister will in fact give his permission to the demolition or conversion of the dwelling or building in terms of the Housing Act. The amendment now proposed removes this anomaly by providing that a landlord shall not give the six months’ notice required by the rents legislation until he has obtained the Minister’s written prior permission under the Housing Act. I am sure that members will agree with me that this is a very necessary amendment, especially in times of a great demand for accommodation such as we are experiencing at present.

The amendment proposed in Clause 16 has as its object the rectification of an error which inadvertently occurred in the Bill to Amend the Housing Act passed in 1962. At that time it was considered that the wording of the section as it now stands, viz. that “Fees charged by a local authority in respect of properties of which the commission is the owner, shall not be subject to penalties”, was wide enough to include “taxes levied by municipalities”. It appears that this supposition was wrong as according to legal advice “Fees” do not include taxes and the matter is accordingly being put right now by specifically mentioning also taxes.

Before concluding I want to inform the House that since introducing this measure I have had some very fruitful discussions with the Administrators of the four provinces and that an agreement has been arrived at on several matters which should contribute greatly towards facilitating the provision of housing and the removal of obstacles standing in our way at present.

The agreement arrived at with the Administrators embraces the following:

Secondly, as the Housing Act now provides local authorities are bound by the provisions of any by-law or regulation which is operative in their area of jurisdiction as well as the conditions of a township prescribed by the Administrator relating to the type of dwelling to be constructed or the value thereof or the materials to be used in the construction thereof, whereas the National Housing Commission is exempted there from. The effect of this is that whilst the commission may for instance erect wooden houses or houses of wood products, the local authority itself may not do so, although it was granted a loan by the Housing Commission. In terms of the agreement referred to, the Administrators have also agreed that they will consent to the waiving of any such restrictive conditions at the request of the Minister of Housing, where a housing scheme is to be financed out of the National Housing Fund. Hon. members will agree with me that such an arrangement is very necessary, because as far as building itself is concerned there has been a revolution not only in the materials available but in their use, and I think it is most important to make possible the application of new techniques to carry through the programme of housing.

Thirdly, the agreement provides for reciprocal representation of the Department of Housing on the Townships Boards or the Townships Commission and of the Provincial Administrations on the Regional Committees of the National Housing Commission. This could lead to much closer liaison between the various bodies concerned with the provision of housing.

I intend, therefore, to move further amendments during the Committee Stage to embody the effect of the matters which I have just referred to in this Bill and to make the necessary provision therefor. The amendments have already been Tabled.

Apart from these matters which require legislation I can also announce that the Administrators have also agreed as an administrative measure to put an official of the Provincial Administrations well versed in the establishment of townships at the disposal of any person or persons wishing to establish a township, to help and guide them with the intricate procedures involved. This step should greatly assist township developers and should appreciably reduce the time required for the establishment of townships in general.

Since the Bill was read a first time the Group Areas Development Board was transferred from the Department of Community Development to the Department of Housing. This transfer also necessitates a small consequential amendment of the Housing Act. With the leave of the House I shall therefore during the Committee Stage of the Bill also move a small amendment to Section 30bis of the Act in this regard.

Mr. Speaker, in recommending this Bill to the House, I want to reiterate that there are very few new principles involved. Actually all that is aimed at is the adjustment of a number of sections of the principal Act to meet present-day conditions and requirements. The few clauses of the Bill which I have not specifically mentioned, namely 1 (b), 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 11, sub-section 3 of Section 6Obis as inserted by Clause 13 and Clause 17 are all of an administrative nature and their effect is merely to streamline the Act and any questions arising there from can be dealt with adequately during the Committee Stage.

At this stage I would like to indicate to the House and to the hon. the Minister that this side of the House intends to support this Bill because it believes that the basic aim of this Bill is to provide houses, and houses, as the Minister has indicated, are very necessary and in extremely short supply. With those remarks I would like to move, if I may—

In my opinion Clause 21 is the most important clause in the Bill and it is the clause to which those who are affected by this Bill object most strongly. They argue that as Clause 21 stood originally, this council which is to be established will not have the power to initiate legislation.

Order! The hon. member must confine himself to the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, as the clause stood they had limited powers of initiating legislation.

Order! The hon. member must confine himself to the amendment.

In terms of the amendment the council is now being restricted even further. Not only is this council restricted by the fact that the hon. the Minister has to give his consent to any legislative measures that the council may pass but now they even have to have the consent of the four Administrators. I, as a Coloured Representative who viewed the establishment of this legislative body which is to be brought into being as a step in the right direction, feel that I cannot associate myself with this further restriction which is being placed on their right to initiate legislation.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Amendment in Clause 30 put and agreed to.

Bill, as amended, adopted.

I move—

Sir, the amendment which I propose to move at this stage is—

I do that at once because of the limited time for discussion at this stage in connection with this Bill. I want to say at once that in my approach to the Bill I was greatly influenced by a remark once made by the Minister of Finance when he spoke of possible threats to South Africa. He spoke of what had been done for the Bantu people and he then referred to the rest of the population and indicated that he believed that in the event of South Africa being in danger there would be 5,000,000 hearts beating as one. It is quite clear that in that 5,000,000 he intended to include not only the Asiatic population but most certainly also the Coloured population, and in looking at this Bill, as it is now before us after the Committee and Report Stages at its third reading, I cannot but ask myself what will be the effect of the provisions of this Bill upon the creation of a block of 5,000,000 hearts beating as one. Sir, if I am to judge at all from the policy statements which have given rise to this Bill, it is clear that it is meant to be and has been publicized as the first step in a process of evolution for the Coloured people, a first step which in the view of the hon. the Prime Minister will lead one day, by way of a four-stream policy, to a Commonwealth relationship, to consultation by way of a Commonwealth relationship, between the various racial groups in South Africa. This Bill has to do with the most advanced group, the most Westernized group, the group that has always been the appendage of the European population, has stood by the European population in peace and war and has been anxious to move ever closer towards it. We now find before us a Bill creating a council for that group, a Bill which gives that group, the most Westernized group amongst the non-European peoples, a definitely inferior type of council, a council with lesser powers and fewer powers than the Legislative Assembly now being created in the Bantustan, in the Transkei. It is inexplicable, if the approach is that outlined, that a Bill of this kind should come before us in which so little is given to people so well advanced, so well developed and with such a long political history. The Bill is publicized also in one of the Government Digests as a means, if legislative power is given under the Bill by the President to the Assembly in terms of Clause 17, whereby the Minister of Coloured Affairs will be able to have Bills of his choosing passed by the council instead of by Parliament. Admittedly those Bills will have to do only with Coloured people and will have to do, in terms of Clauses 17 and 21, only with a limited number of matters, but it is also possible that their ideas may not be entirely in accord with the ideas of this Parliament, and one wonders therefore just what it is that this Bill portends for the Coloured people. It has other provisions which we find difficult to accept but which we have tried in most cases to remedy by way of amendment but without any success. It is extraordinary that at this stage for this group, which has exercised political rights for 100 years, we should have a council created in which one-third of the members are nominated, in which the position is that the nominated members plus approximately 25 per cent of the elected members will have a majority in the council, so that with the support of approximately one-quarter of the elected members, the nominated members could run that council, and those members, Sir, are nominated by the Government of the day. One wonders of what value their advice will be and of what value their representations will be unless those nominations are very carefully made. One wonders if you can ever have a council in which so large a proportion is nominated, which can really express the views of a group of this kind.

Sir, there is another matter which has worried us and that is that in the debates in the council there will be no real provision for privilege. There will be privilege in certain matters but there will be no privilege when Government servants or officials are criticized or when the actions of this Parliament or of the Minister are criticized. How are these people going to have free and open discussion if they do not feel that they are properly privileged and that they can speak their mind? I can well imagine what debates in this House will be like if there were no privilege and one was faced with some of the difficult situations with which every opposing group and every Government is faced from time to time, and yet there is no adequate provision for privilege in this Bill, nor is official consultation with the Coloured Representatives provided for. It leaves one wondering exactly what the relationship between the Coloured Representatives and this council is going to be. The Coloured Representatives sit here in Parliament; they are elected by a certain group of Coloureds, and the Minister has pointed out that in this province Indians are registered on that roll as well. But, Sir, there is not a large number of them, and the roll which elects these Coloured Representatives has always been regarded as representative of the Coloured people qualified to vote. The Minister and the Secretary for Coloured Affairs may appear in this council; they may address it but the Coloured Representatives are not. given that privilege, and one wonders what the association is going to be between the Coloured Representatives and this council, and how often we will find them giving perhaps different advice to the same Minister.

Then there is another provision which we regard as extraordinary and that is that every member coming forward for election must have been resident for two years at least in the constituency in which he seeks election. I wonder how many members in this House would have been elected if that provision had been applied to this House?

We might have had a better job than we have to-day;

I doubt it; I doubt whether the hon. member for Vereeniging woilld have been elected originally.

I live in my constituency.

The hon. member does now but he was not living in his constituency when he was elected. Sir, the hon. member for Vereeniging as usual has done things back to front. This Bill provides that after your election you can live in another constituency without losing your seat. The hon. member for Vereeniging, having been elected there, moved there hoping that he will be elected next time.

I am a conscientious fellow.

Sir, looking at the Bill as a whole, examining the various powers granted and bearing in mind that legislative functions is subject to proclamation by the President and bearing in mind that Bills have to be introduced with the approval of the Minister concerned, one is constrained to ask oneself what this move portends for the Coloured people. I have said that I believe it is part of the four-stream policy outlined by the hon. the Prime Minister and mentioned by the hon. the Minister in respect of this matter. But, Sir, where is it leading? It is supposed to be leading to something in the nature of a Commonwealth arrangement. This is the foundation which is to lead to a Commonwealth arrangement. Sir, when we come to this Commonwealth arrangement, who are representing the Coloured people—the people coming from this council or the Coloured Representatives elected to this House? We must know what the hon. the Minister has in mind because it seems to me that at the moment the Government is taking a shot in the dark with this Bill. It does not really know where it is going. It has outlined its objectives but even its own newspaper, the Burger, admits that it is bound on a course the end of which it does not know. Sir, when one is faced with steps of that kind, when one is faced with a new direction from that which we support, one is constrained to ask what one’s attitude should be. I have no doubt that I must be against this Bill, and I must be against this Bill because in my opinion it is a further attempt to compensate for the wrong done to the Coloured people when they were removed from the Common Roll and given, originally, the Union Advisory Council and now the second stage in an attempt to compensate them for what is being taken away, but there is no attempt to make restitution. You see, Sir, when you look at it in that way you cannot help thinking of what Dr. Malan said in 1928 when he voted against an Opposition Bill to give the vote to women. He said—

Sir, is this the first step in giving the political rights of the White man to the Coloured people? What did General Hertzog say? He said—

Sir, there are other statements along the same lines by leading statesmen in the past, Here we have a Bill creating a council of a purely advisory nature which does not even have the moral justification of creating homelands for the Coloured people. Sir, the hon. the Minister sought to justify it by saying that the fact that there was an advisory council in the old days when the Coloureds were on the Common Roll is a justification of the fact that this council is being brought into being; it shows that Common Roll representation was a failure. Sir, every time an advisory council is appointed to advise the Prime Minister or anybody else, does it mean that representation in this House is a failure? That is a most extraordinary argument which to my mind does not hold water at all and I ask myself how with this Bill we can keep the Coloured as our allies? The hon. the Minister earlier in the debate quoted from the book by the late Senator Fagan, “Co-existence in South Africa”. He quoted some interesting passages, but, of course, I think he left out the most important one and that was this—

Sir, is this not part and parcel of the policy of creating a state within a state? Is this not the Prime Minister’s idea of the beginning of a state within a state? Does this not cut the Coloured people off from their political past, a political past in which they were always interwoven with the White man? I think anybody who thinks seriously about this matter will realize that.

