Here there is an amendment which is purely technical correcting an omission in the original Bill. It is in the name of the hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson), who is not here, and I move it—

I accept that amendment, and if the hon. member had not moved it I would have done so.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 15,

I move the amendment appearing in my name—

This is of a technical nature. When a postal vote has been issued to a person, and there is a possibility that that postal vote will not return to him again, the voter will then have the right to go to the returning officer and to declare that he did not receive the postal vote. Then the returning officer will have the right to issue a new postal vote to him. The Bill as it stands at present, unfortunately does not make provision for dealing with the original ballot paper, and this amendment merely states that the original ballot paper must then be regarded as cancelled.

I do not think the hon. member is quite correct when he says that this merely clarifies the position. In my opinion this amendment is unnecessary in view of the provisions of Clause 19, for in that clause provision is made to ensure that a voter will not be able to change his vote. The hon. member will recall that Clause 19 deals with the position when there are two declarations of identity and two applications, and then the returning officer must consider the application that arrives first; and in sub-sections (a) and (b), if he has satisfied himself that both are those of the same voter, he then deals with the one bearing the earlier date, and that is then the lawful one. But if they differ, he deals in terms of sub-section (b) with the declaration of identity in accordance with the provisions of Section 56ter. If we were to make this amendment, the cancelled ballot paper could not be tested here to ascertain whether the voter had changed his vote. I think this will open a door so that political parties will again have an opportunity, after a voter has voted, to go to that voter and try to persuade him to vote differently from the way he voted in the first instance. It is our object to eliminate this very malpractice. We think sufficient provision has been made in Clause 19 for cancelling one of the ballot papers he sent in. I think the hon. member will appreciate my explanation and I hope he will withdraw his amendment.

I appreciate the argument of the hon. the Minister in connection with the possibility of the political parties trying to persuade the person to change his vote after he has already voted, but as I see the matter, this provision is not aimed at the person who has voted already, but at the person who has asked in his application that his ballot paper should be sent to Cape Town for instance, but who in the meantime may have changed his mind and gone to Durban instead of Cape Town. He arrives in Durban and he may go to any presiding officer and request that a new ballot paper be issued in his name, if the first ballot paper has already been forwarded to Cape Town. In that case he has not voted on his original ballot paper; he then votes on the new one, but the original one still remains an unused valid ballot paper; it is not cancelled, I quite agree with the hon. the Minister that where a person has already voted, he may not cancel that vote and vote a second time; that is a different matter. If he has voted already, if he has already used his original ballot paper, he cannot apply again, because he may not vote a second time in any event. Once he has voted, the law provides that if he votes a second time on a second ballot paper issued in his name, he commits an offence. When applying for a new ballot paper he will probably have to state in his application—I am assuming that this will be provided by regulation—that he has not voted yet. But then another person may go and vote on his original ballot paper; he can then go and apply, provided of course he can identity himself, and that is admittedly a protection. But we are possibly leaving the door open to malpractices here and we do not know what may happen in a case where a postal vote has been issued to persons with the same name. I do not know either, e.g., when the picture on the identity card of the hon. the Minister was taken, but there are few people whose appearance to-day resembles a photograph taken years ago. [Interjections.] I am not referring to myself, but a person’s appearance may change in course of time, and in that event it is possible that a person may be able to abuse an issued ballot paper. This amendment merely proposes that when the new ballot paper is issued to a person who has not yet voted, the original should be cancelled, for in terms of Clause 19 the first issue counts; when two votes are returned, the first one counts, and if the genuine voter has voted on the second one, the first ballot paper is still counted. Clause 19 (2) provides—

This means that if the actual person has voted on the second issue, but his signature has been realistically forged on the original one and that second person has succeeded in proving his identity to the presiding officer, then this original one still counts, notwithstanding the fact that the real voter has voted on a second one. I really do feel that the hon. the Minister ought to give a little more attention to this matter. I quite agree, in view of the reasons he has given, that we should not insist upon the amendment if the position in fact were as he has stated, but that is not the position; the danger is just the reverse; the danger is that somebody may misuse unused votes. There is another possibility, too, and that is that the original ballot paper, even if it is not used, may lie around and not be returned to the presiding officer or the electoral officer before the election is over. Who can say what has been taken out of that envelope in the meantime? The ballot paper itself or the declaration of identity could easily be removed from that spare cover, as it becomes now, and it may be abused. It is an offence, admittedly, but surely it is better to prevent the offence than just to hope it will not take place. So I hope the hon. the Minister will reconsider this matter.

I do not think the hon. the Minister should accept this amendment. It may certainly have the effect the hon. the Minister is afraid of. It will bring about what we have had in former years, namely that if a voter signed an application with an Opposition party then we would go to him and then he would sign a new application and then he writes over the form of application: “I hereby cancel my previous application.” It was just another way of trying to get the man’s vote on your side. I believe that we shall in any event have many of these cases, but if we were to make it still easier for people, we shall have an endless stream of people who have had their applications dealt with by a certain political party, and who have cast their votes, but just because an Opposition party thinks that the people may have voted wrongly, or not for the party to which they really belong, they go along and they take the people to a neighbouring returning officer to apply for a second ballot paper there. It will put an endless amount of administrative work upon the shoulders of returning officers and it will increase the number of postal votes enormously. I do not think the hon. the Minister ought to accept this amendment.

The hon. member for Parow (Mr. S. F. Kotzé) is, of course, completely wrong. If he wants to argue as he has just argued then he must move for the deletion of the provision for the issue of the new ballot paper, because this is not a new application; the person has already applied, and this clause provides that he can ask that the ballot paper for which he has already applied be sent to a different address. It is not a new application. If the hon. member wants to prevent the evil to which he has just referred, then he must delete this provision entirely and say that having once applied the person cannot apply for a ballot paper to be sent to a new address. But the provision is here; we weighed up the position very carefully and we decided that there were in fact many occasions where one would be justified in reissuing a ballot paper; for example, where the ballot paper has been delayed through the post or where a person has had to move to a different address through sudden illness or for some other reason. There are many of these grounds which would justify the request for the ballot paper to be sent to a new address or for a new ballot paper to be issued if the original ballot has already been sent out. If the original ballot has not gone out then naturally it would be sent to the new address. If it has already gone out then a new ballot paper will be forwarded to the new address. We accept that that provision is necessary. Having accepted that position, all we are now asking is that there should not be two ballot papers in circulation for the same person in the same election. That is the sole purpose of our amendment. It is not to enable people to change the original address but to deal with an emergency situation and to prevent exploitation. We find that provision is made that the returning officer must be satisfied that a ballot paper issued in respect of an absent voter has not been or will not be returned to him within the prescribed period after the date of issue thereof; the voter submits to him in person during his working hours a further application to vote as an absent voter; the voter must come to the returning officer and explain the situation to him, and the presiding officer must be satisfied. If you have to go through that whole procedure then I cannot see how on earth political parties are going to persuade people to go and apply in person and think that they are going to gain any advantage by doing so. There is no advantage to be gained because they will be voting in front of the returning officer and they will be appearing in person. That is all we are trying to deal with here. If I am wrong I hope the Minister will correct me, but as I read the clause the voter goes along and applies in person for a reissue but his original ballot paper is still valid until the count. We are asking that the original ballot paper upon which he has not voted should be cancelled.

I think the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) is really concerned with two matters here. As regards the one matter, he conceded that there is a possibility that political parties may, after an application has been lodged, again try to persuade the voters; the hon. member conceded that in his first speech. As regards the second point, the hon. member has once again used the same arguments he used before. That point is covered by Clause 12, which has already been passed by us. Clause 12 deals with “Documents to be sent or delivered in respect of absent voter”. The hon. member will find that in (4), (5), (6) and (7) the whole procedure is set forth as to how, eventually, there may be a cancellation of the one document so that there will not be two of them in circulation, as the hon. member put it here. Adequate provision is made for that. Take the case he mentioned first, namely the case of a voter who has given an address in Johannesburg, and who now suddenly moves to Durban. Such a voter may himself telegraphically cancel a ballot paper already issued, and apply for another. The hon. member has, however, raised a few new points and I shall undertake to reconsider the matter and if necessary I will move an amendment in the Other Place to meet the hon. member’s arguments, but at this moment I am absolutely convinced that we are not opening the door to abuse.

Is the hon. the Minister satisfied that sub-clause (7) of Clause 12 covers the case of Clause 15?

Yes, I am absolutely sure of that.

Then we are satisfied.

In those circumstances I am prepared to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Hickman withdrawn with leave of the Committee.

I move the amendment standing in my name—

At the same time I ask permission to move the amendment printed in the name of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn)—

I move these two amendments and I propose to deal with them separately. With regard to the amendment which appears in the name of the hon. member for Yeoville, the hon. the Minister has confirmed the principle in his second-reading speech and in his reply that the parties are to act as watchdogs (“Wag-honde”) in respect of postal voting. We are moving this amendment with the object of ensuring that where a vote is cast before one of these special polling officers and official witnesses, the party shall have the opportunity to be present and to oversee that activity. There is another provision, but it appears to us that the provision made elsewhere does not cover the particular position in terms of (2). The presiding officer must advise the authorized representative of the issue, but we want to make it quite clear that the polling officer must also invite the representatives of the candidates to accompany him. I do not know whether I need to argue this further. Does the Minister wish to hear further argument?

Yes.

Sir, the accepted principle was put in the first place to the commission and accepted by the commission in regard to the need for the political parties to play the role of watchdogs so as to obviate abuses. That principle is established throughout this Act. As we understood the hon. the Minister’s introductory speech, that principle was to be incorporated into the procedure when voting under 56sex, but as I read the clause it has not in fact been incorporated. It applies in other circumstances; it applies, for instance, to the issuing of ballot papers where the parties are represented, but here we have a person who is coming to vote; a polling officer has been appointed, an official witness is appointed; it is merely a question of a telephone call and in most cases that is done in any case. The candidates, if they wish, may then attend. We are not saying that they must be present; we are saying that they must be invited to attend and give them the opportunity to do so. I will leave the matter there until I have heard the hon. the Minister’s reply. I move on then to the first amendment. Here we have the position that any presiding officer for absent voters who has received an envolope containing ballot documents, can merely say, “I am unwilling to act”, and the magistrate to whom he makes that statement must then appoint another presiding officer for absent voters to administer that vote. Let us assume that a justice of the peace, for example, says, “Ek gaan nie hier die Nat-stem administreer nie; ek is ’n Sap”. All he has to do is to say that he is unwilling to handle that vote; he need not give any reason for his refusal. [Interjection.] It may be a United Party J.P. or it may be a Nationalist J.P.

All the J.P.s are Nats.

There is no provision that he must give a reason for his refusal. The clause merely provides, “Who is unwilling to do it”. We accept that if he cannot do it he should be excused from performing this duty, but we do not accept unwillingness as a reason for refusing to carry out his responsibilities. After all, he does not have to move out of his office; the voter has to come to him; the voter must go to the presiding officer during normal office hours. There is no reason whatsoever why a presiding officer, who can advance no valid reason for his refusal, should be excused from carrying out this responsibility. Our amendment would ensure that he may notify a magistrate of his refusal and the magistrate, if he is satisfied that the reasons advanced are valid, may then excuse him. That means that he must argue his case for refusing to accept the responsibility. We leave it in the discretion of the magistrate to decide whether his reasons are valid or not. We feel, particularly since we have presiding officers who are not subject to the discipline of the State, that that protection should be inserted so that if a person who is acting as a presiding officer receives a ballot paper he will be obliged to carry out the duties attached thereto unless he has a good reason for refusing to do so. I shall be grateful to hear the hon. the Minister’s view in regard to those two points.

Sir, while I am on my feet we have no amendment in this regard but on page 17, in the English text, the office hours are referred to as being “from 8 o’clock in the forenoon to 6 o’clock in the afternoon of any day” during which a person who cannot attend before a presiding officer may then ask for this special provision to apply. Government offices are normally open from 8 or 8.30 a.m. to 4 or 4.30 p.m. or at the latest 5 p.m. We v/ould like to know why provision is being made here for the hours from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. because it may well be that a person cannot make that declaration during those hours. He may be working from 8 o’clock to 5 o’clock; there is a presiding officer available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. but he cannot make use of this provision because his working hours coincide with the working hours of the presiding officer, hours which are in fact shorter than those specified in this clause. We should be grateful if the hon. the Minister will elucidate that position.

To begin with the last point raised by the hon. member, I just wish to say that we have fixed the hours in this way for the very reason that public servants who normally work until 5 p.m. will be able to act as presiding officers to assist voters. The hon. member knows, of course, that a police station may be visited at any time, even at one o’clock in the night. Provision is made here for longer hours for these presiding officers, but the hon. member also knows that provision will be made for the payment of additional allowances to these people. Whereas the ordinary public servant works eight hours a day, provision is made here for a working day of ten hours.

Will the offices be open until 6 o’clock?

Yes, they will be open. Then I come to the two amendments proposed by the hon. member. In the first place he proposed on behalf of the hon. member for Yeoville that the agents should be invited to accompany the polling officer, together with the witness. That amendment is not acceptable to me, and I shall tell the hon. member why it is not acceptable. This amendment proposed by him places the onus on the polling officer and the official witness to contact the political parties and to notify them: “We are going now and we invite you to accompany us.” It amounts to that. If the hon. member will look at Section 56sept (1) (c) he will see that it is already provided that the presiding officer “shall advise the authorized representative of every political party referred to in sub-section (1) of Section 56sex of the delivery of the voter’s envelope and the name and address of the polling officer”. Under sub-section (1) the presiding officer goes so far as to notify the political parties that he has referred an application from So-and-So, a person residing at such-and-such an address, and that he has sent him a voter’s envelope together with the requisite documents. If this amendment is accepted, the onus is immediately placed on the polling officer to get in touch with the office of the political party. Hon. members know what frequently goes on in an electoral office; there are always a lot of people in the office; the telephone rings incessantly; a young lady answers the telephone; she quickly notes down the particulars but she has hardly done so when somebody else comes along, and she forgets the first message taken by her on the telephone. Then the political parties allege that that polling officer never notified them. No, if this amendment is accepted there will be a continuous stream of complaints, mainly perhaps as a result of the organizational difficulties prevailing in such an electoral office. I feel this way about the matter, and I feel very strongly about it; The political parties have been notified of the name and address of the person, and it is now for the political parties to contact the voter in question and to tell him, particularly if it possibly means a vote for those political parties: “We want to accompany you when the polling officer comes along to take your vote; at what time did you tell him you were going to vote, and on what day?” The other political party is then welcome to do the same thing. If we adopt this procedure we shall place the onus where it belongs. We are already assisting the political parties tremendously, but I think if we were to go as far as the hon. member now proposes, we would eventually be making only retired people of those who expect the State to do everything for them, and even then they would still have an opportunity of saying that they never received the message. That is what I am afraid of; I am afraid there will then be the charge that you have not been notified because the polling officer is a United Party or a Nationalist supporter. I think the hon. member will appreciate this difficulty if he has regard for a moment to what goes on in an electoral office, particularly during the last few days; the telephone rings incessantly and that polling officer, with his witness, will find it difficult to contact the political parties by telephone. He must not fetch only one vote; there are a large number of votes and he first has to notify the political parties, because the law enjoins him to do so. I regret I am unable to accept the amendment.

