I move—

That the Bill be now read a Third Time.

To-day we come to the end of a series of debates on the policy and administration of the South African Railways and Harbours. I think we all found that these discussions were interesting and also revealing. On the Opposition side we feel somewhat unhappy that there are so many matters of importance to the users and the servants of the Railways on which we received no reply. I want to say immediately that I agree with what was yesterday said by the hon. member for Durban (Point) on another occasion, namely that it appears to be the tactics of the Minister and the Deputy Minister to reply selectively; to reply in detail to certain points raised by the Opposition and thus draw a veil over the fact that many of the pertinent questions receive no replies whatsoever. Of course there is a tendency on that side of the House to give delayed replies to matters raised by us. It is becoming the tactics of the hon. member for Bethlehem, for example, to reply every year in his big speech to issues raised by the Opposition in the previous year. That is most interesting and we appreciate it, but we should be even more grateful if he could reply more speedily and more pertinently in the same series of debates. The hon. the Deputy Minister uses similar tactics, but not quite as delayed as those of the hon. member for Bethlehem. Yesterday, in the Second Reading debate, he tried to reply to points raised by us during the Budget debate. We appreciate the fact that after the time he had to consider matters, he did in fact rise and showed us the courtesy of trying to reply to these matters.

But the Minister himself handled the Budget debate, not I.

Yes, but yesterday you replied to my speech of Monday. The speech I made on Monday you replied to yesterday, during the last stages of the debate. I am grateful for that. The Deputy Minister should not get angry. What I am not so grateful for, however, is the quality of the reply. The Deputy Minister’s reply to me was to calculate what it would cost the Railways if they did everything requested by the Opposition, and then to try to make us appear ridiculous. Now, that is a very strong argument. It would of course have been quite decisive if he could in fact succeed in making the Opposition ridiculous by these means, founded on the factual statements and requests which we made to him during the debates. But the trouble is that the Deputy Minister, in all good faith I presume, and over-enthusiastically, took the points raised by us and attached his own interpretation to them, instead of listening to what we did in fact say. The long period that elapsed between our speeches and his reply caused his memory to become somewhat faulty, and he made some mistakes when he tried to reply to us.

I think, for example, of his very sarcastic reply to our complaint that the petrol consumers of the Southern Transvaal and the Northern Free State are exploited by the exceptionally high tariffs charged for conveying fuel through the pipeline, compared with the costs of that transport. The hon. the Deputy Minister tried to make us ridiculous by contending that we wanted it immediately and that we would not say where the money was to come from. In the first place I want to point out to him—if he reads our speeches again— that we said that we expected that as the accepted recommendations of the Schumann Commission were implemented and more goods transported on an economic basis, the first relief arising from that should be given to the consumers of fuel conveyed by the pipeline. But the hon. the Deputy Minister missed that point altogether, and failed to respond to it. He responded as though we had suggested that the tariffs should be decreased at once, and that no other arrangements should be made to raise the revenue. We find it very difficult to argue if the hon. the Minister will not listen to what we say.

It should have been clear even to you that we cannot do it at this stage.

But there is more to come. We said that, and I shall come back to that. Where it is necessary to subsidize certain commodities in the national interests, we want to state emphatically that we do not believe it to be the function of a group of railway users, in this case the motorists of the Transvaal and the Northern Free State, to provide those subsidies. If it is in the interests of the country, the country should provide the subsidy. I want to repeat what I said, namely that this principle is now recognized in the case of the transportation of Bantu passengers on the suburban lines. Yesterday we heard, thanks to the hon. member for Durban (Point), that the same principle is recognized in the case of industrial development in the border areas near the Bantustans, with the difference, however, that in the case of the passenger traffic in the suburban areas the losses are guaranteed by the Central Government, but if I followed the Deputy Minister correctly yesterday, then in the case of the border industries the Railways are compensated only for the rebate. Here we now have a further principle, which acknowledges that when the Railways are asked to make sacrifices in order to implement State policy, the State has to make good such costs. We think that is the right principle and we think it should be applied more widely.

Then the hon. the Deputy Minister derived great pleasure from trying to make us ridiculous because we had said that the railway workers were becoming concerned about their own financial position. We pointed out that the benefits of the considerable increases received by them immediately prior to the election have already been wiped out. The Minister tried to reply to that and pointed out that the increase in the cost of living since those increases had not been as high, in terms of percentage, as the increases in salaries, but of course he omitted to say that when those increases were granted in 1965 they were also intended to compensate the railwaymen for a lag in relation to the cost of living which they had to make up as a result of an increase in the cost of living since the last increases they had received. But of course that point is not discussed. What we also deplore is the fact that we on this side of the House pointed out that the time had perhaps come—and we should have liked to hear the comment of the Government—for more emphasis to be placed on productivity as a factor in the determination of higher wages, in their negotiations with their employees. I used the term “productivity bargaining”. The hon. the Minister’s reply was a plea of ignorance.

No, the hon. the Minister said that it was already used as a basis.

It is undoubtedly true that it is used to a large extent as a basis under the bonus system which is of application on the Railways. That is one of its aspects, but the hon. the Minister accused me of being too vague and said that he could not understand what I was referring to. Those were his words* and in view of the fact that I said very clearly what I meant and referred to the statements made by people such as Mr. Tom Murray, who is a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, it surprised me that the Minister could say that he did not understand what I was talking about. That makes one feel worried about the people who are at the head of this mighty organization, the South African Railways. If the answer to such a point is that the Minister does not understand, although he has been referred to statements made by trade union leaders and by members of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council, it causes one some concern; and I hope the Deputy Minister will serve us better when he replies to-day. I hope he will not allege once again that we merely want to hand out money blindly. We are the people who tell the Minister that there should be a tight link between productivity and wages when it comes to bargaining. One cannot be more constructive than that. But that point was ignored completely by the Deputy Minister when he tried to reply to us after the long delay.

To give another example, the Deputy Minister tried with malicious relish to prove that although there was inflation we had said that we did not want to criticize the plans for capital expenditure on the Railways because we felt that it was right that the Railways should continue undertaking capital expansion in order, if possible, to keep ahead of the demand for transportation which arises on the part of businesses in South Africa. The Deputy Minister took malicious pleasure in the fact that we did that, but it has always been the attitude of the Opposition, even in the days of Mr. Sauer, when the Railways landed in such a hopeless quandary under the policy of the Government, that care should be taken that a monopoly such as the South African Railways shall be able to meet the transport needs of our country and that they should anticipate those needs and not lag behind. That has been our attitude consistently, and we stand by it. But can the Deputy Minister tell me in all honesty to-day that the Railways are in fact able to convey all the goods offering in the most economic way? Can he tell us in all honesty that the Railways can give South African businessmen who have entered into large contracts, for example, the assurance that they can meet those contracts in so far as railway transport is necessary to meet those contracts? If he cannot do so, surely it is essential that we should say in the national interests, in the interests of economic expansion in the country, and in order to combat inflation, that South African undertakings should be enabled to produce the maximum? It is not a question of malicious joy.

Is the Deputy Minister satisfied with the fact that at present coal, for example, is still being transported to the Rand in a way which is less economic than would have been possible if the Railways could have met the transport requirements of the Witwatersrand? To-day, after all these years—I have forgotten how many years—coal has to be transported by motor transport, to the detriment of our roads and at the cost of a subsidy which has to be paid to those people, because the Railways cannot meet the needs of the consumers. Of course more capital has to be spent, because it is uneconomic to do it in that fashion, and that line of action is inflationary as such. Can the hon. the Minister explain to me why, as I read in the Star of 16th August, 1966, it was necessary for Mr. A. A. Storm, of the Transvaal Coal Owners’ Association, to tell the Marais Commission how a business in the Transvaal had lost a contract for the export of, I think, 300,000 tons of coal to a country in the East, because that country asked that delivery should be guaranteed over three months, and the Railways replied that they could guarantee delivery for two months, but not for three months? Surely that shows that the Railways cannot meet all the important demands made on it by South Africa’s commerce and industry, and that capital expenditure is necessary. Sir, I make no apology for the fact that we said we would encourage and support the Government if it wanted to spend capital on the necessary expansion of the Railways. It is a vast undertaking. It is a State-supported monopoly. Our entire transportation industry and our entire expansion as a commercial country depends on a sound railway system. I do hope the Minister will not be petty and reproach us for saying that it is a good thing that the Railways is strengthened and expanded.

There is one thing, of course, which I asked for and which will cost more, and by which I stand and for which I make no apology. That is that the time has come to grant relief to the pensioners who were previously in Railways service. With the best will in the world I can find no excuse—and you, Sir, saw how I sought excuses—for the fact that the Government fails to do justice to these pensioners. Nor can I find any excuses for the fact that neither the Minister nor the Deputy Minister responds to the argument advanced by this side of the House and by pensioners—not only railway pensioners, but all pensioners— namely that they are not to blame for the fact that their pensions buy less and less.

Who is to blame for that?

It is the fault of State policy which accepts creeping inflation at a rate of some 2 per cent a year as essential to the constant economic progress of a country. On a previous occasion I said that it was not only this Government, but all the governments I know of in the Western world that accept this. But if it is accepted as necessary, surely the people who accept it should be prepared to do something to help people who suffer as a result of such a policy and who do not have the means at their disposal to surmount that suffering. The ordinary worker has his trade unions and can withhold his labour, or he can reduce his productivity; he has the power to bargain, but the pensioner is helpless. He is dependent on the sound insight of the Government and on the advocacy of the Opposition, but when we exercise this advocacy, we do not get an adequate reply from the Ministers. I ask once again that when the Deputy Minister replies, he should tell us on what basis the Government can justify the fact that since April, 1959, there has been such a large number of pensioners in the Railways who have received no improvement in their incomes to compensate for the creeping inflation, which in the past two years did not creep but ran. And I do not merely want excuses; I want a reply. I want the Deputy Minister to listen very carefully, because in the Second Reading many points were raised which he ignored completely when he replied to the debate.

I replied for almost an hour, and I dealt with all the minor points.

Yes, but now I come to major points. There is approximately R428 million in the Superannuation Fund, the Pension Fund of the South African Railways.

In terms of a 1960 Act, the money in that Fund is invested at per cent interest. The Fund earns approximately R18i million a year in interest. I want the hon. the Deputy Minister to tell me whether it is the policy of the Railways and the policy of the State, where employees and employers, in this case the Railways, build up a fund and are compelled by law to lend the money to the State, that the rate of interest should be fixed at 4½ per cent for ever. Has the time not come for that rate of interest to have regard to the rates of interest paid in every other sector of the South African economy? An increase of 1 per cent a year will bring the Pension Fund extra revenue of R4.28 million. I am merely asking for the sake of information. Is it the policy of the Government that the Pension Fund and the pensioner should subsidize the State’s Loan Account? The Minister wants to know where the money is to come from. I am asking merely for the sake of information. Let him give us a reply to this. To me, as a layman, it appears that 4½ per cent is totally unrealistic compared with the rates of interest paid everywhere at present, and I should like to hear what the hon. the Deputy Minister has to say in this regard. He should not tell me that this is a minor point and then not reply to it.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to raise one question which was raised by the hon. member for Berea and by the hon. member for Simonstown, and that relates to passenger services. I should now like to refer specifically to Bantu passenger services. We devoted a considerable deal of attention to this matter and we received no reply, except for one brief sentence in reply to the hon. member for Simonstown. There was no reply whatsoever to the hon. member for Berea. The hon. member for Berea discussed the matter in detail, and all the hon. the Deputy Minister could do in a speech lasting an hour, was to deal with the question of air-conditioned dining saloons.

Was I not supposed to reply to that?

The hon. member’s questions with regard to passenger services the hon. the Deputy Minister ignored completely. Yes, the hon. the Deputy Minister was supposed to reply to the hon. member and I am very grateful that he did reply to the hon. member’s question with regard to air-conditioned dining saloons, but that made it all the more noticeable that the Deputy Minister did not reply to the other important questions. The Deputy Minister says that he replied to all the important points. Sir. I ask the House: Which is more important, dining saloons and air conditioning or the passenger services rendered to those passengers who contribute more than any other passengers to the profits of the Railways? I raised the question for this reason: Those of us who see what is happening as far as passenger services for the Bantu in South Africa are concerned, are worried. On a previous occasion I said that we did not want to make this a matter of dispute, for obvious reasons, but the Minister should realize that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction and bitterness among these passengers over the quality of the services rendered to them. They are crammed into the trains; they have to wait a long time for their services. There may be good reasons for that, but what would the results be if some disaster or other were to hit those trains? All the good work done over the years to improve race relations in South Africa would then be destroyed completely at the drop of a hat, because of a misunderstanding, and the Railways would be responsible for that. For that reason I fail to understand how the Deputy Minister could reply to a debate for more than an hour and ignore this important problem completely. If the hon. the Deputy Minister replies again, will he please tell us what the intentions of the Railways are as regards improving the passenger services for this important group of clients of the South African Railways? The hon. the Deputy Minister cannot say that these services are rendered at a loss. Bantu passenger services are the most profitable of all passenger services rendered by the Railways and the fares were recently increased, except on the guaranteed lines. I therefore say that the hon. the Deputy Minister owes the House some assurance in this regard. I therefore trust that we shall have a reply to this question, and also a reply to other questions which hon. members are going to ask to-day. There are other important questions which have not been cleared up; I do not know what the reason is. It may perhaps be that the hon. the Deputy Minister did not have enough time to go into these matters. But now the hon. the Deputy Minister has unlimited time, and I hope we shall receive a satisfactory reply to these questions.

It is my most unpleasant duty to reply to the attacks made by the hon. member for Yeoville. I repeat, it is a most unpleasant task, because last night I was ashamed of the reprehensible attitude of the hon. member for Yeoville towards the hon. the Minister. I am ashamed of the official Opposition if that is their attitude. If ever South Africa suffered the disaster of having the United Party in Government, the hon. member for Yeoville would become Minister of Railways. What would become of South Africa if a person of that calibre became Minister of Railways?

We would at least have a courteous Minister.

Sir, I want to assure you that not only this side of the House but also the employees of the South African Railways took note of the reprehensible attitude of that hon. member.

Leave the Railway employees out of this; it is no concern of theirs.

If ever there was a Minister in the entire history of the South African Railways who did more than the present Minister, I should like to hear his name. We know the hon. member for Yeoville. If he is beaten, he becomes insulting. In the 16 years I have been here, I have never seen an official Opposition take such a beating in a Railways debate as the one the official Opposition took in this debate. [Laughter.] The hon. member for Durban (Point) laughs, but I would really be ashamed if I made the irresponsible statements made by hon. members on that side during the Second Reading Debate. Sir, the hon. member for Yeoville attacked me and said that I brought up stale issues.

I never said anything of the kind.

Yes, the hon. member said I had replied to the Budget debates of last year. I want to ask him whether he did not repeat in these debates that it was a mistake to increase tariffs. Will he deny that? The hon. member should be honest. Did he not also say in these debates that it was a mistake to increase tariffs?

Yes, I reaffirmed our attitude.

Then how can the hon. member tell me that I reply to the debates of last year? The hon. member’s attitude is exactly the same as it was last year, that is, salaries should be increased, pensions should be increased, fuel should be transported at a lower rate, but the tariffs should be decreased. During the Second Reading Debate I tried to make a small calculation to demonstrate to the hon. member what his proposal would in actual fact involve. Having regard to the recent increase in wages and salaries, and to the request of the Railway staff through the Federal Staff Association that increases to the amount of R20 million should be granted to the staff in the course of the following year, what would the position have been if the Minister did not increase the tariffs last year? We should have concluded this year with a deficit, and the Stabilization Fund would have been wiped out completely and would have been bankrupt to the tune of more or less R50 million. The hon. member for Yeoville wants to joke about the small calculation which the hon. the Deputy Minister presented to him last night. But what the Deputy Minister said was true. If we accepted what the hon. member and the Opposition proposed here the position would be as the Deputy Minister presented it; but that hon. member cannot face the truth. He realizes himself that the proposals made here are unwise and stupid.

Sir, I noted what each one of the Opposition members said here, and I should like to refer to some of the points raised by them in the course of these debates. The hon. member for Yeoville said that transport should not be a monopoly in the hands of the South African Railways, and he used the irresponsible words that everybody in the country should have the right to choose his own means of transport. Is that correct?

That is the ideal.

That is what the hon. member said. If the advice of that hon. member were to be followed by the Minister, what would happen? It has been stated here repeatedly, but the hon. member is so dull that nothing gets through to him. He will not understand anything, nor does he understand anything. It has already been said that 17 per cent of the high-tariff goods raise 51 per cent of the revenue of the Railways. If the hon. member’s advice were accepted, it would mean that everybody who wished to transport high-tariff goods would rather have it transported by private conveyancers.

That is a healthy position.

That hon. member will have enough time to speak.

Just answer the question.

What is the question?

Is it sound that 17 per cent of the goods should produce 51 per cent of the revenue?

Yes, it is sound, because the South African Railways is a business undertaking. The South African Railways has a task to perform for the whole of South Africa, not only to transport high-tariff goods but also low-tariff goods. I come back to the hon. member’s attack with regard to the tremendously high tariff on the transportation of fuel through the pipeline. The hon. member has made that attack repeatedly. I want to emphasize once again what the hon. member for Parow said here. If the South African Railways did not transport coal, which they have to carry to Cape Town over a distance of 1,400 miles at a low price per ton, what would become of the industries in Cape Town and in the Western Cape? I just want to quote the following interesting figures: I recently received my February account from Escom; in Bethlehem I get Escom power. There was a note on the account to the effect that whereas we had paid .67c a unit in the past, the tariff had been increased by .01c because Railway rates had been increased. I get my electricity from Colenso, and Colenso is close to the coal mines. The increased rate increased the cost per unit by .01c; that is all. Now the hon. member will ask me what is the increase per unit in Cape Town. Sir, I have made inquires; I called Escom in Cape Town and asked them what effect the increased coal tariff had on their units, and the reply was—the hon. member may go and check whether I am right; I am not one to tell lies …

Nobody thinks that.

An official of Escom told me that the tariff increase did in fact increase the cost per unit, in the case of the small consumer by .06c.

Electricity in Cape Town has gone up by 10 per cent.

As for the large consumers, the municipalities and the manufacturers, the increased rate increased the cost per unit by .03c.

On what unit?

On a unit; does the hon. member not know what a unit is?

That is tremendously high.

Any family can wipe out an increase of .06c just by switching off some unnecessary lights every evening, because usually all the lights in a house are on. More than double that small increase can be saved just by switching off some lights. What the hon. member for Yeoville wants is that the Railways should transport only the low tariff goods, but what will be the result of that? To balance the budget of the Railways and to comply with the request of the hon. member that salaries and wages should be increased, the tariff on goods which are at present classified as low-tariff goods would have to be increased considerably. In other words, the hon. member’s argument is absolutely illogical. I did expect some more commen sense from the hon. member for Yeoville.

You expected too much.

Yes, I know I expected too much. I want to come back to other irresponsible statements made by that hon. member; he must tell me whether he admits or denies this. He said: “What I stand for is that a Railway employee’s basic salary should be such that he need not work overtime.” Is that correct?

That he will not be compelled to work overtime.

His basic salary should be such that he …

Need not work overtime.

… that he need not work overtime. Let us analyse the hon. member’s statement. The basic salary should be such that the employee need not work overtime; in other words, such that he can make a proper living, that he can support his family properly and that he can face up to the increased cost of living without working overtime. Sir, there you have the views of the Shadow-Minister of Railways. That is what the hon. member advocates at a time when our greatest problem is the manpower shortage. In his Budget speech the hon. the Minister mentioned the fact that in certain systems there are staff shortages of 10 per cent to 14 per cent, but the hon. member for Yeoville comes along in all his wisdom and pleads that the basic salary of the Railway employees should be increased to such an extent that they need not work overtime. I ask you, Sir, with tears in my eyes: How are you going to reconcile the two? What will be the ultimate result if such a proposal is accepted? As a driver, I shall simply say: “I have worked my eight-hour shift and I am now simply stopping; I am getting off and leaving the train stranded somewhere between Johannesburg and Cape Town.” Because of the tremendous staff shortage there is no one else to take the train from there. That is how the hon. member for Yeoville would run the South African Railways. I have never come across such irresponsibility on the part of the person sitting here as deputy leader of the United Party.

You are not really as stupid as that.

Sir, this is quite correct. How is the arithmetic of the hon. member for Durban (Point)? If there is a staff shortage and I as a Railway employee receive a basic salary which is so high that there is no need for me to work overtime, then I am simply not going to work overtime; I shall simply tell the General Manager: “I shall work eight hours, and then stop.”

So you deliberately underpay them to force them to work overtime?

No, I am not saying “underpaid”. Who would work overtime if he received such a substantial salary that he need not work overtime? I know that overtime work is blood-work, and I have always adopted the attitude that if a man is a driver or a fireman and suffers a heart-attack at an early age, he should get a decent job with a salary which enables him to live decently. I really think that if a South African train had to be run by the hon. member for Yeoville as driver and the hon. member for Durban (Point) as fireman …

I would never get into it.

Sir, just look at the hon. member for Durban (Point). How many shovels of coal do you think he would throw into the boiler? As his figure would prevent him from keeping the fire going, so the policy of the United Party will also fail. Since the hon. member for Yeoville and the Opposition want to play Father Christmas to the Railway employees. I am surprised that they do not go somewhat further. Why do they not offer the Railwayman even more benefits? If I were them I would have pleaded for a five-day working week. Why not? That is no more irresponsible than the other proposals made here by the Opposition. Then the trains run only five days a week. There would be no train services on Saturdays and Sundays.

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any need for me to continue. I just want to repeat that in the 16 years I have been here. I have never heard more irresponsible arguments than the ones I heard from Opposition members in this debate. I want to thank the hon. the Minister and the Deputy Minister and the entire Administration, the Railway Board and the staff …

Do not forget the Chairman of the Select Committee.

The hon. member need not prompt me. In the first place I want to thank the hon. the Minister on behalf of the people of South Africa in general and on behalf of the Railway employees, for the fact that he preferred to stand by the Railway employees, although as a capable senior Minister he could easily have become Minister of Finance, and to continue devoting his capable services to this great and responsible and important task of administering not only the South African Railways but also the Harbours and the Airways. I want to compliment him on the fact that in the past he did everything in his ability to make a complete success of this responsible task.

Before I conclude I do want to pay the hon. member for Yeoville a small compliment. There was a certain old Tant Sannie—not Tant Sannie of Drakensberg, but another dear old soul—who always saw something good in everybody. One day someone asked her: “But, Tant Sannie, surely there is nothing good in the devil?” Her reply was: “My child, you must admit, he is hardworking and industrious.” I fear that in view of the irresponsible attitude of the Opposition and in particular the attitude of the hon. member for Yeoville, Tant Sannie would come to the conclusion that the hon. member lives in a fairyland where one need merely wave a magic wand to solve all one’s problems; one need merely wave a magic wand and “the frog will turn into a prince and they will get married and live happily ever after.”

I have heard the hon. member for Bethlehem struggle through his speeches before, but I have never heard him struggle more than he did here this morning. Sir, he made one or two remarkable statements. I think the most remarkable of all was his statement that the railwaymen must not be paid economic salaries because if they did not have to work overtime, who would do the overtime and how would the Railways be able to function.

I did not say that. The hon. member for Yeoville said so.

What a fantastic statement. The hon. member for Yeoville is not so unintelligent as to make a statement like that; he knows what he is talking about. He would not make a statement like that under any circumstances. But the hon. member for Bethlehem tries to justify the policy of the Railway Administration when he is obviously prepared to admit that they are not paying the railwaymen economic salaries and that the railwaymen have to work overtime.

I did not say that.

I am not saying that the hon. member did say it. But to justify the present policy, although he himself obviously believes that they are not paying the railwaymen economic wages, he is prepared to put forward such an argument to justify such low pay. Surely any intelligent business organization knows that it has to pay its employees an economic wage, a wage on which they can afford to live, to eat and to keep up a reasonable standard of living. Sir, he also said that he believed that it is a healthy situation that the Railways should derive 51 per cent of its income from 17 per cent of its traffic. I would hate to run a business under those conditions. What a foundation of sand on which to build! I realize that there are certain calls on the Railways to convey uneconomic traffic in the interests of South Africa, but surely to goodness the policy of a business should be to try to spread the burden, as the Schumann Commission tried to do, and surely the answer to all these problems is not the evasions that we had here from the hon. member this morning. Surely the answer is contained in more efficient working, in good management, efficiency and economy in running the Railways and less politics in the Railways.

But, Sir, I want to come to another subject and I make no apologies for coming back to it. I have raised this subject twice in this debate; I raised it in the debate on the motion to go into Committee, and I was completely dissatisfied with the reply of the hon. the Minister, I return to the question of the Universe Defiance. I make no apology for raising this matter a third time because each time I raise it the position worsens. What happened when I raised it the first time? The hon. the Minister said that first of all this ship, which I had said was American, was flying the Liberian flag. But the hon. the Minister knows as well as I do that many ships of many nations sail under the Liberian flag. We admit that it is a flag of convenience but nevertheless it does not mean that that ship is not an American ship. The hon. the Minister knows, as well as I do, the holding company of these liners, but if he does not I shall later on give him the name of the company. But what else did the Minister have to say? He also said that the booking for the dry dock here in Cape Town was a tentative booking. I want hon. members to listen to this very carefully, in the same way as the hon. the Minister asked us to listen carefully so that we could get the facts clear into our minds. He said the booking was a tentative one. He also said that it was not a political decision. By the 28th February, he said, there was as yet no confirmation of the booking for the dry dock and consequently the company was advised in writing that they would no longer be able to use that dock. In Committee the Minister’s reply was more or less the same—although perhaps a little more heated and perhaps more typical of the hon. the Minister when he is in trouble. He added that he had been unable to send the Suiderkruis to Durban for repairs because it had been waiting in the roadstead for three weeks. This was, I think, the only addition he gave to his previous answer. But I still had my doubts because I asked myself, would any company operating ships of this size and nature be so foolish as to route their ships in ballast to the Cape for essential services they require, would they have sent 75 tons of spares on the ship before it had arrived here in connection with the work to be done to it. would they have flown out a marine superintendent to supervise the work that had to be done to this ship, would they have been so foolish as to have done all these things if they were not sure that they in fact had the booking of the dry dock beforehand? I do not believe any company operating ships—costly things to operate— could possibly be accused of being so unintelligent as to embark upon a job of this nature without first ensuring that facilities would be available to them. Sir, they are not beginners and, what is more, this company has been operating here for a long time. It is rather interesting that it is only at this stage that the hon. the Minister waves the fact before us, the fact that they are operating under a Liberian flag. Their money has been good enough before this—their money and the services we have been able to give them were mutually acceptable. But what in fact happened? Let us get down to the facts as I can prove them. On the 10th January, 1967, the company’s agents contacted the Port Captain in Table Bay harbour to find out whether the dry dock would be available. The Port Captain told them that it would be available. Immediately, form T975—the application for the use of a dry dock or slipway—was filled in in duplicate and despatched to the Port Captain’s office. The Port Captain stamped the duplicate copy and returned it-to the agents, keeping back the other copy. This is more or less in line with what the Minister has told us. But what is of importance is what the hon. the Minister did not tell this House. What he did not tell us was that from time immemorial this has been the method of booking accommodation in the dry dock. As a matter of fact, this company has, during the past 10 years at least, been following this procedure—and no other procedure. It has never ever had to confirm a booking in writing as was required of them on this particular occasion.

Now, what is the position? If the hon. the Minister wants me to give him proof of this I will do so. We all know that “Universe” ships are frequent callers at and frequent users of our services here in the dry dock—as a matter of fact, I can go so far as to say that this line is the best customer we have ever had for our dry dock. And this procedure has applied to them for at least the past ten years. Now, however, all of a sudden these best customers of ours find themselves in this peculiar position. Why? This has happened to them because somebody wanted the facilities at the Sturrock dock for the Suiderkruis. For what reasons I do not know but, at any rate, somebody wanted these facilities for that ship. The hon. the Minister said that it had been lying in the roadstead for about three weeks. I told him it could have been rerouted to Durban. It would have taken it four or five days to get to Durban where a sister company could have carried out the work. But no, it had to be done here—in a port already so congested that it could not handle the traffic offering. Somebody, somewhere along the line, was set upon ensuring that this ship should get preference over all others. So what happened? They just changed the rules—why I do not know. The suggestion was made here the other day that there might be nepotism, or something like that attached to it. I said I was not interested in that. I was interested in the working of this port and in ensuring that everybody should have fair use of its facilities. So the rules were changed all of a sudden to meet the case of this particular ship. There is a regulation which says that no ship has a right to a dock and that the Port Captain’s decision in that respect is final but the procedure I have outlined earlier on is the procedure which has applied from time immemorial. The Port Captain confirmed the booking when he accepted it over the telephone in the first instance. That was confirmed by submission of the document booking the accommodation. Nothing else has ever been required before of these people. But now all of a sudden the rules have been changed to meet the case of one ship. A booking which in the past has always been accepted as a firm booking now all of a sudden becomes a “tentative” booking. What a shocking thing that a Government department, a monopoly of this Government, should mete out treatment like this to the people using our ports and harbours. I think it is an utter and absolute disgrace and I am going to show that I am not alone in thinking this.

It is a disgrace to South Africa.

The hon. the Minister has had the temerity in this House during the previous debate to accuse other hon. members here of being untruthful and of being stupid and of talking nonsense—this hon. Minister who sets himself up as a pillar of virtue has got up in this House and failed to give us the full facts of the case. He has accused us of being un-South African. But what has he done for South Africa by this action of his? What has he done to South Africa’s name? This story will circulate to every port of the world and the hon. the Minister must not come and blame the Opposition for raising this issue— because he himself, his department, has done the damage and the ship concerned knows what the damage is. They believe it is a political decision and they have every right to believe that because the Minister has not disproved it. It might be political or it might be for other reasons which people probably have on their minds. In what an invidious position he has placed South Africa vis-å-vis other shipping of the world! And how do we reestablish our name with them? How again can they accept a booking as being something they can rely upon? And in what an invidious position he has placed the agents of this company, South African agents! They now have to explain to their principals overseas what the position is. Previously they told their principals that they had booked the dock for this ship and now they have to explain the new position because they suddenly find that the dock is not available. Obviously the principals suspect the agents of not having done their duty. However, the agents did do their job and they did it very well—as well as they have always done it, at least for the past ten years. There are other cases where this company has booked accommodation for its ships in exactly the same way. Let me quote one to the hon. the Minister. Here is the case of the Universe Admiral where exactly the same procedure was followed on the 16th January, 1967. This ship is of the same fleet with the same agents and was handled in exactly the same way, submitting exactly the same documents. This particular ship arrived a bit late. The Port Captain’s office was informed about that over the telephone but nothing happened —nobody was put out and the shin was allowed to use the dock. But now all of a sudden, because the dock is wanted for some other ship, or for some other reason, the Minister said that the correct procedure was not followed. They were not denied the right to use the dock but their booking was filched away from them. This is the point. They had the booking and they had every reason to believe that the dock would be available to them. So, they are not being told that they cannot use the dock—the booking that they had made has been filched away from them. These are the facts of the case. Just now I said this was a shocking situation and a shocking situation it is.

I should also like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he realizes in what an invidious position he is placing his Port Captain. His own Port Captain has been observing this system over the years, a system which has worked and has been accented. Where does the Port Captain now stand? Does he now have to give in writing, in unequivocal terms, the fact that a ship will, in fact, be allowed to use the dock? Is he going to have to do that? Here are three different and distinct groups of people who have been placed in an invidious position as a result of this action—first of all, the people of South Africa. They would like to be believed by the rest of the world. How can they be believed any longer when the word of our harbour authorities can no longer be taken to mean anything at all? In the second place, there are the company’s agents. They too have been placed in an invidious position and, thirdly, the servants of the administration. So, when I say that the position gets worse every time we discuss it, these are the things I have in mind.

It is rather interesting that after the hon. the Minister made his statement, the System Manager chose to reply to a letter written by the company to him on the 3rd March. He replied to it on the 17th March—I think it was received this morning. On the 3rd March, the company wrote as follows—

Please note, this is the way in which they now have to deal with the department “photostat attached”—

And this is shocking, Sir. It is common talk in the docks—

I am glad the hon. the Minister is present with us now. These are the principals whom the hon. the Minister believed to be flying a Liberian flag—-

They believed it was, but it was running five days behind schedule—

The acknowledgment and the replying letter came, dated the 17th. I will read that too, because I think it should be part of the record—

This was the first time in these ten years that this term of “was not finalized” has been used. The letter continues—

Let me give the comments (comments other than mine) of the people affected. I outlined the procedure for the information of the hon. the Minister. They outlined to me the procedure for making application for the dry-docking of the Universe Admiral, the other ship that was coming here. This is what was written to me—

… she only arrived on the 27th and the Port Captain’s department was advised of this by telephone on the 18th, the day after the vessel departed from Santos. Other than submitting the application for the use of the dry dock, no other documentary work was called for and as I have said before, I am at a loss to understand what is meant by “finalizing”.

This company has been the best customer for the dry-dock in Cape Town, and they do not know what the term “finalizing” means because it has never ever cropped up before. The letter concludes with the following words—

There is the admission that the schedule went wrong. Mr. Speaker, this is the state of affairs with which we are faced at this particular moment. What a shocking state of affairs! I cannot find words to describe this. In business it would be called “sharp practice”. I do not know what it is called when it applies to government administration. I do not know what the equivalent term would be.

Breach of faith.

“Breach of faith” it most certainly is. It is so obvious. It is the talk of the docks. Everybody knows about it. Everybody knows that the harbours administration has broken faith with these people. As I said, before the Minister came into the House, the things he did not tell the House are so important. He gave us facts, as far as he went. I am not querying those. I have repeated them to confirm what he said was correct, up to that point. But what he did not say was that —and I want to repeat this now that he is here—the procedure that was followed in this case is the procedure that has been followed from time immemorial. In relation to this particular company there has not been a query in the last ten years, and no other method whatsoever was employed for the booking of docks for their ships. They have never had any trouble, until somebody wanted to put the Suiderkruis into the dry-dock and use it as a wet berth. I want to know the answer to this and I think South Africa wants to know the answer. Moreover, I think that not only our own local shipping people but all shipping people, want the answer to this. And it had better be a good one in my opinion.

I want to make some suggestions for immediate steps the Minister can take, or should take—I believe must take—to try and correct this position. I believe that the very first thing he should do is to restore this ship’s booking. He must do that and show that he is going to keep faith with these people, not break it. The second thing he should do is to apologize for what has happened. He is so ready to criticize other people and accuse them of being unpatriotic and un-South African. Let him now for the sake of South Africa and what our name means in the outside world eat a little bit of humble pie. Let him climb down and do what is necessary to cure what has happened in his department. The third thing he must do is to give an assurance to the people who use our harbours that this will never happen again—for what it is going to be worth, under the circumstances. But I still think that he must give it.

I want to say in conclusion that what I have said here supports the claim I made at the very beginning of this debate. I said that steps should be taken to divorce the working of our harbours from that of the railways, because this is the sort of thing that happens under the present system. Let seamen deal with seamen. They understand one another. They do not understand the sort of business that takes place in railway thinking. They do not understand that at all. The Minister has embarrassed everybody by what has happened here. It is so obvious, it is so easy to see through, and, Sir, it is so very distasteful.

Mr. Speaker, I trust the hon. member for “Port Umlazi” will not mind if I do not follow his argument over the question of ports, but I am not such an expert on ports as the hon. member presumes to be.

I think that in the dying moments of this debate it is perhaps an opportune time to make an evaluation of the Opposition’s criticisms which have been heard over the past five days. The hon. member for Yeoville said this morning that over the past few days the debate was both revealing and interesting. However, to me as a newcomer, and having listened intently to the debate during these past few days, the debate has revealed the Opposition in all its nakedness as far as its inability and ineptitude as regards criticizing the Government efficiently is concerned.

The hon. member for Yeoville, the hon. member for Durban (Point) and also other hon. members on that side traversed all the railway tracks that were possible; they shunted to and fro, but they did not get anywhere. I want to join the hon. member for Bethlehem when he said this morning that if the misfortune should ever befall South Africa of the Opposition coming into power and the hon. member for Yeoville becoming Minister of Transport, it will mean the entire political derailment of South Africa.

After the hon. the Minister and the hon. the Deputy Minister of Transport had spoken a number of times in the past few days, they had pulverized the attacks of the Opposition on the Railway Budget to smithereens; they had made absolute political mincemeat of the Opposition. I, as an ex-member of the Press gallery who had watched railway debates over many years, including when the United Party were in power, must say that I have never seen a Railway Budget debate fall as flat as this one has done over the past few days. I must also say that I have never seen a Minister and a Deputy Minister give a leading spokesman, indeed the chief spokesman on railway matters on that side, three such sound trouncings in succession as the hon. member for Yeoville has had in the past few days.