Then, Sir, there is a third reason why I am opposed to this Bill. To me it is an inevitable step towards the abolition of the Coloured representation in this House. It leads inevitably in that direction. I know that I will be told at once that the Prime Minister has said that that is not the intention, and I know the hon. the Minister has said that that is not the intention. But this Government has changed its mind about a number of things over the years. It changed its mind about the Indians. First it was going to repatriate them and now they are a permanent part of the population. It changed its mind about immigration; it changed its mind about these very Coloured Representatives. When the first proposal came for the Coloureds to be put on a separate roll their representatives, elected on that separate roll, were going to be second-class Members of Parliament; there were certain things on which they were not going to have the right to vote. The Government changed its mind in that regard. Even fairly recently the hon. the Prime Minister, speaking in 1961 on this very issue, made a most interesting statement—

In all fairness let it be said that at a later stage the Prime Minister said that as far as he was concerned the representatives of the Coloured people are going to stay in this House. What is their position going to be? Because under this legislation members of the executive of this Advisory Council, through the Minister, are going to have access to members of the Cabinet which serves this Parliament. There is not the slightest doubt that they will be approached by members of their legislative assembly and that the members of that legislative assembly will be approached by their electors, some of whom will be the electors of these Coloured Representatives in this House. So you are going to have two channels to the Minister, one through the Coloured Council, its executive, the Minister of Coloured Affairs, and one through these Coloured Representatives, to the Cabinet. It seems inevitable that there will be conflict. It seems inevitable that the one will try to act as the official machine and stand on its position, and that the other will be moved out. There is no doubt that the hon. the Minister will be the person who will influence the direction in which that development will take place. And if I know—and I know his appetite for empire building—I believe there will be a move in that direction. I believe it will be taken further by subsequent Ministers. The stage will be reached when these Coloured Representatives will be told, perhaps by members of that Coloured council, that they no longer represent the Coloured people but that the council represent them.

You see, Sir, we are here creating the machinery for conflict; we are here undermining the position of the Coloured Representatives in this House.

There is a fourth reason why I believe this Bill must be rejected and that is that I do not believe the Coloured people themselves want it. I do not propose to enter into the controversy between the hon. the Minister and other representatives in this House as to what the Union Advisory Council on Coloured Affairs said or did not say or what Bill was before, when and how. What I do say is that the existing council can by no stretch of imagination ever be regarded as being representative of the Coloured people. And I think the Minister agrees. The majority of them are nominated. Those who were elected were elected at elections in which they were all virtually unopposed. The Coloured people boycotted the election. So I cannot say that they are representative of the Coloured people at all. In my view there is not the slightest doubt that the Coloured people are not in favour of development in this direction. The fact that this council opposed this Minister and this Government on occasions and criticized them is no proof to me that they are representative. I think it just proves that they are ordinary human beings. I think almost anyone would criticize this Government in due course, especially its treatment of the Coloured people.

There is a fifth reason why I am opposed to this Bill and that is that if it is the foundation of the four-stream policy what would one expect if that four-stream policy were to be honestly applied? Would one not expect indications that homelands would be created? Would one not expect indications that there would be an elected leader of the executive instead of a nominated one? Would one not expect the possibility of their own citizenship as in the case of the Bantu people? Would one not expect the Minister of Coloured Affairs to indicate that the development in his Department is going to be in the direction of a minister of external affairs as, we have heard, will be the position of the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, acting between two independent sovereign groups? Would one not expect the foundation to be laid in this Bill of a system indicative of the future independence and sovereignty of these people? Sir, there are sound reasons why we should oppose this Bill. But I think the soundest of them all is that it moves in a direction diametrically opposed to that in which the Opposition wishes to move. It moves in a direction which is diametrically opposite to that which the hon. Senator Fagan hoped we would move in—and which the hon. the Minister also failed to read out— and that was this: Having spoken about consultation, which the hon. the Minister has characterized as being the foundation of this Bill, he then went on—

The hon. the Minister also spoke about common loyalty—

In other words, political rights to these people of a different kind. That is why we have always hoped, in the case of the Coloured people, we could move in a direction of their being accepted as part of the Western group. We have always hoped that they would be accepted as part of the Westernized people of the Republic. We have hoped to see movement in the direction of their restoration to the Common Roll in the Cape and in Natal. We have hoped to see movement in the direction of their being allowed to sit in this House, if they could get themselves elected. We have hoped to see a movement in the northern provinces where they have had no representation in the past other than to participate in elections for the old Senate elected by the Bantu people—if they were prepared to be treated as Bantu for that purpose—in the direction of their being represented in the Other Place by elections on a separate roll and if necessary, and if possible, by their own people. That was what we had hoped. I know the hon. the Minister will say that on the other hand he is giving all adult male and female Coloureds in the Republic the vote; that he is giving them something they have never had before under this Government. But I think if the question were to be put to the Coloured people in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State what they would choose, representation in the Other Place by their own people on a separate roll, or representation in this Council by nine representatives, knowing what its powers will be, I have no doubt what their answer will be.

What is the position in respect of Natal? They vote in Natal at the moment but there is no new registration; their political rights will disappear. We offer to restore them to the Common Roll. I cannot believe there can be any doubt in the minds of the Coloured people as to what they will choose when it comes to a choice of that kind. Then there are the Coloured women. What would their view be if they were asked throughout South Africa: Would you like to be on a Common Roll to vote for this council which may or may not be given legislative functions by the State President, this council where every Bill introduced must have the quasi-approval of the Minister, or would you prefer that your menfolk only should have the right to elect members of this Parliament on a Common Roll in the Cape and Natal and on a separate roll in the case of the Transvaal and the Free State for the Senate? I have no doubt what their answer Would be. I have no doubt that their answer would be that they would prefer at least one section of the Coloured community to have real political rights instead of purely advisory rights of the kind envisaged in this council. [Interjections.] Hon. members ask “For how long?” I do not believe for all time. I believe this that we have given an undertaking that we shall not change the political rights of the non-Whites otherwise than stated by us in our policy statement without reference to the public by way of a referendum or, a general election. What guarantee has that side of the House given? And that. Sir is a matter for the future just as the hon. the Prime Minister thinks the question of the Coloured Representatives is a matter for the future.

There is another criticism. What happens if an educated man from the Cape Province moves to the north? He has the vote here but if he goes to the Transvaal or the Free State he loses his right to vote for a Member of Parliament under the proposals we have made. But he gets the right to vote on a separate roll or to stand for election for the Other Place. What does he get under the proposals of the present Minister? Under the Minister’s proposals he loses his right to vote for these Coloured Representatives and what does he get in return? A right to vote for representatives to that council. Put the choice before him and which one will he choose? I have no doubt which he will choose. When I say the Coloured people do not want this Bill then I say the only way to put this matter to the test will be by way of a referendum of all the Coloured people in South Africa. And if the Minister is afraid to put it to all the Coloured people of South Africa let him put it to the registered voters amongst the Coloured people. The result will be the same. There will be no doubt whatever what that result will be. That is why I say this Bill is not wanted by the Coloured people and it is no good pretending that it is. I do not believe it is in their political interests. Above all, Sir, I do not believe it is in the political interests of the White man in South Africa; and I do not believe it is in the political interests of the White man because by moving in the direction in which the hon. the Minister is going, I believe, the White man is in danger of losing his greatest ally in South Africa, the Cape Coloured people.

The speech of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition really consisted of three parts. In the first part he dealt with particular clauses of this measure. Then he raised a couple of general complaints against the Bill and thirdly he came to the most interesting part, the effort to sell his federation policy in this House. I do not believe he achieved any success in that, and I do not believe he had any greater success outside. I should like to deal with his speech as he made it. He referred to something the hon. the Minister of Finance had said; namely that if there were to be a threat to our security from Black Nationalism, there will be 5,000,000 hearts that will beat like one. From that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition drew the inference that the Minister of Finance wished to break down all the colour barriers and wanted to build a united group of the Whites and the Coloureds in South Africa. That of course never was his intention. It has never been the intention to break down the colour barriers between the two groups and to make one group of them. The position has always been that if you are menaced you will have a good neighbour who will stand by you. The idea has always been that the Coloured man can be our good neighbour if he wants to share with us in the defence of the White people. He may then take his stand with us as a good neighbour, without being a henchman.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition says “lesser powers” are being given to this council than to the Transkei. There is no analogy at all between these two cases. The Xhosa in the Transkei have always enjoyed political rights as a separate group for the past century. They have their various councils under the various tribal chiefs. That developed during a century, and they have undergone that development as a separate group. The Coloureds have never yet undergone such separate development. Efforts have always been made to link them up with the Whites, but that has never proved a success. “They have exercised political rights for a century.” I admit that, but only a part of the Coloured community exercised political rights for a century, and as a part of another group and not as part of their own group. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also objects to the nominated members of this council. I do not think it is necessary even to reply to this again. Wherever constitutional rights are granted to a particular group, it is the custom to have nominated members, as a guide to those particular groups. Permit me to refer in this connection to what is now being done by Great Britain in Swaziland and Basutoland, In; both instances there are a large number of nominated members on those councils. It is nothing new in constitutional development; when you wish to develop a separate group, to have nominated members on that council.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition once again complained that the council will not enjoy any privileges. Such a great man as the Leader of the Opposition—or does he just imagine he is a great man?

He is great; he does not imagine it.

Let us assume he is a great man; but then, he must not come here and make such a foolish and senseless remark as to say there is no privilege. Of course there is privilege. But can you only debate and criticize if you defame? The only thing against which they are met protected is defamation of officials, the Government and Government bodies. In those cases they do not enjoy privilege. One does not expect such a statement from a Leader of an Opposition. He behaved naively by saying they enjoy no privileges. He says they cannot criticize. Can one then criticize only be defaming? These hon. members can no longer oppose; they can no longer criticize unless they defame. And if they cannot defame the Government, they defame the people of South Africa. They frequently do so in this House. Is that their conception of opposition? Is that their conception of criticism, that they have to defame? And when they are unable to defame anybody in this House, then they defame their country and their people in the eyes of foreign countries. That is the sum total of the Opposition we have here in South Africa; they can do nothing but slander and defame.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also made a remark in connection with the Coloured Representatives who will allegedly disappear now. The hon. the Minister. in charge of this Bill, and the hon. the Prime Minister have already given an assurance that there is no intention of abolishing these Coloured Representatives in this House. The assurance has been given, but that is not enough for the Leader of the Opposition. I shall tell the Leader of the Opposition what will abolish these hon. members: It is that if they continue to permit themselves to be taken in tow by an Opposition that sets about things in a negative way, like this Opposition we have to-day. That will abolish them in this House, and they will not be abolished by the Government, but by the Coloured people themselves.

I should like to mention some figures in this connection, Mr. Speaker. In 1948 there were about 48,000 Coloured voters on. the Voters’ Roll. That was in the days when the Opposition constantly went around registering Coloureds in order to win elections against their White opponents; those were the days when they ran schools for the Coloureds in the evenings, to teach them to sign their names. But since the Coloured vote no longer has any value for the Opposition, they no longer teach the Coloureds to sign their names, and they no longer register the Coloureds on the Voters’ Roll. In 1952 there were more than 1,000 in Caledon;. 1,300 in Hottentots-Holland, the constituency represented by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition at the time; almost 3,000 in Paarl. What do we find to-day, now that they no longer can be taken in tow by the United Party? In 1958 there were 23,800 of those 48,000 left on the Voters’ Roll. At the present time there are only 9,800 left and. they have four representatives in this House. [Interjections.] No, we are not responsible for putting them there. If the Coloured man attaches any value to his right to vote for this House, he will see to it that he is registered on the Voters’ Roll, will he not? That is what one must infer, and the inference is necessarily that he no; longer attaches value to that vote. That really proves the opposite of what the Leader of the Opposition said here this afternoon. He said the Coloureds do not want this Coloured council. If they had attached so much value to the Common Roll, they would not have had 9,800 voters on the Voters’ Roll, but there would have been 90,000, which is not the case.