The second amendment amounts to this; that all the people we have mentioned in Clause 1 who may possibly become presiding officers, should be obliged to act as presiding officers unless they are unable to do so; they have to give reasons why they are unable to do so. Now, among these persons there are justices of the peace too. I would have had no objection if all of them were only public servants, but there are justices of the peace amongst these people too who, because of the position they occupy, perhaps as employees, cannot act, and in whose case it is not desirable that they should have to divulge their reasons. The justice of the peace may be a businessman; it may be that as a businessman he may be known to a certain section of the electorate as a member of this or that political party; it may be that he as presiding officer may have to handle mainly the votes of members of a certain political party. People will then say at once: “There the cat is out of the bag; he is a United Party man” or “He is a Nationalist”. The person may be a farmer, and as a farmer he might say that it is impossible for him to go and sit in an office for 21 days from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.; that his work and his circumstances do not permit him to do so.

We do not think it is necessary for him to give reasons as the hon. member proposes. We think we should leave the person at liberty to say: “I am not willing” or “I cannot”. When he says that, we say: All right, then you do not do it, because we want willing people. As regards the officials, there is no danger that they will refuse, as it is a duty imposed upon them by the law. I regret that I shall not be able to accept this amendment either.

I should like to refer to Clause 15 (2) which reads as follows—

I should like to know from the Minister whether in terms of the provisions of this proposed new sub-section the train personnel of the S.A. Railways, e.g., may be classified as such a group of immobile voters in spite of the proposed sub-section (1) (b) which reads as follows—

I should like to know whether this group of persons could be classified as a group of immobile voters by the chief electoral officer.

Yes.

Then I should like to know who must apply on their behalf and in what way the chief electoral officer becomes satisfied that it is necessary to classify such a group as immobile voters.

In this case the chief electoral officer has already taken notice and he can consider it. For general notification we can put it thus, that any person or group of persons, any organization, political or otherwise, may put his or their case to the chief electoral officer under this clause, or in terms of the regulations, to declare him or them to be immobile voters. That is the only way in which we can do it, and that is the best way in which to notify it.

I should like to ask the hon. the Minister to give some consideration to the amendment of the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw). The hon. member’s proposal to omit “who is unwilling or is of the opinion that he is unable” is obviously wrong. The inability of the presiding officer may very well lie in his subjective state. The examples quoted by the hon. the Minister are good examples, such, e.g., as the justice of the peace who for business reasons does not wish to involve himself in the matter. But to prevent justices of the peace from just refusing point blank makes me think that he should be able to give the magistrate good reasons, and the magistrate, who is then satisfied that the reasons are well-founded, then gives the vote to another presiding officer. The fact remains that we are imposing a serious duty upon this whole broad list of presiding officers referred to in the Bill. I should be very sorry if we were to create the position that a presiding officer could summarily say “I am not prepared to handle this vote. I hand it to the magistrate and he must look for another presiding officer”. I think there is a good deal of merit in the suggestion that the magistrate should be satisfied that the unwillingness of the presiding officer is based on a sound reason. I do not wish to press the Minister for a decision on the matter now, but I shall be glad if he will gives his serious consideration to this matter and perhaps introduce an amendment in the Other Place.

I wish to plead with the hon. the Minister to give a little more consideration to the amendment standing in the name of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn). I think it is of the utmost importance that we do not violate the principle that the parties should have the right to be present when a person votes. I appreciate the hon. Minister’s difficulties. But I wish to plead with him to reconsider the matter. I am not concerned about the wording. The hon. the Minister can change the working if he wishes. But it would be wrong if, for the reasons advanced by the hon. the Minister, we abandoned this principle. He can change the wording. He can perhaps put it this way that if the parties apply to be present they should have the right to be present. But the right to be present when the returning officer and his witness go to that person to record his vote should not be taken away. The hon. the Minister said the voter would know exactly when the returning officer and the witness would come to him but I think the hon. the Minister is wrong. I think the party should be allowed to go to that voter and if that voter is in the condition in which a voter usually is when he has to vote at home or in the hospital he will not be in a position to inform the party and not one of the parties will know when the voting is to take place. I think the hon. the Minister should reconsider this. It is an important principle. The parties should be able to be present. That is the type of problem that can rouse suspicions and I do not think the hon. the Minister should push it aside so lightly.

I just want to deal with what the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) has said. I want to point out that this has no reference to public servants. We have a Public Service Act and public servants are compelled to subject themselves to it. If an obligation is imposed on him in another Act he has to carry it out. He has no choice. He cannot say he is not prepared to do that work. This only refers to justices of the peace. All the other officials were discussed with my colleagues and all of them have legislation under which they have to do it. I cannot force a private person if he has good reasons. Why should I compel him to advance good reasons? Why should I do that? He can only declare himself as being unwilling. That was the category which hon. members opposite were against. In other words, that is the group of persons whose numbers can dwindle if they declare themselves unwilling to act as presiding officer or, as the hon. member has said, if they were of the opinion that they were unable, to act as such an officer. A public servant may perhaps say: “I do not regard myself as able to do it; I do not see my way clear to do it,” or “I have so much work to do that I cannot attend to more members of the public”. Let me give an example. It may be the station-master of Johannesburg who is very busy. He may say: “Humanly speaking it is simply impossible for me to do so.” There are other categories of persons on that station who can be approached. In such a case one would be reasonable and try to have regard to somebody else’s difficulties. But it is not a question of a public servant declaring himself unwilling. He has to do it; the law provides that.

The hon. member for Maitland (Mr. Hickman) again raised the question of giving notice. I am sympathetic towards that idea. I know that is how it works in practice but I really do not see my way clear to provide for that in the law. I give this undertaking that in his instructions to electoral officers the chief electoral officer can tell them that as far as practically possible they should make it a rule to inform political parties that that person will vote at such-and-such a time at such-and-such an address. I think we can make that concession but to insert it in the law as an obligation will simply cause an endless amount of trouble to the offices because of the facts I have already mentioned, namely, that it will simply not be possible for the electoral officer to contact the busy party offices.

May I ask the hon. the Minister whether he would be prepared to change it around so that it will read when a party applies for permission to travel with the electoral officer to the voter?

They can travel with him. There is another provision which provides that any political party may travel with the returning officer and the witness in Government vehicles. But do not let us say: “We are going now; send your people around immediately.” We shall only find ourselves in the same difficulty. I think we must see how this works in practice and see to what extent it is practically possible for the electoral officer to give that notice.

There is another matter which is not quite clear to me and which I shall be glad if the hon. the Minister would clarify. It appears from the provisions of the Act that in future we shall really be dealing with two types of immobile voters. The one is the immobile absent voter who is indeed mobile but who cannot go to a polling station due to the nature of his work. Then we have the bona fide immobile absent voter. That is the person who is an invalid, the person who is physically in such a state that you cannot bring him to the polling station. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he will not consider making provision for these people, by way of regulation, so that they, instead of applying for a postal vote, can authorize the presiding officer in their application form to vote on their behalf for candidate So-and-So. They should be allowed to mention the name of the candidate. In other words, a vote by proxy. [Interjections.] Yes, I know it is a new idea. But I can tell you, Mr. Chairman—and my colleagues will agree with me—how complicated and difficult the position becomes when you come to a person who sits in a rocking chair and who cannot sign his name. That person can nominate somebody—a young boy or girl or a member of the family—to sign the application form for a postal vote on his or her behalf. That second person then has to declare his identity. That person then takes the application form to the presiding officer or posts it and ultimately the postal vote is issued. When the public servant who can in future act as a presiding officer goes to that person that youngster who signed on the voter’s behalf is perhaps at work. That presiding officer then has to go to his place of employment because the two people have to be brought together—the immobile voter and the person who signed the application form on his behalf. The public servant must bring those two people together. Take the case of a blind person who goes and votes at the polling station. That person records an open vote. He gives instructions to the presiding officer and the voting chamber is cleared.

Order! I am sorry but the hon. member is advocating an entirely new principle and he cannot continue on those lines.

May I not ask that something like this be considered under this clause?

No.

I again want to raise the question of the presiding officer who may perhaps be unwilling. The hon. the Minister will remember that justices of the peace were brought in especially because there may be huge areas where there may only be a few people who can act as presiding officers. I envisage the position, particularly in the Cape Province, where there will be one justice of the peace to serve a huge area and he decides not to take charge of the voting. He then has to inform the magistrate that he is unwilling and the magistrate has to appoint somebody else. The first-mentioned presiding officer must then send the documents to the second one so that he can have the vote recorded. I have an idea the election will be over by that time, particularly when I think of a constituency like Namaqualand. It all depends on the circumstances in which the presiding officer refuses. He may refuse under the most awkward circumstances which may mean that the voter will perhaps not be able to record his vote on election day. If the hon. the Minister can give us the assurance that that will not happen I shall be glad.

I just want to draw the attention of the hon. member to the fact that it does not mean that a presiding officer can do the work for a certain period and then suddenly refuse to carry on. He gets appointed as a presiding officer and he can refuse to accept the appointment. Once he does the work he must have very good reasons not to continue. He must become ill or he may be involved in an accident. And there is provision for that. In that case the State must specially send another presiding officer there. This concerns his appointment.

No.

Mr. Chairman, it says here—

When a presiding officer is functioning he is a presiding officer and he cannot in the meantime summarily refuse to act. Then the magistrate can send an envelope to any person referred to in Clause 1 as being a presiding officer. It is not necessary for him to appoint him; he is appointed in the Act. He is not officially appointed; he has already been appointed. The person says: No, I am not going to do it; nor am I even going to do this one vote. He returns the envelope. We give the assurance that a public servant cannot do anything like that. The only person who can refuse is a justice of the peace. We say it is just as well that the magistrate can determine which justices of the peace are willing to do the work under those circumstances and then he has to see to it that they do it. I do not envisage the difficulties hon. members do Let me put it this way: We are actually busy formulating an Electoral Act, an Electoral Act which we want to make as watertight as possible. I have taken due note of the objections. Give us an opportunity to ascertain what we have to do to ensure that it is water-tight and we shall rectify the position in the Other Place, always in co-operation with hon. members of the Opposition. I shall instruct my Department to go into these suggestions. We are not trying to score debating points. We are trying to put the best Act possible on the Statute Book and I appreciate the co-operation I have received from both sides of the House.

With leave of the Committee, the amendments proposed by Mr. Raw were withdrawn.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 16.

I move the amendment as printed in my name—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 20,

I move the amendment standing in my name—

Provided further that where the presiding officer for absent votes has submitted a statement to the effect that he has satisfied himself that due to operation, illness or deterioration in a voter’s health he was unable to sign his normal signature as recorded on his original application, such signature shall be acceptable.

The object of this, as the hon. the Minister will know, is to overcome a difficulty. On many occasions a person applies for a ballot paper, particularly on the ground of illness or on account of old-age debility, but by the time they come to cast their vote, their health has deteriorated to such an extent that they are unable to sign in the same form in which they signed initially. There is often an argument about the difference in the signature. This amendment of mine provides that a presiding officer may attach a declaration made by himself to the declaration of identity after satisfying himself as to the facts connected with the position. I hope this will be acceptable to the hon. the Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I am sorry but I am scared of this amendment. I am afraid it will open the door to abuses. When the returning officer takes a vote the voter signs another form. The returning officer has not got the original application form with him. He does not know how the voter signed originally; he does not know whether the signature has deteriorated or whether it is not the same signature. The two signatures are only compared the day the forms are opened. The returning officer is not in a position to give a certificate to the effect that the health of the person has deteriorated to such an extent that it has affected his signature. He may have been present when the voter signed the application form, but he is not a doctor. He cannot issue a medical certificate. The doctor who attends the voter first has to say: Look this person’s health has deteriorated to such an extent that his signature is different from what it used to be, sufficient provision is made in the law—that where there is any doubt to condone it the day the votes are counted. I am not worried about that. Those are exceptional cases. The game is not worth the candle to make special provision for the case where a person signs differently on account of a deterioration in his health. Let me give an example of the type of abuse which can take place. It is very easy for somebody to sign an application form on behalf of his old uncle or aunt. He imitates the signature as closely as possible. The day the uncle or aunt has to vote the signature is different. I want to exclude this possibility. Then I also honestly think that a person whose health has deteriorated to such an extent that there is an obvious difference in his signature is no longer interested in what happens to the country, although his vote may be of some value to the party. We really think we should not open further doors and make more concessions. We should rather cover all loopholes.

I agree with the hon. the Minister that we should be careful and not open the door to abuses. But there are cases, over and above those mentioned by the hon. the Minister, where a person has to undergo an operation, for example, or where something happens to his hand. He signed his application form in the ordinary way but in the meantime something happens to him and when he has to record his vote his signature is different. I speak from experience because there is a big hospital in my constituency and we deal with between 300 and 500 postal votes in that hospital every election. There are not only a few of these cases; there are tons of them. I myself was in a position where I had to lie for weeks with my hand in mid-air. I could not sign anything. I wonder whether in such a case the Minister cannot provide that where a person originally signed an ordinary EF33 he can subsequently make a declaration to have it changed to an EF33A. An oath has to be taken. Although he originally signed the form, he should be able to reapply on a 33A form at a later stage if something has happened in the meantime to prevent him from signing that declaration himself.

If the hon. member for Durban (Point) walks around with his hand in mid-air and cannot sign a second form, I suggest he cancels the first one. He can say he cannot use his hand or his condition has deteriorated. He can say: “I want to fill in a form for a physically disabled person and I want to vote for So- and-so; I cannot use my hand.” That can always be done in such a case.

Amendment put and negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 23,

I move the amendment standing in the name of the hon. member for Pine-lands (Mr. Thompson)—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 27,

I move the amendment standing in the name of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn)—

1. (f) within any polling station, or during the completion of a ballot paper by an absent voter, attempts by threat, intimidation or otherwise to influence any voter to vote for any particular candidate or political party,

; and in line 19, after “station” to insert “or presiding officer for absent voters”.The purpose of the second portion of this amendment is clear. We have made it a very serious offence in terms of the proposed Section 93 as it stands, for polling officers at the polling station, or other persons working with the Electoral Act, returning officers, attendants, etc., to commit certain offences in terms of the Act. We have now added “a polling officer or official witness appointed under Section 56 sex” as being subject to these restrictions—that is the official polling officer and the official witness appointed to go to an institution or to a person to cast their votes. But we have not made it an offence for others who are doing exactly the same job, but who are doing it in their office instead of doing it in an institution or at their home.

That should be raised in connection with Section 114.

In Section 93 we are dealing with returning officers and presiding officers, and we have added “polling officers”, but we have not added “presiding officers for absent voters”. That is the second part of the amendment with which I am dealing now.

Now I want to come to the first part of the amendment, the question of intimidation or otherwise in a polling station. Section 114 does not cover this position as the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van den Heever) seems to think. It makes it an offence under certain circumstances to try to influence a voter, to exercise undue influence. But to prove “undue influence” is a very difficult thing indeed! It is a person “who directly or indirectly by himself or any other person makes use or threatens to make use of force, violence or restraint, who inflicts or threatens to inflict any injury, damage, harm or loss upon or against, or does or threatens to do anything to the disadvantage of any person in order to induce or compel that person to refrain from voting, or on account of that person having voted or refrained from voting at any station …” Here you have got an offence only to prevent a person by threat or by violence from voting. That is a question of refraining from voting, but we want to make it an offence to intimidate in any way, inside a polling station or during the casting of a postal vote. There are other provisions and there are regulations, but there have been cases, serious cases, where persons within a polling station, and certainly where postal ballots have been cast, have used influence upon a voter, directly or indirectly, to try to persuade him or her to vote, and we believe that that is a serious offence. It is not covered by the Act, and since we are recognizing the sanctity of the vote, and we are making a polling officer subject to this clause, we feel that we should take it further than that, and that we should make all presiding officers subject to these restrictions and at the same time make a provision that the presiding officer shall not exercise undue influences.

