Mr. Speaker, with the leave of the House, I should like to withdraw certain words which I used in the Second Reading debate on the Suppression of Communism Amendment Bill and which reflect on legislation previously passed in this House, namely, “in the tradition of other miserable little pieces of legislation affecting the freedom of people who may well have acted in good faith at the time they supported certain organizations”.

The House will be aware that when this clause was debated in 1962, the insertion of this clause in the Suppression of Communism Act, there were certain amendments moved at that stage in an endeavour to improve this clause. They were rejected and this side of the House voted against the insertion of this clause in the Act. We object again to-day, and I rise to move the amendment standing in my name, and to endeavour to prevail upon the hon. the Minister of Justice to accept an amendment which we believe will improve thé clause as it now exists. The Minister will note that in terms of the wording of the clause, he may by notice in the Gazette prohibit all persons who are listed from belonging to certain organizations. That, in fact, has already been done by Proclamation 2130 of December, 1962. I wonder whether it is not better, because of the consequences which now flow from this power, for the Minister to have a wider discretion. At the moment his discretion appears to be either to have a person listed or not to have him listed. When once he is listed it would appear that the prohibition must apply to all the listed persons and there can be no exceptions. The amendment I move is to suggest that the Minister should have a further discretion, and that is that when he issues a prohibition in terms of this section, he then again apply his mind to the individual members concerned, who were members or office-bearers, and can exclude from the prohibition those who have had a change of heart. By changing the words as I have suggested in my amendment from “all” to “any of the persons listed”, I think the Minister’s discretion will be extended. It will also have the effect that the gazetting of a prohibition order in terms of this section will also have to contain—and I think it desirable -—the names of the persons who are then prohibited from belonging to certain organizations. The public will then become aware of the identity of those persons and one will not have in this proclamation merely a bald statement that all persons whose names appear on any list in the custody of the officer referred to in section 8 of the said Act will be affected. If the amendment is accepted, it will enable the Minister to exclude from the prohibition the names of those whom he thinks should be excluded, whilst retaining them on the list for other purposes. It would then give him that further discretion which I believe will be an improvement to the Bill.

Did the hon. member move his amendment?

I move it now—

I regret that I am unable to accept the amendment, as it is not relevant to the proposed amendments to the principal Act. The parts of the principal Act printed in the Bill are only there for information and do not form part of the amendment proposed by the Minister.

May I address you on that point, Sir? While this is of course an amendment to the existing law, the existing law, in that part which the hon. member proposes to amend, is applied to the new insertion. In other words, the new insertion has no meaning whatever without that part of the original Act which the hon. member proposes to amend. I submit to you, Sir, that the amendment which is proposed by the Minister has no meaning unless it is related to the Minister’s power to prohibit by notice in the Gazette. If that is so, in my submission the hon. member should be entitled to restrict that power to prohibit by notice in the Gazette. It cannot in my submission be regarded in vacuo.

I agree that the amendment is quite out of order. All that is before the House is lines 15 to 18. But apart from that, if we were to accept these words proposed by the hon. member, “any person whose name appears”, in the singular, the rest of the clause would be absolute nonsense, because it is all in the plural, while he limits it to a single person. But even if that were not the case, it would mean that I would have to differentiate between one person and another, and that I cannot do.

Why not?

That would be discrimination. However, I mention this just in passing. The fact of the matter is that this amendment is out of order.

I have already given my ruling and I am not going to argue any further. The amendment is out of order.

I feared that this amendment would be out of order because I contemplated moving such an amendment, but obviously it affects the principal Act and therefore one cannot amend it in this respect. But that does not mean that I do not agree entirely with the spirit of the amendment which the hon. member was trying to move. I am now asking the hon. the Minister whether he will at least give us some assurance that this very far-reaching clause will not simply be applied holus bolus by a statement in the Gazette which most people do not see anyway. Indeed, I think it is no exaggeration to say that until the Commissioner of Police brought the attention of half a dozen people to the Gazette notice which had been published way back in 1962, most people were not even aware that they were infringing the law in any respect. Now this whole matter has come before the public eye again. Presumably a new notice is going to be gazetted. I wonder whether the Minister can tell me whether he is now going to publish some new notice including these still wider provisions of the law as it existed in 1962? It does not help us at all.

A notice may be gazetted, or the Proclamation embodying notice 2130 may be made retrospective, and all we know then is that any person who was at any time a member of an organization which was subsequently banned is now prohibited from not only being or becoming office-bearers, officers, etc., of any particular organization which the hon. the Minister happens to mention, not only from making or receiving any contribution of any kind, but also from participating in any way in any activity, not only concerning the specified organization which the hon. the Minister listed in No. 2130, or may list in a future notice in the Gazette, but of any organization which condemns or supports or discusses, even, any politics or any activity of the Government or of the State. Yesterday, in replying to me in the Second Reading debate, the hon. the Minister said I was wrong in one respect when I criticized the retrospective nature of this amendment to the principal Act, because he said this applied only to people who were, he said—I have his exact words here—either office-bearers of an unlawful organization or listed communists; and then he said they could only be prohibited from receiving or making any contribution in respect of a certain organization. But this clause goes much further than the Minister said, and I was not incorrect when I stated in the Second Reading debate that this goes very far indeed.

The second part, subsection (c) says “participating in any way in any activity”. That is much more far-reaching than the original clause and more far-reaching than the amendment the Minister mentioned yesterday. And it does not only apply to listed communists or to office-bearers in unlawful organizations; it applies to members as well, to anyone who at any time was ever a member of an organization which subsequently has been banned. How the hon. the Minister can say that I extended my criticism of this clause beyond the actual terms of the clause, I cannot understand, and maybe he will explain this to me. I want to point out to the Minister that listing means any list in the possession of the liquidator and that this, in turn, can mean anybody, not only a person who was an office-bearer or a member, but who was a supporter of any organization which was subsequently banned. Again, I must say over and over again that I think it is utterly and miserably unfair to penalize people now for actions which, when they performed them, were legal actions. How is anybody to know what is going to enter, if not this Minister’s mind, then the mind of future Ministers, since we extend these clauses in ever-extending circles? How does one know what organization will to-morrow or the day after or next year be considered in the mind of the Minister an organization which ought to be banned, and thereafter everybody retrospectively becomes or has the potentiality of becoming a criminal in terms of this law? I want to point out that this clause carries a very heavy penalty, of up to three years’ imprisonment without the option of a fine. Therefore I think it is essential that the Minister, if he cannot incorporate this in the law in any way—and I still want to see whether he cannot add some sort of proviso whereby he can limit this to individuals—will at least give this House his assurance which can be made public that he is not going to use this far-reaching clause without any discrimination whatsoever and without any differentiation whatsoever between organizations which may be considered dangerous and organizations which are in fact not dangerous to the security of the State.

I think that at least the Minister owes it to this House to give us some assurance in this respect. This idea of giving mass notices is, quite, I believe, outside of the normal practice in any normal democratic country. To have mass notices informing people that in retrospect they may become criminals in terms of a law which this House is passing to-day is outside of all normal democratic practice. The least the Minister should do is to assure us, and not leave it to the Commissioner of Police through a Press statement, that there is no intention of having a widespread witch-hunt under this clause, and that he will indeed use some differentiation when he applies this clause.

I am going to vote against this clause, irrespective of course of any assurance. I have told the Minister that and he knows it; he is under no illusion. But my actions in this House are not the important issues at the moment. What is important is that some assurances should be given to people who were performing perfectly legal actions at the time they performed them and who are now finding themselves in jeopardy as a result of this wide clause which was buried, as it were, in 1962 but which is now being exhumed with all the usual sort of unpleasantness that goes with exhumation after five years. I should like to have some assurance from the Minister on this clause.

Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. member for Houghton is reading much more into the clause than is written there. The clause provides that the Minister may by notice in the Gazette take certain steps as regards all persons whose names appear on any list in custody in terms of such-and-such a section. Let us take this category first. He can prohibit the persons whose names appear on a list in custody from being or becoming office-bearers, officers and members. Now certain other prohibitions are added, namely in terms of subsections (b) and (c). In the past a notice appeared in the Gazette in which the Minister prohibited this list of persons from being or becoming office-bearers, officers or members. But that notice did not prohibit them from making a contribution of any kind. If the Minister wants to apply such a provision to that category of persons, namely the persons whose names already appear on the list, he will have to publish a new notice in the Gazette to prohibit them from making or receiving any contribution of any kind for the direct or indirect benefit. That is quite clear from the entire clause. The Minister cannot say, simply because the Act has been amended, that because he served notice on certain persons six years ago such notice is also of application to the new provisions inserted now. He cannot say that those persons are now also prohibited from doing things of that nature. It simply cannot be that way. That is how we read this Act. It has never been interpreted in any other way. As the hon. member knows, the Interpretation Act provides that if an Act is passed now, it is presumed that it is not of retrospective effect. Those are the rules of interpretation in our courts. The hon. member knows that, too, or she should know it, being one of the legislators in this House.

I therefore feel, Sir, that the hon. member is reading much more into this clause than is actually intended. Now she also argues about the two other categories, and the same principle applies to them as well. If the Minister also wants to make it of application to those whose names appeared on the list previously, or to persons who were previously prohibited from being office-bearers, he would have to serve new notices on them to cover clauses (b) and (c).

Mr. Chairman, at this stage I should like to make it clear to this House what the attitude of the official Opposition is to this clause. The House will recall that when the hon. member for Transkei led off the debate on behalf of the official Opposition at the Second Reading, he made it clear that whilst we intended to confine the Second Reading Debate to clause 2, we had objections to other parts of this Bill, and indeed this applied in respect of clause 1. We object to the amendment which is being introduced and we on this side intend to vote against it. The House will recall that when this amendment was introduced in 1962 we on this side of the House opposed it and voted against it. Since the amendment which is now being introduced, far from restricting the provisions of that clause, in fact extend those provisions, we will naturally be against the proposed amendments.

It is, I think, important to appreciate the far-reaching effect of the proposed amendment, and in particular to appreciate that the power which is being given now to the hon. the Minister amongst other things is to prohibit a listed person from participating in any way in any activity of a particular organization referred to or any organization of a nature, class or kind specified in such notice. The second part can be very wide indeed. The activities of any organization of a nature, class or kind specified in such notice …

That was in the original Act.

Mr. Chairman, this is where the hon. member takes a mistaken view of such things. He says that these words which I have referred to are already in the Act. Of course they are already in the Act, but they now refer to a different category, because they now refer to the proposed amendments as well. The proposed amendments, as I have pointed out, give the power to prohibit from “participating in any way in any activity”. These words are new: “participating in any way in any activity”, and since those words are new, what they now relate to is also new, and what they now relate to is, as I have pointed out, participating in any organization of a nature, class or kind specified in the notice.

Perhaps at this stage it would be convenient for me to refer to the amendment which stands in my name in relation to clause 1 on the Order Paper. May I ask, Mr. Chairman, whether the ruling which you gave to the hon. member for Green Point in regard to his amendment is to apply also to mine?

Yes, it does.

I assumed it would, Mr. Chairman, and I may say, Sir, that I should like to …

Order! I wish to state that, apart from the reason given to the hon. member for Green Point, the hon. member’s amendment is also destructive of the principle of the Bill as read a second time; so it is really doubly out of order.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, if the amendment …

Order! I am not going to allow any discussion on this matter. The amendment has not been moved. I have only been asked a question.

Mr. Chairman, we should like to address you particularly on the second part of your ruling, and so I do move the amendment—

In lines 19 and 20, to omit “or any organization of a nature, class or kind”.

Order! The first part of my ruling was reason enough. I just mentioned the second reason in passing.

Mr. Chairman,may I address you on that ruling?

Order! The hon. member has already addressed me on the ruling.

I refer to thesecond ruling.

Order! No, that is not necessary because the first ruling is reason enough.

Mr. Chairman,with greatrespect, you havenowgiven another ruling in respect of another amendment with another reason, an additional reason.

With an additionalreason, yes. But the original reason is reason enough to rule it out of order. Therefore I am not going to allow a discussion on that point.

Mr. Chairman, I have a new submission which I did not submit to you on your first point and which I now wish to submit in relation to your ruling on this occasion.

Order! The hon. member did not move the amendment; therefore it is not under discussion.

Yes, Sir, he did move it.

Order! No, the hon. member asked me if he would be out of order if he did move it.

Then he subsequently moved it.

Did the hon. member for Musgrave move his amendment?

Yes, I did move it, Sir.

Then I must rule it out of order for the reasons I have given.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. The amendment seeks to restrict the operation of the new powers which are inserted to a restriction in respect of a particular organization, and not in respect of a particular organization and any other organization of a nature, class or kind. In my submission, Sir, this should be a competent amendment for an hon. member to move, namely to restrict the operation of the new powers dealt with in the amendment to only particular staged organizations, as opposed to any organization at all. I do submit that this is normal and usual, and such amendments have been allowed in the past. Therefore I feel, Sir, that this is a competent amendment.

Order! I must point out to hon. members that the amendment now moved by the hon. member for Musgrave will also apply to paragraph (a) which is not a new provision. Furthermore, the amendment affects a part of the original Act which is not amended by this Bill. Therefore I rule it out of order. I put the question.

Mr. Chairman, may I continue?

The hon. member may continue.

I pointed out that by reason of the proposed amendment the effect of this clause now becomes even more far-reaching than it was before. In relation to the portion which gives the Minister power to prohibit from participating in any way in any activity of any organization of a nature, class or kind specified in the notice, I would point out that the onus will now be on the person concerned to decide whether or not that activity is of a nature, class or kind similar to those of the particular organization stated. This I suggest is almost an impossible task to expect of any person. I would point out also that this must be read in relation to a proclamation which has already been passed in terms of section 5ter and which was promulgated on the 28th December, 1962, in Government Gazette No. 154 of that date. In that proclamation certain organizations were listed and the then Minister of Justice prohibited all persons who appeared on any list in the custody of the officer referred to in section eight, or who were office-bearers of any such organization, from participating in the activities of these listed organizations. But it went further, Mr. Chairman. In part 2 of that Government Gazette these persons were restricted from participating in any organization which is in any way affiliated to or a subsidiary of an organization mentioned in part 1, or which promotes, furthers or performs any act, etc. But then clause 2 of part 2 reads as follows—

So, Sir, if one reads the proposed amendment of this section with clause 2 of part 2 of this Government Notice it is perfectly clear that these persons will now become debarred from in any way attacking, criticizing or even discussing Government policy. I submit with great respect that this makes a farce of this provision, because it restricts a person quite unjustifiably. We should like to hear the reaction of hon. members on the other side of the House, particularly of the Minister, to our interpretation of thé far-reaching effect this amendment will have. If our interpretation is correct, as it appears to me to be. we should like to know how the hon. the Minister justifies the amendment which he wishes to introduce.

It is a very simple problem that we want to meet here. In terms of the notice published, the Minister had the right in the past, and has already exercised that, to prohibit any listed person, or office-bearers, officers and members of any organization declared unlawful, or any person subject to restrictions, from becoming office-bearers, officers or members of a particular organization or of an organization of a particular nature or kind. That was the intention of the original section, and action was taken accordingly. But it was then found that despite the fact that the Minister prohibited a person from becoming an office-bearer, an officer or a member of that kind of organization, he simply resigned as office-bearer, officer or member of such an organization while at heart he remained faithful to the same convictions and blithely continued, for example, collecting funds and participating in the activities of that organization, as though he was in actual fact still one of its officebearers, officers or members. That is the loophole that we want to close up here.

Can you give us examples of such persons?

Let me just explain first. As I said, it happens that despite the fact that they are prohibited from being office-bearers, officers or members of a particular organization, they resign but simply continue participating in the activities of that organization as though they are still members, officers or office-bearers of that organization. We are herewith prohibiting them from doing so. We are now closing this loophole by providing that they may no longer make or receive contributions in respect of such organizations, nor may they in any way participate in the activities of such an organization. That makes the Act fool-proof, and that is how it should have been originally. The hon. member is therefore correct as far as his interpretation is concerned—that is the intention; we now want to close up these loopholes as well.

The hon. member for Houghton wanted to know whether I was going to issue a government notice holus bolus which would make it applicable to everybody. I want to give her the undertaking that what I will in fact do will be to inquire into each particular case, into the case of each organization, and if I find that persons who were prohibited from being office-bearers, officers or members of a particular organization did not continue using this loophole in the Act, this provision will not be made applicable to them. On the other hand if I find that they did in fact use this loophole, this provision will in fact be made applicable to them. I cannot say more than that. I am being quite frank about the matter. I told her what the problem was and what the reason was for this particular amendment.

The Minister dealt with the question of the wide description of organizations. He contends that we cannot narrow down those organizations which people have been prohibited from joining but if he refers to the previous notice, to which reference has already been made, he will see that such people are prohibited from participating in any way in any activity or from contributing to the funds of any organization which in any manner propagates, defends, attacks, criticizes or discusses any form of State, or any principle, or policy of the Government of a state, or which in any manner undermines the authority of the Government or State. In terms of this they are apparently also prohibited from participating or from contributing money to an organization which defends the Government’s policy.

The Church of England.

Take the Dutch Reformed Church. On the other hand there are contributions they may make to other churches who may criticize the Government’s policy. Surely, Sir, that is quite ridiculous. Is it not? I wish the hon. the Minister would get up and explain what is meant by this section. These people are, in fact, being prohibited from taking part in anything. They cannot belong to or contribute to the funds of an organization whether that organization supports the Government or is against the Government. The question is how will they know? They may, for instance, join a certain church and become members of that church only to find later on that the synod of that church or some other spokesman for that church either defends the Government’s policy or attacks it. Then these people will have committed an offence because they belong to an organization which is critical of Government policy. I wish the Minister would deal with this, particularly with the very wide description of these organizations.

The point which the hon. member now raises was raised under the original clause, when the matter was before us at that time.

The proclamation came out afterwards.

The point I am trying to make is that the provision as it was before this amendment could also apply to these organizations. They could not become members of an organization designated by the Minister in the Gazette. For instance, he could if he wanted to, use his discretion prohibiting them from becoming members of the United Party or of the National Party.

But he could not stop them from contributing.

That is correct. But he could have prevented them from becoming office bearers or members of the National Party or of the United Party, for instance. I remember that argument was made in this House at the time. That is why the Chairman correctly ruled that that matter has already been dealt with. In addition the Minister can now, if he wants to exercise his discretion in that manner, prohibit them from contributing, but that was understood. The hon. the Minister explained why these additional provisions were being inserted. The reason for them is obvious. The law as it was up to now became ineffective because, as the Minister said, persons prohibited from becoming members of an organization merely resigned as members but carried on their activities.

Give us some examples.

It is going on every day. The Minister would not have come forward with this amendment if it was not necessary. It is not necessary for him to disqualify persons from becoming members of the United Party because they are not becoming members in any event. I hope it is clear to the hon. member for Houghton that this proclamation is not retrospective. It is clear from this clause that there will have to be another notice in the Gazette because the original notice only prevented people from becoming members, etc.

It still applies in retrospect.

Now there must be a new notice in the Gazette which will …

… affect them retrospectively.

The clause provides that the Minister may by notice in the Gazetteprohibit all persons from making or receiving any contribution of any kind, etc., or from participating in any way … This will have to be a new notice warning them not to do these things.

Any person who was ever an office bearer or member of such organization.

They will be told not to do this in future—in other words, not to receive or make a contribution in future to an organization which the Minister will designate.

A church for instance?

Well, the Minister has jurisdiction to identify a church as being such an organization but he would not be so foolish to do so. But that is not the point. The point is that it will not be made retrospective. The notice will only warn a listed person not to make a contribution or receive contributions in future, or to participate in any way in future. That ought to be perfectly clear.

I should like to return to the objection that a blanket proclamation can now be issued, i.e. without naming the individuals concerned. When the Minister dealt with this objection he said that he would apply his mind to it and would not necessarily apply the proclamation to all. But the other interesting point is that the Minister claimed that he has these powers to prohibit “enige persoon”. That is not the wording of the Act and this is where our objection comes in. The Act says “alle persone”. Mr. Chairman, I do not want to speak to the amendment which you have ruled out of order but I should like to point to the consequence of the wording of the Act as it now stands and to ask the Minister whether he will not give consideration to it. I think he misunderstood the position. I gave notice of my amendment in English and therein I referred to “any person”. In the translation, however, I see it was translated as “ ’n persoon”. It should be “enige persoon” and these are the words the Minister used. In other words, when prohibiting under these further powers he should name the individuals and not issue a blanket prohibition covering all persons on the list.

Order! That amendment has been ruled out of order and the hon. member therefore cannot discuss it.

Sir, all I can say is that the more I listen to lawyers, the more my respect for lawyers, if I ever had respect for them, disappears. How the hon. member for Omaruru can tell me that this is not going to be made retrospective is beyond my comprehension. The Minister himself admitted that it was going to be retrospective.