Then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition asks: “What does this Bill portend for the Coloured people?” I wish to say this only to that: I should like to put the negative side first. That is what this Bill does not portend for the Coloureds and in this connection I should like to read an article by a Coloured leader—

That is what this Act does not portend for the Coloureds. Mr. S. Dollie, a well-known member of the Malay group, says—and this is what the Leader of the Opposition now offers them—

Then he comes to this conclusion—

I could quote further extracts to show you what this Act does not portend for the Coloureds. I should like to quote only what Mr. Schwartz said—

That is what the Leader of the Opposition was advocating here this afternoon—

That is what the Leader of the Opposition promises them.

I have a whole lot of similar extracts, things said by Coloureds about the system, and which are now advocated by the Leader of the Opposition. I have here a book to which reference has been made also, but which has never been quoted, namely the book of Mr. B. K. Long. I think it is as well for me to read a small extract from it—

But that is the future the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is promising the Coloureds and which he advocated here again this afternoon. It is inconceivable why the does this.

The value of this Act may be judged from two angles. You may judge it from the angle of two philosophies. There is the one philosophy that man is a social being, that every human being only has value as a member of a group, the group from which he derives his language, his culture and his way of life. Every human being, once he is severed from that language, that culture and that way of life, actually loses his value. If he is not a member of a group, he becomes merely a number in a meaningless mass of human beings. That is the one philosophy. Then there is the other philosophy which is the converse, and that is namely that of the humanism which has since the war spread over the world like a bushfire, the humanism which is being propagated by the liberalists with all their might all day long, that idea of “one world” and “one humanity”. That is the other point of view one could adopt in respect of this Act. And that is what the liberalists and the United Party are trying to propagate from day to day. The debate on this measure has assumed the pattern which other debates also have assumed in this House, namely that the Opposition are not really trying to get something for the Coloureds because they are not interested in the Coloureds or in their group as such. They are interested in the “one world idea”; they are interested only in the idea of all being the same and equal. That is the point of view of the Opposition. That is what they are advocating here. They are not pleading for anything for the Coloured group as such. The Coloureds themselves in fact regard themselves as a separate group already. Mr. Fortein says in a statement that they already are a group, a representative group. He says this—

That, however, is not the only thing upon which I am basing my submission. There is other evidence of that. I should like to quote from the evidence given a few years ago before the Select Committee on the Separate Representation of Voters—

A Coloured person gave this evidence. Now I come to the Malays—

That is the evidence given before that committee, but even the “Coloured People’s Organization” of that time also gave evidence. The question was this—

This was the reply—

Then he continues and says this on behalf of the Coloured People’s Union—

But he adds this—

That is the Coloured People’s National Union which surely cannot be regarded as well disposed to the Government. They also adopted the view that they are a separate group, their own group. Now, if you are a separate group, then you can only have value and attach value to it if that group is developed, and that is what this legislation seeks to do. It seeks to give this separate group their own pride, their own ideal for the future, and it aims at their development as a separate group, not as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition tries to suggest here, by saying that they are going to be only an advisory council. That was his principal criticism, that at the moment this Bill has no significance. But, Mr. Speaker, surely the hon. the Leader of the Opposition knows that as we are concerned here with a separate constitution for a separate group, that the first 1,000 paces surely begins at the first step, and the first step is being taken here and consequently, as we are now establishing this first stage of the development, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition surely cannot expect the final stage to be included in this legislation now already. Surely it is very unreasonable to expect that. Even in South Africa, as regards its own development and history, we did not write the final chapter, we did not draft a republican constitution when a settlement was established here under van Riebeeck. We did not get a republican constitution at that stage already. It was a process of evolution, of slow development, and that development has to have a starting point and here a serious and a good start is being made for this Coloured group as a group. I wish to emphasize this, as “a group, separately”.

Who started the group?

The hon. member knows that very well. Perhaps some of his ancestors. Perhaps it sometimes is blood that crawls.

Order! The hon. member must be careful in his utterances.

Thank you, Mr.

Speaker, for your guidance. I shall try to be careful, although there is provocation not to be careful.

I now come to the third criticism of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, in which he really stated his own policy, and I should like to dwell for a while upon their policy. What is the policy of the Opposition as stated here by them? I have said before that they want to restore the Coloureds in the Cape to the common list. They want to return to all the evils in connection with which I have read certain quotations here. But if that is going to be the only constitutional say the Coloured man is going to get in South Africa, namely that there is going to be a Common Voters’ Roll, are they going to be satisfied with it? That was a question put to him, and his reply was: “Yes, they will be satisfied, and if they are not satisfied and the United Party consider there should be a change, they will hold a referendum.” Now I should like to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition a few questions in this connection: Who is going to vote in that referendum he is going to hold? Are the Coloureds going to vote with the Whites in that referendum? And the second question is this: Which Coloureds? Only the Coloureds who will then be on the Voters’ Roll, or will all the Coloureds have a vote to decide their own destiny? Will all of them be eligible to vote? Now the hon. the Leader of the Opposition does not reply. He pretends he has not heard the question.

I have answered that repeatedly.

I repeat the question: Who is going to vote at that referendum? Are all the Coloureds going to vote with the Whites in that referendum, or only the registered Coloureds? Which of those who are registered is he going to permit to vote in that referendum? You will recall that as regards the referendum for the Republic, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also urged that the non-Whites also had to vote on a republic. He then advocated this. He did not specify that it should be only the Whites and the Coloureds. At that time he also wanted the Black man to vote.

No.

But that is what he asked for. He said their fate was being decided by that referendum, and that they might not wish to be taken out of the Commonwealth of Nations. He said the non-Whites of South Africa should have a joint say in that referendum. At that time we could not get the Leader of the Opposition to define which non-Whites should vote either. We should like him to tell us now, specifically, which non-Whites or which Coloureds will participate in the referendum they are envisaging.

I have already told you.

No, tell us.

The registered Coloureds on the Common Roll.

Therefore the 9,000 there are now? Now I come to the next question: What about the Coloureds in the northern provinces? You say, don’t you, that the educated Coloureds of the northern provinces will be able to vote for the Senators according to the scheme of the Leader of the Opposition. Now I should like to know whether they will be eligible to vote in the referendum or not?

Those who are on the Common Roll.

Therefore only the Cape Coloureds will be eligible to vote. What right has the hon. the Leader of the Opposition then to reproach the Minister for not wanting to give the Coloureds in the northern provinces the vote in respect of this House of Assembly? Those arguments of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition simply do not hold water.

Ask the Coloureds what they desire.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition says that if we were to ask the Coloureds now what they desire, he has no doubts on how they will vote. In view of the evidence we have, in view of the evidence published in the latest Banier of last week, what is the position? I have studied the paper carefully to see whether there are people, Coloureds, who are opposed to this legislation, and you can count them on your fingers. You may also refer to the Argus and the Cape Times of the past three weeks, since this Bill has been under discussion, and you will hon find a single letter from a single Coloured person condemning this measure. I specially concentrated upon looking for something of this nature:

What did we say?

I am not referring to the representatives of the Coloureds in this house, unless they regard themselves as Coloureds. I looked to see whether the Coloureds were expressing themselves against this legislation, and I did not find a single one against it. On the contrary, if you have watched the papers, you will have seen that there is great support for this measure, so much support that the hon. the Minister may proceed with confidence.

Why does he not hold a referendum?

The hon. members persist with their referendum. If we were to hold a referendum at the present, time, there will be 9,000 Coloureds who will be able to participate on their own basis, the basis of the United Party as to who will be eligible to vote. On your basis there will be 9,000 Coloureds who will be eligible to vote, with the White people, on their future. The hon. members attach greater value to the 9,000 Coloureds than to the 900,000 Coloureds in the country.

I say therefore that the statement of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, that the Coloureds prefer his policy to that of the Government, is completely without foundation. He sucks it out of his thumb, for the evidence available at the present time actually proves the opposite.

What this Bill portends for the Coloureds, is that they may have a great future. I should just like to take you back for a moment to 1948, when we had the system now advocated by the United Party. At that time it was said i.a. in a pamphlet of the United Party, that if the Nationalists were to come into power, the Coloureds would hot have homes, that they would be enslaved and they would be squeezed into a Native compound. That was a pamphlet published by the United Party here in the Western Cape in 1948, to induce the Coloureds to vote for them. But what have the coloureds received under this regime? Where are the Natives compounds into which they have been, squeezed? On the, contrary, great housing schemes. Have been ’tackled where the Coloureds are now treated h community They are making great progress in the field of local Government. They have started to regain their own pride and their own value, and through this legislation they will now be getting, constitutionally, their own value and their own significance, because they will then be serving their own group.

Normally I would not have thought of wasting any of my limited time in this debate to deal with the questions raised by the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman). But as he has in the course of his speech used some statements purporting to come from certain Coloured people, I feel constrained very briefly to deal with him. Before I do that, however, I want to deal with the final assertion made by the hon. member when he said, that during the past three weeks he has not been able to find any protest emanating from any Coloured people in the Press against this Bill. I do not know what Press the hon. member for Heilbron reads, but if he had read any of the English language papers in Cape Town, he would have observed a host of protests coming from Coloured people against this measure. I have not got the time to deal with the whole lot of them, but I want to refer to one of them which speaks in succinct language and which reflects the views of the Coloured people This was written on the 16th of this month, and it is headed “The Cape Coloured Community’s Humiliation”. “Botha’s Bill is the Final Insult.” It says here that— ’

The Coloured Representative Council Bill is the final insult, the final humiliation, the total rejection of the Coloured community as an integral part of the South African nation.

This is typical of many letters of protest that had been written by responsible Coloured leaders giving the Coloured people’s reaction to the Bill.

I want to leave that because unfortunately one is limited in one’s time in this debate. I want to deal with another aspect. The hon. member for Heilbron had the temerity to tell the hon. Leader of the Opposition in effect that he had no right to speak in criticism of this Bill because one Mr. Tom Swarts, the chairman of the Council for Coloured Affairs, could speak in the name of the Coloured people and he supported this Bill Now let mé read what Mi. Tom Swartz said in relation to this Bill and I am quoting now from the Banier—

But that is what this Bill does.

I ask the hon. member where in this Bill does the Government confer upon the Coloured people real powers to deal with their own affairs.

Read Clause 21.

Where in this Bill does the Government compensate the Coloured people for their loss of political status in the body politic of this country? That is the answer to this Bill and that is the answer that comes from the mouth of the man, Tom Swartz, who is quoted by the hon. member in support of this measure! There is another point of the hon. member’s speech with which I should like to deal but I will do that in the course of my speech, and that is the support which the hon. member thinks he is getting from Mr. Fortein. With that I shall deal in a moment. At this stage I wish to record my final protest at the passing of this Bill. I cannot see this Bill as being anything other than, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition quite rightly said, an additional apartheid measure which must have the inevitable effect of widening the gap which unfortunately exists between the Coloureds and the Whites of the country. This Bill under the pretext of creating a Coloured Parliament really does nothing of the sort. It falls very far short of the glowing promises made by the hon. the Prime Minister to the Coloured people when he first adumbrated his scheme of a “State within a State”. The Bill does nothing more than establish a new council which will have no powers whatsoever worth speaking of. This I say advisedly. Any impartial man who examines the contents of this Bill must conclude that it confers upon the Coloured people no powers worth speaking of and certainly, by no stretch of imagination, measures up to what the chairman of the present council asked for, i.e. real power “to compensate them for the loss of political, status in the body politic of this country”, and “to deal with the conduct of their own affairs”. The Government might just as well have left the present council in existence and have extended it$ powers by means of an, administrative edict. Parliament’s time would then not have been wasted by having to consider this measure.