I do not think there is much objection to the points raised by the hon. member for Durban (Point), but it is a question here of proper legislation. In Clause 27 we are concerned with one thing only and that is forgery; we are not dealing here with fraud. The section in the Electoral Act dealing with fraud is Section 114, as the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) has already said. Section 93 deals with fraud in connection with ballot papers, with the forging of ballot papers—with people who forge or counterfeit or fraudulently destroy any ballot paper or the official mark on any ballot paper. Section 93 is now being amended here by substituting another subsection for sub-section (1), and it is being amended with the specific object of combating fraud. But the hon. member now comes along with his amendment which deals with undue influence, a matter which falls under Section 114. It is fraud “to try, by means of threats and intimidation or otherwise, to try to influence a voter to vote for a particular candidate or political party”; that is what the amendment of the hon. member envisages. But that falls under Section 114, as the hon. member will see if he reads the section. Section 114 of the Act is not being amended in this Bill because we feel that it covers everything proposed here by the hon. member. But in any event I would not be able to accept his amendment here. It would be very poor draftmanship to insert this amendment in Section 93 when it actually deals with undue influence by means of threats, etc. It is something which does not belong to Section 93; it belongs to Section 114. If the hon. member had come along before the second reading and said that we should also amend Section 114 by adding these things, there might have been an opportunity to do so, but I do not think the hon. member should insist on our passing such badly drafted legislation.

I agree that Section 93 deals more with fraud than with undue influence but I do not agree with the hon. the Minister that Section 114 covers the position, because Section 114 only relates to persons who try to force somebody to vote or not to vote. The English text reads, “In order to induce or compel that person to vote or refrain from voting, or on account of that person having voted or refrained from voting at an election … is guilty of an offence”. The Afrikaans text is equally clear.

And sub-section (2)?

Yes, it is precisely the same, “Oorhaal om sy stem al dan nie by ’n verkiesing uit te bring”. In other words, this only covers the offence of preventing a person from voting or trying to force him to vote, but there is no reference to the question of influencing him to vote for a particular candidate.

I still say that the hon. member should have raised this in connection with Section 114.

There I am prepared to agree, but we could only move amendments of provisions contained in the Bill itself. We could, of course, have got a special instruction but unfortunately we did not ask for one. Since Section 93 was being amended we felt that we could perhaps introduce the necessary amendment here to cover this particular problem. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he does not agree that it is essential to bring about such an amendment, even if we do it under Section 114. We consider it absolutely essential to treat this as a very serious offence, and to say so in the most explicit terms. I agree with the hon. the Minister that it would have been more appropriate to bring about this amendment under Section 114, but we feel that such an amendment is necessary and I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is not prepared to consider the insertion of this provision in the Other Place. As far as the second portion of the amendment is concerned …

I accept the second portion of the amendment. It will be an improvement to insert the words “or a presiding officer for absent voters” after the words “polling bureau”. It was in fact our intention to do so.

As far as the other amendment is concerned, I think the hon. member has suddenly once again looked at Section 114. We have discussed the merits of this amendment thoroughly with our legal advisers. The intention is that all those things should be covered by Section 114, and we think they are. However, I shall make assurance doubly sure because I am in complete agreement that there should not be any threats that will intimidate or influence voters. The legal advisers say Section 114 covers everything but we shall ask them to study it again and if necessary we can make some plan to put that right as well.

With leave of the Committee the first amendments proposed by Mr. Raw was withdrawn.

Remaining amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 29,

I move—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Remaining Clauses and Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

Order of the day No. IV and notice of motion No. I to stand over.

There is perhaps one ray of light as far as this Vote is concerned and that is that the hon. the Minister is one of the few Ministers who is asking for less money under his Vote than last year, namely R1,880,000 whereas he asked for R2,236,000 last year. I hope that large amounts will not be asked for in future Supplementary Estimates and that it will not be necessary, in this case at least, for the poor taxpayer to carry a heavier burden.

I wish to raise a few matters concerning the Publications Control Board. One thing which strikes you immediately when you look at this Vote, Sir, is that the publications Control Board cost more than twice as much to run this year than the old Censor Board. This Publications Control Board is costing us R55,000 this year while the old Censor Board only cost us R25,000. The chairman of the Censor Board received R3,000 and the chairman of this Publications Control Board receives R6,900 per annum, more than twice as much. I very much doubt whether this board was more than twice as efficient as the old board; and whether it gave greater satisfaction than the old board. We are asked to vote R10,000 this year for temporary assistants whereas it was only R6,000 in the past. That indicates that this board wants to and is interfering to a greater extent with censorship in South Africa.

I think we were all surprised last year when we saw the names of the people who were appointed to the Publications Control Board. We knew who the chairman would be and at that stage already we expressed our concern in that regard. But it was not only this side of the House who expressed concern. Concern was expressed throughout the country by prominent writers and complaints were also aired in newspapers and bodies supporting the Government in regard to certain aspects of the composition of the Publications Control Board.

Let me deal with a few of those aspects. Firstly, of the 11 members appointed no fewer than nine are Afrikaans speaking and two are English speaking. In other words, in a country where you have two major language groups divided roughly into 60 per cent against 40 per cent, there is nearly a 85/15 per cent division between the Afrikaans-speaking and the English-speaking section on this particular board. I make no apologies for objecting to that. I am Afrikaans speaking, but as an Afrikaans-speaking South African I believe the Afrikaner should treat his English-speaking fellow citizen on an equal footing and that was not done in the case of the appointments to this board to which only two English-speaking and nine Afrikaans-speaking persons were appointed.

Are they all bilingual?

I accept that they are all bilingual. Here we have a peculiar new yardstick, Sir. In other words, as long as a person is bilingual and he is Afrikaans speaking, he can be appointed in preference to an English-speaking person even though that English-speaking person is also bilingual! I fully understand why that hon. member is satisfied with the board, because there is another complaint about it and that is the lack of balance between university representation from the north and the south on this board. For example, two lecturers from Potchefstroom and two from Pretoria were appointed to this board and only one from Stellenbosch and one from the Cape Town University. We realize that the Government considers the Cape Province to be of very little importance, but has the Cape Province’s importance dropped to half that of the Transvaal where appointments of this nature have to be made? I represent a Transvaal constituency and am proud of it, but I believe that the provinces should be treated on an equal footing and they were not treated in that way as far as the appointments to this board were concerned.

You now want to exploit provincialism.

No, I want to avoid provincialism, and I want to prevent twice as many from the north as from the south being appointed. I do not even know whether any appointment has been made to that particular board from the Free State or Natal. But that is not all. When we look at the names, we have every reason to say that at least six of the 11, or rather six of the 10 members, because the other one is a woman, are associated with the Broederbond, that secret organization. [Laughter.] We know of the secret instruction that has been issued that when the Broederbond is mentioned in this House, there must be laughter. It is clear that that organization’s influence in the Publication Control Board is far too strong.

We should like to learn from the hon. the Minister how many instances there have been since the establishment of this board, where ferreters, to call them that, have lodged complaints with the board in connection with publications in South Africa. I am convinced that a great many of the complaints were of a petty nature. I should like to know how many there were and how many were ignored, and to what extent a witch hunt of this nature did perhaps succeed. I think many of the complaints raised last year by prominent writers and artists in South Africa about this Publications Control Board have proved to be well-founded. I know the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker) said that most of the 130 writers and 55 artists who objected to the legislation last year by way of a petition were of lesser importance, but we also know that a very prominent young lady, a writer, Ingrid Jonker, said her father’s allegation was ludicrous. I think what Professor Rob Antonissen said last year has indeed proved true. He said this—

When did he say that?

Before the law was passed.

Before the board was appointed?

Yes, before the board was appointed and I am convinced that had those writers seen the names of the people to be appointed they would have been shocked to realize how few real writers and real artists would be appointed to the board. You can go through the names, Sir. There are professors, there is a magistrate, there is a former inspector of schools, there is a music teacher, there is a former chief magistrate, etc. but only one or two of them have contributed anything worth mentioning to the literature or culture of South Africa and in saying that I am perhaps very generous. I want to go so far as to say that this board does not even keep the Minister fully informed as to its activities. Earlier this year I put a question to the Minister. I asked whether the board had placed any ban on films dealing with evolution and his reply was “no”, but in a supplementary question I pointed out that the Publications Control Board had indeed, a few weeks previously, published a statement in the Government Gazette that certain educational films were exempt, except those dealing with evolution. There are other similar cases. This board does not meet the needs the Minister hoped it would. [Time limit.]

The speech of the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) deserves to go down in the annals of Parliament as a new low in the field of what passes for criticism. I also want to remind the hon. member that the odium of an attack of this nature upon the hon. the Minister clings not only to the person of the hon. member—I know he is used to making this sort of odious attack; it does not worry him and he is quite happy acting in this way—but also to the whole of the United Party. Not only has he shamed himself but he has shamed the whole of the United Party as such. What was his criticism? He said that a Publications Board had been appointed to maintain a certain moral standard in South Africa as far as local and foreign publications were concerned. He was able to express no criticism whatsoever of the success that the board has achieved in its task of maintaining the moral standard which it is necessary for the board to maintain. He did not try to give one single example to show that the board has allowed publications which should have been condemned to come into the country or has condemned publications which should have been passed. What was his criticism? In the first place he criticized the chairman of the board. Let me say, not only on behalf of this side of the House but on behalf of the whole of South Africa and on behalf of the vast majority of those people from all branches of the arts who protested against the setting up of the Publications Board before the board was established, that the chairman of the board is a person who is completely acceptable to South Africa and her writers. Some of the leading lights amongst the 130 people who lodged that objection declared after Professor Dekker had been appointed that they were reassured and satisfied in regard to the operations of the board. Now that the board has been functioning for a year, those writers have re-affirmed the fact that they have full confidence in it.

How many of them do?

I am speaking now of eminent figures like N. P. van Wyk Louw, D. J. Opperman and other leading writers. I am not speaking now of the obscure sweepings of the side streets to whom the hon. member referred. I am speaking of people with a high moral authority in South Africa, people who acclaim the appointment of the chairman.

The hon. member also made an inane attack upon the question of the composition of the board on a provincial basis. He said that there were more Transvaal members on the board than there were Cape members. Has this country really not progressed any further than this petty approach of trying to arrange all matters on a provincial basis? Are there no practical considerations in this matter, considerations to which that party gives no thought whatsoever, through the medium of their thoughtless mouthpiece, such as the fact that certain work has to be done in Pretoria and certain other work has to be done in Cape Town and that the administrative seat of the board will from the nature of the case have an effect upon the question of the persons who will be prepared to serve on the board? Does the hon. member know who the people in the southern provinces were who were asked to serve on the board, people who for geographical reasons could not accept appointment? He must not talk such nonsense here.

But the hon. member then made the most ludicrous statement of all when he said that the northern universities had been given preference. If this party could be accused of being pupils of the Oaktown University, there would perhaps be some ground for that complaint. But the hon. member for Orange Grove has actually accused this party of having given preference to the northern universities. Obviously this is again as a result of the purely geographical consideration of where the work must be done. We want to congratulate the hon. the Minister most heartily indeed on the appointment of his Publications Board as far as the geographical distribution of its members and their qualifications are concerned. We want to make it known that the board’s first year of operations has been a highly successful one, not only because the United Party has been unable to attack it in any way—that party does not have the power or the insight to be able to attack anything. We want to declare that the work of the Publications Board has been a gigantic success because no accusations have been made against it from any artistic circles in South Africa on the grounds of a wrong decision on its part. We are grateful that the board has pursued its difficult task with circumspection. We say that no attack of any importance has been made against the board in connection with film censorship, although certain remarks have been made in this regard in the Press on a few occasions. I noticed that on each occasion when initially critical reports were published in regard to a decision of the board, the film critics of the newspapers concerned all agreed at a later stage that those films had been quite rightly passed. In other words the public, the experts and the creative section of the community who have dealings with the Publications Board have had no criticism to offer of the work of the board during the past year. They have expressed appreciation for the work that has been done and we appreciate the work of the hon. the Minister in this connection. We are so pleased that the United Party has to content itself with petty criticism passed by a petty member.

I will give hon. members a little time to consider the points raised by the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan), but I want to raise the matter of another appointment for which the hon. the Minister was responsible. I refer to a Press report in the Argus on Saturday night and in this morning’s paper, advising the public that a certain gentleman who is a member of this House had been appointed as a Senator to represent the Coloured interests in the Senate.

Order! The hon. member cannot discuss that matter under this Vote.

I can raise it under the Minister’s salary.

No, it has nothing to do with the hon. the Minister.

I do not want to go against your ruling, but may I just ask you …

Order! The hon. member cannot discuss anything in regard to the appointment of the new Senator.

May I ask whether this hon. Minister is not responsible for it?

No, the hon. member cannot discuss it.

Then I am very sorry.

The hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) approved of the appointment of the members of the Publications Board, but I must say that I for one was astonished—and, in fact, startled—to hear him referring to the 130 persons who joined in making certain representations to the Minister and did so publicly and openly at the time the Bill was being debated last year, as “opskraapsels en uitwerpsels uit die systrate”. Does he remember the names of some of these people?

I did not refer to all of them as such.

Then we must refer to Hansard again as usual! If this had been glossed over and nobody had said another word about it, that would have been exactly what the hon. member said, but now I draw attention to it and I ask particularly that the Afrikaans Press should publish his exact words, referring to these 130 people who made representations, being in some cases outstanding artists and authors and creative workers, some of whom have lent lustre to this country, and to Afrikaans—he referred to them as being “opskraapsels en uitwerpsels uit die systrate”…[Interjection.] I think that for a gentleman who has been referred to as a potential candidate for Cabinet honours, this is a horrifying statement to make. I have the privilege of knowing at least a dozen of these “opskraapsels en uitwerpsels uit die systrate” personally, and I leave it to them to deal some day with the hon. member for Kempton Park.

But let me deal with some of the activities, or perhaps lack of activities, of the Publications Control Board. Recently, I asked certain questions of the Minister of the Interior and I received certain replies. I asked whether any conditions or restrictions are imposed in regard to the age of the persons excluded from admission at performances of films at cinemas and drive-in theatres, and if so, what conditions and restrictions, and how and by whom are they enforced. The reply received was—

Therefore, since I was referred on 17 April to the police, I addressed a question to the hon. the Minister of Justice—

The answer to that section of the question was—

Fair enough. The second question was—

The answer to that was that in 1960 in respect of drive-in theatres there were no prosecutions, and for the years 1961, 1962 and 1963 there were also nil. So for four years running the drive-in theatres of South Africa are given a pair of white gloves each! In regard to the conventional cinemas during each year since 1960, in 1960 there was one prosecution and conviction, and none in 1961, 1962 or 1963. In other words, between the drive-ins and the cinemas, during the past four years, and throughout the country, there has been one prosecution! When I asked the Minister of Justice to make a statement in regard to the matter, he said: “The above particulars are self-explanatory.” But are they? A few days ago, I went through one newspaper at random, and by looking at the advertisements I soon discovered why the Minister of Justice says the explanation is “self-explanatory” and why the Minister of the Interior seems to be very reluctant to make a statement in regard to the enforcement of the regulations. I would remind him that when we were debating certain aspects of the Publications Bill last year in regard to films, the Minister insisted that he had to have certain powers because he said the morals of the people were entrusted to him—that ran like a thread through his entire argument—and some of the things that this Act was going to take care of was to ensure that “no person shall exhibit in public or in any place any film which has not been approved by the board, and when the board approves such film it may append such conditions as to any persons or group of persons belonging to a particular group or race”, and it deals with the question of age groups in regard to certain films. Then there is a long list of things which must determine the rejection of a film—if it hurts religious susceptibilities or is contrary to the public interest or is indecent or obscene or offensive—my time will not permit me to read the long list of evils with which this board can deal. But if you take a look at the advertisements in a newspaper, as I did a few days ago, this is what you find. A film called “Irma la Duce” is advertised, and everybody knows that its theme is based on prostitution. I am not concerned with whether prostitution is right or wrong, but the board says it is wrong. It is based on prostitution and it is shown at a drive-in, and in the advertisement they say: “A story of passion, bloodshed, desire and death, everything in fact that makes life worth living.” And then they say: “To-night is the night for a drive-in.”