Where do you see that?

Once this notice is again published in the Gazet’e … The existing notice when published in the Gazette is itself retrospective in relation to anybody who was at any time on a list in the custody of the liquidator or who was a member, an office bearer of any banned organization, banned in terms of the Suppression of Communism Act.

Now it is retrospective in so far as there are persons who were members of organizations, which were not banned organizations when this original clause was passed, which subsequently became banned organizations and which now fall within the ambit of this clause. Therefore it is retrospective. Sir, still talking in words of one syllable, I hope that somebody with no legal training like myself will be able to make clear the retrospective nature of this clause to these honourable brethren of the Bar. I hope they now know why I say that it is retrospective.

You are quite clearly wrong.

The hon. member for Heilbron does not know that it is retrospective. He says that I am wrong. I ask the hon. the Minister: Am I wrong? He told me yesterday that I was right. He said that in so far as I relate it to the retrospectivity of people who were members of an organization subsequently banned, I was correct in saying that this clause was retrospective.

I come back to this question of the hon. the Minister’s declaration in the House that he will give each organization his individual attention before he puts it in a gazetted list. Sir, I am quite sure that the hon. the Minister will do that, but what worries me is not so much the list that he is going to gazette, although that is bad enough in all conscience, because the last list included organizations which I at any rate did not think of as communist organizations and I was surprised to hear that they were communist organizations. Subsequently an organization like Defence and Aid was banned, That is a matter which we cannot discuss in detail because of its sub judice nature, but that organization also is not communist per se. Sir, part 2 of this gazetted notice went much beyond the listed organizations—37 or 36 of them—which the hon. the Minister’s predecessor included in that Government Notice, Part II refers II refers to “any organizations”, so persons who were ever on a list, persons who were ever members or office-bearers of an organization which has been banned, may not now take part in any activity of any organization of any nature that criticizes, condones or in any way discusses Government or State policy. It has nothing to do with the organizations that the hon. the Minister is going to scrutinize; it may mean, as the hon. member for Transkei has pointed out, a church. Personally I do not think that it is going to mean a church, but in terms of the law it could mean a church.

Don’t be subtle.

That is what the law says.

Sir, there is very little subtlety in this House. However, let us leave aside the question of churches. I do not believe in using far-fetched examples; I believe in using examples right close by. But the point is that it covers organizations which have any political affiliations at all. It means in fact that such people may not take part in activities of political parties of which the hon. the Minister may not disapprove at all, such as the National Party, or the United Party. He may not approve of them but he does not consider them dangerous. I am hoping that even to-day he does not consider my party to be a dangerous one.

Not at all.

I am delighted to have that assurance. Sir, there are many respectable citizens who were members of a committee of Defence and Aid years ago, before it was banned, who now find themselves in jeopardy. They have become political eunuchs to all intents and purposes, because they may not participate in any way in any activity of any political organization. I am sure that this is further than the hon. the Minister intends this gazetted notice to go, and that is why it is so important that it is not only the organizations that ought to receive his attention, but the individual who may be affected. I really feel that the hon. the Minister himself must admit that this goes further than the sort of people he is aiming at. He has not given us examples of people who were members or office-bearers of organizations and who have now resigned from those organizations—those organizations in fact no longer exist because they were banned —but have now continued their activities by collecting for those organizations. This goes much further than that, retrospectively, and it affects the future of many extremely wellknown, respectable people of South Africa who will now find themselves in jeopardy if they continue to play any part in politics in this country. I do not believe that that was what the Minister intended by this clause and I think that some way ought to be worked out in which he can at least limit the far-reaching nature of clause 1 of the Bill. If there is any way in which one could work out some sort of limiting amendment, I for one would be very glad to see it accepted by this House— not the clause but the amendment.

The hon. member for Houghton and also other hon. members of the Opposition are adopting the attitude that this provision in clause 1 is absolute. But if the hon. member for Houghton would read further in the same clause she would see that it is quite clear that a bona fide person could apply to the Minister, or even to a magistrate authorized by the Minister, for exemption from the prohibition that has been imposed upon him.

How could he do that?

He could turn to the magistrate for permission, but it is a disgusting thing to have to go cap in hand to a magistrate …

The clause provides—

In other words, a person who is bona fide and who became a member of such an organization by accident and in his ignorance, may make representations to the Minister and tell the Minister: “I was a listed person”, or “I was a member of such an organization, but my circumstances were such…"

Please, Sir, may I join the Nationalist Party!

They would make you a Deputy Minister.

Such a person may therefore apply for exemption.

Sir, I am sure that everyone else in this Committee is able to read for himself what the clause says. This is not our objection. The objection is not that someone can go to the Minister and that the Minister can do something for him. The whole difference between us on this whole Act is that we do not believe that this is the way things should be done. Sir, in answer to the hon. member for Waterkloof, it is not for the hon. the Minister to say what you shall or shall not do, in his unfettered discretion. So far as the proposed amendments which are on the Order Paper are concerned, the hon. the Minister has not answered on the merits of those amendments and we do not know whether the hon. the Minister might in fact accept them. So far he has only indicated that he agrees with your ruling that they are out of order and therefore cannot speak to them. We have therefore not been able to discuss the merits of the amendments. I want to give the hon. the Minister the opportunity of doing so and I want to give this Committee the opportunity of discussing the merits of those amendments. [Interjections.] Sir, I hope hon. members opposite will stop sniggering and giggling; they are making no contribution to the debate. One understands that they are very frustrated, but one hopes that they will contain themselves and behave themselves as befits people who sit so close to us. Sir, I wish to move—

To add the following further proviso at the end of the Clause:

That will have the effect of reviving some discussion on the merits of the amendments moved by the hon. members for Musgrave and Green Point. I think it is a fair amendment. I think that the merits of this amendment are that the hon. the Minister will have to apply his mind not only to the organization but also in respect of the persons concerned, and I do not think that this is too much to ask. After all, he has the power here to commit a person to a sort of intellectual life imprisonment.

Political celibacy.

Well, I would hate to talk about the celibacy of politicians and I am surprised that the hon. member for Houghton raises a matter like this.

It is non-existent.

I would, however, say that it is in effect intellectual penal servitude for life. Surely it is not too much to expect, if the hon. the Minister has all the powers that he has here, that he should apply his mind to each and every case, to each and every person and each and every organization.

On a point of order, the hon. member is back on the same point again.

Order! I should like to see the hon. member’s amendment first before I give my ruling.

I say that it is not too much to expect that the hon. the Minister should apply his mind to each and every person and each and every organization, especially when one considers the proclamation already existing in relation to this. The hon. the Minister has not said that he will not issue a similar proclamation. Sir, what is “an organization which in any manner propagates, defends, attacks, criticizes or discusses any form of state”? What does it mean? Will the hon. the Minister tell us what he intends it to mean? What is the meaning of “any form of state”? Presumably it means any form of state as opposed to anarchy, for example; we do not know, but we presume that when the hon. the Minister publishes a notice like this, he knows what it means. We hope that the hon. the Minister will tell us. It goes on to say:"… or anyone who discusses any principle or policy of the Government of a state”—anywhere in the world; any state, any government.

You cannot even criticize Russia.

What we want to know is what this notice means. The hon. the Minister says that of course it will not apply to a church, but under this definition it could apply to a church. The hon. member for Transkei has mentioned this and he is entitled to mention it because it could apply to a church. The hon. the Minister is aware of the fact that one of his colleagues is now talking in relation to the Anglican Church about political bishops, and if this sort of impertinence of attitude obtains in the mind of one Minister, who is to say that it does not obtain in the mind of someone else who is going to implement this legislation. What we would like to know is whether the Minister intends to maintain the prohibition in respect of this extraordinarily wide definition of “organization”, and if he is going to maintain it, then what in fact does it mean? What organization does he anticipate will fall within the ambit of this definition? The other thing we would like to know is why the hon. the Minister cannot in fact name the organizations. Sir, to help the hon. the Minister out of all his difficulties I move the amendment I have read out.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, may I address you on the admissibility of the amendment? This amendment affects the principle of the entire clause, although the hon. member only relates it to paragraphs (b) and (c) as a proviso. We must read the clause in its entirety, as passed at the Second Reading. In other words, that type of exception is excluded. That is the principle we adopted at the Second Reading, namely that we cannot make it applicable to special persons and organizations, because the principle adopted at the Second Reading was that it would be applicable to all organizations. For that reason I want to contend that this amendment is out of order.

I should like to address you, Sir, on the admissibility of this amendment, and in particular I would like to deal with the arguments addressed to you by the hon. member for Heilbron. If the approach of the hon. member for Heilbron is accepted, it will be quite impossible to introduce any amendment to any clause because what the hon. member is saying, in effect, is that you have to accept the clause as it emerged from the Second Reading, and that is nonsense because it defeats the whole object of the Committee Stage.

On the merits of the amendment, I submit that it does not affect the principle which was accepted at Second Reading, which is the principle of extending the power given to the Minister by notice in the Gazet e to prohibit certain persons from doing certain things. He had the power before to prohibit them from being or becoming office bearers, officers or members; he is now given the power to prohibit them in addition from making contributions of any kind and participating in any activity. Those two principles are not in any way affected by the proposed amendment, which merely relates to clarifying the organization in respect of which those amendments shall apply, and clarifying the persons in respect of whom those two amendments shall apply. I emphasize, in conclusion, that they do not in any way affect the amendments which emerged from the Second Reading.

May I just elaborate on that? The prohibition contained in clause 1 is directed against all listed persons and against all office-bearers of certain prohibited organizations, and it is also directed against any restricted persons. Subclause (a) states what the nature of that prohibition on all those persons may be. Now we are extending the nature of the prohibition by the addition of (b) and (c). However, the nature of the prohibition always penetrates to all listed persons and all office-bearers and all restricted persons. The nature of the prohibition is destroyed by this amendment in that it mentions only certain listed persons and certain office-bearers and certain restricted persons. It affects the entire principle contained in clause 1 and destroys the entire principle which has already been laid down and which has already been accepted by the Opposition.

May I add that it is strange behaviour on the part of the Opposition that during the Second Reading ii expressed itself as being opposed to only one principle contained in clause 2 and that it accepted all the rest. But the difference is that during the Second Reading they wanted to appear to be opponents of Communism …

Order! That is not a point of order.

I wish to reply to the arguments addressed to you on this point of order by the hon. member for Heilbron. His argument now is that the nature of the prohibitions which are now included in the clause relate to the prohibitions as a whole. This is not so, because in terms of your previous ruling, Sir, it was made perfectly clear that what this Committee was considering at this stage was simply the amendments which emerged from Second Reading. That is all. The Committee is considering those amendments. This ruling of yours, Sir, must now be accepted by the hon. member for Heilbron and by the Committee as a whole. The amendment now moved by the hon. member for Durban (North) does not do any harm to this ruling. It is an acceptance of it, but it pinpoints the organizations in respect of which those two amendments shall apply and the persons in respect of whom those amendments shall apply. With great respect, Sir, it is perfectly possible in the Committee Stage for a clause to be amended in this way, enabling certain further restrictions to be included, but providing that those further restrictions shall be applied to particular organizations and to particular persons only, whereas the previous restrictions which applied in the clause may have been somewhat wider. So, with great respect, I submit that you, Sir, ought to allow this proposed amendment because it does not go against the principle accepted.

I am inclined to agree with the hon. members for Musgrave and Durban (North). The position is that we are here extending the classes and the activities. What this amendment seems to do is to say that it has been accepted in principle that we can extend them, but what we should now like to do is to impose certain restrictions on them. It has always been the rule in the Committee Stage that one may do that. I am therefore inclined, for what that is worth to you, to state the opinion that the amendment is in order.

I shall allow the amendment.

Having indicated that I believe the amendment to be in order, I deeply regret that I cannot accept it. What the amendment apparently seeks amounts to this, that all the organizations are to be mentioned by name. Very well, one may mention all the organizations by name, but what happens then? The moment one mentions the organization by name, the name is simply changed and then I have to publish a new notice. That is the difficulty one runs into. Consequently one should also have the power, as it was conferred in the original measure, to say “of a certain kind or of a certain nature”, to include a certain group. When the previous Minister published his notice, he had apparently faced the same difficulty, and therefore it was formulated in such a way that the organization was mentioned by name and the groups and classes included.

Now I want to say this to the hon. member for Houghton and the other two hon. members, that (b) and (c) would not necessarily apply to everybody. It may happen, but not necessarily, and I shall apply my mind to that. But it is wrong to presume, as all the hon. members on the opposite side have apparently done, that because this notice was issued at that time these provisions will be applied to all the classes as set out there. That is an erroneous deduction. When the opportunity presents itself and when I have to issue a notice, I shall, as I promised earlier in the Committee Stage, bring a magnifying glass to each one and see to what extent I should put a stop to those activities, the question of making donations, etc. But hon. members should not assume that future notices will necessarily be similar to that one.

I am very glad that we at least have a limited assurance from the hon. the Minister that we must not take it as read that when he issues a notice it will necessarily be made applicable to every single person who was at any time involved in such an organization. I am very glad to have that assurance, but I am still worried about the fact that obviously the notice he has to re-issue will presumably take the same sort of form as the previous notice; in other words, it will mention the specific organizations. But the second part of that original notice is the part that worries all of us.

That is what I replied to.

Yes, but in giving his reasons for rejecting the amendment of the hon. member for Durban (North), he said that his difficulty was that people who were members of an organization he had specified then became members of another organization; that they changed the name of the organization. The second part of that notice, the first part of Part 2, would cover that. It talks about any subsidiary organization or organization of the same nature as the organization mentioned in Part 1 of the notice. Why cannot he go that far and no further? It is the second part which is the damaging part, which says that a person may not take part in any organization which criticizes, discusses commends or upholds any Government or State or has anything to do with any political organization. If he could at least in terms of the new notice omit the second part of Part 2, we would to some extent have a limitation of clause 1. Will the Minister please put his mind to that, because then he will still satisfy himself that people who belong to an organization cannot simply change the name of the organization and continue either to collect money for that organization or in fact to further the activities or the aims of any such organizations or subsidiary organization. I think that is going too far, anyway. But at least he will be meeting the very valid objections to the far-reaching nature of this clause if he omits to publish a notice in the same terms as the first notice and omits the second part of Part 2. I hope that the hon. the Minister will bear that in mind when he comes to publish such a notice.

I should like to say something about the amendments moved by the hon. member for Durban (North). The Minister has given his reply and has said that he cannot accept the amendments because organizations can change their names. The hon. member for Houghton has dealt with that point, and I do not wish to repeat what she has said. But when we were discussing this matter earlier, we mentioned the churches. The Minister smiled and said that this measure could not apply to a church. But I ask him, why can it not apply to a church? As the notice is worded, it does include a church. How can the Minister just say that it does not include a church? When I first raised the point the hon. member for Heilbron interjected before I could get as far as mentioning churches, and he mentioned the Anglican Church, and I said, no, it may also be the Dutch Reformed Church. It does show how the hon. member’s mind is working. As far as the hon. member for Heilbron is concerned, it does include churches. I say that the Minister must devise some way of bringing more clarity as to exactly what organizations are concerned. Because as I pointed out earlier, the way the notice is worded it includes anybody—not only a person who attacks any form of government, but who defends any form of government. How do these people know where they stand? How do they know that the Mnister does not mean it to include a church for instance? How do they know what organizations the Minister has in mind unless he tells them in the notice what type of organization he has in mind? I appeal to the Minister again to reconsider the matter. Perhaps he can amend the section in the Other Place. As it stands now it is most unreasonable.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

1. (a) the practical implementation of the Government’s policy of peaceful coexistence;
2. (b) the necessity for economic and political progress by the Bantu peoples in their own areas; and
3. (c) the grave shortage of adequately trained professional staff and technicians who will be required to replace Whites in the Bantu areas, expresses its satisfaction with the sound progress and the high standard already achieved by the Department of Bantu Education. This House further considers that development should continue on this sound foundation with special attention being paid to special courses aimed at preparing and equipping Bantu to perform particular tasks which arise from the social and economic development brought about in various spheres by the implementation of the Government’s policy.

All education has a broad task and purpose as well as a specific and particular task. I may define the general, or broad, task of education as being the process of imparting knowledge to the developing human being, of putting human values in the right perspective, of guiding and developing the personality traits and specific talents of each individual to the fullest potential possible, while the complete human beine, i.e. body, mind and soul, is being educated to be of service to himself, to his people and to the community at large. But I said education in each country also has a specific and particular task. Let me mention Israel here as an example. In the Education Survey of U.N.E.S.C.O. the particular task of education in Israel is defined as follows—

This is the specific task of education in Israel, and ore can well understand it in the light of the special position in which Israel finds itself. Now, I want to contend that we here in South Africa are entitled to the same extent, and that it is equally as essential, to impose on education, in addition to its general task and object, also a specific task in the light of the special circumstances prevailing in South Africa. The question which involuntarily comes to my mind in this connection is whether we, in all our education, i.e. in White, Coloured, Bantu and Indian education, have not always been blind to everything except the general task of education, namely to impart knowledge to children as regards languages, sciences, cultural, practical and aesthetical subjects. We have educated them and we have made them civilized—in short, we have given them what is normal and what is also given in all countries in the world. But I want to ask whether we in South Africa with its specific problems, with its special population structure and with the specific problems which that involves, have not been ignoring a major task here throughout the years. To what extent, for instance, are our curricula still old-fashioned and drawn up for promoting the general task of education, a task which does not differ internationally? I maintain that we here in South Africa also have a particular task for our education. This particular task is above all education for everyone in his own sphere. The particular task, as I see it, is—and this links up automatically with the Government’s policy of peaceful coexistence and separate development—that each group has to be trained and educated so as to adapt to and fit in with his own community in the best way possible and to be of service to his own community. These are my feelings in the matter and this is how I think it can also be applied in practice. By such means we shall be able to ensure that we produce contended people, people who will be able to realize themselves fully, and to avoid producing people who are frustrated because they can see the green meadows of another group which they are not allowed to enter. It is against this background and in the light of this particular task which I put to education in our country that I should like to look back on the development of Bantu education over the past 13 years for the purpose of trying to ascertain to what extent the specific as well as the broad task has been carried into effect.

On 7th June, 1954, Dr. Verwoerd said the following in regard to the Department of Bantu Education in a statement of policy in the Senate—

The two foundation stones of Bantu education in South Africa are, to my mind, the Bantu Education Act of 1953 and the Extension of University Education Act of 1959. These two Acts were placed on the Statute Book by this Government in order to place Bantu education, ranging from pre-school education up to and including university education, on a common and sound basis. The attitude of the Opposition towards both these Acts was the most negative attitude imaginable. At the Second Readings of both these Acts the Opposition moved that they be read for a Second Time “this day six months”, in other words the strongest form of censure possible in terms of parliamentary procedure. The Opposition therefore rejected the entire principle. Now, however, 12 or 13 years later, it is evident that the Government was right, as usual, to pass these Acts, that everything is working perfectly as planned, that these Acts have brought happiness and peace throughout the country and that the Opposition, as usual, was wrong. When these Acts were introduced, the prospect was held out that the following tasks would be undertaken. Hon. members will find them in the speech made by Dr. Verwoerd when he moved the Second Reading of the Bantu Education Bill. These tasks are: (1) To do justice to the mother-tongue in Bantu education; (2) to bring literacy to the broad masses; (3) to improve achievements at school and to raise the number of passes and standard and to cause more pupils to proceed to secondary education; (4) to introduce vocational and technical courses in order to train artisans for service to their own community in their own area; (5) to allow the parents to participate to a greater extent so as to train them in that way to accept co-responsibility, something which would at the same time serve as a process of educating them; (6) to develop the Bantu’s own university colleges and to remove the Bantu from white universities; (7) to cause the Bantu to make a bigger contribution to financing his own education. Let us deal with each of these points in order to see how far we have already progressed towards the set object.

As far as mother-tongue education is concerned. I know that the hon. member for Houghton in particular resisted it fiercely in those days. She said they did not have the scientific terminology, etc.

That is why the Transkei re-instituted English-medium.

At that time the hon. member spoke very disparagingly of the potential of Bantu languages to be of practical use to the Bantu. In this connection I want to refer once again to the Education Survey of U.N.E.S.C.O. and to what it contains as regards the history of education in Israel. It states, inter alia, the following—

You cannot be serious when you compare an ancient language like that with the Bantu languages.

I am pointing out that the Hebrew language suffered from a similar lack of modern, scientific and technological terms as is the case with Xhosa, for instance. But in Israel they demanded mother-tongue education and consequently the Hebrew language was adapted to the modern, technological age and the necessary terms were created in order that the language could indeed serve as a medium of instruction. But as soon as we want to do the same thing for our Bantu groups, this hon. member finds fault with it. I accept and state in no uncertain terms that here it was a case of “know yourself, accept yourself and be yourself” as the three main characteristics of a nation. I have numerous letters here in which glowing tribute is paid to the Department for having introduced the mother-tongue as a medium of instruction, because that has made people proud of what is their own and at the same time an opportunity has been created for Bantu authors to inspire their own people anew and to bring them new ideas through the medium of their own language. Therefore mother-tongue education has progressed a long way and has had many good results.