I must admit that the hon. member for Yeoville had a very invidious task over the last few days. He was, in the first place, confronted by a Railway Budget which shone because of the sheer excellence of its planning and financing. It took away all the Opposition’s arguments and criticisms, and revealed that the economic buoyancy of the Railways, which we have known for so many years under the management of this Government, is fast reappearing. In the second place, the hon. member for Yeoville fell victim to his own wild and irresponsible statements of the past. What he had probably not realized and expected was that the Railways’ finances would in so short a time make this unexpected dramatic recovery. I also want to say that I was not misled by the sudden display of emotionalism and excitement by the hon. member yesterday over the alleged rudeness of the Minister towards his colleague, the hon. member for Durban (Point). In my opinion it was but a feigned indignation. What the hon. member tried to hide was his realization and anxiety that he is steadily making less and less impact as an Opposition spokesman on Railway matters in thus House. I for one foresee dreary prospects for this hon. member if the healthy trend we have noticed in the Railways’ economy continues next year. Anybody who knows anything about the economics of the Railways will know that if the upward trend in its finances continues—and there is no reason why it should not continue —the Railways will soon again show a handsome profit. And where wilt the hon. member for Yeoville be then?

Still here.

I want to congratulate both the Minister and the Deputy Minister on their performance in this House. It was second to none, and that in spite of the weakness of the Opposition’s criticisms. One knows that a Minister, just like a sportsman, can only be as good as his opposition. All in all, I think that the two Ministers performed excellently,. In my view the Minister’s stature as Minister of Transport is growing annually, and I am sure that eventually he will be referred to in the sphere of the Railways in the same reverent way as the late Mr. Klasie Havenga has been alluded to in the sphere of finance.

I think that the ineffectiveness of the Opposition’s criticisms in the past few days is the best testimonial that our Minister could have had. Where we are about to take the Third Reading of the Appropriation Bill, the Minister would be quite justified in feeling that he has gone right through this debate unscathed.

The hon. member for Yeoville made an attack on certain hon. members from South Rand constituencies, including myself, a few days ago. He alleged that we sat here without saying a word about the large profits that are being made by the oil pipeline from Durban to the Rand. He also said that the Minister tried to make the U.P. look ridiculous about this. Well, it is impossible to make the U.P. look ridiculous—with them it is a permanent condition. I want to come back to this attack he made concerning the pipeline. It was a purely political opportunist display which we have come to know so well on the part of the hon. member for Yeoville. He beat his breast and said, “Look at what I have done in this debate in the House of Assembly, but you hon. members from the Rand have done nothing about this.” We know the hon. member as a verbal acrobat, and that he seeks political capital in the most unexpected quarters. But, Sir, I feel that this attack on us members from the Rand was purely because the hon. member knows a by-election is in the offing in Johannsburg (West), and he now wants to catch a few stray votes by alleging that National Party members from the Rand are not fighting for the motorist’s interests and especially for cheaper petrol on the Rand. Now, why should the hon. member get away with this? I want to come back to this. He has put himself up as a great protagonist of the interests of the poor motorist on the Rand. He referred to me as “the young member for Turffontein”. I want to fell him this. I may be a young member, but I am certainly not an old fool to plead for something which is, from the point of view of the Railways’ economics, complete and utter nonsense. This expert spokesman of the Opposition should know that the different divisions of the S.A.R. & H. act under one economic umbrella and they contribute to and draw from one economic pool, as the Minister explained very clearly to him the other day. If one sector is run at a loss, the other profit-making sectors should compensate for that loss. As I see it, and I am sure all the other members from the Rand see it in the same light, it is only sound business administration. But apparently the hon. member for Yeoville does not know it, and he now wants to use the profits that have accrued as a result of, the operation of the pipeline to make cheaper petrol available on the Rand and so perhaps steal away a few votes from the National Party. The dishing out of the pipeline profits in the form of cheaper petrol will, of course, temporarily benefit the motorists. But in sound budgeting it will upset the balanced economics of the Railways which, as I have explained, functions as a unit. I am quite prepared to justify my stand here to-day. My support for the Minister at this stage, where the Railways are still in the red. is quite unequivocal—the profits made on the pipeline should be kept in the pool and not taken away.

I also want to tell the hon. member for Yeoville in all modesty that the bait which he has been holding out here in this connection to the voters of the Rand, and also the voters of Turffontein, will not be taken. They are adult and responsible people who want to see the Railways on an even and profitable keel. They will continue cleaning up the U.P. on the Rand, as we cleaned them up in the recent city council election in Turffontein and elsewhere.

Now, Sir, before I resume my seat I want to raise a few matters with the hon. the Deputy Minister. These matters are not concerned only with my constituency but also with railway matters in general. Is it not possible for the Deputy Minister to make a statement to the House about the possibility of increasing the amount of the housing loans now granted to railway officials? I know that the matter has been under discussion and under consideration, and perhaps the Deputy Minister can tell us what the result is. I have been approached by a number of my voters in Turffontein to ask the Minister whether it was not possible for the R8,000 loaned to railway officials to be increased, because they find that it is in general impossible to build or buy a decent house for that amount these days because of the higher building costs. I think that the whole of South Africa and the entire railway staff will be grateful to the hon. the Deputy Minister if he can grant some relief in this direction.

I now want to say a few words about the Blue Train. That is just about the only point on which I agree with the Opposition, and I refer to the fact that the hon. member for Berea said yesterday that it is one of the best trains in the world. Of course it is. I want to make a suggestion designed to even increase the popularity of the Blue Train. I want to ask the Deputy Minister whether he would not consider the installation of an observation tower on top of some of the coaches of the Blue Train. I had the opportunity of travelling on the Pacific Railways, on the well-known Santa Fé Express. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Rosettenville sits with his back to the Chair and keeps up a running commentary.

He is getting worried, Mr. Speaker. I feel that such an observation tower would enhance the popularity of the Blue Train. I know that the Blue Train has delightful lounges from which one can view the wonderful sights of the passing scene. From an observation tower one would see the wonderful landscape from a higher vantage point, and I think that would be even better. I wonder whether this matter could not be investigated and the possibility of such an innovation be considered.

I also want to ask the Minister about the rather antiquated photographs which we have in our ordinary trains on our main-line routes. I think, for example of the Trans-Karoo trip and the Orange Express route. I had occasion to travel on a main-line train recently, and some of those photographs must have been taken in pre-Republican days, even in General Hertzog's day. Some of the photographs, especially those of the Peninsula, were completely unrecognizable to me.

Antiques.

As the hon. member says, they are antiques. They are antiques more so because they were probably taken in the antique days of U.P. rule.

But the views change.

The scenery of the Peninsula has changed. You have also changed in the meantime. I want to raise these three matters with the Deputy Minister and ask him whether they could not be considered.

Yesterday one of the Opposition speakers raised the question of air-conditioned diningrooms on our trains. I cannot see why that side should become so het up about air-conditioned dining saloons. No doubt they need such an amenity after all the hot air they talked here yesterday. I feel that in view of the economic squeeze that is being applied at the moment in South Africa it cannot be expected of the S.A.R. to supply all main-line trains with air-conditioned dining saloons. There are a number of them in service, but in view of the curtailment of capital expenditure our finances are used on the basis of “first things first”. The Minister has explained very clearly that that is indeed the case. I feel that as far as air-conditioned dining-rooms are concerned it can be left to a later stage.

I want to refer to what the hon. member for Berea said about meals on our ordinary mainline trains. I do not know whether the hon. member has recently travelled on the British Railways or the American Railways, or even the French Railways, but I can assure the hon. member that although the ordinary menu on the S.A.R. is not as elaborate as it used to be before the war, and even after the war, it is nevertheless much better than what one will get for one’s money on the British Railways or the French Railways. I think that one does not really go on a train journey to dine and wine to capacity. The ordinary trains—not the luxury trains—serve a utility purpose. They are there for the transport of passengers and not as venues for dining and wining. From that point of view I feel that the service we get as far as the Railways’ cuisine is concerned, is absolutely outstanding, when compared with that of other countries.

Mr. Speaker, this year we saw the old tactics of the Opposition once again. They come along during a Railway Budget debate and level some criticism, and when we expose the folly of their criticism, they run away very quickly from the criticism they expressed and then look for all kinds of excuses to pursue the debate. It was the typical old criticism. It was the kind of criticism we hear from them virtually every year, year after year. In fact, it has become an institution with the Opposition. One may look up the records for the past number of years, since the hon. member for Yeoville became the main critic, and every year one will find the same complaints and the same difficulties on the part of that side. They complain that the Minister did not reply fully to their questions. Then there are matters which were supposedly left unanswered. They say the Minister derides their criticism. He deals harshly with them. Then they cry and howl about that.

That will be the day.

Yes, that is what the hon. member did yesterday. I want to say that the hon. members on the opposite side should not expect to deal blows in politics unless they are also prepared to take punishment. Politics is not a parlour game. I am becoming rather irritated by this hypersensitivity of the Opposition, that they cannot take their beating and must always cry about it. I want to remind them of Langenhoven’s words, namely: “Kleinserigheid is die voorkant van ’n seer kleinigheid.”

I just want to mention one of the points to which the hon. the Minister, according to the hon. member for Yeoville, did not reply. This relates to his suggestion that there should be productive bargaining. He says he did not receive a satisfactory reply to that. Let us see what the Minister said. He said the following—

Now the hon. member comes along this morning and complains that he received no reply on that point! How can the Minister give him a clearer reply than that? The Minister can give him a reply, but he cannot give the hon. member the intelligence to understand it. That is impossible. The hon. member also complained that they did not receive a clear reply on what the Railways were doing with regard to inflation. The hon. member who complains that the Railways are doing nothing to combat inflation, is the very member who approves and says that he agrees, that he is satisfied, that it is essential that we should increase our capital expenditure. We are very grateful for his support for the premise that capital expenditure on the Railways should increase in order that the Railways may keep abreast of the development of the country. But surely that is inflationary. The hon. member who complains that the Railways are doing nothing to combat inflation is the very member who requests that salaries and wages should be increased; it is the very member who asked that pension relief should be granted. Surely these are all measures which foster inflation. The Minister demonstrated clearly—I do not want to read that again—what the Railways are doing to combat inflation in respect of housing provided for the staff. The Minister pointed out that a loss of R8 million is suffered annually on departmental houses. Moreover, the Minister pointed out that housing loans are made available at a particularly low rate of interest, compared with what people have to pay in the private sector. He indicated that measures were constantly being considered to increase the efficiency and productivity in the Railways as much as possible. All that the hon. the Minister told the hon. member for Yeoville, and yet he complains this morning that he did not receive adequate replies. Then the hon. member spoke about relief for pensioners, and he said we should state very clearly what our attitude was with regard to this matter; it had not yet been explained adequately to him. But once again, the Minister explained to him that he could not increase basic pensions. That can be done only if the actuaries find that it is possible to increase basic pensions.

Did the actuaries find that in 1959, or did the Fund have to be subsidized?

Yes. The hon. member made the allegation that since 1959 the pensioners had received no relief.

No, since 1954, he said.

No, this morning he spoke of 1959.

Then he has changed his tune once again.

How is it possible that the hon. member could make such a statement? Does he think he is furthering the cause of the pensioner by making such a nonsensical statement? Since 1959 the temporary allowance—and the hon. member should remember that the temporary allowance is paid from the revenue of the Railways—for a married pensioner has been increased from R294 to R420. Is that not relief?

But everybody received that.

I am dealing with the statement. You must correct it while you are speaking, and not when you are sitting down. Those pensioners who receive a very small pension, as a result of the poor pensions for which a previous United Party Government was responsible—how this Government and the Minister went out of their way to help those people! In 1963 it was provided that the pensioners shall not receive an income of less than R54 a month. In 1964 it was increased to R84, and in 1965 to R88, and in 1966 to R92. But the hon. member comes along unblushingly and says that no relief has been granted to the pensioners.

I mentioned all those things in the Budget debate itself.

Then why does the hon. member make such a slanted statement afterwards? Has he forgotten his own speech of Monday?

Nothing has been done for certain pensioners.

I fear it is impossible to argue with the hon. member. The hon. member also asked whether the rate of interest applying to the Superannuation Fund should always be fixed at 4½ per cent. I may inform the hon. member that the Minister directed that the matter be referred to the Joint Committee on the Superannuation Fund, and this committee will meet in June, 1967, and further inquiries will be made into the matter.

Then the hon. member said that in my reply to the Second Reading I had said nothing to satisfy the Bantu passengers, and that they were most dissatisfied with the service rendered to them. Surely the hon. member cannot be so ignorant. Surely he should realize that the carrying capacity of railway lines and of suburban lines is increased from time to time. Surely the hon. member is a member of this House, where millions of rands are asked for every year to increase the carrying capacity of those lines and to render better services to the Bantu passengers too. Surely he is aware of the fact that rolling stock is bought to improve traction power and to put better passenger coaches into service. It is simply impossible that the hon. member should not be aware of that. Here I have a lengthy list which has been furnished to me with regard to how the Bantu passenger services have improved, also in respect of more trains made available in the course of the past year. In the south-western areas of Johannesburg provision was made for five trains of 11 coaches each, for 9.500 passengers, to improve the position, in order that the trains may not be overloaded, something of which the hon. member complained. But the Minister has told the hon. member before, and he should know this, that the Bantu passengers are inclined to want to leave with the first train, and they do not mind how many of them get into it, even though there are later trains available. Here I have a lengthy list which deals with Germiston, Kaalfontein, Benoni and Pretoria, where provision is made for a total additional capacity of 82,220 passengers a day. Surely the hon. member should know that.

Then the hon. member asked how it was possible that a certain Mr. A. A. Storm could state in evidence before the Marais Commission that the Railways could not meet a contract for export coal.

That the Railways could not provide the transport to meet the contract. You must be careful.

I am always careful with the hon. member. I just wish he would also be a bit careful with us, to make more sensible statements than he usually does. This statement by Mr. Storm is not correct. The statement was made before the Marais Commission and the representative of the Transvaal Coal Owners’ Association subsequently admitted that they had been mistaken. The position is that the firm merely received an inquiry from the overseas concern, and not a fixed contract. Mr. Storm explained, after he had been spoken to by the local representative of the Railways, that the newspapers had misreported his evidence. [Interjection.] The hon. member cannot blame me for that.

What about the coal transport by road?

The hon. member knows what the position is. It has been explained to him before.

For the third time the hon. member for Umlazi has raised an issue which he discussed most exhaustively during the Budget debate and to which the Minister gave him a clear reply. [Interjection.] He did that in the Committee Stage, when the Minister once again took special pains to reply to him. Now the hon. member says he doubts the particulars furnished to him by the Minister. What would be the point of my giving him the facts again? The Minister and I cannot give the hon. member the ability to believe what we tell him. If he is not prepared to accept the Minister’s word, I can do nothing about it. [Interjection.] I think this matter has been fully discussed and we are merely wasting the country’s time by further discussion. [Interjection.] No, I am not hiding anything. The hon. member should know me well enough to know that I will not hide anything.

There are doubts about that.

Order! What does the hon. member mean by that?

I mean that the Minister does not realize that he is hiding something. I want to point out that I am not accusing him of dishonourable conduct.

Order! I think the hon. member should withdraw those words.

Certainly, Sir.

I just want to say something with regard to this concern about Table Bay harbour on the part of the hon. member for Umlazi. I do not know whether it is because he came to Parliament as a result of the fact that he did not have to fight an election, and that he is now preparing the way in order that later perhaps, when there is another election …

But he was unopposed.

No, listen to me, I am not disputing that, but the hon. member for Yeoville knows as well as I do that if there had been an election in that constituency the hon. member for Umlazi would not have been here to-day. [Interjections.] I say I wonder whether the hon. member for Umlazi is paving the way for fighting an election against the present member for Green Point here in Green Point. I just want to warn that hon. member, because it seems to me as though things are heading that way.

The hon. member for Turffontein asked whether an observation compartment could not be installed on the Blue Train. I fear that as a result of the restrictions of our tunnels it will not be possible to do so. Then the hon. member asked that the housing loan of R8,000 should be increased. The Minister has already approved that it be increased to R9.000, and that shall be made of application to the loans granted this year. Then the hon. member objected to the old photographs which are still on the trains. I just want to tell him that in my view our trains are becoming modernized so rapidly that we should cling to the few old things we still have left, and should perhaps simply accept them as antiques.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

I am entering the debate at this stage because I can, by so doing, save the Committee some time. I am doing so particularly as a result of the objections raised by hon. members of the Opposition during the Second Reading debate, particularly the hon. members for Constantia, Pinetown and Kensington. The hon. member for Constantia, as hon. members will see on the Order Paper, moved an amendment to the effect that the restriction on possible State guarantees in respect of Iscor loans, which has to be deleted according to my motion, must be retained in the principal Act. That is the content of the amendment as proposed by the hon. member for Constantia. Hon. members will also note that the amount, which occurs in the proviso which the hon. member for Constantia wants to have restored in the principal Act, is £12 million. What it amounts to is that where guarantees up to £12 million are given, it is not necessary for me to obtain the approval of both Houses of Parliament for the provision of such guarantees, but where the amount is in excess of £12 million, then the approval of both Houses of Parliament must be obtained.

Mr. Chairman, hon. members of the Opposition have made very strong objections to, as they put it, parliamentary control being infringed by the removal of the proviso. I want to say right at the outset that it is by no means my intention to restrict parliamentary control in any way. It is not my intention at all to restrict the right of Parliament to discuss any subject, and I still want to point out that hon. members are being afforded the fullest opportunity of discussing matters of this nature on various occasions, such as in the Budget debates, in debates on motions of no-confidence, and also under the various Budget Votes. I do not want to discuss the merits of the principle contained therein now, because you, Mr. Chairman, may perhaps call me to order, but I do want to point out to the hon. member for Constantia that a large measure of delay can be caused as a result of having to obtain the approval of both Houses of Parliament for the issuing of guarantees. May I mention an example to illustrate this? Suppose negotiations for a loan by Iscor are in progress during July or August of a particular year and that the loan goes through in, say, October of the same year. The loan is for an amount of, say, R30 million, which is more than the £12 million mentioned in the proviso. That means that another three or four months will have to elapse before parliamentary approval for the provision of the guarantee can be arranged. Under the circumstances I feel that this may create a good deal of embarrassment and perhaps problems as well, since the person who is prepared to give the loan might perhaps not be prepared to wait so long before the matter can be finalized, as well as for other reasons.

The other matter which I should like to bring to the attention of this House is the fact that the retention of “twelve million pounds” in the proviso is, in my opinion, no longer realistic. This proviso was inserted in 1942. I do not now want to calculate in a purely scientific way what an equivalent amount would be according to the present value of money, but if one looks at the consumer’s index, then one comes to the conclusion that the value of money has decreased by approximately 118 per cent since 1942. Having made a little calculation I find that £12 million or R24 million in 1942, is to-day equivalent to R52 million. That is one consideration; I do not even want to discuss the other considerations.

In 1942 the total annual production of Iscor was 320.000 tons. To-day the annual production at Iscor is 2,800.000 tons, approximately nine times as much as it was in 1942. In the year 1942 the total assets of Iscor were R28.300.000, whereas to-day the amount is R340 million. I think it is clear that the amount of £12 million mentioned in the proviso is today no longer a realistic amount. I do not want to keep the Committee in suspense any longer. I should like at this stage to say that I am prepared, subject to an amendment, to accept the hon. member for Constantia’s amendment. It is Friday to-day and we are always in a good mood on Friday, but apart from this I am a fair person and nothing gives me more pleasure than to accommodate somebody. I should like therefore to cooperate with the hon. member for Constantia in respect of this amendment and I am prepared to accept it provided we can change the amount mentioned therein from £12 million to £25 million, or. from R24 million to R50 million. Where I have in the past been compelled to obtain the approval of both Houses of Parliament where a loan of more than £12 million was being guaranteed, I will now be obliged to obtain the approval of both Houses of Parliament where a guarantee for more than R50 million is given.

I am prepared to accept such an amendment, and since the hon. member already has an amendment on the Order Paper, which differs from my amendment, and since the position will perhaps become more complicated if we try to amend the hon. member for Constantia’s amendment, I just want to ascertain from the hon. member whether he would be willing to accept my amendment as I have suggested here? If he is willing to do so then I will move an amendment myself.

I am glad that the hon. the Deputy Minister has seen his way clear to accept my amendment and I am quite prepared to accept his amendment to mine, because I think we agree that this limit of £12 million which was laid down 25 years ago is no longer realistic. The Deputy Minister now wants to increase it to £25 million or R50 million. We have no objection to that. Do I understand then that the hon. the Deputy Minister will move that amendment himself?

Yes. I will move my amendment.

I will move my amendment and the Deputy Minister will then move his amendment to my amendment? Is that quite clear?

If I move my amendment it will not be necessary for the hon. member to move his amendment at all. I move—

Sir, there is a point arising out of this amending Bill that I should like to raise. It is a coincidence that during the week-end a statement appeared in the financial columns of the Sunday Times in which this was stated—

But this is the point—

Sir, we have reached the position that the Government guarantees loans for Iscor but Iscor apparently has the right to guarantee loans for other companies. I know that Union Steel must be closely associated with Iscor.

Order! I cannot see the relevancy of the hon. member’s argument to this clause.

The relevancy is that the Government guarantees this loan that we are now discussing and I want to know to what extent Iscor in turn can guarantee loans raised by other companies afterwards, I would like an explanation from the hon. the Deputy Minister. This may possibly be what they call in their statements of accounts an associated or a controlled company, because four of the seven directors were in 1966 also directors of Iscor. I should like to know to what extent Iscor guarantees the loans of other companies. We are now discussing the Government guarantee of Iscor loans.

Mr. Chairman, surely it is very clear that as far as Iscor guarantees the loans of its associate companies, it has nothing to do with the guarantee which the Government gives to Iscor. Union Steel has a corporate existence of its own. If Union Steel were to go bankrupt it could only affect Iscor to the extent of that amount. But it is not going to have anything to do with the Government. The Government, as such, is not affected, and is not responsible or liable to that guarantee which Iscor as a company gave Union Steel. It is also not going to affect this R50 million which the Government guaranteed to Iscor. If Iscor receives a personal loan from somebody or other, and the Government guarantees that R50 million, only that amount is at stake. The guarantee which Iscor gives those associate companies, has nothing to do with the Central Government.

Mr. Chairman, I do not think it is necessary for me to explain any further, because the statement made by the hon. member for Sunnyside, i.e. that a guarantee from Iscor cannot be affected in any way and is not really concerned with the guarantees which we are at present discussing, is quite correct.

Clause put and agreed to.

I move—

That the Bill be now read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, as part of the process of the revision of working procedures in the Public Service in order to eliminate unnecessary work and tedious and time-consuming methods with a view to the more profitable application of manpower in State Departments, the custom of printing and publishing the Patents Journal each week also came up for discussion. A proposal that the Journal, in which accepted patent specifications are advertised in terms of the Patents Act should in future appear each month instead of each week, has been considered. The practical application of this proposal will, naturally, result in a considerable saving in working hours, printing costs and distribution costs.

Monthly publication of the Patents Journal may however, lead to the statutarily prescribed period of 22 months after application for a patent has been made, within which period a patent must be sealed, being exceeded much more often than is the case at present. In such cases those applications fall away completely, with serious consequences for the applicants.

I should like to explain that in terms of section 23 of the Patents Act the advertisement of any accepted patent specification must take place within this period of 22 months, so that a period of three months is available for the submission of objections, in other words, advertisement must take place not later than the first day of the 20th month after the date of application. However, the result of all kinds of problems in regard to the acceptance of the specifications is that it is often quite impossible for advertisement to take place beforehand, and it may happen now that the first day of the 20th month after the date of application falls on the 15th of January. Suppose, Mr. Speaker, that the first day of the 20th month falls on the 15th of January, and that the Patents Journal, which will now appear monthly, appears on the last day of each month. That will mean that if the specifications are acceptable at any time between the 1st and the 15th of January, the applicant is still ready with his specifications within the period of three months before the expiry of the 22 month period, but that there simply is no Patents Journal available until the end of January. That will mean that, if it is advertised in that Patents Journal, the period of three months will only elapse 14 days after the expiry of the 22 months period allowed by law.

In the circumstances it can have very prejudicial consequences for the applicant since his application lapses completely without the applicant himself having been implicated. That is why it is felt that where extension of time is given for the advertisement a corresponding extension of time should also be given for the expiry of the 22 month period.

Section 18 of the Act does in fact provide that the Registrar of Patents may from time to time give a period of extension for advertisement, but section 26 (2) (a) simply makes provision for the extension of the 22 month period for such periods as are allocated for the application and acceptance of final patent specifications. It does not allow corresponding extensions of time for those periods which the Registrar has allowed for advertisement.

In any case this provision brings about a discrepancy in the Act which will lead to embarrassment and difficulty, apart from the fact that this position will, as a result of the change in the publication of the Patent Journal be made even more difficult as far as patent holders and agents are concerned. The House is therefore being asked to approve the proposed amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the Bill is an administrative matter, we have had the opportunity of discussing the matter with the administrative officials and the patent agents concerned and we have no objections to the Second Reading of this Bill.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

That the Bill be now read a Second Time.

Both amendments which are being envisaged in this Bill are aimed single and solely at benefiting commerce and industry.

As far as clause 1 is concerned, serious representations have for quite some time now been submitted to the Government to the effect that there should be some measure of control or other over undertakings which exploit, for commercial purposes and on the ground of emotion, representations of historic and national monuments and certain buildings of public interest. The Government is sympathetically disposed towards these representations and while this statement cannot quite at this stage be reconciled with my opening words, hon. members will gather from my additional explanation that what is now being proposed in this regard will benefit certain dealers, etc.

The position at present is that in section 14 of the Merchandise Marks Act provision has been made for the control of the use, for commercial purposes, of representations of the National Flag, the Republican Coat of Arms, the Royal Coat of Arms, the Queen, etc., of Britain, the State President, Ministers of State and the Presidents of the old Republics, while section 15 of the Act provides in addition that the Minister of Economic Affairs, may, after such investigation as he has deemed desirable, prohibit the use of any mark, word, letter, figure or arrangement or combination thereof, totally or provisionally.

However, the application of these statutory provisions does not result in a system of merchandise marks registration having to be followed, but there are in fact the provisions of section 16 of the Merchandise Marks Act in terms of which application for the use of words, representations, etc., as trade-marks on specified categories of goods is subject to the approval of the Registrar of Trade-marks, and in cases where approval in terms of this section is granted, those trade-marks have to be registered. Such registration has as a result that no other person than the applicant or holder of that trade-mark may use it in respect of the relevant category of goods. However, this protection falls away, inter alia, if the holder of the trade-mark in question has, for a continuous period, as provided in the Act, not made use of it.

The representations which have been made to the Government therefore arise from—

1. (a) the difference which exists between merchandise marks which are not registered and apart from the few exceptions which the Merchandise Marks Act make at present, may be used freely by anyone until the use thereof is forbidden or provisionally forbidden in terms of section 15 and trade-marks which have to be registered in terms of section 16 of the Merchandise Marks Act in order to enjoy the rights and protection connected therewith;
2. (b) the incurring of fruitless and major printing work expenses, publicity, etc., by a person affixing a Merchandise Mark to his products and then possibly being forbidden or provisionally forbidden by the Minister of Economic Affairs from using it in terms of the Merchandise Marks Act; and
3. (c) the consequent dubious efficiency of the present Merchandise Marks Act to control the use of representations of this nature.

Up to now the Government has always followed a reasonably strict and conservative policy where applications are received to use representations of the nature which I have mentioned as merchandise marks or as trademarks. Recently, for example, applications to register “Groote Schuur” and the Fransch-hoek Monument as trade-marks were refused. But as I have already explained, this refusal does not mean that the representations of these objects are not normally, and without approval of any kind, used as merchandise marks, unless somebody makes a complaint to the Minister about the use thereof and he then restricts it in terms of section 15 of the Merchandise Marks Act. Hon. members can themselves realize what the financial consequences would be for an undertaking which may possibly have incurred considerable costs in advertisement and printing, and that in all good faith, if they are suddenly forbidden to proceed. That is therefore why the House is now being asked to extend the specific prohibitions in section 14 of the Merchandise Marks Act so that a commercial undertaking may know in advance to what extent it is at liberty to proceed with the use of certain representations for commercial purposes.

There may, however, be cases where representations of some of these objects have been in commercial use for years, without complaints from outsiders, and it is therefore felt that there are grounds on which exceptions in these possible cases are justified. The necessary provision for this has therefore been included in the Bill by means of clause 1 (2). The intention of this sub-clause is also to prevent anybody, who had intentions of this nature but who did not carry them out at the time this Bill was submitted to Parliament, now suddenly, before the Act comes into operation, trying to put that intention into effect.

I should also like on this occasion to give a short explanation in regard to the further amendment of section 14 of the Merchandise Marks Act, as printed in my name on the Order Paper. In terms of the present provisions of the section in question a prohibition on the use of a representation, portrait or name of the State President or any Minister of State of the Republic, can only be applied if the State President or Minister of State in question still holds his office as such. After the retirement or death of such a personality the Act allows me no power or control over the aforementioned practice.

The Bill, which was originally introduced in the Other Place, has been amended to this extent, but unfortunately the fact was lost sight of that even this further amendment still does not cover the cases of former Governors-General and Ministers of State of the Union, in other words the persons who served in those capacities before South Africa became a Republic. The amendment appearing on the Order Paper is therefore intended to cover these cases as well.

I think it is hardly necessary for me to sketch to the House to what an improper extent emotion for commercial purposes was exploited after the recent death of the former Prime Minister, and we will in future undoubtedly have cases again where it will be possible to exploit emotion in this way for commercial purposes—I am just thinking that it is not impossible that something of this nature will happen again upon the retirement of our present State President—the Government has now decided to take steps now to nip in the bud this practice or any intention to do so.

Consequently, representations for the amendment of section 17 of the Act has been received. This section provides that somebody who, for example, buys or sells a bottle on which the name of the owner has been ineradicably introduced, or who sells goods, which is not the property of the owner of such a bottle, in such a bottle, is guilty of an offence. This provision is purely aimed at the protection against damages or loss of those undertakings who use bottles, etc., on a large scale for the marketing of their products. They are, inter alia, breweries, cool-drink manufacturers, wine and brandy stills, etc. It is clear that it is only this kind of organization which is mainly interested in these legal statutory provisions and it is also the case in practice, that, in the process of protecting their interests, it is only they who have proceedings instituted in terms of this section of the Act.

Modern development has however, as is generally known, led to business undertakings finking themselves together in affiliated or associated forms and for economic reasons these groups integrate their activities to a considerable extent. It now happens, however, that if one affiliated or associated company of a group uses a bottle with the name of another company of that group on it which, say, markets wine or cool-drink, the former company is guilty of an offence.

Normally the owner’s name is embossed or engraved on those bottles when the bottles in question are manufactured. It is rather an expensive process, particularly under present circumstances when, say, nine or ten different series of bottles with different names on have to be manufactured. To place all the names of an associated or affiliated group on one bottle in order to adapt the practice to the present statutory provisions, is very unpractical.

The Government has therefore thought fit to amend the section in question so that a person who sells his wares in another person’s container will not be guilty of an offence, provided the owner of that holder gave the necessary permission to the former person.

We are prepared to support the Second Reading of this Bill. I think it is quite right, as the hon. the Minister has said, that former state presidents, prime ministers and other persons mentioned in this Bill should not be exploited for commercial purposes. I think there should be adequate control. The Minister’s amendment tightens up the Bill as it is now and we shall, therefore, accept that amendment when we come to the Committee Stage.

The other portion of the Bill deals with returnable containers and here, too, I think the position has been unsatisfactory for some years. There should, therefore, be adequate control over containers which are returnable— in the interest of the commercial community, who often find themselves being held to ransom by people who have purchased their containers and then ask them to pay an enhanced price to get the old bottles back again.

For these reasons, Sir, we are prepared to accept the Second Reading of this Bill.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

That the Bill be now read a Second Time.

The Copyright Bill was piloted through Parliament during 1965, after it had been examined by a departmental and after that a select committee of Parliament in its consolidated and amended form. In this process architects, the creators of sculptures and architectural works, were accidentally deprived of the copyright which they had in their works in terms of the old Copyright Act, 1916. This error crept in as a result of the definition of “artistic works”, which, inter alia, provided that this also included drawings, sculptures and architectural works in conjunction with the fact that section 5 (3) of the Act provided that copyright in an “artistic work” which is made in pursuance of that commission for payment, was vested in the commissioner upon completion of the work.

As has already been said, it was never the intention to deprive these people of their copyright, and even the S.A. Institute of Architects, for example, did not, in spite of all the opportunities which there were to submit representations beforehand, realize this error until the Act as such was promulgated. Representations were consequently submitted for the rectification of this error, which resulted in all kinds of complications for the professions concerned. In this regard it can be mentioned that if these persons in future want to ensure that they will in fact retain their copyright in terms of a common law (the same applies to other professions) which is still in fact written into the Act they will have to negotiate written contracts, in contrast to the verbal agreements which have become the fixed usage over the years, with their clients and specify therein that the copyright in the works which they execute for their clients will be retained by them.

This measure does not therefore contain any new principle and I therefore believe that the House will have no problem in approving of it.

As the hon. the Deputy Minister has said, this is an administrative matter. It only bridges a gap which has existed in the existing legislation and, in the circumstances, we are prepared to accept this Bill.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

That the Bill be now read a Second Time.

It gives me great pleasure to be able to introduce this measure. In the first instance, it will modernize our law of designs and bring it into line with the provisions of the Paris Convention, as revised from time to time. Secondly, it is an important milestone in our legislative achievements. In this respect hon. members will recollect that in 1963 a new Trade Marks Act was enacted while in 1965 the Copyright Act was, after a thorough investigation by Select Committees, passed by Parliament. These measures, together with the law relating to patents, 1952, all form part of Act No. 9 of 1916. The Designs Bill which is now before the House constitutes the last lap of the modernization of the 1916 legislation and will, when enacted, enable the repeal of the whole of the 1916 Act.

Business suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Speaker, when the House adjourned this afternoon I was saying that this Bill which is now before you forms the last lap of the modernization of the 1916 legislation and it will, when enacted, enable the repeal of the whole of the 1916 Act.

The Bill has been subjected to the scrutiny of a departmental committee comprised of representatives of the Bar and Side-Bar Associations and the South African Institute of Patent Agents with the Registrar of Designs as Chairman. A notice was published in the Government Gazette inviting representations from all interested bodies and in addition copies of the draft Bill were specifically sent to the following bodies or persons for comment:

Representations were received only from the Association of Chambers of Commerce and its main objection, namely that to clause 32 of the Bill, has been met. I am convinced therefore that this Bill will receive the unanimous support of this House.

The members of the departmental committee by whom this consolidating measure has been considered are all highly qualified in law and four of them are registered patent agents, whose business is concerned with design registration and infringement. They are naturally well equipped to deal with legislation of this technical nature.

The important aspects of this Bill are—

1. (a) the provisions relating to the definition of a design (clause 1);
2. (b) the division of designs into classes (clauses 4 (3) and 15);
3. (c) the grounds on which a design may be refused (clause 4 (4));
4. (d) the rights acquired by registration (clause 15);
5. (e) the question of the inspection of designs by the public (clause 22); and
6. (f) the enforcement of design rights (clause 24).

In the 1916 Act section 76 defines a design. This definition, which attempted to specify the numerous methods of applying a design to an article, is antiquated and has been dropped in all modern legislation. The Bill has done so and added a provision that a design is to be judged solely by the eye in order to determine its compliance with the definition. This accords with legal decisions and will avoid litigation.

Clause 4 stipulates that a design which is registerable must be “new or original”. This has always been the law, but there has not been sufficient clarity as to the meaning of these words. They have now been defined in sub-section (2), not only to clarify the law, but to conform to the requirements of the Paris Convention.

The rights acquired by registration of a design have always been circumscribed according to the classification of the goods concerned. This has now been changed in the present Bill. It is the intention to adopt an international classification which provides for a division, according to the nature of the articles, into some thirty classes. Registration may be recorded in any one or all of such classes and the rights are confined to the class or classes in which a design is registered. This is set out in clauses 4 (3), 6 and 15. The proprietor of a design has the exclusive right, as in the case of patents, to make, use or vend the article to which his design is applied in the Republic (clause 15 (1)). This simplifies the provisions of section 93 of the 1916 Act, which are vague and incomplete.

The question of inspection of designs by the public has been carefully considered and it has been decided to abolish the secrecy period which, under section 91 of the 1916 Act, ranged from two to five years. Clause 22 provides that all designs will be open to inspection as from the date of issue of the certificate of registration. This amendment I am sure will be welcomed by all interested bodies.