We all know whose cinema that is!

Another drive-in showed another film to which a certificate is attached that it cannot be shown to persons between the ages of 4 and 12, and although there is this qualification about no children between 4 and 12 being admitted, it starts its advertisement by saying: “Children under ten years free.” Can you, Sir, explain to me how anyone who runs a drive-in can say that this film has been banned by the board in so far that it cannot be shown to children between the ages of 4 and 12, and can also say that children up to ten years will be allowed in free? We all know that the drive-ins are full of motor-cars laden with children under the age of 12 who see this kind of film. Here is a drive-in advertising a film called “Showdown”, and the advertisement says: “For action-lovers—gun-hot with evil”. If you are under four, it does not matter if you see evil! “Stormy with hate. Blasted with lawless men revealing the true historic facts of the West’s most shocking chain-gang goal, where men are trapped like wild animals.” There is another one I have here, “Tarawa Beach Head”. [Interjection.] Sir, that hon. member for Cradock now lolls back in comfort, but last year he was one of the loudest “protect our morals” noise-makers here. When “Tarawa Beach Head” is shown at the drive-in, it has below the title of the film in the smallest possible type, “No Persons 4-12”, but in the same newspaper, when it is advertised to be shown at a cinema in Muizenberg, there is no reference at all to any limitation on age. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) is one of the most pathetic figures. I want to voice my strongest objection to the methods he uses to blame and vilify honourable people. I cannot help but reply to the most irresponsible things he said here. The hon. member made use of those who objected to this Act. He created the impression that they are still objecting and have never been satisfied with the appointment of the board.

Some of them.

I do not know to which “some” he is referring now. The hon. member will recollect that there were also doubtful names amongst them, but that one of the objectors was no less a person than Professor N. P. van Wyk Louw, and great play was made of the fact that a man like Professor N. P. van Wyk Louw objected to the establishment of this board. Now the hon. member in this speech of his—I know that the Chairman will call me to order if I really give it the name it deserves—tried to blame and vilify Professor Louw and others to such an extent—nobody in the country will of course take any notice of it, knowing whence it comes—but I am compelled to tell the truth. In an open letter to the Burger, Professor N. P. van Wyk Louw said the following on 22 October in regard to the appointment of this board, and he was the man who spoke on behalf of the objectors, or the majority of them, the people who together with this side of the House want to combat pornography. I will not read the whole letter, but, inter alia, he says the following (translation)—

That is one of the hon. members to whom Professor Louw referred. He has said his say in regard to this board. He knows more about other things than about who the prominent academicians in this country are—

Yes, and alas, as long as there is a United Party, and alas, as long as there is still a place like Orange Grove, we will, alas, still have such an hon. member here, unless the voters of Orange Grove do wake up from their slumbers. Now Professor Louw says the following—

What has the hon. member done here? As the hon. member for Kempton Park has already pointed out, what difference does it make how many Afrikaans names and English names there are? In regard to the equal treatment of Afrikaans and English, the hon. member is living in a mediaeval era, where he wants to ascertain whether a Malan is Afrikaans- or English-speaking, and whether a Taylor is Afrikaans- or English-speaking, and if he does that he is lost. It is provided there that these academicians must be able, as Professor Louw put it, to judge any literature against the background of a wide world culture and to ascertain whether it is pornography or whether it is good for the country. But now the hon. member comes along with his petty arguments and asks how many of these people come from the northern universities, how many from the southern universities, how many have Afrikaans names, and how many come from Potchefstroom University of which the Minister is the Chancellor?

I did not mention it, but I wanted to know it.

Even if all of them had come from Potchefstroom, I would still have had the courage to appoint them if necessary. The hon. member is adopting a petty attitude, which only he can adopt. He cannot do otherwise. We must forgive him. We have the poor with us and we have him with us, and he will never change. But I just want to say that I commend this letter to the hon. member, I want to ask him further whether he can mention the names of any objectors—referred to in the letter written by W. A. de Klerk and a lady whose name I have forgotten—who are still dissatisfied with the composition of this board. Seeing that he has made an attempt to besmirch these people, I challenge him now to have the courage to get up and tell me which of these 130 objectors who at the time objected to this board still object to it, except perhaps on doubtful grounds like those on which he himself objects to it. In so far as this board is concerned, I leave the matter there. I am quite happy and satisfied with these prominent figures in our country. I think they have succeeded in the first place in instilling the confidence that whatever is art will see the light of day, but not pornography. If the public perhaps does not agree with me, then I just want to remind hon. members of what I said when I introduced that Act. I said that the best judge would always be the public. They give the judgment; they lodge objections, and the legislator and the members of the board must take note of the objections coming from the public. If the public is not satisfied with any literature, then the court is there to decide; the opportunity is given to go even up to the Appeal Court. If a book is published and the public is not satisfied with it, they can have recourse to the courts. Eventually the courts will lay down yardsticks for us. Let us not try to discredit the members of the board in the eyes of the public.

The hon. member also raised the question of costs. He knows as well as I do that formerly we only had censorship of foreign material; only imported literature was censored by the old Censor Board. Here we now also have censorship of domestic literature. We now make great demands of the members of the new board, and they cost us more than the old board cost us. We need the services of these people and the costs are fully justified. Just let me give a brief summary of what they have already done. They started operating on 1 November last year. I opened the first sitting of the board. Since then I have obtained the following statistics, because I expected these allegations to be made here: They received 871 publications. Of those 871 they approved 403; they rejected 363 and 105 are still under discussion; 48 weekly and monthly publications have been banned from the country permanently. These publications are not just lightly banned because perhaps there is a picture of a nude girl on the front page. They are judged according to their content. Of these 48, 33 were cheap publications consisting solely of photographs of nude women, without any written articles. I have the names of those publications here, but I would rather not mention them. Hon. members who are interested can find the names in the various Government Gazettes. I am just giving a summary. Thirteen of these publications are cheap sensational periodicals which mainly contain sex and murder stories, inter alia, Action for Men, For Men Only, Heatwave, Paris Nights, Daring Romances, Police Detective, etc. Two of those are periodicals containing communist propaganda aimed against the policy of this Government and the interests of this country. Among the periodicals banned there is also Assegai and Ebony. Then I come to the manuscripts of proposed publications submitted to the board: One was approved; nothing was rejected, and two are under discussion. Then there is resubmission of publications to the new board: There were five which had previously been rejected; in the case of two the prohibition was reaffirmed by the new board, and in the case of three the prohibition was suspended by the new board. Thus far there have been no appeals against any of the decisions of the board. Up to now only three scripts for the purposes of public entertainment have been submitted to the board. One of those was rejected because there was intermingling of White and non-White persons; one was approved subject to certain passages being deleted before being exhibited in public, and one is still under discussion. I am just giving this short summary to give hon. members an approximate idea of the work already done by this board. Hon. members should recollect that this board was appointed on 1 November only and really started functioning only as from the beginning of this year. I can give the House the assurance that this board, consisting of these prominent persons, does not just swallow anything; they make a thorough study of everything submitted to them before coming to a decision. I am impressed with the volume of work the board has already performed in the short period of its existence. The hon. member for Orange Grove made sneering remarks about certain members of this board, prominent members, who are not academicians. [Interjection.] The hon. member now objects only to the highly educated people. That is the result if one has uneducated people in Parliament; they simply object to all education.

The only accusation I made was that there was a number of Broederbonders among them.

Then the hon. member is apologizing. In so far as the censoring of films is concerned, there will always be a difference of opinion because tastes differ. What I am saying here now is also my reply to the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel). I did not see the films mentioned here by the hon. member. I was shocked to hear what the hon. member said. On the one hand it is provided that children from four to 12 years of age may not see a certain film, but on the other hand one finds that all children under the age of ten are admitted free to drive-in cinemas. I must say that I was shocked, but I do not want to shirk any of my responsibilities. I think notice should be taken of all complaints submitted in regard to films which are harmful to good morals. I also think that the members of the Censor Board should be guided by what is said in this House, whether it is said by a member of the Opposition or by a member of the Government. They should take note of it. They must build up certain yardsticks, and they must take note of the fact that there are certain things the public does not like. One continually sees letters in the newspapers in which people complain about one or other film. I think one should encourage people to write such letters, so that we can see what the public likes or does not like. I do not want to evade my responsibility, but when once my board has decided that children of a certain age group may not see a certain film, that is the end of the matter as far as I am concerned; it then becomes a matter for the police, and I think the hon. member should raise this matter under the Vote of the Minister of Justice. I can only apply the restrictions which the Act allows me to apply. My board has certain powers under the Act and they in fact make use of those powers. They decide that certain films should not be shown to children under 18 years, and in other cases they perhaps determine that a film should not be shown to children under the age of 12 years. In other cases again they determine that certain sections should be excised. I cannot exceed the powers granted to me by the Act.

I want to take this opportunity to say in the first place that in so far as this Publications Board is concerned, the amount voted for it is not excessive; that the persons serving on it are recognized experts, and that hon. members who make themselves guilty of accusing this body or any of its members of inefficiency and lack of expert knowledge should be very careful, because there are no facts to support such an accusation. I am not going to take any further notice of criticism which is not based on facts, but if any hon. member can point his finger to a member of the board and say: “That individual is inefficient and I ask you to dismiss him,” then I will go into the matter. It is their privilege to do so and I will then institute the necessary investigation.

I wish to raise the question of classifications in terms of the population register, which is relevant to this Vote, on page 90 of the Estimates. I am concerned with the Minister’s policy under this Vote. Sir, on 13 March I asked the hon. the Minister a question. I asked him what was the total number of adults still to be classified in terms of the Population Registration Act and how many of them were borderline cases as between White and Coloured and as between Coloured and Bantu. The Minister’s reply was extraordinary, to say the least of it. This is what he said—

Well, if that reply is to be taken at face value then I suggest it is a very serious admission of administrative inefficiency. Are we seriously to believe that there is no means available to this Government “at any stage”—to use the Minister’s words—“of estimating” or “indicating how many South African citizens and permanent residents there are in the Republic at any one time”? With great respect, Sir, I just do not believe it. Surely the hon. the Minister could have given me a reply based on the figures of the 1960 census because they have been available to us all for a very long time. The truth of the matter is that this information is readily available when it suits the hon. the Minister to divulge it. He told this House in 1962, of his own volition, that he still had to issue identity cards to 40,000 Whites, to 111,000 Coloureds and 108,000 Asiatics. If he had the answer then—clearly he has it now. The first half of the Minister’s reply suggested that neither he nor his Department took this question seriously, and I take exception to that. Sir, if you examine the second half of the question, what do you find? I asked the hon. the Minister how many White, Coloured and Bantu persons had asked to be reclassified since receiving their identity cards, to which the Minister replied—

Well, Sir, I wonder if the hon. the Minister can explain precisely what the difference is. If a person lodges a formal objection against his classification in one race group, then by implication, by a necessary process of logic, he wishes to be classified in another. I would like to ask, through you, Sir, what kind of answer the hon. the Minister thinks he has given to these questions? I think he underestimates the intelligence of hon. members on this side of the House if he gives us meaningless explanations of this kind in reply to perfectly valid and bona fide questions. Sir, the only serious attempt made to reply to my question was contained in the last paragraph in which the hon. the Minister said that for my information he would like to mention that no White persons had lodged objections but that the Department had received objections from 947 persons classified as Coloured and 2,986 classified as Bantu. Of course, no one in South Africa to-day objects to being classified as White. We are a privileged caste—that goes without saying. But what about the 947 persons classified as Coloured who have objected to that classification? They are hardly likely to be seeking reclassification as Bantu, and they, I suggest, represent the hard core of border-line cases under this Act, I doubt if that figure of 947 represents anything like the sum total of these unfortunate and bewildered people, many of whom have suddenly come to realize the appalling consequences to them of the administration of this Act. Sir, the important thing is this: Now that the majority of the South African population has been issued with population identity cards, the Government itself forced into making what can only be described as arbitrary final decisions on the classification of those hundreds of unfortunate people who are neither one thing nor the other. We knew quite well that it would come to this in the end. Sir, I would like to ask the hon. the Minister a question: Could he tell us what his Department intends to do about applications for reclassification or objections to classification received too late by his Department in terms of Section 11 of the Act? Hon. members know that Section 11, as amended in 1962, states that anyone who considers himself aggrieved by his classification can object to it within 30 days or within such longer period, not exceeding one year, as the Minister may allow. Sir, there must be hundreds of these objections lying in the files of the Department at the present time. There must be many hundreds of others who received their identity cards perhaps a year, or two years, ago and whose objections to their classification have come in too late. I am dealing with a whole mail basket full of them at the present time. I would like to ask the Minister if he is prepared to tell us whether he is prepared to give these people an extension of time; whether he is prepared to consider each case on its merits and to give an administrative decision. If that is the case, on what considerations will his decision be based, or is the answer to all those classified, whose objections have been lodged too late, going to be a flat refusal to reconsider the matter irrespective of the personal circumstances of the people concerned? I wonder if the hon. the Minister will be kind enough to tell us what his policy is in that regard. Will the Appeal Board still handle these cases, and have they still a right of appeal to the courts of law? As the hon. the Minister knows any such right of appeal to the courts of law hinges upon a decision by the Appeal Board itself. I do think that the hon. the Minister owes some kind of answer to many of these unfortunate people who have been living in nerve-wracking circumstances and in a state of suspense for a very long time.

Now I want to raise another point in this regard: An increasing number of letters which I have received recently from the Department on behalf of many of these people, referring to aggrieved persons objecting to their classification under the Act, cite the information given in the 1951 population census as evidence of the race group to which these people belong. Sir, perhaps it might be as well to remind the hon. the Minister—because the years go by so quickly—that the 1950 Population Registration Act was promulgated on 22 June 1950, and that the census was held in 1951, less than a year later. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister how he thinks the vast majority of the people in South Africa could possibly have been aware at that stage of all that was at stake. When they completed those census forms in 1951, with the assistance of an enumerator in most cases, how could they possibly have known, particularly the 947 to whom I have referred, that the hitherto peaceful pattern of their lives was likely to be destroyed? The information given by many of them at the time of the 1951 census may have been correct. There are many difficult cases; the hon. the Minister knows all about it. We know that where one party in a marriage was White and the other was mixed or Coloured, they may very well have decided themselves to put down their race as “White” or “Mixed” or “Coloured” on the census form, and we know also that many of these people, simple people, may very well have been influenced, as I have no doubt they were, by the enumerators when it came to the question of their race grouping at that time. [Time limit.]