The second question is what results have been achieved after a period of 13 years in extending education to the masses. To what extent have we succeeded in reaching the masses during this specific period? I have a number of interesting figures here. I do not want to bore hon. members with too many statistics but unfortunately I shall have to quote quite a number of statistics. In 1953 when this education was taken over, there were 5,665 Bantu schools. The figure increased to 8,463 in 1963 and after education in the Transkei had been transferred to the Department of Bantu Education in the Transkei whereby approximately 15,000 schools were transferred to that authority, there were still 7,222 Bantu schools in 1965. The number of teachers increased from 21,148 in 1953 to 30,119 in 1963, and after approximately 6,000 Bantu teachers had been transferred to the Transkei there were still 28,692 teachers under the Department of Bantu Education in 1965. The number of pupils increased from 858,079 in 1953 to 1,770,371 in 1963 and after the secession of the Transkei the present figure is 1,655,435. Where as at the time of the takeover in 1953 only 45 per cent of the Bantu of school-going age between the ages of seven and 14 attended school, 85.3 per cent of them attended school in 1965. If one thinks in terms of uneducable persons, whom one always finds, this percentage is even higher. In other words, in this case we have succeeded in achieving our object within the short period of 13 years.

Then I come to a further object, namely the range of education—to give more secondary education and to achieve a higher number of passes. This, of course, is a very difficult sphere. I am aware that the hon. member for Houghton tells us regularly that Bantu pupils go to Std. II only; this is usually her argument. I just want to tell her that we certainly have not reached the position I should like us to have reached. But what is the position? In 1948 the total enrolment of pupils for Std. VI was 20,745; in 1965 it had increased to 66,493; in other words it had more than tripled. The percentage of passes in Std. VI was 52 per cent in 1948 and 84 per cent in 1965, without the course having been watered down or the examinations having been made easier. I can also quote the figures for Std. VIII. The total enrolment increased from 3,123 to 11,644 and the percentage of passes from 63 per cent to 78 per cent. In Std. X the total enrolment was 324 in 1948 and 1,339 in 1965 and the percentage of passes increased from 53 per cent to 62 per cent over the same period.

The standard of matric education was not watered down. I now want to speak about a specific school, which does not fall under the normal schools because it is a special school, but I honestly want to say how pleasantly I was surprised with the result achieved and the course offered at the school for the sons of chiefs in the Transkei. The matriculants of this particular school for the sons of chiefs in the Transkei emerge from that school—and I say this in all honesty—with a course which equips them better for life than that with which our white matriculants emerge from our white schools in South Africa. I state this with all the power at my disposal. They have 11 compulsory subjects for Std. X, which include four compulsory languages, namely Afrikaans, English, Sotho and Xhosa. They have a whole series of other subjects which, inter alia, include diplomacy and world events. The examination papers are dealt with by the University of South Africa. The school’s pupils receive a thorough preparation for life.

We now come to vocational and technical courses—the fourth object we set ourselves. In 1947 there were only 12 technical courses available to Bantu. I have just received information that there were 37 vocational and technical courses in 1965 in which the Bantu could qualify himself, courses such as carpentry and joinery and here I want to refer in brief to a furniture factory manufacturing school furniture near Umtata which at present manufactures the school furniture for all the Bantu educational institutions throughout the Republic of South Africa right up to the Caprivi. This then is an industry which has been established within the Bantu area. There are also courses in leather work, spinning and weaving, bricklaying, motor mechanics, and electro-technics. Radiotricians, health inspectors, surveyors’ assistants, etc., are also being trained. The object—and I want to state it very clearly—is not to train these people ever to compete with Whites or to oust Whites from their employment by coming to work for lower wages in the white area. These people are being trained to provide and render these essential services in their own areas so that Whites who render them at present may return from there to the white area where they can be taken up in the white community again. The ideal situation is that each should be self-supporting in his own area.

I now come to the question of greater participation by parents, which has been put as the fifth ideal. In 1953 there were only a few school committees in the Transvaal; in the rest of the country there was no such system at all. At present there are 509 school boards and 4,089 school committees which give plus minus 50,000 parents an active role in the education of the Bantu. Here I want to quote from what was said by Professor Kwgare, of the Faculty of Education at the University College of the North—

A double object is being achieved. In the first instance they take an active part in education; they have an active interest and at the same time this process trains them in eventual self-government. As regards this matter, I also have a number of letters here in which glowing tribute is paid to the parents for their participation in education.

Then we come to the question of higher Bantu education, namely the development of the Bantu university colleges with the simultaneous removal of Bantu from white universities. When the Act was introduced in 1959, there was, as I said before, tremendous opposition. The charge was levelled from all sides that the autonomy of the universities was being affected and that we were doing the most impossible thing in the world. Mr. Speaker, these Bantu university colleges were established and are undergoing a gradual process of development. Naturally there are difficulties; the numbers are not yet what we should like them to be but a good deal of progress has been made. In 1961 417 Bantu were enrolled at Bantu university colleges. In that same year 237 Bantu were enrolled at white universities. In 1963 there were 608 at Bantu university colleges and only 170 at white universities. In 1966 the number of Bantu at Bantu university colleges increased to 1,160, while the number of Bantu at white universities decreased further to 148. Of this number of 148, 110 are Bantu medical students in Natal who are accommodated there specifically because there is no medical faculty at the Bantu university colleges as yet. In other words, if one does not take these 110 medical students into account, there are only 38 Bantu at white universities at present.

There is an entirely non-white faculty in Natal.

Yes, there is an entirely non-white medical faculty there.

In the meantime the University of South Africa has developed further. The University of South Africa is an institution which provides training facilities by means of correspondence. In 1961, 1,171 Bantu were enrolled at the University of South Africa and in 1966 the number had increased to 1,616. In other words, at university level the number had increased from 1,825 to 2,924 from 1961 to 1966, a period of five years. This really is an achievement. We already offer seven faculties at the Bantu university colleges. There are faculties of arts, education natural sciences, law, theology, agriculture and commerce and administration. Hon. members will be interested to learn that the University College of Zululand the entire Department of Psychology, for example, is in the hands of Bantu at present, from the head of the Department to the lecturers and the students. Here again we have therefore achieved the ultimate of the ideal we set ourselves. This is the direction in which we are still going.

Then I come to the seventh point, namely the question of financing. At the time of the take-over this matter was, of course, discussed at length and it was decided in this House that the amount spent from the Revenue Account in 1953, prior to the take-over, would remain fixed at that figure, namely R13 million. Up to the present time White taxpayers contribute R13 million to Bantu education annually. But to what extent has Bantu education been extended in the meantime and how has the cost thereof been defrayed? There has been an increase in the general tax. Whereas only three-fifths of the general tax was transferred to Bantu Education, 100 per cent was eventually transferred to Bantu Education. In other words, the R3.50 which a Bantu pays as general tax is at present transferred to Bantu Education intact. It is evident from information which we have at our disposal that only 53 per cent of those who have to pay tax do in fact pay this tax. If the collection of taxes can be streamlined and if machinery can be put into operation to obtain a 100 per cent collection of the general tax, this contribution to Bantu Education can be increased tremendously. The contribution of the Bantu in respect of his own education increased from R3 million in 1955-’56 to R7,774,000 in 1965-’66, whereas an additional amount of quite a few hundred thousand was spent on university education. From a total Bantu Education Budget of nearly R22½ million the Bantu themselves already contribute R8½ million from their own taxes. Therefore as far as each of these seven objects are concerned, we have achieved, or are in the process of achieving, what we set out to do. I come back to the idea I expressed at the beginning, namely the United Party’s standpoint at that time that the Act could not be implemented and that it was bad. At that time they moved by way of amendment that the Bill be read “this day six months”. In other words, they expressed their disapproval in the strongest Parliamentary language, and what has happened in practice? In the meantime Bantu education has been placed on this sound basis.

In conclusion I just want to mention a few figures in order to illustrate how South Africa compares with African States in the field of Bantu education. Hon, members must remember that most of the African countries do not finance their education from their own sources only; they receive technical, financial and other assistance from various sources. The necessary aid is poured in from all sides. We know that a communistic paper wrote scornfully, “Yes, it is true; the Americans provide the hospitals in the African states; we provide the nurses who indoctrinate the patients with the communistic idea. In the second place the Americans provide all the libraries, the buildings; we from the communistic countries provide all the books for indoctrinating the readers”. That is what is happening in Africa at present. But in spite of all this aid which is poured in and the fact that they are free states which may deal with their finances arbitrarily, the position is as follows: Of the children of school-going age between seven and fourteen, the following percentages do attend schools in the African states: In Ghana 92.8 per cent; second on the list is the Republic of South Africa with 85.3 per cent. Then follows Kenya with 60 per cent; 60 per cent of its population of school-going age is at school and the rest receives no education at all. In the case of Libya it is 59.7 per cent, Algeria 55.8 per cent, Sierra Leone 27.1 per cent, Mali 18.5 per cent and in Somalia 4.5 per cent of its population goes to school. This gives a clear picture of our position in South Africa. Our position must after all be compared to the position in the rest of the African states, because that is where a comparison is possible.

How does the Bantu see this situation? I have here a number of letters and I just want to read one or two in order to illustrate how these people feel about this matter. I cannot pronounce the names very well, but the first letter was written by the principal of a Bantu school at Winburg and he said the following (translation)—

I have here another letter from a person from Johannesburg. The first letter was from a Free State Bantu. [Interjections.] Mr. E. D. Morane wrote from Maroka and the letter was published in The Star of 2nd June, 1966—

Now, a few ideas on why we have this education and this training. The first reason why we give this education is that we, this Government and the Whites of South Africa, have always adopted the attitude that we are the guardians of the non-Whites. That has been the attitude from the beginning. However, a guardian does not remain a guardian of his ward for ever. At some time he must lead the ward towards his own fredom, otherwise he is not a good guardian. One must not keep him down for ever, because that is everlasting discrimination. For that reason one assists in providing these facilities for him, gradually and step by step in his own territory on certain conditions so that he may eventually be able to stand on his own feet. This is the duty of the guardian towards the ward; this is our duty as human beings and that is why we are doing it in the first place. In the second place, it is very closely bound up with the practical implementation of the Government’s policy of separate development and peaceful co-existence. I now state specifically—and then they must accuse me of indoctrination—because I am using this word which has such a bad connotation in the world on purpose, but I maintain that in view of the specific problems created and the particular tasks imposed by the population structure in South Africa, we should be unwise if we did not use education, apart from its general object of making human beings more mature and civilized educationally and for imparting general knowledge, to bring the problems of South Africa with its population structure pertinently and specifically to the attention of the children of all races so that they may know how to co-exist in this country in the future. We should be unwise if, as far as education is concerned, we held the view that we were living in a paradise in which there are no problems of any nature. Like in Israel, education must be geared for producing a nation of pioneers who have to offer resistance on the borders to attacks from Jordania and elsewhere. In this way we in South Africa have to use education to bring about the realization that Black people and Brown people and others are living here together and that we have to respect one another and that each has to remain in his own territory, and for that reason education is ideologically linked up with the policy of this Party, and that is how it should be. Education must also serve the State. It cannot exist merely for its own sake. One cannot simply train a person; one has to train him for service to his community. That is the task. Education must also bring about the economic progress of the Bantu in their own areas. It is also essential to give those countries their own freedom eventually, and you do after all know that the ultimate aim of our policy to which we are progressing is complete freedom and independence for those people in their own circle. We have to make economic freedom available to them in the direction in which they are moving.

I want to give the hon. Minister two or three hints within the space of three minutes and the Whip is already looking at me askance. I do not really want to give hints, but I do want to put forward some ideas. In the first place I want to ask whether, as far as Bantu education is concerned, we should not think more specifically that our task at this stage lies in practical and technical education and that more emphasis should be placed on that than on academic education. Time does not permit of a long discourse. I do not want to neglect academic education, but from the nature of the case the primary task now is to make provision for the broad masses to find a livelihood and to find work and to be able to earn an income for himself and his people and to be able to maintain a decent standard. In order to be able to achieve that, one feels that the emphasis now has to be placed on technical and practical education where a person can be trained as a cook or as a waiter and in various spheres in which he can really find himself. I want to go further and ask that preparatory courses be fitted in at the university colleges and I want to mention the specific example of the so-called B courses at the various colleges. I think there was such a course at the University College of Zululand. Here we have the eternal question, “Which came first, the egg or the chicken?” The students cannot gain university admission because they do not have scientific subjects such as chemistry and mathematics but they do not have the subjects because there are no teachers who can teach these subjects. Now we have the eternal circle. I understand that the University College of Zululand offered the so-called B course which afforded students in their first year after matric an opportunity to qualify for full admission if they did not have scientific subjects by taking those specific subjects, subsequent to which they could do either of two things. They could either proceed to a teaching course and take a teacher’s diploma which enabled them to teach those subjects at school, or, in the second place, they could take the A course, the full academic course, and could proceed with their studies after that year of preparation. Furthermore, I want to ask for more diploma courses and I think the Minister may profitably give consideration to this matter. These are diploma courses and not necessarily full academic courses. The latter must be there and we should like them to be there, but do not allow the person who cannot complete the full course, who fails in his second year, to go back to the ordinary commercial world or whatever the case may be; award him a diploma after further study in his field of study so that he may bring relief in that field. He does have the knowledge, after all, although he has not achieved the full standard. Make use of him, by means of a diploma, to render assistance and to bring relief in respect of the situation as a whole. I have a further two or three points which I shall discuss with the Minister in private. In conclusion I just want to say this. Our Bantu education has showed, over the past 12 or 13 years, that we are on the right road, that we are moving in the right direction and that we should continue in this way because the Republic of South Africa demands it of us. We must continue on this road and must make the necessary adjustments to enable us to cope with the problem.

I find one very great advantage in the speech of the hon. member for Randfontein; the ground he has covered is similar to the ground I intend to cover myself. I intend to reply to the points he raised, practically all of them, but there are two points on which I do not wish to leave him in any suspense. I should like to deal with them immediately. The first is in regard to the Separate Universities Select Committee, which became a Commission and reported in 1959. The hon. member says that our attitude to that Commission was negative. Sir, it was not; it was positive. I understand there are only two members in this House to-day who sat on that Commission. The other member was the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare. We are the only survivors left in the House. On the 1959 Commission, not only did we differ but we gave a minority report expressing our views. One thing we did not do was to object to the establishment of tribal colleges. The hon. member, like others, is confusing two things.

What are tribal colleges?

The university colleges for Africans. What we said was that this was not a question of whether we should oppose the establishment of those colleges. Establish them if you wish we said and have as many facilities as you like, but do not interfere with the free universities we have. That was our attitude. The Government members said that the African must get out of the white colleges. We said: If you do wish to get them out, let us have a ten-year plan. It is almost ten years now. Secondly, I want to say that the whole basis of our minority report—if anyone wants to read it I will let him have a copy; it is a fine document—was based on the expert opinion of leading educationists in South Africa. They were all Afrikaans-speaking, from the Universities of Stellenbosch, Pretoria and Potchefstroom. We based our report on what those learned men had to tell us. So much for that.

I come to the second point, which arose through an interjection by the hon. member for Houghton on the question of home language instruction, the correct thing for the Africans. I do not know whether hon. members have heard of the Cingo Commission. I am sorry I cannot pronounce it in the correct manner, but I just call it the Cingo Commission. That was a commission established by the Department itself. There were three members of the Commission, two of whom were distinguished members of the Department and the third a retired inspector who later became Minister of Education in the Transkei, with two assessors, white educationists from the Department. They drafted a report on the state of education in the Transkei. I do not want to read the whole report, but it is a damning indictment. I just want to take from the report the point which refers to home language instruction. It says—

I need not go further. They know themselves what they want. I leave that for the moment, because I am coming back to the report of the Commission. Anyone who has attended debates on Bantu education in this House from 1952, which was the first year during which I took part in those debates, up to last year, 1966, will know that I cannot subscribe to the terms of the motion of the hon. member for Randfontein, much as I like him personally and much as I respect his views on education. Let me take two points. He speaks about the “sound progress” that has been made. I do not think we have made sound progress, and I want to deal with it in detail. Here is a very attractive expression, that the policy of this Government is now “a policy of peaceful co-existence”. Well, what is in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. If the hon. members find that the name “peaceful co-existence” has the same scent as apartheid or separate development, I have no objection. But we were always told that the policy was apartheid, separate development. Now it is peaceful co-existence. I thought peaceful co-existence was the Russian policy towards America, or the policy of Western Germany to Eastern Germany. I did not know it was the policy of South Africa. Surely we have all been existing peacefully here; we have been living very happily together.

I want to say that there is one very heartening sign in the speech that we heard to-day. Gone are the days when Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr was accused of being a “kafferboetie” because he was spending £4½ million, that is R9 million, on the education of Bantu, who form 70 per cent of the population. Those days have gone. Every hon. member in the House to-day is anxious to support the cause of Bantu education. We are all “kafferboeties” now. We are all liberals. When the Bantu Education Bill was introduced in 1953 Die Transvaler said, “Vandag, soos in die verlede, is die Nasionale Party die ware progressief en liberaal.” If anyone would like to see the cutting, or see the article it comes from, I can produce it. We are all agreed now. What we must do now in this House is to see how we can get together. I have made suggestions as to how we can get together. I have done it over the years, year after year. I think there should be established in this House a committee for Bantu education. This committee for Bantu education would be representative of both sides of the House. We could advise the Minister and the department. That is what I think could be done. The same thing is done in regard to Rallways. We also do it with public accounts. Why can we not do that? At present the Select Committee on Public Accounts takes Bantu education in its stride. There is no doubt to-day about our attitude. We all want it. Even the hon. the Minister of Finance made a speech last year in which he said that he expected a break-through in the economic situation because of the advance made in the field of Bantu education. But there is this difference, Sir. The hon. member for Randfontein and the Minister of Finance say the Bantu are being educated for service in their own areas. Now, a man cannot be educated for service in any area. A man is educated not for some place; it is the man who is educated, and whatever area he will find himself in in the future, he will be in the position of being an educated man.

We had a debate recently on Natives going back to the reserves. Does anyone believe that the Bantu children in Soweto are going to go back to the reserves? The whole idea is absurd. There are over 500,000 African people in Johannesburg. They cannot all go back to the reserves. We know they are not going to go back. They are being educated for life there, and yet this department, when it was offered assistance in respect of the very thing the hon. member for Randfontein tells us about, namely technical training in a school to train them for their work in Johannesburg, the Department refused to let them be trained in Soweto. They were told to go to the homelands or the reserves. They are all being told they must go to the homelands. They are told they are being educated to-day to go to the homelands. It is a new version of the old plantation song, “Carry me back to old Virginny”. Now they teach them to sing, “Carry me back to old Eshowe” or old Umtata or something of that kind. The whole thing is absurd, Sir.

I now want to say a few words about what I find in this motion. The first thing we heard from the mover related to the matter of finance. Well, if ever there was a tangled web it is the financing of Bantu education. The Government introduced a Bill in 1953 and Bantu education commenced in 1954. In 1955 they established this Bantu Education Account in terms of Act 23 of 1956. We all know that famous section 20. In 1957 they came forward with another measure. In 1957 they said that the Loan Account for Bantu education which until then had been financed out of the Native Affairs Vote, would be debited to the Bantu education account as well. No other department has to do that. In 1958, for good measure —or bad—they then said that this would apply to what had been expended on the Loan Account from 1954: it was made retrospective. The Bantu Education account is for current expenditure and loans. How is the money raised? It is raised, as was pointed out here, by the Native poll tax, which is an amount of approximately R10 million. That is the amount budgeted for in the last Budget. There is also the pegged amount of R13 million from the first day the Bill was introduced. Then with the development of the university colleges an extra R1 million was given, which makes now R14 million. Then there are sales of property and various subscriptions and fees that come to about R850,000—let us say a round million rands. So we have about R35 million all told. But, of course, that is not sufficient.

What do we spend on a child in a Bantu school? We spend R13 per child per annum. What do we spend on the white child in my province, of which I am very proud? On a white child in a primary school we spend R90 per annum, which is seven times as much. What do we spend on a child in the high school in the Transvaal? We spend R141 per annum per child, which is 11 times as much as that spent on the Bantu child. The only students Bantu education is providing for well are the students in the colleges. We have had the figures given to us here, namely in some cases over R2,000 per student per annum. I have the figures here, if anyone doubts my figures. That is how the amount is raised. But it is not sufficient. That is not sufficient money.

We have now said to the parents that they must pay. I will give credit to the department for this—they have praised the parents for paying themselves for their schools and for their teachers. They called on the parents, the poorest section of the community, to pay for their teachers and schools. I have always felt ashamed of that, Sir.