This Bill can, to my mind, serve no real useful purpose and cannot, with any stretch of imagination, be regarded as creating a Parliament in the real sense of that word. All that will happen under this Bill is that a larger number of members will get together on the council with power to discuss such matters as the Government will allow them to discuss but without being able in any way to give effect to any decision they may arrive at as a result of their discussions. This Bill has already been stigmatised, as I quoted here this afternoon from opinions expressed by prominent Coloured people themselves, as the final insult to the Coloured population. What is the gravamen of my objection to this Bill is that it will create the unfortunate impression in the minds of our Coloured people that the Coloured community has now been finally rejected as an integral part of the South African nation. That is the unfortunate impression that is going to be created by this measure.

I am quite sure that despite everything the hon. the Minister has had to say about this Bill, despite the fact that he has assured this House that the Bill has received the unanimous approval of the present council, despite all the canvassing which was done in the Department and in Government circles for Coloured support of this Bill, despite all this I am-certain—and here I agree wholeheartedly with the Leader of the Opposition—that if a referendum were to be held amongst our Coloured people, the overwhelming majority would unquestionably reject the Bill in toto.

That ought to be the test.

Yes, that is the test. And if the hon. member for. Heilbron is so certain that this Bill has the backing of the Coloured people, why not put it then to them? Why not put it to them so that they can determine whether they are prepared to accept it as compensation for the grievous insult they have suffered by being deprived of their political status in this country?

Time does not permit me to deal with the claim made by Government supporters, i.e. that the continuance of the Common Roll has led to great bitterness between the Coloured people and a large section of the Whites of this country. I say this claim is completely devoid of all truth because until 1948 there existed a spirit of respect and goodwill on the part of the Coloured people towards the Whites. There was also a peaceful co-existence which even agitators—and there were many communist agitators—could not upset. Since 1948, however, Mr. Speaker, as a result of the multitude of discriminatory laws which have been passed against the Coloured people, there has been a rapid deterioration in race relations. Barriers have been created with the effect that year after year and session after session our Coloured people were further being alienated from us. These unfortunate barriers which have been created and which are being allowed to continue unchecked, even in this Bill, will to my mind create the unfortunate impression amongst the Coloured people that they have now been finally and totally rejected as an integral part of the South African nation. I repeat that this Bill-has been rejected by every responsible section of the Coloured “community.” But I want to go even further. I want to say that there was a time when the views which we front this side-of the House have expressed in relation to this measure, were supported by the hon. the Minister himself. In this connection I want to quote from a statement which the hon. the Minister himself made in 1957, i.e. before he assumed the elevated position of Minister for Coloured Affairs and still was the M.P. for George. In the latter capacity he contributed an article to the Kruithoring in which he said—

These were the views he expressed …

But I expressed them here in Parliament.

I know, but these are the views the Minister held in 1957, i.e. that the Coloured people should be united with the Whites by bonds of “culture, religion, language and manner of living”. May I ask the Minister to explain to this House how the Coloured people can be united with the White by bonds of “culture, religion, language and manner of living” and at the same time be regarded as a separate group?

But there is another claim made by the hon. the Minister as well as by his supporters with which I should like to deal, namely that this Bill has received the unanimous approval of the Union Council for Coloured Affairs. In this connection I want to read to the House, so that it can go on record, a resolution which was passed after this Bill was published and after it had been seen by the council for the first time. The resolution reads—

I should like to ask the Minister whether or not he has received this deputation? I have every reason to believe that he has refused to see this deputation and that he has, consequently, refused them to ventilate their grievances in regard to this measure. The resolution went on to say—

These then are the terms of a specific resolution which was adopted by the present council. It states that they feel alarmed at the restrictions which it is proposed to place on the new council in regard to the initiation of legislation. Has the Minister done anything at all to meet the complaints, the legitimate complaints, lodged against this Bill by the members of the present council? Up to the present we have not heard a single word of how the Minister proposes to deal or has dealt with these objections. Let me now ask the Minister whether he, in the light of the terms of this resolution which stands on record, still wishes to contend that this Bill has been approved by the present council? I think this House is entitled to have from the Minister a reply to these serious allegations.

You were then not here when he replied to previous debates?

I was here and I heard the answer. But I say that that in no way measures up to the terms of the resolution I have read. I was here, right throughout the debate, and heard everything the Minister said. So how can the Minister possibly explain this resolution which states that councillors were not provided with copies of the Bill and that they were alarmed at the restrictions to be placed on the new council in connection with the initiation of new legislation? How can the Minister reconcile the terms of this resolution with the statement he has made and has allowed his supporters to make, i.e. that this measure received the unanimous approval of the present council? Therefore I say that this House is entitled to hear from the hon. the Minister his explanation of the way in which he can reconcile his version to the version of the present council as outlined in this resolution.

There is another matter with which I should like to deal. The hon. the Minister himself has used in this House, and has allowed other hon. members on his side including the hon. member for Heilbron this afternoon to use, a published statement by Mr. Fortein in support of this Bill. Now I should like to ask the Minister the simple question, i.e. how he can sit in this House and allow this published statement from Mr. Fortein to be utilized when the Minister all the time had in his possession a letter from Mr. Fortein in which he protests against the terms of this Bill after he had seen it? The Minister has that letter and I was given to understand that Mr. Fortein, who is one of the leading lights in the present council and upon whose statements the Government relies for support, has received the following reply to his protest:

This is the reply he received from the Secretary for Coloured Affairs and is the only one received by him. Now, this is the reply this man has received from the Minister’s Department, a man upon whose Press statement the Minister and every member who has spoken so far rely for support! This is the letter he received when he wrote, protesting against the provisions of this Bill. Now I want to ask how the hon. the Minister can sit in this House and allow his followers to utilize Fortein’s statement when the Minister all the time had in his possession a letter from Mr. Fortein in which he protests against this Bill? I also want to ask the hon. the Minister how he can justify this threatening and intimidating reply which this well-respected Coloured man, a professional man received? I will tell you who he is. He is the principal of the Mount Currie High School at Kokstad. He holds the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He is a member of the Union Council of Coloured Affairs, and he is also a member of the executive committee of that council, and he is also chairman of the Coloured People’s Organization, as well as chairman of the Coloured people’s section of the B.E.S.L. This man writes protesting against the Bill. He says he would never have written this article in the Banier if he had known the contents of the Bill, and all he gets is this peremptory and cheeky reply to his normal protest against this Bill. I think the Minister owes it to the House and to the country to explain how he can allow this state of affairs to continue.

I will.

How can the Minister reconcile his statement in this House With the fact that the Coloured council has now declared publicly their sense of shock at the contents of the present Bill and the enormous restrictions which have been placed on this new council? Those restrictions were never explained. Another thing in regard to which I think the Minister owes an explanation to the House is this. How can the Minister reconcile his claim that the provisions of Clause 29, which deals with the powers the Minister has to extend the period of office of any member of the council—how can he reconcile his first explanation in this House, when I raised the subject for the first time, that this Was due to the drafting of the law advisers, with all his subsequent explanations given during the course of the debate? When he was tackled by members on this side it appeared clearly that this was his own calculated intention which was never explained to the council. The House and the country are entitled to have satisfactory replies and I can only hope that during the course of his reply to the third reading, the Minister will give us those replies.

Sir, I was struck very forcibly the other day by a considered statement presented by the Government to the International Labour Organization. In that statement it was claimed that it was not South Africa’s intention to maintain discrimination for all time, but that it was merely a matter of evolution. Those are the words used in that statement. How can the Government possibly explain this Bill in the light of that statement? Can one imagine anything more designed to maintain discrimination and to keep people apart than this Bill? In the Bill the Government is establishing a so-called parliament, entirely separate and distinct from he White Parliament of this country. Surely nothing can be more designed, and designed more carefully, than this Bill for maintaining and perpetuating discrimination against our Coloured people. Instead of bringing the Coloured people closer to us, this Bill reinforces the Government’s policy of apartheid and perpetuates the strong intention of discriminating against our Coloured people and rejecting them as part of the integral population of South Africa. No, I am convinced that in addition to all the grave shortcomings of this Bill we would be doing our country incalculable harm by trying to establish a sectional form or system of legislature. If the Government really wants to do the honest and decent thing by the Coloured people, and if it really wants to restore South Africa’s image in the outside world to the wonderful one that existed some 15 years ago, the Government should restore to the Coloured people their common franchise rights as ordinary citizens of this country, and enable them to be directly represented in this Central Parliament as full citizens of South Africa in common with their fellow Whites, in terms of what the hon. the Minister himself said in 1957 and which I read out to the House this afternoon. This Bill can only have the effect of perpetuating the status of our Coloured people as second-rate citizens in their own country. It is indeed a poor substitute for common citizenship and participation which our Coloured citizens are entitled to in the Central Government and local governments of their own country. If the Government intends to ensure racial harmony, it should avoid at all costs sectional systems of legislation. Surely the ideal for which all of us are striving is to obtain from all our citizens a common loyalty to the Republic. This is absolutely essential if we want to attain and retain racial harmony, but to my mind this sectional system of legislation can only lead to the destruction of that common loyalty and can only result in more friction between the Coloured people and ourselves. For all these reasons I propose to vote against the third reading of this Bill.

Order! Before I call upon the next speaker to address the House I wish to indicate that in terms of Standing Order No. 66, the debate on the third reading of this Bill will be extended to three hours, excluding the Minister’s reply.

The hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg), in a very theatrical manner, referred to various letters he had receivëd from “responsible Coloured leaders”, as he called them, letters which appeared in the Press, and in which they protested against this legislation. It so happens that I have a number of clippings of what the leaders, to whom he has referred, have said. In the first place I wish to refer to one of the leaders he has referred to, Mr. Tom Swartz. In this connection he referred to what the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) had said. I want to read the following from the first edition or the Banier of April 1964, in other words, after this Bill had been made public and after those leaders had had it at their disposal—

This is definitely in conflict with what the hon. member has said. He also referred to Mr. Fortein. I have two other clippings from the same publication the Banier, the second edition of January. Under the heading “New Opportunities for Self-realization”, Mr. Fortein says the following—

His whole article is devoted to that. The same councillor writes the following in the Banier of April 1964, under the heading “Let us Co-operate with the Government”—

How do you reconcile that with the allegations dished out to us by the hon. member concerning those leaders? In any case, Sir, I supipose there are different groups of leaders. There are amongst others, the self-appointed leaders amongst the Coloureds, that group of people who do not want to promote the interests of their own people but whd’ always threaten to break through the colour bar to the Whites. I do believe there are some of those amongst those and the previous speaker must have been referring to them.