The grounds on which a design may be refused by the Registrar have been brought into line with the Patents Act, and the Registrar, who has no facilities for searching for novelty, cannot refuse a design registration on the grounds that it is not a novel idea (clause 4 (4)). This facilitates registration, who, in the past, may have been under the mistaken belief that a novelty search had been conducted.

The enforcement of design rights is now clarified by clause 24. The 1916 Act in section 93 merely sets out what is unlawful for others to do. The Bill now specifies what the proprietor of design rights can do to enforce his rights in the courts.

Clause 30 of the Bill requires design work, if undertaken for gain, to be done by legally qualified persons or patent agents. This is the law in so far as patents and trade marks are concerned. It therefore excludes unqualified and usually incompetent agents, but, as in most laws, it permits the principal to act on his own behalf. I am sure there will be no opposition to this innovation.

Clause 8 of the Bill provides for compulsory licences. This is a new principle in designs legislation in this country and is contemplated by the Paris Convention. It is desirable to ensure that the public need for the monopoly granted in a design is met if the proprietor adopts a “dog in the manger” policy.

The duration of design rights remains at a maximum of fifteen years, which is more or less the period adopted by all the members of the Paris Convention. Priority rights, the maximum being six months, continue to be granted to members of the Convention (clause 18 (1)) and the member states proclaimed under the repealed law will continue to be treated as members for the purposes of this Bill (clause 37 (3)). The remaining provisions of the Bill, although redrafted, have not made any changes in principle.

In case members are not aware of the existence of the Paris Convention, I should like to mention that some fifty countries, mostly European, American and South American, are members. The Convention lays down the requirements for local legislation in order to qualify as a member state and the advantage of membership is to afford members a six month period after a local application within which they may apply for registration in other member countries. An application of this nature, if made within six months of a local application, nevertheless acquires priority rights in a foreign country as from the date of the local application. This is a distinct advantage and is included in our existing legislation since 1948.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I think it would not be out of place to record a word of thanks to the Registrar of Designs and Messrs. A. Suzman, M. McRobert, G. Webster, J. Steyn and P. Fahrenheim, who were the members of the departmental committee and who sacrificed valuable time to assist in this work.

As the Minister anticipated, we support the Second Reading of this Bill, which does bring our design legislation up to date. In the main, it is a consolidating Bill. The Minister has referred to the Paris Convention and to compulsory licensing. May I suggest to the Minister that we have now arrived at the time when more publicity should be given to our designs, particularly our industrial designs. The Minister has probably seen the design exhibition in the Hay Market in London. It is a permanent exhibition for industrial design where all modern designs, particularly industrial designs, are available to the public. Members of the public can visit that exhibition and are put in touch with the manufacturers. In that way further publicity is given to the trend of modern industrial design. We in this country are long past the experimental stage in our secondary industries. Where formerly we were copying designs, we are now originating our own designs. I suggest that the Minister should give consideration to something similar so as to give publicity to the development of design in this country. It may not be possible or feasible at the present stage to have a permanent exhibition, but when we have important exhibitions such as the Rand Show and the Goodwood Show, I think the Minister should take the opportunity of ensuring that there is an opportunity for displaying South African designs. This Bill contemplates the maximum publicity and it does give young South Africans an indication of what is being done. Probably it will stimulate further development in South African design. With those words, I support the Second Reading of this Bill.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

When I discussed this matter with the Minister during the Second Reading Debate, I pointed out that in clause 2, the compensation for temporary total disablement shall be in the form of periodical payments. I am a little dissatisfied with the periodical payments position, although the Minister did explain that in most cases the employer paid the worker during this period and was then able to be compensated for these payments, which were made regularly. But I still feel that it does lend itself to much abuse and hardship to the persons who have been injured. I would be far happier if the periodical payments were specified, or alternatively I would like to see the Minister, by regulation, specify how often during a period an injured person shall be paid. It is quite possible that a man may have to wait a month before he receives his first payment. That of course would become a great hardship to the injured person. Is it not possible for the Minister in these cases to specify that the injured person shall receive so much of his wages or so much of his compensation every week, or every 10 days or every 14 days, and that it shall then be obligatory on the employer or on the State to pay out this sum during that period, or after each period of 14 days? I told the Minister what hardships these people have, especially if they have to wait a month before they receive their first payment. That means that they do not receive any money for virtually two months. During this period of two months while they wait for a grant, they may find that they are unable to keep up the rental for their homes, or hire-purchase agreements could possibly lapse because of non-payment during this time. I should like to ask the Minister to give this matter some thought. Perhaps he could, by regulation, decide on what he considers is a fair period in which payments must be made.

Mr.Chairman, I am afraid the hon. member is under a misapprehension as regards the period which may elapse between payments. An arrangement exists between the Commissioner and the employers that these periodical payments may be made at such times as may be determined, but—and this is the important point which gives the answer to the hon. member’s objection—that there should not be an interval of more than a month. That is the provision. The fear that has been expressed by the hon. member is, therefore, unfounded. If there are such cases, the hon. member should submit them to us specifically. I assure him that we shall then have the matter put right immediately.

Will that mean that the employer would have to pay at periods of not longer than one month, irrespective of the payment that would come from the Department? The Minister may have had these points put to him previously, namely that the employer waits to find out whether the money has been received from the Department by the injured worker. Then the injured workman writes to his employer and says: ‘I have not received anything at all this month and I do not know how I am going to make ends meet.” It is those difficulties which are very important to the injured person, as you know. I want to try and overcome those difficulties. If the Minister can give me the assurance that no injured workman would have to wait longer than the first month after injury for his first payment, I will be satisfied. But, as I have said to the Minister, in my experience I find that they have to wait two months before they receive their first payment.

Mr.Chairman, it is, of course, determined by the date on which the accident has been reported. One can understand that any payments which may be made will have to commence on that date. It often happens that such an accident is not reported immediately. One then has to deal with the employers. One cannot grab them by the neck and force them to do something. The matter is brought to their notice continually, and a debate such as this may help to bring it to their notice further that they should report these accidents immediately. I want to give hon. members the assurance, however, that once such an accident has been reported the arrangement is that those payments should be made at intervals of less than a month.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 5:

Mr. Chairman, I want to take this opportunity of bringing to the notice of the House the large number of persons who have money outstanding, and lying in the coffers of the Public Debt Commissioner. These unclaimed moneys are mounting continually. I want to take this opportunity of asking the Minister if he will not make it obligatory for the injured workman to give two addresses, one the address of the worker and the other the address of his next-of-kin. In the Government Gazette of 10th February there are hundreds of cases where moneys are left unclaimed and if you look through the addresses of the people who did not claim the money, you will find that almost invariably it gives the address of the employer, but the home address of these workers is not given at all. I do not know how the Department has been able even to attempt to trace the persons to whom money is due. I would therefore ask that on the form that is filled in at the hospital, or by the doctors, at the top of that form, there should be another line in which the address of the next of kin can be added, so that the injured worker, when he leaves his employ, can be traced.

This is a suggestion to which attention can be given. The problem is of course that the Bantu employees move about a great deal, hence the unclaimed moneys. It may help if the address of the next of kin has to be furnished now, but we must have no illusions about that, because the next of kin also move about a great deal; after all, they belong to the same group of people who move about frequently. But I want to concede that this will be a case of two addresses which one may be able to use, and although I cannot give any assurance at this stage that it will be done, I shall ask the Commissioner to go into this aspect of the matter.

Clause put and agreed to.

Bill reported without amendments.

Yesterday I moved that we should delete this clause, and reasons for doing so were that, firstly, we thought that this claus was ridiculously worded, and then we find that a person is going to be penalized for breaking a rule of a medical aid society or a medical aid fund. We have two phrases being used here: medical aid fund and medical aid society. I can find no reference of the definition of these two phrases anywhere. I wonder whether the Minister knows the difference between these two types of medical schemes and whether he has been able to find out what the definitions of those are. I will sit down to give the Minister a chance to tell me what the definitions are, and then perhaps we can argue further.

Seeing that more or less the same points have been raised by the hon. members for Pine-town, Rosettenville, Umlazi, Durban (Central) and I think also Berea, I want to deal with those points collectively. Before discussing the individual matters raised by them I want, for the sake of clarity to repeat something which I have not perhaps stated fully or explicitly, but the saying goes that a word to the wise is enough. Apparently that did not apply in this case.

I want to start off by saying that amending legislation was passed in this House in 1963, namely section 26 (b) (bis) of the Public Service Act of 1957, which provided that the State President could make regulations for the establishment of a medical aid scheme or a medical aid fund. A contravention of those regulations which he could issue in that way, could be treated as misconduct, as could any other contravention of the Public Service Act or the regulations. Surely that is clear. At that stage the amendment, which basically had the same approach and object as this amendment we propose making in the Public Service Act now, was not only accepted but in fact welcomed by the Opposition. Since then, however, it has appeared that the provisions of that amending Bill did not go far enough and were not comprehensive enough to include existing medical aid societies or funds as well. In other word, as worded at that stage, it dealt with the establishment of a medical aid fund, but it did not cover existing medical aid funds as well.

We know that there are at least two in existence already, which were also mentioned by the hon. member for Rosettenville, namely the Civil Service Medical Benefit Association and the Post Office Medical Benefit Association, and they are functioning well and already have thousands of members under their care. All that is contemplated by this extension of powers is merely to make those regulations which we have already approved both in principle and by means of legislation, and which the State President may issue in respect of newly established medical aid schemes, applicable to existing medical aid funds or societies as well. Because medical aid societies already exist, there is no need to replace them with new medical aid societies. One may merely include them under the same amending Act of 1963. After all, the object is that the State President may, inter alia, issue regulations in regard to the power of the Public Service Commission to lay down the requirements with which the constitution, rules, control, management, powers, duties, scales of membership fees and any other aspect whatsoever of the activities of a medical aid fund must comply in order to qualify for recognition for the purposes of the administration of the compulsory medical aid scheme. From this it should be clear that there is no question whatsoever of any arbitrary action as far as dealing with the rights and privileges of officials is concerned. The rules of the medical aid fund which may be recognized have to comply in all respects with the regulations issued by the State President or the Executive, and the regulations will be tabled in both Houses of Parliament.

Against this background I shall now deal separately with the matters raised by hon. members. The hon. member for Pinetown asked me whether the Joint Advisory Council of the Public Service had ever been consulted in this matter. My reply to that is “Yes”, and not only the Joint Advisory Council, but also the public servants’ associations as such were consulted, and they welcome these measures. As a matter of fact, they are anxious that this should be written into the law so that they may enjoy the benefits to which they have been looking forward for such a long time, namely the benefits that a compulsory medical scheme is able to afford them. Hon. members were concerned and even regarded it as unethical that officials should be in jeopardy of losing their employment if they should contravene any of the rules of the medical scheme. No contravention, however trivial, can be glossed over, but I trust that it will never be necessary to charge any official with misconduct for having contravened one of these rules. We are, however, dealing here with a compulsory medical scheme to which the State contributes R24 per capita without any limit. The more public servants belong to this compulsory medical scheme the greater will therefore be the contribution of the State on the basis of R24 per capita. In other words, this in fact becomes a condition of service, which has to be complied with like all other conditions of service. The hon. member for Rosettenville mentioned a variety of contraventions and a variety of penalties which may be imposed. Some of the contraventions even include criminal offences. As far as criminal offences are concerned, I want to tell the hon. member that those people will be guilty of misconduct without clause 5 being applied and that they will be subject to the disciplinary measures provided for by the Public Service Act. As far as that is concerned, therefore, nothing is being added by this clause. The hon. member for Durban (Central) and other hon. members suggested once again that officials will now be able to be guilty of an offence without their knowing what the rules and regulations are.

Sir, I have put that to the test; last night I asked a prominent public servant which rules and regulations he had to comply with in terms of the Public Service Act, and he could not tell me. Is there any hon. member in this House who can tell me what offences he as a member of the House of Assembly must not commit? None of us will be able to mention all the offences we must not commit. I merely mention this to show that even if the rules and regulations were laid upon the Table there would be very few people who would know what rules and regulations they had to comply with. The extent to which a person acquaints himself with the rules and regulations to which he is subject, depends on the amount of interest he displays, while in other cases it may perhaps depend on his short-comings or failings, which then compel him to make a special study of the rules and regulations which he fears he may contravene. Officials in the Public Service will be fully conversant with the rules of the medical scheme with which they will have to comply.

Any contravention of the rules may obviously be regarded as misconduct after the regulations have been issued and once it is compulsory for officials to become members of the medical aid scheme in terms of the regulations. It is obvious that the regulations cannot apply before that time. Hon. members made quite a fuss about the penalty provisions. They mentioned the more severe penalties in particular, but they did not emphasize the fact that penalties are always applied in terms of the Public Service Act according to the seriousness of the offence. Offences are committed and the fact of the matter is that if the offence is not of a very serious nature the really severe measures are never applied. The penalty provisions are applied judiciously. Some people who have contravened the Public Service regulations have merely been warned. It is pointed out to such officials that if they commit the same offence repeatedly it will be impossible to find extenuating circumstances for them and that the penalties will then be applied to them. This is not only what happens in the public service, but to a large extent it is also what happens in the courts. If, in the opinion of the judge or the magistrate, the offence was not committed with premeditation the accused often merely gets a warning, but if he commits a second offence he cannot expect to get off with only a warning. That is in effect the whole purport and the meaning of this clause.

Clause put and agreed to (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause 6:

This clause is also a bit worrying. It is very involved and I would like to ask the hon. the Minister why he wants this long and involved clause when he has all the power he wants under section 4 (b) bis of Act 71 of 1963. Why does the Minister want recognition by the Commission of a medical aid fund or medical aid society? What is the reason behind it? He can do all he wants to do under section 4 of Act 71 of 1963. I must say that this long, involved and very wide clause is most disquieting, because as I said last night these are acts and actions by the hon. the Minister and the Government on the private lives, the home life or family life of these people. They have no freedom left. If the hon. the Minister first of all did what he did in clause 5, to which we objected, then he begins to take tremendous powers over as wide a field as possible. The clause reads “the recognition by the Commission …” etc. Why does he want it? The hon. the Minister can do what he needs to do under section 71; if something exists which has to be recognized, it is there. If on the other hand he wants to establish a new one he has all the power he needs. Why must he recognize others, other than the ones which already exist in the Service? Why must the hon. the Minister go outside that? Why does he want to go outside the ones that already exist in the Service and which he knows about and has been talking about. The hon. the Minister has just quoted to us how these people all know the rules, etc. If the hon. the Minister wishes to establish a new one, which I accept might be necessary, he has the power. He has all the power he needs. I must say that I should like an explanation of why the hon. the Minister needs to recognize an existing one or why he cannot establish a new one.

There are two aspects of this clause which I should like to discuss with the hon. the Minister. Firstly, there is the question of compulsion. Now, it would appear that civil servants will virtually be forced to join one of the medical aid funds or medical benefit societies, which may be chosen. It will be a condition of employment. What perturbs me about that is not so much that it is going to be a condition of employment, but I will indeed be very perturbed if all persons who are at present in the employ of the State were not allowed to join. By that I mean that there are certain people working for the State to-day who are not 100 per cent physically fit. We have people with various ailments and it is possible that when enrolment becomes a condition of service these people may be excluded from the medical aid funds or medical benefit societies. At line 50 of the clause mention is made of the fact that exemptions from compulsory membership will be recognized.

I am not so concerned about the exemption from that. But if the exemption means that persons who want to join the benefit societies cannot join them because of some physical ailment, I think it is going to be grossly unfair because it will also mean that not only will they not be able to receive the benefits that would be due to them if they were physically fit. but there is a possibility that they could not be allowed to proceed in their careers in the department. That is a point which the hon. the Minister must clear up here this afternoon. I therefore want to make it clear that before we will vote in favour of this clause we want to make sure firstly, that those people who are in the Service shall be allowed, whatever their present physical state is, to belong to the medical benefit fund or medical aid society that is going to be chosen by the Minister or the Department, and secondly, that nobody will be discharged because of a condition of employment in the event of his having some physical deformity or is found to be not 100 per cent fit. I should like the hon. the Minister’s assurance on those two points.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to reply first to the arguments advanced by the hon. member for Durban (Central). The hon. member now says that we are taking powers to widen the scope of this legislation to include these existing medical aid schemes and to have them recognized in terms of the regulations issued by the State President. And if I understood him correctly, he now wants to know why we want to widen the scope of this legislation and to want to include other medical aid funds which we do not mention now. My reply to that is that this was recommended by the Government’s law advisers after they had been consulted about the matter. They had some doubt as to whether the matter had been stated comprehensively enough in clause 5. For that reason the scope of clause 6 was extended and the position was, in fact, stated more clearly. That was done on the advice of the law advisers. It was done so that there could be no doubt whatsoever that this applied to the existing schemes as well. Now, one should bear in mind that the people have joined the existing schemes voluntarily. The fact that they belong to those schemes on a voluntary basis, gives them the right either to remain members of those schemes or not when these existing State medical schemes are recognized as compulsory schemes. They are not necessarily compelled by a stroke of the pen or a regulation issued by the State President to join a compulsory medical aid scheme. Some of the members of these schemes are not members of the public service.

There are also members of semi-State organizations, for example the C.S.I.R., provincial authorities and so forth belonging to these medical schemes. This merely keeps the door open for them, so that they may decide for themselves whether they want to remain members of those schemes or not when membership is made compulsory. But as far as future public servants are concerned, they will be compelled to join medical schemes which have been declared as such. They will be compelled to do so, and will have no option.

I now want to deal with the question put by the hon. member for Rosettenville. There are certain categories of officials in the Public Service whom we know have considerable bodily ailments. He said it would be unfair to exclude them from these privileges afforded by a compulsory medical scheme. I agree with the hon. member. And it is not the intention at all to exclude them. Regulations have still to be drawn up which will possibly provide for a small premium on contributions to the fund —because the fund cannot remain financially sound if it has to rely solely on contributions from the State—as well as regulations which will ensure their membership. That will in fact be done. However, I can assure the hon. member that the intention is that not one single member of the Public Service who wants to join a scheme will be excluded from or deprived of the privilege of joining such a scheme.

Clause put and agreed to.

Bill reported with amendments.

I move—

That the Bill be now read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, in terms of the original definition of a white person that was included in the Population Registration Act, 1950, a person who in appearance was not obviously a white person but was generally accepted as a white person, could be classified as a white person for the purposes of the population register. This provision was interpreted in such a way that a person who was a full-blooded non-white person could be classified as a white person in terms of that definition if he could prove that the community accepted him as a white person.

Will the hon. the Minister please tell us what a full-blooded non-white person is?

Mr. Speaker, a person whose parents both belonged to that population group.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Will he tell us what a full-blooded non-white person is?

The reply given by me before the hon. the Leader of the Opposition put the question standing, applies in respect of a non-white person as well. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition must just be patient and ask his questions at a later stage. Such a person could be accepted as a white person by the community in spite of the fact that he was definitely not a white person in appearance. It is known that a certain person who admitted that he was a full-blooded Chinese and who had the appearance of a Chinese was at that time classified as a white person by an appeal board on account of the fact that a number of persons were prepared to testify that they accepted him as a white person. The intention of the legislature at the time was, and still is, that the classification of a person should be made according to the views held by the members of the community. From this case and other such cases it was evident that there were people who were prepared for reasons of their own to testify that they accepted a full-blooded non-white person as a white person in spite of the fact that the community as a whole was not prepared to accept full-blooded non-white persons as white persons. I am afraid that the entire discussion is going to revolve around “full-blooded”, which actually has nothing to do with the matter. It has been used more in a figurative sense and to emphasize what we want to do.

There is no one on this side who does not know what we mean by a full-blooded nonwhite person or a full-blooded Bantu or a full-blooded white person. In order to put an end to the will of the people being undermined in this way, the definition of a white person was amended in 1962 to the effect that a person had to meet both the requirement regarding appearance and that regarding acceptance before he could be classified as a white person. That is the amendment that was effected in 1962. But if in spite of the fact that a person is able to meet those requirements, he nevertheless admits freely and voluntarily for the purposes of his classification that he is not a white person by descent, he is not classified as a white person. From the views and opinions expressed by witnesses before the appeal boards and the courts since the inclusion of this definition in the Act, it has become evident that there are many different views as to what is understood by the terms “appearance”, “acceptance” and “descent”, and that there are people who are apparently satisfied to make no distinction between White and non-White. The result has been that persons who are not acceptable as white persons to the community as a whole, have been classified as white persons on the strength of the evidence of such witnesses.

The main object of this Bill is to give closer definitions of the terms “appearance”, “acceptance” and “descent” in an attempt to put an end to this gradual but nevertheless, to my mind, dangerous integration of White and non-White which appears to be the object of certain persons in this country. In the case of appearance it is now being provided that a person’s habits, education, speech, deportment and demean our in general also have to be taken into account in deciding about his appearance. By these presents we are also implementing a suggestion made by Mr. Justice Diemont in his judgment in the case May v. The Race Classification Board, in which he stated, inter alia—

I know many people like that.

Like yours. He goes on—

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear to us that the courts do not want to give us any definition. They say that it is not their task to tell us when a person may be accepted as and when he is “obviously a white person” or “obviously a non-white person”. They point out to us the absence of certain other additional matters which we ought to take into account or should include in the Act in order to make things easier for them, and that is what we are doing with this legislation. To decide about a person’s appearance without having a closer definition of the term, is and remains a difficult matter, and because it is a difficult matter, it offers wide scope for persons to claim, on the basis of the doubt existing in regard to appearance, a classification to which they know they have no right. On account of the doubt existing about their appearance they infiltrate into the ranks of the population group of which they would like to be members, knowing that that doubt serves to protect them, and then they cultivate an artificial acceptance which they use to prove that they are accepted as white persons. This closer definition of appearance ought to restrict or at least make more difficult this undesirable infiltration in this way.

In respect of the second term, acceptance, it is now being provided, in the first place, that a person had to be accepted as a white person, a Coloured person or a Bantu on the day on which the census form in respect of him was completed for the 1951 census. It constantly happens that a person who was a Coloured person in all respects and who lived as one on the date of that census or for many years subsequently is able to prove after a limited association with white persons for a period of a few years or even a few months that he is accepted as a white person, and then wants to be classified as such.

In addition it is being provided that before a person can be classified as a white person on the grounds of acceptance, he has to prove that he has generally been accepted as a white person in that area in which or at any place where he is ordinarily resident, where he is employed or carries on business, where he mixes socially or takes part in other activities with other members of the public, or in his association with the members of his family and any other persons with whom he lives. It is expected that by means of these provisions an end will be made to the confusion, which I believe is created deliberately in some cases, which has arisen in regard to the meaning of the terms acceptance as a white person and treatment as a white person and which has resulted in the fact that many people have even come forward to give evidence that they accept a full-blooded non-white person as a white person. Even at the introduction of this Act in 1950, approximately 17 years ago, the then Minister of the Interior, Dr. Dönges, stated the following—

Can you give us the column number?

I shall give it to you at a later stage. Dr. Dönges stated—

Please note the following—

In other words, still prior to 1950—

In a society all the members of which accept the colour bar, the present definition of a white person as contained in the Act works well, but unfortunately we cannot close our eyes to the fact that there are Whites in our society at the present time who are capable of doing anything in their attempts to eliminate the colour bar. In order to put an end to this violation of the society’s will and judgment, it is deemed necessary to give more concrete content to the concept of acceptance by the community.

In respect of descent it is being provided that a person shall, for the purposes of his classification, be deemed to have admitted freely and voluntarily and on the ground of facts that he is by descent a Bantu or a Coloured person if before an appeal board or a court and for the purposes of his classification he admits or has admitted under oath that he is not by descent a white person; or if in the census form or an application for an identity card completed and signed by him or by his spouse or his guardian in respect of him, there appears a statement to the effect that as far as his race is concerned, he is not a white person; or if he admits that either of his natural parents is or was not generally accepted as a white person. Further to these provisions it is being proposed in the new subsection 5 (5) that the classification of children will be the same as that of their natural parents if both such natural parents are classified as members of the same population group. In addition it is being laid down how children are to be classified if their parents are not classified as members of the same population group. From these provisions it will be evident that descent as an additional factor is going to play a more important part than since the 1951 census. It is not descent which is based exclusively on blood relationship, but mainly on acceptance of parents at that particular time.

By means of these provisions an end will be put to creeping integration, the existence of which is proved by the fact that so-called border-line cases constantly crop up in spite of the fact that the border-line cases which actually existed in 1951 were disposed of years ago. Another matter in respect of which proposals are being made concerns the definition of ethnic and other groups, provision for which is at present made in section 5 of the Act. The Coloured population group was divided into ethnic and other groups by a proclamation which was promulgated in 1959 and re-promulgated in 1963. However, the Supreme Court in Cape Town recently decided that this proclamation was null and void on account of vagueness. In the classifying of the various groups the relative definitions of the groups were all along interpreted in such a way that descent was the decisive factor and that no person who was a member of any particular group by descent could be classified as a member of another group.

Only in those cases in which a person’s descent did not indicate to which group he belonged, he was classified as a member of the group of which he was generally accepted as a member on the ground of his acceptance by members of that group.

As a result of complaints received from members of various coloured groups to the effect that members of other coloured groups were wilfully acting, against the general will of those particular groups, as if they were members of such groups, it was decided after a thorough investigation to propose that the Act be amended with retrospective effect in such a way as to make it impossible for a person to be classified as a member of a specific group if, on the grounds of descent, he is a member of another coloured group.

The result of the amendments contained in subsections 5 (2) and 5 (3) (clause 2) will be that the State President will be empowered to validate by proclamation all classifications which are invalid as a result of the said court decision, and to eliminate any vagueness in the definitions so that there will be no change in the position which existed prior to the court decision.

Mr. Speaker, I now come to a matter which is commonly referred to as third party objections and for which provision is made in section 11 of the Act. In short it amounts to this, that any person may, after another person’s classification has come to his notice, object to such other person’s classification in the prescribed manner within a period of 30 days or such a longer period not exceeding one year as the Minister may allow, and such objection then has to be examined and decided by a board.

When this Act was piloted through Parliament in 1950, the Opposition voiced many misgivings in regard to these third party objections, which they did not want because they would allegedly have afforded ample opportunity for persons to poke their noses into the affairs of other people and to initiate witch hunts to the detriment of those people. I may state that to date nothing like that has ever happened to the detriment of any person over all these years, but what has in fact happened is that some of these provisions have been used to bring the case of a person who had been classified as a Coloured person for many years and who was aware of his classification, before a board once more with the primary object of having him classified as a White person. This provision in the Act relating to third party objections has been seized upon, particularly in recent times, by integrationists and liberalists, who want to break down all racial segregation, in an attempt to destroy utterly what we are striving to attain, as the following fact will prove. From the promulgation of this Act in 1951 up to 1964 we did not receive a single third party objection, but in 1965 we received 36 objections and in 1966 we received 135. If we do not amend this section in order to prevent that, I am prepared to say, on the basis of the rate at which third party objections have increased, that we may readily expect the figure of 135 per annum to be doubled. I repeat with all the earnestness at my command that this provision in the Act, which in fact was included in the Act originally to see to it not that people were under-qualified, but that they were over-qualified, and to which the Opposition objected at that time, is at present being used as an instrument in the hands of people who do not have the interests of the various population groups in our country at heart, but who want to derive personal gain or political advantage from it. For that reason I do not find it very strange that the hon. member for Houghton particularly does not want it. [Interjections.] I am only surprised at the attitude of the United Party. The classified person himself has never objected to his classification within the prescribed period, but after many years have expired he now appears before a board as a result of third party objections with evidence that he is now accepted as a White person, and as a rule such evidence dates mainly from the date on which he initially became aware of his classification as a Coloured person. [Interjection.] He is given sufficient notice, but it is very difficult to prove that he has received such notice. It is virtually impossible to do so. In other words, the door to abusing this clause is wide open to him. The pattern of a constant stream of border-line cases continues, and as fast as cases are disposed of they are succeeded by new cases. This process, as I have said, is nothing but a process of creeping integration of White and non-White, which can no longer be allowed, because otherwise the White population group as well as other population groups will be swamped by persons who are not members of those groups. The result can only be the elimination of the colour bar, and this side of the House is implacably opposed to its being eliminated. Accordingly it is recommended that third party objections be no longer allowed, but that the Secretary’s power in terms of subsection 5 (4) be extended so as to enable him to refer, when he deems it desirable to do so, any case in respect of which it appears to him that the original classification was incorrect, to a board for investigation and decision if he himself is not prepared to give a decision in the case. At present the Secretary is empowered in terms of section 12 of the Act to designate officers in the Public Service to investigate any case of race classification in order to obtain the necessary information and facts. I just want to mention here that I have already issued instructions for a properly trained investigatory organization to be established in order to trace, where necessary, the necessary information and facts before a decision is taken whether or not a classification which causes concern is correct. In addition the Secretary is being empowered to appeal against the decision of a board to the highest of courts if he deems it necessary to do so in the execution of his duties under this Act. [Interjection.] Classifications which have already been made are not affected by this legislation.

But the legislation has retrospective effect.

It has retrospective effect only in so far as new classifications henceforth are concerned.

That is not what is stated in the Bill.

But that is the position.

But then the Bill will have to be amended.

I shall go into the question whether that is not stated clearly enough. May I just add this by way of explanation: Any reclassifications made in the past will not be changed. We do not intend to go back to the distant past in an attempt to bring all reclassifications under this measure. If existing appeals have not been brought to finality by the time that this measure comes into operation, they will naturally be dealt with in terms of the provisions of this Bill. This measure will apply to all appeals which have not been brought to finality, but this measure cannot undo past actions. In addition the Secretary is being empowered to appeal to the highest of courts against the decision of the board if he deems it necessary to do so in the execution of his duties under this Act. In the past it often happened that the Secretary would have liked to have obtained the views of the courts on the interpretation of a specific provision for his own guidance, but as a result of the fact that he did not have any rights of appeal, he was thwarted and could not bring certain classifications to finality as quickly as was desirable. This right of appeal which he is now being granted will consequently help towards obtaining a uniform interpretation of the Act soon, which will be in the interests of all people as well as in the interests of the officials. As the Act stands at present, the division of the Supreme Court to which an appeal is made has to examine and consider the case before it gives a decision. The general interpretation of this provision has been such that it actually resulted in a new inquiry being conducted at which new evidence could be adduced.

In order to induce a person to submit all the relevant evidence to the boards, it is being proposed that the Supreme Court is no longer to institute a new inquiry, but is to decide on the basis of the documents before it, which includes the evidence given before the board, whether or not it is satisfied with the board’s decision.

Sir, as far as the other amendments proposed in this Bill are concerned, I should like to explain the provisions of clause 5. In terms of the present provisions of section 15 a person who is in possession of an identity card on which incorrect particulars appear has to surrender that identity card to the Secretary on the written request of the Secretary. In the case of Bantu the Bantu Affairs Commissioner often finds that a Bantu is in possession of a reference book in which his race is reflected as Bantu on his identity card but that he has in addition another identity card on which his race is reflected as, say, “Coloured”. Because it is not possible to examine the correctness of the second identity card in any other way than that indicated above, the Bantu with the identity card has usually disappeared by the time that it is possible to take action. All that is now being provided for by this amendment is that a Bantu Affairs Commissioner may in such a case seize the second identity card and has to submit it to the Secretary for investigation as to whether the person should be classified as a Bantu or as a member of another population group. That will eliminate the doubt which exists on account of the two classifications.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, I should like to explain that it is being proposed that the amendments are to be put into operation with retrospective effect from the date on which the Act came into operation, namely 7th July, 1950, in order to establish a uniform register and to eliminate the creation of double population groups. If that is not done, we shall for example have two White population groups on our hands, namely one in terms of the provisions which existed prior to this amending legislation and one in terms of the provisions as amended.

In conclusion I want to repeat that the main object of these proposals is to frustrate a form of creeping integration which is beginning to assume alarming proportions, and to ensure that the will of the majority of the people is carried out. The Government owes that to the various races or population groups of our country, but particularly to the White group which is justifiably proud of its identity.

Having listened to the hon. the Minister I think if I were to sum up what this Bill is likely to do, I would say that it is a Bill designed to classify people traditionally accepted as Whites as Coloured. I think that is the fairest summing up of the Bill in the light of the Minister’s explanation. Sir, he has spoken of a creeping integration that is taking place. Sir, we have been in South Africa for 300 years. Does the hon. the Minister expect me to accept from him this afternoon that integration has not been taking place during those 300 years? Does he expect me to accept that what is happening to-day is any different from what has been happening throughout the whole history of South Africa? Where is this sudden danger to the White group envisaged by this Bill, a danger which has to be met with provisions which I can only describe as vicious in the extreme? The hon. the Minister in introducing this Bill spoke of a full-blooded non-White. Do you know, Sir, what a full-blooded non-White is? I would accept that a Bantu is a full-blooded non-White and perhaps a Malay or an Indian, but of the million odd Coloured people in South Africa how many are full-blooded non-Whites? Can the hon. the Minister tell me that not one of them has white blood in his veins? What is a full-blooded non-White? No such thing exists in South Africa.

What makes you so sure?

I have said that the Bantu, the Malays and the Indians can perhaps be described as full-blooded non-Whites.

What about the Coloureds?

Very well, I will concede that there may be Coloureds or Griquas who are full-blooded non-Whites.

Just as I am.

I do not know what the hon. the Minister means by saying “net soos ek ook”.

We do not believe this confession.

I mean just as I am a full-blooded White.

I do not believe, apart from a very few groups, that there is such a thing as a full-blooded non-White in South Africa. The Cape Coloured people on the whole have been called Coloured because we cannot classify them under any other race group. What is our classification of a Coloured person to-day? Under the Population Registration Act it is somebody who does not fall in the White group and who does not fall in the Bantu group; that is a full-blooded non-White. I want to say straightaway that it is very difficult to approach this Bill without a background of the decided cases on classifications which have been before the courts in the last 17 years. You and I, Sir, have lived with this measure for 17 years and you and I cannot forget the principal Act, the Population Registration Act, which this Bill seeks to amend and we cannot forget our attitude to it at the time it came before the House. Sir, I must remind you, because it is very relevant to this discussion, that our objections to the original Act could be classified very roughly in two categories. First of all we believed that it was trying to classify the unclassifiable; that it was attempting to sort out what had been the result of 300 years of South African history. We foretold that it would not be possible on the definitions contained in that Bill; we foretold that it would not be possible to do it in the manner in which that Bill set out to do it. I think the second reason why we opposed the original measure was that while borderline cases might affect only tens of thousands of people in South Africa, the decisions, because of their social consequences, because of their economic consequences and because of their political consequences, were going to affect the consciences of hundreds of thousands of people in South Africa.

There have been changes in this legislation before. Six times the relevant Ministers had to come to Parliament for amendments to the Population Registration Act. Two of them affected particularly definitions. I think that the changes we saw in 1962 indicated the irritation of the Minister of the Interior at the time at what was happening, and he introduced a new principle when it came to classification, a principle which resulted in narrowing the channels enabling somebody conventionally or traditionally accepted as White in South Africa to be classified as White under this Bill.

We have legislation again before us to-day. This legislation seems to me not to evince irritation but a complete lack of patience on the part of the Minister and a determination to limit appeals as drastically as possible and finally, if he can, to close off this human studbook which he has tried to create in South Africa. He wants to abolish the appendix. He knows what I mean—he has been in Agricultural Technical Services. He wants to close off the appendix, he wants to close off the studbook, he wants to abolish the appendix. He wants to pretend that these people do not exist. They were still accepted by the original Act. I say this for a number of reasons. Firstly, because of a Press report of Saturday, the 21st January of this year, which states that the Minister said the following—

I am not criticising the legislation—it is the hon. the Minister, and I think I remain in order, Sir. The Minister went on to say the following—

He wants to close off the stud-book—

It is good to know that the Minister recognizes there is hardship—

This, of course, is wrong, and I do not hold this against the Minister. It may be that this report is wrong. He did not say that this afternoon—

Of course, under the original Act, acceptance was the test. General appearance, as the overriding test, only came in in 1962, with a little bit of descent dragged in at the end. So I am right to say that the Minister is trying to close off the stud-book and he wants to do away with the appendix. But you see, Sir, he is dealing now with human beings and not animals. He has moved from the Ministry of Agricultural Technical Services to the Ministry of the Interior. He is dealing with human beings in one of the most delicate matters in which one can deal in South Africa. He must not think that rules which apply to farmers’ breeding animals apply to human beings too.

You should apply that to yourselves.

I do not know who made that interjection, but I wonder which one of the hon. members on that side is prepared to say that he knows of no white person in South Africa who has a tinge of non-European blood somewhere.