The next thing we require to know when we speak about our finance is: How are we providing to-day for secondary education? What progress have we made? I have given the figures before. That fact is, Sir, that a system of education has to produce its teachers. The position to-day is that only one child in 30 can go to a secondary school, only one in 1,500 reaches standard ten, whilst only one in 9,000 passes matric. Those are not my figures, they are the figures of the department. That is the picture relating to finance.

Now, Sir, we have not the buildings, and we have not the teachers. We saw pictures in the newspapers this week of poor children in Soweto who are not going to school. A thousand Bantu children cannot get into secondary schools. They must have passed standard six, they are in the eighth year.

Mr. Speaker, when the House adjourned I was dealing with the report of the Department of Bantu Education and I referred to the fact that money was apparently not available for schools and for teachers’ salaries. I pointed out that the poorest section of the community were in some instances being called upon to provide their own schools. 5,500 Teachers are being paid by private people, 2,000 of them presumably by churches and other private organizations and 3,500 by the parents themselves. They have to pay for their own teachers. That is one of the weaknesses of the whole system. I have been protesting against the inefficient Bantu education system. When I say that, I want it to be clearly understood I am not referring to the officers who are called upon to administer this system. On the contrary, they do not deserve our criticism, they rather deserve our prayers in having to administer this Act in its present form. There is another point I should like to mention in regard to finance. We are told that finance is not available and a new financial proposition has been enunciated by the Department of Bantu Education. They say they can tell us what the contribution of the Bantu is to our national product every year. They said that for that reason they could peg it at R13 million or R14 million, as the case may be. That is quite absurd. If one takes the product of any enterprise, whether it is an ordinary manufacturing company or a gold mine, who can say how much is contributed by natural wealth, how much by capital, how much by the enterprise of the skilled staff, how much by Whites and how much by Bantu. The thing is impossible. We are economically integrated, whether we like it or not. We have been told that funds are not available and therefore the department has praised parents for providing their own funds.

I am very pleased the hon. member for Queenstown is here in his capacity as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. He will be able to assist me. According to the Auditor-General’s Report for the year 1964-’65 R625,000 of the Bantu Education Account was surrendered because it was not spent. In the financial year 1965-’66 over R1 million was surrendered. This was done by people who confronted these poor Bantu people with this proposition: “You are now asked to decide whether you will have school feeding as you have had, or more education.” These poor people said: “We will choose education.” The Department could have given both. They have sufficient funds. I have spoken and given my opinion and I now go to the people whose opinion is much more valuable than mine and, if the hon. member for Randfontein will excuse me, whose opinion on Bantu education is more important than his as well. I am speaking of the leaders of the Bantu people in South Africa. What do they think of this system under which they have to work. They did not provide this system. They are the toad beneath the harrow. The toad beneath the harrow knows exactly where each toothpoint goes; the butterfly upon the road preaches contentment to that toad. We are the butterflies on the road and we are telling them that they have a wonderful system of education. Now I want to refer to them. The first name I shall mention is that of Professor Kgware. He is an important man in the field of Bantu education in South Africa. He is a professor at Turfloop University College for Bantu and in addition chairman of the Bantu Education Department Advisory Committee. He is a man of some standing and I should like to quote him—

There is one authority. I want to return to the authority I mentioned this morning in passing. I am talking about the Cingo Commission, namely three Africans appointed by the department to draft a report on complaints that had been received concerning the system. I quoted this morning its findings about the question of medium. Now I want to quote one or two more:

These were men appointed by the department. I read another—

Sixty per cent of Bantu schools have double sessions. Only 40 per cent have single sessions. I read another:

In other words, there is dissatisfaction with the school boards and the school committees and with the whole system. What did the predecessor of the hon. Minister think of this report? What did he think of the Cingo Commission Report? He praised it and said that it was a very fine report. It condemned his system but he said that it was a good report. In other words, he is beginning to see the light and there is ground for optimism. The Cingo Commission Report condemned the whole basis of this Act which we were given in 1953, the basis which was praised by the hon. member for Randfontein, the school board system in Bantu education. Under that system the teachers become the chattels of the school boards. Here we have professional men and they come under these laymen: Some of them may not be educated; and these laymen have the power to appoint teachers, to promote them, to transfer them and to dismiss them. They control the disciplinary regulations as well. There it not a white school board in the whole of South Africa that has that power. They have that power. When this system was introduced in 1953, we tried to warn the Government and said that this was a very dangerous experiment. It is dangerous. The Cingo Commission said that this is a serious situation. Shortly after the commission had reported on education in the Transkei, the Transkei received self-government and they dealt with this question of the school boards. What did they say? They said that the whole system was rotten with bribery and corruption. The hon. the Minister of Education said—

I can quote much more. It was condemned by Chief Kaizer Mantanzima and Mr. Moledle who was then the Minister of Education. That was their opinion, the opinion of the toad beneath the harrow.

Mr. Speaker, I accordingly wish to move the following amendment—

1. (a) the grave shortage of professional men and technicians, and
2. (b) the need to educate the Bantu to enable them to make a greater contribution to our National productivity,

deplores and condemns the failure of the Bantu Education Department to make adequate provision for the education of the Bantu.”

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to support the motion of the hon. member for Randfontein. With reference to the speech made by the hon. member for Kensington I just want to say that we find the arguments and the statements made here by the hon. member rather hackneyed. The same applies to the accusations. We have listened to them time and time again from that hon. member and from the other members of the Opposition. We have also debated the question of home-language education on several occasions. From that same quotation from which the hon. member read one or two passages I shall prove to him that the reverse is also true. What the hon. member proposed in his amendment amounts to nothing else than the advocating of a purely integrated community in all fields.

I should like to say that the cardinal and most important dates in regard to the development and the progress made with Bantu education under the government of the National Party are specifically the following: In 1953 we had the passing of the Bantu Education Act (Act No. 47 of 1953), when all Bantu education, with the exception of higher education, was taken over by the then Department of Native Affairs. Another very important date is October, 1958, when the new Department of Bantu Education came into being and took over all administrative control of Bantu education. A further important date was 1959, when, despite much opposition, the Extension of University Education Act was passed here. The Bantu Education Act, as we noticed this morning, has evoked tremendous opposition, opposition which began here in Parliament where the Opposition were supported by the then Native representatives, opposition which was propagated by the English-language Press and which also had its effect on the Bantu themselves and which caused the Bantu at that stage to oppose this legislation. The purely educational principles and the noble motives of the Government contained in that legislation were overlooked. All that was done was to arouse suspicion against the legislation. I can recall that I attended a congress of the Native Advisory Council in January, 1955, in Uitenhage. On that occasion only matters affecting Native advisory councils in cities were to have been discussed. But somehow or other the question of the Education Act was raised. I cannot repeat here the language, the remarks and the insulting words expressed by the Bantu there on that occasion. Present on that occasion were one or two educationists; one was principal of a Bantu high school in the Free State. He stood up and asked the delegates to give the Education Act a chance. He said that there were elements in the Act which had to be tested.

Fortunately the dissatisfaction, resistance and opposition on the part of the Bantu disappeared in time, one reason for that being the judicious application of the Act by the officials of the Bantu Education Department. In time the Bantu came to recognize the intentions and the exalted motives of the Government. Positive results followed and there was co-operation. In this regard I want to read one letter. There are many letters which I could read, but in this regard I just want to read one letter which I find typical. It appeared in the Bantu educational journal of March, 1966. The heading of the letter is “The good fruits of Bantu education”. The person writes as follows:

The writer then goes further to say something about the matter which the hon. member for Kensington mentioned here just now, namely mother-tongue education:

Then there is a concluding remark:

The take-over of Bantu education has truly ushered in a new era for Bantu education. To my way of thinking the objectives were briefly as follows. The first was to train and prepare the Bantu thoroughly for service in their own community. The second was to create opportunities for the Bantu to render service to his community in various fields, such as agriculture, education, industry, self-government and administration. The third was to create greater opportunities for the Bantu parents, something to which the hon. member for Kensington has objected so much. This objective was to create opportunities for the Bantu parents to participate in educational services. In this way the school boards and school committees have been established by means of which more interest on the part of the Bantu parents in the education of their children was roused. In addition education must, in the fourth place, be adapted—for me this is a very important point—to the cultural heritage of the Bantu, to his nature, to his interests, to his requirements and to his own identity. As someone stated it very effectively to me—

And who lives in a western country.

The aim was autogenous education for the Bantu and in this connection the Department and this Government have done much pioneering work. For more than half a century here in South Africa and throughout the entire continent neither the social order nor the valuable traditional institutions and customs of the Bantu were ever taken into consideration. What was done was simply as part of an effort to Westernize the Bantu; to make of him a black Westerner. What was the result? The result was that the developed and educated Bantu became estranged from his own people; he lost his own identity and became an artificial being. This principle of autogenous development— the hon. member for Kensington will no longer laugh when he hears what I am going to say now—is being accepted by educational experts on the continent of Africa. I am referring here to resolutions adopted in September 1962 by a conference at Tananarive of 31 Africa states. South Africa was not present to indoctrinate those delegates with its system; and what did they say at that conference? There the following was stated—

Bantu education here in South Africa has indirectly sought to achieve the development of peaceful co-existence—that word which apparently smells as sweet as lavender to the hon. member for Kensington. In spite of castigating criticism and agitation against the Bantu education policy, the Bantu parents have, through the school boards and committees, been given a greater say in the matter and have gradually come to reveal a different attitude to this matter, and the splendid motives which inspired the Government when this Act was being passed have begun to yield good fruits. The schools and the teachers have become the hard core of co-operation and goodwill, and from there it has radiated out and has also brough in its wake good race relations, peace and prosperity. The fruits have already begun to be plucked. Proof of the fact that good fruits are being plucked was the fine Republic Festival celebrations held last year. Sir, it was a revelation of the goodwill and co-operation of the Bantu. The Bantu schools were not given direct instructions to organize the festivals but it was put to the principals that if they were approached by Territorial Authorities for assistance they could in fact co-operate. In this way principals and teachers rendered active assistance in many ways with the arrangements and the functions in regard to the Republic Festival celebrations. Where these festival celebrations were given added lustre by presenting choral singing, exhibitions, concert programmes and competitions, there they lent a hand, and so we find that a major part of the teaching staff and pupils were actively incorporated in the celebrations in the various national communities. In addition to that I also want to mention the competitions, inter alia the essay competitions for standard 5 pupils in both languages, which were held by the Department as well as the competitions for Bantu composers and Bantu writers—a competition in which 142 people participated. But in the short time which I still have at my disposal I should like to refer to a number of the festival celebrations and the goodwill revealed there. These celebrations were attended by crowds of Bantu and Bantu children. I am referring in the first place to the Ciskei. At Zwelitsha the function, held on 14th April 1966, was attended by between 10,000 and 12,000 people and that in spite of unfavourable weather conditions. A choir of approximately 1,000 schoolchildren was responsible for the choral singing. In that case the Territorial Authorities were responsible for the organization. At Lady Frere, where the function was organized by the Regional Authorities between 6,000 and 7,000 Bantu were present on 15th April, 1966. The items were well arranged and it was the teachers who had had the lion’s share in those preparations. Then I come to the South Sotho. At a function held at Witzieshoek on 15th April, 1966, there were almost 6,000 Bantu present.

At Ficksburg approximately 85 per cent of the inhabitants of the Bantu residential area there were present at the function and the choirs were composed of Bantu schoolchildren. I then come to the Venda: At Sibasa there were approximately 7,000 Bantu persons at the function which took place on 29th March, 1966. Chief Mphephu, the chairman of one of the Territorial Authorities stated, inter alia, at that function—

In other words, what the Government promised, it gave—

In the Shangaan territory a celebration was held on 29th April at Thabina near Tzaneen, which was attended by approximately 5,000 Bantu. One of the members of the Machangana Territorial Authority was the main speaker there and I am quoting to you in brief what he said (translation)—

And now the speaker continues with fine imagery—

He continued—

That word which the hon. member for Kensington cannot swallow—

Mr. Speaker, I could have enlarged further on the celebrations held by the North Sotho at Turfloop which were attended by approximately 7,000 Bantu, as well as the celebrations held by the Swazis at Tonga in the Barberton district, which were attended by approximately 4,000 Bantu. At Temba, a Bantu town in Hammanskraal, approximately 1,000 schoolchildren formed a guard of honour for the hon. Deputy Minister, Mr. Vosloo, who was the main speaker there. Approximately 10,000 people were present. I could also have referred to the celebrations at Ga-rankuwa and at Caprivi and even to the well-attended tribal celebrations in South-West Africa but I do not have the time to go any further. I just want to mention a last example from Natal. Apart from the festival celebrations at Nongoma, which were attended by approximately 5,000 Bantu, almost 600 Bantu schools in Natal and Zululand celebrated the Republic festival there on 18th March, 1966. The greatest gathering of Bantu was apparently at the Umlazi Bantu township. According to estimates 25,000 people were present, almost half of whom were schoolchildren.

How many head of cattle were slaughtered there?

I do not know whether the hon. member was present there; I do not know how many head of cattle he normally slaughters for a function. In every instance the Bantu Education Department, on its part, perpetuated the memory of the Republic Festival celebrations by presenting each one of the schools with a copper school bell with the Republican coat of arms on it. In this way 8,900 schools in the Republic received a fine memento and a functional article of daily use.

One can state without any reservation that the objective observer would have to admit that there has been a phenomenal growth and development in Bantu education over the past few years. The hon. member for Randfontein quoted certain statistics here to illustrate that fact. I just want to mention a few factors which in my opinion have contributed the most to that phenomenon. I am referring here to the sacrifice and the loyalty of the thousands of Bantu teachers and inspectors who have given priority to the task of education and have paid no heed to all the prattle of our opponents. I should also like to refer to something I mentioned a moment ago, i.e. the hard work, the loyalty and unselfish service of the officials of the Bantu Education Department, from the Secretary down to the most junior official. I am also referring in this regard to the enthusiastic interest and active participation in educational matters of approximately 55,000 Bantu parents serving on local control boards, school committees and school boards. Then I also want to mention the eagerness to learn of the Bantu and the will and desire of the Bantu nation to build up for themselves a future in their own environment through knowledge and education. In conclusion, before my time is up altogether, I just want to make a remark in regard to the future. We are not saying that we have already achieved everything we would have liked to have achieved in regard to Bantu education. Neither are we saying that enough provision has been made for professional and technical training. I definitely feel that the territorial authorities can be activated to an even greater extent in this regard. I want to ask lhe hon. the Minister whether it is not necessary at this stage to activate the territorial authorities to assume greater responsibility in general and also in regard to their education.

The hon. member for Koedoespoort seems to have derived considerable enjoyment from this Cook’s Tour around the Republic, indicating the paeans of praise which the Bantu expressed at the time of the Republican festivities. Sir, festivites usually provoke happiness, but after every festivity again comes the day of reckoning, when we have to come back to the realities of life. I believe that the “kern van die saak” in this motion moved by the hon. member for Randfontein is expressed very clearly in para, (c), which refers to the grave shortage of adequately trained professional staff and technicians who will be required to replace Whites in the Bantu areas. To me this is a tacit admission of a degree of failure after 10 or 12 years of the implementation of Government policy in regard to Bantu education. Hon. members realize that, and at least they are prepared to admit that these shortages exist. I want to refer to our amendment, in which we indicate that in the mind of the Opposition all is not well in regard to Bantu education.

The attitude of the Opposition is not that of airy fairy hypothetical do-gooders. We look at things from the practical point of view. We appreciate that we can no longer live in a fool’s paradise and believe that 3 million people can go on providing the skilled services for 17 million people. We believe that the time has come to ditch the theory that the Bantu child should remain a Bantu child.

What is he to become then?

The hon. member for Randfontein referred to the late Prime Minister’s remarks when he was Minister of Native Affairs. I wish to refer to some remarks made by Dr. Verwoerd, and I believe that from these remarks one can assess the difficulties that confront Bantu education to-day, particularly the difficulties in respect of the financial situation. Dr. Verwoerd said in 1954, when he was dealing with this question of the subsidy and the pegging of the amount contributed by the State to R13 million a year—

Sir, there does not seem to have been a change of heart in that respect. Four years later, in 1958, the then Minister of Finance more or less endorsed these words. He said that while the White guardian should supply essential funds, thereafter the community concerned must itself see to the extension of those services, in accordance with its capacity. But this only applies to the Bantu. If it applied to each of the racial groups in South Africa, perhaps there would be some justification for it, but to lay down a policy of that nature in regard to the poorest and least well-off and the most numerous race in South Africa seems to me to be a little illogical. Then seven years ago we had the remark to which I have referred, the remark of the Minister of Bantu Education, who said that it was the aim of Bantu education to keep the Bantu child a Bantu child.

Do you want to make him somebody else?

How can we ever hope to overcome the great shortage of adequately trained professional staff if we treat the Bantu child as a Bantu child? I say that hon. members opposite are wallowing in the morass of their own ideological intransigence. They are no longer objective and they are no longer able to criticize themselves. I want to give some figures to show the results of this attitude. The hon. member for Randfontein has quoted figures which I do not question, but his figures were not comparative; they reflected the position of one racial group only. If one compares them with the figures for other racial groups in regard to their education facilities, it becomes different.

Compare them with the rest of Africa.

I am glad the hon. member made that remark. I will do so straight away, although I was going to do it a little later. I want to refer the hon. member for Koedoespoort to Rhodesia, a little closer to South Africa than some of the other states to which the hon. member for Randfontein referred. I believe that Rhodesia is an object lesson to South Africa because their expenditure on African education represents 11 per cent of the total budget. Their national budget is £60 million, and African education takes up more than £6 million of that. In relation to the number of students in Rhodesia, the Rhodesians are spending as much as the South African Government is spending on Bantu education, but our numbers of pupils are much higher than theirs. I think the hon. member for Koedoespoort should bear that in mind. Whereas the Rhodesian expenditure on education is 11 per cent, my calculation makes the amount of money spent in South Africa on Bantu education 1.1 per cent of the total expenditure.

In the limited time at my disposal I want to deal with certain factors because I believe they play a very important part in this picture of Bantu education. I wish to deal with the question of Bantu teachers and their salaries and I deal with it in the full knowledge of what the hon. the Minister of Bantu Education said last year when he indicated that conditions would be improved. I want to deal with expenditure under the Loan Vote, and I want to deal with school fees and school books and school feeding, and if I have time, the question of Bantu night schools.

The shortage of teachers is, I think, one of the greatest difficulties and it has caused the lack of satisfactory progress in Bantu education. There are not enough properly qualified Bantu teachers, and why are there not enough? I think the answer is easy enough to arrive at if one studies the facts. In 1966 there were, roughly, 20,800 qualified Bantu teachers, of whom less than 50 per cent were earning more than R2 per working day. There were, roughly, 1,400 unqualified Bantu teachers, of whom less than 4 per cent were earning R2 or more per day. On a five-day week, this totals the magnificent amount of R43.3 a month in salary. I want to tell the House that if members refer to the figures released by the Bureau of Statistics for 1964, they will find that there were 2,100 Bantu in the tobacco industry earning nearly R48 a month. There were 12,000 Bantu in the paper and paper products industry earning almost R44 a month, and there were 5,400 Bantu in the printing industry earning on an average R56 a month. There were 17,000 Bantu in the clothing industry also earning on an average over R41 per month.

If the salary offered to people who, I believe, would be classified in the main as semiskilled labourers is in excess of the salary offered to Bantu teachers then I believe that it is a sad indictment of the years which have been wasted in the development of Bantu education.

But it does not extend in this direction only. Take for example the expenditure on Bantu education on the Loan Vote in the last Estimates. I am referring here to schools only. I am ignoring altogether the ethnic colleges. The expenditure from the Loan Vote for Bantu was R450,000 for approximately 1,600,000 pupils. For Coloureds the figure was R1.8 million, which is four times the amount for a quarter of the number of pupils. These are the comparisons which the House must take into consideration. The sum for Indians on the Loan Vote was R5.6 million, which is 12 times the amount for one-twelfth of the number of pupils.

Then we come to this vexed question of school books. There again, of all the races the poorest race is the greatest sufferer, because the amount is pegged and the Deparment of Bantu Education with the best will in the world cannot provide some of the services which I believe its officials would like to. I will now furnish official figures in connection with school books. I can give the relevant references, they are all here. As far as Bantu are concerned, no books are supplied free to pupils in classes above standard six. In primary classes, class readers in English, Afrikaans and a Bantu language and certain graded class books are provided free. What is the position? The position is that a Bantu child who wishes to go on from standard six to be trained to fill the positions which the hon. member suggested are urgently required to be filled, in terms of his motion, has to buy, or his parents have to buy, his own books. It means that, according to figures released in Natal, the text books and the exercise books for those four years of education would amount to more or less R97. The figures which were given to me some time ago by the Department of Bantu Education for the Cape indicated that their estimate was approximately R70, and this was from the primary class to Form V. I submit that no other race in South Africa has that burden in regard to their education.