I wish to return to the United Party. The United Party can be accused of various things, but there is one thing they cannot be accused of, and that is that their policy and their actions are logical, particularly as far as their colour policy is concerned. Not so long ago, in connection with the Bantu legislation, we had the phenomenon that the United Party was prepared to oppose that legislation to the bitter end. They wanted to do that in the second reading. We then reached the Committee Stage and the hon. Leader himself introduced the Committee Stage and said they would not propose any amendments. We now have the phenomenon that the same party which opposed the legislation before us at the second reading moved a whole series of amendments in the Committee Stage. That is the logic we get from the Opposition. During the second reading they condemned this legislation as being without any force, as being a bluff and as being useless. However, we know why that party has moved amendments in the Committee Stage. It has penetrated the minds of the Opposition that this legislation is of particular importance and that it will play an important role in the political and constitutional future of the Coloureds and the Opposition may perhaps try in future to make political capital out of it. Logically we could have expected the Opposition not only to criticize the legislation but to give us an assessment of their own policy. But except for a few remarks here and there the Opposition remained quiet, yes, as quiet as the Sphinx. In this connection the policy of the Opposition is, in the first place, without any logic, and, in the second place, anomalies dominate that policy, and thirdly, discrimination is blatantly applied under their policy. We have read the policy of the Opposition in this Guide to Better Race Relationship in which they say, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition again said this afternoon, that when they come into power they will restore the Coloureds to the Common Voters’ Roll. We have already often asked them which Coloureds they Will restore to the Common Roll, the 9,000 to whom the hon. member for Heilbron has referred, or are they going to place other qualified Coloureds on it? To what qualifications must the people they are going to put on the Common Roll comply? We have not yet had any answers to these questions, and we trust that when the hon. member for Gardens, who is apparently going to be the next speaker, gets up he will provide us with the replies,. We want to know whether mew voters will be added art what their qualifications will be. We have already disked them whether they are going to put: the Coloured women on that roll. The Leader of the Opposition told us a moment ago that that would not be the case. We have at least had that reply but it was accompanied by a very peculiar argument which I could not understand at all. We on this side of the House are perhaps not sufficiently intelligent to understand that type of argument of the hon. the deader. I cannot understand for what reason they do not want to place the Coloured women on the Common Roll. We want to know this: Are they going to allow the Coloureds who will get on the Common Roll to become members of the United Party? As far as I know a Coloured person cannot join the United Party. Those who are members will remain however …

There are none.

May the Coloureds who will be placed on the Common Roll become members of the United Party and will they be allowed to attend United Party congresses? We already know, and I said this during the second reading, that they have on occasions promised the Coloureds that they could hold a separate congress but that congress never took place. That is how that party bluffs the Coloureds.

I think the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) should tell us about the debacle at Beaufort West.

Yes, I referred to that in my second-reading speech and perhaps the hon. member for Gardens can tell us more about that episode. We on this side of the House maintain that the United Party is trying to pull wool over the eyes of the Coloureds. I maintain that no Coloured person can be elected to this House under the present policy of the United Party, not even under the new policy they have announced, firstly, because there are so few of them that if they have to fight a party nomination against a White United Party member they would lose. I say that is a big bluff on the part of the United Party and the Coloured leaders are wise to it. Their eyes have opened and I want to quote from a letter written in the Burger of 28 April 1964 by one J. G. Forbes. I think the hon. member for Gardens will know him because he lives in Beaufort West. He is convener of the Karoo Voters Association, Extension 5, Beaufort West. The hon. member now has the full address if he wishes to go into the matter. I do not have the telephone number at the moment. This Mr. Forbes writes as follows. He extends his hearty congratulations to the Government and Minister P. W. Botha on the Coloured Persons Representative Council Act” and he writes—

It shows once again that the Government means it well with us Coloureds.

He is also a leader because he is a convener. He goes on—

When the JJnited Party was in power it was not so much concerned about the interets of, the Coloureds as about the vote of the Coloureds, those Coloured votes which had to keep the party in power. After every election the Coloureds with all their problems were stored away in the lumber storeroom of the United Party until the next election. … There are still some within our ranks who have to be guided. They are the people the United Party use to disseminate their propaganda. I appeal to those Coloureds who can see and think for themselves to draw the attention of the less enlightened and less privileged Coloureds to these facts.

The same councillor, Mr. Fortein, to whom the hon. member for Peninsula referred a moment ago, also wrote about the position which obtained when the United Party was still in power and when the United Party could still derive benefit from the Coloured vote. He writes—

That is sufficient evidence against that party as to how they acted in the past.

However, I now wish to deal with the Coloureds in the Transvaal and the Free State. As a Transvaler I am naturally much more interested in that portion of the Coloured policy of the Opposition which relates to the Transvaal. The Opposition say in this pamphlet of theirs that the Coloureds will be represented in terms of a separate Voters’ Roll. In other words, they too are going to have a separate Voters’ Roll in the Transvaal and the Free State. I want to know whom they will allow to vote on that separate roll? Are they also going to allow the Coloured women in those provinces to vote? But in the Transvaal and in the Free State they will be placed on a separate roll and they will be represented in the Senate by their own people if they prefer that. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition told us just now that if educated Coloureds went to the Transvaal it would probably be possible to elect all of them as Senators. We find that in terms of the United Party policy—this shows how inconsistent and illogical they are and how they discriminate—the Coloureds in the Transvaal are politically too immature to vote for a member of the House of Assembly, but they can vote for a politically immature Senator. What nonsense, what discrimination! I said in the second reading that the-average Coloured person in the Transvaal did not only maintain a higher standard of living because he as economically better Off but that in the educational field he had also reached a higher level than the average Coloured in the Cape Province. I base my statement on the fact that 89 per cent of the Coloureds in the Transvaal live in the cities where there are better opportunities for employment. Because I had a great deal to do with Coloured affairs on the Pretoria City Council I know there is no unemployment worth mentioning amongst them. In the Cape Province only 60 per cent of the Coloureds live in the urban centres and 40 per cent on the platteland. Surely it is clear that the educational facilities for a small group, like the group in the Transvaal, ought to be better than for a large group. We know the Coloureds in the Transvaal have better educational facilities than those on the platteland of the Cape Province. We also know that the Coloureds of the Transvaal constitute a more homogenous group. Most of them have come from the Western Province whereas the Coloureds of the Cape Province are a heterogenous group consisting of Malays, Cape Coloureds and descendants of the old Hottentots and of the Griquas. That is why I say the standard of living of the Coloureds in the Transvaal is higher.

I now come to another point. Not only are those people who maintain a higher standard of living and who are better educated discriminated against but they are also discriminated against in another respect. As far as the Bantu are concerned the United Party’s policy is that for the time being they can be represented in this Parliament by eight White representatives but the Leader of the Opposition said he would rather see eight Bantu in this House than that there should be eight Bantustans. Just look at this discrimination. Sir. The Coloureds who are more advanced in the Transvaal and in the Free State may not vote for a member of this House but the Bantu of the Transvaal and Free State, together with the Bantu in the rest of the Republic, may vote for eight members of the House of Assembly. Have you ever heard of greater discrimination?

In the past the United Party have never really been interested in the vote of the Coloured people in the north because they could not use those votes; the Coloured vote could not win seats for them in the north. They were also afraid they might lose the support of some of their party members in the northern provinces and that was why they have never yet dared to advocate that the Coloured franchise should be extended to the northern provinces.

By opposing this legislation the United Party is once again following its well-known policy of trying to wriggle out of things when serious legislation is under discussion. They oppose the legislation for selfish motives only and in order to make political capital out of it. What is more, the United Party is trying to hide its political bankruptcy behind its opposition to this Bill, and to postpone its complete insolvency indefinitely. This pathetic performance by the United Party does not only harm the party—I do not care two hoots about that—but the trouble is that it does not promote the welfare and progress of the Coloured community as a whole; it clouds the thinking of some Coloured leaders and is not conducive to furthering the good relationships (which already exist between White and Coloured.

It is seldom that I have heard a member blow off so much steam as the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) did this afternoon. Methinks he protested too much, and I think all the vehemence and the steam we heard was only to cover up his uneasiness about this Bill. I think he is most unhappy. He made several points and I should like to refer to some of them. According to him, the Coloured man will be an “agterryer” of the White man, in terms of our policy. Sir, that is not so. The Coloured man will have his rightful place in this country alongside the White man. We will free him from job reservation. We will give him his place where his dignity is restored to him. He also made the point that the Leader of the Opposition had said that according to this representative council they are getting much less than the Transkei Legislative Council got. Of course they are getting less, and the fact that he says that those are the Bantu and these are the Coloureds has nothing to do with the matter. This Bill provides very much less for that section of the community which is far more advanced and civilized than that other section. One is sorry that with all this vehemence he stooped to belittle the Leader of the Opposition by saying that he is trying to be a big man. That is not worthy of him and we will not take any notice of it. He makes the point that we on this side of the House do nothing but “belaster die Regering en belaster die volk van Suid-Afrika”. Sir, we on this side of the House have the interests of all the peoples of this country at heart more than any other party, and we have proved that in the past; we have fought for our country and we have done everything we can to promote the welfare of our country and our people. The hon. member tried to suggest that if the Coloured Representatives ever disappear from this House it will be at the request of the Coloured voters themselves. Let me say at once that the elections have not proved that. The elections have not proved that the Coloured people are at all prepared to vote for anybody who leans towards the Nationalist Party. Those candidates who have stood as independents and who have been Nationalist have mostly lost their deposits. Once the Coloureds found out that a candidate was a Nationalist he was immediately rejected. His point was that in 1948 there were 48,000 Coloured people on the Common Roll and that there are now only 10,000. He says that that shows that the Coloureds are not interested in the Coloured Representatives. Sir, it shows nothing of the sort. Large numbers of them are completely dissatisfied with the Government’s policy of taking them off the roll. That is why they are not re-registered. Secondly, the Government has made it almost impossible for a Coloured man to become registered. The hon. member makes great play of B. K. Long’s book. Sir, I know that the hon. member is not an admirer of Mr. B. K. Long, yet he quotes the one point in Mr. Long’s book which he finds suits his book. The hon. member is an admirer of the late General Hertzog and the late Dr. Malan and I would have expected him therefore to have quoted their views on this question as well.

The hon. member for Pretoria (East) (Dr. Otto) has read out several letters here from what he called fairly prominent Coloured people to show that they support this Bill. I think the attitude of the Coloured people is proved clearly by the fact, as the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) said, that they sent a deputation to the Minister because they were not satisfied with the Bill. Sir, during the course of the speech of the hon. member for Pretoria (East), the hon. the Minister referred by way of interjection to a debacle that took place at Beaufort West. I do not know whether he was referring to the conference that took place there or what he was referring to.

He was actually referring to the nomination of the Nationalist Party candidate!

There was only one debacle there as far as I know.

Very well. I take it that the Minister refers to the conference that was held at Beaufort West of the leaders of the Coloured community. That conference was held in order to elect a candidate. Fourty-two invitations were sent out …

Only 42?

Yes, only 42. That was quite enough; 41 attended. The Nationalists, on the other hand, never consult anybody. Only 42 invitations were sent out but they were sent out on a proportional basis, and they were sent to prominent leaders of the Coloured people. Sir, they met and discussed all the candidates; they heard them all; they expressed their opinions; some voted for one candidate and others voted for another, but in the end they unanimously elected one candidate to represent them.

What was the hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor) doing there?

Sir, I will tell you what the hon. member for Wynberg was doing there.: The people who were there to meet these people were the members of the Cape Province Action Committee, of which she is a member.

Action Committee of the Coloured people.

As I say, there was complete unanimity and the spirit which was exhibited there augers ill for the Nationalist Party.

Sir, we have also heard how our friends on the other side sometimes interpret our policy. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. J. A. F. Nel) tried to suggest the other day that large numbers of Coloured people could form a block in this Parliament, according to our policy, and he went on to say that the Bantu could elect eight Bantu to sit in this House. Where he finds that I do not know because our policy distinctly provides that there must be eight White people. He tries to make out that according to our Federation policy the Coloureds will be a separate group. Sir, the Coloureds will not be a separate group; they will be on the Common Roll with the White people in this country. There is no doubt as to what our policy is; it is stated in perfectly clear terms for anybody who cares to read it.