That is nonsense.

Yet he accepts them as being White. You and I have been in this country a long time, Mr. Speaker. We know what has been going on. I say that secondly for another reason, and that is that the new definition clause brought into being by the legislation of 1962 is going to be applied now, retrospectively, subject to the provisions of the new section 5 (5) introduced by clause 2. That makes classification automatic in certain cases, and unalterable for those who are defined in that Bill. It looks as though the hon. the Minister, with his experience in the field of Agricultural Technical Services, is really trying here to apply rules applied to animal studbooks to human beings in South Africa.

The amendments in this Bill, just as the amendments in other Bills which have been before this House on this particular subject, are obviously designed to deal particularly with the Cape Coloured people. They were the main targets of the original Bill. General Smuts, then Leader of the Opposition, said that in this House. Although they were the main targets, the Minister of the Interior of that time was a man of compassion, and the test which he thought should be applied was the test of the judgment of society—conventions which had grown up during the hundreds of years we have been here. He was prepared to accept those as laying down who should be accepted and who should not be, i.e. the result of experience built up as a result of day-to-day contact. General acceptance was made the rule. It was a humane decision. It was a good decision.

Were you in favour of that at that time? Didn’t you oppose it then?

Of course I opposed the Bill; of course I opposed the creation of a human stud-book. Of course I foresaw the difficulties with which we have now been struggling for 17 years. Of course I foresaw that we were going to have to amend it year after year.

Tell us how you are going to apply your race federation plan.

Of course I foresaw that we were going to have difficulties that would apply year after year. Of course I have to deal with a situation as created by the Government’s legislation. The hon. member for Heilbron asks me how I am going to apply this and how I am going to apply that. Times have changed in 17 years. That hon. gentleman has become a Member of Parliament in that time. He was not one when we started. All sorts of other things have happened. We have become a Republic, and we have accepted it. I have to deal with the situation as it is. I have to meet the hon. member in debate in this House. Prior to that he just went along and asked questions at public meetings.

Order! The hon. Leader of the Opposition can proceed with his discussion of the Bill.

Sir DE VILLIERS GRAAFF: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps the hon. gentleman will keep quiet too.

I have got your soft spot too.

That test of general acceptance was applied until five years ago. Then the principle was changed and general appearance was given over-riding effect in certain respects. If a man was by general appearance a Coloured man then it did not matter by whom he was accepted. Descent was dragged in, as I have said, by the hindleg—always to the disadvantage of the applicant, never to his advantage. We pointed out at the time how difficult it was going to be to apply these new tests. We pointed out that there had been a change in principle from 1950, and that now new tests were being applied and they were going to be retrospectively applied as well. We said that we felt that, because of our history, the line had to be elastic. We felt that because of the hardships involved the line had to be elastic and it had to be impermanent. It could not be otherwise. To-day the Minister is trying to make the line completely rigid and permanent. He is attempting something that the original Act did not attempt. He is attempting something the Minister in 1962 did not attempt. He is attempting now to make this line rigid and permanent, and he does not mind what the consequences are—social, political, or economic.

[Inaudible.]

I know. You might classify me as a gorilla, because I have bow legs. But I suppose D’Oliveira plays his shots like a Coloured man and Graeme Pollock like a European. Now, compare this with the judgments of the court. Snyman’s judgment in what is known as M’s case, on appeal from the Race Classification Board, says the following in the 1962 (1) edition of the South African Law Reports, and I want to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention to pages 716 and 717, which indicates how the courts interpreted this Act originally:

That was the interpretation of the court. In a recent article in the South African Law Journal Adv. B. R. Bamford summed up the position in regard to appearance:

I want you to remember, Mr. Speaker, that presumption in section 19 (1), because this Bill repeals that presumption as well. He goes on—

What has happened here? No longer do these laws apply. Now we have completely different tests introduced as to the man’s environment, as to what his habits are, what his education is, how he deports himself, his demeanour and on that we are going to come to a decision. But having come to a decision, we are applying entirely new elements. And having come to a decision as a result of this new Bill, the old presumption under section 19 is repealed. No longer if the court finds him obviously white is he presumed to be white until the contrary is proved. Oh no, Mr. Speaker, now there is a new situation. An onus is placed on the applicant to establish that he is not generally accepted as a Coloured man. You find that in clause 6, Mr. Speaker, which repeals section 19. Under section 1 (2) (b) he can only establish that he is not generally accepted as a Coloured man by proving positively that he is accepted as a white man. There were tests in the past applied in respect of general acceptance. Those tests are made much more severe by this Bill. They are made very much stricter. They are made, in my submission, quite ridiculous. Because one reaches the position where if there is any suggestion of acceptance by anyone as a Coloured person, or in any walk of life as a Coloured person, he is classified as Coloured. This is what the Bill says:

1. (i) is ordinarily resident;
2. (ii) is employed or carries on business;
3. (iii) mixes socially or takes part in other activities with other members of the public, and in his association with the members of his family and any other persons with whom he lives;

Mr. Speaker, you do not have to satisfy one of those tests. You have to satisfy them all. In the past the position was that you could prove this on a balance of probabilities. Now one has to prove that in every single one of those categories one is accepted as a white person and not accepted as a Coloured person. You see, there is no doubt that the onus of proof seems to be shifted and there is no doubt that the acceptance has to be absolute and without exception in respect of any one of the categories mentioned. Let me summarize for you the old law. I read once again from the article in the Law Journal by advocate Bamford—

That is changed, Mr. Speaker.—

That is changed too, Mr. Speaker. I shall deal with that in a moment.

That is changed too, Mr. Speaker.

That is changed now. Now there is no more balance of probabilities. Now acceptance has to be in respect of every one of the categories set out in this Bill. Now, Sir, you will find that the individual cannot change from one category to the other by general acceptance. You will find, also, that this is entirely contrary to the decisions which have been given in the courts up to now. The hon. the Minister has quoted Judge Diemont to me. May I quote back to him Judge Diemont’s judgment—

That is changed now. Then we go on and find the judgment of Mr. Justice Watermeyer in T’s case, heard in 1966 and reported in the S.A. Law Reports. That had to do with a ballet dancer at the University of Cape Town. That dancer grew up amongst Coloured people, but he had a considerable admixture of white blood. That dancer attended the ballet school of the University of Cape Town and went on tour with a ballet corps and was put up in white homes and slowly came to be generally accepted as a member of the white group. Mr. Justice Watermeyer held that there had been a gap of five years and in that five years this individual, who appeared to be a European, had been generally accepted as such. You see, Sir, that was recognized by the previous Minister. Minister De Klerk, now the Minister of Education, Arts and Science, stated in this House—

That cannot happen any more, not under this Bill. Under this Bill all that is over and that is the end of it. There is no more moving from one group to another. But of course the Minister intends it to apply not for a Coloured man so much moving into the white group, or for a white man moving into the Coloured group, but for a Coloured originally accepted as a Coloured now being accepted as a white man.

Then we come to the time of the general acceptance. The law, as it stands at the moment, says that when you have to decide on a man’s classification you look to the time when the appeal is brought or the inquiry is made, as to whether he is generally accepted at this point of time as a white man or as a Coloured man. This Bill changes that, because it lays down that if he has once admitted that he was accepted as a Coloured man or as a white man, whether it was 15 or 17 years ago, that is final for all time, and he is deemed to be so accepted now. So this Minister contradicts what the previous Minister said, and he contradicts what Minister Dönges said when he introduced this Act in 1950. He lays down that if a man is once accepted into one group, he can never move out of that group. Sir, is that necessary? He goes back on the former Ministers. He is upsetting Judge Watermeyer’s judgment in T’s case, and he is upsetting Judge Diemont’s judgment. What is he doing it for? What is the object? It is making the law infinitely harsher and he is making it infinitely more difficult for people. To what end? He is making it infinitely more difficult for a man generally accepted as a white man to prove that he is White, because at some stage he associated with Coloureds. It is making it infinitely difficult for the man with a slight admixture of Coloured blood to be accepted as a white man, as he would have been during the whole history of South Africa. This Minister wants to close the door finally and to draw the line rigidly. I think it is cruel and unnecessary. I think it is throwing away a very fine form of, shall I say, reinforcement of the white group in South Africa.

But the Minister goes further. Under the old law, if you made an admission as to descent in certain documents then you could always prove that that admission was not based on fact, that your admission was wrong. If somebody filled in a census form, or an application for registration under the Population Registration Act, and put in that form that he was “mixed”, or that his parent or guardian put in the form that he was “mixed”, or his wife put in the form that he was “mixed” or of Coloured descent, it was always open to him to come to the court and prove that that was wrong. That right is now removed under this Bill. It does not matter now whether it was right or wrong. If it was filled in, in certain circumstances, then that proof is excluded. Now, there are certain cases where a man makes an admission before a board, and I have no objection if they say that should be held against him. And there are certain cases where he makes an admission under oath, and one would accept that. But then there is the third one, if he admits or has admitted that either of his natural parents is or was not generally accepted as a white person—not under oath; nor for purposes of classification under the Population Registration Act, but he admits it in conversation with somebody. What do you mean by “general acceptance” in respect of your parents? He might have been very young and does not know very much about it. But that is to be held against him for the rest of his life and it is irrebuttable. There is no question of going back on it. It is now irrebuttable for himself and his children, for all generations. Is it any wonder that I say we are going to have a lot of people in South Africa classified as Coloureds who are Whites, and is it any wonder that I say this will make the Act ridiculous, because you are going to have the most contradictory results? Not only do we abandon the old law that one can move from one group to another, which was accepted by previous Ministers, and which was accepted in decisions under the two previous Acts, but this Minister now says finally: That is the end.

Then we are faced with something else which is very difficult. That is that the census they keep looking back to is the 1951 census. Under that census there were enumerators, and one of the members on this side of the House will read a letter to you, Sir, indicating that enumerators were told to mark on the paper what their views were as to the race of the people concerned. They marked it on and it was signed by the person concerned, and very often they were ignorant people who did not know any better. It was raised in the debate in 1950 in this House by the late Field-Marshal Smuts. Here we have so many cases. That is now going to be held against them and their children for all eternity. Do you think that is right, Sir?

Then we have another most remarkable thing, and that is that under this Bill, if a person has entered on any of his papers, for census purposes, or for the population register or anything of that kind, that he is of mixed or Coloured descent, that is regarded as a reference to a Coloured person. That is in complete conflict with the Olieslager case decided in the Cape Supreme Court by the Judge-President and Mr. Justice Van Zyl. Many of us who have had to deal with these appeals and applications through the years know how often it has been entered on a person’s birth certificate or marriage certificate or census papers that he was of mixed descent because he was a mixture of Afrikaans and English-speaking parents, or a mixture of French or German.

I wonder how many honourable gentlemen opposite have dealt with appeals before the board. We have had very many of them on this side of the House; we have been inundated with these cases, and I can tell you, Sir, how often your first hurdle is a birth or a marriage certificate in which somebody has entered as “mixed”. It does not mean Coloured and white or European and non-European; it means “of two European races”. They never knew the difference. Sir, you could always prove in the past that a mistake had been made but under this Bill it becomes an irrebuttable presumption that mixed means Coloured. You can no longer prove that a mistake was made. Under this Bill the Minister closes the door. He says that if you have once said that your race is mixed, then it means that you have Coloured blood; it is an irrebuttable presumption and you are deemed to be Coloured, finally and for all time. Is that fair, Sir? Do you think one can support a change of that kind? The hon. the Minister has sought to justify the abolition of the third party procedure by which appeals were brought by third parties in respect of the classifications of other individuals. I would be the first to concede that that was contrary to the intention of the original Act. I would be also the first to concede that it has led to the righting of a great many injustices because people who did not know that they had to appeal within 30 days, or people who did not understand the position, were given an opportunity to rethink the position. People who 17 years ago might have been prepared to accept the position now find that their position has been made intolerable by the various petty apartheid pieces of legislation put on the Statute Book by this Government, and they are now trying to grasp at any straw in order to be re-classified in another group. Sir, the Minister is going to rule those people out. I think it is a tragedy. I think many people are going to be unjustly prevented from presenting their cases.

Before we knew about the third party procedure I had cases where one was convinced that they were white but their chance to appeal had gone; the 30 days had expired. In 1962, under special circumstances, the Minister could extend the time within which to lodge an appeal to a year. It is now still limited to a year but there are many people who within that time do not realize what the situation is. The hon. the Minister must not think that because this Act has been in operation for a long time there are not still many doubtful and border line cases in this country. He is never going to get rid of them. That is part of South Africa, no matter how often he amends the Act. It means that he is going to move the line a little closer to the white group but he is still going to have the line vague in certain areas; you are going to have the line staggered in certain places. You cannot draw a straight line in South Africa any longer; it is not possible. The Minister has tried to do it regardless of the hardships.

Then, Sir, you find something else. Not only is the third party procedure being abolished but the hon. the Minister has made certain rather odd statements in regard to the third party procedure. He said that his reason for abolishing the third party objections was the number of objections. Sir, is that a reason? The people only found out about it in 1964. He had a few then and 135 in 1965. Now he rushes in with a Bill. It would not matter if he had 1,600 cases if justice was done to those people. Is that any reason for changing the Act—just to save himself and his Department a little work? The people did not know what the position was.

The hon. the Minister now talks of bringing an investigation committee or organization into existence. Are they going to be applied in respect of any changes made by the Secretary of the Interior? Do you realize, Sir, that under this Act, provided there has not been a decision by the courts or by a board, the Secretary can change the classification of anybody? When he has changed that classification, a person’s future classification is not decided under the law as it stands now or as it stood when he was classified. It is decided under this measure which is very much more strict. Do you realize what that means, Sir? There are many people who were classified under the old law which was more moderate and more lenient than this measure. If the Secretary now decides for any reason or as the result of an inquiry that they have got into the white group where he thinks they should not be because there is a vestige of Coloured blood somewhere or because a parent was registered as Coloured or as mixed—and you are no longer allowed to inquire into the meaning of “mixed”; it is an irrebuttable presumption— he can change the classification. The Minister has also said that the appeals pending under the old law are now going to be decided under the new law. Sir, that is a cruel provision.

Here we have people who have spent their money, who have come before the board on appeal, and the board incidentally is on annual leave until the 20th March; what chance have they of getting a decision before the Bill goes through? Those people are now going to have their appeals decided on this new law which is infinitely stricter and more severe. Sir, do you realize what it means to them? They may lose their jobs. They have been working as white people; their children may have to be taken out of white schools and put into Coloured schools; they may have to move from any one of the white areas in Cape Town to Bonteheuvel or some other Coloured residential area. Can you imagine what a cataclysmic change that is in their lives? The hon. the Minister, because there have been too many appeals, is now going to change the law because he wants to close off the stud book. Sir, what is the necessity for this? Do you see it. Sir? I cannot see it. The Secretary is now given the power to review every single classification that stands in the Population register at the present time. I believe that there are about 300 appeals outstanding at the moment before this board. Will all those people now be told that they are going to be tried under this new law, designed to close every loophole resulting from decisions of honest judges, trying to interpret the law as we meant it when we passed it in this House? No, Sir, that is not just.

There is one other matter which worries me tremendously. These appeals go to the board, and I want to say at once that the information I have from members on this side of the House who have attended the meetings of the board is to the effect that on the whole those boards have been extremely fair and just. But, Sir, there is a judgment, from which the hon. the Minister quoted, a judgment by Mr. Justice Diemont, dealing with how a board behaved in respect of one case. I hope that it is only that one case and no other. This is what the judge says—

Then he criticized the statement of the chairman and he went on to say—

The judge then quotes instances with which I do not want to weary the House, and he says—

He then proceeds to overthrow the board’s decision. Sir, I hope there are no other boards which behave in that way. I hope this is only an isolated case, but it is necessary that one should realize that in delicate matters of this kind, made more delicate and more difficult by this Bill, it is possible, even with the best intentions in the world—and I accept that the Minister has good intentions and that his intention is that there should be fair play to everybody—that injustices may be done to people. It should not be necessary for a judge of the Supreme Court to criticize the activities of a board in this way.

Sir, how am I to sum up this Bill? I said when I began that this was a Bill which was going to result in the classification of many Whites as Coloureds. People who throughout the history of South Africa would have been accepted as Whites are now going to be classified as Coloureds under this Bill. It is going to deny people who traditionally and conventionally were accepted as Whites in South Africa, their rights as white people.

I am afraid that it is going to hurt, it is going to humiliate, it is going to degrade people. And to what purpose? To give the Minister less work? To give his officials less work? To try and finally draw a rigid line which history has blurred? It is something which no human being can define. Field-Marshal Smuts said at the beginning of this legislation, “You try to classify the unclassifiable”. We are dealing with human beings, not with animals. What is needed here is humanity, understanding, the milk of human kindness, and the remembrance that everyone whom you classify as Coloured but who thought he was white is likely to be your enemy and the enemy of the white people for a very long time.

The hon. the Minister has a chance. He can withdraw this legislation. It will make no difference to the white race in South Africa. This legislation may save him a little irritation, it may save his officials a little work. But the result would be a great many more people happier in South Africa with their consciences, and perhaps a few hundred or, at the maximum, a few thousand who might be classified as white under the old law but who will not be classified under the new one.

Mr. Speaker, we cannot accept this legislation. We cannot support it. There is only one amendment which is fitting, as far as we are concerned, and therefore I move the following amendment—-

To omit “now” and to add at the end “this day six months”.

Mr. Speaker, there is an old proverb which says that the customer is always right, and there are people who say that in politics the electorate is always right, but I am afraid that my voters and I will have to differ to-day, and I hope we shall differ from one another in a good spirit. I say that I hope we shall differ in a good spirit, because this legislation in respect of population registration is legislation which is intensely concerned with the personal lives of people. For that reason this is a sphere which has to be embarked upon reluctantly. The question of race classification often cuts deeply, and that is why it is a problem we have to approach soberly and objectively. Here at the beginning I want to say that in the course of my speech I shall deal with many of the questions and arguments raised by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. However, at the very outset I want to say that his one major objection or statement, namely that this Act is aimed at the Coloureds—as the late Field-Marshal Smuts also said in 1950—is not correct. I really fail to see how the Coloured population is being done any harm by this legislation. How can they be harmed if we prevent their leaders—those people who have to a certain extent risen above the rest of them, who occupy positions, who want to “try for white”—from being assimilated into the white community? How can we be doing the Coloureds harm if we are concentrating on making these people stay amongst their own community in order that they may play a part in the upliftment of their own people, the Coloured community? It is of no use to become sentimental over these matters. It is of no use to make exceptions of a few cases and to become sentimental over them. It is of no use to become sentimental over these so-called hard-luck cases. Such cases are in fact found as a result of the implementation of this Act, and we have to deal with such cases. We have a history of 300 years in this country, a history during which certain things took their own course, and to-day we are counteracting them. When we undertook this task of drawing up a population register, we knew in advance that it was a great and formidable task. We knew that it was a difficult task and that there would be problems along the way. But that did not prevent us from undertaking it. In the first place, we did that because it was in the interests of good order in South Africa. In the second place, we undertook that because it is the policy of both N.P. and U.P. supporters in this country to have segregation among the various races. It is our policy to have social segregation as well as residential segregation among the various races. How does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition intend to accomplish these things if he does not classify people into races? We knew that over the years we would have to surmount many difficulties by means of amending legislation, and that is why the Act was amended from time to time.

Our task was also made tremendously difficult owing to the actions of the Opposition and those who sided with them. Our difficulty is that when we have to evaluate the Opposition’s criticism on these amending measures, we have to do so against the background that they have never accepted the principle of this legislation. They make no secret of that. They have said from time to time that, when they come to power again, they would remove this measure from the Statute Book. That is why it is of no use for the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to say that we should draw a more flexible, a more “elastic” line. No line that we draw will satisfy them. Nothing will satisfy them because they are ill-disposed to the principle of this matter and do not accept it. From the outset the Opposition has tried to exploit this matter for political gain on every occasion. I do not want to go into that.

Order! I want to point out to the hon. member that we are not discussing the principle of population registration at the moment. This is only amending legislation. The hon. member must please confine himself to the provisions of this Bill.

I am only replying to certain statements made here by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. He talked about this “vicious Bill”. I cannot leave it at that. They are the people who are trying to stir up resistance, aversion and suspicion in respect of this measure, as they are once again doing here to-day by saying that this is a “vicious Bill”. That does not have anything to do with these amendments either; yet these things were said here, Sir. They acted in that way even before we introduced this legislation in Parliament. At that time the Opposition had already issued this notorious “pass pamphlet” of theirs in which suspicion was being aroused against this measure. This task was not only impeded by the actions of the Opposition, but of late it is also being impeded considerably by those people who do not want any racial segregation in South Africa. That is why this legislation is before the House at the moment. They abused and exploited the provisions of this Act. I am referring to the progressives and liberalists and other people mentioned by the hon. the Minister. In talking about certain provisions of the Act which were exploited and abused, I am referring to the objections which may be lodged by third parties, something which is now being amended in this measure. They inspired objections to such an extent that of the 314 objections received by the Department, only half, i.e. only 153 of them, were lodged by other people. These were not people who were themselves dissatisfied about a classification, but other people who were incited to lodging objections to the classification of certain people with a specific ulterior motive. Now the hon. the Leader of the Opposition says, “We are trying to classify the unclassifiable.” That is an old story, but I just want to tell hon. members that it is of no avail. They must realize that we cannot evade our responsibility of determining the race of people in this country. If we do not do so with this legislation, with machinery specially established for that purpose, with a department and officials and boards of inquiry which are attuned to and trained for that purpose and which have experience of those matters and work with them every day, if we cannot do so by means of these aids, we shall find our way blocked in every other sphere in life, or we shall have to change our entire pattern of living in South Africa, which the Opposition does not want. I do not want to elaborate on this point, but I just want to point out to you. Sir, that we shall find our way blocked when certain persons apply for registration as voters. We have separate voters’ rolls and if a person has not been classified and it is being suspected that he may not be on a certain roll, who will have to act as judge then? The electorate officers, as in the past? [Interjections.] Yes, as in the olden days. What bitterness there was when, amongst other people, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout was an organizer for the National Party and objected to Coloureds who had been placed on a White voters’ roll! Now it does not suit him. I want to tell the hon. member this: Do not run away from your past; you are busy with it all the time. I say that we shall find our way blocked in every sphere of life. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Bezuidenhout will get his turn to speak in this debate. He sits mumbling all the time.

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

No, my time is too short. We shall find our way blocked when certain children want to enroll at certain schools and it is being suspected that they are not entitled to being enrolled. Who has to do the race classification? Who has to pass judgment? The seven laymen in the school committee—do they have to pass judgment as to whether or not a child may attend a certain school? So I can multiply these examples. Take the example of two people who want to get married. Who is to say whether they may get married, because we have a Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act? We can multiply these examples by asking what will happen if a person wants to live in a certain residential area or wants to buy himself a house there, but finds himself faced with the fact that we have separate residential areas? Who has to determine whether he may own land there? I want to tell hon. members that it is of no avail to say that we are trying to classify the unclassifiable. If one wants to maintain the order we have in South Africa, one cannot evade this problem; then the races of people must be determined, and it is better to do so by employing machinery which has been established for that purpose. If hon. members do not want that—and we know that they do not want that—how do they want to bring about an orderly community in South Africa? How do they propose to implement these things in practice, these things such as social apartheid and residential segregation in respect of which they say they agree with us? I think it is fair that certain questions should be asked. It should be possible to ask: Why do we have this amending legislation now? Is it for the purpose of persecuting people or humiliating them by smelling them out and subjecting them to that? Is it for the purpose of denying people access to appeal boards or courts to seek their rights there? Is it the purpose of this amending legislation to harm people in any respect? Then my reply is this: This amending Bill does most definitely not envisage anything of this nature. Hon. members do not have to take my word. They are asking me for my guarantees. I want to mention to them three only. In the first instance, I want to mention to them the fact that this amendment provides that anybody who has been classified, cannot be reclassified. Anybody who was classified in terms of the old Act, is considered to have been classified in terms of this Act. It is not our intention to delve into the past—nothing of the sort. In cases where, by means of appeals, people obviously obtained rulings in respect of classifications as a result of deficiencies in the existing Act, we are prepared to respect and accept those classifications. This legislation says bygones will be bygones. That is what is implied in this legislation. This legislation provides that what has been classified, has been classified. I am not a jurist such as that hon. member professes to be, but one thing is certain, namely what is provided in this legislation. The Minister also said so.

The second guarantee I want to give, is the way we act. Let me put it this way, the actions of people who are not in the Opposition and on this side of the House, namely our past actions. We were accused by the former Leader of the Opposition, Field-Marshal Smuts, and by the present Opposition of supposedly abusing certain provisions concerning third parties in the principal Act, provisions which are now being abolished and which have a bearing on this debate, and of supposedly launching persecution campaigns to try to have certain White persons classified as non-Whites. There was nothing at all of that nature. Nothing of that nature came true. We cannot allow members of the Opposition to escape so easily from the past. For that reason I should like to quote to you just a few of the arguments used here against us as charges of what we would supposedly have done with these provisions, the abolition of which is now being proposed. The then Leader of the Opposition, Field-Marshal Smuts, said—

This was said at that time, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said again to-day. Continuing, he said—

The second speaker for the Opposition, Col. Pilkington-Jordan, said the following—

That is the sort of accusation we have had from members of that side of the House right from the beginning. Not in a single case is it possible for the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to say after 17 years that anybody asked for a White person to be classified as a non-White. Just as little do all these objections which were raised again to-day, hold water. That is the second guarantee I want to give.

The third guarantee I want to give is the way in which successive Ministers of the Department handled this matter—the sympathetic, tactful and circumspect way in which this work was done. It is praiseworthy and I do not think hon. members will dispute it. So far 180 objections have been referred to the Board, 111 of them by the persons concerned themselves, and 61 of them were sustained. 69 of them were made by third-party objectors. 24 of them were sustained. All the objections of these 180 which were referred to the Board, have not been disposed of as yet. The significant fact—and I want to emphasize this—is that over all these years appeals were made to the courts in only 18 cases. But the greatest achievement of all is that in the performance of his duties the Secretary and his Department have had to classify and enter into the register thousands upon thousands of people. In the performance of his duties there have only been 494 of them who had objections against the way in which the Secretary had classified them. No, there were not even 494. Out of the thousands of cases there were only 272 who were dissatisfied with the classification of the Secretary. There were in fact 222 others in respect of whom objections were lodged by third-parties.

Now we come to the reasons for this amendment. The first reason I want to mention, a reason which is obvious and which was also mentioned by the Minister, is that the Act has to be amended in order to limit the increasing number of third-party objections. As far as I am concerned, this is the greatest asset in this Bill. This is the greatest improvement we are effecting in the Act. This is an unenviable and an unpleasant task which the Department and the Minister have to carry out. If we do not put a stop to this stream of third-party objections at some stage or other, this matter will go on ad infinitum and we shall also have to deal with this unpleasant matter ad infinitum. These matters are heard by the Board from year to year, and those members take delight in making political capital out of them. That is why they do not want to finalize this matter, that is why that hon. member does not want to close the genealogical register, as he said. He wants to keep it open. He wants to use it for inflaming passions from time to time. If we want to do a great service to these people who are stricken in this way, we should bring these matters to finality. In what other way can we finalize these matters if we leave a door open to other people to abuse them by means of a section which was never intended for that purpose, to abuse them by continually dragging these foul-smelling cases to the courts?

There is a second reason for our having to amend this legislation at this stage. It is because we find ourselves before a new phase as regards drawing up our population register. We have reached a stage where all that the Department still has to deal with, are the small remnants of very difficult cases. In the second place, 1967 is precisely 16 years after the censure returns of 1951. We are now concerned with a new generation. At present there are people who are asking for identity cards and who were not included in the census of 1951, which has served as the basis for the register. These people have been classified in the meantime. Every person is classified at birth, but they only become aware of their classification —that is usually the case—when they apply for an identity card after their 16th birthday. This young generation will receive their identity cards in the future, and many of these people will from now on come to the Department for reclassification. The basis on which this register was drawn up, namely the 1951 census, can no longer be used as such. For that reason Parliament is once again being requested to give direction and guidance in respect of two matters. Guidance has to be given to the Secretary and to the boards and to the courts which will from now on have the final say when it comes to supplementing the register. Secondly, guidance should be given in respect of what factors are to be taken into account as regards reclassification and appeals.

What guidance are we giving in this legislation? In the first place, guidance is being given in respect of supplementing the register. These amending provisions provide very explicitly that when it comes to adding names to the register, the Secretary will use a very simple and straightforward yardstick. In terms of section 5 (5) of the Act, he will ask: “How were your parents classified?” That will be asked in the first place. If both parents were not classified as white persons, the applicant cannot be classified as White. I want to emphasize that. It is as Langenhoven expressed it so clearly when he said: “If a cat has kittens in an oven, the kittens cannot be loaves of bread. They remain cats.” If both parents are non-Whites and classified as such, surely, in the normal course of events their child cannot be a white person, not so? That is the yardstick for supplementing the register.

Now we come to reclassification. In dealing with reclassifications, there may be two possibilities. The first is that if a person applies for reclassification, the Secretary will in the first instance consult the records to see whether his parents were classified. If his parents were classified, the matter is settled, because the provisions of section 5 (5) are adequate. If both parents have not been classified, either the board or the court has to follow certain directives and they have to set certain tests in terms of the provisions of this Bill. What are those tests? The first test he should set, is acceptance. I want to point out to hon. members that there will still be reclassifications in future. If both parents have not been classified—and there are many such cases—these cases will still go to the board or to the Secretary or to the courts for reclassification. That is open to them. However, the primary test is acceptance. It is a test which has been in existence since 1950. All we are doing at present is defining acceptance in this respect, namely that it is now being defined clearly how, when to what extent and where such acceptance takes place. It is of no use to say that we accept this man as a white person, when there is the greatest doubt about the witness himself. What has always been accepted as the standards for acceptance, is the first test. The second test which was set, is appearance. As regards the principle of appearance, the definition of “White” plays a very important part. This definition is now being extended. The definition of a white person is now being prescribed further, and certain additions are being made in order to achieve the following objectives. In the first place, the objective is to eliminate the manifold interpretations of the same concept and the circumvention of the aims the legislator had in view. That is the first reason for the definition of the concept “White” being prescribed further in this Bill. Secondly, this is being done to provide that appearance should not rest on static observation only, but that actions such as speech, deportment and demeanour also play a part here. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition ought to know better. After all, he was born in the Western Cape. Surely he knows that it is possible to deduce from a person’s speech where he comes from. I think he can deduce where I come from, but in the Transvaal I have been told by certain people that a certain man is a white person, but the moment he opens his mouth, I know that he is a “Gammat”. [Laughter.]

People act in a certain way and it is important that that should be taken into account. Sir, I am not casting any reflections on the Transvalers. The definition is also being brought in line to give expression to a clear requirement which has apparently been set by the courts. I just want to read an extract from the case of May. In that case Mr. Justice Diemont pointed out that there might be other factors which might be of assistance in determining whether a person is obviously a white person in appearance; but according to him the legislator only refers to appearance, which eliminates the fact that those factors, namely speech, education and habits, should be taken into account, and which confines the person who judges to judging on appearance which rests on observation only. I say that that is one of the reasons, to comply with these clear judgments. The third test will then be descent. This has also been a test since 1962, in so far as a person admitted that he was not a white person by descent. That is a principle which has already been accepted in previous amendments.

But there is also a further directive, namely that certain documentary evidence relating to that person’s descent and acceptance, such as the census returns of 1951, applications for identity cards and birth certificates, should now be accepted as relevant evidence in the courts. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Parow will forgive me if I do not attempt to follow the curious and devious workings of his mind, as revealed by his argument. I have no wish to do so. When I read this Bill, carrying with it, as it undoubtedly does, the seeds of the most bitter disappointment and unhappiness for so many innocent people in South Africa, I see in my mind’s eye very vividly indeed the long queues of struggling people who have come to one over the years in an attempt to get help to retain their link, however tenuous, with the master race in South Africa. They have been bewildered people, ignorant of the niceties of the law, and have often been afraid and humiliated by this whole process. And I would say that this process has been exaggerated as one petty apartheid statute after the other has appeared upon our Statute Book since the date to which this Bill is now being made retrospective, namely 7th July, 1950—17 long years ago—17 years which have proved quite clearly the utter futility and the impossibility of administering this Act in any intelligent way. I would describe it as the story of man’s inhumanity to man. At the time the Act was passed, and the Mixed Marriages Act just before it …

Order! I think the hon. member should confine her remarks to the Bill.

Sir, I was going to deal with this Bill.

But the hon. member is discussing the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act now.

I only mentioned it in passing. The number of mixed marriages in South Africa had decreased, and that is very relevant to this Bill, with respect. When the Government passed these two Bills in 1950, and before, the number of mixed marriages in this country was decreasing year by year, but the progeny, those we already have, are arraigned before us to-day, innocent of their background, and they are now being penalized as of right and this, Sir, by a Government, which is only too ready to shed crocodile tears over any natural accident which is reported in the Press, but which seems to me, on issues of this kind, to have a heart of granite, a cold and unkind heart, as the Leader of the Opposition made quite clear. One point which the hon. member for Parow may well listen to is that it is not as though we were dealing with half the white population in South Africa in terms of this legislation. Anything but. Of the total white population of 3½ million in South Africa, if the total number of classifications to which objection is raised is approximately 21,000 at any given time—(this figure has been given by different Ministers in the House and includes objections by Coloureds and Indians and Bantu as well)—we find that at its worst this legislation affects .06 per cent, or perhaps 1 per cent of the total white population. Does the Minister seriously think that this will turn us into a Brazilian or a coffee-coloured race, to which he referred with such a lack of taste at the Nationalist Party Congress at East London last year? And what exactly does South Africa gain by the harshness of this legislation? Some kind of sacred whiteness? We are none of us responsible for the colour that we happen to be, and I would like to ask hon. members whether our whiteness of skin gives us whiteness of heart, and which of the two is the more important? [Interjections.] Since white privilege is entrenched in South Africa, how lucky we are to be White, but this places upon us a bounden duty not to persecute others who are not so fortunate. After all, there must be times, or there should be, when every single member in this House, in dealing with these cases, should look at these people and say: There but for the grace of God go I. Because it is not their fault. Hon. members in this House sit here so smug and conceited and so certain of their power that they are not concerned with other people’s pain and trouble.

Nonsense!

It is not nonsense. As long as they can sit here in their conceit and say, “I am all right, Jack”, because they are White, of course they do not mind what happens to this category of people. [Interjections.] May I say that I am quite unashamed about it. If they do not care, we do. What does it mean to others, this type of legislation?

Can hon. members envisage it? I wonder how much imagination they have. I have dealt with hundreds and hundreds of these cases, and I know. A lot of them come to me because I am a woman and no doubt they think I am more sympathetic than the average man, and they are dead right. Can the average man envisage what it means to move from Rose-bank to Bonteheuwel? Just think what it means to move from Observatory High School, which has a long and worthy tradition, to a strange school with strange schoolmates in some new place out on the dusty Cape Flats. What does it mean to move from a free labour market to job reservation, and what does it mean to move from free and happy social contacts to isolation and humiliation and very often to a degree of fear which only people who have handled these cases know anything about? What does it mean to move from the free use of public amenities and public entertainment to a restricted use of public transport, of public places, of public entrances, of schools, of places of entertainment and of beaches and all the rest of it?

Order! I must point out to the hon. member that she is arguing on the principle of population registration as such and not on the amendment.

With respect. Sir, I am not. I am arguing about the Minister’s power in effect to push people over the borderline in terms of the arbitrary powers that he is taking.

Order! The hon. member is using too many generalizations. She is not dealing with this Bill.

I am dealing with this Bill, Sir.

Order! The hon. member is dealing with the principle in general as enshrined in the principal Act. I think the hon. member must come back to the Bill.

On a point of order, Sir, I submit that this Bill is making it more difficult for people to be classified as Whites, and I submit that if the hon. member is dealing with that point she is in order.

The hon. member is putting generalizations about people having to move to other places, without mentioning the people affected by this Bill.

I submit that if this Bill makes it more onerous for persons to be classified as White, it is going to make it more difficult for them to stay in the area in which they are residing at present.

Order! I have given my ruling. I want the hon. member to deal with this Bill and not the principle of the original Act.

Very well. Sir, I will leave all the cases about which I was going to tell this House; then hon. members will not have to listen to the human agonies which these people have suffered I accept your ruling, Sir, but with reservations, I am sorry to say …

You are reflecting on the Chair now.

We are dealing with the fact that it is very much more difficult now for these people to have any right of appeal under this Bill. It is a perfectly valid point. I will leave out all the cases that I was going to mention. They pass through my hands and I could tell you a great many details about them but I shall not do so.