The matter raised by the hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor) is a very tricky one. There were many hundreds of these cases which had to be investigated by the Department. There were many hundreds of people who thought that they had been wrongly classified and therefore demanded a reclassification. The Department has handled this matter in a very circumspect and praiseworthy manner right from the start. My experience—and I represent a constituency which also had its slum areas, which also had mixed residential areas resulting in the fact that I had to deal with many borderline cases—has been that these cases have been dealt with by the hon. the Minister’s Department with the greatest circumspection and sympathy. None of the people who asked for my assistance had any complaints to make about the way in which they had been treated by the Department. On the contrary, they had nothing but the highest praise for the courtesy and the helpfulness of the officials of the Department. I sincerely hope that the hon. member for Wynberg is not trying to cast any blame upon those officials. A very large number of these cases have been dealt with and disposed of by the Department over the years. The ever-dwindling number which now remains consists of the most difficult cases. The smaller their number becomes the more difficult are the cases. The most difficult of the difficult cases are those which the Department now has to deal with and I want to urge the Department not to act hastily. These cases are thoroughly investigated to ensure that justice will be done to all sections of the public. I want to make an appeal to hon. members who have to deal with people who have appealed against their classification or who have asked to be reclassified not to aggravate the task of the Department any further by encouraging these people to be difficult. There have been cases in which I have been approached by persons who have obviously been Coloured and when I have been convinced of the fact after having investigated all the circumstances, that these people have been quite correctly classified as Coloureds. These people argue that they voted previously as Whites and that their names appeared on the Voters’ Roll at Observatory or Woodstock or Mowbray, but these are people who ought not to be on the Voters’ Roll, as I have realized over the years. There are people who approach one and say: “I am employed at a factory as a White man where both White and non-White workers are employed.” There are other people who approach one and say: “I was educated at a sectarian private school where I received my education amongst Whites.” But, Mr. Chairman, these reasons are not sufficient to have those people declared to be White. Many of the people to whom the hon. member for Wynberg referred are people who ought to be satisfied with their classification. They are unable to make out any case at all for reclassification. As I say, my experience has been that the Department treats these people very sympathetically indeed. There are many difficult cases and the Department is trying to treat all these people fairly. Let me tell the hon. member for Wynberg that in my opinion the Department has never put a foot wrong in my constituency when it has had to deal with these difficult cases. We must not encourage Coloureds who are obviously Coloureds and who try to get away from their own race for their own reasons, often for political reasons. We had too much to do in the past with non-Whites who “tried for White”, who tried to desert their own people and who wanted to be classified as Whites because they had nothing but contempt for their own people, because they were not prepared to assist in uplifting their own people. They tried to be classified as Whites. If these people are classified as Whites they will discover that they are not happy. We have had cases where people have thought that once they had been classified as White they would find heaven on earth. After they have been classified as White, those people have returned to the Department and have said: “We are unhappy; reclassify us as Coloureds, which we really are.” We have many difficult cases amongst the Coloureds here in the Western Cape but the Department is trying to deal with this very difficult task in a very tactful manner. It is incumbent upon us as members of this House not to make the duties of these officials any more difficult than they are.

I think the hon. member who has just sat down has himself given all the evidence that one needs of the difficulties that this race classification Act provides, especially here in the Cape especially between the White group and the Coloured group. It is there that all the human tragedies occur. When the hon. member talks about people who try to flee from their own race group, people who “try for White”, as he put it, he must appreciate that there are these difficulties; he must appreciate that these people try to be classified as White for one reason. They never tried for White before because it did not affect them; it did not mean anything, but to-day it means a matter of livelihood or non-livelihood.

Nonsense.

No, it is not nonsense. Sir, before I go any further I want to agree with the hon. member that the members of the Minister’s Department have been very sympathetic in dealing with these cases. I have people in my own constituency who have worked as White, and if they are classified as Coloured people they lose their job, they lose their livelihood; they lose their status; their family loses its status, its normal way of life, has to adopt another way of life and live on a smaller salary. That is what race classification means. The hon. member must not talk about people escaping from their own race group and flying into other race groups, because many of these people have always been regarded and accepted as White people, and now suddenly out of the blue comes a thunderbolt into their lives. They have hanging over their heads a sword of Damocles. If they are classified as Coloured, when they have been regarded all along as White, it is virtually the end of their lives. I endorse the hon. member’s statement that these cases are dealt with sympathetically. The hon. member lives in the Cape and in the Cape there are more of these problems than anywhere else. We also have these problems in Natal, however, and the other provinces have the same problem. As the late Mr. Justice Fagan said of other legislation and of these people at the time, “The legislature had wisely refrained from drawing a dividing line where the Creator had blurred it”. Sir, that is the problem of the hon. the Minister and of his Department and of the machinery that he set up here. He is trying to draw a dividing line where the Creator had blurred it. The hon. the Minister knows as well as I do that there are cases where brothers and sisters are differently classified under this Act and, Sir, with it go all the human tragedies that follow a race classification. I know the Minister took the power in 1962, under the amending Act of that year, to appoint certain members of the public service to investigate any matters that required investigation under this Act. What happens often is that people are told to go and see the local representative. He has a look at them and then he tells them to bring their families along. The family is then paraded before that representative for him to look at so that he can decide whether in appearance they are White or not. It is an indignity to anyone, Sir, to be subjected to anything like that. I asked the hon. the Minister on a previous occasion what qualifications those persons had to assess whether a person was White or Coloured. I appreciate the fact that this is a difficult problem but if someone is accepted as a White person surely society’s judgment should not have the stamp of the judgment of an unqualified official in this regard put on to it.

There is another matter I want to raise with the hon. the Minister and that is the question of appeals. In terms of the Act the person aggrieved by a decision may appeal to the Appeal Board. There have been many cases where the aggrieved persons have objected and where their appeals have gone to the Appeal Board. It is quite clear, and the courts have so held, that you do not have to exhaust your remedies under the Population Registration Act—in other words, you do not have to go right through to the Appeal Board—before you go to Court. What has happened is that the Appeal Board has sometimes taken years to consider an application. This happened a long time ago. The hon. Minister’s attention was then drawn to it but it is still happening to-day. I am referring to the Population Register Appeal Board, Sir, under the Act. This Appeal Board sometimes takes years to decide on a case. That was obviously not the intention of the hon. the Minister. Any statutory appeal board is intended to give quick and cheap relief to the persons concerned. But exactly the opposite is happening in this case. It takes long enough to get a case heard in court these days but you can go to court and get an order on the turn. I have done it myself for my constituents. But you have to wait years for the board to decide on an objection to a race classification. One must remember what happens in the meantime to these people. The children cannot go to school because they have not got a race classification card. The parents may be suspended from work because they have not got a race classification card. These are the human tragedies this system brings about. They must know quickly one way or the other. The hon. the Minister must either have a permanent board or he must make some other arrangements in regard to appeals. I shall leave the question of the Population Register at that.

I want to deal with the question of passports. In the Commonwealth Relations Amendment Act it is provided that the Minister may deprive a person of his South African citizenship where he has made use of his citizenship of another country, i.e. where he has a dual citizenship. The hon. the Minister has not indicated what those acts are. One which springs readily to mind is the act of travelling on another passport. A number of South African citizens have a British passport by virtue of their birth. If they do travel on that passport it is not clear whether they will be deprived of their South African citizenship. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he will make it clear that this will happen in all cases or whether it will not happen in all cases. Because at the moment people are being told by the immigration authorities that they run the risk of losing their citizenship. When they travel to London on a British passport they are advised to change it there for a South African passport. My point is that there is no clarity and I hope the hon. the Minister will clear up the position. [Time limit.]

Sir, when my time expired I was talking about the 1951 census returns and the reliance the Minister places upon that information. Perhaps the hon. the Minister will remember that when the Minister of the Interior introduced the Bill originally in 1950 it was the late General Smuts himself who pointed out that enumerators in any census were not trained for the purpose of distinguishing whether a person was White, Coloured or Bantu. He pointed out that most of them were ordinary people subject to their own political prejudices and their own points of view; that they were mainly concerned with the mechanics of the thing. May I say, with respect, that if they were the judges of race grouping in any of these cases they can hardly be said to have been impartial. That is why I asked, by way of a question to the Minister, how much reliance he and his Department in fact placed upon this information. If your family is divided, if your family is half-White, or half-mixed or half-Coloured, what do you put on any census form? How could the people foresee in those days the mass of apartheid legislation that was to be passed in the next few years which would so vitally affect their lives?

I have letters here from the Department to prove the validity of what I say, to prove that in some cases the Population Registrar relies almost exclusively on the information given in the 1951 census, information which, I think I have already proved, may be entirely unreliable. Here I have a letter written in July last year and I want to read one sentence from it—

In other words, the sole reason given in that letter was the 1951 census. The next letter gives as evidence against an application for re-classification the following—

Not even declared, but “enumerated” as a Coloured person. Then they quote Mr. Justice Snyman’s 1960 judgment in support of that decision. I have so many of these letters, Sir. I shall be only too happy to show them to the hon. the Minister. I should like to know from him whether information given on a 1951 census form amounts to a statement freely and voluntarily given in terms of the amended definition of a White person in the 1962 amending Act. I should like to know whether that constitutes a free and voluntary statement. If it does then various complications arise because the Census Act of 1957 prohibits the use of any information in any register or any record (which would of course include information given to enumerators) as evidence in a court of law. In other words, if evidence given during a census, voluntarily or otherwise, is not admissible as evidence in a court of law, how can it be admissible as evidence for the Population Register?

The last question I want to raise is this question of divided families. I want to ask the Minister whether he is satisfied with his legislation in terms of which one party to a marriage can be classified as White and the other as Coloured? I have two letters from the Department confirming that in the one case the wife was classified as White, the husband as Coloured and in the other case the husband as White and the wife as Coloured. In the case of the one family the group areas inspectors visited the couple last year and the district generally and after investigation declared the area White. What is this family to do? They have three children aged 14, 7 and 3. As the law stands at the moment are those parents not liable to be charged under the Mixed Marriages Act as a result of their classification by the Population Registrar? Under whose classification are they to decide where they are going to live? Is the mother’s name to appear on the Voters’ Roll and the father’s not? She is a qualified European nurse. Has she to forfeit her job and in how many instances has the Department issued a Coloured card to one member of the family and a White card to another member? Members on this side of the House warned the hon. the Minister that this would happen when the Act was introduced. In terms of the 1962 definition of a White person any person claiming to be White must be able to prove that he has totally severed his association with the Coloured community and has established himself completely in the White community. In this respect the Department frequently quotes the judgment of Mr. Justice de Vos Hugo given in the Griqualand West Local Division of the Supreme Court in April 1962. To which community can such a couple claim to belong? The children of one of these couples are already deeply unhappy at school; must they now face the agonizing choice of acknowledging one parent and rejecting the other when they come to reach the age of 16 years and have to apply for identity cards themselves? If they decide to line up with their mother, to try for White, as the hon. member for Parow (Mr. S. F. Kotzé) says, are they expected, in terms of the judgment of Mr. Justice de Vos Hugo, to reject their father because he is Coloured? Mr. Chairman, we have got down to the bones of this Act; we have got down to the real hard core of the problem. We want to know from the hon. the Minister how he is going to solve these problems.

I want to know whether the hon. the Minister can give us answers to these fundamental questions. I shall be very happy indeed if he can. Firstly, where the one parent is held by his Department to be White and the other as Coloured, is he likely to have them charged under the Mixed Marriages Act after 20 years of marriage? Will he leave their classification as it is? Will he say it is irrevocable and that nothing can be done? Is he to leave those families to break themselves up in unhappiness and bitterness and strife because that is already happening—in case the hon. the Minister does not know it? Is he to classify some of the children of these marriages as White and the others as Coloured when they reach the age of 16 so that you will have a situation where brothers and sisters will be forced to sever their connections with their parents in terms of the judgment I have referred to, or will the Minister exercise his humanity—when I say “humanity” the hon. Minister will know in what sense I mean it—and give these people the benefit of the doubt? And will he tell us whether he is prepared to consider an extension of time to those people who objected to their classification, but whose applications came in too late in terms of Section 11 of the Act?

Mr. Chairman, I have so many of these cases. The hon. the Minister is no doubt tired of receiving letters from me about them but we should be very glad to have some kind of a reply. I should like to have an assurance from the Minister that he realizes that he holds the potential happiness or unhappiness of hundreds of these families in his hands as a result of the administration of this Act.

I want to refer to the compilation of the Voters’ Roll and the general registration which took place last year, particularly to the compilation of the roll affecting Coloured voters. My reason for doing so, is that we shall have a delimitation in a year’s time and this delimitation will be decided according to the number of voters appearing on the roll. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister is aware of the fact—I am sure he is—that a very bad job was done of the compilation of the roll as far as the Coloured voters were concerned, under the Separate Representation of Voters’ Act. There was no compulsion on the Coloured man to register. The enumerators called and asked: Where is So and So. They were told: He is away. And his name simply came off the roll. No inquiries were made, except in very few instances, as to whether or not people resided in those premises who qualified for registration in terms of the law. Various speakers in this House have made political capital out of the fact that the number of voters on the Coloured Voters’ Roll has declined steadily. But that is due to the bad job that was done. It is also very difficult for a Coloured person to register. The rules are irksome and the regulations are so tight that many of them neglect to register. As the hon. the Minister knows the Voters’ Roll in 1963 dropped to 9,795 from 23,435 for the four seats in the Cape Province over a period of five years. That surely cannot be a satisfactory state of affairs. It is said by the Coloured community that it is possibly, the Government’s intention to let their numbers gradually dwindle by taking no interest in them, so that eventually the seats for the Coloured Representatives in Parliament will fall away by default. I, of course, do not subscribe to that. The difficulty is that a Coloured person must occupy a house of a given value, earn a wage of a given amount and be in continuous employment or be a diamond digger. As you know, Sir, his application form must be signed in the presence of a competent witness, who must belong to a specified group of people. I think the time has arrived for the hon. the Minister to look with great care into the spending of public money on the compilation of a Voters’ Roll as poor as the one which was compiled in September last year. I want to ask the Minister to give some consideration to having another registration. Because of the fact that we have parallel Voters’ Rolls for Coloureds and Whites many enumerators were quite disinterested in the Coloureds. I do not know what method was used in the selection of the enumerators but whatever method was used, the men selected were not really people competent to do the job. The result is that we have the existing state of affairs.

One other point I should like to make is this. The Government saw fit, when registering people in the Transkei, to have such a simple form, that it is almost too simple to be true. It can be said that that was a different type of election and that that was a different type of voters list. I have no doubt that a very simple form will be evolved for the new Coloured Representative Council we have recently agreed to in this House. I cannot understand why the form for the Coloured man is made so difficult. The Coloured people think—and no amount of persuasion will make them think otherwise—that the intention is eventually to get them off the roll altogether. The hon. the Minister must have had complaints brought to his notice. If he has not, I am bringing them now. There is a great deal of dissatisfaction amongst the Coloured community at the way that roll was compiled.