Sir, at this stage of the Bill I want to say at once that there are very few people who want this Bill. It is not wanted by the United Party; it is not wanted by 48 per cent of the White electorate in this country; it is not wanted by the Coloured Representatives in this House and they represent the vast majority of the Coloured electorate in this country. It is not wanted by the Coloured people, it is only wanted by the Nationalist Party and they want it simply to enable them to apply their policy of separate development one step further to the Coloured people in order to achieve their so-called “state within a state”. Despite everything that has been said, this Bill remains the penultimate step in the ultimate denial to the Coloured people of their traditional rights as a political appendage of the White man in South Africa. The ultimate step, as my leader has rightly said, will be the removal from this House of the four Coloured Representatives who sit here to-day. I want to say at once that I accept the assurances given by the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs that it is not their intention to do away with Coloured representation in this House, but I still say that ultimately they will go. The passing of this Bill will inevitably bring about their ultimate removal from this House if the Nationalist Party remains in power long enough. You, see, Mr. Speaker, a man’s political heirs and successors, when faced with assurances given by him which conflict with the logical consequences of the very policies laid down by him, tend to discard the assurances and follow the policies. This Bill means the political emasculation of the Coloured Representatives here in Parliament, because its whole policy direction is to leave them without any force or effectiveness. The Government has no use for them and will by-pass them whenever they can. That is, of course, perfectly in line with Government policy, which is entirely opposed to any “mixed” legislative body, that is, a legislative body consisting of the representatives of White and non-White races sitting together. And once the Coloured Representatives have been politically emasculated by the passing of this Bill, will not that very fact be used to move for their abolition? I fear that inevitably it will. Sir, the Transkei Legislative Council is a council which represents the Bantu only. The tens of thousands of Europeans or Coloured people" there have no representation in the Transkei Legislative Council. Under this Bill only the Coloured people will be represented on this new council. Under the policy of this Government I expect that in the near future they will establish a similar council for the Indians in this country. I think that is a logical conclusion to be drawn from their policy.

That is, hardly part of this Bill.

I am dealing with the policy. They will establish a council for the Indians identical to this council but there will be the difference that the Indians will not have representation in this Parliament like the Coloured people. I am quite certain that the policy of this Government will be and must be to remove the representatives of the Coloured people from this House as soon as they find it practicable to do so. One asks oneself why they still keep the Coloured Representatives here-, why is it their intention to keep them here? I think it is because they are afraid of the Coloured people themselves. They are afraid that if they remove the Coloured Representatives, the Coloured people will regard that as the last straw and that they will never again believe the White man. I think it is because they feel that the outside world will kick up such a row that they are afraid to remove them from this House, and I think they are also afraid of many Nationalists who would be entirely against it. It is for those reasons and those reasons alone that they keep the Coloured Representatives in this House.

Sir, this Bill is a bad Bill and it has bad features. We on this side move an amendment that the Bill be read this day six months, and let me just say in passing that “this day six months” means that we do not want a postponement so that we can get advice in the interim, as suggested by the Minister. He knows perfectly well that this is the recognized procedure when an Opposition utterly rejects a Bill, as we reject this Bill.

Why do you not say so then?

We have said so over and over again but the hon. member does not want to listen. Sir, we have moved amendments not because we like the Bill, not because we can really improve the Bill, but to remove some of the harsh features of this Bill as it will affect the Coloured people themselves. We have done our best to try to improve a very bad Bill. This Coloured Council, if the Minister had accepted some of our amendments, would have been at least a little more democratic in its structure and functions; as it stands now it holds the ill promise of being used simply as the Minister’s instrument. In all these circumstances, and for the reasons given, we are opposed to this Bill and We are going to vote against it at the third reading.

The hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) and other hon. members opposite who spoke before him have on various occasions objected to this Bill because they allege that it offers less to the Coloureds than the Transkei constitution offers to the inhabitants of the Transkei. I cannot understand their logic in respect of this matter at all. We have already on various occasions said in this House that those two cases were, in the first place, not analogous at all. I myself tried to explain that in my second-reading speech. But there is another angle of that objection I wish to refer to and it is this. The main objection of the Opposition to this Bill is really being met to a great extent by fact that we give the Coloureds less in this legislation than we give the Bantu in the Transkei. The objection of that side of the House is that under our policy we do not take the Coloureds with us, but at the same time they want to compare the council of the Coloureds with that of the Transkei. Although they say the Coloureds should be treated on an equal basis as the Whites they say we must give the Coloureds what we have given the Transkei. But if we gave the Coloureds what we gave the Transkei we would be directing them completely away from the Whites.

That is a weak argument.

If the hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Timoney) thinks it is a weak argument I am afraid I cannot give him the brains to understand it. Whether hon. members on that side of the House want to admit it or not the fact of the matter is that in the case of the Transkei a geographically separate portion of the country was given to the Bantu, an area in which it is envisaged they will ultimately enjoy complete political independence. Politically that really amounts to this that those people have been completely removed from the White section. Is that what the hon. members want in the case of the Coloureds? No, that is not what they want.

That is what you want.

They want the White people to take the Coloureds along with them but on the other hand they object because we "do not give the Coloureds what we are giving the Natives. The very reason why we do not give the Coloureds what we give the Natives is because we know the Coloured people are much closer to the White community The hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) quoted what the hon. the Minister said in 1957. We still say that today. We still say to-day that the Coloureds have the same way of life as we have; they dress the way we dress; they eat the food we eat; they speak our language. [Interjections.] Hon. members will get an opportunity of speaking. I am not trying to hurt them. I am only trying to advance arguments and if they do not agree with me they can get up at a later stage and say so, but I would ask them please to give me an opportunity of making my speech. We admit the Coloureds are much closer to the Whites and for that very reason we do not want to give them a Transkei; for that very reason we provide them with their own representatives in this House. While I am on this subject I just want to say this to the hon. member for Gardens: The hon. member says the disappearance of the Coloured Representatives from this House will be an inevitable consequence of this legislation. Does the hon. member for Gardens really believe that it is the intention of the Government to remove those members from this House?

That is an outcome of your policy.

No, I am asking that hon. member. I shall be pleased if he would say “yes” or “no” to that question. Does he believe the Government envisages the disappearance of the Coloured Representatives from this House? The hon. member does not want to say “yes” nor does he want to say “no”. In that case I take it he does not believe it is our intention to remove them. Surely he must believe either the one or the other. It is either the intention of the Government to keep the Coloured Representatives here or it is the intention of the Government of removing them at some time or other in the future. I think hon. members opposite ought to be satisfied at this stage with the assurances they have had from the Government. The Prime Minister has asked them in this House whether they want him to give them the assurance that it will never happen in all eternity. One day when we are all dead and a brand new House has been constituted, that House may decide differently; we cannot bind a future House to-day. Let us have clarity as far as that point is concerned. We cannot bind future legislators in this House. I think the hon. member for Gardens must accept that it is the honest intention of the Government to keep the Coloured Representatives in this House. The hon. the Minister and the hon: the Prime Minister have already given the assurance that there is no idea of removing those members from this House, now or in future, but we do not know what future legislators may decide in this House. In any case that is not our intention and I trust this matter will not be raised again.

Sir, I should like to analyse the merits of this Bill on the occasion of its third reading and ask myself the question whether it is in the interests of the Coloureds or not. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition spoke about the possibility of a referendum so as to give the registered voters an opportunity of deciding on this. Sir, if it were possible to put this question objectively and completely impartially to the Coloured people I would have accepted that offer with open arms. But hon. members opposite know as well as I do what tragic and unpleasant circumstances anything like that will create, not only for the Whites but also for the Coloured community.

They will be a political football!

That is what the Opposition is trying to make of them. They were a political football and they will become that again if the United Party were to come into power and if they were to carry out the policy they hold out in prospect in this House to-day. In that case the Coloureds will indeed be a political football. We all know that the Coloured people, a large percentage of whom are uneducated and not sufficiently advanced, are much more susceptible to agitation and to be stirred into hostility towards another group of the population than they are to suggestions aimed at the promotion of their own interests. If an agitator, for example, were to approach the Coloured community with the object of stirring up their feelings against another group of the population, like the Whites, the Whites who live in much better economic and social circumstances in South Africa than they, he will be much more successful, and achieve that success more easily than the other person who discusses with them suggestions, purely on their merit, and aimed at promoting their welfare and progress. We know that is the position and that is why I say if such a referendum were to be held amongst the Coloureds it would only create chaos. If they could consider the question on its merits alone, from the point of view of what is in the interests of the Coloureds, I would have welcomed such a suggestion. Sir, hon. members on that side of the House make the mistake of viewing this legislation from a political angle.

How do you view it?

Sir, I am not trying to be funny when I say that; I am not saying that with any hostile feelings; I am saying it because I do not detect sufficient signs of a desire on that side of the House to consider the future welfare and interests of the Coloureds. They are more inclinied to consider the political implications of the Coloured vote. Hon. members opposite have told us ad nauseum what they intend doing for the Coloureds. They want to restore the Coloureds to the Common Roll. They want to use him, as the hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) has said as a political football.

I said it ironically.

I want to be fair towards the hon. member. He did not intend it to be with reference to his own party. I think in a discussion on this Bill we must accept the basic fact that the Coloureds are on a separate Voters’ Roll to-day. At the present moment they have separate representation in this House, and I say with respect to their Representatives in this House that the Coloureds are getting a squarer deal to-day than they got when they were still on the Common Roll. Those hon. members at least talk in the interests of the Coloureds. I do not hesitate to say that I have the greatest measure of respect for them. They are doing their duty towards the Coloured people. I am not saying that they are always doing what is best for the Coloured people because they are inclined to follow the popular ideas of the top layer of the Coloured community, those people who are actually on the borderline and who want to join the White community. They are too inclined to follow that popular idea and I think it is there where they make the mistake, but in general I wish to say to their credit that they are doing their best for the Coloureds and I say the Coloureds are to-day getting a squarer deal than they got before. There are people in this House to-day who specifically look after their interests; here are people who specifically plead their cause; we have a Government and a Minister who are sympathetic towards their interests, and hon. members who represent the Coloureds in particular will agree with me when I say that the Coloureds are to-day progressing much faster in all respects than they did when they were still on the Common Roll and when there was nobody in this House who specifically pleaded their cause.

This is legislation which we must not only regard from the political angle but which we must also regard from the point of view of what is in the best interests of the Coloureds themselves and from the point of view of promoting their political rights in this country. It is true that this Bill does not provide unconditionally that they will have legislative powers. The Opposition’s great objection is that they are not given legislative power immediately but it does not follow that they are not getting any legislative powers at all. The foundation for legislative powers is laid in this legislation. Even if they were never to get any legislative power they are still getting a great deal in this legislation. This legislation is a major initial step to promote the interests of the Coloureds and their development in the political field.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said the Coloureds were the most advanced group of all the non-Whites in South Africa. I think we should not exaggerate that statement. I do not argue with it but when we say they are the most advanced group we immediately create the impression that they are really advanced. Mr. Speaker, if you knew the Coloured people of the platteland as I know them, not only the top layers with the white collars, but the ordinary Coloured people, you would realize what they still were and how backward about 70 per cent or 80 per cent of them still were; how undeveloped they still were; how little respect they still had for anything they possessed; how little respect they had for nationhood in any form and how low their moral values were. Sir, you must go to the platteland to realize what the Coloured still is. Although I do not argue with the statement of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition I wish to emphasize that when we talk about the most advanced section of the non-Whites we must not conclude from that that they are of necessity very advanced. No, Mr. Speaker, they are still at a very low level of development in every respect. I am not saying that to the discredit of the Coloureds. They themselves say it and you will agree with me, Mr. Speaker. That is why I say, that being the position as far as the Coloureds are concerned, we cannot expect them to start at the top rung of the ladder in the political field. Let us start from the bottom; let us give them the opportunity of gradually gaining political experience so that they can develop gradually. They are now given an opportunity in this legislation to organize themselves in the political field. This is the first time they are getting this opportunity; they are getting a Voters’ Roll and they can register on it. I wish to emphasize that it is not only the rich and educated ones who can register, but the most humble Coloured person can register. That right he and his wife are now given will sow in them the germ of an appreciation of the value of moral things; an appreciation of the value of their share in the country in which they live. He is not excluded because he is poor or illiterate. I think of my garden boy at Robertson, for example. He has never had any education; he cannot read or write. But now he will realize, for the first time, that he has a share in the administration and in the promotion of the interests of his own people.