Sir, the previous Minister told me in a previous session that I caused him more trouble over this issue than any other member, and I am glad of it; I am not in the slightest bit repentant. All that one tried to do, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said, was to give these people something of a square deal, and however kind officialdom may be, if the law is harsh there is no escape, and escape is now to be even less accessible than it was before. There were many people who were obliged to repudiate their family ties and who still will be obliged to do so under this new Bill if. as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said, there is one-sixteenth coloured blood in one parent. If the hon. the Minister’s statement about becoming a Brazilian race were even remotely likely in South Africa, let me tell him that the South African population itself—he does not have to do it by law—would continue to maintain the healthy balance between our different races as they have done over the years; they do not need this law to do it. I think that is quite clear. The laws of this Government have carried this concept of white privilege, and in this Bill they are taking it even further, to a form of what I call inhuman madness. We have the temerity to sit in this House and talk about education of a Christian character, not in the context of this Bill but in another context. To me this is sickening humbug when I think of the pious manner in which Christianity is so often invoked. Because of this Bill and because of previous Bills we as Christians, I suppose, are perfectly happy to have people who are insecure at work, insecure at home, insecure in society, insecure in public places and, worst of all, insecure within themselves. This is the greatest indictment of all, but it appears to mean very little to hon. members on that side of the House.

But, Sir, let me specifically reply to what the hon. the Minister said in his Second Reading speech and I hope that Mr. Speaker will find this in order. What have we done for this .06 per cent of border-line population between the Whites and the Coloureds since 1950? I will tell the hon. the Minister: No effort whatsoever was made to let them know either about the period in which they could appeal or the machinery of appeal when they were sent their identity cards, and I challenge anybody to deny that fact.

And now the period is cut down even further.

The period is now being cut down even further. They were not notified that they only had 30 days in which to appeal and neither were they told, as could easily have been done by way of a circular from the Department, that their objection must not be in the form of a simple little letter, but that it must be a statutory objection in the form of an affidavit. They were led to believe that a simple letter was enough. Sir, the hard fact is that 90 per cent of South Africa’s whites have been classified on two things: Census information and two photographs and nothing else. That is neither equitable nor right. But those who have been seen either by local officials or in Pretoria, where most of our destinies seem to be settled, have had this nerve-racking process of being “observed”, as Mr. Justice Diemont described it; of being stared at, of being questioned and assessed, followed always, as anybody who has dealt with the hon. the Minister’s Department will know, by an interminable period of waiting and suspense, while some Transvaal bureaucrat who never set eyes upon you, decided what colour you were going to be and the road upon which your feet were to be set for the future.

Why the Transvaal?

Because it is true; it is all settled in Pretoria. How can they see the whole of the South African white population? They could not do it. I would say that the percentage of people who have tried to abuse this “trying for white” process does not amount to more than 1 per cent or 2 per cent of the total. Can departmental officials and the hon. the Minister not continue to deal, with patience and compassion, with people on this basis? How can the hon. the Minister possibly justify the Bill on the figures I have just given to him? Sir, everything on the 1951 census form is now to be taken as Gospel; it is to be taken as a voluntary admission that one belongs to one race group or another. Let me read to the hon. the Minister the text of a letter which I received last week and which proves how much the people who turned up to act as enumerators in the 1951 census had to do with the initial judgment as to a person’s race. Sir, this letter is signed. I have it here and I will show it to the hon. the Minister if he chooses to see it. It is not anonymous and it reads this way—

I would like to tell the hon. the Minister that I have checked with a senior official in his Department who had told me that that is a common instruction during a census, and that where an enumerator makes a note that a person looks coloured to him, even though the form shows something different, the department makes its own investigation. The letter goes on to say—

This letter is fully signed. Sir, there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind, since the 1951 census is now to be accepted as absolute Gospel, that these enumerators, who were no more competent to assess a person’s race than the hon. the Minister, frequently did make assessments of their own and reported their findings.

To unqualified inspectors.

The hon. the Minister has heard of the instructions given to enumerators in 1951 and I cannot help reminding him how ironical it is that his predecessor in 1950, when he introduced the original Bill, said—

When the hon. the Minister made that statement in all its naïveté, it is quite clear that he had no more idea as to what he meant by “scientific character” than he knew what he meant when he talked about “education of a Christian character”. It is most noteworthy that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition at the time, in 1950, the late field-Marshal Smuts, made it perfectly clear that the fallibility of the enumerators in any census and in the 1951 census in particular, was something that would cause trouble, and it has obviously caused infinite trouble. The hon. the Minister is making this Gospel the basis of everything; it is almost unbelievable. Sir, just as in the case of enumerators the judgment of an official, with great respect, is bound to be subjective and not objective by the very nature of things Because all he has on which to rely are his own prejudices, his own background, his own mind, to make him decide whether the verdict goes one way or another. As far as human beings are concerned it is a hit-and-miss affair. It is no more scientific than a piece of cheese. They were judges and advocates all in the same court, and we find this quite inequitable. In fact we on this side of the House consider that no law can or should classify people in the borderline category. Only the community can do that. The former Minister in charge of this legislation once said in this House that the community should be left to decide, that society should find its own levels, as in fact was always done in the past.

I shall now give a brief analysis of the Bill. Clause 1 deals with appearance, something that previously just rested in the eye of the beholder. Now, as the Minister said, certain criteria have to be taken into consideration and a detailed investigation has to be made as regards habits, education, deportment and general demeanour. This is so typical of Nationalist ideological thinking. A person’s education is, of course, basic and factual, but all the other stipulations could mean anything that you, Sir, or I liked them to mean. By what right can any Government official, or even the members of the Race Classification Board, be competent to judge such things as habits, speech, deportment and demeanour? What do these things mean, anyway? Let us take speech. Does it mean that a person must not have a heavy Afrikaans accent when he speaks English, or a heavy English accent when he speaks Afrikaans? As regards deportment—must he not be allowed to stoop, must he stand up straight? What about his general demeanour. The whole thing is ridiculous. Must he look tidy and clean? Must he have good manners? Mr. Justice Diemont mentioned this in his judgment. I should like to say in regard to all the people who have appealed to me over the years that I did not once come across anyone who did not measure up in the right sense to all these qualifications and requirements, whether they were appealing against their classification on third party grounds or on any other grounds. How absolutely fatuous it is that this Government should have any say whatsoever in matters of this kind. It represents an entirely unwarranted intrusion into the private affairs of ordinary South Africans, and they will become, as the Leader of the Opposition said, more like stud animals every time this issue is raised. Are we to lead them round a room and scrutinize them as animals are led round at a show, looking at their deportment and their demeanour? The thing is absolutely absurd. I say. Sir, that under this Government South African society is becoming more regimented than any society we have ever had here before. Make no mistake about that. We are in fact becoming regimented as only communist societies are regimented to-day, and I think it is a form of madness.

Paragraphs (b), (c) and (d) of clause 1 concern what is known as “acceptance”, and they lay down that everyone who is not White or Bantu must be a Coloured. This is an entirely unscientific over-simplification of the position. The question has already been asked how much White or how much Coloured blood one must have to fall into the middle category, a category into which everybody is now to be pushed by the Minister in terms of this Bill. Now no-one can be accepted as White unless they live in a White area, are employed as White and publicly and socially accepted as White. So far, so good. These criteria have always been applied. That we accept. But now is being added that a person must be acceptable “in his association with the members of his family”. That can only mean one thing, namely if he is a border-line case and he passes all the other requirements, he must still prove that he no longer has any communication whatsoever, even with an old parent, who may be mixed, or with a brother or a sister who might have been classified the other way in days gone by. It simply means that this Bill is intended to see the end of border-line cases as such. In that regard the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was entirely right. The hon. the Minister is trying to say that these borderline cases no longer exist when, in fact, there are a great many of them in our human society. I want to ask for what purpose this extraordinary cruelty contained in the Bill is now being exhibited. Paragraph (d) makes an original application form for an identity card and the contents of a census form a voluntary and binding admission as to which race group one belongs. If the word “mixed” was at any time and in all honesty put onto a census form by people, perhaps written by an enumerator because that is what he thought about the person concerned, or because there is a slight degree of Coloured blood, but quite unspecified or because people thought that because their parents have “mixed” nationalities —for instance, Portuguese and Whites, Italian and Whites, St. Helenans and Whites, all sorts of people of that kind—the Leader of the Opposition spoke of Afrikaners and Whites— these people are to be penalized for good. The sad thing is this. These people can expect to be down-graded in the hierarchy of South African society as we know it to-day, with all the consequences and frustrations involved.

Clause 2 deals with section 5 of the principal Act, and the new subsection (4) gives the Secretary for the Interior the power to alter classifications himself if he thinks they are incorrect, after giving notice to them and giving them an opportunity of being heard. Specific mention is made here of minors, the implication being that some of these minors are going to appeal. But if this reference to minors is read in conjunction with paragraphs (a) and (d) of the new subsection (5), then no possible doubt remains that if those parents are White then the children must also be White, if the parents are Coloured the children must be Coloured, and if one parent is Coloured or mixed then the couple and their children automatically become Coloured. Now I want to ask the Minister a question. What happens to the children born of marriages where both parents are listed as “mixed” and the children turn out to be as White as you or I, Sir? Are they then full-blooded Coloureds? The minor specifically has a right of appeal to the Secretary. This is stated in the legislation. By implication they will appeal, and they can only do one thing, namely appeal against the members of their own family.

The previous Minister said in this House in 1962 during the debate on the Population Registration Amendment Bill that children would not be classified in terms of their parents but as individuals. So the Minister is changing this completely and making it very much more difficult for all concerned. They have in fact changed their policy again. It proves what the Minister said, namely that the Act is unworkable.

I now want to speak on clause 3. Just as the census forms have now become gospel truth as regards proof of race, however doubtful that information may be, we have in clause 3 the statement that whatever a child is registered as at birth will be valid proof of the race group to which he belongs. If he is registered as “mixed” then, as my hon. colleague says, he automatically becomes a Coloured and his feet are set in that direction.

Clause 4 substitutes a new section for section 11. As the Minister knows, it is virtually a new form of machinery of appeal. It eliminates altogether the role of third party objectors. In any legal proceedings—and this is something quite new—the contents of a census form must now be admitted as evidence. Fancy it being admitted as evidence under the circumstances to which I have referred! I would say that the whole machinery of appeal under this Act has been intolerable from the start. The Minister dealt with third party objections. I want to tell him that he had the power under the original Act to extend his discretion for a period of one year if people did not object within the 30 day limit. Let me read to the Minister an extract from a letter which his predecessor wrote to me in 1964, on 3rd November. He said—

Clearly these people had not read the Act and neither did the Minister exercise his discretion. In fact, he omitted to do so. It was a clear failure of duty. He has not been applying the Act as he should have been over the years. That is why these people come with third party objections at this stage. If one reads the Minister’s letter in conjunction with his answer to a question which I asked on 29th January, 1965, one is left in no doubt. He said—

In other words, all those who objected after thirty days, who sent him a letter not knowing it had to be in affidavit form, did not enjoy the Minister’s discretion. They did not have a chance from the start. They were virtually eliminated. So what machinery did they have except this a third party objection? [Interjection.] I am talking about the Minister’s predecessor. The Minister must take responsibility for the actions of his Government. For 14 years the hon. Minister of the Interior did not use his discretion and the net result has been as the hon. the Minister said this afternoon a spate of third party objections which have cost these people far more money than they could possibly afford. Most of them fall, as the hon. the Minister knows, within the lower income group.

Before I sit down I want to raise a very serious issue with the hon. the Minister. There is a good deal of suspicion in the public mind as to what is likely to happen to cases which are already lodged with the department and are already due for hearing by the Appeal Board. The hon. the Minister told me that they would all be dealt with quite normally until this Bill was passed after which they would all be dealt with in terms of the new law. That means in effect that they will all be wiped out and fall away. Let us be frank about it. The hon. the Minister must be aware of the large number of cases which are outstanding. I should like to ask him why the Appeal Board members in Cape Town were given leave from 1st March to 20th March, just when this legislation was due to be dealt with? Can the hon. the Minister explain to me how the chairman of the Appeal Board in Cape Town could inform one of our leading firms of attorneys on 3rd March that:

The irresistible conclusion is that the department is deliberately withholding cases from the Board. If this is so, it is a bitter blow to all the people concerned. I have been to three firms of attorneys in Cape Town and they have given me lists which amount to 38 cases pending before this Board. In fact one firm informed me in writing on 13th March that “You will see that we objected on 23rd December, 1966, in the case of X and Y and we are now informed that due to the large number of cases it is not possible to state when the objection will be heard.” In other words, the department’s statement hardly tallies with that of the chairman of the Board on 3rd March that save for two cases and some matters which are partly heard, the Board had no waiting list at all. Someone is therefore not telling the truth and now their appeals have all been killed stone dead by this legislation. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to reply in full to the speech made by the hon. member for Wynberg because, in my humble opinion, her argument was to a great extent a very emotional one. I am also of the opinion that she probably spoke more for the newspapers which like to report her in regard to these aspects, than she spoke about the Bill. However, I do want to refer to one thing which she said, i.e. that she received a letter from a registration officer in which she was told that he had received an instruction from the Department in 1951 to make a note of the appearance of a person. I find nothing wrong with that. That is the test. We have had a series of court cases. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred to a number of them. The first test is the appearance, and what is wrong with that if the Department tells a registration officer, who is an ordinary person and who is a departmental official: Look at the appearance and make a few private notes so that the Department can go into this case? There is absolutely nothing wrong with that and I do not know what sinister conclusions the hon. member for Wynberg was trying to deduce from that. As I understand this Bill and its principle, it relates to a strict measure of race classification. I want to make the statement from this side of the House that this Bill is absolutely essential for the National Party in order to achieve the just realization of our policy of separate development.

Was it unjust in the past?

It was not unjust in the past but there were loopholes which later became apparent and that is why this Bill is being introduced. It is absolutely essential. Since the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has now asked me a question I want to ask him the following: Is it the intention of the United Party to repeal this Bill if they come to power?

Order! The hon. member must confine himself to the Bill under discussion.

Mr. Speaker, I am asking this question because an allegation was made in the Press that this party would repeal this Bill. I think the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is afraid to reply to this question, because he is afraid that the nation outside will then know what the correct position is.

Order! The hon. member must return to the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I want to state that this Bill is not only essential to the National Party, as I have already said, but also to the United Party, if it wants to implement its race policy.

Which one?

Yes, the question is which one, but at the moment it has what it calls the race federation. If one looks at this Bill this Bill is as essential for the implementation of the policy of race federation as it is essential for implementation of the policy of separate development.

Did you not have separate development before this Bill was introduced?

I shall try to prove that to hon. members.

Order! The hon. member must not allow himself to be distracted by interjections from hon. members on this side.

Mr. Speaker, with great respect I want to say that my humble submission is that I am in fact within the purview of the Bill. My statement is that it is a Bill which deals with race classification. My statement is that it is an absolutely essential Bill, not only for classification in order to implement the policy of the National Party, but in fact that it is also essential for the implementation of the policy of the United Party.

Order! The legislation on classification has long since been passed and we are now dealing with an amendment to it.

Mr. Speaker, I was under the impression that we were amending the entire principle of the Population Registration Act.

We are dealing here with an amendment.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the hon. Leader of the Opposition opened this debate with a very broad discussion and he dealt with the 1950 Act in which those principles are contained. That is what this hon. member would now like to reply to.

I listened to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition’s speech. The hon. member must merely confine himself to the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, in the circumstances of your ruling I just want to tell you that I do in fact have proof that the race federation policy is also based on the principle contained in this Bill. In the circumstances I will have to confine myself exclusively to this Bill itself. On behalf of the National Party I want to say that this Party does not regard this Bill as an insult to the Coloureds. For us in South Africa it is absolutely essential to classify the various races, and to do so precisely. The hon. member for Wynberg said at a meeting that we are “degrading” these people. I want to state categorically here that it is not the policy nor the intention of this Bill to insult or prejudice any Coloured person in any way. I cannot understand how the hon. members on the opposite side can regard one race, amongst the various races, as being better than another. That has never been the basis of the policy of the members on this side of the House. We have never denied the intrinsic human worth of the other races. We have never denied that those people also have feelings. All that we on this side of the House are saying is that it is a fact that there are various races in South Africa. In order to ensure peaceful co-existence amongst these races, it is necessary to define them. That is why this Bill is being introduced.

Why do they all try for white?

Who are all trying for white? I do not know about so many people who are trying for white. I know of Coloureds who are very proud of the fact that they are Coloureds. I know of Coloureds who know that there are great prospects for them as Coloureds. I know of many Whites who have fewer prospects than some of the Coloureds have. I know for example that much more money is being spent on the Coloured colleges than on white universities. The Coloureds are not people who have to lead an inferior existence. We accept that there are as many good Coloureds as there are good white people, or as many inferior Coloureds as there are inferior Whites. This does not have to do with the people themselves. This has to do with a biological or anthropological fact. That is what this is all about. Let us consider what has happened recently and why it has become essential for this Bill to be introduced.

I want to refer briefly to the facts in connection with one case. I am referring to case C versus the Secretary for the Interior. Naturally I am not going to mention any names. Names were mentioned in the case, but I do not want to mention names openly in the House, because I do not want to injure anybody. Let me just give you one example. C. was a married person. His parents were both Coloureds. His wife’s parents were both Coloureds. C. attended a mixed school. He alleged that it was a mixed school. It was subsequently stated that in reality there was no such thing as a mixed school. It was either a Coloured school or a white school. But let us accept, for the purposes of this argument, that it was in fact a mixed school. In other words, he attended a school where there were Coloured and White students. Subsequently he did work which was open to Coloureds as well as to Whites. Initially he took part in sport in a club which was open to Whites as well as to Coloureds. He subsequently transferred to a cricket club which was intended for Whites only. He and his wife subsequently journeyed to Durban and passed as Whites in Durban. They returned to the Cape. His sister and her husband lived with them for 15 years and those people were classified as Coloureds. They accept themselves as Coloureds. After that his brother-in-law, who is also a Coloured, came to live with him. When he appeared before the court he stated that he was moving away from Coloured circles. He was no longer mixing with those people, he was now a white person. He passed as a white and he was reclassified as a white.

I do not blame the courts. Neither am I here to criticize the courts. The court applied the Act as it had been made in this House. In that kind of case the people are obviously Coloureds. Surely we cannot allow people like that to be classified as Whites. Where is it all going to end? The hon. members on the opposite side will later come to us and say:

“Please make an Act to put a stop to this kind of thing.” Surely we cannot allow people to be reclassified as white practically on appearance only and with a small amount of association. Those are the circumstances which have caused this Bill to be introduced. If one considers the Bill, one finds that the Bill is based on one case after another. The hon. member for Wynberg expressed the criticism that the Department is trying to stop up all the loopholes. Of course the Department and the Government is trying to stop up the loopholes. It is not illogical that a thing like this should be done. Certain matters arose and certain erroneous interpretations were given, which were different from what the Government’s intention had been. The Government must make its intention very clear so that the courts may in future know what the Government intended. That is why we have this Bill here. If we look at the Bill we see that the first definition is retained. Before I go any further, may I just refer the hon. member for Wynberg, who spoke about the limited time for appeals, to the Sithole case. It also happened to be a case in which I appeared myself. That was the case of Sithole versus the Secretary of the Interior. The Sitholes came to court four and a half years after their classification. They had been reclassified as Coloureds. There is another case in this connection. I can mention the facts of the case to you. It would be very interesting. The position is that the woman who requested reclassification was a Bantu woman. Her birth certificate stated that she was a Bantu. Her marriage certificate stated that she was a Bantu. She was married to a Bantu. Her mother was a Bantu woman, but her father was unknown to her. She then appeared before the Board and she told them: “I have heard—it was mere hearsay; she did not know it herself—that my father was a Coloured and that my grandfather had been a white person, and my grandmother was a Bantu. In other words, she is now regarded as a Coloured. She has now introduced a small measure of association, and she states that she actually moves in Coloured circles, in spite of the fact that her husband is a Bantu and in spite of the fact that she herself wrote “Bantu” on her marriage certificate and that it is stated on her marriage certificate that she is a Bantu. That is the kind of thing that happens. This is why this legislation is there. These people came to court four and a half years afterwards. Here it stands:

In reality nothing is being removed in this legislation. Those time limits are still in the Act. This court case stated that if there is a good reason, the extension may be condoned. The original definition remains. The old section 1 now becomes subsection (1) which states that a white person means a person who (a) in appearance obviously is a white person and who is not generally accepted as a Coloured person; or (b) is generally accepted as a white person and is not in appearance obviously a white person”. In other words, that appearance aspect is still of primary importance, but I think the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was quite correct when he said that section 5 (5) was, of course, the vital one. It states here that, “notwithstanding anything contained in subsection (1) or any other law, but subject to the provisions of section 5 (5) …” In other words, section 5 (5) must first be consulted. Section 5 (5) reads, inter alia, as follows:

There is no mention of origin. Let me bring that to the attention of hon. members. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition spoke here of origin. I think it was the Leader of the Opposition. It is not origin, but classification. A person may have Coloured blood in him, but he is classified as white. If both parents are classified as white, the children, in spite of possibly having a Coloured appearance, are classified as white. Subsection (5) goes further:

It is not merely origin which is mentioned here, but classification. That is the important point which, in my humble opinion, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition did not see. When this aspect has been dealt with, one judges according to appearance and then one considers these other sections. In subsection (21 which is being inserted by clause 1, it is said:

… in deciding whether any person is in appearance obviously a white person or not a white person within the meaning of the definition of “white person” in subsection (1), his habits, education and speech and deportment and demeanour in general shall be taken into account.

I shall also refer to Judge Diemont’s dictum. On page 4 he says that the judge must consider the man only. How can the judge consider the man only, without his moving, and how can he merely look at the colour of the man’s skin and merely write down “white”? Judge Snyman said it in the other court case which was quoted by the Leader of the Opposition. He said that if he had known all the other facts before he had merely taken a look at the man, he would perhaps have assessed him in another way. He said that he would perhaps have said that he was not entirely white. By just looking at the man, he found him to be white. When the man spoke he discovered that he was a Coloured. That is not strange. Let us hear what this judge had to say. He said—

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. judge had not himself, during this court case, felt that there was a deficiency in this legislation then he would not have used those words. But he felt himself that there were other factors “which might assist one in coming to a conclusion”. “A conclusion of appearance”, is what the judge meant here. And then he went on to mention the other factors. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Wynberg are now making it appear ridiculous. But it is not so ridiculous. Let us look at the facts. Habit—white people have many habits which are different from those of the Coloured people. I do not have to enumerate them to the members of this House. We are all Whites. We know that a white very often has different habits. I am not criticizing the habits of the Coloureds. Spaniards, Frenchmen, and Germans all have different habits than those of South Africans, but we are acquainted with the other habits of those people. We are also acquainted with the habits of the Coloureds, as compared with the habits of Whites. What is strange about a man telling you that it is his habit to do a certain thing, and the hon. judge will know that that habit is not a Coloured habit, if it assists him in determining whether the man is a Coloured or a white. There is nothing strange in that. Take education for example. Education is more than a school education. Mention was made here of a school. The question was asked how one would discover from the fact that that man had a B.A. degree whether he was a Coloured or not. But that is nonsense. That is not what the intention is. Education is quite another matter. Education is not something one learns at school, it is something one learns from one’s mother. Coloured mothers teach the Coloured children the habits of the Coloured people, and white mothers teach the white children the habits of the Whites. Education is an absolutely essential factor in determining what kind of person one is. The mileiu and the background are automatically absorbed.

Demeanour in general—that may perhaps be vague. It is not so vague, however, that it cannot be helpful. How often do people not say to a person: You have the demeanour of such and such a person. You have the demeanour of a Frenchman. You are adopting the attitude of a German. Hon. members on the opposite side have often said to us: You are now acting like Nazi’s. Surely that is how the Germans acted. Surely it is a general attitude. It is a characteristic of those people. It is quite clear. Take the question of behaviour, Mr. Speaker. That is the same thing. Every individual has an environment. They have a pattern in which they live. Those are factors which are necessary to have the judge determine whether a man is White or non-White. Let us go further:

That is very essential, Mr. Speaker. People live in one’s neighbourhood. They grow up in on’s neighbourhood. That neighbourhood is almost a key to one’s personality. Which of our members grew up in locations? It just does not happen. But if a person did grow up in a location one can be 90 per cent certain that he is a Bantu. Or if a person grew up in a Coloured area one can be 95 per cent certain that that man is a Coloured. He then grew up in that area, “where he was ordinarily resident; where he was employed or carried on business; or where he mixed socially or took part in other activities with other members of the public”. Where he went dancing, where he went on picnics, where he went to Sunday school. But hon. members on the opposite side must not be ridiculous when they try and exercise this sort of criticism. This factor is an absolutely vital one. “And in his association with the members of his family and any other persons with whom he lives”—is that not important? Here we have had a case, which I mentioned to you, the facts in connection with an actual court case, where the person lived as a Coloured in his house but as a White person outside his house, for the simple reason that he wanted to be reclassified. Do you know that in that specific case which I mentioned here in this House that person’s sister objected to his reclassification? Why did she object to it? “We have been living together for 15 years. How can this man now want to be reclassified? He wants to classify himself away from us, we are Coloureds, and he wants to break up the family.” I think it is high time we piloted through this Bill. It has become absolutely essential for the happiness of the Coloureds—not only for the maintenance of various aspects of our social life, but so as not to disrupt the Coloured people and create and spread confusion. That is what the hon. members on the other side of the House are doing with the Coloureds in the Cape. Let us be quite honest. They must not try and bluff us now. We are not ten-year-old children. It was not for nothing that there were 300 applications for reclassification in the past year or so, which were brought before the courts. They saw how easy it was. They worked it out quickly and soon realized that the judge just considered the appearance, and if one had broken away from one’s Coloured association and mixed with Whites socially, then people would say:“But look, it is a human consideration. We must accept these people as Whites. They look like Whites.” Do the hon. members on the opposite side want people White just because the colour of their skins is White? Do the hon. members on the other side of the House, does the hon. the Leader—let him tell me and the nation this— want classification simply and solely on appearance? Does he now, simply because a man has been White for a short while, say to him that he will be accepted? Can 3½ million White people assimilate as many Coloureds as there are Whites? Go and look at the Coloured schools. The hon. the Leader is correct. Go and look how white those children are. Can we afford to assimilate those people? Can they? There would in that case be friction amongst the Coloureds. They are going to become frustrated. They are going to say: “That man becomes White and I do not. He is my brother, but by chance his skin is a little whiter than mine is, and now he becomes White.” We would be sinning against the nation if we did not pass these amendments.

Mr. Speaker, we now come to the third party. I want to dwell on that for a moment. I found it quite strange to hear the hon. the Leader of the Opposition say that it was a good thing that a third party can object to reclassification, when his hon. Leader, General Smuts, stated so clearly that he did not like it at all. He stated it clearly. I have the Hansard reference here. He said that it left the way open for slanderers. It affored people who had grievances against other people an opportunity to object to their classification. Because we are removing this now, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition makes an about-face and asks why we want to remove it? But the hon. ex-Leader of his Party himself did not want it. He objected bitterly to it. General Smuts stated that he was quite opposed to it. I shall give the hon. member the Hansard reference. He condemned it in no uncertain terms. [Interjections.] Now the hon. members are making an about-face again. No, I agree fully that it should not be possible for third party applications to come after a man’s reclassification. Since when does a man come to the Secretary himself and say that his classification is not correct? If you were to glance at the provision you would see that the Secretary has at all times the right to rectify an erroneous classification. That person can come to him himself and say that there is something wrong, and then refer him to it. If there is no reaction from the Secretary he can even go to court and he can insist in court that the Secretary should react to it. The Secretary ought to refer it to the House or to reclassify the person. The courts are not closed to the man who feels that his classification is incorrect. He can go at any time. Yes, Mr.Speaker, I concede that the application changes. The onus increases. In other words, the court will now say to a man who is insisting that the Secretary be forced by way of a mandamus to act, where is your case? Do you really have a case? Was the Secretary mala fide? In other words, that rummaging about, those loose applications, will all disappear; that is certain. But the channels are still open for bona fide cases to have their classification rectified at any time.

Let us consider the appeals. There is a right to appeal. On the grounds of a classification a person can appeal to the board immediately. The Secretary classifies the person almost on the basis of the documents in front of him alone. After that the appellant can go directly to the board. From there he can go to the Supreme Court by way of motion. He makes application which takes the form of sworn statements. From there the applicant in question can even go to the Appeal Court. Where are the rights of people now being interfered with? Let me tell hon. members that we have a great deal of sympathy for our Coloured people. We also have a great deal of sympathy for the Bantu. I am not a person who bears malice towards these people. In fact, I do not think there is one hon. member on this side who bears malice towards them. If you would allow me, Mr. Speaker, I would prove that the United Party and the Progressive Party need race classification for their policy. We know that it is absolutely important.

No, you are absolutely wrong.

I want to say to the hon. member for Houghton that I have a little booklet here with which I can prove that she also needs race classification in order to implement her policy.

No, you are wrong, because people can choose.

You would rule me out of order if I tried to do so here, Mr. Speaker, but I am prepared to prove it to the hon. member outside this House. I can do it at any time, if she is willing.

Order! I will not rule the hon. member out of order if he does it outside this House.

I have nothing more to say about this legislation. You have restricted me to some extent, and with that I conclude.

Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to follow the hon. member for Prinshof as I think his arguments were totally unrealistic.

Why? Give us an example?

He said that he thought it was time to amend the Act. Well, I agree entirely with him. I think that this Act will be amended from year to year, as long as this Government stays in office, because it is a measure that can never cope with the changing times in South Africa.

We recently discussed a Bill in this House in which much play was made of the word “Christian”. In fact, I doubt whether this word has been bandied about so much anywhere else as it was in this House recently. If ever proof was needed that our concept of the word “Christian” is in fact far removed from Christian practice or principle, or in point of fact that there is very little or no association with what used to be meant by that word, this Bill is indeed that proof. Any onlooker cannot but come to the conclusion that the things we do here are far removed from what was previously accepted as being Christian or, indeed, accepted as being Western practice. Any person who lays claim to the right to call himself a Christian abrogates that claim when he supports an amending Bill of this kind. A nation so obsessed with race almost to the exclusion of everything else cannot be Christian in the true sense of the word.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, to the Bill, Mr. Speaker. [Interjections.]

Order! While I am addressing myself to the hon. member, other hon. members are making so much noise that he cannot hear me. The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, is it Christian to separate husband from wife? This is possible in terms of the Bill under the method of classification. Is it Christian to divide parents and children? Is it Christian to separate brother from brother? This is the point I wish to make. I believe that this is not Christian practice in the accepted sense of the word. Can it be Christian to condemn a fellow human being to a type of existence, to a type of life …

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

This Bill deals with further methods of classification of persons. The point I want to make is that the method whereby these people are classified is not Christian in the least. It is not Christian to classify a person as being of a particular race group merely because one of his parents was of a certain race group. I submit that that is in fact in the Bill. It is not Christian to say that a person is a member of a particular race group on grounds of colour or …

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill. That has nothing to do with the Bill.

This legislation classifies people on grounds of colour or birth. I maintain that if we wish to maintain our position of privilege as a White race, our Whiteness, we cannot do so by means of legislation.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill. That has nothing to do with the Bill.

The new section 5 (5) states that “a person shall be classified as a white person if his natural parents have both been classified as white persons”. It goes on to say that “a person shall be classified as a coloured person if his natural parents have both been classified as coloured persons …” A person who has a natural parent who is coloured whilst the other parent is white will be classified as coloured.

Why didn’t you read the Bill before you started speaking?

I believe that what we are trying to do is to try and protect ourselves by means of legislation of this sort. I think that this Bill is aimed at just that. What we are trying to do is to protect the lily whiteness of our skins …

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill. This is an amending Bill. The races are already classified.

With respect, Sir …

Mr. Speaker, this Bill provides for a new method of classification.

Order! The hon. member is not dealing with that. He is dealing with the method of classification only. I have listened to the hon. member. He may proceed, but he must come back to the Bill.

This Bill says that if one parent was of a particular race group then the children of that parent will be classified under the same race group. Well, I want to suggest that perhaps the Bill does not go far enough. Why refer to the parent only? Why not also refer to the grandparent? Why does it not go back to the great-grandparent? Why not go back all the way, Sir?

Back to Adam and Eve?

Certainly. Why not go back to the Adam of South Africa? The Adam of South Africa was a Coloured. If we went as far back as that… [Interjections], The Adam of South Africa has a university named after him. The house in which he lived is visited by thousands of people each year. I am talking about Simon van der Stel, who happened to be one of the early Coloureds of South Africa. I want to submit that the fact that he was Coloured did not do South Africa one iota of harm, and I am still proud to be a South African. I believe that the Bill does not go far enough. It should say that we should go back to our great-grandfathers and even further back if necessary. South Africa is certainly no worse off because of Simon van der Stel and others like him. The Bill overlooks the fact that one cannot classify people, that one cannot legislate for race groups, for nationalities and for religions. We must legislate for individuals. I believe that this Bill ignores the most important precept of western civilization …

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

This Bill seeks to prevent the odd Coloured from escaping over the colour line into the White group. I believe that the White group is not endangered when that happens. It is not endangered by the fact that one Coloured might be classified as White, or that a Coloured person goes to our White cinemas. The hon. member who has just sat down asked what was so wrong with being a Coloured, any way? Well, there is nothing wrong in being a Coloured, except, as was mentioned here the other day, that one cannot go through certain subways, sit on certain benches, etcetera. That is what it means to be a Coloured. I believe that hon. members over there who have so much to say would think twice if they were going to be classified as Coloureds.

What subway do you want to go through?

Recently one of South Africa’s best-known poets was not allowed to bring his wife into South Africa because she …

Order! That has nothing to do with the Bill.

I am trying to show this sort of thing is affected by this Bill, Sir. His wife comes from an eastern country of great culture and traditions. If they lived in South Africa their children would, in terms of this Bill, be called Coloureds. A White South African who has brought credit to South Africa would have his children called Coloured under this Bill.

Order! That has nothing to do with the Bill. It is a hypothetical case.

I believe that if they have children they would be classified as Coloured in this country, and I believe that is the reason why they are not settling here. He could not face that situation.

Order! I must ask the hon. member to come back to the Bill or to resume his seat.

You would be safe if you quoted the Bill again.

Hon. members may laugh this Bill off … [Interjections],

Order! Give the hon. member a fair opportunity of making his speech. [Interjections], Order!

The hon. member for Prinshof quoted cases. We on this side can quote very many cases, with much greater effect than the hon. member for Prinshof, because I believe that people come to members on this side of the House by reason of the fact that they know they get a more sympathetic hearing. I have a case in Durban concerning a South African lady who got married during the war. She now has five children. The eldest child recently applied for his identity card and when he received the card it stated that he was Coloured. She had no knowledge that the man whom she had married was of Coloured extraction. She now has children from her second husband, and they are classified as White. This person is a White South African, and she is treated by the Government in this manner. The family live in a White area. The children go to White schools and those who work do so in White jobs. Now suddenly their whole life has been changed because of a Bill of this nature. Here we have a family of whom some members are classified as White whilst the others are classified as Coloureds. Hon. members on that side can laugh, but I submit if we pass legislation in this House which so affects even one human being then that legislation is wicked and that legislation is evil.

Mr. Speaker, it is difficult for me to succeed the hon. member for Port Natal in this debate, because he floundered to such an extent that I do not know whether I shall be able to keep up with him. This amending measure is to a large extent intended to consolidate our national traditions, to keep the various race groups which we have in South Africa as they are and to carry on further in that direction. The hon. member for Port Natal said that there were cases in respect of which we would be unchristian if we applied the measure to them. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also quoted a few cases to show what difficulties people have to contend with as far as race classification is concerned. Mr. Speaker, one of the whips has asked me to move the adjournment of the debate so that the body of my speech need not be interrupted. I therefore move—

Motion put and agreed to.

I move as an amendment—

To omit the proposed sub-paragraph (ii) inserted by paragraph (a) of subsection (1) and to substitute the following sub-paragraph:

1. (ii) the name, portrait or effigy of any former State President or Minister of State of the Republic of South Africa or of any former Governor-General or Minister of State of the Union of South Africa or of any former President of “De Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek” or the Republic of “De Oranjevrijstaat” or.

I dealt with this matter briefly in the Second Reading debate. It amounts to this, that the Bill, as amended in the Other Place, provides for control over the use of effigies and portraits or names of State Presidents and Ministers of State or former State Presidents and former Ministers of State. Even in the case of this amendment the fact was overlooked that this still did not empower the Minister of Economic Affairs to exercise control over the use of effigies and portraits or names of former Governors-General and Ministers of State who served in that capacity when South Africa was still known as the Union. Under the circumstances the amendment which I am now moving is intended to close this loophole as well.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Bill reported with an amendment.