I also want to deal with the difficulty the Coloured man experiences if he happens to be blind. There is a special form for a White blind voter which a person authorized by the applicant may sign on his behalf and register him as a voter. I have a case of a Coloured person who was on the roll. He became blind under unfortunate circumstances. The only way in which he can register is to struggle in his blindness to write his name, his occupation, his address and the date in the presence of a competent witness. I am not going to ask whether you have tried that, Sir, because you will find it impossible. He could not complete the form and his name was taken off. I am not talking about those people who want to register for the first time. I am talking about those who are on the roll and become afflicted by blindness. Why this differentiation between the White blind voter and the Coloured blind voter when they wish to register?

These are matters which exercise the minds of the Coloured community. I do appeal to the hon. the Minister to give serious consideration to looking at the Coloured Voters’ Roll again and getting his Department to make some effort to ensure that the roll is redone, or added to, by the State, and not leave it to the interested parties to see to it, that the thousands of people who should be on the roll, but who are not, get on it. I shall leave the Voters’ Roll on that note.

I would like to refer just briefly to the remarks of the hon. member for Parow (Mr. S. F. Kotze) on classifications. I am not going to go into the pros and cons. That has been very ably done by the hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor). I do think the hon. the Minister should know of the indignity, the sadness and sorrow which are inflicted upon people in this country because of the classification of what are called border-line cases. I often wonder, Sir—and I say this quite kindly—how much time did hon. members in the Government party spend, before they were born, figuring out that they would not be born Black.

How can you figure that out before you are born?

The White people in this country did one clever thing. They chose their parents with extreme, exact and accurate precision. I want to say quite frankly that the Minister’s Department is most co-operative. They do go out of their way. Nevertheless I think the time has come when this whole process of classifying border-line cases should be tempered with a little of the milk of human kindness. The people need it; they need it badly. I see my time is just about expired so I shall leave it at that.

I forgive the hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor) from the bottom of my heart. I forgive her because she is such a newcomer to this House. She spoke about the population register, a matter which has been discussed by other members since 1950. Although she has had so little experience in this House she nevertheless went so far as to take this opportunity to make a speech here which really did not become her, a speech in which she posed as the great champion of the reclassification movement, in spite of the fact that my Department has investigated every case with the utmost care. I want to thank the hon. members for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) and Karoo (Mr. Eden) very heartily indeed for having assured my Department of their support. The hon. member for Wynberg gave the impression that my Department was in reality most unsympathetic in dealing with these cases.

I did not say that.

I say that the hon. member gave that impression. She delivered a tirade on all the misery that has been caused and she spoke about all the questions that we could not answer. I shall come back to each individual matter. If the hon. member had been a member of this House in 1962 when the new definition was discussed, and when we gave so many assurances in regard to the manner in which we approached these cases and the way in which we wanted to be of assistance, she would not have criticized the Population Registration Act of 1950 and the 1951 census in the way in which she did. She is not satisfied that the court and the Department should make use of that information. Section 3 of the Population Registration Act clearly states—

I know that.

I know that the hon. member knows it but she is being obstinate. I know that the hon. member can raise any matter at all in terms of the rules governing debate but because only I and my Department can make use of the information obtained for the purposes of classification, as prescribed by law, this is not the time to make representations for the amendment of the law. That can be done at some other time. We cannot discuss and criticize existing laws at this stage. The criticism that I enjoy receiving is the type of criticism expressed by the hon. member for Durban (North). He lodged a definite objection and I shall give him a full reply. Criticism of the action taken by my Department under a certain Act or the Administration by my Department of that Act is criticism that is not permissible. I cannot reply to it because it is really not relevant. I may not reply to it. Those are provisions of the existing Act.

I shall try to resolve a few of the difficulties of the hon. member. As far as the people affected by Section 11 are concerned I want to assure the hon. member that we shall consider every case on its merits. I think that she has already had experience of this fact because she is well known to us as a correspondent. We try to stretch the provision of the Act as far as possible. We have never told people that the only reason why their applications could not be reconsidered was the fact that they had applied too late. We give them two reasons. The one is that they applied late and the other is that we have no reason to believe that a reclassification will be successful because they have already made previous applications and no new information has been submitted. The hon. member must bear this in mind. The hon. member objected to the fact that we would not make an estimate, that we could not reply to her one question. She objected to the way in which the question was answered. If a question is answered in this way I think she should come to my office or discuss the matter with the Secretary. We will then be able to give the hon. member the facts. We have often tried to make estimates but it is extremely difficult to do so. The Act provides that the State President shall proclaim the date with effect from which identity cards will have to be carried. That is the only way. So many factors influence an estimate; people die and people move; they change their addresses. In this connection I just want to tell the hon. member about some of our problems. I have here the latest report of the Department. During the period 1 January 1964, to 31 March 1964 we received 42 applications for reclassification, 28 from Coloured to White, five from Asiatic to White, Malay or Coloured and nine from Bantu to Coloured. Up to 31 March 1964 altogether 3,940 objections were received, including the 42 I have just mentioned. I want to tell the hon. member what our problem is. Our first difficulty is the objections that are dealt with by the Race Classification Board. In 231 cases the board amended the classification of the Population Registration. Forty-seven classifications of the Population Registrar were ratified by the board. There are eight applications that have still to be considered by the board. Let me just tell the hon. member for Durban (North) that seven of these applications are from persons who have been classified as Chinese and one from a person who has been classified as an Indian. Three fall in the Coloured/White group. The hon. member for Wynberg wanted to know how many cases there are. She says that we cannot give her the figures. I am now giving her this information in regard to the number of applications that have been received. Let us see what has happened in regard to these objections. I mentioned the total of 3,940 objections. Of this number 2,663 cases have been disposed of and a further 302 cases are under consideration. We are dealing now with a population of 16,000,000. Just think of the inflated idea which the hon. member for Wynberg has and the impression she has created! Listening to her, one would say that the whole country was in a state of uncertainty. She said that these people are on the point of a nervous breakdown; there are so many of them who cannot go on any longer as the result of the negligence of this Department and this Minister who is not acting in the right way! I say that there are 302 cases under consideration. Let us look now at the other side of the picture. There were 686 cases of people who objected but who did not reply to correspondence—perhaps they were put up to it, I do not know—or who withdrew their objections or who died before finality was reached. This number therefore is more than twice the figure of 302 cases which are still under consideration. My objection to the hon. member for Wynberg is that an uninformed person listening to her speech would really think that there was a terrible state of uncertainty in our country and that a very large number of people were affected. We have to deal with people who are not well informed and with whom it is difficult to correspond. Not all of them have people acting for them; some of them do the work themselves. I want to give the House the true facts. In this regard I want in passing to reply to one point raised by the hon. member for Durban (North) who spoke about the long postponement of appeals. In 1962 when the definition of “White” was changed, I made it very clear that it was my intention on the classification of a person as a White person to use as my only yardstick the amended definition adopted by this House in 1962. I am not discussing the merits of the case now. The hon. member for Wynberg spoke about the merits of the case but my actions are governed entirely by the definition. That definition was approved by this House; it is the law of our country. We cannot make laws one day and then break those laws again the next. In my speech at the time I said that we would act on this definition. A difference of opinion arose amongst lawyers during the recess of last year. There are persons who contend and who are of the opinion that people who were classified as Coloureds by the Secretary for the Interior before the definition was amended should, when they object to the classification and submit that they are White, have their objections considered in the light of the old definition of a White person. One group of lawyers expressed that opinion. They said that people who objected to their classification before the definition was amended should be dealt with in terms of the old definition. There were other lawyers—whom I consider to be correct, but who am I to judge—who adopted the attitude that if there was any doubt at all, the definition of 1962 should be the decisive factor. In most cases and from the nature of things the setting up of these ad hoc boards for hearing these appeals takes up a great deal of time. This was one of the reasons I gave the hon. member. But this difference of opinion that arose between the two legal schools of thought caused so much doubt that it aggravated matters. I hope shortly, within a few weeks, to arrive at a definite solution in regard to this matter and to have certainty in regard to our line of action. I hope too that what will have to be done will be clear from our existing legislation. But if there is the slightest doubt at all, I shall introduce amending legislation to ensure that the application of the definition of 1962, the definition of a White person, is placed beyond all doubt—that it is that definition of 1962 which must be applied.

I have already said that up to 31 December last year there were only 12 persons who had applied for re-classification and whose applications had still to be considered by appeal boards. Of these 12 cases there are seven cases of persons of Chinese descent who want to be classified as Whites; there is one case of a person who is classified as an Indian at the moment and who wants to be classified as a White person and there are three cases of persons classified as Coloureds who want to be classified as Whites. These are the people who have appealed. It was the hon. member for Durban (North) who said that these appeals took so long to be heard. I hope that we will have clarity in this regard but if any further doubts exist I shall introduce the necessary amending legislation, during the present Session before Parliament is prorogued, to remove all doubt as to the validity of the 1962 definition. I hope that the hon. member is satisfied with my explanation in this regard.

The hon. member for Durban (North) also mentioned the question of passports. As far as the question of passports is concerned I have issued the instruction—I hope that we all love and take a pride in our country and that we shall therefore comply with the instruction—that when a person also possesses the passport of a foreign country—not necessarily a British passport—we require that person to use his South African passport—without his being unreasonably compelled to do so, particularly when the economic survival of such person is affected thereby. If he does not use his South African passport when he should make use of it I have the power under the Act to deprive him of that passport. But this is not done until such a person has been given a clear warning. Indeed, the hon. member also mentioned this fact. I insist that apart from the usual warning issued by an official, a letter should also be addressed to such person and that, where at all possible, such person should acknowledge in writing the receipt of such warning. I may just tell the hon. member that in all cases where people have approached us after having been sent this notice and have put their case to us and have explained that they have, for example to travel in certain African countries—except Ghana where they have to sign a certain document—for business reasons, that they have to visit countries which are not well disposed towards us, we have met them as far as possible. The other day I dealt with the case of a young lady who wanted to visit certain countries for the purpose of further study, countries which are not very well disposed towards us and which do not recognize our passports, countries like India. I gave her the right to make use of the passport of another country. But the people who are deprived of their South African passports are those who simply tell us that they value their British or German passports, or any other passport, far more than they value their South African passport. In other words, they as much as tell us that we can take their South African passports. They are people who do not intend returning to our country for various reasons. I do not think any hon. member will object when I say that people who attach so little value to the citizenship of our country, who despise it to such an extent that they do not want to make use of the passport and travel documents of our country, must suffer the consequences. I shall continue to act in this way because I think that it is in the interests of the country that we make use of the travel documents of our own country instead of making use of the passport of a foreign country for our own convenience—perhaps in order to pass through Customs more easily or for some other reason.

The hon. member for Wynberg is very concerned about what happens in the case of a father who is White and a mother who is Coloured. She asks whether we will prosecute such cases under the Mixed Marriages Act. It is not our task to prosecute; that is the task of the Department of Justice. I have nothing to do with the Mixed Marriages Act. I only have to deal with classifications. But I do want to say that I am in full agreement with the hon. member that cases in which members of the same family are classified differently are sad and pathetic and that we must try to assist these people as sympathetically as possible. That is why we give them all the help we can. That position cannot remain as it is. I agree with the hon. member that we shall have to condone many of these cases. Indeed, we have already done so and I hope that we shall continue to act just as fairly in the future because we cannot allow those people to suffer.

In conclusion I want to tell the hon. member for Karoo in connection with the registration of Coloured voters that we cannot compel the Coloureds to register. There is this difference: One can compel a White man to register but one cannot compel a Coloured man to register. The application forms are obtainable everywhere but the Department is not responsible for the registration of these people as voters. Whoever applies for registration is in terms of the provisions of the Act either registered or omitted, although there is no deliberate omission. I do think that the Coloured Representatives should tighten up their organization somewhat and help these people to register. That is what the Whites are doing to-day. They are going from house to house to assist people to register. The Coloured Representatives will have to do their share in this connection particularly as the Coloured people are often less well-informed in regard to these matters.

I appreciate that the hon. the Minister has indicated that he will apply the passport laws with as much flexibility as possible. However, the Minister has not yet made the position clear in regard to those people who might travel with a British passport. As the Minister has indicated, there are some countries in which it is not advantageous—for instance when you want to do business there—to have a South African passport because you will probably not get further than the airfield. I know of South Africans who had to travel either to or through India on a South African passport with the result that they were separated from the other passengers and placed in an hotel either at the airport or somewhere else. But be that as it may. What the hon. the Minister is doing here is to provide, for business purposes, for what I might describe as a second-class citizen—to use words which are not my own. Such a citizen can use whatever passport he pleases. But I, speaking for myself, cannot get a British passport …

What do you want one for? What do you want to do with it?

I do not want one. But if I want to go and do business somewhere …

What do you do then?

Well, what do I do then? That is a question I want to put to the hon. the Minister! He cannot give me permission to use a …

If you are not entitled to a British passport, how then can you get one? I cannot help you with that problem.

Precisely. You know, Sir, all people are equal, but some are more equal than others and these in this case are those entitled to a foreign passport because their parents were born somewhere else or for whatever reason. What I want to ask the hon. the Minister is whether he can make it clear to people who travel on a British passport…and here I want to say that there are a lot of people who had a British passport before the Commonwealth Relations Act was passed in 1962 and who still have such passports which they are entitled to use. I think therefore the hon. the Minister must make it clear to those people by saying to them that if they do travel on a South African passport without his prior permission …

That if they misuse that passport they are in danger of losing it?

Now, when does one misuse it?

That is in my discretion.

I know it is in the discretion of the hon. the Minister but my point is that a person does not know beforehand whether or not the Minister is going to exercise his discretion in that person’s favour. This is my difficulty. In other words, if a person travels on a British passport while he is entitled to travel on a South African passport, he does not know as things are now whether he will be deprived of his citizenship or not. Let me give the hon. the Minister an illustration of what can happen by referring to a recent case. Someone who, if you take account of the dictum: “Ignorance of the law is no excuse”, should have known better but in fact did not know what the law was in terms of the Commonwealth Relations Act of 1962, left Durban on a British passport. She had this passport for years. When she left Durban, the immigration authorities warned her to be careful as to what was happening in terms of the existing law and that she might be deprived of her South African citizenship. She was also advised that upon arrival in Britain she should go to South Africa House and exchange her passport for a South African passport. The reason for telling her that was because it was too late at that stage for any steps to be taken in this country. As I understand the law I agree that is what she should have done. But that traveller might say that she kept her British passport because she thought she might possibly travel through Ghana, or step off at Accra to do some sightseeing. I request the hon. the Minister to make it clear to people that if they do travel on British passports when they could instead have used their South African passports, they will then run the risk of losing their South African citizenship.

I have a much easier way out.

The difficulty is that people do not realize what is happening. They think they can travel on foreign passports instead of on their South African passports without any danger. They really think they can only lose their South African citizenship if they commit some sort of hostile act towards South Africa. The point I am trying to make is that they do not know whether the fact that they travel in this way does in fact constitute such a hostile act, an act which the hon. the Minister described as being inimical to a person’s South African citizenship. I understand the hon. the Minister’s attitude to be that travelling under the aforementioned circumstances is not consistent with being a good South African citizen. If that is in fact so, let the hon. the Minister warn everyone that that is the de facto position. Otherwise people are in ignorance. If the Minister makes the position clear then there will not be any doubt. What might happen is that a person leaves the country with a British passport and half-way obtains a South African passport. Now, is the fact that he travelled on a British passport on the forward journey going to count against him? In other words, when they land in South Africa on a South African passport, will action be taken against him on that account? You see, Sir, there are these difficulties and I hope the hon. the Minister will clear up the position.