Let us take the Coloureds for example. The position varies from province to province. In the Transvaal free loan books are provided to all pupils up to and including standard ten. In Natal free loan books are supplied up to standard six, and from standard eight to standard ten indigent pupils have to apply for loan books. But they can obtain them. In the Cape state schools pupils have to supply their own books but indigent pupils can apply for loan books. Let us now take the position of Indian education. In this regard certain information was given in reply to a question—and this information is reported in Hansard. Free books are available to primary and high school pupils. Now, Mr. Speaker, is it fair to say that we in South Africa are doing everything possible in regard to the education of our largest population group?

Then there is the question of school feeding. I should like to refer briefly to a report of a commission appointed by this Government which was mentioned in the Senate in 1951 when the then Minister of Education referred to a report of a commission on school feeding. He said this—

If we take that to its logical conclusion, what do we find as far as the Bantu people are concerned? We find that the incidence of kwashiorkor, though it is gratifying to notice it is declining, amongst the three racial groups, namely the Bantu, the Coloureds and the Indians, is highest amongst the Bantu. The incidence of the disease amongst the Bantu is 2½ times that found amongst the Coloured people, and it is 24 times that of the Indian community.

But, Sir, despite this recommendation from the Government’s own commission, nothing is allocated for school feeding. This does not apply to Coloured schoolchildren. It does not apply to Indian pupils. There is a scheme in existence whereby Coloured schoolchildren receive multi-vitamin tablets. In 1963, 44,000 were receiving these tablets, and it is estimated that ultimately 73,000 Coloured schoolchildren, the indigent ones, will be receiving vitamin tablets.

As far as the Indian community is concerned, school feeding at the moment mainly operates in Natal. An amount of R300,000 is allocated for that in Natal, and it is subsidized by the Department of Indian Education which was recently taken over by the State.

When a question was put to the hon. the Minister of Bantu Education in regard to the possibility of supplying vitamin supplementary tablets to indigent and under-nourished pupils, the reply was that “such a service does not fall within the purview and responsibility of an education department”. Note that, Sir. That is contrary to the recommendation of their own commission.

Next I want to deal with the question of bursaries and loans. Because, Sir, obviously a poorer section of the community, if it is to receive education, must be assisted to a large extent by making available to them bursaries and loans. What is the position in this regard? We find that as far as the Bantu are concerned, bursaries and loans allocated amount to R111,000 in the last year for 1.6 million pupils. As far as our Coloureds are concerned grants-in-aid and bursaries total R448,000 whilst bursaries to the value of R420,000 are available. This was for only 400,000 pupils. When we come to deal with the Indian community we find there again that proportionately the amount allocated to Indians is far in excess of that allocated to Bantu pupils. We find that R72,000 was allocated for 135,000 pupils.

I realize that I have quoted a large number of figures. However, I have done it deliberately because I believe that so often these figures are examined separately, and not together, whilst I believe that the only way in which we can obtain a comparison and have a true picture of what is being done—or what is not being done—is to take the figures and examine them together. I believe that these comparisons are odious, Sir.

Then we have the question of libraries. Surely a library is one of the most important factors in the education of people who a short while ago were illiterate. And what do we find? We find that an amount of only R4,000 is shown on the Estimates for libraries for the Bantu children. For the Indians—who are much smaller in numbers—there is a sum of R40,000 allocated.

There is another inconsistency which I find very hard to understand. This is something which has only become apparent to me as a result of a question during the last session, and that is in regard to the financing of Bantu schools. It now seems that there will be a discrimination exercised in the financing of Bantu schools. Those primary and secondary school buildings in the homelands will be financed in full by the Government but those in the Bantu townships in the white areas of South Africa will only be financed on a rand for rand basis. Surely the pupils in those areas are just as much entitled to Government assistance as those in the Bantu homelands.

Then there is another aspect which I feel should be dealt with sympathetically by the hon. the Minister and his Department, and that is in connection with the Bantu night schools. Many of these Bantu night schools were serving a very useful purpose. They were run by dedicated people who were giving education to Bantu who normally by virtue of their domestic duties in cities stood no chance of improving their education. But what happened? Most of them have been closed and those which still manage to exist, do so under most difficult circumstances. There was one in the Durban complex and because the site was required for road development, the Department of Bantu Education could not see its way clear to give a permit for removal to a new area which had the approval of the local authority. It seems to me so wrong that these young people who desire education and who can get it if it is available to them, are entirely deprived of such education. They spend their evenings in the cities with nothing to do but gather together on street corners and be tempted to go into ways of crime. It is no use saying that these people can go to night schools provided they are in the non-white townships. It does not work. I have gone to the trouble to find out. It is absolutely impossible for these pupils to leave their domestic service at a reasonable time, to catch two buses in some instances, to attend night school and then to get back safely much later in the evening under almost dangerous circumstances. I believe that this is a shocking state of affairs and one which the Government, bearing in mind that there are other gaps in its ideological implementation of its policy, could consider with a sympathetic ear to see whether the many Bantu employees in the cities can be given some facilities for improving themselves. It will be in their own interest if the Government is ever able to implement its policy and get these people back into their homelands.

Mr. Speaker, in the very limited time that we have to discuss a very important subject I do not want to allow myself to be led astray down a few murky by-ways dealing with matters which belong under the Bantu Education Vote and which it will be possible to discuss here shortly, something which a very senior member on the opposite side, the hon. member for Kensington, was unfortunately also guilty of. He raised points here which should have been raised under the Vote, and he also rode quite a number of his old hobby horses. The hon. member for Durban (Berea) who has just finished speaking did not confine himself sufficiently to the motion to which we are giving our attention and enlarged at too great a length on Vote discussions. I do not want to do that. In my speech I am going to touch upon a few aspects which they raised. I just want to try and give the hon. member for Berea an adequate reply on one point and do so in the words of a Bantu man in Africa himself. The hon. member referred quite derogatively a few times to the expression, “a Bantu child to be treated as a Bantu child”. In fact, he referred very derogatively to that expression. The hon. member is implying that what should actually be done to the Bantu youth is to apply denationalization in order to tear them away from what the Creator intended them to be, i.e. members of a specific Bantu nation. That would be committing genocide as far as they are concerned. Nothing else. In that way too tremendous hatred on the part of those Bantu nations is being aroused against the Whites advocating and practising those things. Proof of that state of mind was furnished when the hon. member for Koedoespoort read extracts from certain letters and referred to that very effective statement made at a Republic Festival. But I want to read the hon. member something which was said by a very important Bantu person of Africa who had the following to say—

These words were spoken by President Julius Nyerere at the opening of his Parliament at Tanzania quite recently. I think it is the most damning reply to that integrationistic member for Berea. The spirit of our Bantu education system and the object of this Government with the presentation of Bantu education is not, as that speaker put it, to try and make imitation black Europeans of them but “to help them regain pride in their own culture”. I think that we have now permanently dealt with the hon. member for Berea on this point. With more time at my disposal I could have done the same thing more intensively and have brought the hon. member for Pinetown more discomfort and less amusement, but I cannot do so this afternoon. The same applies to the hon. member for Houghton who said here by way of interjection that the Bantu in South Africa were living in a Western country. The hon. member for Kensington spoke here about the university colleges and made frequent reference, with few deductions, to the minority report of 1959 which preceded that legislation. I would advise the hon. member, after having had six or seven years’ experience of the system of university colleges, to refer back with less pride to that minority report, because the university colleges have, as they have done so many things, given the lie unambiguously and irrefutably on every point to that spirit which lay hidden in the minority report. The university colleges have done excellent work which has already attracted the attention of countries outside South Africa’s Bantu areas. So much for that hon. member. In regard to the hon. member’s amendment I want to quote a single word which typifies a tremendous ideological difference between the Opposition and the Government which occurred when he spoke in his amendment about the better education which the Bantu ought to have received so that there might have been a greater contribution to “our” national productivity. We are not dealing here with one developing nation in South Africa. We are dealing here with differing criteria and differing complexes of productivity which arise from the abilities from the different Bantu nations which have to be co-ordinated with wisdom and statemanship into a joint effort here in Southern Africa. So we must see the production potential of the Bantu peoples alongside that of the white people in South Africa. I do not want to discuss that hon. member any further either.

I should like to thank and congratulate the hon. member who moved this motion for having done so. I think it is a very good thing that we have been able to focus properly, not only the attention of the members of this House, but also the attention of the Bantu and the attention of the Whites in South Africa on this matter, even if it was just for a few hours. It is an important matter for all of us who are concerned in it. The only pity is that there were not sufficient positive contributions in this regard from the opposite side of the House. I want to remind hon. members very briefly and merely in passing of the fact that when discussing these matters we must always take certain basic principles into consideration. I have already touched upon several of them here by way of repartee. The first, the most fundamental of all the principles, the root of the entire complex of principles, is that Bantu education is an educational system for the Bantu. I am saying this more specifically for benefit of the hon. member for Berea. Bantu education is an educational system for the Bantu. That is fundamental. That applies to every manifestation and facet of all educational activities. That applies to financing, to syllabuses, to methods, to management and control—to everything. The principles on which Bantu education are founded, are just as universal and just as unassailable as those in the other educational systems we know in South Africa i.e. they must be adapted to the requirements, the knowledge, the background, the experience and the abilities of the various Bantu nations or groups for whose benefit the education is being applied. Therefore we will also see that as far as organization is concerned education must differ from one Bantu nation to another, just as it differs from one white nation to another and differs between one white nation and another non-white nation in South Africa and in the world. Another very important principle is that the Bantu child must be trained for service in and to his own community and in his own ethnic sphere. As a result of this we have all the secondary schools, the trade schools, the technical schools, the training schools, the university colleges as well as those facilities for medical training which we already know about. The establishment of these opportunities and facilities for study always supplies the needs of the Bantu nations concerned and of the Bantu homelands which are involved, and serve as the primary point of departure when considering what we must do and how we must do it.

A further principle I want to remind hon. members of is that in a certain sense the Bantu themselves set the pace at which Bantu education develops. The rate at which the number of secondary students increases, and associated with this, the rate at which the scope of secondary study facilities increases, is in a certain sense determined by the Bantu themselves. The number of qualified artisans, technicians, and professional people, etc., produced each year, also depends on this principle. As the Bantu themselves develop on the physical, political, economical and social levels, so their education must develop and expand. It would be fatal if the education of the Bantu were to develop out of all proportion and away from the Bantu, or vice versa, fall behind in the development process. It is the bitter task of all of us who are entrusted with the administration of education to see to it that that balance is maintained. I have every reason to believe, on the basis of the facts and the statistics which the hon. member for Randfontein very skilfully mentioned in his introductory speech, that the pace which we have thus far set in the development of Bantu education has developed correctly and will gradually be accelerated as it becomes necessary.

The last principle I want to remind members of is that the Bantu must also accept great responsibilities, and must in particular accept the responsibility in respect of financing their own education. Education is a basic service without which no nation can make any progress. It is therefore only fair to expect that the Bantu should pay for it themselves. There is nothing which will do more to bring home to a nation, which is being subjected so severely to denationalization onslaughts, their needs and their duty to save themselves, than being obliged to provide their own education. The particular financing methods for Bantu education contain no new or shocking principle in this connection either. The basic purpose of this financing method is to intensify responsible citizenship amongst the Bantu and to make them aware of their obligations towards their own people and also to make them aware of the fact that a nation with self-respect must, as far as possible, see to their own needs. The collection of Bantu taxes, which has given cause for concern in this regard, is already being administratively improved as much as possible and I am glad to be able to say that there have been appreciable improvements merely in the administrative collection of Bantu taxes. If necessary, and I think it will be necessary, we will have to see to it that better statutory methods are introduced for the collection of Bantu taxes. In this regard the hon. member for Kensington, whom I should not like to waken now from his afternoon slumber, had a great deal to say about the inefficiency of Bantu education and also about the financing of Bantu education. Bantu education must not only be educational but must also be financially related to the Bantu nations. In that way they must also adapt to the living standards of the Bantu. That is why it is not correct, as the hon. members for Berea and Kensington did, to refer to Bantu education as a cheaper and rudimentary form of education. The educational system, just as in the case of the other systems which nations must have in order to come into their own as nations, must be related to the essential nature of that nation itself. That is why it would be useless for me as an individual to wish that I could have for my children, whom I have now for a period of 19 years been seeing through university, the same inexpensive pattern of university education as the Bantu in South Africa are experiencing in respect of their university education. If we compare the Whites to the Bantu we find that we are dealing here with two different criteria, with two different national systems, with two different patterns of life and living standards. These are facts which hon. members on the opposite side should make some attempt to visualize and understand. That is why I reject the statement that the education of the Bantu is inferior and that the education of the Bantu is of too low a standard and ineffective because it is perhaps cheaper per capita, as the hon. member calculated in his speech.

On these principles and on others rests the great expansion which we are experiencing in all the types of schools which we find in the Bantu education system. It is not necessary for me to go into that any further. Other hon. members, particularly the two on the Government side, quoted statistics in this regard which everyone will find useful. I just want to remind hon. members of one small example in this connection. It is the position in regard to matriculants. Future matriculants are a very important group of Bantu persons who have to go through our schools. Fortunately the figures of Bantu matriculants increase every year even though they are not of a sufficient number and in a ratio which one would like to see and which is perhaps necessary. However, they are increasing. That is the right type of phenomenon. Matriculants with mathematics and science, which comprise a very important part of the knowledge of mankind, are also increasing yearly, perhaps because our Department has for many years already been applying a stimulus in this regard in the form of bursaries which we grant as encouragement. That is why great progress has been made in this sphere, particularly the technical sphere, the specialized field of education and more specifically also in the field of trade training and technical education because the service which must be rendered to the community here is so great. Compared with figures in previous years the numbers of technically-trained Bantu have perhaps decreased, but that is because training in those days was a purposeless training when compared with the purposeful training which they are receiving now. The great progress in this field is also rooted in the great choice they have in regard to the direction they can take in trade and technical education, a number of which possibilities I shall mention to the House in a moment. We have in our institutions many students who are being trained as carpenters, joiners, furniture makers, bricklayers. concrete workers, plasterers, plumbers, leather and upholstery workers, radio electricians, electricians, bakers, tailors, spinners, weavers, medical orderlies, sister-lecturers, milliners. female hairdressers, butchers and numerous others.

I then come to the next level, which is that of the university colleges. I am sorry, Sir, that I have to deal with these things in haste, like a butterfly touching lightly on flowers in its rapid flight. The three Bantu university colleges have in the past few years been developed with great success, as I told the hon. member for Kensington at the outset. The initial prejudice which there was, just as in the case of Bantu education and in regard to which the hon. member for Koedoespoort read out a striking example a moment ago, also disappeared like mist before the rays of the sun. The three university colleges, which have already been expanded, together have more than seven fullfledged faculties, namely the faculties of law, education, agriculture, arts and philosophy, natural sciences, theology, commerce and administration. The number of colleges has not only increased, it is still increasing, and in addition to that building alterations will have to be carried out at the colleges. In this regard hon. members must bear in mind the medical training scheme in Durban which further completes this picture of Bantu education at the university level. There are great opportunities therefore for the Bantu youth, opportunities which are steadily increasing to enable them to equip themselves for service within their own spheres.

After this very rapid little survey I want for a moment to try and look to the future, as the hon. mover of this motion also did. Since the acceptance of our policy of separate development these two Departments which deal with Bantu administration have, particularly in the past few years, spent much of their time on the drafting of policy with a view to future development on the basis of separate development and the time has now come when these two Departments will, to an increasing extent, be concerned with the practical implementation of these policies. In recent times a comprehensive reconstruction and rebuilding of society, of nations and of communal aims amongst the Bantu peoples in South Africa has been in progress. This reconstruction is overarched by the political developments, the emergence of the Bantu nations on their road to freedom; and if it is borne in mind that freedom in fact means the right to govern oneself, then one must realize how great and how important is the task of all of us who are concerned with qualifying the Bantu individuals to accept their duties in this task of responsible and independent self-government as people and as individuals. All forms of development of the Bantu peoples and of their separate home territories must therefore to a very large extent emanate from and be generated by the Bantu peoples, the Bantu communities and the Bantu organizations themselves. It is desirable that the Bantu should to an increasing extent undertake and implement matters dealing with all branches of their national development, assisted of course by the Whites. That is essential for a greater degree of self-government and the fact that they must do these things themselves is the most important training ground for good citizenship and independent development that they can have. What it amounts to is that the Bantu authorities should in general, for the particular responsibilities allocated to them as authorities, be more actively involved in the execution of their duties. This activating process embraces their entire national way of life. I do not want to say much about that at the present. I had something to say about this matter during the last session and I will probably have more to say about it later on in this session. But what is of very great importance to the contents of this motion is the fact that the authorities must literally therefore be assisted in involving and finding more and more Bantu individuals so as to be able to build up a civil service and a social order of their own with their own people.

With a prime minister.

Of course, with their own ministers. There is nothing strange about that. Some of them already have their own ministers. Of course we, as white officials, have to help them and support them in that task, and that is also what we are doing. Of course I can say nothing further at this moment about the particulars of this process and the re-organization which it will entail; I can only say that my two Departments are already very busy preparing this re-organization of the activating of the Bantu on that basis in conjunction with the Bantu themselves, with a view to its future application. At this stage I just want to emphasize again that the Bantu must train their own people for that service, and the entire Bantu public service in its wide variety will ultimately therefore have to be made up of Bantu themselves. The control of every nation’s domestic affairs is, as you know, managed by two parallel-moving elements or cells, namely the administrative cell and the government cell. It is in these matters which they have to be of assistance; it is for this that training is now necessary. Along these natural and evolutionary lines the various Bantu populations can, each in its own way and according to its own tradition, according to its own requirements and activities, found and formulate its own national identity and not try and imitate that of a western nation. With a view to the initial requirements of such a Bantu public service, the Department of Bantu Education will, in the closest co-operation with the other Departments, i.e. the Department of Bantu administration and Development, concentrate on a well-planned training programme, and for that purpose will not only the existing university colleges, the vocational training schools and the technical schools have to be used to the full in order to meet the need for Bantu professional men, Bantu artisans and Bantu clerks, but the necessary Bantu manpower, particularly on the technical level, will also have to be provided. As I informed hon. members earlier on, the Department of Bantu Education has already made a start with this task. For example, they have already made a start with the training of Bantu surveyor assistants, Bantu health inspectors, medical orderlies and assistants, nurses, and numerous others. The courses at its trade and technical schools are continually being expanded and supplemented as the need arises. The university colleges are already providing for the training of economists, social workers, agronomists, lawyers, etc. Even a course in pharmacy has been introduced, at the university college of Turfloop in Northern Transvaal. I am very glad that the hon. member for Randfontein made such effective reference in this connection to the Schools for the Sons of Chiefs, of which we have four in the country, where people are also being trained—in fact those people who are already the traditionally designated future leaders of their people—in the spirit, in the traditions and requirements of leadership of their people, a type of school which we as Whites do not even have for children of the same age. However, they do have them in Britain. But much more than that is necessary. I have said that the need for Bantu technicians, particularly at this time, has become urgent. On more than one occasion reference has been made to the fact that more should be made of the training of Bantu engineers, but here I would also much rather believe in the evolutionary process than in the reverse process of training, because it is my view that it would be an incorrect principle to begin with the training of Bantu engineers and other technologists for the most advanced services while there are insufficient numbers of technicians and tradesmen on the lower levels of the pyramid, for surely the pyramid is broader at the base where the ordinary tradesmen and technicians of the nation are to be found. As the requirements on the technical level are met, the time will in fact arrive when it will also be necessary to train technologists on the higher level, including engineers, to do that work. Both my Departments are at the moment planning for institutions, courses and syllabuses for the training of artisans and technicians in the entire comprehensive sphere of engineering, according to the existing requirements in the ranks of the Bantu in all the different fields. These things are also of course very essential in the field of commerce, administration and law, and work is also being done in the necessary direction there. In this connection there are numerous courses at our colleges which lead to diploma certificates and not to degree certificates, which is what the hon. member for Randfontein advocated. I may just mention that there are already 16 courses at our various colleges in education, social work, law, theology, agriculture, nursing, pharmaceutics, commerce and administration, and for all these specific directions I have already accepted it as policy, and laid down as a principle, that efforts should more specifically be made in the direction of expansion and the furnishing of trained persons by means of diploma courses. That is a very sound principle, particularly in view of the requirements of the Bantu, but no matter how important it is to have these people with diplomas and certificates we must be realistic and keep our eyes fixed on practical things and see to our immediate requirements. In this respect we have a tremendous need for the ordinary schooled Bantu in all these branches. In order to meet these immediate requirements for the Bantu authorities it is the plan to recruit Bantu with the necessary potential whenever they may be found, in the teaching profession or in the white areas and the municipal service, or wherever it may be, so that they can become qualified as quickly as possible for that specific service at the university colleges and their technical institutions by means of shorter or longer courses. It is my fixed intention to qualify such trainees by means of diplomas as well, which can subsequently count for their promotion in the service. We have made a start with the planning for these crash training courses and it will shortly be possible to make practical progress. Here I am thinking of all the practical things such as all the various offices which I mentioned and which are necessary in all the branches of the Bantu peoples’ own public service. [Time expired.]