I move—

The clause, as amended, would read as follows:

In other words, as I have said, the following words would be inserted after “worth”; “and the work is made in pursuance of that commission”; and farther on in the clause the words “upon completion thereof” would be omitted. It is clear that there is not much difference between the meaning of the phrase, on the one hand, and the words “upon completion thereof” on the other hand. In actual fact we inserted the words “upon completion thereof” in this clause previously because the clause was long and complicated and clumsy, and the insertion of those words would make the clause read more easily. But it subsequently came to our notice that those words were not fully in accordance with the rest of the Bill. The words which we are now inserting, with the omission of the words “upon completion thereof, are the same words that also occur in other clauses, and I refer to sections 13 (3) and 14 (3), and also to the sixth schedule to the principal Act, paragraph 3 (1) (d). We therefore feel that it would be advisable to insert these words in this clause so that it will correspond to the other clauses.

I move the amendment as printed—

I want to explain it briefly. The insertion of the words in line 49 is necessary merely because financial implications in the Bill could not be considered in the Other Place. Hon. members will notice that in various subsequent clauses similar words were omitted when the measure was considered in the Other Place. All that I am now doing in the various clauses is to insert those words again, and therefore I shall not give an explanation every time, but merely move formally. Then, as far as the second part is concerned, there is absolutely no change in principle involved in the omission of the words in lines 53 and 54 and their substitution by the words “on or before the date of application for registration thereof. such design or a design not substantially different there from, was not”. All that is being done is that the wording of this clause is being brought into strict conformity with the wording used in clause 15 (1). The Institute of Patent Agents noticed this difference in the wording and asked for this amendment, to which we readily agreed.

I move the amendment as printed in my name—

I move the amendment as printed in my name—

I move—

I move—

I move—

I move—

I move—

As regards the amendment which I am moving here the circumstances are somewhat different. If you look at clause 18 (3), you will see that there is a proviso which reads as follows: “Provided that no proceedings shall be taken in respect of any infringement committed before the date on which the certificate of registration of the design under this Act is issued”. This proviso has been inserted in clause 18 (3), which provides that the date of registration of the design shall be deemed to be the date on which the application was submitted. When we come to clause 24, we find that provision is made for the owner of a design to confirm and protect his rights in that design by way of an application to the court. If one reads clause 24 and then goes back to clause 18, one finds that it will really be applicable thereto. It is felt that for the sake of convenience the proviso should rather be inserted in clause 24 as well.

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment as printed in my name—

I move—

To insert the following paragraph to follow paragraph (g):

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Bill reported with amendments.

Mr. Speaker, before I moved the adjournment of the debate I was following up on what a few members of the Opposition had said. In view of the fact that my speech will now continue uninterrupted I shall change my pattern and return to these hon. members at a later stage. Before I proceed I should like to mention that the Minister has given me permission to make the following announcements on his behalf.

Because it became clear to the hon. the Minister from the speech made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in reply to the Minister’s speech, in which he had moved the Second Reading of the Population Registration Amendment Bill, that there was room for an interpretation of certain provisions of this Bill which was apparently in conflict with his intention, in the first place in respect of the provision contained in the new section 1 (2) (d) (3) proposed in clause 1, the possibility perhaps exists that the scope of the admission may be wider than was intended. To eliminate this vague possibility he intends moving, during the Committee Stage, that in line 44, on page 3, after “he” to insert “for the purposes of his classification”. Secondly, in respect of the new subsection (1) (e) it may be true that certain people understood the definition of their race with the word “mixed” to mean that they were of mixed nationalities. Although he finds this difficult to believe, the hon. the Minister nevertheless wants to afford such persons the opportunity of proving their statement and for that reason he intends moving in the Committee Stage that the words “unless such person proves that he is in fact not a Coloured person” be added to the end of this subsection. It is expected that these proposed amendments will appear on the Order Paper to-morrow.

Mr. Speaker, this amendment Bill is not only welcomed by this side of the House, it is welcomed by every right-minded and nationally conscious inhabitant of our country. I want to state emphatically that this is the case with every population group, and not only with the Whites. The hon. the Minister of the Interior predicted during the Second Reading of the principal Act of 1950 that an important amendment such as this one would be necessary at a later stage. I am personally grateful for the fact that these amendments have now been introduced. I am only sorry that they were not introduced previously because I think that things have taken place which should already have been rectified. My only disappointment in respect of these amendments is with reference to what the hon. the Minister said, i.e. that he would not undo what had already been done. When we come to the Committee Stage I will in fact make a request to the Minister to do something about that, because I think it is definitely necessary. These amendments serve as intensified measures to support the Population Registration Act which was introduced inter alia to endorse the 300-year-old national tradition of all population groups in South Africa. It was the application, in practice, of our South African national tradition. The United Party has never acknowledged the national tradition of the various population groups. They have consistently opposed and fought against it on every occasion when it had to be placed on the Statute Book. They would accept theoretically the principle of classification and grouping, but when it came to being applied in practice, as is the case with these amendments, and when it was made more difficult so that that classification could be applied more strictly, then they wanted nothing to do with it. That has always been the case with them. I ask myself why the United Party does so. I come to the conclusion that it is because these amendments, which are now being introduced, serve to endorse the colour bar further and so acknowledge and restrict the different race groups even more so that we can in this way continue with our policy of separate development. The United Party does not believe in that. At heart the United Party still advocates the integration of the population of South Africa.

You are talking nonsense.

Mr. Speaker, I shall deal with that hon. member in a moment. The hon. member says that I am talking nonsense, but I shall prove otherwise to him. The United Party wants to assimilate the Coloureds with the Whites. I want to refer to similar amendments in 1962 where the hon. member for Pinelands said the following on 27th April, in column 4546—

That hon. member must not say I am talking nonsense.

The hon. member must not go too far back and generalize too much. He must now return to the Bill.

This Bill is a Bill to alter the principles of those old sections so that they can be more strictly applied. That is why the United Party is to-day opposing these principles. The late hon. Leader of the United Party said on 8th March, 1950 (Hansard, vol. 71, col. 2524)—

This is what the United Party has continued to do. They do not believe in this race classification which will apply this amendment Bill more strictly. They even believe that the National Party will come to grief if they introduce these amendments. That is their point of view. In addition they believe that it is simply impracticable. They believe that to try and keep the race groups in South Africa pure, will mean the downfall of the Whites. However nonsensical that might sound, it is their point of view. On 15th March, 1950, the hon. member for Bloemfontein (City) said inter alia (Hansard, vol. 71, col. 2993)—

If we apply these amendments and this race classification more strictly how on earth can it mean that the white race will be wiped out? That is not the case. The United Party are viewing these amendments in the same light as they viewed the principal Act. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said on Friday that this Bill is objectionable, unnecessary and vicious. That is precisely what hon. members said in the case of the principal Act. The hon. member for Rondebosch said the following on 8th March, 1950 (Hansard, vol. 71, col. 2536)—

These amendments cannot possibly be objectionable to any member of any race who has a national pride. How can it be objectionable to anybody who is proud of his descent? These amendments strengthen the boundaries of race classification. That is what the United Party cannot stomach. They do not want boundaries. I have every sympathy with them. [Interjections.] I have every sympathy with the hon. member for Yeoville if he does not want to accept the boundaries in South Africa. I can assure him that the population and all the groups in South Africa are prepared to accept those boundaries, and they are proud of them. I want to make another quotation to show how unacceptable this Bill is to the Opposition. On 9th March, 1950, an hon. member went so far as to say the following (Hansard, Vol. 71, col. 2685)—

I shall leave the United Party at that. The history of this amendment Bill will be recorded for posterity in Hansard. I leave it to the future generations in South Africa to judge the United Party, to condemn and reject them for the attitude which they are adopting. These amendments relate to that portion of the principal Act dealing with those estimated 10,000 border-line cases, a group which had to be classified as belonging either to the White or to the Coloured race. The original Act was intended to afford those people the opportunity—people over whom that cloud was hanging—of rectifying their position. It was accepted that there were cases of people who were Whites, but who were described as being Coloureds and vice versa. That old Act made provision for that cloud which was hanging over those people to be removed. But that time is past. Those people have been afforded the opportunity. The United Party believes that there should not be classification in practice. One of their members in fact said: “The dear Lord has already classified.” Their intentions were not the same as those of this Government.

Order! The hon. member must return to the Bill now.

These amendments before us are amendments to that old principle of the Act to enable these classifications to be more strictly applied. That is why we agree with that member. We are prepared to develop and extend those boundary lines which the Almighty has established, so that there can be respect for every race group in South Africa. That is why these amendments are necessary now. The sections in the old Act have now achieved their object. Those border line cases have had the opportunity of eliminating the cloud which was hanging over them. What is happening now is that justness is being exploited. It is being exploited by irresponsible people, people who want to eliminate the dividing line, people who do not believe in the separate development of the various groups in our country. That is why the time has come, and this is in fact what is being provided in this amendment Bill, for the tests to be applied more strictly. Through this misuse of circumstances there has been a large-scale influx of so-called heart-rending cases which serves to present the community as a whole in a ridiculous light. To illustrate these amendments to you I should like to take a practical example, not an example of a heart-rending case, but an example of the everyday occurrences which can take place, and the way in which these amendments must rectify it. In the vicinity of Johannesburg there was a White person who found himself in the Coloured area. There he entered into a relationship with a Coloured woman. Almost a dozen children were born out of this relationship. Subsequently an enquiry was made in regard to what the White person was doing there. He then went and lived in the White area. The Coloured woman had always been satisfied with her classification as a Coloured. The children had been registered in her name as Coloureds. The children had attended a Coloured school. After that third parties came forward and influenced the people to such an extent that they applied to have the children reclassified. The officials investigated the case and, in implementing the old Act, put them against the wall—as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said a few days ago—and decided that they were White. No notice was taken of other factors, such as their manners, conduct, speech, etc., as this measure now provides. It was seen fit to reclassify them as Whites, although they had a Coloured mother. The Coloured mother took the children to a White school, and there was an immediate outcry. A Coloured woman had come to the school, the children could not adapt themselves to the White children and the White children could not accept those Coloured children—because that is what they were. Consequently the representations began. After further enquiry the children were again reclassified as Coloureds. Once more third parties interfered in the matter, and an appeal was made. The Appeal Board had to judge according to the old Act, and they found that the children were in fact White. A few people testified that these people were accepted as Whites, that their church association was White, and so on, and all this despite the fact the mother was a Coloured in the first place. As I have said, the Board saw fit to classify these children as White.

We now have this amending measure before us which will prevent anything like this happening again in future. What is the present position as far as this particular family is concerned? This Coloured woman will have to take her husband and move to the Coloured residential area, together with her almost a dozen children. The parents and the children will have to live in the Coloured area. Although they are White children, they grow up amongst the Coloureds. They eat, they sleep, and they live together with the Coloureds. Can you see, Sir, what an injustice is being done to these children in the first place? If these children now attend the Coloured school then there is on the other hand the problem of White children going to school amongst Coloured children. Suppose these White children live in the vicinity of a White school, they will have to be taken up in that school, because they have in fact been classified as Whites. Just think what an injustice is being done to the other White children at that school, as well as to the Coloured children living in the Coloured residential area. The latter children eat and sleep and grow up there, but they attend a White school in a White residential area where they will have to be accepted by the White children. And those children simply do not accept them. But let us go further now. Suppose everything goes well. These children, who are classified as White, grow up and later on they want to marry. They must marry Whites. Can you see what an injustice will then be done, Sir? Can you think, Sir whom the babies are going to look like, “as long as the child is in the crib”? Can you see what is being done to those two population groups, to both the Whites as well as the Coloureds?

I now want to put this question to hon. members on the opposite side. If they are aware of the children’s background, would they be prepared to let their children marry those pople? I ask them, I challenge them: are they prepared to allow anything like that? When we come forward with these amendments, they oppose them. Because, Sir, they think that these kind of things are not in store for them. It can happen to Piet and Jan, and John and Jack, but is cannot happen to them. That is why they accept theoretically that something like that should not happen, but when steps are done to prevent anything like that happening in practice, when the population, irrespective of whether it is White or Coloured, must be protected, the Opposition does not want to take any steps.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition— it is a pity that he is not present at the moment—made a terrible fuss a few days ago about Coloureds who are becoming increasingly Whiter. What is wrong with a Coloured being White, if he does in fact know that he is a Coloured, if he accepts himself as one, if he is proud of being one, and if he honours and respects his parents? What is wrong with some of our Whites being darker than others? When the hon. the Leader was talking about Coloureds who were so White, it occurred to me that he was one of the darkest members in this House. And what difference does it make? Surely there are darker Whites and lighter Whites. What is wrong with their being Coloureds who are ostensibly White, while they are satisfied that they are Coloureds and are proud of the fact?

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition tried to kick up a cloud of dust here about a full-blooded Coloured, and the Minister asked what a full-blooded Coloured was. I think I can give him a good solution. A Coloured who is proud of the fact that he is a Coloured, even though he has White blood in him, irrespective of how much or how little, is nevertheless a full-blooded Coloured. The same applies to any nation. Whether a person is a Greek or a Portuguese, or whatever, he is a full-blooded Greek or Portuguese, or whatever, if he is nationally conscious and is proud of his nation.

The hon. member for Port Natal tried to insinuate on Friday that it was un-Christian when families were broken up or when something of that nature occurred. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also spoke about a case where the mother or some other person hand 1/16th Coloured blood in her, and asked what the position in regard to the children would be. If the Opposition talks about Christianity, then I accept that they are also Christians. They learn in the Bible that man’s iniquity will be visited upon him unto the third and fourth generations. Does the Opposition expect this Government to remedy those cases? Is it this Government’s fault? Or must the Government open the door even further and by so doing make even more tragic cases possible? Is that what they want?

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also spoke about a stud book which the hon. the Minister was allegedly introducing. I have been told that the hon. the Leader knows a great deal about stud books and that he is in fact a very good Friesland breeder. Well, the hon. the Leader has probably got a genealogical table of his ancestors. He knows how far back his ancestors go—he with his titles knows his ancestry even better perhaps than I know mine. After all it is something we all know. Each one of us has a stud book. Surely we know our descent. Usually we know who our grandfather was. We do want to keep that stud book pure. Each person who has respect for himself, irrespective of what group he belongs to, wants to keep his stud book safe and pure as far as he is concerned. In the same way I accept that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition wants to keep his stud book safe and pure. That is why I want to ask the hon. Leader what he would do if those people to whom I have referred were to come into contact with him. Would he not take steps to keep his stud book safe? What about the hon. member for Houghton? I accept that she, too, wants to keep her stud book safe. If I am wrong, I beg her pardon. I will help her with the utmost sympathy to find a loophole. I accept that all hon. members on that side want to keep their stud books safe.

Order! The hon. member is treading upon unsafe ground now. He had better return to the Bill.

What do you mean by the word “pure”?

With that I mean what my forefathers were.

How do you know?

They may have been Afrikaners, they may have been Englishmen; they may be descended from a royal house, or they may have come from any other place, but one knows nevertheless who one’s forebears were. We are sorry that they are not helping to keep the nation pure. The purpose of this legislation is to protect the sectors of our population against irresponsible people. Sir, last Friday I was really shocked by the attitude of the hon. member for Wynberg. This amendment Bill is being placed on the Statute Book for her kind as well, because she testified last Friday that she was one of the sympathetic people who helped people to be reclassified. She does them the injustice of having them classified as members of a race to which they do not belong. As a result of this amendment it will be difficult for those kind of people to abuse the loopholes in the legislation to do people an injustice by having them classified as members of a race to which they do not belong. This reclassification will create all kinds of problems for those people. I am ashamed for the hon. member’s sake. She admitted in this House that she uses the loopholes in the legislation to help people to have themselves reclassified. I am glad for her part that this amendment is being introduced here to-day. There are other people like the hon. member for Wynberg, people who are irresponsible and who are prepared to abolish the colour bar; they are prepared to thwart our policy of separate development in this country. They want to give out that a natural classification of races has been introduced, but when our people want to classify according to race by legislation, then they oppose that legislation.

We are indebted to the hon. the Minister for having indicated through the mouth of the hon. member for Mayfair that he has relented to some extent with regard to the provisions of the Bill before us and that he will move certain amendments which will be acceptable. May I say that we welcome this sign that he has relented but we want to tell him straightaway that his endeavours to improve this Bill will not satisfy us because they are negligible in relation to the other terms of the Bill.

May I just refer the hon. the Minister to clause 1, the new subsection (2) (d), at line 40. He is prepared to suggest that there will be a certain latitude to persons who prove that admissions are not accurate, but he retains the wording that a form that is completed by a wife or a guardian of some individual will remain binding as an admission against that individual who had no part in the completion of the form. I hope that the hon. the Minister will go further into the provisions of this subsection which he intends to add to the definition section.

Sir, if I were to deal with the hon. member for Mayfair in any detail I am sure I would incur your displeasure because the hon. member seemed to spend most of his time talking about the provisions of the Act, which are not before us this afternoon. But I want to say to him that our attitude on this side has been consistent since 1950. When he was asked what he understood by the word “suiwer” he indicated that he understood by it what his parents and his ancestors understood by it. Sir, our attitude on this side of the House is that for 300 years we did not need legislation to maintain the purity of the white race in this country. The hon. member comes here to-day with the nonsensical remark that this Bill is designed “om volkstradisie te onderskryf”. Having made a beautiful statement of that sort, he has not uttered one word to endeavour to justify one of the amendments which are before us to-day. He has not uttered one word to try to justify the arbitrary dividing line which this Government is trying to establish between what it chooses to call white people and what it chooses to call non-white or Coloured people. The hon. member had a lot to say about the mixing of white children with Coloured children, but he did not attempt in the course of his address to this House to tell us on what basis you are going to separate the white from the non-white children in this fine manner which the Minister thinks will be brought about by this Bill.

Sir, since 1950 the Population Registration Act has been amended for a variety of reasons given by a variety of Ministers who have been charged with the responsibility of administering the Act. There have been amendments to remove anomalies, there have been amendments to remove injustices, there have been amendments to meet administrative difficulties, and on each occasion this House and you, Sir, have been given assurances by the responsible Minister, assurances which the House has accepted as being fundamental to the amending Bill before the House. All suggestions which have been made from this side of the House that those assurances should be included in the legislation have been dismissed as unnecessary. We have been told that we have the word of the Minister and that further entrenchment in the Statute book is unnecessary. When the Opposition has pointed out that Ministers come and go and has stated that it is not satisfied that assurances given by one Minister are binding upon his successors, we have been told that there is no justification for our adopting such an attitude. Sir, how right the Opposition was has been proved abundantly clearly from the amendments which are before the House this afternoon. The Act, which is already onerous, will, I believe, be made vicious in its terms if the amendments which are before us this afternoon are accepted.

If this House accepts the reasoning of the hon. the Minister who has introduced this measure, and if the hon. the Minister of Education, Arts and Science, who is unfortunately not here this afternoon and who was the previous Minister of the Interior, is prepared to accept the reasoning of the present Minister this afternoon, then I think it will never be necessary again to query the Opposition’s right to ask, “What is the value of ministerial assurances unless they are enshrined in the Act?” Sir, these assurances have been proved worthless by the proposals before us to-day. In retrospect the assurances given to us in 1962 seem to have been intended either to lull public opinion or to bluff the electorate. I want to examine some of the assurances given by a very senior member of the Cabinet. This hon. gentleman, who I presume will now be a fellow-traveller with the Minister of the Interior in passing this legislation, gave certain assurances of which I want to remind the House in regard to the application of the Population Registration Act.

Order! Has that any bearing on this Bill?

With respect, Sir, it has a bearing on the amendments which are now before us because it is clear that the intentions underlying these amendments are contrary to the intentions of the measure as outlined to us at the time.

Order! I hope the hon. member will not drift too far away from the Bill before the House.

No, Sir. The first clause of this Bill defines who is a White person. When this matter was brought before the House in 1962 the Minister then handling the measure said this—

Then the Minister added this—

And he went on to say—

That was the assurance given by the Government. It was not necessary, neither was it ever the intention of the Act. Those were the words of the then Minister of the Interior, but now this Minister comes before us with these amendments. When the Minister of the Interior was speaking in 1962 he said that the Act was working well; 297 cases had been heard by the Race Classification Appeals Board, 233 were decided in favour of the objectors; 233 White people, Sir, had been able to satisfy the Board that they were White. What has happened during 1966 that these stringent provisions should now be presented to the House? The hon. the Minister, in reply to a question I put to him, said there were 119 cases considered by the Appeals Board in 1966; 70 appeals were upheld, resulting in 108 persons being reclassified as White. I repeat that 108 people were reclassified as White, against the actions of the Department of the Interior. With these assurances and this working of the Act concerned, we find that now the Minister has to bring in these amendments. I am not going to be tedious by saying to the Minister that he and his Department have sat down, and studied every judgment in appeals they have lost before the Appeals Board or before the Supreme Court. They have set about undoing them, rectifying them in their minds, by changing the law so that those judgments could never be upheld in future. When the Minister now attempts to define the purity of the nation, this “suiwere wit nasie”, I wonder what the basis is that he is trying to get at? Does the Minister know, or has he been informed by men who have studied anthropology, of the extent to which the admixture of genes in one family of the same parentage can produce children of varying skin pigmentations? Has he endeavoured to procure any scientific formula, if there is such a thing, that can divide on the knife-edge the Whites from the Coloureds in this country? If he has, he has not taken us into his confidence yet and told us that such a scientific basis does work. The previous hon. Minister, Senator De Klerk, told us that the system we have at present has worked; but it has led to a great deal of hardship.

May I turn to deal with clause 2, line 54. I do not want to deal with it in detail, but this clause provides that a person shall be classified as White if his natural parents have both been classified as White persons, and a person shall be classified as a Coloured person if his natural parents have both been classified as Coloured persons or one of his natural parents has been classified as a White person and the other natural parent has been classified as a Coloured person or a Bantu. This is what the hon. the Minister asks us to accept, but what did the Minister of the Interior in 1962 assure this House of?—

Sir, the Minister goes further now. Not only is descent the test, but a person is bound by the manner in which his parents happened fortuitously or otherwise to be classified by administrative action under this law which will now automatically determine the race classification of the children. I cannot believe that we in South Africa have reached the stage where 153 appeals is about to rock the very foundations of our White civilization because some persons might have been declared White when they should be declared Coloured. I believe, and I say this in all sincerity to hon. members opposite, that if they are to continue with this eternal chase after the “suiwere wit nasie”, which is becoming an obsession with them, just as the pure Aryan race became an obsession in Germany … [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

The amendments we have before us are motivated, I believe, by a political philosophy and not by practical considerations. [Interjections.]

Now I want to deal with the question of the right to object by a third party I know that what perhaps motivated the Government when it introduced that right in 1962 was the fact that there might be people who might want to object that somebody had been classified White when he should have been declared a Coloured, but that is not how it has worked. The same Minister, Senator De Klerk, in 1962 said quite clearly that this was fundamental, namely the right that the public should have to object. In fact, he remonstrated with the hon. member for Durban (North), who had suggested some amendments; he said—

Why does the hon. the Minister wish to remove that? The only means in the Act of remedying a bona fide error in classification, the Minister says, must be withdrawn because there were 153 objections in 1966. Sir, I want to say to the hon. the Minister that I believe that tremendous injustices will result from the attitude which has been adopted, and I want to give certain facts. There have been, with his Department, a number of these appeals by third parties. There was an objection lodged on 15th September, 1965, which has not been to the Race Classification Board yet—and objections were lodged on 23rd September, 1965, 29th November, 1965, 6th December, 1965, 24th January, 1966, 11th March, 1966, 25th May, 1966, 16th June, 1966, 20th June, 1966, 30th June, 1966, and 7th July, 1966. These are some of the cases which have been held up. Is it. Sir, that these unfortunate persons would have won their cases had they been allowed to go ahead under existing legislation? I want to say to the Minister that unless he can give a better excuse than the excuse these appellants have been able to get from his Department, then I say that these delays which are keeping young people, in the main, in suspense and in a state of anxiety, are due either to complete and unforgivable incompetence on the part of the Department or to the wilful directions of those in control of the Department. We cannot leave these persons in the state in which they are now. I do not know how many the Minister has seen personally, or to how many tales he has had to listen. But many of us have seen these people and have seen the state in which they have to live when they have in appearance and custom been accepted as White only now to find themselves about to be reclassified and to be taken out of their environment, out of the areas in which they have been permitted to live and establish their homes, out of their jobs into the voids of job reservation and to be expected to establish themselves elsewhere. I do not believe that we as a House are entitled to take unto ourselves the authority the Minister is proposing and to deal with these human beings, those who are on the borderline, as they will then be dealt with. I know these are on the borderline, but what justification is there for us to hold forth and say that because of the sanctity, the safety and the future of our nation this couple of hundred people must be subjected to what they are being and will be subjected if these amendments are accepted?

The hon. member for Parow knows these cases as well as I do. To him I want to say that this is an opportunity for us to show that these people, fellow citizens of ours in this country, are entitled to be treated with the humanity with which we ourselves expect to be treated. We shall, of course, in the Committee Stage give more detailed reasons why we consider these amendments to the Act are not necessary, but at this stage I should like to ask the Minister to leave well alone. Let well alone, I say to him. The heavens are not breaking open and the world is not coming to an end just because there have been five or six successful appeals. The Minister has made Press announcement after Press announcement saying that we must stop this rot that has started, we must stop this integration. I say this is nonsense and I say it with the greatest of respect to the hon. the Minister. We are in no jeopardy because of the operation of the Act as it now stands. I say that if the body politic in South Africa does not rise above the spirit of this legislation which we are being asked to-day to accept, then we will certainly neither be evincing any feelings of justice nor be exercising any humanity towards these people who are our fellow South Africans.

We have just listened to the hon. member for Green Point making a typically bitter United Party speech, an extremely scandalous speech on a matter which is of cardinal and vital importance to us in this House and to the nation of South Africa, to the Coloureds and to the Bantu. But before reacting to certain of the things which the hon. member said in his speech, I first want to say that we on this side of the House approach this matter, this great human problem with which this Bill deals, with the greatest measure of sympathy to be found anywhere on earth. [Interjections.] For that reason we raise the strongest objection imaginable to the self-righteous and haughty attitude displayed in this House by one United Party speaker after another in that they wanted to adopt the attitude that they were the only people in the world, in South Africa, who had any sympathy in their hearts for others. Such an attitude is surely the basis of unchristianliness, because what are the things which the United Party want to give us to understand if they are not whited sepulchres? On this side of the House there are people who have done more for the Coloureds of South Africa, and have done more in the interests of the Bantu than hon. members opposite have ever done in their time. Let us ask them, what have they done in this regard? This self-righteous attitude of the United Party to want to lay it at our door that we are brutal, unfair, inhuman and want to treat people like animals, that we are vicious, that we are harsh and all such things, that self-righteous attitude cries to heaven and is a disgrace to this House. For that reason I want to appeal to them in all fairness and justice to say what they want to say about this Bill, but that they must for heaven’s sake put an end to that meanness, because that is not calculated to be in the interests of South Africa, particularly not as far as the outside world is concerned.

Do not blame us for your Bill.

I shall still come to the Bill, but first I just want to say that I myself, my wife and my children will sleep very badly if I do things to individuals and population groups in this responsible House which I will be unable to justify before my conscience, before my God and before my people. That is the attitude of everyone on this side of the House. The hon. member for Green Point stated one important truth here this afternoon and that is that “the United Party’s attitude has been consistent with regard to this Act since 1950”. I shall deal more closely with this matter somewhat later. A great deal is implied in those words of the hon. member. I shall shortly point out what those implications are. Then the hon. member also said that the hon. member for Mayfair, and by implication other hon. members on this side, “has not added one word to justify their arbitrary attitude between White and Coloured in this Bill before the House”. I should like to indicate why this measure before the House is so essential and so important. However, the hon. member for Green Point made a third statement, one on which I should like to dwell for a moment or two. What he did was to make a very serious accusation against an hon. Minister this afternoon. The hon. member said that they had been given certain assurances by a previous hon. Minister of the Interior, assurances in respect of this legislation and that the United Party in future “will not be able to accept assurances given by a Minister of this Government if not enshrined in an Act of Parliament”. But let me tell the hon. member that I have made a very careful study of the speech made by the hon. Minister concerned in 1962 and that I have been unable to find anything anywhere in that speech which might be interpreted as being an assurance given by him to this House that descent would not play an important part in regard to the classification of people in future—not a single word. According to Col. 4445 of Hansard of 26th April, 1962, the then Minister of the Interior said—

Please note, “this power now being given to the Secretary”, i.e. in 1962. The assurance given by the Minister here, therefore only related to the power given to the Secretary in 1962. For that reason I think that it is mean of the Opposition to make the statement here that they cannot accept the assurances of Ministers because they cannot render a proper account. I want to go much further. The hon. the Minister pointed that out as long ago as 1950. In 1950, the year in which this Act was originally introduced, the then Minister stated very clearly—I shall be very pleased if the hon. member for Green Point will listen to this—

That was said in 1950. How can the hon. member mislead people now and say that they were given assurances by this side of the House, whereas no assurance whatsoever was given, except that which was given when it was foreseen with great vision that it would eventually become necessary to apply this very test of descent. I should now like to say why this particular Bill which is before us now is of such cardinal importance. Why, in the new section 5 (5) (a) and (b), are we making descent one of the most important tests in connection with classification in South Africa? This is the first reply I want to give. I want to mention six reasons. The first reason is to put an end to creeping integration in South Africa. It is very interesting to note, from the speech made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, what the Opposition’s attitude is in regard to this important matter, namely to put an end to creeping integration. I shall tell you what their attitude is. Their attitude is that they throw up their arms, adopt a defeatist attitude and argue: Let things take their own course. That is their attitude. The second reason why we have to adopt this Bill now before this House, is to ensure that we will have an orderly community in South Africa. What is the United Party’s attitude? They throw up their arms. They say: This is a difficult problem; let things take their own course. The third reason why we have to accept this Bill, particularly the new section 5 (5) (a) and (b) which is the essence of this Bill and which makes descent a determining factor, is to have separation between the races in South Africa, something we believe to be in the interests of all groups in South Africa, and to ensure that there will be separation in regard to separate voters’ rolls, separate schools, separate marriages amongst Whites and amongst non-Whites, separate residential areas and even separate churches. All these things gave us a great deal of difficulty in the past, even in the days of the United Party. We cannot have an orderly community in South Africa if we do not specifically combat those borderline cases in so far as we are humanly able to do so.

The fourth reason why we must have this particular Bill, which contains the new section 5 (5) (a) and (b), is to eliminate, in the most responsible, human and sympathetic way, and in so far as we are humanly able to do so, the confusion existing in regard to hard-luck cases which are often created artificially. I want to lay it at the door of the United Party that some of its members have created such artificial cases in South Africa over the past 17 years, and particularly over the past five years. The fifth reason why we need the new section 5 (5) (a) and (b), is to put an end to the increasing number of third party objections. These third party objections were not originally intended to be what they subsequently became in practice through exploitation. United Party people literally dipped their pens in gall and let loose all this, I feel inclined to say, cruelty in this country through the irresponsible attitude they adopted in regard to third party cases under this classification legislation. In order to eliminate and put an end to that, we have introduced this Bill. The sixth reason why we are specifically introducing section 5 (5) (a) and (b) and why it is of cardinal importance is—as the hon. member for Parow has already put it so clearly; I want to say it in one sentence only—to solve the remaining difficult cases of the 1951 census in a proper and decent way. Those difficult cases, where the children have now reached the age of 16, will give a great deal of trouble not only to the National Party Government, but to the entire country, and thus also to the Opposition, if we do not do something to deal with those cases in some way so as to put an end, as far as it is humanly possible to do so, to these so-called hard-luck cases in South Africa.

The Judges of our courts said that they could not formulate a definition of what was White and what was non-White in terms of this classification legislation. They cannot do so. What is the position now? This responsible House, the House of Assembly, is the only body which can formulate such a definition. Therefore it is its duty to do so and it will do so. If this House does not do so, it will be shirking its bounden duty to assist our courts in this tricky, difficult and human problem with which we are concerned. That is precisely what we are doing. Certain clauses of this Bill, as the hon. the Minister indicated in his opening speech, flow directly from a judgment given by Mr. Justice Diemont in regard to these cases. We, as a House, cannot shirk our responsibility in this regard, as the Opposition is only too willing to do. Throughout their existence, when they were in power, and now as an Opposition, they have shirked their responsibility in regard to all difficult problems. In respect of all difficult problems they simply adopted the attitude of an ostrich which buries its head in the sand. They simply say: This is a difficult case. We can do nothing about it. They throw up their arms and say: Let things take their own course. Let things simply develop. We cannot adopt that attitude. We must give our courts a proper, responsible and decent definition, which will be as sympathetic as possible, of what is White and what is non-White. Then we have to try to apply that definition in the same decent way to the best of our ability. That is what we are doing in this Bill. Is the hon. member for Green Point still prepared to get up and say that there is no one on this side of the House who can give one single reason why South Africa needs this Bill? I have just given six reasons and each one is a well-grounded reason.

In the original Act of 1950 acceptance by the community was accepted as the cardinal and important test. In 1950 we could have made descent the cardinal test, as we are now doing in the new section 5 (5) (a) and (b). Now I ask: Why did the then Government not make descent the test? Do you think for a single moment that the then Government did not realize that descent played a very cardinal part in this entire matter? I say that there are two reasons why descent was not embodied in the Act as the determining factor. The most important reason is contained in the speech which the Minister made at that time. At that stage of our country’s development—if we look back over the 17 years which have gone by since then—our population still was essentially a rural population. The people knew one another. Acceptance was a very effective test to apply at that time. At present, however, we are a highly industrialized country. That was foreseen by the Minister even in those days. He said that we would become a very highly industrialized country within the next 20 years. What are the characteristics of a highly industrialized country? In the large cities people no longer know one another so intimately to know exactly that the descent of a certain person is such and that the descent of another person is such. Therefore acceptance simply cannot be accepted as an effective test. For that reason acceptance can no longer be used as the decisive test. For that reason we are confronted with hard reality in that we are simply compelled to use the difficult test of descent, especially in the determination of our hard-luck cases. We do not shrink back from this, and we realize that it is a very difficult test. There is a second important reason why that was not applied at that time. Were it possible for us to get away from it, we would have done so. We, like the Opposition, do take human factors into account. We are responsible in this regard. We do not want to hurt nor harm anybody, but we do not have any choice. The time has arrived when we are compelled to make descent one of the three cardinal considerations. We regard it as being a major challenge from which we simply cannot run away. This, as I have said, particularly concerns the new section 5 (5) (a) and (b) in which the definitions of a white person and of a non-white person are very clearly given. According to the new section 5 (5) (a) “a person shall be classified as a white person if his natural parents have both been classified as white persons”. Paragraph (b) reads as follows—

Now I want to ask the United Party, I want to challenge them to tell us whether they do not agree with this definition of a white person? Do they not agree with that definition of a coloured person? If they do not agree then we ask them, as they were challenged to do in this House in 1950 when a definition was given, and as they were challenged to do also in 1962, to let one person in their ranks get up in the course of this debate and give us their definitions of a white person and of a non-white person. I challenge them to do so. They will not dare do so because they cannot do so. It is entirely impossible for them to do so, because the hon. member for Green Point stated it very clearly. He said, “The United Party’s attitude has been very consistent”, because since 1950 they have always opposed it totally, both in principle and on every possible occasion.

Where in the original Act or in this Bill is there a definition of a coloured person?

I have just told you. The following is the definition of a coloured person. If the hon. member is not too dull-witted he will listen. Paragraph (b) of the new section 5 (5), inserted by clause 2 of this Bill, reads as follows—

I want to request the hon. member, when he asks any further questions, to ask questions which are more intelligent than the one he has just asked.

I want to say that this measure cuts both ways, and we realize that it cuts both ways. I want to mention the case of two people who settled in the Northern Cape 25 years ago. They were two full-blooded white persons. Because no other white people lived in that area, they lived amongst the Coloured people and in the course of time they came to be accepted as Coloured persons, although, in other respects they were full-blooded Whites. In terms of the definition of 1962, the position simply was that those two people were classified as Coloured persons. In the meantime they raised a family of 11 children. They recently moved to Cape Town. In terms of this measure those two people are white persons, although on the grounds of acceptance, because of their circumstances in the Northern Cape, they are Coloured persons. All 11 children are white persons. Therefore this legislation does not cut one way only, as hon. members opposite want to tell us. It also cuts that way. But that they are not prepared to say. For that reason I repeat that it is mean of hon. members opposite to allege here that this Bill is inhuman, that it is harsh, and that it is all those things they described it to be, including the word “vicious”.