Hon. members opposite, however, want to deny the Coloured people that; hon. members opposite do not wish to give the Coloureds that privilege. They allege this means retrogression to the Coloureds; that this is not pro-, gress. Let us be reasonable, Sir, let us be grateful. This is indeed a tremendous step forward, even if we do not get everything we want. This legislation makes provision for them to have their own council to which they will be able to elect their own people and eventually they will have legislative power in respect of their own affairs.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition talked about the four stream policy of the Government in respect of the rural areas. I have already dealt with that. It is for the very reason that we wish the Coloureds to develop as part of the White community that we do not want to apply that four stream policy, as it is being applied in the Transkei, to the Coloureds. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also asked why we did not give them separate citizenship. How can you reconcile those two arguments, Sir? You must not remove him from the Whites but you must confer separate citizenship on him! That is sheer nonsense, surely. That is how the hon. the Leader of the Opposition argues.

You are not stating it correctly.

Oh, yes. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition spoke about the four stream policy and about the “homelands” He asked: “Why do you not give them their own citizenship?”

He was sketching your policy.

Hon. members can read his speech to-morrow and they will see. The fact of the matter is this: How can the United Party tell us we must take the Coloureds along with us, but that we must as the Leader of the Opposition has said, give them their own citizenship?

He did not say that.

Very well. Let us accept that he did not say it, but then he should ask us to do so. It is for the very reason that we wish him to develop as part of the White section that we do not wish to give him his own citizenship, particularly here in the Western Province.

The hon. member for Gardens wishes to restore them to the Common Roll, but he remains a Coloured; he remains a member of a separate group or is the hon. member advocating that we should no longer distinguish between White and Coloured? As long as we wish to distinguish between White and Coloured, something which the member for Gardens advocates, we must admit that he still belongs to a separate group. It is no good saying that because you place him on a Common Roll you are doing away with all differences between the Coloured man and the White man.

Now for the first time we are giving an opportunity to the most humble Coloured man, to the poorest and the least educated Coloured man, of having a say in his own administration and eventually in the legislation affecting those matters which will promote his own interests. They all share in it. I think this is a very important step forward.

I understand why hon. members opposite are concerned about this legislation. When the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl) spoke during the second reading he said he was very concerned about this legislation. We realize that but we cannot help that. We think what we are doing is in the best interests of the Coloureds. The hon. member must simply accept that. The hon. member for Green Point said we knew only too well that once this legislation was on the Statute Book it would not be possible for them to restore the Coloureds to the Common Roll. That is true because if they do restore the Coloureds to the Common Roll they will have to disenfranchise the Coloured women and that they will not be able to do or will not wish to do. That is the reason why they are so worried. They are worried because this legislation is bringing them to the end of the road under their policy. Once this legislation has been disposed of the United Party will have to formulate a new policy.

The hon. the Minister has accepted a considerable number of amendments moved by the other side of the House, particularly by the hon. member for Peninsula. The Minister has accepted those amendments in order to improve the legislation to the satisfaction of the hon. member for Peninsula and to our satisfaction. I think at this stage we should all co-operate in order to make it a success in the best interests of the Coloureds.

Sir, I have not the time to reply to the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. S. L. Muller); in fact there is nothing to reply to. The hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) has very ably dealt with the main points of the Bill so I shall not cover any of the points he has already made. I just want to say that, in my opinion, however sad the Coloured people may have been when they were taken off the Common Roll, to-day is probably the saddest day in their political lives. All the hopes and aspirations they may have had, while this Government is in power, to be restored to the Common Roll, where they belong, are made impossible, forever, by this Bill. There is a message which I as a Member of Parliament, representing the Coloured people, want to give to them—and I am sure my friends join me in this—and it is this: Do not despair, the time will come; there is a silver lining in the cloud, politically, for you and you will still be restored to the Common Roll in the not too distant future, despite the actions of this Government.

I now want to deal with one aspect of this Bill in the few minutes at my disposal and that is Clause 29. I regard Clause 29 as the most unfortunate clause in this Bill. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that everyone, even the people of the Coloured Council themselves, believed that the council as at presently constituted, would be extended until this so-called Parliament came into being. Even the Secretary for Coloured Affairs said the following in a public statement—

“The council”.

I know the point the Minister wants to make; it is just as clever as some of the other points he has made and they, were stupid. Everybody believes that the word “council” means the council as presently constituted, the council with its members, not the shell, but the substance. How can a council continue without anybody serving on that council! There was a leading article in the Banier in which the same opinion was expressed—

Now the Minister inserts this clause. I denounce this Bill. I have said enough in the second reading and in the Committee Stage;

I do not want to say any more except to say this in conclusion: Do you know what explanation the Minister gave to the hon. member for Peninsula on this Clause 29, Sir? He said the legal advisers wanted it that way.

No.

Of course, that was what you said; I shall bring the Hansard. If that explanation is correct then the Minister wants us to believe that every member of the Coloured Council was prepared to commit political suicide by consenting to this clause. Do you really think, Sir, that they understood that to be the position? In the light of what the hon. the Minister told these people, in the light of what they understood the position to be, in the light of the promises the Minister made to them, I say they did not understand the position and, if Shakespeare might be quoted, they can turn round to the Minister and say: Et tu Brute?

Sir, the hon. the Minister may have observed that I took no part in the Committee Stage of this Bill. I did not for a very good reason. It was obvious that, once the second reading had been passed, no alteration in principle could be agreed to by this Committee. No amendments could be introduced in this House which could in any way extend the legislative scope of the Bill. The Opposition called it a hollow mockery and it seemed to me that no amendment could make it less hollow or less of a mockery. The second reason why I took no part in the Committee Stage was that no amendment could alter the fundamental fact that this Bill was an extension of the separate roll representation system. Therefore, because I object basically to separate representation, it seemed again that no amendments could make any difference. It makes no difference to me whether it needs a two-third majority in order to unseat a member, of the council or just a simple majority. It makes no difference to me whether there are more elected, than nominated members on the council. For these reasons I took no part in the Committee Stage.

I agree with the hon. the Minister and other members that the old Common Roll system was not a success as it operated—and these are the important words “as it operated”. But I want to say, as I have said before, that the remedy for a system that did not work was not simply to substitute for a Common Roll system, a separate roll system nor, may I add, is the remedy simply to return to the old Common Roll system. To me it is as fatuous to replace the Common Roll system with a separate roll system, hoping that that will engender better race relations (where it has been proved all over the world that separate representation does nothing but to increase racial friction) as it is simply to offer, as the official Opposition offers, to restore the Common Roll system as it existed before the Coloured were taken off it, with a few changes, such as the extension, on a separate roll (thereby undermining the principle of Common Roll representation) representation to the northern provinces. To me that is no answer, either. The answer is to be perfectly logical. If one does not think the old system worked and if one believes that the Common Roll basis is correct, the answer is to extend the Common Roll system throughout the country and to allow everybody who has qualified, everybody who has reached a certain stage of educational development, to come on to the Common Roll. In other words, to judge on merit and not on colour. To me the whole Opposition argument is undermined by the fact that Coloured women will not come on the roll and that only the males of the Cape Province will be restored to the Common Roll. It makes a nonsense of the whole argument unless this is carried to it logical conclusion. Otherwise, as far as I am concerned, there is no point in arguing against the principle of separate representation.

I believe if one says the Coloured man is one’s brother and one must take him along with the White man, one must also say that the Coloured woman is one’s sister, otherwise, as I say, there is simply no logic in this argument. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said the reason why the United Party was not prepared to go further at this stage and say it would put the Coloured women on the Common Roll or that it would extend Common Roll representation to the northern provinces, was because it was his party’s policy to go to the country first for a referendum before it adopted any changes in racial policy. Is this setting the lead? Surely if one believed ethically that it was right to have a Common Roll system for the Coloured people, if one believed ethnically that the Coloured people belonged alongside the White people, then it is the duty of the Leader of the Opposition to set a lead to the country. He announced this as his official policy: To try to win elections on the basis of his official policy, and to say that ethnically the Coloureds belong alongside the Whites, that we believe Common Roll representation is the right form and then say: We leave it to the electorate to tell us when it is the right time to introduce this policy. The job of the Official Opposition is to present its policy to the country and not leave it to the electorate to tell it what its policy should be.

The hon. member for Outeniqua (Mr. Holland) says “hear, hear”. There is another anomaly in this whole argument that has struck me throughout this debate and it is this: The Coloured Representatives in this House, other than the hon. member for Outeniqua, are official members of the United Party. Now, Sir, do they believe that the Coloured women should have the vote? Do they believe in extending Common Roll representation to the other provinces? This is important because if they are official members of the United Party they have to preach United Party policy. When I was a member of the United Party I had to do so. One could plead for changes in the policy at congresses and that was what I did consistently for many years until it dawned on me that I was not going to get very far in so doing. So these members are official members of the United Party and they should therefore be preaching the official policy of the United Party. I think it is perfectly relevant to ask these hon. gentlemen, particularly the one sitting behind me (Mr. Eden), who belongs to the caucus of the United Party, whether it is their policy to extend Common Roll representation to the north and whether it is their policy to put Coloured women on the roll? There can be no argument about this: There are many Coloured women, Coloured teachers, Coloured nurses etc. who are absolutely fitted to exercise the franchise in this country. You find them in every province in the Republic—not only in the Cape. I would like to get a little logic in the whole argument otherwise, as I say, all this talk about a “hollow mockery” and the “Coloured people belonging to the White people” does not really mean one row of beans. It would be very nice to get some official announcement on this policy from the Official Opposition.

In the three minutes left to me I want to say this: Having set out my policy and that of my party, which is Common Roll franchise on a qualified basis for everybody, for males and females, who are over a certain age (we believe that should be 21), who are citizens of this country, irrespective of colour, race, creed or sex throughout every province in South Africa, I want to turn to the Government. As far as this Bill is concerned it does just the opposite of what the hon. the Minister thinks it is going to do and the opposite of what the hon. the Prime Minister said when he spoke to the Coloured Council in 1961, when he said this would bring happiness to every Coloured person. I believe it will do no such thing. It cannot possibly satisfy the Coloured people for their needs cannot be separated from those of their fellow White-citizens, and their needs are to lead a full participatory life in the integrated life of this country. They want to enjoy opportunities of education, opportunities to use their abilities to the very best extent possible. They want to enjoy opportunities of employment and they want to enjoy rights and responsibilities in the government of this country and in the formation of the laws which regulate their lives, laws such as group areas, separate representation, separate amenities, job reservation etc. These are the laws which basically affect the Coloureds; laws that decide that they may not be members of mixed trade unions, laws which set aside separate trade unions for them. These are the things which really and truly affect the lives of the Coloured people.

Therefore, as far as I am concerned, this Council does nothing for. the Coloured people; it is certainly no substitute for playing a full part in the life of South Africa; it is no substitute for Common Roll rights which, as I say, should not simply take the form of restoration but a vastly extended form.