Now I want to come back for a moment to the Population Registration Act. I do not think the hon. the Minister was quite fair in his reaction to the point raised by the hon. member for Wynberg. That hon. member wanted to know what the hon. the Minister’s policy was in relation to certain things that were happening. She mentioned, for instance, the case of a wife and husband differently classified.

But I replied to that.

But I am sure the hon. the Minister thought the hon. member for Wynberg was having a dig at the Department and its officials. I am also quite sure that the hon. member did not intend that and I hope the Minister will take her remarks as they were intended. The Minister has, after all, said that he liked to hear of these difficulties so that he can sort them out. The hon. member for Wynberg is, as the Minister pointed out, a new member and she is coming across this sort of thing for the first time and it is refreshing to see what sort of reaction this does have. I think it is a good thing for a new member to remind us of something which some of us are taking for granted. Now, what is the hon. the Minister going to do about these people? I had to deal with a case the other day of a woman who was pregnant. She had already had a child by the same person and was expecting a second by the same person. However, she had a Coloured classification card and consequently they could not get married. What does one tell them now except that she must get her classification card changed? The test was so different in terms of the definition of 1962. As that stood, prima facie, she was in difficulty about getting her classification card. I must say that I advised them that the only thing they could do to get out of the terrible predicament they were in, was to get married because in terms of the Mixed Marriages Act they were entitled to get married.

Now, this is the ridiculous situation we are in. What I want to tell the hon. the Minister—and this, I think, is also what the hon. member for Wynberg wanted to tell him—is that where we get such a situation where in terms of the Mixed Marriages Act they are entitled to get married while in terms of the Population Registration Act the woman is not entitled to a White registration card, will the hon. the Minister in all cases like that exercise his discretion in favour of the status quo, in this case of the marriage and of the classification of the people concerned as Whites? [Time limit.]

I want to reassure the hon. member as far as the use of passports is concerned. My policy in regard to the use of dual passports is that if a person wants to make use of a British passport—as an example—such person ought to write in advance to the Department and inform the Department that it is that person’s intention to use his British passport. He must explain to the Department why he feels that it is necessary for him to use a British passport. If he does this the Department will let him know whether it will be in order for him to use that passport or whether, if he does make use of a British passport, he will be running the risk of losing his South African citizenship. This is clear enough and I think that everyone should be urged to follow this procedure. My Department does not know who the people are who are still in possession of foreign passports until, of course, they use those passports.

As far as the second matter which the hon. member raised is concerned, I must say that I cannot answer in regard to individual cases like the “hard case” which the hon. member mentioned. I must know the facts and the background to the matter before I can reply to him. The hon. member told us about a pregnant woman who already has a child and who has been classified as a Coloured. I do not have all the facts of and the background to this matter. I want to ask hon. members please to refer individual cases of this nature to the Department so that they can be properly investigated. In this connection I think that there are numbers of hon. members opposite who can testify to the thorough way in which every case is investigated and to the fact that a full explanation is given of the reasons why a request can or cannot be complied with.

I think everyone will admit that the consideration which is given to special cases by the Minister and his Department is almost always very sympathetic indeed. I have certainly never had any occasion where I have had anything but the most courteous and sympathetic response when any individual case is taken up. I think it is one of the tragedies of this country, this Alice in Crazyland world in which we have to live—pigeonholing people, cutting up family trees and sending one branch down this river and the other branch down the other river—and that one should have to appeal to sympathy. But the laws are there and it is reaching the stage where the lives of families, and the generations to follow them, have their whole future course determined by the sympathy or otherwise of the person who deals with that particular case, and it depends on whether the person wakes up in a good or a bad mood, and that can be the deciding factor which determines the whole future not only of one or two people but of generations. I am prepared to say that the sympathy is nearly always there, but it is tragic that this should be the situation and that the Minister who is responsible for administering this complex task should find himself year after year coming before this House and faced with the need to deal with these problems. I believe the Minister should go to the Cabinet and say: These are the things which crop up year after year in the administration of this legislation, and for heaven’s sake let us try and sort it out and get down to a civilized basis which will make it unnecessary to have to appeal to the Minister. But I do not want to get involved in this field of the Minister’s responsibility, except perhaps to mention that the person entering South Africa strikes it even before he gets into the country. If you travel around and compare the ridiculous form that you have to fill in when you enter South Africa with the simple procedure on entering almost any other country—certainly any that I went to—the traveller begins to wonder straight away what he is coming into. If you go to England or France or the United States, there is a simple card which only asks you what your name is, where you will be staying and what your business is. But if you come into South Africa you have to give your pedigree and there is a lengthy form on which you have to fill in a whole host of questions, and the Customs Department adds to the paper work, and you almost need a private secretary to fill in the forms required to enter South Africa. It is typical of the approach we have to life that we have to do everything in this longwinded and complicated hed tape way. Surely this is an administrative matter. What on earth is the use of half the junk that has to be filled in on the form when you enter the country? And that applies not only to visitors, but also to South African citizens born and bred here, a person who has left the country on a passport issued by that Minister. His departure and his return have been authorized. He has all the details in the stud book. He is registered in the Population Register. He is classified as a White man, but he has to fill it all in again when he comes back to his own country. I hope this is one aspect of the rigidity and red tape administration which could be simplified in the interests of South Africa and our good name.

I want to raise one or two other matters with the Minister. The first is to ask the Minister whether he will give us a specific reply at this stage as to whether we are to have a delimitation of the constituencies in 1965, or if not, on what date. There is a provincial election which has to take place towards the end of this year or the beginning of next year. The parliamentary elections can, at the latest, be held in October 1966. It would be awkward to have a delimitation at this stage, in 1964. But the last delimitation was in August 1957, and in the meantime population changes have been taking place. We have the position to-day where some constituencies have double the number of voters that others have, and the Minister is in a dilemma. If he has a delimitation now, Members of Parliament will sit in this House for another two and a half years representing constituencies which no longer exist. If he has it next year after the provincial election, we will have provincial councillors representing constituencies which no longer exist. If you have it after the general election you will have the same thing for Members of Parliament. That is why I ask the Minister whether he has come to a decision on the matter because it seems clear that it is inevitable that you will have either provincial councillors or Members of Parliament representing non-existent seats for a portion of their period of office, and if that is so it would seem that this, being the higher body, should have the new constituencies, and it would be quite unreasonable to delay the delimitation to 1967, the latest possible date to which it can be delayed, and to have the situation applying for nearly five years where some members of this House would be representing hardly anyone at all, while others would represent more than the number of voters they should represent. That is the position which I asked the Minister to clarify. But there is another problem which I hope the Minister may be able to deal with immediately, and that is the re-aligning of polling district boundaries. The electoral officers have the power to change polling districts, but it seems that some directive should be given, and I would ask the Minister to give that directive. There are polling districts in existence to-day which are quite ridiculous, with from two to five voters. There are others which, due to the building of new roads, have become equally ridiculous. In an election which has taken place this week there is one polling district where voters must travel through three other polling districts to get to their own polling station. It is a simple matter and it is not controversial. It does not affect the constituencies, nor the over-all pattern, and I would ask the Minister to consider issuing an instruction to all electoral officers to call for recommendations from the political parties in their areas and to initiate the action which is necessary to clear up that position.

The next point, associated with the electoral procedure, is in connection with the new registration forms for voters, the new RVI’s which people have to fill in. The first point I wish to raise is the question on that form in regard to citizenship. [Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just sat down raised a few interesting matters here but in doing so he also revealed his ignorance. As far as the delimitation of polling districts is concerned the hon. member ought to know that the parties were given the opportunity before the last general election to make recommendations in this regard and it is certainly not the fault of the hon. the Minister if the hon. member’s party did not co-operate. I do not want this afternoon to criticize the recent registration of voters but I am sure the hon. the Minister will forgive me if I air one or two complaints. When he introduced the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill the hon. the Minister expressed the hope that every voter would be registered. He also expressed his concern over the fact that all voters were not registered. I must say to my sorrow this afternoon—and I want to prove it—that at the last general registration of voters it looked as though there had been a general disenfranchisement of voters—at least in some parts of the country. I just want to mention a few figures to show what happened in the Port Elizabeth-Uitenhage complex.

No fewer than 10,000 voters have disappeared from the Voters’ Roll since the supplementary registration in 1961. In 1961 there were 86,651 voters registered in the five constituencies concerned. Now, after the general registration, there are 76,418 voters. This loss of 10,000 voters is made up as follows: There are 2,329 fewer voters on the Voters’ Roll in Port Elizabeth (Central); 2,220 fewer in Port Elizabeth (North); 1,353 fewer in Port Elizabeth (South), 2,174 fewer in Port Elizabeth (West) and 1,127 fewer in the Uitenhage constituency [Interjection.] I do not rejoice in it like my hon. friends here to my right. On the contrary, I am worried about it. It is not my intention to accuse the hon. the Minister or his officials in this regard. I attribute this to the poor system of registration. I want to mention what happened in the Uitenhage constituency, for example.

No fewer than 191 applications for registration were rejected at Uitenhage and the reason for rejection was practically the same in every case, and that is: “Application form not signed by witness,” or “application form not signed by applicant”. This is what happens when the people appointed to do this work have no knowledge of the work at all and in many cases do not have the necessary sense of responsibility to do this work properly. I want to mention one example. In one of my polling districts, Bethalsdorp, there were 118 voters on the roll before the general registration. After they had been re-registered, and after the names of others had been added to the list, there were only 66 on the list. It may be contended that there was no expansion in this area. Let us accept that there was no expansion to speak of but after all the population did increase. In 1961 there were columns of advertisements offering houses for sale or to rent whereas to-day there are columns of advertisements inserted by people who are looking for houses. In other words, the houses which were unoccupied at the time are now occupied, so the number of voters must have increased. But there is also another factor. I have made a survey of the new houses that have been built in my constituency; 461 new houses have been built during this period and if we assume that three registered voters are accommodated in each of these houses it means that there should be an additional 1,400 voters there. But in the result there were 1,100 fewer voters after the registration! It seems to me therefore that in a constituency like Uitenhage between 2,500 and 3,000 voters have been disenfranchised instead of being registered as voters. It disturbs one to think that the State spends money to have people registered. At the same time, under the Electoral Act, people can be prosecuted if they do not register. We are pleased that the State does not prosecute them but that is the state of affairs that we have to-day.

The solution to this matter is very simple. If the hon. the Minister and his Department decide to remunerate the enumerators, the people who undertake the registration, on a per capita basis—20 cents or 25 cents per voter or whatever the case may be—we will find in the first place that these people will do very much better work. But there is something else we need in order to be assured of good work and that is that the people who undertake the registration ought to account for every house in the town. That is not done. After all, it is easy to obtain information from the municipality as to which premises are occupied and which are not occupied.

I only have these few suggestions to make. If the hon. the Minister did not have so little money at his disposal I would ask him to consider the question of having this registration done over again.

I wish to complete the point I was raising with the Minister in regard to the registration cards, firstly in regard to the question on that form as to citizenship. This is an extremely misleading question. It asks whether you have at any time given up your South African citizenship. Out of the rejected applications a very large percentage are rejected because of that question and the answer given to it, to the effect that people have given up South African citizenship. They are people who have gone to live in Rhodesia temporarily, or in other territories where, because they had the vote, they assumed that they had given up South African citizenship. But they are South Africans and they have never lost their South African citizenship; they have come back retaining it. Yet thousands of applications are rejected on the ground of citizenship. It is probably one of the biggest causes for refusing registration. I would appeal to the Minister firstly to change the wording of that question so that it merely reads: “Are you a South African citizen? If you have previously held any other citizenship, by what right do you now claim South African citizenship?” If it were worded in the positive sense, in other words, if you had any other nationality at any time and you consider yourself to be a South African now, by what right do you claim that, then people would understand it. But as it is now, they merely get a form to say: “You are not registered because you are not a South African citizen.” When a person gets that, what action can he take? He can only fill in a new card and where they said “Yes” last time they fill in “No” this time. There is no other practical step they can take to get back on to the roll. I am sure it is not the intention to victimize people or to take them off the roll wholesale, but that is the effect of it.

Another weakness on that form is that people living in townships where there is no postal service give their plot or street number, which is quite useless in so far as the organization of the political parties is concerned. I would ask that consideration be given to this question being worded in such a way that it reads that if this is not the postal address they must also state the postal address. There are a number of small townships in the outskirts of the major cities where they have streets and they have numbers, but there are no post office facilities. There is no way of contacting those people except by going from door to door. In the event of a query, of their not being in the Voters’ Roll, or being transferred, you cannot write them a letter. You have to go there to see them individually, and usually they are people who are not there during the day, and it becomes a very difficult problem. Therefore I ask that consideration be given to that aspect.

The third point is this. I think that in this year 1964 we could please have proper English on the RVI’s. It is really shocking and it makes your hair curl, to see “acquired” spelt “aqired”. It is just a little thing, but I think it should receive attention.

The next point I wish to raise is the one which was also raised by the hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Badenhorst). I agree with him that the registration is sadly lacking in results. There were doubts expressed about the procedure and the Minister met those doubts last year to the extent of agreeing that a supplementary roll would be brought into effect before an election was held on the new Voter’s Roll, but even that supplementary roll has not filled all the gaps, and I think something will have to be done by the Minister to ensure that the next general registration is done on a very different basis. I remember the assurances we were given, about the wonderful new system where you would have a leader in charge of an area who would check on each of his people, and it was said to be foolproof, but unfortunately it was not and something will have to be done. We cannot have another registration just prior to an election which will have the same results as this one. The hon. member for Karoo (Mr. Eden) pointed out what the position was in regard to the Coloured voters in respect of this general registration, and that a large number of people were disfranchised thereby. Without going into details, I would merely appeal to the Minister to give this matter his urgent attention. I think we will have to find quite a different method to ensure a proper registration next time. Perhaps the trouble lies in the miserable pay these people receive, the R20 which was paid to the enumerators. If there were a better incentive, it might perhaps help the position. But something has to be done to see that more conscientious people do the work and that the results are better controlled, to ensure that we do not have the gaps we have in this registration. I do not want to take the matter any further, but I bring these few administrative matters to the Minister’s attention in the hope that he will be able to deal with them.

This afternoon the Minister, when I spoke on the publications Board, saw fit to make a lengthy personal attack on me on account of certain things I had said about the board itself. I challenge the Minister to tell me where I even mentioned the name of a single member of that board and where I made a personal attack on any one of them. I made three statements in regard to them. The first was that there were a large number of Broederbonders on the board. If that is an underhand attack, it is for the Minister to say so. I said, secondly, that there was provincialism in the appointments, and thirdly, that there was not a fair proportion between the Afrikaans and the English members on the board. However, there is another matter I wish to raise.

This afternoon, after 13 long years, we at last have the bomb of the report of the Press Commission laid on the Table. The summary we have is incomplete, I admit, and it is probably difficult at this stage to form a comprehensive opinion of the details of the report. So we do not know whether this is an atomic bomb, a fizz, a water-pistol or a dud. However, certain things are reasonably clear from the report itself. It appears that this Press Commission which has sat for 13 years has not yet had the opportunity of actually dealing with the contents of the South African Press. I refer to the paragraph on page 2, which says—

So one wonders what this commission has been doing for the past 13 years. When one looks at the 130 pages, one thing which strikes one is that the Press Commission feels that the majority of the reports sent overseas by the representatives of newspapers abroad and of news agencies are either unsatisfactory or bad or very bad. In fact, there is a very wide field of attack on all these different agencies.