I now want to mention another case with which I had a great deal to do at first-hand, a case which gave me sleepless nights. I now want to ask hon. members opposite how they would have dealt with that case. In the days when the United Party was still in power a certain man managed to pass as a white person whereas his mother was unmistakably a Coloured person. He subsequently married a woman whose appearance was very much that of a white person. Her father was unmistakably a Coloured person and she was classified as a Coloured person. For many years things went quite well. In the course of time a child was born and even then things were simply left at that. Then the time arrived for the child to go to school because she was five years old. The woman then came to me and wanted a statement in terms of the 1962 amendment to this Act from me as a member of the House of Assembly to the effect that she associated with white people in order to be classified as a white person. I should really have liked to have helped her from purely human considerations. But then I looked at the child. The child was not only unmistakably Coloured, but practically unmistakably three-quarter Bantu. Now I challenge the United Party to say what they would have done under such circumstances? I told that woman that she could be classified as a white person on the grounds that she associated with white persons. But what suffering would I have caused for that little girl for the rest of her life, because, Sir, no white school would have been prepared to accept that little girl as a scholar. That child would suffer to the bitter end. Is that what the United Party wants? Is that what the hon. member for Houghton desires? For that reason I say that this measure cuts both ways. In terms of this measure those hard-luck cases are going to be eliminated, because it will simply be out of the question for those parents to be classified as white persons. The child will benefit from that, and the child can develop into a leading figure in the Coloured community. And that, after all, is what we want.

I can mention other cases, other cases which are also similar hard-luck cases but which cut the other way. Hon. members opposite who know something about these matters should not pretend to be so innocent. They do know that this Bill also cuts the other way. I am dying to mention other cases which were in the news in recent times in particular, but I am not going to do so. Therefore hon. members opposite should not act in such an irresponsible way in regard to these serious matters when they come before this responsible House. It simply does not befit them to do so.

I just want to say that the Government is not to blame for hard-luck cases as far as these matters are concerned. Hard-luck cases in life occur throughout the world. Life is not simple—life is indeed hard. It is scandalous behaviour on the part of the Opposition to have adopted this attitude in three debates over a period of 17 years. I repeat that their standpoint has indeed been very consistent. The nation knows how consistent it has been and the nation takes cognizance of that consistency with the greatest measure of suspicion. After all, there are hard-luck cases throughout the world, and to blame this side of the House that it is the cause, on account of this legislation, of hard*luck cases is not only dishonest but also unfair to the extreme. It does not befit them to do so. I repeat that it is our very object to decrease the number of hard-luck cases and we are going to do so in spite of the Opposition and the United Party. I prefer to say that we are going to decrease them on account of the Opposition and on account of their attitude to this vital matter.

I just want to say that we are very clearly divided into two camps in regard to the matter which is now before this House, particularly as far as the new section 5 (5) (a) and (b) is concerned. There are those who believe in segregation on the ground of descent and those who are consistently opposed to it. In principle the question in regard to this legislation is very simple. The question is whether this House wants to maintain race differences in South Africa on the grounds of descent, acceptance and appearance? Now I want to state unambiguously that the reply of this side of the House is “Yes”. What is the reply of the United Party? Its reply, equally unambiguously, is, “No”, as it was to the question put in 1960. That is the reply we get from the United Party.

Now I should like to ask how we see the United Party in this debate. I should now like to come to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and I should like to say the following. We see the United Party in this debate—and I want to call it a hard debate—not in its latest cloak of patriotism and protector of the Whites, but as it really is, as it has been throughout the years, namely as a party who runs with the hare and hunts with the hounds and keeps muddling along as it is once more doing now. It is a party which may be entrusted with anything, but there is one thing with which one may not entrust it and that is the future of the Whites. Not for a single moment may that be entrusted to that party, because we see, and the people outside see, that at present the United Party still is as it was when it was in power and that is the very reason why it was not returned to power; it is a party which throws up its arms as soon as a difficult problem crops up, which adopts a defeatist attitude about it, and simply adopts an attitude of let things take their own course. That will have to be written as this United Party’s epitaph because I think the nation will know how to deal with that party for the attitude adopted by it in this debate. Sir, what the entire matter is about, is very clearly one thing and that is the combating of creeping integration. What did the hon. the Leader of the Opposition say about this? I think he does not realize the implications of what he said in this debate on Friday. I want to quote to him what he said in respect of creeping integration. He said—

Hear, hear!

In addition he stated—

I now come to the next statement on the basis of which we will pursue the United Party on the political platforms from Dan to Beersheba and from Messina to Cape Town and then back from Cape Town to Messina. The statement he made was the following—

The implication of that is very clear …

Integration.

I repeat that we are going to pursue the United Party on the political platforms from Dan to Beersheba on account of these statements. What is the implication of these statements? It is not that their slip is showing; they are standing here in their nakedness; there is no difference between them and the hon. member for Houghton, who at least has the courage of her convictions to advocate integration openly. There is no difference between the United Party and the hon. member for Houghton as far as this matter is concerned, because the United Party says, “You will never be able to draw a line between what is white and what is coloured”. Sir, I have read the 1950 and the 1962 debates very carefully and nowhere have I been able to find that either General Smuts or any United Party speaker in their attitude as regards integration ever went as far as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition did when he stated “you cannot draw a line between what is white and what is coloured”. The implication of that is fundamentally that a being like a white person does not exist for the United Party nor does a being like a Coloured person. As far as white persons and Coloured persons are concerned, there is for them only one thing in existence and that is a mixture, an integrated humanity of these two races in South Africa, and we are grateful to know that that basically is the United Party’s standpoint. We have always known that, but since the United Party has been presenting itself lately as the saviour of the Whites in South Africa, it is well that the nation takes cognizance of what the United Party’s attitude really is in this regard.

Order! The hon. member must now come back to the Bill.

Sir, it is no disgrace to be a member of the Coloured population, nor is it a disgrace to be a member of the Bantu population, but what indeed is a disgrace is to renounce one’s own people because one wants to join the ranks of another people or group where one will always feel ill at ease. It is precisely from that that the suffering in individual cases results, and that is what we want to prevent by means of this hard measure—we know that it is a hard measure. This measure will be applied humanely and fairly and decently and with all the sympathy at our command. Let me say here that the former member for Salt River said in this House in 1962, when the amending legislation was under discussion, that the hon. the Minister and the Department had shown the greatest measure of human sympathy in dealing with all cases brought to their attention by him. We want to give the assurance that in future we shall continue to deal with all cases with the same degree of sympathy. (Time expired.)

I am sorry to hear from the hon. member for Primrose that he has been having insomnia over this problem of race classification in South Africa. I am interested to hear, however, that he is optimistic that from now these problems are going to be solved, because I believe that the hon. member is sincerely convinced that the law which the Government is passing to-day is going to solve all the problems that this country has been confronted with for centuries on this difficult question of race classification. He is optimistic that he can write laws which in fact are going to overcome genetics. I can tell him that his optimism is misplaced, because no law, nothing that this Government puts on the Statute Book, is going to make any more easy the difficult task of defining where that very small percentage of the South African population falls on either side of the colour line. Sir, when the principal Act was introduced, the then Minister of the Interior made it quite clear that in the vast majority of cases in S.A. there were no problems involved; that only a small number of people was involved.

How small?

He said that a very small percentage was involved, something like 1 per cent or 2 per cent. I think the hon. the Minister referred only to 10,000 cases when he introduced the original Act. Sir, the deciding factor is genetics. This is not the first attempt we have made in South Africa to define the indefinable and I am certain that this is not going to be the last attempt. The Government ran into problems the minute it tried to make definitions of race classifications in 1950. There were difficulties in fact before Union but I am not going to go into those difficulties now; that would certainly make confusion worse confounded. Even the yardstick that we use under the manifold laws that we have in this country to differentiate between races is an elastic one; there is no uniformity and there are many anomalies. I wonder if the hon. member for Primrose knows, for instance, of the chameleon-like character that South Africans have under our laws?

A person can be classified as white under one law and as coloured under another law, and under a third law the same person can be classified as an African. There are at least ten different classifications, for instance, as far as Africans are concerned. A person can be white under the Population Registration Act and the very same person can be classified as coloured under the Group Areas Act. Sir, there is nothing easy about classification in this country and there never will be. I want to point out just how hopeless is this new attempt in this amending Bill to define the indefinable. In 1956 the Government attempted to introduce some uniformity in race classification, and they appointed an inter-departmental committee to inquire into and to advise on the practicability or otherwise of a uniform standard of race classification. To the best of my knowledge that committee’s report has never been made public and is not available. Why is that committee’s report not available? My guess is that the committee drew a blank or a “blank”, if you like. It has not come up with anything. It has come up with nothing that is going to help us to define the different races in South Africa in a uniform manner. There have been many changes since the original Bill was introduced in this House. The emphasis changes every time an attempt is made to clarify this issue. Originally the decisive factor was appearance or acceptance— one or the other. That was the yardstick, but the emphasis at that stage was on acceptance. From 1962 this changed; the emphasis was then equally divided between appearance and acceptance, with a little bit of descent thrown in for good measure, as the result of two very important cases, the Song-case, the case of the Chinese gentleman, who was reclassified as white on the acceptance yardstick, and the Singh-case, the case of the white woman who married an Indian and attempted to be accepted by appearance and acceptance as an Indian, and then the descent factor was introduced as well in 1962.

Now we come to 1967 and the Government, thrown into a frenzy by a few hundred cases which appeared to be slipping across the colour line—because as far as I can see, that is all that has motivated this Bill—is now introducing a further emphasis on descent. As I analyse this Bill, it seems to me that there are two main categories. I am sure the hon. member for Heilbron, who is an expert in law … [Interjection.] Anyway, he sits there looking like a legal pundit. I am quite sure he will correct me if I am wrong in my analysis of this Bill. To me there are two main classes. There are those people whose parents have already been classified. Those persons, for all time, will now be classified according to their parents’ classification. I do not suppose there are very many people who fall outside this category in South Africa. Nobody has really told me who they are. Are they the people who have not yet received identity cards? Are they immigrants who have to be classified in terms of our law, or are they illegitimate children, one of whose parents, or both of whose parents, may not have been classified, or one of whose parents is unknown? I want to know who these people are. But the vast majority of people will fall into the category of those people whose parents have already been classified; so now we have a very interesting lot of what I call “statutory equations” which have been evolved by this Bill, a sort of ‘mathematics for the millions”. We have an equation which reads “W + W = W”, or “white plus white is white”. C + C = C. W + C or B=C. That is very interesting. White plus Coloured or Bantu is classified as Coloured. Then of course we have B plus B equals B. Again if you come into the subgroups, this Bill ratifies something which the courts threw out as invalid, and without wanting to say “I told you so”, I am nevertheless going to say it. I did tell the hon. the Minister in 1962 that the classification into sub-groups was considered ultra vires by a legal authority and has now in fact been shown to be ultra vires by a recent court case. But in terms of those sub-groups which are now being ratified by this Bill, Chinese plus Chinese equals Chinese. Indian plus Indian equals Indian, and Malay plus Malay equals Malay. In other words, those are the ethnic equations. But there are a few simple equations that have been omitted, and perhaps the hon. member for Heilbron or the hon. the Minister will tell me what they intend doing, for instance, about the result of unions between Coloureds and Bantu, because there is no C plus B equals either C or B.

I cannot find that in the series of mathematical equations which have been given to us. Nor is there any equation relating the progeny of one ethnic group member and another ethnic group member within the Coloured group. In other words, if a Malay marries a Chinese and produces a child, we do not know whether that child will be Malay or Chinese. But we are validating ethnic sub-groups arid we do not know what is to happen if an Indian marries a Chinese or a Malay. These little equations have not yet been worked out by the mathematical genius sitting on the other side. I assume—and I hope someone will tell me whether I am right or wrong—that these will all fall into the second category. Not only the illegitimate children whose parents are not classified, and not only the parents who are deceased without having been classified, and not only even the immigrant children whose parents have not been classified, but all these ethnic little inter-marriages, plus the Coloured and Bantu offspring, will all fall under this new definitions clause, I presume.

When the Minister introduced the Bill, he said all this was intended to put an end to uncertainty. What an optimist he is! The new definition of “Whites”, I am the first to admit, is of course far more stringent than the one we had until now, because firstly it lays down as obligatory certain criteria which the courts in the past have rejected. The courts rejected the. criteria of education, demeanour, speech and all that nonsense, and rightly so.

The court did not reject it. It only interpreted the Act, and that was not in the Act.

If the hon. member likes it better this way, the boards acted ultra vires, because they used criteria which had not been placed in the Act. Secondly, the Bill gives greater importance and effect to admissions of descent, although I am glad to hear that the hon. the Minister is going to make some amendments here in the Committee Stage, which will not make this quite as stringent as it appears in the Bill. Thirdly, of course, it makes general acceptance according to the 1951 census conclusive proof of general acceptance at any time hereafter. If one was accepted in the 1951 census in one way, then whatever happens, apparently, thereafter one has to stay accepted in that way. Here, too, I gather, there will be some amendments, but I presume it will deal mostly with the question raised by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, namely where people mistakenly put down “mixed”, meaning mixed English and Afrikaans marriages, or mixed English and Portuguese, or whatever it is, but not racially mixed. But if somebody entered something on a census form in 1951 saying “Coloured”, that apparently is fixed for all time.

Unless he can prove the contrary.

But of course this will make it much more difficult for a person because the presumption in section 19 of the original Act is now being removed by clause 6, and that makes it more difficult to prove that a mistake has been made. [Interjection.] I think everybody will find it more difficult in terms of the Bill, and that is the whole idea of the Bill as far as I can see. In other words, all these provisions load the dice against people who formerly had some chance of crossing the colour line. Now, we have heard a lot of shouts of dismay from the other side about people wanting to cross the colour line; they say there is no shame in being a Coloured or an African. Of course there is no shame in it, but there are lots of disabilities attached to being Coloured or African in this country, and maybe I for one would be more impressed with what the hon. member for Primrose has said about his sleepless nights about all the sufferings of the people, and his humanitarian approach and all the rest of it, if just sometimes the Government came to this House with Bills to remove the disabilities which people of colour suffer from in this country instead of always adding to them. They are always adding to the burden of disabilities and discrimination which people of colour suffer from in this country. It is not a case of being ashamed; it is a natural desire on the part of people to try to make the best they can of the one life they have to live.

Now I want to deal for a moment with the ridiculous criteria dealt with in clause 1 (2) (a), habit, education, speech, demeanour, etc. I think these criteria are going to make us the laughing stock of the civilized world. I cannot imagine what makes the Minister want to enshrine this in law. The courts have thrown them out as not being valid in terms of the law, and really the Minister should not try to put this into the law. The hon. member for Prinshof had a lot to say about speech, demeanour and custom, but he knows perfectly well that people change their habits of speech and they change their way of living and their customs. The hon. member for Primrose was quite right when he talked about urbanization. Of course urbanization affects people. It affects their customs. You cannot tell me that an African who has been living in Soweto for a generation still has the customs of a tribal African. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Prinshof said that these things were important and that these were the factors which were now going to determine how a person is classified. But what the hon. member has forgotten is that the 1951 census classification sticks, no matter whether a Coloured person who looks white and who has been accepted as white has now completely shed any Cape Coloured accent or demeanour or habit of dressing, or anything which might in fact have made it easy for the hon. member for Prinshof to say that he is a Cape Coloured.

He is always a Coloured. What is wrong with that?

That 1951 acceptance has to stick, irrespective of any changes which the man has made. Up to now the courts have held that if for five years a person can prove that he had been accepted as a white person he was able to cross the colour line. That five years of association with Whites clause has now gone. When in 1962 the Minister sought power to allow the Secretary to investigate, or to appoint persons to investigate, the truth or otherwise of the census returns the hon. the Minister’s predecessor said that it is regarded as essential because of the inaccurate information contained in the census forms of 1951 in regard to citizenship, births, marriages and racial descriptions. This Minister wants these very same inaccurate admissions to be deemed as free and voluntary admissions for the purposes of classifications on the ground of fact. [Interjections.] That is how the Bill reads at present.

If the registration form has been filled in by himself and signed by himself.

Yes, but what about a minor? Can the hon. the Minister tell me what is the position of a minor whose guardian has filled in a form inaccurately. What is his position going to be as far as objections are concerned? There is nothing in this Bill that makes it easy for that person to object.

He can object against his classification for that reason.

I can tell the hon. the Minister that the law is not very clear about this. The law is very unclear about this. We have had repeated assurances from the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Parow that it is not the Minister’s intention, the board’s intention or the Secretary’s intention to reclassify people but to allow them to retain their existing classifications. There is not going to be any kind of witch hunt, the Minister tells us. May I just point out to the hon. the Minister that there is no doubt whatever about the retrospective powers that this Bill gives the Secretary. One has only to look at the last clause in the Bill to see that it is a retrospective Bill. What worries me is that despite all these assurances the Bill lays an actual obligation on the Secretary to keep a correct register. Therefore if it is at any time brought to his notice that there has been an incorrect registration in terms of this Bill whether it is to the advantage or disadvantage of the person concerned, I think the law makes it obligatory on the Secretary to do something about it. This is what worries me. Ministerial assurances mean nothing. [Interjection.] That may always have been the position but the point is that this is in the law and at any time this can be invoked. Ministerial assurances do not carry the weight of law.

I can give you the assurance that he will have the right.

I do not want the hon. the Minister to give me an assurance. He must put it in the law. If the hon. the Minister will put it in the law then I will know exactly where I am in this regard.

You must not misunderstand me. The Secretary will have the right if it comes to his notice that a person is wrongly classified, to go into the matter and reclassify him. We will not go into the position of persons classified by the board or by the court.

I do sincerely hope so. If the Secretary is informed that he is keeping an incorrect register, what is he going to do then? He runs the risk of being had up before the law. The Government has said a great deal about the iniquity of third party appeals. A great deal of nonsense has been spoken on this score. Sinister motives have been imputed to people who initiated third party appeals. I do not know what the political gain is from initiating these appeals and nobody has as yet said what they are. I personally have not done any of this but I would be very pleased indeed to admit it if I had done it, because this is one way in which people could obviate the time limit which made it impossible for people to appeal because the time limit had lapsed. This is simply a loophole whereby people who had not known their rights under the law or were too ignorant about it or were unable to do so, finally found that they could perhaps upset a race classification. There is nothing wrong with that. Surely the hon. member for Parow who has a fair sense of justice must realize that if 24 people by this method managed to get themselves reclassified by means of third party appeals, then justice has been done in 24 cases.

Why did they not come themselves?

They did not come themselves because they did not know of it. They are ignorant people who may not know the law and so the time lapsed and therefore they were only able to come via the loophole in the law. Now the loophole has been removed. The hon. member should be the first to admit that if 24 cases were reclassified by means of third party appeals, justice was done in 24 cases. He should eagerly be looking for justice to be done in as many more cases as possible and not think that there must therefore be some sinister motive. As I mentioned earlier the reason why people want to be classified a notch up, and I have to say “up” in terms of our law because it is going a notch up if one is an African, to be classified as Coloured and if Coloured, to be classified as White, is because race is the make or break factor in South Africa on whether one is treated as a first class, second class of third class citizen. That is why people try to get themselves reclassified by one notch. People say that this is not true but I wonder how many hon. members here would not faint at their desks if they thought that there was any chance of their being reclassified as Coloured people. They would faint at the thought of it and I do not blame them because they would be suffering disabilities as a result of such a reclassification.

Now I want to come to the Minister’s uninhibited use of the terms “full blooded White” and “full blooded non-White’. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that if somebody took a blood specimen from a full blooded White and took another from a full blooded non-White and submitted that specimen to a haematologist or a geneticist or an anthropologist or a pathologist, there would be absolutely no way of telling whether the specimen came from the full-blooded White man or the full blooded non-White. There is just no scientific basis whatsoever for classifying the blood of a person. [Interjections.] I am merely telling the hon. the Minister that there is no scientific basis for this at all. That is why we use the test of skin and general appearance and acceptance. The Minister was right in 1962. The hon. member for Green Point quoted the Minister’s speech then but he also said something else which the hon. member did not read out. He said that: “With few exceptions the desired results have been produced in implementing this Act during the period of nearly 12 years that this Act has been in operation. It was found that there was no better yardstick than public opinion.” There is of course no better yardstick than public opinion. As I say the hon. the Minister is an optimist and the hon. member for Primrose is going to continue to have sleepless nights I am afraid because none of the difficulties we have experienced in the past in regard to these borderline cases are going to be ironed out by this Bill. I say that we are making ourselves quite ridiculous by trying to define the indefinable.

What does the Government hope to achieve by this legislation? I have been trying to work out what the Government hopes to achieve. I am sure that it cannot believe that it is going to save White civilization by these monumental labours to stop a few hundred or even a few thousand people from crossing the colour line because people have been crossing the colour line in South Africa since time immemorial and White civilization has survived this ordeal. Most of us do not even look as if we have had a traumatic experience. Some of us I must admit, do. As I say White civilization has survived this hazard for at least two centuries without any noticeable effects. Nothing is going to stop people at least trying to slip across the colour line despite all these classifications. It would have been much better if the Government had come to this House and tried to iron out all the differentiations in the racial groups that make them want to move themselves from one racial group to the next. It would have been much better if they had come to this House with that sort of legislation than to come with these hopeless attempts to plug the loopholes. I say that all this will achieve is to reveal once again our sick obsession in South Africa with race and colour. It is a sick obsession that we have in this country. It is the sort of thing that rules out any possibility of our being accepted as a mature or civilized country by the rest of the world. In terms of 1967 this is a sick obsession.

I am proud to have a sick obsession for humanism. That is the greatest compliment the hon. member can pay me.

Does he think that humanism is a bad thing to have? I wonder whether he knows what humanism is? I am sure he does not, otherwise he would not have paid me that compliment. This is just another indication of the sick obsession with race and colour that prevents our being accepted as a civilized country by the rest of the world. All the hopes that have been expressed in South Africa in recent weeks about the change of image that we are now projecting overseas, go straight out of the window. All the good impressions made by the reception of Malawi Ministers, and receiving them, like civilized human beings and having them for dinner at hotels, and so on … [Interjections.] No, I am delighted. It is an excellent sign, but all the good that might be done by those slight indications that we are at least trying to display some image of maturity, goes right out of the window the minute a Minister comes along to this House and introduces a ludicrous Bill like this into Parliament. [Interjection.] My speech would never have been made if this Bill had never been introduced. I am sick and tired of having members on the opposite side of the House projecting their guilt for introducing legislation like this on to my shoulders and the shoulders of other people who oppose that legislation. It is our duty and my duty, particularly, to oppose legislation like this. Hon. members are trying to project their guilt for introducing legislation like this on to me for objecting to their introducing legislation like this. I am absolutely unimpressed by this. As I have said, the only thing that would impress me, with the humanitarian aspect and the deep sympathy that hon. members are meant to have for members of other races in this country would be if they would come to this House and introduce legislation removing disabilities and not introducing further disabilities on the other races in South Africa.

As for the first part of the speech made by the hon. member for Houghton—let me at least say this to her— she was quite to the point. She dealt with the contents of this Bill in a concise and reasonable manner. She raised her questions and misgivings. It is only a pity that in the latter part of her speech she destroyed everything she had tried to do in the first part, i.e. to express a genuine concern about these matters. The latter part of her speech was merely in the old hackneyed idiom of setting up charges for herself only to shoot them down again— charges against the attitude adopted by the Government and the Whites in South Africa towards this matter. I am afraid that by doing so she completely destroyed the sincerity we could hear in the first part of her speech.

Apparently hon. members of the United Party are very fidgety. There are many reasons for that. I shall come to them presently. The hon. member for Houghton said that race was the factor according to which people in South Africa were classified as first class, second class or third class citizens. There was a time in South Africa when this was the case. That was when we had the British legacy here. All “loyal subjects” had the franchise at that time, but in spite of their franchise and in spite of their being accepted as “loyal subjects”, they were second and third class citizens. That is the inevitable correlate of a racially integrated community, such as we inherited from the British colonial authorities and of which the United Party is the spiritual heir at present. According to the basic view held by the Government and the National Party, there is no such thing as a multi-racial community. We do not see South Africa’s population as one large multi-racial population which constitutes a single community and in which there are first class, second class and third class citizens. We see South Africa’s population in its organically separate, natural communities, each of which has a right to an existence of its own and each of which has a right to the protection of its identity by the State. That is why we are introducing this legislation and that is why we can in fact also lay that charge, which was made by the hon. member for Houghton, at her own door, because that is also the basic view held by the party she represents. That all people will enjoy equality, is nothing but a front which is being put up. In their own view they still recognize the racial borders for representation in the Senate, for example. Unfortunately I have to conclude from that that the hon. member for Houghton makes these statements in order to represent the Government’s legislation in such a way that the Government is presented to the world in an unpleasant, disagreeable and inaccurate light. If the hon. member for Houghton wants to be honest about these matters, she cannot lay the charge at our door that this is not the basic view held by this side of the House. It is unfortunate that she also used terms such as “a sick obsession with race and colour”, and said that we in South Africa will not be accepted as a “mature and civilized country” as long as we are indulging in that.

Order! The hon. member for Umlazi must stop mumbling.

The statement was made that as a result of these matters, South Africa was not a mature and civilized state. If that is true and if we have to become mature and civilized as a result of the views held by the hon. member for Houghton, with the disastrous effects it entailed in the rest of Africa and the world, then I should very much like to be known to the world as being immature and uncivilized. We have seen that type of civilization and maturity in the Congo as well as in the rest of Africa. That type of civilization and maturity we should rather keep out of South Africa. If the hon. member for Houghton thinks that that type of civilization and maturity will be accepted here in the name of maturity and civilization, without a blow being struck, she is making a big mistake.

I want to ask the hon. member to return to the Bill. I have allowed him a great deal of latitude to reply to the hon. member for Houghton, but I think he should return to the Bill now.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have just finished replying to her. The principle of classifying people on the basis of personal appearance and acceptance by the community, was laid down in this Population Registration Act. No fault can be found with that. That is also the method followed by convention, by tradition and by direction in South Africa, and this method of classifying people was followed long before the Population Registration Act came into operation. In this Bill which we have before us now, these concepts of acceptance by the community and personal appearance are merely being defined further. The requirements to be complied with, are set out clearly. Descent is being added to these requirements. Nothing is wrong with that, either. Not one of the requirements set in this Bill is foreign to convention in South Africa. Each of these requirements which are to be complied with, as set out in this Bill, is the conventional, unwritten requirement as it has existed and applied in South Africa for years. But I want to lay this at the door of the Opposition: they are nevertheless trying to describe this Bill in the most excessive and vicious terms possible. On Friday the hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred to this measure as “vicious, cruel, terrible”. The hon. member for Wynberg used the words “sickening humbug”. The hon. member for Port Natal called the Bill “wicked”. Why is this measure being described in these terms? I say that there is not a single provision in this measure, which is being criticized by the Opposition, which is in conflict with South African conventions. The hon. member for Durban (North) is chuckling. I challenge him to mention me a single provision in this Bill which has been criticized by the Opposition so far and which does not also represent the conventional views held in South Africa. Mention me a single provision which is in conflict with South African convention.

I shall show you many.

I challenge the hon. member to do so. As a matter of fact, the Opposition is not criticizing the Government and this measure. What they are doing, is to reject and to ridicule the recognized rules of life, the recognized conventions in regard to these matters.

Let us look at the Opposition’s terms of abuse—because one cannot call them anything else—against the background of the actual contents of this Bill, and let us start with section 1 to which they objected so strongly. Paragraph (a) or clause 1 (2) of the Bill reads as follows—

The hon. member for Houghton said, “We will be the laughing stock …” But is it not a fact that Mr. Justice Diemont said that these are also factors which should be taken into account? In deciding on the appearance of a person, one does not only look at his features and his physique, but also judges the person as a whole. I am telling the hon. member for Durban (North) again that this is also the conventional way, that these are also the conventional norms according to which people are being classified at present and have also been classified in the past. I am telling him that nothing is the matter with that. As a matter of fact, I shall go so far as to say that it will be wrong to try to classify a person in South Africa if all those factors are not taken into account. It will be unrealistic.

The factors which are mentioned in this Bill?

The factors I read a moment ago, namely those contained in the new section 1 (2) (a). I read them very clearly, if he wanted to listen. I say that it is something in respect of which we need not fear that we shall be ridiculed. The same can be said of paragraph (c) which was also attacked by that side and which reads as follows—

1. (i) is ordinarily resident;
2. (ii) is employed or carries on business;
3. (iii) mixes socially or takes part in other activities with other members of the public …

After all, these are the most obvious norms. In referring to the acceptance of a person by the community, such acceptance should, after all, rest on these facts. These are the obvious norms. After all, the point at issue here is the way in which a person is generally accepted. How can a person be generally accepted as a White person, if he is not accepted as White where he is ordinarily resident, where he is employed and where he ordinarily mixes socially? Surely, it is ridiculous to say that a person should be generally accepted as a White person if he may not be tested against those criteria. After all, these are the criteria which have conventionally been used in South Africa all these years for carrying out this test.

Why did they not form part of the 1962 Act?

They were not considered necessary in the 1960 Act, because it was thought that these things would not be abused … [Interjections.] In his introductory speech the Minister referred to the way these things were used and abused.

Who abused them? [Interjections.]

Order! What private debate is being carried on there?

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Durban (North) is apparently going to speak …

It seems to me as though the hon. member has already spoken.

… and now I want to ask him whether these provisions I have just read, namely the provisions contained in paragraphs (a) and (c) of the new section 1 (2) in which acceptance and appearance are being defined more closely, are the provisions which were described by the Opposition as being “terrible, cruel, vicious, harsh …” Are these the provisions which were described by them in that way? If these are not the provisions which they described in that way, which provisions did they describe in that way? As the hon. member for Durban (North) will know, the position before the introduction of the Population Registration Act in South Africa was such that title deeds, for instance, contained provisions to the effect that certain pieces of land might only be occupied by Whites. Does the Opposition now want to suggest that the requirements set in paragraphs (a) and (c)—to which I have already referred —namely in connection with acceptance and appearance, have not been the conventional requirements all these years, for instance, in cases where title deeds prohibited the occupation of certain pieces of land by Coloureds? Do they want to deny that these have been the conventional requirements in such cases all these years? In all those cases all these things I read out to you from this measure were conventionally taken into account in determining whether there would be compliance with the conditions attached to the title deed. Does the Opposition want to suggest that these things were vicious, wicked, cruel and terrible—the words used by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition? Do they want to say that it is like that because convention in South Africa set those requirements? I say, Sir, that the formulation of the requirements as set out in this measure, is not in a single respect in conflict with the convention in South Africa according to which this classification has been done all these years and according to which it is still being done at present. If this formulation is being attacked and rejected by the United Party in the terms in which the Leader of the Opposition, the hon. member for Wynberg and the hon. member for Port Natal have done so, then they are not so bitterly opposed to this Bill, but then they are fighting the convention in South Africa according to which the Whites have always maintained their identity, something about which we, according to the hon. member for Houghton, need not really be concerned. They want to destroy those very things by means of which the Whites have always maintained their identity.

The abusive language used by the Opposition in respect of this measure, is not genuine. The Opposition knows that the provisions of this Bill are based on the recognized norms and conventions of society. If the Opposition opposes the provisions of this piece of legislation, they are rejecting the norms and conventions of society by means of which the White man has maintained his identity. The essential attitude adopted by the Opposition amounts to the fact that there should be continuous re-classification, re-classification from Coloured to White. That arises from the entire political view held by the United Party. The Leader of the Opposition has repeatedly said, and I am quoting his words, “The Coloureds should gradually be accepted as part of the White group.” It was written into their race federation plan that the Coloureds should gradually be accepted as part of the White community. How will they succeed in that, unless they do it this way? The United Party wants to make use of the provisions of this legislation, as it reads at present, to promote its political aims by getting the Coloureds gradually integrated with the Whites. That is why the United Party is so bitter in its opposition to this legislation, but instead of stating its actual objections, it suggests that this Bill is cruel and wicked, and it does that, as the hon. member for Primrose pointed out, in order that it may pose as the patron of people who are supposedly being exposed to such cruelties and injustice at the moment. I am telling the United Party that its history as regards these things will expose it to public contempt. Nobody will believe that it is acting here out of concern for those people. We know from its history that it acts for the sole purpose of furthering its political interests.

The basis of the approach of this side of the House is that race classification should be finalized for two important reasons—firstly, because it will contribute to good relations between the various ethnic groups. We have already said in the past that, if one wants neighbourliness, one must have clearly defined borders, borders which are recognized. If we do not finalize race classification, it is not possible for us to have clearly defined borders. Secondly, we want this finalized because it will help the Coloured people to gain for themselves an assured and permanent place in South Africa and to come into their own as a people, instead of always being taken in tow by politicians, such as the United Party, which want to give out that its future lies with the White people. The Coloureds will find their peace and their place and will come into their own as a people, if they know they have to find these things in themselves. This side of the House will not stand by and see this legislation used to further the integrationist aims of the United Party.

You are talking nonsense.

For that reason the United Party should really not try to cast suspicion on this legislation and to bedevil race relations and relations among population groups in South Africa by means of the cries it uttered here under the delusion that it might be to their advantage.

I have no intention of replying to the hon. member for Innesdal because, with due respect to the Chair, the hon. member spoke about the United Party and not about the Bill. But in view of the fact that the hon. member suggested that the United Party was opposing this Bill for political reasons, I would point out to him that the number of persons affected by it is becoming so small that they will be no decisive factor in politics in South Africa. We are dealing with a measure which makes it virtually impossible for people to cross the colour bar. One asks oneself what is the reason for the introduction of this Bill. I think the reason is quite clear. A previous Minister of the Interior, Senator De Klerk, referred to the case of a Chinese person who had himself declared White on the basis of association, and I remember very well the words used by the previous Minister with regard to that case. He said: “He may have won the court case, but in course of time he will find that he is the loneliest man in all South Africa.” That makes one think that this Government has taken over an old proverb from the Japanese, namely: “Do anything to a person but never let him lose face.” This Government feels that as a result of some court cases it has lost face, and that is why it is introducing this legislation. What other reason can there be? So far the Act has functioned quite well. Sir, we heard some strange things from newcomers to this House this afternoon. The hon. member for Primrose pointed a provocative finger at the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and said that the late General Smuts never went as far as the Leader of the Opposition; that General Smuts never said, like the Leader of the Opposition, that one could draw no definite dividing line between the races. Is the hon. member such a novice in politics or is tie merely being mischievous? If I read the evidence to him, will he have the chivalry to get up in this House and admit that a previous leader of his also said that? I am not merely referring to General Smuts and General Hertzog; I am referring to the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education. Moreover, I am also referring to the father of one of our present Senators, Senator Van Rensburg, namely Mr. C. van Rensburg, who was a respected member of this House for many years and of whom the “purified” Nationalists wanted to make a scapegoat at that time because of a letter he wrote in the Volksblad in which he said that he had undertaken research and had found that one of the first marriages contracted in this country was between a White citizen and a female slave by the name of Eva. We know about the meetings of protest that were held at the time in this connection. Mr. Speaker, through the centuries the mothers and the wives of South Africa have kept the Afrikaner people White. There was never any need to keep a studbook. In recent years there have been cases where people stepped across the colour bar, and it did not harm South Africa in any way. If people are to be classified on the basis of descent only, there are very few people in this House who will be classified as Whites. [Interjections.] Of course that is so. The hon. the Minister is not prepared to say what percentage White blood one needs in order to be classified as a White, and through this Bill the Government is closing the small loopholes which make it possible for people to be reclassified as White in cases where they have been accepted as White by society. Sir, this is not a popular thing to say, but I am not speaking for the sake of popularity; this is the truth, and truth comes first.

Who wrote that book—Eva?

I want to caution that hon. member; he should take care, or I shall read a little story to him. Sir, we are dealing with a human problem and the hon. the Minister will find that he will land in one difficulty after another.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, if the hon. member asks me a question, I am going to get angry and then I am going to read things which I should not read. I am in a particularly good mood this afternoon, and I do not want to do that.

What is the title of the book?

It is the genealogical book written by Hoge. The hon. member may consult it in the library. I am not going to read what is written in this book, because then people would become angry with me, and I am in a remarkably good mood this afternoon. It would have been strange if in the past three centuries there had been no cases of people crossing the colour line. I am pleased that the hon. the Minister of Immigration is present; he may tell the House how we fought against the purified Nationalists at that time; he may tell the House how we had to repudiate one pamphlet after another by the purified Nationalists; he may tell the House that matters came to such a pass that the man who designed the so-called “basterplakaat” eventually shot himself in Pretoria.

On what clause are you speaking now?