I listened with very great interest indeed to what the Minister had to say, and I want to express my sympathy with him right now because I believe him to be a sincere person and I believe that what he has said to-day constitutes the ideals he has for Bantu education. But I cannot accept for a single instant that he is talking about realities. I simply fail to understand how the Minister and the Nationalist Party can hold out this vision of complete and absolute separate development as a reality under present-day conditions.

Wait and see.

I am told to wait and see. The hon. member for Randfontein came forward with this motion to-day to create an opportunity for the Minister to tell us about his ideals, and what we had from the Minister came down to this. He quoted a Prime Minister of Black Africa, Julius Nyerere, an avowed socialist, a man who has gone out of his way to turn his back on every single value that the West recognizes, a man who has abused the position to which he was elevated in order to destroy Western values.

He was your bright boy some years ago.

He was never a bright boy of mine. I want to ask the Minister whether the values of Western Christian civilization are universal. Do they mean anything in the world to-day, or are they limited only to the white people in South Africa or the white people of the world? Because that is the conclusion I draw from what the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Randfontein have said. Are the values and principles on which our Western Christian civilization is based universal, or are they not? Are they still of value to anybody except ourselves, or not? We are told by the Nationalist Party that these people must not become black Europeans, but what is it to be a European? Is it the belief in certain standards and certain values on which our religion is founded? That is what we understand when we say that we are Europeans and have a European civilization. Are we now turning our back on that and saying it is of no application to anyone else in this country, by insisting that they evolve something of their own not dictated by us? Now Nyerere is quoted as an authority which justifies this, but I think the Minister could have done much better than that.

The motion deals with the practical implication of the Government’s policy of peaceful co-existence. I want to ask: Co-existence with whom? Is it co-existence with the Bantu people in our country? Are we not to-day peacefully co-existing with our Bantu people? Because we now have a motion which is mindful of the practical implementation of this policy and then calls for all these things to be done. If we are to-day peacefully co-existing with the Bantu people, how are we going to persuade them that they must become citizens of another country which has no existence at the moment except in the minds of the Minister and his Department? How are we going to put it across to them when they are playing an economically fruitful part in our society, that they have to evolve away from us into something else? What is the goal of every single undeveloped people if it is not imitation of the Western way of life and the standards of living of the white man which are based, I repeat, on our Christian civilization, because of the respect we have for each other and our recognition of the rights of the individual and the right of every man to get ahead?

But you can get that without sacrificing your own culture.

I agree, but why must we now deny to the Bantu that very thing and force them into something else? [Interjections.] I want to know whether the Department of Bantu Education in fact has embarked upon this policy of forming the minds of the Bantu pupils and telling them that they have to develop into something else which will separate them effectively from the white man. I want to hear whether that is the policy of the Minister’s Department.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to put it to you this way. I have very little time left. We talk in this country, and the hon. member for Soutpansberg is continually using the word, of the infra-structure of our economy. And we have this physical infra-structure which comprises the Railways, the roads and housing, in other words physical things which make it possible for investment and production to take place. But there is such a thing as the mental infra-structure of our country, which consists of the education of our people. This mental infra-structure is the ability of these people to absorb the technical knowledge and to apply it. That is what is important in this country. It is vitally important that we should put this across to the absolute maximum number possible. From the hon. the Minister’s point of view, surely this must apply, even if we accept for a moment that there will be homelands in which these people will develop. How can we accept that it is just and right to limit the amount of money for the education of the Bantu people even if they are to develop in their own homelands? Because, the infra-structure which I term the mental infrastructure, the ability to absorb and to use technical ability and technical means of production, must not be limited. They must be used to the absolute maximum.

The expenditure has risen every year.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister said that we must keep pace with the development of the Bantu people. But surely we are not looking at them as they are to-day. If we look at the position of the Bantu population as they are to-day, then we can accept that they are people who possess a certain limited degree of civilization, a certain limited degree of participation in our economy and in our way of life. But what of the next generation? Our plans should not be limited to what they have here to-day. We should be looking at the next generation and the one beyond that. And I believe it is criminal, Mr. Speaker, to limit as we are limiting to-day, our financial contribution to the education of the Bantu youth who in the future will have to carry in their own country as well as in ours, the burden, an increasing and growing burden, of having to put into effect the technological civilization of which we are so justly proud.

Do you know that we are spending R10 million more on Bantu education than what we spent ten years ago?

It is a limited amount we are offering them. We are not going ahead as fast as we might. I think it is common cause on both sides of the House that we could do more. And if there is a reason I should like to know from the hon. the Minister why it should be limited. And we are unable to accept for one moment that this is something for which there is any justification. I now wish to discuss for a very brief moment the needs of a country such as the Transkei. Not only the Transkei, but there are eight other countries which we were told are going to emerge. Every single aspect of their lives, every movement day in and day out, is going to be affected by the policy that we are applying to-day. And, Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that we are doing enough. What I think is happening in this country is that we are going through a process which is happening in other industrialized countries, whereby every succeeding generation moves into a place in society that its forefathers never knew. The children of the White population of to-day, the children of this generation, will be doing work that their fathers never did. We have it amongst every single group, In so far as the Coloureds and Indians are concerned there is a continual upward movement as a result of education, employment, and as a result of income coming in from our society. And that is happening to the Bantu too. In every single Bantu township in this country where the Bantu have come in to take certain standards of employment, their children, by reason of the great opportunities created, even by the hon. the Minister’s own policy, will have opportunities which will be greater and higher and of a far more demanding nature. And this is something which is happening in our country and I feel that this is a sociological trend that goes on throughout the world. But I do not think there is any country in the world where the successful application of it and the ability of allowing it to go ahead, is more important than in this country. Because I believe that is the key to this peaceful co-existence of which the hon. member spoke when he introduced his motion. What we have here is a country that is developing. What we are being told is that this Government will ask the Bantu people to leave this country of ours, to accept that they are not citizens of this country of ours. In other words, to leave a country, Mr. Speaker, which is one of the industrial wonders of the world. They must now accept citizenship in a developing country where they will perhaps be a little bit better off than in some of the other countries of Africa. But not all that much. They will be dependent on us in all the progress that is made. And I am wondering whether the hon. the Minister’s Department is putting this across to the minds of the people that they are teaching. Because that is what we are doing. We are asking them, the present generation of Bantu working in our industries and on whom our whole future depends, to accept that their children shall leave this society of ours, that they shall accept citizenship somewhere else, in some other place, where those opportunities and advantages will be denied them. And I believe that the hon. the Minister, and the hon. member who introduced this motion when he was talking about the practical implementation of the Government’s policy of peaceful co-existence, are making a very serious mistake when they believe that that is the way to achieve peaceful co-existence between the different races in this country of ours.

What about America?

What about America?

Do you call that peaceful co-existence?

Mr. Speaker, we have quoted here from this hon. member and from the hon. member for Koedoespoort …

I move—

Initially, I must confess that it is with a certain amount of diffidence that I venture to raise a matter of this nature in this hon. House. I felt it could impinge on intimate matters, matters which affect people at a time of great sadness, something which could reawaken memories and cause distress. But I have had a growing conviction that the time has come when some form of investigation should take place into the manner in which funeral services and other ceremonies which take place when we leave this mortal sphere, are conducted. None of us can avoid or escape death. There are no barriers for rich or poor or White or Black. Death can strike at any time, it can come suddenly and it can catch those left behind unawares. I believe that to be a time when consideration and sympathy on the part of those left behind is a very important aspect. And I believe too, that there should be no exploitation at that time in matters affecting the last rites of departed people. I do not believe that the little adage which the undertakers adopt sometimes when they exort their staff to “collect while the tears flow”, should apply. I do not believe that anybody should capitalize out of another’s grief or to profit from another’s sorrow. These may all be laudable sentiments and I know that when this sad happening takes place there is a tendency for some people in their grief to be more extravagant than they need be. And I believe that there are sometimes people who take advantage of a mourner’s distress. The mourners themselves are diffident about raising objections or protecting themselves from exploitation because they regard it as a sign of disrespect for their loved ones whom they have just lost. They, therefore, do not argue about what happens and they do not investigate too closely charges which are made. It is difficult to say whether this exploitation has assumed any alarming proportions in South Africa. But I would be very loath to see in our beloved Republic a situation which has developed in America in regard to exploitation. Anyone who reads “The American Way of Death” by Jessica Mitford or “The High Cost of Dying” will realize that it would be a sad day for South Africa if some of the practices which have become accepted commercial practice in the United States should ever be allowed to develop here.

We find that funeral arrangements vary in accordance with the person’s religious conviction. Different races have different ways of honouring their dead. Some people find that the keeping up of the tradition in that respect involves a great financial strain, and it is not uncommon among the Bantu people to find that they have to borrow to bury their dead. As far as the White upper income group is concerned, I believe that no particularly monetary sacrifice or hardship is involved. They are usually able to provide the facilities which they regard to be in keeping with the status of the loved one they have lost.

When it comes to the question of the poorer section, often they are faced with sudden and crippling expense and in many cases their pride makes them feel that expense should not be spared on such an occasion as this. They find themselves committed to debts for a long time afterwards. This is not unusual, because undertakers themselves indicate that there is a high proportion of bad debts.

Now, Sir, I realize that the State cannot protect people against themselves in this respect. The State cannot interfere, but I believe, too, that the State should make sure at this time, a time which comes to all of us, there should be the minimum of exploitation and malpractice. If possible malpractices should be eliminated altogether. I want to refer to certain known instances where I believe the actions of undertakers and funeral directors have left quite a lot to be desired. I am referring particularly at this stage to the question of funeral benefit and burial societies. I have already referred to the question of pride, and I know that many people feel that when they depart from this mortal sphere, they would not like their loved ones left behind to be involved in expense, or be crippled by a great deal of expense involved in funeral services. Because of this feeling, they are inclined to take out some form of policy, which undertakes to do certain things and which they feel leaves them with a sense of security, so that when death comes upon them, they know full provision for their last rites has been made. As a result of this, they take out various insurance policies, and usually by means of a regular monthly payment, which in some instances can be as small as 35 cents a month, spread over a period of years, undertakers and funeral directors contract to provide certain arrangements at the time of death. I understand, Sir, that these contracts are calculated actuarially and on that basis it should be, from the point of view of the funeral director, a reasonably safe business investment. I do not believe that there is any excuse for some of the means that have been adopted in so far as these policies are concerned. They may be adopted to compensate for a short-fall as a result of increasing cost of services, and the general increase in the cost of supplies, but I do not believe that it is necessary to resort to means which appear to be taking place. I want to refer in a little more detail to a particular policy. This is a policy which has been offered by a firm which has been established in the Republic for over 100 years. They contract to do certain things. They say in their policy “in consideration of the above payments and the due observance of the terms hereof, the Society undertakes to provide in the event of the death of a person covered by this contract, as follows—

That is what the policy says. This is what happens in practice, and this is a specific case. It concerns a middle-aged couple who decided that they wished to take out this form of insurance. They paid their nominal premium regularly every week for a period of 10 years. At the expiration of the 10-year period, the policy virtually remains dormant, and no more payments were required to be made until the death of either of the spouses. The husband died first and it was stipulated that cremation should be carried out. In due course, the funeral arrangements were made and completed, and in terms of the policy, the weekly payments continued on the same basis as before for a period of 10 years or less, should the remaining spouse pass away before the period of 10 years. The 10-year period payment expired, and shortly after that the widow passed away. This widow too had made a previous request for cremation. It had also been indicated at both of these funerals that a better quality coffin should be provided, because it was considered by the mourners that the type of coffin which was provided under the policy, was not really in keeping with the occasion.

For a cremation?

Yes, but I am coming to that point, because I believe it is something that does require investigation. The hon. the Minister has raised that matter about the coffin for cremation. In the first instance, although the funeral had taken place under the policy, an account was rendered for the cremation fee. In the second place, there has been an agreement beforehand that an additional amount of R40 would be paid in respect of a better coffin which would be provided. The account submitted amounted to R92. Now, if one deducts the R40, on which agreement had been reached, a further amount of R52 remains. Now the details were supplied, and there were certain charges to which I believe no one could really take exception. There was included in this additional amount of R52 a donation to a minister, Press notices and services in connection with the disposal of the ashes after the cremation. These three items amounted to R19. That left a balance of R33, which was made up as follows:

A total of R33 odd. But what did the policy promise? The policy promised, and I quote from the wording to which I have referred: “The usual attendants fully to carry out the funeral” and “in the event of cremation being desired, the Society will carry out the arrangements required by the crematorium company and pay the cremation fees”. It was established subsequently that the crematorium company charges the undertaker an amount of R15.50 for the actual cremation. But the undertaker’s account showed R21, and there was also the question of the R2 doctor’s fee for the cremation certificate, regardless of the fact that the contract had laid down that the cremation fee would be paid.

At this stage, as is normally the case, I would assume the deceased’s relatives were unaware of the terms of the contract, so they were not, at that stage, able to investigate details. I submit again that normally, at the time of loss and extreme grief, people do not go into these details. It becomes, I think, almost routine procedure that the account which was submitted by the undertaker, is tendered to the estate of the deceased person. However, in this instance, inquiries were made, because it was recollected on the death of the husband that an account had been rendered in respect of the cremation. It was felt at the time that this was wrong, and that the policy covered that. A letter was addressed to this particular firm, seeking details. A month elapsed, Sir. There was no reply. As a result, a registered letter was submitted, which evoked immediately a telephone call from the firm in question, apologising for the fact that the first letter had not been replied to, and offering the somewhat lame excuse, I feel, that it had been wrongly filed. Arising from the second letter an official reply was received in which the firm apologised most profusely, assured its most careful attention at all times. An amended account was submitted this time for R71, deducting the amount which had been charged for the cremation expenses.

The letter indicated that as regards a portion of the rules of the contract, which was termed a continuation contract, certain facts applied, to which I have already referred, but full details were not given, although they were specifically asked in the first and in the second letter for a copy of the contract and for full details. A further letter was sent, requesting the full details of the original contract and the wording of the continuation contract, and seeking further information. In due course a reply was received, enclosing the actual contract. The letter also revealed that the policy made no provision for Press announcements. So it would seem that no provision would be made in a policy of that nature to notify those left behind of the demise of a person whom they may have known for many years. It said “the family is usually advised accordingly”, but in this case, no such advice was given. In so far as the charges rendered for the three Press insertions, the remark was made that normally a service charge was made when more than three Press insertions were required. So a service charge of R1, in addition to the normal Press insertion charges, was made. Then, despite this funeral taking place in mid-winter, there was a charge for the preservation of the body. In the letter requesting further details, mention was made of this fact. This is the reply, and I quote: “Preservation of bodies is at all times necessary and these services are not covered by the policy, for on occasion bodies are sometimes kept for several days”. In this instance, death took place on the Sunday. The funeral took place on the Tuesday. I am told by someone who should know, that there is no such thing as preservation. Apart from embalming, it is merely refrigeration. One is tempted to ask: How can the terms of the contract offer “a full funeral” if these charges are levied? Then the question of an after-hours removal fee was raised. The reply was: “You will no doubt appreciate that any removal carried out outside of normal hours of business necessitates the payment of overtime for the staff engaged on such removal. Therefore a charge of R6.30 is made and is paid to the staff concerned”. Reference was made to the cremation fees. The comment in the reply was: “These fees are paid to the crematorium”. You will remember that the crematorium charges the undertaker R 15.50, but the charge levied in this case, which allegedly was paid to the crematorium, amounted to R21. The letter concluded by stating that an amount of R42 had been paid to the burial society, indicating that that was all that was paid, and implying therefore you had received your R42 worth. All of these details can be substantiated—I have the correspondence here. I have photostats of the actual statements—I believe it is fair to ask whether these practices are general, and if they are general, whether the time has come when this House should pay some attention to the matter and make some recommendation to the Government asking for these circumstances to be investigated. You see, Sir, I have made my inquiries in a limited way, and I am told, and again I believe my source to be a reliable one, that in cases of cremation under this type of burial policy, the cremation charges are always made, irrespective of whether the policy admits that the cremation should be provided if so desired.

Then there is another aspect. I am told that although at one stage with these policies the coffin which was supplied, was in keeping with the dignity of the occasion, to-day the standard of the coffin has deteriorated to such an extent that very few people, I understand, would be prepared to make use of the coffin that is provided. There is a further aspect. I am told that normally the charge for the use of the mourners’ coach is approximately R5, and in this instance surely, if the mourners’ coach had not been used, it could have been offset against other expenses, but no attempt was made to do that. I have examined the terms of other policies, and one of my hon. friends, who will take part in the debate at a later stage, will deal with it in a more technical and skilled manner than I can. I believe that the terms of these contracts are not specific enough and that the people who wish to make this provision, are not really certain of the terms which they are accepting when they sign the contract. I believe that there is room for misunderstanding, and I believe that there is always a reluctance on the part of the surviving relatives to be involved in what they regard as disrespectful and undignified arguing afterwards. I think that I have the general support of the members in the House when I say that any form of exploitation in respect of a subject of this nature should be avoided at all costs.

In so far as the question of the crematoria are concerned, my investigation has led me to believe that they possibly operate in a manner above suspicion. They are controlled by provincial ordinance and they have regulations promulgated by the province. I know that one company in particular, and this is a matter which the hon. the Minister of Transport raised, is most specific that it will not accept a funeral if there is to be re-use of the coffin. That is absolutely specific. But I know doubts exist in the minds of many people as to whether coffins are in fact being re-used, being paid for in full and then used again and again in the case of cremations. To me that is a doubt that should be dissipated once and for all.

I am sure that there are people who are engaged in this business, who conduct their business in an ethical manner, but I feel that it should be established, firstly, that undertakers are not making excessive profits on the basic cremation charge, as I have indicated appears to happen in some instances. I feel, too, that it should be established beyond doubt, and prevented as far as possible, that touting by means of commissions and gifts does not take place amongst hospital staffs and nursing home staffs. I believe there are instances known where that disgusting practice has taken place. I believe, too, in so far as flowers are concerned, that it should be ascertained beyond all doubt that people who direct that flowers should be sent to some institution, are in fact sure that their instructions are carried out. I believe, too, that it may be desirable to investigate whether a monopoly is developing in funeral business and whether, if it is, it is in the interest of the public. I believe that the tendency of many funeral directors nowadays to provide elaborate chapels where people can use their normal church or the facilities made available at the crematorium, is something which may be adding to the basic costs of these services, because if one follows the American pattern, these chapels will become most elaborate; some of them in fact have. They are air-conditioned; they boast in their advertisements, which are extensive advertisements, family rooms, slumber rooms, ministers’ private rooms, etc. I believe that all these things should come under some form of investigation. I would like to suggest that in any investigation that is made, those who are concerned and involved should be entitled to make as much information available to the investigating body as they can. I believe that the public should be called upon to come forward, despite their natural reluctance to do so. I believe that the funeral directors and their staffs—because I believe that the staffs are very lowly paid for the unpleasant type of work that they are called upon to do—the clergy, the medical profession and any other ancilliary services should also be called upon to place whatever information they have before the investigating body.

Sir, I hope that this motion will receive the support of both sides of the House and I trust the Government in its wisdom will agree to appoint some kind of investigating body.

I have been asked to present our case on behalf of this side of the House. I just want to say that I did not come to deliver a funeral oration on the motion of the hon. member for Berea. I think we are discussing this motion on a non-political basis, and if I may say so with your leave, Mr. Speaker, in a very calm atmosphere for this type of motion. This is a topical matter which affects the entire country; it is a topical matter which affects everybody, because in the final instance everybody has to go that way, or shall I rather say, be carried that way. We are therefore grateful that the hon. member for Berea has raised this matter.

As I listened to him presenting his case, I thought of the joke I heard while I was preparing this speech. It is about a lady who went to her doctor to be treated for some ailment or other. All he did was to give her some pills. She asked him what she was to pay, and he replied: “R12”. She said: “But doctor, that is rather steep!” His reply was: “Madam, have you been to the undertakers?”