Of SAPA the report says—

Later on a further attack is made, or let me rather say, a statement made. I do not wish to regard these as attacks, but rather as statements. It is said that in SAPA’s reporting as a whole during the 1960 period there was a lack of balance and perspective. Associated Press, a huge world-wide agency, comes in for further comment. The commission says—

The United Press is attacked in similar terms. I believe that about 80 per cent of the reporting of United Press was regarded as bad. The Agence France-Presse comes in for a similar attack, and nearly all other reports which went over to Britain and to the U.S.A. are condemned in this report. In fact, I do not think there is a single outstanding newspaper in the world which does not come in for criticism in this report. Among the papers criticized are the New York Post, the London Times and the New York Times.

Why do you not read the report first?

I have read the full summary of it to-day, and if we have to read the full report it will take months and months to do so.

That is not true. (Jy jok).

On a point of order, is the hon. member allowed to say “Jy jok”?

If the hon. member understood Afrikaans properly, he would have understood in what sense I said it.

It is interesting to see the comments under the heading of “Garbled and Dishonest” which are made in regard to the New York Times. Commenting on the reporting done for the New York Times during this period, the commission states that the New York Times received from its representatives a garbled and dishonest report upon the South African political and racial scene—and so it goes on. The point is that we have during the past years been hearing of the possibility of steps being taken against the Press. We have heard threats over the S.A.B.C. as to what would happen when this report was published. Now the report has been published and we have it before us in an abbreviated form. It is quite natural that there has been a great deal of curiosity throughout the country as to what steps the Government is going to take in this connection. On one side there may have been joy; on the part of a great many people, I am sure, there has been alarm and uncertainty and dismay as to what will be the outcome of this Press Report.

There is one main recommendation in it—in fact there is only one recommendation in it as far as I can see—and that is that the Government should bring in a law to set up a Press Council, which will then take over much of the work done by the present Press Board of Reference and exercise discipline over and possibly control and advise the Press in South Africa. With these important recommendations in this report and with the suggestion that a board should be set up consisting of journalists and editors, representatives of the public and even of the Government and the Opposition, it is essential that the Minister should let the House and the country know as soon as possible, even possibly this evening, first of all whether he accepts the recommendations contained in this report; If so, which of these recommendations does he regard as important and does he primarily accept; secondly, does he intend introducing legislation this year in regard to this matter and can he give us a general outline of that legislation; thirdly, when can we expect such legislation; fourthly, is he contemplating any other steps in connection with the Press in South Africa and can he tell us what those steps are going to be; fifthly, can he tell us whether there is a possibility—I hope there is—of also bringing the S.A. Broadcasting Corporation under this particular Press Council. I believe that having regard to the great interest shown in the Press report, having regard to the fact that it has covered almost the whole of the world’s Press—newspapers in France, in Germany, in Holland, in America and in Britain—the whole world is probably waiting to hear what the hon. the Minister intends to do in regard to this report. I am sure that he will be studying it most assiduously and that the uncertainty which exists at the moment in the minds of the people who are concerned about the freedom of the Press in South Africa, will be removed as soon as possible, and that we shall soon hear from the hon. the Minister.

I want to reply immediately to the questions put to me by the hon. member who has just sat down. He asked five questions but it is not necessary to give five replies. His questions can be answered quite briefly. This report was Tabled precisely 4¼ hours ago. In order to avoid any suggestion of leakage even none of my colleagues was given a copy of the report. The Press received the report 4¼ hours ago. It is a voluminous report consisting of 14 volumes, together with annexures. It is almost impossible for one person to handle it. For example, I could not carry it to the Table myself. It is an important report; it has taken years to draw up the report and the Government is certainly not going to allow itself to be rushed by the Opposition. It is not going to allow the Opposition to dictate to it when it should take its decision and what that decision should be. Nor does the Government at this moment share the fear of the Opposition that there is any degree of uncertainty in the minds of the public as to the intentions of the Government. I can perhaps go so far as to express the personal opinion that I do not think the Government will be able to introduce legislation during the present Session; that is to say, if it does decide to introduce legislation. This is not such a simple matter; there will be a great deal of work connected with legislation of this kind. This report will have to be studied. I just want to make it clear that we will not allow ourselves to be hurried by anybody because, after all, the responsibility for taking a decision in this regard rests upon our shoulders.

While I am on my feet I also want to reply to a few other matters that have been raised here. The hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) advanced a number of good arguments to which I want to reply. As far as the delimitation of polling districts is concerned, the hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Badenhorst) and other hon. members have pointed out that every political party and all members of the House of Assembly are always at liberty to inform the Department that in their opinion the polling districts in the constituencies which they represent were wrongly demarcated. Before a delimitation takes place the Department investigates, surveys and divides the polling districts into blocks, and these proposals are then submitted to the Delimitation Commission. The difficulty is that representations in this regard are always received too late. Hon. members should make representations about their polling districts while the delimitation is in progress. Let every constituency put forward its suggestions now; let every political party do so. All the political parties are free to raise the matter at any time and attention will be given to it.

The hon. member referred to the entry form and complained about the long series of questions which have to be answered. I can give him the assurance that a very simplified form is with the printers at the moment; his main objection to that form will therefore disappear. There are, of course, certain questions which will have to remain because that information is required by other bodies.

The hon. member wants to know when the next delimitation is going to take place. Unless the Act is amended, the next delimitation, as hon. members know, must take place before 1967. The Government has not yet decided when that delimitation should take place. The Government may perhaps decide to amend the Act in order to postpone the delimitation; I merely mention this as a possibility. I can give the hon. member no definite information in regard to the date of the next delimitation.

Why don’t you do your work properly? A decision has to be taken.

The hon. member need not worry about that. The Act provides that there shall be a delimitation at least once every 10 years. I can only tell the hon. member that if the Act is not amended a delimitation will take place before that period expires. He must contain his curiosity for a while. I have admitted that the registration was badly done. The hon. members for Durban (Point) and Uitenhage complained about this. That will always be the case. Even if we were to double the remuneration we would still not be able to hire the necessary people to do this work in view of the shortage of manpower. The political parties must help. But the position is really not as bad as hon. members have suggested. We had a general registration in 1958 and another one in 1963. Let me compare the figures for the two registrations. In the Transvaal 726,000 people were registered in 1958 and 829,000 people were registered in 1963. In the Cape, 553,000 people were registered in 1958 and 576,000 in 1963. That was an improvement. In the Orange Free State, 154,000 were registered in 1958 and 155,000 in 1963. In Natal, 168,000 were registered in 1958 and 195,000 in 1963. In South West Africa, 34,000 were registered in 1958 and 35,500 in 1963. The grand total for 1963 was 1,792,702 and for 1958, 1,628,885. I am not boasting when I mention these figures; I just want to remove the wrong impression that was given that this work was done very badly. It may have been done badly in the Port Elizabeth complex but that was not the case generally. Hon. members must also remember that a great deal of dead wood is removed after five years; some people have died in the meantime and others have moved but their names are still on the Voters’ Roll. That is why one has a general registration. On the other hand, those of us who have had experience of registration work know how difficult it is to find certain people at home. I refer to flat-dwellers and people like commercial travellers who move around. They have to sign the forms themselves. The forms are left at their homes but are never returned. That is why I feel that it is in the interests of the parties themselves to register their own supporters. A few additional registrations are always made in this way. The hon. member had a great deal to say about the RP1 form. I was shocked to see how poor the English was. From the nature of things one is not always able to give attention to all these minor matters. I want to assure the hon. member that I appreciate the remarks that he made. We shall go into all of them. We shall amend the RP1 form where necessary in order to make it clearer because our idea is not to keep people off the roll but to register them.

The hon. the Minister, having castigated the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) gave me “the soft answer that turneth away wrath”, which I appreciate—but it was not an answer to my question. It is not sufficient, I submit to the hon. the Minister, to say to me that in regard to the matter I raised about the type of films which are shown regardless of restrictions as to age groups at Drive-Ins, for example, I should address myself to the Minister of Justice. I submit it is not enough for the hon. the Minister to tell me that once he and the Publications Control Board have assessed a film as to the categories of persons who may not see that film, he and the board are no longer concerned with the matter, and that if there is anything wrong with the way in which the law is carried out, I should address myself to the hon. the Minister of Justice. He places me in a very difficult position. I think the hon. the Minister will agree that his relationship with the hon. the Minister of Justice is better than mine. I do not claim the existence of any friendship between the Minister of Justice and myself, nor do I happen to be in the Cabinet. The implementation of a law involves Cabinet responsibility, and the Publications and Entertainments Act is a law which the Minister told us last year was of the utmost importance in order to save what was left of the morals of the people of South Africa, as one hon. member on that side put it, and in order to ensure that South Africa’s growing children and youth would not be contaminated by the moral turpitude which would otherwise be spread throughout the country unless we had the Publications and Entertainments Act, and unless we had the Publications Control Board! Now we find that the hon. the Minister—very clumsily—side-steps me by saying: “I am shocked by what you have told the Committee this afternoon about the way children are allowed to see practically any film, but it is not my business and not that of the board”. I want to remind him that provision is made in the same Act for very severe penalties to be visited on those who do not comply with it. There is imprisonment as well as a fine. There is provision for a heavy fine even for the first offence. I think it goes up to R2,000 plus imprisonment for six months for the second offence, and so on. The fact of the matter is that the people concerned with cinemas and drive-ins, perhaps more particularly drive-ins, ignore this law completely. I want to give the hon. the Minister one example why he cannot be heard to say this is the concern of the Minister of Justice; after all the portfolio which he graces happens to have under its control the implementation of this Act and the activities of the board which was set up under that Act.

The example I want to give is the film to which I have referred before, “Showdown”. I spoke to Mr. van Wyk, the Deputy-Chairman, of the Publications Control Board on the telephone on the 6th of this month. He very courteously gave me the information I sought. I gave him the name of the film and asked him what certificate the board issued in respect of it. He said, a C certificate. That means that only Natives are excluded from audiences that may see it. I want to ask the hon. the Minister a question. Does that mean that children of any age may see this particular film? When you see an advertisement which is headed: “Children under 10 free”—that is the case in respect of all films shown at Drive-ins—and when the film “Showdown” is described as being “for action-lovers, gun-hot with evil, stormy with hate, blasted with lawless men revealing the true historic facts of the West’s most shocking chain-gang-goal, where men are trapped like wild animals”, does the hon. the Minister suggest that if this is in fact the contents of the film, the Publications Control Board should have passed it so that it be shown to children of all ages, and that, to add insult to injury, for nothing!? They can see this type of film for nothing, whereas I and others have struggled with the hon. the Minister for years to provide cultural amenities for our youth in the form of music, ballet, theatre, opera, etc., and to provide the necessary finance for it. Yet now, through the non-operation of the Act, children are allowed to see “free” entertainment of this sort! Who is the custodian of the public morals—the hon. the Minister or I? Why does he put me in a position of having to go to the Minister of Justice to inform him that his colleague, the hon. the Minister of the Interior, has a board, called the Publications Control Board, which passes films described like this with a C certificate, which means that all children can see it? Furthermore, that they take no notice of the fact that certain people are under a legal obligation to ensure that children are not admitted at all to certain films, and that they go even beyond that and advertise that children will be admitted free of charge! Why is this only my business? All of a sudden I have been appointed as custodian of the public morals! The Minister asks me to go to his colleague, the Minister of Justice, and make representations. Obviously, Sir, I cannot be placed in such a position, while the hon. Minister goes scot-free.

On these grounds, I want to appeal again to the hon. the Minister. It is not a question whether he or I wish to see a particular film, but it is a question of whether this law is necessary; it is a question of whether it is being implemented; and of whether he, as Minister, will now take the necessary steps to see that it is implemented. Let me give the hon. the Minister another example which might be brought to his attention any day from now. There is a certain film which has already started the circuit, as they call it, although it has not yet reached the drive-ins. But it is coming—I can promise anybody interested or concerned that it will be coming! This is a film called “Beach Party”. In the Cape Argus of 14 March 1964 this “Party” is being advertised as follows …

Have you seen it?

No. What is more, I cannot afford to go and see all these films. But I can tell the hon. the Minister what, apparently with the permission of the Publications Control Board and with the blessing of the Minister, is coming…with the approval of the Minister, I say, unless he takes certain steps about the matter. Now, this film was advertised as follows—

So, point No. 1 is that you have here a direct appeal to the teenagers, to the youngsters, in other words, of this country. Point No. 2, then it says—

That, Sir, means two to one blanket. Anybody can work that out! Point No. 3—

Point No. 4: if there is any doubt about the nature of this film, then read what is said in the panel—

Then the dates of release at the various cinemas are given and right at the bottom it says, quite proudly: “A Ster Film release”.

Now, what I want to tell the hon. the Minister is that we must make up our minds and say either that there is censorship, or that we have no censorship of films whatsoever…that is the position in some other countries. I am not prepared to say now whether I support either the one or the other standpoint. There are, however, countries where there is no censorship of films whatsoever. In certain states in the United States of America, for instance, there is no censorship in this connection, whatsoever. There you can take a baby of one year or a boy of 13 to the most vicious type of sexual film, in which every type of sexual perversion is being illustrated quite openly. Now, either we have this situation in South Africa, too, or we have the situation which we were led to believe was going to be created by the passing of the Publications and Entertainments Act last year, and by the establishment of this very expensive board—namely, a situation in which the board would be capable of enforcing its decisions, decisions which would always be on the side of the protection of the morals of the people, especially the young people of South Africa. In all honesty, we cannot have a situation which is in between these two situations. I have only given the Minister a few examples of the type of film that is being advertised nowadays. I cannot give him details of all the films that are even on this very day being advertised all over South Africa. But judging from those few examples I have quoted, there is something peculiar about the approach of the board to this question, about the approach of the Government and the Department of Justice to this matter—because not a single infringement has been noted in four years at drive-ins—and that despite the fact that policemen and other authorized persons are entitled to enter free of charge! Despite all these legal provisions, apparently nothing, in the eyes of the Government, is necessary to be done about the situation we have to-day.

Mr. Chairman, I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to a group of people who have suffered an unfortunate hardship through having lost their vote. There are, particularly in the coastal areas of Natal, a large number of people who for years have voted on the Common Roll. They were on the Common Roll because they were accepted as Whites. Their children went on the whole to White schools and lived in White areas. In Natal there are two separate groups of Coloured people. There is, in the first instance, the ordinary Coloured group who is very similar to the Coloureds of the Cape but with the exception that those in Natal do not speak Afrikaans but English being as they are a cross between non-Whites and Englishmen. In this group fall the family of John Dunn for instance and those groups in the northern areas around Dannhauser and elsewhere. They live more or less in groups consisting of single families. Then there is a second group of Coloureds in Natal who either came from Mauritius or from the island of Reunion or are the descendants of the people who came from these islands.

At one time there were a large number of these people employed on the Railways. During the time of the Natal Government the senior civil engineer came from Mauritius. He, knowing the reliability of his people, invited more of them to come over and join him to build the Natal railways. Others again came over on account of the sugar industry. There are many of them employed in that industry to-day, working side by side with their White colleagues and living in White areas. But a fairly high proportion of these people has since been classified as Coloureds. As long as they were regarded as Whites, they were on the Common Roll and when the Coloureds in the Cape were taken off the Common Roll, the Coloureds in Natal were left on that roll.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.