The new direction we are following with this legislation creates an opportunity for the Coloureds of exercising their own political rights to a greater extent in future in their own interests and in the interests of their own nation. As the Coloureds exercise more and more political rights through the channel this legislation creates for them they will lose their interest in the Parliament of the White man. If we do not create this channel for him he will in the ordinary course of events aspire to exercise his political rights in this Parliament. If you were to ask a Coloured man, in present circumstances, and without the channel we are creating here, whether he was interested in entering the Parliament of the White man he would say “yes”. He would say: As long as my affairs are controlled by the Parliament of the White man I am interested in that Parliament, but give me my own legislative body, give me my own political institution in which I can attain my political aspirations in due course, then I shall lose all interest in the Parliament of the White man.

We are creating an institution here which will enable the Coloured to exercise his own political rights more in his own interests and in the interests of his own people. We are definitely embarking on a road of parallel political development along which the White man need not be afraid of the power of the Coloured in the political field. We are creating a position where we shall be able to maintain better race relations between the Coloureds and all sections of the White people. By satisfying the White man that the Coloured man will no longer constitute a political danger in future by reason of the fact that he has the right to compete with the White man in the political field, you also create a state of mind in the White man which will enable him to be more willing to devote himself to the upliftment of the Coloured man, which is something we are all aiming at.

I believe this legislation on which we are to-day putting the official stamp, is in the best interests of the Coloured community. This new direction we are following will ensure that as far as the Coloured vote is concerned we do not again have the abuses which took place in the past. It is also a guarantee that there will not be a fresh struggle between the White man and the Coloured man and between the White sections in the political field over the political rights of the Coloureds. Mr. Speaker, all this taken together can only bring about better race relationships between the Whites and the Coloured. If the White man wishes to continue to exist and if these two sections wish to live in a spirit of good neighbourliness in this part of South Africa it is important that there should be a good understanding between the White man and the Coloured man. It is important that every vestige of suspicion should be wiped out of the mind of the Coloured man as far as the Whites are concerned. It is important that the Coloured man realizes that what the White man claims for himself in the political sphere he is willing to give to the Coloured man in his own institutions.

I think once we have finalized this legislation it will in time also satisfy the Coloureds. The hon. member for Peninsula said this afternoon that a certain Coloured person was opposed to this legislation and that he had written to that effect to the Minister but that same person wrote the following in the latest issue of the Banier. I do not know whether the hon. member for Peninsula is prepared to interpret what I am going to read as meaning that Mr. Fortein is opposed to this legislation—

I think this Government has shown that it is well-disposed towards the Coloureds. I also believe that more and more Coloured leaders are realizing that their salvation in this country is only to be found along the road of parallel political development.

Certain points made by the hon. member who just sat down I hope to deal with in the course of my speech. I should at this stage like to say a word about what was stated by the hon. member for Houghton who unfortunately is not in the Chamber at the present moment. I do not intend replying to her in full, but I only want to point out to her that when she talks about logical conclusions of the different policies, she must bear in mind, as the country has borne in mind, that her Leader, Dr. Steytler, has admitted that the logical conclusion of the policy of the Progressive Party is “one man, one vote”. It is for that very fact that the hon. member’s party is continually losing ground. She asked the Coloured Representatives who are members of the United Party what the United Party’s policy was for representation of the Coloureds in this House. Now, our Leader dealt with this very point again this afternoon. We have also stated our policy on many occasions and, consequently, I do not intend stating again what our policy is in regard to the representation of Coloureds in this House. Every member of the Nationalist Party knows what it is as well as we do. They have heard it so often and it is set out in our booklet. But yet they keep on raising the point here in order to get away from the implications of this Bill. It is, in other words, brought up as a red herring. The only point the members on the Government side can make in this debate is to attack us on our policy and that because they cannot possibly justify this measure.

The hon. member for Ceres (Mr. S. L. Muller) said the United Party wished the Government to treat the Coloureds in the same way as they have treated the Bantu of the Transkei. He went so far as to say that my Leader asked this afternoon why the Coloureds were not being given a separate citizenship or all the rights to citizenship which were given to the Bantu of the Transkei, why they were not being given their own homeland, etc. The hon. member then said that my Leader advocated that this be done for the Coloureds as well. But that is quite wrong.

You can either do it the one way or the other, but not in both ways.

Sir, the hon. member is quite right when he says that we must do the one or the other … that if they wished to go ahead with their policy of separate development and treat the Coloureds as a separate group, they should then give them their separate citizenship and their own homelands. What my Leader was trying to point out was that you could not have a State within a State and if the Government intended giving the Coloureds full self-government, then they should go the whole hog and do the same for the Coloureds as they have done for the Bantu in the Transkei. The hon. member for Ceres has now admitted that too. We in the United Party are not complaining because the Government is not giving the Coloured people separate citizenship, or their own flag, or a promise for independence. We do not object to this because to do that would be contrary to our policy. Our policy was stated this afternoon by the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan).

You were complaining that we were doing more for the Bantu than for the Coloureds.

We treat the Coloured group as part of the civilized group of people in this country. In this connection we still adhere to the policy stated by General Hertzog when he was our leader. He then said that the Coloureds were an appendage of the White group. When General Hertzog was leader of the Nationalist Party he said that there were numbers of Nationalist Party members of Parliament who regarded the Coloureds as being on an equal basis with the Whites as far as economics and political rights were concerned. In these respects, then, they placed the Coloureds on an equal footing with the Whites. So, it is still our policy that the Coloureds should not be separated from us into a separate group politically or economically.

If that is so. is the United Party then prepared to grant Coloureds membership of the party?

I am surprised at the Minister for asking a question like that because the Minister is well aware of what the position is, i.e. that in terms of our constitution Coloureds can become members of the United Party in the same way as they could become members of the old Nationalist Party.

They were separate members of the Nationalist Party. But are you prepared to allow the Coloureds to become members of your party in the same way as you are a member?

In terms of the constitution of the United Party, i.e. the party which resulted from the union of the old Nationalist Party and the South African Party and stood under the leadership of people such as General Hertzog …

The hon. member for Cradock was also one of them.

But I did not betray them.

Coloureds were allowed to join the United Party and since that time our constitution has not been altered. But when the Coloureds were taken off the Common Roll, they no longer took any interest in becoming members of a White branch of the party. That is so because they no longer had any say in the election of candidates. The idea behind the Nationalists, including the hon. the Minister’s questions, when they know that Coloureds were allowed to become members of the old Nationalist Party …

But not of a White branch of the party.

It is not a question of whether they were members of a White branch or not. The question is whether they were allowed to become members of the party. And my reply is that they were allowed to become members. [Interjections.] As far as I know the only people who could not become members of the Nationalist Party were the Jews in the Transvaal. [Interjections.]

What we on this side object to on behalf of the Coloured people is that the whole attitude of the Government is one of gratuitous insult towards them. They are being thrust into an inferior position. The hon. member for Ceres dealt at length with the Transkei, and he told us why there had to be a difference between the Bantu in the Transkei and the Coloureds. He said that the Coloureds had to be treated on a separate basis because they were not getting their own homelands nor were they being promised eventual independence. But these reasons are not the same as the reasons given by the hon. the Minister in his replies to debates on this measure. Let us deal with this whole difference in the approach of the Government towards the Bantu of the Transkei on the one hand and the Coloureds on the other hand. Why, in other words, are the Bantu in the Transkei given their independence but the Coloured people only this proposed council? After all, this is fundamental to the Government’s policy of separate development, i.e. the Bantu are going to have their own Bantustans which will be developed to independence and the Coloureds are going to get their own council. We do not yet know what is going to happen to Indians but I assume something similar will also be given to them. The idea is, in any event, that each group will develop separately.

I now should like to come to the hon. member for Parow (Mr. S. F. Kotzé). He said that Coloureds would continually desire to come and sit in this Parliament as long as this Parliament controlled their destinies. On the other hand, he said, once they have their own body controlling their destinies, they will no longer want to come here. But now I should like to ask anybody on the Government side whether it is the policy of the Government to give the Coloureds their independence too so that this Parliament will no longer need to control their destinies? Remember the hon. member said that as long as this Parliament controlled the destinies of the Coloured people, the Coloured people would want to have representation in this House. Now, that desire can only be removed by giving them complete independence as it is intended to give the Bantu in the Transkei. But let us again look at the difference in the approach to the Bantu of the Transkei on the one hand and the Coloureds on the other. There is no doubt that it is the policy of the Prime Minister to keep Bantu as well as Coloured from having any say in the Government of the country. But he realized that that was amoral and accordingly he proposed giving the Transkei its independence under its own Government and to the Coloureds this council. Now, as far as the Bantu are concerned, the Prime Minister was forced to act. Why? Because the Bantu have powerful friends abroad. The Prime Minister himself admitted that what he proposed for the Transkei he was forced to do by world opinion. So he was forced to take action on behalf of the Bantu. And how did he set about it? In 1962 he made an announcement what the Government’s intention was in regard to the Transkei. That same year they consulted the Territorial Authority concerned and a constitution was drawn up by that body itself. As a matter of fact, it was stated by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Bantu Administration that the Territorial Authority itself drew up that constitution. At any rate, that constitution was approved by that Territorial Authority and soon after Parliament met the next year, the Minister introduced a Bill to give the Transkei its constitution. This Bill was passed and became law on 30 May. The Transkei had their own Parliament elected by the end of the year and, similarly, a chief Minister and a Cabinet. But as against this what is happening to the Coloureds? We have heard for some time that the Coloureds were going to get this council. Now the Minister has come forward with this Bill which was prepared by him and his Department. What is more, we are told that it will take effect only from 1966. There is, in other words, no hurry at all, whereas in the Transkei it was all done within the space of one year. But the Coloureds have to wait for two years. And what is more, in the Transkei there were open discussions in the Territorial Authority. The Press were there and so was everybody else. But what is the position in this regard with the constitution for the Coloureds? The position is that we do not know who drafted it and we had charge and counter-charge of perfidy as to whether it was placed before the Coloured council or not and whether that council approved of it. The Minister swore that the council saw the Bill and approved of it, while the Coloured Representatives in this House, on the other hand, swore that that was not the case. Let us look at the difference between this constitution and that proposed for the Transkei. Now, if hon. members on the other side had said that they could not allow the Coloureds to have their own cabinet, or to allow them to govern themselves, or to enjoy privilege in their discussions simply because they are not given a separate state, then I say that that might be good reasons. But the Minister has told us that they are not being accorded privilege in their discussions, and that they are not being given the same administrative powers as those given to the Transkei, because they are not fitted for it. He said in this connection that less than 70 per cent of the Coloureds were suitably educated and capable of accepting responsibility. What an insult to offer them! The Bantu were given the right to govern themselves and they were given power to make their own laws. The relevant Act contains two pages of small type setting out the powers of the Transkei to legislate for themselves. But what can the proposed Coloured council do? It can merely advise when their advice is sought, or it can recommend …

It is all in the Bill.

… and the State President by proclamation can set out what it can do. But as far as the Bantu in the Transkei are concerned, they have no doubt as to what their Government can do. And what is more, they do not have to go to Ministers for approval before they want to introduce a Bill, but can do so on their own initiative.

We in the United Party say that this is not the way to treat the Coloured people. They deserve better of us. They have stood by us in the past and they have been law-abiding citizens. Whenever there has been trouble or threats of trouble in the country, whether internally or externally, the Coloureds have stood by us. They are a minority group. Let us face that. They do not have the same power as the Bantu have and that is why they are being treated in this way. We say it is wrong. They are in fact the people who should be protected by us and who we should take along with us. The Minister has no idea of the extent of the resentment which has been caused amongst the Coloured people by his mere remarks. …

You are absolutely wrong.

Well, if I am wrong, why does the hon. the Minister not put it to the test in a referendum? If I am wrong, why is it then that the Coloured people go on supporting the United Party? Why did the Minister’s party not put up a candidate to fight the last provincial council election?

On expiry of the time indicated, the debate was adjourned.

Orders of the Day Nos. IV and V to stand over.