Mr. Speaker, I want to approach this matter as seriously as the hon. member for Berea. Let me therefore say the following by way of introduction, to place this question of funerals in South Africa in the correct prospective. As you know, we South Africans are a religious nation, and the funeral plays a most important part in the community in the Republic, particularly among the Whites. It plays an important part because most White South Africans are attuned to arranging the last tribute to their deceased beloved ones in the best possible manner. I think it was the British statesman William Gladstone who said on one occasion—

Therefore I want to emphasize again that South Africa must certainly be in the front rank of the Western nations in respect of dignified funerals for its deceased beloved ones. But I also want to add that as far as the Afrikaner in particular is concerned, funerals have developed through the years into a ceremony, a ritual, to which he attaches a great deal of value and which has played a quite exceptional part in the history of his social life. Here I am referring in particular to earlier days. That is why terms like “begrafnisrys”, “begrafnishoek” and “te laat kom vir jou begrafnis” were included in our Afrikaans vocabulary.

The talks I had with funeral undertakers and in particular my own observations through the years have brought me to the interesting conclusion that there is most certainly a difference in approach, as far as funerals are concerned, between our Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking South Africans. I do not want to go into the matter to intensively. I may just mention that according to my findings and to what I was told by funeral undertakers, English speaking persons prefer a more simple funeral. The coffin in particular is mostly more simple than that selected by Afrikaans-speaking persons. I mention these matters in the serious spirit in which the debate is being conducted. Sir, to point out that one should be too categorical when discussing the question of alleged exploitation, if any, by funeral undertakers, of the lower and middle income groups. Because most South Africans like to have funerals accompanied by pomp and ceremony, one may expect the cost of funerals in the country to increase.

Before proceeding to reply to the various allegations of the hon. member for Berea, I want to use this opportunity to say a good word for the funeral undertaker. I feel at liberty to do so because I am in no way associated with any funeral undertaking. It is most important that one should see the service and the service motive of the average funeral undertaker in South Africa in its broad perspective, and as I see it—and here I am referring specifically to the reliable funeral undertaker—the funeral undertaker is in the main actually a combination of three persons in one. In the first place he is the family doctor, then he is also the minister and in the final instance he is the family attorney. I want to start with the last, the family attorney. Like any family attorney the reliable funeral undertaker must have some knowledge of many of the legal aspects of a funeral, amongst them the laws regarding funerals and excavations. Like the good family attorney, the funeral undertaker must also be able to give sound advice in general in a friendly and calm fashion to the bereaved. In the second place I see him in the same position as a minister. He must be able to give advice, for example on the attitude of the church concerned in respect of cremation or in respect of various funeral services, and then he must also be able, like a minister, to act in a dignified way on the day of the funeral itself. Then I also see him as a doctor, because after all he must know something about the anatomy of the human being. He must also be able to ascertain that death has in fact occurred, and like a doctor he must be able to soothe those who are left behind and who may be tense and nervous.

Having outlined these characteristics of the funeral undertaker I think, Mr. Speaker, that you will agree with me that it is clear that the average funeral undertaker—I am not referring to the few black sheep to whom the hon. member for Berea referred—renders a most important social service, and as such he is entitled to fair remuneration for his services. I do not want to anticipate the views of the hon. the Deputy Minister, who is handling this motion this afternoon, because he will present his views himself, but we on this side of the House feel, with the knowledge at our disposal, that there is at present no necessity for a special commission of inquiry into funeral undertakings. The cases of actual exploitation—and I would by no means deny that exploitation does in fact take place—are too few. I want to say at once that I would be the last to deny that exploitation has in fact occurred from time to time. Every profession has its black sheep, but I want to say that the hon. member for Berea has probably lost sight of the fact, although he referred to that in passing, that there is a national association of funeral undertakers in South Africa. I have gone to the trouble of contacting them. I must add that this association represents 70 per cent of the reliable funeral undertakers in South Africa. I do not know whether the hon. member has acquainted himself with the fact that this association maintains a very strict code of conduct. I just want to refer to two aspects of that code. The first relates to this very question of funeral costs. It reads as follows—

It then continues, in the fifth point of the code—

You will therefore see, Mr. Speaker, that if there are actually cases of exploitation by funeral undertakers in the Republic, we on this side of the House feel that it is the duty of the public to bring such cases to the attention of the Government authority concerned, and I am convinced that they will then be investigated and dealt with departmentally.

Finally I also want to say that in view of this Government’s attitude regarding private initiative—we have always advocated private intitiative—we do not wish to interfere with the way in which private concerns arrange funeral services, provided of course that the costs do not become exorbitant. I think the hon. member will agree with me that apart from the three or four cases mentioned by him, he did not present a very strong case to prove that there is large-scale and general exploitation by such undertakers.

I also want to say that if funeral costs have risen in recent years, and they have risen, just like the costs of any other service, it is due mainly to the fashionable demands undertakers are set by the public of South Africa in respect of funerals. If South Africans would be satisfied with less fashionable funerals. I believe the costs would also be considerably lower. I recall the days when I was still a little boy, when life was still somewhat simpler. Then funerals were also dignified, and the accounts were congruous with the occasion. But nowadays, as elsewhere in the world, splendid funerals have become a kind of status symbol to many people. It is estimated, for example, that in South Africa the annual funeral account for an average of 28,000 deaths amounts to about R11.5 million spent on flowers, funeral processions, monuments, tombstones, coffins, etc.

The hon. member for Berea referred in passing to the costs in the U.S.A. Conditions there are not quite comparable to those in South Africa, but I think I may state that we in this country are still in a most fortunate position, because in America funeral costs have certainly become exorbitant. There one does not hear of “undertakers” but of “morticians”. Nor do they speak of funeral undertakings, but of “funeral homes”, and instead of cemeteries they refer to “funeral parks”. During a visit to America I had the opportunity to visit such a “funeral home”, and what an experience it was! It is a palatial building in the latest architectonic style, where a man may lie in state for several days and where those who survived him may obtain luxury accommodation in the building, where even meals are served. In other words, funeral undertakings in America have also become a kind of hotel industry.

The latest statistics I could obtain show that the Americans have to pay about R550 for an average funeral for an adult. The comparable figure in South Africa for a decent funeral in the middle income group amounts to R120 at present. I am convinced the cost of living is much higher in America, but the figures are nevertheless interesting. In America the most luxurious funeral costs about R 1,000, whereas in South Africa, as far as I could ascertain, it costs about R300. The cheapest funeral—and this is important, because the hon. member’s motion refers to the lower income groups—costs about R140 in America, whereas the lowest tariff in South Africa is about R60.

I now want to come to the specific allegation made by the hon. member, that funeral undertakers in general make exorbitant profits. After a thorough investigation I could find no sign of that, and I also want to say that the whole matter was dealt with in a preliminary report by the Bureau for Census and Statistics as long ago as 1946, and that the exaggerated allegations which were then also made, were exposed. On page 19 of that report, the following appeared—

Now one should remember that among the 233 undertakings mentioned, there were only about eight large undertakings. The rest consisted of smaller undertakings. If we leave out all other places and consider only the larger centres, we shall see that we are left with just £9,000, or R18,000, per centre, which is not very unreasonable. A similar inquiry has just been undertaken by the Bureau for Census and Statistics in terms of the general questionnaire which the Opposition opposed so vehemently at the end of last year’s session, the questionnaire which was sent to selected house owners. I do not know whether the Minister has the particulars available, but I think it will be revealed once again that funeral undertakings are still not showing exorbitant profits. Furthermore, one should bear in mind the tremendous expenditure that funeral undertakers have to incur in order to render efficient services to the public, and how the costs of the various items have increased through the years. Let me just take a few categories with comparative figures for 1936 and 1963, the latest figures I could obtain. The first item comprises cemetery fees. In 1936 a single grave cost R4.50 in Cape Town. In 1963 it cost R10. As regards Johannesburg, a single grave cost R6 in 1936 and R14 in 1963. In Durban a single grave cost R5 in 1936 and R20 in 1963. I could continue along these lines.

Another item which involves large capital expenditure for funeral undertakers is motor vehicles. A new hearse, which cannot be manufactured here but must be imported from the U.S.A., cost R 1,400 upon delivery in 1936, whereas it now costs R8,000. In 1936 a mourners’ vehicle cost R600, whereas it now costs R2,400.

I now come to wages and salaries. Funeral undertakers are burdened by a serious shortage of staff, for the very reason that their staff do not earn the wages they may earn in many other professions. This is not criticism of the Government. This is the reason why undertakers frequently find that a man changes his job as soon as they have trained him. In 1936 a qualified artisan earned R14 a week, whereas he earned R40 in 1963. In 1936 a labourer earned R3 a week, whereas he now earns R8.50. In 1936 a funeral manager earned R80 per month, and now his income is R240 a month. Thus I could continue, Sir. but I do not want to burden you with further statistics.

I think it is important that we should discuss the question of materials, namely the manufacturing costs of coffins. Expenditure forms the crux of funeral costs. I shall just refer to that briefly, because my time has almost expired. The costs of wood and other materials have also increased tremendously through the years, compared with the figures in respect of 1936.

In view of the preceding facts, this side of the House feels that we cannot accept the advisability of a commission of inquiry. We feel that if sporadic cases of exploitation occur, they should be dealt with departmentally.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Turffontein has obviously made a considerable study of this subject. I thought when the hon. member for Berea introduced this motion that somebody would quite possibly come forward to substantiate the increases in the cost of present-day funerals. I believe that the hon. member for Berea has certainly done a great service to this House and to the country in raising the matter in this House.

I believe that there are many members of the public who are most concerned at the accounts that they receive following a funeral service. As the hon. member for Berea quite rightly pointed out, at times of deep grief relatives are invariably most anxious to ensure that the loved one who died receives the very finest funeral. I believe that on these occasions a certain degree of exploitation from the part of certain undertakers does take place. If the hon. member for Turffontein referred to the motion which was moved by the hon. member for Berea he will see that the hon. member for Berea explicitly refers to the advisability of appointing a commission to examine the extent of such exploitation, if any, etc. Consequently the hon. member for Berea wished to put forward a case to show that he believed that there was to a certain extent exploitation taking place and that the stage had perhaps been reached where the Government should take some action to clear up this matter. The two important words are “if any”. I am sure it is not intended of the hon. member for Berea to besmirch the undertakers of this country, who obviously perform a valuable service to the community. Obviously the undertakers themselves, who have their national society, can take steps to ensure that exploitation does not take place.

However, it does appear that in certain instances there are undertakers who are exploiting the position, and perhaps the Undertakers’ Society should take a stronger line and exercise a stricter degree of control in connection with the undertakers and directors of firms who are affiliated to their society.

I do not intend to deal at great length with various points in connection with exploitation which has taken or is taking place in regard to this matter. However, I do feel that as far as the older people are concerned, many of them make provision for their funerals, either by taking out a policy or by means of their own savings. Invariably, when one discusses financial problems of social pensioners and others, one finds that those persons have made some provision to pay for their funeral. Obviously they do not relish the idea of having a pauper funeral and therefore some provision must be made for these people. Here I do believe that a certain degree of exploitation does take place. Invariably one finds that where in the case of an elderly couple the husband or wife passes on and the funeral is to take place in terms of an insurance policy, the survivor. because of advanced age, is not able to ensure that all the conditions of the policy are fulfilled. I feel that many of these older people have been subjected to this exploitation. One finds that the cost of dying is certainly increasing more than the cost of living. The small resources of the deceased spouse are consequently heavily strained because of the funeral expenses. Moreover, certain undertakers find ways and means of charging for extra items which are included in the funeral account. Many of these older people are not competent to analyse and challenge the various items appearing on the account.

I know that it is the intention of the Government. perhaps during this session, to introduce a Bill for the protection of aged persons. Perhaps this is one aspect which could be provided for in the Bill. Of course, we have not seen the Bill because it has not yet been introduced in the House. Be that as it may, many of these older people are then faced with this enormous burden, a burden which in many instances. especially among the lower-income group, reduces the estate of the deceased to a negligible amount. I do feel that these older people are open to exploitation. I have had cases brought to my notice where children of a surviving spouse have taken the matter up with the undertaker concerned. Of course, they always do receive an explanation.

The question of the explanation is important. The hon. member for Turffontein tried to put forward an explanation of the rising costs of funerals. Perhaps what he said is true to a certain extent. But at the same time there is this fear that some older people are subject to a certain degree of exploitation. We realize that the costs of funerals must over the years have increased. Both previous speakers referred to the position obtaining in the U.S.A. I was interested to read in the latest report of the Advisory Council on Social Security in the U.S.A.—published for the year 1965—certain data concerning a lump sum death payment in terms of their social security programme. Page 64 of the report contains the following information—

So you see Sir, the increase in the cost of living is a factor as far as the cost of a funeral is concerned. But at the same time the question is whether a degree of exploitation is taking place and to what extent that exploitation is taking place. The hon. member for Berea mentioned cremation and in this regard there is no doubt that there are many people who have become most concerned when they hear stories, some may be true and some not, of the continual use of a coffin by an undertaker. On one occasion I spoke to a leading undertaker in Durban who gave me the assurance that a coffin was not used on more than one occasion. If a person wished to ensure that it was not used again, he could request that the coffin also be incinerated. However, there are many people who are continually afraid that they are being exploited in that regard. I know of a person who was prepared to sell to the undertakers a type of coffin which would have sold at about R30 and which was made of fibre glass and another material. However, not a single undertaker was interested in using such a coffin although it could result in a considerable saving to the public. The reasons that were given were that in many instances they manufactured their own coffins and consequently were not prepared to purchase coffins. These are matters which can be dealt with by the undertakers themselves and by the Society. The hon. member for Turffontein has a point in this regard. The worrying point is, however, whether exploitation is taking place.

I think that there are other aspects of cremation which have caused concern from time to time. I know of a particular case in Durban where a doctor who had recently come to live in the city was asked to call at an undertaker to sign the necessary certificate. When he called at the undertaker to sign the certificate, he was informed that the body had already been moved to the crematorium and that the funeral had already taken place. He then went to the crematorium to examine the body but on arrival there found that the body had already been placed in the incinerator and been cremated. When he reported back to the undertaker he was informed that he could sign the certificate, that everything was in order and that he would receive his normal fee. This is of course a case where the control of crematoria under the provincial ordinance is the responsibility of the provincial administration. I believe that investigations have taken place from time to time in regard to the administration of the ordinance governing the control and administration of crematoria. There does appear to be a lack of confidence on the part of a large portion of the public in dealing with the charges resulting from funeral services. The other aspect is that many of these people become financially embarrassed due to the fact that they involve themselves in a funeral beyond their means. I believe that this is also an aspect which should be investigated, namely where a funeral is allowed to take place and the relations can then pay the amount off over a certain period. I know too of another practice whereby certain undertakers can make available to older people an advance payment arrangement for their funeral. Thereby they achieve a certain percentage of discount. Here again they are old people who are sometimes encouraged by being told that they can have a funeral which would normally cost R150 if they pay R120 now. Some of these people then die some years afterwards and it is found that a R150 funeral is not by any means an elaborate funeral and in fact due to rising costs it appears that the undertaker is then not required to give the funeral he had contracted to do at the time of selling the funeral for R120.

And the deceased would not know it.

Exactly, that is the point which concerns many of these people, and particularly the older people, and I am thinking of the lower-income group who feel that their loved ones or they themselves should be well cared for when the time comes for their funeral to be held. There are many of those surviving who are not conversant with the conditions which are laid down and upon which a payment has already been made. I feel that the hon. member for Berea is to be congratulated on bringing up this matter. I do hope that the Government and the Minister who will reply to this motion, will take into account the degree of anxiety that exists in the public mind when it comes to funeral services.

Mr. Speaker, although I do not intend speaking at length I do feel that we are discussing a most important matter this afternoon, and that it is a good thing that the House should be giving attention to it. When I look at the green benches I feel inclined to say that hon. members have already made very good and adequate arragements for their last journey to the hereafter. If that is not the case, they are feeling very healthy on this Friday afternoon. This is a very important matter because the motion refers explicitly to the lower- and middle-income groups. Those are usually the people who cannot provide for themselves and who do not have the abundant means that we who are sitting on these benches to-day may perhaps have, so that we need not worry that there will be no money the day we die. Those are the people who have no reserves, and it is therefore a good thing that we should give attention to this matter, because those are the people to whom this motion relates. Furthermore, those are also the people who in many cases cannot provide for themselves. I am thinking of the large group of Coloureds, not the developed Coloureds, but the Coloured population of all classes, that go in for funeral insurance nowadays. They are people who in some cases cannot provide for themselves and they are quite incapable of safeguarding themselves against exploitation. I said that it is an important matter we are discussing this afternoon, important to the person who forms the centre of the occasion. I do not actually want to bring it up in that sense, but it is very important to the dear ones of that person who have to bury him. A man may be ever so humble, but if the day arrives when he has to bury those who were dearest to his heart, he wants to pay them the due and proper respects. For that reason I consider this motion most important.

Furthermore, this is not a matter of such limited scope. This is a most important matter in the lives of the people of South Africa. I was surprised when I made enquiries and that virtually half of the White population of this country belong to funeral insurance schemes. Hundreds of thousands of non-Whites also belong to such schemes. Those schemes have assumed such proportions that policies to the amount of almost R4½ million are paid annually and that the funeral funds controlled by those companies total more than R18 million. It is not such a small factor in our economic life, but above all it is a very great factor in the lives of people who want to live with the assurance that when they die or when a dear one dies, they need not worry. There can be no funeral undertakings without funeral insurance. These two things are linked virtually inseparably. Speaking of funeral insurance. I do want to tell the mover and seconder of the motion that there is actually no possibility of exploitation in that regard. The most we can do is to make certain suggestions for its improvement.

I should just like to express a few thoughts which occurred to me when I looked at this motion this morning. The first is that in terms of the 1943 Act the maximum amount for which one may take out funeral insurance at present is R200. I want to ask the Deputy Minister to consider—he need not necessarily reply to that to-day—that since 1943, when this figure was stipulated in the Act, matters have changed a great deal. I want to ask him to consider, furthermore, that insurance even against funeral costs is a form of saving. In our present-day economy we want to encourage saving as much as possible. These people also have to put 10 per cent of their investments into Government bonds, etc. I would, therefore, say, in view of the fact that we have heard here that funeral costs have increased a great deal, which is understandable, that it may perhaps be a very good thing to increase that amount considerably, with a view to people who may want to take out the higher insurance.

There is another matter which we should also reconsider. If one goes in for funeral insurance one pays. I am not going to quote all the tables, but if one has paid from five to seven years and then stops paying, the policy remains valid for a further six months. It then lapses. One then loses all one’s money and gets nothing back. If one has paid from 14 to 17 years and then stops paying, the policy remains valid for a further 24 months. If one has paid 25 years or more, a policy, of course, remains valid for a longer period. Normally a funeral insurance policy is fully paid-up after 15 years. If the policy lapses before that time, however, it is valid for only a certain period, and after that the person is no longer covered. That alone would have been worthy of our consideration, but I also noticed in this book this afternoon that in the year ended 30th June, 1965, 138.000 funeral insurance policies were taken out. But 101.874 policies, almost 102.000 policies, lapsed. To me this appears to be a matter deserving of our attention. A tremendous number of policies taken out for funeral insurance lapse and those people lose everything they have paid in. subject, as I said, to the fact that in terms of the 1943 Act such policies remain valid for some months. One wonders whether it is not possible to introduce the concept of a surrender value in respect of funeral insurance as well. I have also noticed that a person who renders funeral services takes out a licence from the Receiver of Revenue. He pays R2 a year for that. I do not know whether that is still the case, but I do think that this should be such an important and high-ranking profession in our lives that it is a ridiculous amount to pay for a licence to render funeral services, which also include insurance services. That is stated explicitly here. It is not only in respect of the undertakers themselves. I shall be grateful if this aspect could receive attention with a view to attaching much greater status and importance to it, so that not anybody who wishes to do so can qualify for this. I appreciate, of course, that as far as the insurance aspect is concerned, the person is subject to the approval of the Registrar of Insurance.

As far as funeral undertaking is concerned, this is actually a business. As I see it, it is a business in respect of which the undertaker builds up a reputation of which he wants to be proud. If he performs his duties well, he will get business. If he performs them badly, his clients will leave him. The increase in prices had a particularly severe effect on the old policy holders. I could imagine that if a person who paid up his funeral policy 20 years ago is still alive to-day and were to die now, it would be hopelessly inadequate. Perhaps this discussion may also serve—and surely the State can do nothing about that— to make such people aware, in some way or other, through some report or other of this discussion in the House of Assembly, of the fact that they are not adequately covered for a proper funeral. Perhaps it is up to our members of Parliament to go and tell our voters that those people who have old policies and who paid up their policies quite a few years ago, should go into the matter again because it may just be that when they need the money they will find that it is hopelessly inadequate. If a person dies, the funeral undertaker finds the next of kin at their most vulnerable. People are dumbfounded. A person may be killed in an accident. The people are deeply distressed. The funeral undertaker then asks them: Shall I arrange it in this way? Do you want a better type of wreath, or a poorer type, or this or that? The next of kin, the widow or the small children, then say: Do as you think best. Then the account arrives, and in many cases it is a shock. I do not think the State can do much about that.

We are here dealing with a question which is of such importance in the lives of people that I can only say that we should try to correct the few aspects which we can in fact correct. For the rest, we should inform our voters about this matter. We should discuss it with them, because it is by no means an insignificant matter that we are discussing in the House this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker, what I have to say is brief, but very much to the point, because I have a few examples I should like to mention. Before proceeding with my remarks, I should like to say that I hope the Minister is going to accent this motion, in view of the fact that the House is unanimous. Everybody has spoken in favour of the motion. Everybody is satisfied that there is a need to look into this matter and that there are aspects of funeral services and the burial of the dead which require investigation and some corrective action. I therefore hope that the hon. the Minister will accept the motion and will have something done about this matter. The big thing is of course that every person, in the lower income groups particularly, in the Coloured and Bantu communities, is terrified of being buried in a pauper’s grave. For that reason they struggle with friendly and burial societies payments to ensure that when the end comes for them, they will be laid to rest and that the funeral will be paid for. As has been said, these funeral services have been brought into being. There are burial societies. I want to say that I do not condemn them all, because there are many of them, including some very big ones who run their business properly and fairly. The whole basis of the burial societies is that they prosper on the cancellation of and lapses in policies. That is the whole essence of it. I have here in front of me a booklet together with a letter from a Coloured man. This Coloured man, through his wife, joined a burial society. He paid his contributions for four years and the society then packed up. The family got no money, the State took no action.

The society died.

It was not cremated but the books were. An offer was then made by an attorney to the members of the society that if they paid RIO each he would institute a civil action. Many of them paid the RIO and the attorney himself has also not taken any action. In many cases a policy lapses after as short a period as four weeks. I do not have to tell you. Sir, that the method of collection is that the agent calls weekly and collects the small contribution of 2 cents or 3 cents or 20 cents, as the case may be, but if he does not turn up to collect, and the policyholder does not make it his business to find out what happened to him and four weeks go by, then the policy may not be re-instated and in many cases it is not re-instated. That is the one aspect. The more serious one is what you might call the cumulative or rolling-effect policy. On the payment of a small sum of money a family can buy one funeral for the stated price. Having paid for that, the agent comes along and then a second one has to be bought and a third one and a fourth one and so it goes on in perpetuity. If the payments lapse on the 4th and 5th, the whole lot fall away. In these two instances alone. I think there is a case for investigation, and I hope that the hon. the Minister will agree that these cases warrant investigation. It is perfectly true, as the hon. member for Queens-town has said, that half the White population in South Africa contribute to these burial societies, and the Coloured people contribute in their thousands. The case made by the hon. member for Berea is a sound and solid one.

Then, of course, there is another aspect which really borders on racketeering, and that is, that when an individual dies and the family approaches an undertaker, who does the job, the burial society then says, “Oh, that is not our undertaker,” because they have an arrangement whereby they get a discount from their one on the side. If you do not go to the right undertaker they do not pay out so promptly. These people are then told to wait; that the estate has to be advertised by the Master and that they must wait until the executor or the lawyer has wound up the estate, and then at some distant time in the future the amount is paid over. It is never enough to pay for the funeral; it hardly pays for the coffin. Sir, this is really a subject which is difficult to discuss because one does not want to be light-hearted about it. This is a racketeering business. As the hon. member for Berea has said, there are books which have been written on what is going on in the United States. I think we are well on the way to doing the same sort of thing. I think people are exploited by these burial societies. Old people, especially old ladies, die quite happy if they can say to their children and their family, “You need not worry about me; my policy is in order,” but when they come to die you find that the policy is not in order; you find that the sum of money paid out is hopelessly inadequate; that it bears no relationship to the cost of the funeral. I believe that the time has arrived when we should face this thing squarely and deal with it in the proper way. Whether the Price Control people are the people to look into it or not I do not know, but I think we must get away from the idea that because the deceased whom we loved, revered and cherished is gone, we are not going to argue. I can tell you quite frankly, Sir, that the bill in certain cases is quite alarming. Because the funeral undertakers think that the family can afford it they stick it on; they charge you for the bit of grass that they put down on the side of the grave to make it look a little bit nicer; they charge you for a bit of fancy stuff on the turf so that the coffin sinks away quietly. One often wonders whether there is any relationship at all between the bill and the capital cost of the material used. I think we should get down to the fundamentals and look at this matter from every angle. I am concerned in the main with the low-income groups, the Coloureds and the Bantu. Other people are interested in other groups. But I do not think there is any shadow of doubt that this matter requires some investigation and action and I hope that the hon. the Minister will take that action to-day.

I also propose to be brief. I wish to draw attention to a few points however. Firstly I wish to emphasize that this motion relates to the lower and the middle income groups. Whilst Parliament cannot always protect people against their own stupidities, the lower and middle income groups are the groups that do need to be particularly protected, sometimes even against themselves, because they are the ones who usually do not have the mental ability to protect themselves as those in the higher income groups are able to do. I believe that previous speakers in this debate have made out a case which does warrant the appointment of a commission to look into this matter. The hon. member for Queenstown has referred to the very large number of people in this country who contribute to burial societies and I do not want to go into that again. He has also referred—and I suggest that this alone warrants the appointment of a commission—to the large number of lapsed policies. One may wonder why there are not complaints in this regard, and it may be said that because there has not been a large number of complaints made to Government Departments, people are probably not dissatisfied and that therefore there is no need for the appointment of a commission. But I would point out that when you are dealing with persons in the lower and middle income groups, they tend to be gullible; they tend to accept explanations given to them, particularly if they are referred to a clause in their contract with the burial society. Many of them can be misled into believing that these particular clauses cover the funeral undertakers concerned and that therefore there is nothing they can do about it. I would draw attention, in relation to this subject of lapsed policies, to a clause in a contract with a funeral society, dealing with this very subject, and I would suggest that this clause, whilst it may not have been deliberately designed to mislead, certainly must have that effect. The clause reads—

One can well imagine what happens in practice. The individuals concerned are told that a collector will call; they may even be told that if a collector does not call, they must still remit, but in the course of time they may get used to the fact that a collector will call; and then if after a few months he fails to do so the policy-holder may well be lulled into believing that the collector will call in a few months’ time and that in the meantime he need not worry about it. Then after several months he is told that his policy has lapsed: his attention is drawn to the clause and there is nothing he can do about it. Legally the funeral undertakers may be within their rights, but I would stress that when you are dealing with persons in this category they can very easily be exploited in these ways. The hon. member for Berea has draw attention to another form of exploitation which appears to be increasing, and that is that whilst the policy states that the funeral society undertakes to provide a funeral—these are the words used—when the funeral has taken place the relatives or the deceased estate is presented with accounts for all sorts of extras. I would submit that this is an aspect also which calls for investigation by a commission, because whilst it may be that in terms of the strict wording of the contracts entered into, the funeral societies may be perfectly within their legal rights, the fact that the policy suggests to the policy-holder that all the costs of the funeral are to be covered if he goes on paying, there are presumably escape clauses, if I may put it that way, in terms of which these extras are legally justified. That may well be. but the point I make is that the policy-holders are lulled into a false sense of security by being made to believe that their policies will cover all the funeral expenses, and this is not the case. I think one will find that if an investigation is made, it is the rule rather than the exception that even in regard to funerals covered by these benefit policies, accounts come afterwards for extras of one sort or another. This, I believe, should not be allowed. There is something wrong somewhere.

The hon. member for Turffontein was showing that the costs of funerals have increased over the years. This is admitted. Obviously, with the increase in all other costs, these costs have also increased. But the motion is not directed to the general high cost of funerals, although this is an aspect to which the Government might well give attention. The motion is directed particularly to the possible exploitation and the possible abuses there may be in regard to funerals, and so the hon. member for Turffontein, I believe, has missed the point.

To sum up, I would suggest to the hon. the Deputy Minister that the evidence which has been presented to the House this afternoon has been of a particularly strong nature and does, in my submission, warrant the appointment of a commission to look into this whole question, particularly in view of the fact that this affects so many people in this country because of the high proportion who contribute to funeral benefit societies.

One would expect everybody to be interested in the topic we are discussing here this afternoon, particularly because it concerns all of us. Indeed, it is not pleasant to come to the end of one’s life, but we must all reach that stage sooner or later. A Dutch poet. Antony Staring, wrote the following epitaph—

That is, indeed, the position in which all of us find ourselves. But this is an interesting topic in another sense, namely that it also applies to all other countries of the world and all other peoples. This is not a case where one can say that South Africa is unique in this respect or that circumstances are different here. In discussing this topic, we are discussing circumstances which are to be found all over the world. After I had listened to the hon. member for Berea, and especially after I had listened to the hon. member for Karoo, I felt that the first sentence written in the book The American Way of Death might perhaps be very applicable. It reads as follows—

It is most certainly not as bad as that here in South Africa. This may, indeed, be the case in other countries of the world—such as America—which were mentioned here. But of one thing I am very well aware, and that is the circumstances which are attendant upon this business transaction, circumstances which are different from those of any other business transaction. I think we must take this into very serious consideration. The hon. member for Queenstown referred to it. It is an ordinary business transaction, but the circumstances of one of the parties are exceptional circumstances which are not present in the normal course of business. In the first place, as the hon. member for Queenstown observed, the person who has to enter into the transaction is experiencing a measure of shock. I am not referring to insurance, but to cases where arrangements have to be made after the death. He asks himself: “What would be the right thing to do? What would the deceased have expected me to do? What does the family expect? Will they perhaps express criticism?” Then he arrives at the conclusion that he should arrange a proper funeral. Now. this is the important question: What is a proper funeral? In that respect this matter is largely the concern of the person who is entering into a contract and not that of the Government which has to try to regulate the lives of the people. I realize that the circumstances are difficult. Secondly, the person who is making the arrangements is to a large extent handicapped by ignorance; he does not know about all the things which must be done. It is estimated that an individual only handles a funeral once in every 15 years of his lifetime. It stands to reason that the person who has to make the arrangements is unfamiliar with the circumstances, and he is only too glad if he is able to find somebody who can do it for him. He is not knowledgeable about these matters and he is engaged in a major transaction. You know, they say that in the U.S.A, this is the third biggest single expense in a household. After the purchase of a house and of a car. a funeral is the third biggest household expense over there. I am told—and the hon. member for Turffontein has already said so—that the cheapest funeral in America costs 708 dollars. That is merely the undertaker’s bill. If all the other accessories are added, the bill eventually amounts to approximately 1,450 dollars.

There is another factor. The person who has to make funeral arrangements must act without delay when a death occurs. Even if we do expect the death of one of our relatives, even if we do know that he or she is suffering from an incurable disease, we are, nevertheless, not inclined to discuss beforehand what will be done and by whom in case a death occurs. That is simply not done. The result is that, when the person dies, the necessary funeral arrangements have to be made in all haste.

Because we all hope the patient will get better.

Precisely. That may perhaps be the reason. In contrast to that, let us take the example of a man who wants to buy a car. He asks for advice everywhere, he waits for a week or a fortnight, once again asks for advice at another place, and so forth. The Ford Company will advise him, for instance, to sound an owner of a Ford motorcar as to the good qualities of that car, and also to drive such a car. But in the case of a death this cannot be done. That is why I am saying that we must realize that exceptional circumstances are present in this case. Because there are exceptional circumstances, people do not complain easily. One feels that after all is said and done one wants to do one’s best for the deceased relative. That is why one asks oneself the question whether it would be fair to make a complaint because one has to pay R70 while one only expected to pay R60. One fee’s that the impression may be created that one did not want to spend an extra R10 on the funeral of a relative. Those circumstances are present, and I am most certainly taking note of them.

When death comes and arrangements have to be made, the factor which is most important of all in considering such a step is that it is the last tribute which can be paid to the deceased. It has to be a fine funeral. The coffin must not be cheap. I think that that is really the source of the trouble which has given rise to the motion which is before this House to-day. Insurance policies make provision for a coffin of a certain quality. When death comes we find that we should prefer to bury the deceased in a coffin of a better quality. The deceased must be buried in a fine coffin. Perhaps no enquiries are made as to the price. It would, of course, be sensible to ask what the price is. But frequently we do not enquire after the price. The coffin stands there, it must be fine and good, and we merely accept the position without complaining. Unfortunately the shock only comes later when we receive the bill.

Since funeral arrangements have to be made in this manner, the circumstances lend themselves to a large measure of exploitation. I do not want to hold a brief to-day for undertakers, neither do I want to attack them in any respect, because I am not sufficiently conversant with these matters. But I do want to say that in many cases undertakers abuse these exceptional circumstances and derive benefit from them.

Now I want to quote from the National Funeral Service Journal of America, dated August, 1961, to illustrate what I mean. The following brief report appeared in that journal—

I am reading this report to point out that this atmosphere is created and that undertakers are exploiting this atmosphere in order to make this occasion a greater and more expensive one for those who have to foot the bill. Strangely enough, many people make use of these things. They are susceptible to everything which is offered here. Many books and articles have been written on this topic.

Mr. Speaker, I am aware of the fact that people are afraid to talk or to complain, even if they were of the opinion that justice had not been done to them. In respect of the complaint about the treatment, I should like to read what Lord Essex said:—

That is true. We may perhaps think that something is wrong; we may perhaps think that the cost is high, but the state of mind of those who remain behind is such that they would rather offer the one who has passed away something expensive, something fine. When everything is over and the bill arrives, it comes as a great shock, and that gives rise to the discussion we have in this House to-day.

But there are also other aspects of the matter, Sir. There is the grave itself. The grave is a separate expense. This item has become an expensive one over the past few years. As hon members themselves know, land is very scarce in certain European countries, and one can no longer buy a grave there; it has to be rented. In those graves the deceased are hurried in an upright position in order to save space. Such graves are rented for a period of eight or ten years, and after that the bones have to be disinterred and destroyed, because that land is then made available to somebody else. That is why we find that even in our country not only the services of the undertaker, but also graves have steadily become more expensive items.

I should now like to look at our own position here in South Africa. I thought that there might be two possible objections. One of them is in respect of policies and premiums, and the other is in respect of the prices of goods and services. Actually, the hon. member for Berea mentioned only one case, and that is my problem. The hon. member’s major objection was that the policy made provision for certain services to be rendered and that the insurance company subsequently failed to render those services. In passing I just want to say that from the nature of the case it is very difficult for a Government to help people to enter into contracts or to help them to see to it that their rights in terms of the provisions of the contract are honoured. Surely, this is not the task of the Government. People should help themselves as far as that matter is concerned. The Government cannot do it for them. The hon. member for Berea himself admitted that. In this case he referred to undertakings, but in discussing the matter he also referred to the question of insurance. As I said earlier on, there are several kinds of policies—in this regard I made some enquiries beforehand—and their premiums differ from one another. In the policies provision is made for specific coffins to be provided, coffins to the value of a certain amount. But apart from the coffin which is being provided, the following services are also included: fetching and attending to the corpse, registering the death, reserving and paying for the grave, the church, the hearse, the funeral car, and so forth, as the hon. member for Berea more or less read out to us. Often the policy also make provision for the payment of a bonus amount which may in certain cases be as high as R110.

I want to say beforehand that, where there are complaints about a matter such as this, specific cases may be brought to the notice of the price controller. In the second place, both the price controller and the Department of Commerce and Industries are in a position to make proper enquiries into cases where it is felt that an offence has been committed, where it is felt that there may perhaps have been exploitation in regard to the rendering of services or the prices charged for goods. Action can be taken by the price controller. I am saying this beforehand and I want to elaborate on this a little further, particularly in view of the fact that we are dealing here with only one case which was submitted to us by the hon. member for Berea. The hon. member for Umbilo specifically called attention to these words in the motion, namely “if any”. In other words, we do not know; it is a mere possibility and on the strength of that those hon. members are asking us to incur the expense of instituting a commission of enquiry.

Cases were mentioned by the hon. members for Umbilo, Queenstown and other constituencies

It was not supported by them. Those hon. members took part in the discussion of this topic, but they did not say that a commission had to be appointed. I am making my own deductions and my own statements irrespective of that.

[Inaudible.]

No, I am talking about specific cases. A specific case was mentioned by the hon. member for Berea and the hon. member for Karoo also mentioned one. [Interjections.] I grant that the hon. member is right; the hon. member for Umbilo also mentioned one. In the light of those circumstances, those hon. members would have been been first to criticize the Government about the cost of a commission appointed to enquire into a matter which is so limited in extent. I am saying beforehand that we cannot agree to the appointment of a commission to enquire into this matter. I should like to submit a few other thoughts to the hon. member for Berea in a little while. I gathered some information beforehand and at various undertakings comparisons were made in regard to funeral charges. I am not referring to people who want to practice exploitation, because those who want to do so will always find an opportunity. But under normal circumstances we fail to find any evidence to the effect that exploitation is in fact being practised by respectable undertakers. If there are specific cases, I should very much like them to be brought to my notice, and we shall refer them to the price controller for thorough investigation. In the case of non-policy-holders the services provided are, except for the sale of the coffin, the same as those which are provided in the case of policy-holders. It was brought to my notice that in the case of major undertakers in Pretoria, the coffins were displayed and the prices varied between R10 and R472. They have an extensive range of prices and the prices are displayed. In other words, not only can anybody who is interested see the coffins there, but he can also see what the prices are, and then he knows beforehand what he has to pay. These are the circumstances prevailing at present. Apart from the coffin which is sold, these services are still available in the case of non-policy-holders. In the case of some undertakers, the services which are provided are charged separately, such as the hearse, and so forth. In other cases these services are included in the price of the coffin. In most cases these major undertakers have subsidiaries which manufacture coffins for them. It has been brought to our notice that the prices of coffins have shown a considerable increase during the past few years. As you would expect, they became more expensive as a result of the increase in the price of timber and of chrome, which is being used to a large extent for adding the finishing touches to coffins, and also as a result of salaries being increased. This also applies to the services which are provided. Even as far as the hearse and the service at the grave are concerned, there has been an increase in price, largely as a result of the increase in wages, but also as a result of the increase in the prices of motor-cars, licences, insurance, fuel, and so forth. I pointed out a moment ago that as far as funeral charges were concerned, there had also been an increase in the price of the graves itself during the past few years. I am told that in Pretoria a grave costs between R17 and R30 and that it is as much as R35 in Johannesburg.

My conclusion is that the cause for complaint is to a large extent the fact that a policy is taken out in which provision is made for a specific coffin and certain services, and that subsequently the undertaker does not provide the services or the coffin which, in the opinion of the policy-holder, should have been provided. These are circumstances over which we do in fact have very little control and which should actually be taken care of by the individual himself. In most cases these undertakers are associated with large insurance companies. I want to draw the attention of the hon. members to the fact that undertakers are not the only people who make policies available, but that policies are often made available by insurance companies which, in turn, enter into contracts for the services to be provided at the grave. Another factor which I think is worthy of mention, is that there is a reasonable amount of rivalry in South Africa as far as undertaking businesses are concerned. There is quite a number of them, and in view of the ample scope for rivalry one would not expect there to be any unnecessary exploitation. That is why I want to suggest—and I think that is why this discussion has rendered a very good service to-day—that when these people take out policies, they should rather determine beforehand what they are going to receive. We can mention a practical example. As we are sitting here to-day, it is very likely that all of us have fire-insurance policies or other comprehensive policies in respect of fire, theft, and so forth. I wonder how many of us have ever read through the conditions of those policies. When we have had a fire or theft in our homes, we examine the policy and then we see that it is not quite correct. This is the cause of a great deal of the evil which gives rise to these complaints.

The machinery does exist. There is a Price Control Act and there is a price controller. If specific cases are brought to our notice, the price controller will make the necessary enquiries and action will be taken when necessary. Hon. members will probably agree with me that the extent of this entire matter is not such that it justifies the cost of a commission of enquiry. As a result of that it is simply not possible.

I should like to deal with the points raised by the hon. member for Queenstown and the hon. member for Karoo. The hon. member for Queenstown called attention to two points in particular, points I consider to be of great value. In the first instance, the policy may not be for more than a certain amount, namely R200, which he regards as obsolete at this stage. In the second instance, he referred to the fact that these policies lapsed when payments had not been made for a certain period. As far as those two matters are concerned, I do not think that they will be solved by a commission. These are statutory provisions and the Act will have to be amended. However, these do not really concern exploitation, but statutory provisions. As regards those matters, I want to give the assurance that instructions will be sent to the Registrar of Insurance Companies and that he will be asked to investigate these matters and, if found practicable, to overhaul the Act in respect of these various matters which were mentioned here. I hope that the hon. member for Berea will be satisfied with this discussion and the undertaking I have given. If he or anybody else brings specific cases to my notice or to the notice of the price controller, I can assure him that the necessary enquiries will be made and the necessary steps will be taken.

Mr. Speaker, I am very grateful to have had the opportunity of placing this matter before the House for its consideration. I believe that the discussion has served a useful purpose. In view of the undertaking given by the hon. Minister, I ask for leave to withdraw the motion.