There are several cases of “upbred” Coloureds who were accepted in white society, and it did not harm the white man in South Africa in any way. I know of some cases of people who are at present running like hares before the hounds to evade classification, people who are white for all practical purposes and who are in fact white people. I do not believe the percentage of Coloured blood in then is higher than 10 per cent. Under the existing Act such people still had an opportunity to be classified as white. Sir, if I may interrupt myself for a moment, there is at least one Cabinet Minister here who saw one of those persons, because I took the person concerned to him and told him: “What kind of laws are we making, in terms of which this person may marry a Native but not a white person?” I would gladly take the hon. the Minister to persons who find themselves in this position, if he has the heart and the compassion to meet such people. Who am I to want to undo the work of the Creator? The Creator himself said that he would visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, but never for all time, as this Government is doing. Sir, surely we cannot condemn and curse a person for all time.

Who is cursing him?

We cannot condemn and curse people for all time and yet call ourselves Christians. This legislation of his will land the hon. the Minister in trouble. In a moment I shall give the hon. the Minister some examples. Let him get up then and tell us what he is going to do in these cases. What is he going to do about a person who marries a Turk? Is he going to classify that Turk according to appearance or according to descent?

They are White.

No, not all of them. Long ago I heard from the hon. the Minister’s Department that the Turkish citizens were classified according to appearance and association and not according to descent. The hon. the Minister may tell me whether I am right. I ask the hon. the Minister: Is he going to classify a Turkish citizen who marries a South African girl according to appearance or according to descent? What is the hon. the Minister going to do about a Lebanese? No, the hon. the Minister will not reply. Let us get closer to the Minister’s own recipe. What is he going to do about a South African who marries a Brazilian? Is that person going to be classified according to appearance or according to descent? The hon. the Minister wants to close up loopholes by means of this Bill; let us close up all the loopholes, then. I know that a number of Brazilians have entered the country, and I have no objection to that; I welcome that. In most cases they are classified according to appearance. Is he going to classify Brazilians according to appearance or according to descent, for the purposes of this register? Will the hon. the Minister tell us what he is going to do? He should not produce a further amending Bill at a later stage. But I want to ask the hon. the Minister another question: Take the case of a person who has a Coloured identity card and who went to Canada, for example, for study purposes. For all practical purposes this person is white. She arrives in Canada and associates with white people. Let us presume that a white South African citizen, one of the Minister’s own officials, meets her there, and that she does not inform him that she is a Coloured. Supposing they were married and they had children. How would those children be classified if that official were transferred back to South Africa? Surely they are South African citizens. Let the hon. the Minister tell us what he is going to do in such cases. This Bill provides very clearly that where one parent is classified as a Coloured, the child will be classified as a Coloured. I challenge the hon. the Minister to institute prosecutions under the Immorality Act in such cases. He will not do that; I know the hon. the Minister; he is not as cruel as he pretends to be; he will not have the courage to do that. No law should be so inflexible that human errors cannot sometimes be forgiven. A law which is absolutely inflexible is a dangerous law, and I say this is a dangerous measure. I told the Minister that I had the utmost confidence in the judgment of the ordinary South African. The hon. the Minister and I know very well who is a Coloured and who is not. I shall bring the hon. the Minister hundreds of people who are still classified as Coloureds, but whom he will receive at home as Whites because he will not know that they are classified as Coloureds. I think the greatest honour is due to the white mothers of South Africa for the fact that they kept South Africa clean, but I also think that it is no blemish on the South African people that a certain percentage of the Coloureds have been absorbed by the white community.

What clause are you discussing now?

I do not always discuss religion, but as a Christian one sometimes has to speak about these things. I believe that it will be a sin if I condemned and rejected a person unto the third and the fourth and for all generations. Be it on the Minister’s conscience, but never on mine. I can assure him of that. No, we must be honest, and if we are Christians we should show it in our actions. Here we are telling the Coloureds what wonderful people they are and that they should be proud of their own, but what are we doing in this legislation? Those who are not White are Coloureds, and those who are not Bantu are also Coloureds. It now becomes the collecting point for all the flotsam and jetsam.

Order! That is in the principal Act.

No, it is in this Bill.

Order! The hon. member must not argue with me.

It is written here that a person who is not a white and who is not a Native shall be regarded as a Coloured. I shall read the clause that provides that.

The hon. member is taking a chance.

If you look at clause 1 (2) (a), Sir, it provides —

This is not a frivolous section; it is serious. I say that this Act now provides that a person whose parents are both accepted as Coloureds becomes a Coloured. If there is just a tinge of Coloured blood in a White, he becomes a Coloured, and if there is a tinge of Coloured blood in a Bantu, he also becomes a Coloured. There you have the Coloured nation of the future. If the Minister had had so much to do with such cases as we have, people who could not cross the colour bar, and if he had a heart in him, he would be in sympathy with these cases. I want to give him some examples of people who will no longer be able to pass. I had the case of the sister of one of the foremost people in the country, who was classified as a Coloured. When it was still somewhat easier, before the 1960 Act was passed, that person was reclassified without the humiliation of having to go to an appeal court, and nobody was any the wiser about the matter. If I were to tell you to-day—which I will never do —from what family she comes, you would be startled. But it was corrected administratively in Pretoria, and I am grateful for that. You will recall a previous occasion, Sir, when this Government was attacked on the cruelty of the classifications, and then I got up and said that I wanted to make it known to the world that the Government exercised its powers and carried out the classifications in all Christian decency, and I said that I had not come across one case of a person who was classified into a group other than the group into which he asked to be classified. I said that I was grateful for that, and the Minister got up and said that he was pleased that I had said that about his Department. I also came across a case of a person who had thought that she was White and was then classified as a Coloured, and then she wanted to marry a white person, and after all the trouble she encountered she went and committed suicide at Kommetjie, with the request that her body should at least be classified as White in order that she might be buried with her beloved. These are not trivialities. There is no necessity for this legislation at this stage. It is not as though the Act is being abused in thousands of cases. I should like to see the Minister return to the original Act, and then I should be glad if he could eliminate those pinpricks administratively, which he had the power to do previously and which his predecessor did in fact correct. All those of us who have had dealings with these matters know the humiliation those people have to suffer; it is something terrible. But what does one do about this upbred white person who is white for all practical purposes? The Minister knows that there are such cases. There is not one district in the Cape where one does not encounter such cases, and also in many other parts. I feel I do not want to have a share in this kind of legislation, because I would be ashamed to have future generations say that I voted for an Act of this nature. Yes, there are still people who have enough Christianity not to want to hurt other people deliberately. It is all very well to sit here and to say: My great grandfather committed the offence, but your grandfather committed it; I am fortunate, because in 1951 my grandfather preferred to say that he was a white person, but your father was too stupid and said that he was of mixed descent. No, we cannot go on this way. I dealt with a case in Sea Point of a person who was the inheritor in an estate and could not claim the inheritance, and who could not take possession of certain land because the child was classified as a Coloured, although she was white for all practical purposes. But because she was then classified as belonging to another race group, she could not take transfer and she suffered great humiliation. She has also fled, and is at present living overseas. These things hurt and they are all unnecessary. One solves no problems. The miscegenation will continue just as before, despite the Immorality Act. You had the opportunity. Sir, in the 1951 Act, to put these matters right, and in ten or 15 years all these cases would have disappeared. Why introduce legislation that solves nothing, but that hurts so many people? I want to give the Minister another example. The hon. member for Primrose mentioned an example of a person who was classified as a White and who then had a black child. I do not know whether it is the same case as that which was recently reported in the Press.

No, it is not that case.

What is the Minister going to do in such a case, where the parents are white and the child is completely black? [Interjections.] There are bad white parents who associate with Bantu. If such a parent has a black child, it is of course correct that the child should be classified as a Bantu. But now we are going to judge according to descent, and according to descent a white mother must have a white child. What is one going to do if the child is black? In this case the father and the mother were both white.

That is what you think!

Roman-Dutch Law provides that a mother cannot give birth to a bastard. The Minister has had experience of that, because he once had trouble with an Indian child who had to enter the country on the basis of this very principle. I do not know what problems the Minister is going to encounter in such cases. Such a child, whose father is a Bantu but who has a white official father, will have to be classified white. [Interjections.] No, we must not be childish. All we are doing is to create an opportunity for mischief-makers and for enemies of our people to start a witch-hunt against any white person in this country. What are we going to achieve by that? Will the Minister be happier if someone gets up here, as the hon. member for Primrose said, and wants to set the whole world on fire because the Leader of the Opposition had said that one could not draw a definite line? We should not waste our time on such politicizing. I thought we were grownup people, and in particular I thought that these people would say that we are Christians. I do not want to preach to the Minister, but I just want to ask him this: What does he believe Christ would have done in this case? If we believe, as we do, that all human beings are descended from one couple, Adam and Eve, where is the necessity for this law? [Interjections.] I hope the criterion the Minister will set himself will be this: What would Christ have done if he had a say in this matter? I am not ashamed of measuring my actions by those of Christ, although I may perhaps be a poor Christian. [Interjections.] I am not hawking anything. I am merely asking the Minister in all honesty and sincerity to set this up as the criterion, and if he feels the way I do, then I beg him to withdraw this legislation, which can only hurt and which cannot achieve any good.

The hon. member for Sea Point spoke very emotionally here—like a lay preacher, but with the voice of an American singing idol. Let us approach this matter in a very calm, cool and collected way and let us consider what criteria are now being laid down for race classification. In this amending legislation three criteria are being laid down. The first of these is that it is no longer descent according to blood-relationship, but descent according to classification—in other words the question—as what are the parents classified?—is being asked. This does not necessarily imply a witch hunt to find out which one of those parents was a Coloured or a Bantu. The question which is going to be asked, is simply: “How were the parents classified?” When mention is made here of the “parent” of a person, then what is meant here is the natural parents, and not what the hon. member for Sea Point professed. He referred to a white couple from whose marriage a Black child had been born, or at any rate where the presumption exists that that Black child was born out of that marriage. This Bill states that it must be taken into consideration who the natural parents of a person are and how those natural parents are classified. It is not therefore a witch hunt which is going to be set in motion with the purpose of determining how much white or how much non-white blood there was in the far distant forebears, it will merely be a question of what their classification was. There are good reasons for this classification being introduced on the basis of the classification of the parents. In 1950, when this legislation was introduced for the first time, certain criteria were laid down in accordance with which people in South Africa had to be classified. Since then 17 years have elapsed and that means that the children of those people who were classified in 1950 have to be classified to-day. What we are now doing, is to use the classification of the parent in 1950 as a basis for the classification of their children to-day. In this way all the so-called “hard-cases” are being eliminated, and the question will not even arise. In 1950 the parent was classified on the basis of his acceptance by the community. Since then he has been living and moving in a certain group—amongst the Whites, amongst the Coloureds or the Bantu community, as the case may be. There are not many of the so-called “hard cases” left therefore. Hence this new criterion for classification on the basis of descent, descent not according to blood-relationship, but according to classification.

Let us see this entire matter in its correct perspective. In 1950 the only criterion was acceptance. At that stage the entire population of South Africa had to be classified— every population group. Up to that date there had been no classification in South Africa. A criterion had to be found, and the criterion which was then decided upon was that of acceptance—in other words, the question of whether a person was accepted by the community either as a white, or a Coloured or a Bantu, etc. A person could walk into any community and that community would very quickly say to what group that person belonged. All population groups were then classified according to that criterion. In due course, however, that criterion no longer served its purpose. In 1962 another criterion had to be sought. It arose as a result of the allegations of a Chinaman named Song. Song submitted a number of sworn statements from Whites in which they had stated that Song was accepted as a white. That meant that if the measure of 1950 was applied to Song he would have had to be classified as a white. The legislation of 1962 was then introduced to prevent cases of that nature occurring, and also because we were aware of the fact that certain people, particularly members of the United Party—let me emphasize this—had tried to smuggle people across the colour bar. Those people collected sworn statements to the effect that a certain person was accepted as a white in order to get that person certified as a White. It has always been the policy of the United Party in South Africa to break down the colour bar we are trying to build up because they do not believe in separate development but in integration. That is why it became necessary for us in 1962 to lay down a second criterion, namely that apart from acceptance appearance would also be applied, together with acceptance, as a criterion, because a person may appear to be a white while he is not yet accepted as a white, or he may be accepted as a white, like Song was, but does not have the appearance of a white person.

But now it has become essential for us to lay down a third criterion. It is accepted by the court that if a person has associated with Whites for a period of five years or even less, and has the appearance of a white person, he may be classified as a white person. What have those people who want to break down the colour bar and who support the United Party now done? Those people, who have the appearance of white people, are taken away from the milieu in which they lived and taken to the Free State, or the Transvaal for example where they are circulated for five years as a white person. After that they are smuggled in through the back door as a white person. Hence the need for this third criterion, namely the classification of his parents.

It need not be for five years.

Six months are sufficient.

Yes, it need not be for five years. If a person can produce the necessary sworn statements after six months he can at that stage already obtain the desired classification.

Hon. members on the opposite side are now saying that we are damning and condemning them for all time. Why are they now talking so much about damnation and condemnation? That is not our view of the matter. I think a Coloured ought to be proud to belong to the Coloured group, the white man proud to belong to the white group, and the Bantu proud of being a Bantu. If hon. members on the opposite side had this approach, i.e. that each population group must retain its own identity, then there is nothing wrong or condemnatory in being classified into one’s own group. Just consider the endless hardships which the United Party are going to create through their system of continually smuggling people across the various colour lines, with little children who do not belong in those particular groups as an after effect. What suffering and hardship does that not create? The very thing we want to do is to eliminate that hardship and suffering. We want to establish certainty in regard to this matter. We do not want to continue with this creeping integration, as it has been described. That is the only way in which the United Party will have its policy implemented in South Africa, i.e. by way of creeping integration. In no other way will they have their policy of integration accepted in South Africa.

I come now to an allegation made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, an allegation to which I want to take the strongest exception. This is what he said: “The Minister wishes to close off this human stud-book which he has tried to create in South Africa. He wants to abolish the appendix, because he knows what I mean. He has been the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services. He wants to close off the appendix and the stud-book. He wants to abolish the appendix.” Let us consider for a moment what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition meant with that statement. Do you know what the “appendix” to the studbook association is? That is what they call in Afrikaans the “aanhangsel” to the stud-book. In that stud-book only pure-bred animals which are the progeny of a long series of pure-bred ancestors are entered. The grade animals are entered in that appendix to the stud-book. It is in that section that the highbred animals which have to be bred up so as ultimately to be included in the stud-book are entered. I maintain that it is a gross insult, that it is a disgrace that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition should degrade and denigrate the human dignity of the citizens of South Africa in this way by comparing it to an appendix of an animal stud-book association. It is high time he was called to account in regard to this matter. We do not see South Africa as a multi-racial nation, but as a country in which there are different peoples living side by side, each of which have the right to its own identity, to develop itself according to its own ability. We believe that each population group should be able to develop itself so as to realize its own greatest characteristics, its own purpose and reach its own destination. Seen from that point of view, it is no disgrace to be a Coloured. Why does the hon. member for Wynberg speak so disparagingly of Bonteheuwel, and of “being condemned”? Is it not merely snobbishness on the part of that side of the House? Do they think that only the Whites are privileged? If one is a Coloured, it is one’s privilege to be one, and one can be proud of the fact. If one is a Bantu, it is one’s privilege to be one, and one is proud of the fact. That is also the case as far as the Whites are concerned. Why must they always think that the Whites belong in the stud book and the rest are all inferior? We do not regard the different population groups in South Africa in the sense of one being superior and the other inferior, we regard them as being equal, with each population group having its own intrinsic human value.

The individuals as well.

Yes, the individuals belonging to those population groups as well. We think it is a disgrace to detract from the intrinsic human value of those individuals by removing them from the group to which they naturally belong and wanting to conduct them across the so-called dividing line into another group. That is where the injustice comes in. It is when one does that kind of thing that one is really detracting from the intrinsic human value of the individual. These kind of people think that only they are the select and that being white means that one is a member of the chosen race, and that all who are non-white are inferior. For that reason then such people must be “classified up”. We reject that idea with the contempt it deserves. That is why I am so sorry the hon. member for Sea Point spoke about the “up-breeding”. We are not engaged in an up-breeding programme in South Africa. That relates only to stock farmers, a topic which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is able to discuss. But we are not dealing with that. We just want to see to it that everyone belongs to the group to which he should belong.

The hon. member for Sea Point also said that the Act affects so few people that it can serve no political purpose. That is a superficial view. To approach everything from a political point of view is not our way of doing things. We have no political motives in carrying through these affairs. We would like to establish the purity of every population group in South Africa. Once we have done that, we want to eliminate this racial mixing.

The hon. member for Houghton said that I should help her in my speech in regard to her interpretation here this afternoon in regard to certain provisions of this new legislation. The first category are those people who will be classified according to the classification of their parents. They comprise the vast majority in South Africa. The second category, however, is going to refer particularly to people such as those mentioned by an hon. member. He asked in which group a Brazilian would be classified if he were to come to South Africa. In Brazil there are also different colour groups. There are also Whites and Coloureds. If such person were to come to this country, the other criterions will of course be applied, namely that of acceptance in the first place, and then the criterion of appearance. I also want to say a few words in regard to these two criteria, which are now being amended. It is not true, as the hon. member for Houghton wants to put it, that the courts have stated that what is now being provided through this legislation is an impracticable criterion. The courts merely ruled that under the previous definition of acceptance and appearance these factors could not be taken into consideration. The courts accepted appearance simply and solely as a visual test and consequently we have now deemed it necessary to make use not only of a visual test but, as the Board recommended, to add other factors, namely the factors of habit, education and speech. I must say that the English translation of the word “opvoeding” namely “education”, is not the correct translation, is not the correct word. The Afrikaans word “opvoeding” includes far more than mere learning. The fact that somebody has passed Std. IX or X will not determine whether he is a Coloured or a White, but his “education”, the background in which he was brought up, is really going to be a good criterion in determining whether or not he is a Coloured. In the same way the speech, the general demeanour and the conduct are all being taken into consideration. Those are factors which are now being added because we cannot let the visual test alone suffice. The courts have stated that they did not find that test an adequate one. Judge Diemont stated in his ruling that he did not find that test a sound one. The legislative body must have clearer definitions as to whether it wants the other factors taken into consideration. That is why we are now adding these other factors to this definition which we are giving of appearance. In other words, we must assist the courts in the difficult task which they have when these cases come before them.

The same applies in regard to the test which we have now established for acceptance. I have already mentioned the difficulty, i.e. where a person is not accepted here in Cape Town as a white person, since he is too well known here, he then goes to the Transvaal for six months. He has the appearance of a white person. He then moves in white circles for six months, or even for five years, and obtains the necessary statements in the Transvaal to the effect that he has been accepted as a white person. In this way he is then classified as a white person. That can still happen under the present test. Now we are making that impossible. Where that person was normally resident, where he normally rendered his services or did business, and where he mixed with other members of the public on a social level, are all factors which now have to be taken into consideration in order to make this test a more effective one. I really do not think that it is necessary to carry on in the way the hon. member for Green Point did this afternoon when he spoke about arbitrary separation and about this “vicious” Act. This legislation has been introduced with the very intention of eliminating all that unpleasantness. It is being done so as to eliminate this idea of trying for White, this continual crossing and recrossing of the colour bar. We want to put an end to this question of a man not being proud of the group in which he has been classified and continually trying to cross the colour bar.

The hon. member for Green Point also said that the former Minister who dealt with the Act in 1962 had said that the criterion of acceptance and appearance was fundamental and that, to him, the test of descent was not fundamental. Surely that is not so. What the hon. the Minister said at that time was that the criteria which he had laid down at that time were fundamental, and that descent was not a criterion and that it was consequently not fundamental to him at that specific moment. Now that we are putting the “secretary” in the place of the “public” another classification can be made. If wrong classifications are made, they can be channelized through the Secretary and he can make the reclassifications. In this way this evil of third parties, these third-party people who all want to have classifications made and in that way try and get people across the colour bar, is now being eliminated.

I really do not think it is necessary to label this measure as vicious. Let us consider the matter soberly and calmly because we are dealing here with a difficult question, a question which has to do with human relations. Where we have to deal with human relations, let us help each group to develop an innate pride. Let us build it up. But we will not be able to build it up, this pride in belonging to a population group, with its associate group spirit, by continually trying to smuggle somebody or other across the colour bar.

Mr. Speaker, we have become used to the fact that the hon. member for Heilbron makes wild statements without substantiating them. In the course of the observations I want to make, I shall reply to his frivolous charge that the United Party virtually has an organization to drag people across the colour bar.

That is true.

It is nonsense. If he believed what he said, he should have produced proof. But the hon. member could not produce one proof. The hon. member was right in one respect only, and that was when he said that there was nothing wrong about classifying a man in the “right group”. Quite correct—there is nothing wrong with classifying a man in the right group. That is what this debate is about, that is what we are concerned about, namely to see to it that justice shall be done and that if people are to be classified in terms of the existing Act, they shall be treated equitably and be classified in the correct group.

You want to make the two groups one.

I shall reply to the hon. the Prime Minister.

You want to make the two groups one.

That is just as wild a statement as that made by the hon. member for Heilbron. The two groups are not one and they will never become one, nor will the United Party ever be able to make them one, even if it wants to. We have different groups in South Africa and they will always be there—it will never be possible to change that.

You are doing your utmost to change it.

That is just as wild a statement, and coming from the Prime Minister it is even more shocking than the statement by the hon. member for Heilbron.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No—I have not even started properly. Give me a chance to get into my stride. When the hon. member for Parow took part in the debate on Friday, he said the reason why the Opposition opposed this Bill was that it was actually opposed to the entire principle and concept of race classification. The hon. member is quite right. It is true that this side is opposed to the concept of race classification. We find it foreign and unnecessary and contrary to the civilized norms of the times in which we live. But it does not come within the ambit of this debate to discuss the principle of compulsory classification now; we cannot take it into review now. It was enshrined in legislation in 1950. The Bill we have before us relates to the manner, the procedure and the definition by which classification shall be carried out, and I think this side is entitled to consider what effect this measure will have if the new procedure, the new principle which is being introduced particularly in respect of descent is accepted in this legislation.

Now if all of us in South Africa had enjoyed the same rights and privileges, or even equal rights, it would not have mattered very much what method of classification we adopted. Then the hon. member for Heilbron could have said that every man should be proud of what he is. But as things are, it is very easy for a White to say: “Coloured, you should be proud of the fact that you are a Coloured.” He has reason to be quite satisfied with what he himself is, but under the circumstances prevailing in South Africa there are specific disadvantages for the man who is a Coloured, disadvantages of which he has no reason to be proud. He cannot be proud of the fact that he always has to enter at the back-door, which is the case as far as the Coloured is concerned. Why should he be proud of that? That is why I say that if we all had equal rights it would have made no difference whatsoever whether we used the new method or adhered to the method laid down in the principal Act.

As it is, the white man has through the years created for himself, by means of legislation, a status and a position of convenience, privileges, opportunities for work and income, which imply that we should be very careful. I think that we as Whites are duty bound to think twice before we adopt any measure which may place a man in the wrong group. That is what this side is concerned about. We have no objection to the fact that a man is in his proper place. But before we fling a man into the wrong group, even if only in one case, we should consider it our duty to think twice.

Just to show how fundamentally it affects a man’s life if he is thrown into the wrong group, I want to read a report which appeared some years ago in Dagbreek (10/6/62), the paper of which the hon. the Prime Minister is the chairman. The report appeared on the front page and read as follows (translation)—

I shall not read the name—

The report then tells of how she discovered that she was a White and continued—

This is how the Government Press sees the transformation from Coloured to White, as a transformation from a “dark life” to the light, as a radical change. And we know that that is so. That shows what a duty we have to think twice whether it is justified before we adopt a measure which may throw even one man to the wrong side. I do not think I need read any more from this report. I have quoted enough to show what a crying injustice it would be if a man who has been accepted as a White is forced by the new Act to go and live on the dark side of the line; and this is what we believe this Bill will do to numerous people in South Africa, and that is why we oppose it. Many people who are generally accepted as White and who live as Whites, but who are nevertheless uncertain when it comes to the question of descent, may perhaps in 1951, when the census was taken, or in respect of other forms completed by them, have indicated their race differently if at the time there was a definition of “White” and of “Coloured” on the form.

Many of the problems we are facing at present would then not have arisen. If one asks a man to indicate on a form what his “race” is, one should show him the legal definition and tell him: “This is the official definition of ‘white’; if you comply with this definition, you should indicate whether you are white”. If the correct guidance had been given, many of the complex problems we are facing to-day would never have arisen. The existing definition favours those who have a tenuous link across the colour bar but who are rooted in white society. Appearance and general acceptance are overriding in terms of the existing Act, and I think that was as close to fair as one could come. The administration of that was not always equitable, but the definition on which the classification was based was as close to fair as one could come, because it was in accordance with our traditional basis of separation.

The fact that now, after 300 years, ours is a vital white nation, is not to be attributed to a classification act or amendments such as these. It is not due to the fact that our parents or forefathers carried cards indicating their descent. There was race classification and there were border-lines, but the border-lines were lines of custom, and the classification was natural. It was a classification carried out by the people and not by the Government. It was founded—like the existing Act—on acceptance. A white was a person who was generally accepted as a white. When race classification was placed on the Statute Books in 1950, as a branch of population registration, this Parliament decided that it wanted to adhere as closely as possible to the tradition of South Africa, namely classification by the people, classification on the basis of acceptance and appearance. Parliament could not accept descent as a criterion from the outset. Why did it not do so? Why did not Parliament accept descent as a criterion from 1950? Why have 17 years had to pass before the Government produced this measure?

There was no classification then.

If one consults the debates, it is clear that Parliament deliberately avoided descent as the criterion for classification. Parliament has always steered clear of the principle of descent as a criterion for classification, and there are various reasons for that. One of the major reasons is the fact that the Western world, to which we belong, is particularly sensitive to all forms of race classification, but when it comes to classification according to descent, as provided in this Bill, the blood rises to people’s heads; then they think automatically, whether we like that or not, of another country where people were classified according to descent …

Order! The hon. member is going too far; he must return to the Bill.

I am dealing with the question of descent, which is a new principle in the Bill.

Order! The hon. member must accept my guidance.

You may rest assured that I shall not disobey your ruling. Here a new principle is introduced, namely the principle of descent as a criterion for classification, and I think I am entitled to explain why the criterion of descent should not be acceptable to this Parliament. Now, after 17 years, the Government comes along and does the very thing which it has avoided for so many years, and for good reasons; it now makes descent and the degree of mixedness an important element; so many drops of the wrong blood and you are, as Dagbreek put it, forced into the dark life. Mr. Speaker, I cannot conceive a more unwise step than this in the particular era in which we live. We are entering a delicate era in our relations with the rest of the Western world. We are subjected to a merciless spotlight, and it is a pity that at this juncture we should have a Government that fiddles with descent and thus once again draws the spotlight on our legislation on race classification by introducing these provisions.

Do you repudiate the accusation you made at the beginning?

The harmful effects of this are bound to come, and I shall go as far as saying that it is not merely careless and negligent on the part of the Government, but that I regard it as absolutely unpatriotic that the Government should produce legislation of this nature at this stage. If this Bill is passed, it will make the principal Act the skunk of the Government’s race legislation.

Order! The hon. member is not allowed to describe an existing Act in those terms. The hon. member must withdraw that word.

I said that if this Bill were passed, then the principal Act would become the skunk of the Government’s race legislation. I am not saying the principal Act is that now.

Order! The hon. member has no right to refer to the principal Act as a skunk. The hon. member must withdraw the word “skunk”.

Mr. Speaker, I did not say the principal Act was a skunk. I said that if this Bill were passed, the principal Act would become that.

Order! That does not matter; the hon. member must withdraw the word “skunk”. He is not allowed to use that word in respect of existing legislation.

But I never used it in respect of existing legislation. I shall then withdraw it. When the hon. the Minister introduced this Bill he became emotional about three things. He mentioned three reasons in particular why it had become necessary for him to introduce this measure. The first reason he gave was that certain provisions of the principal Act, as he put it, had been seized upon and abused by integrationists and liberalists, to have non-Whites declared Whites. That is a most extraordinary motivation for the Bill, because nobody in South Africa could have his classification changed without getting past either the Classification Board or the court. They had to pass either the Classification Board or the court. I believe that the principal Act, as it stands provided adequate guidance to the courts as to what their decisions should be, because in order to be classified as a white, the man had to be “generally” accepted as a white if his appearance was not obviously white. The emphasis came on general acceptance, not acceptance by one or two persons. He had to be generally accepted as a white and in general appearance he was not to be obviously not a white.

General acceptance, in conjunction with an appearance which was not that of a non-white imposes a very heavy burden on a man, as it encompasses the wide field of friendship, of school, of church and of sphere of employment. He really had to be generally accepted. I think that was clear guidance to any court and I shall go as far as to say that if the hon. the Minister advanced as a reason the fact that liberalists and integrationists exploited the Act to drag people across the colour bar, then the only interpretation I can attach to his statement is that he regards the Appeal Board and our courts as integrationistic and liberalistic. I consider that an unfair opinion of our courts, which have a very deeply-rooted tradition of fairness and justice, and which have always been one of the best anchors in South Africa’s complex situation. And the Minister’s lack of confidence in the fairness of any court to form a judgment in the final instance is one of the principal reasons why we oppose the Bill.

The second reason advanced by the Minister for introducing the Bill was that under the present conditions creeping integration (“sluipende integrasie”) was taking place. He said that several times, and the hon. member for Primrose and others repeated it, that creeping integration was taking place. If the Minister was referring to the thousands of hearings in terms of the Immorality Act, or if he was referring to all the fun and games at the Mount Nelson Hotel and the Arthur’s Seat Hotel, I would perhaps have understood him, but to represent the handful of people who got as far as the courts and whom the courts accepted as Whites as a process of creeping integration jeopardizing South Africa, reduces our race politics to the level of inanity.

The third reason advanced by the Minister was equally astonishing. He said that unless this legislation was passed, the Whites would be overwhelmed; the result would be the extinction of the white race. Sir, I have to say in all honesty that I do not like expressing it in such strong terms, but I have never heard greater rubbish than that in Parliament. Race classification has existed only a few years; it was adopted only the other day. A white nation has grown here and has achieved its present position without measures of this kind. But permit me to say that if our white nation is, as the Minister suggests, inherently so weak and so bad that it can survive only if this Bill is passed, then its identity is not worth-while preserving, because then it would be worth nothing. I do not think I need emphasize this any stronger. We reject the arguments of the Government as being arguments which offer an opportunity to people abroad to ridicule us. The millions, the masses, are clearly either on the one side or on the other side, beyond doubt. Here the issue is the lives of a limited number of people who through no fault of their own have become the victims of the situation prevailing in our country. I also want to tell the Minister this, that if this Bill is a matter of life or death to the Whites in South Africa, why does he not provide that it shall be applicable throughout South Africa? There are six members from South-West Africa in this House, and not one of them got up and said: Save us, because our white civilization will go under unless this Bill is made applicable to South-West Africa. No, they know that this thing is unnecessary. They know that the white does not need it; they know that it creates more problems than it solves, and that the arguments of the Minister are empty slogans. Would the Minister tell me that the white people in South-West are not flourishing? They are splitting their seams with affluence. There is no question of creeping integration or overwhelming there. They apply all their apartheid without these amendments, and even without the principal Act. There is not even a Population Register in South-West Africa, and they tell the world that they are the best and most peaceable corner of the earth. Well, I hope the Minister will explain to us why there is this anomaly, and why one part of South Africa should be excluded from the Bill, if he believes that white civilization will go under without the Bill.

I want to summarize. We are opposed to this Bill, in the first place because we regard it as inequitable. If it is passed, the position will be that no matter what position a man has achieved in life among the Whites, as long as one of his parents was branded somewhere in the past—no matter for what reason—as a person who was not purely White, then all his progeny will be cast out into the dark for all time, no matter how tenuous the link. We believe that the Minister did in fact have a duty, but it was his duty to amend the principal Act, not as he is doing to-day but in such a way that it could be applied with more sympathy and more humanity and with less haughtiness. Secondly, we are strongly opposed to the provisions in the Bill that relate to descent. I think it is a most unfortunate element to introduce in the legislation of our country. It gives the principle Act a touch which may best be described as overtones of the master-race concept. I think this is the worst possible thing that could have happened to our country at this juncture. I have handled a considerable number of these borderline cases, and just on the grounds of the cases I have seen—and they form only a small portion of the whole—it is my opinion that if this Bill is passed, it will wreak destruction in the lives of a considerable number of people. I know of people for whom it will mean loss of employment, loss of income, loss of property, loss of their place of residence, removal of their children from schools, isolation from their friends; and that is why we say that it is the height of inhumanity that purely because race has become a gilded calf, a Bill of this nature should be passed. Moreover, we regard this Bill as unnecessary and the arguments which have been advanced as devoid of all foundation. The best proof of the fact that it is unnecessary is the very fact that in a large part of South Africa, where the Whites prosper and flourish, they get along without the application of this Bill, and there is as yet no indication on the part of the Government that it considers it necessary to apply it throughout the country. Finally I have to say that we regard this measure as an affront to the part our courts have played until now in cases of this nature, and I therefore feel that we are fully justified in opposing it.

I should like to offer my apologies in advance to the House, but not to the hon. member who has just sat down, for daring to take a senior member of the Opposition to task. By the nature of matters it is embarrassing for anyone who realizes that he is a junior to have to speak to a senior member of a Party. But there is something which makes it necessary for me to do so, not only in the interests of the Party to which I belong, but certainly in the interests of South Africa, to which both the Opposition and I belong. And what makes it necessary for me to do so is the fact that a moment ago the hon. member brought the argument into this debate that this legislation would discredit South Africa before the world. I have heard that chorus several times from the hon. member who has just sat down—and I am only a novice here. Allow me to say from this side of the House, but also because I am convinced of the bona fides of many hon. members on the other side, and in fact would not doubt them, that this kind of statement, when a matter may be argued on its merits and when a person invested with the responsibility of the hon. the Minister has to listen to the merits of a case, is perhaps the greatest disservice one may do one’s fatherland and one’s Party, to drag in world opinion as the final judge of what one’s conscience should decide. Allow me to state emphatically that if what we are doing is reconcilable with the directions of one’s conscience and with our Christianity, of Which other hon. members also spoke, then the rest of the world may say what they please. I am not saying this provocatively, because I realize that ours is a small country and a small nation, but in the words of our Prime Minister and numerous others on this side, “A small country and a small nation also has its pride and its honour.” This Bill, founded on the principles of an Act which was adopted long ago, is not a Bill which fell out of the blue and was given to this House. The original Act and this amendment are legislation which grew from the heart of a nation and from the history of a country. You need not ask me for proof. The proof was also supplied by the Opposition members. It was mentioned by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, and I agree with him, that we have 300 years of history behind us which encompassed much joy and suffering and many good and bad things. This legislation grew from that, and from what the hon. member who has just sat down also referred to. After 300 years there are still a large number of Whites who regard their whiteness as a sacred heritage, and who still want to guard and preserve it.

But now I also have to mention the other side. If I were also to speak to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, for whom I have great respect, then I would ask this. There has been mention of 300 years of our history and of integration which took place here for 300 years. That may be true. 300 years passed in which soil erosion and other things also took place, and no laws were made about them. To-day, if it is necessary, we make laws of that kind. If 300 years of national erosion has been allowed, has the time not come to make some laws? If the hon. member on the opposite side says that there is no need to make such laws and asks what went wrong in the 300 years, then I just want to ask him: Let us forget for a moment about the borderline cases, which I agree with you are tales which touch one’s heart and arouse one’s pity. I want to ask you: If we consider the fact that no protection was given to the 1½ million Coloureds living under their present conditions, are they not the result of laissez faire politics followed through the years? These hard-luck stories we hear to-day—if there had been population registration at that time, and if these laws had been applied reasonably and equitably as we are applying them now, would there have been a problem? The Opposition should not say that this is a cruel law made by cruel people. I would ask these Opposition members who tell such emotional stories: Are they not at heart also people who are proud of their White heritage and of their White skins? If they are, as I know they are and believe they are, let us at least see to it that this White heritage is also preserved.

The hon. member who has just sat down asked some questions. In all modesty I shall try to answer them.

In the first place he put a few questions to the hon. the Minister which even I as a novice can answer, because I read the Minister’s speech. As the member said, the old Act contained the provision relating to a person’s acceptance by the community. He asked why it should be changed. Moreover, the hon. member considered it necessary to bring in the judgment of the court and our esteem for the Court. He said, and towards the end he repeated this: Does this Government not regard the court as a body qualified to judge? Now, I just want to read to the hon. member what the hon. the Minister said in his speech, which was available to all of us. With reference to the judgment by Mr. Justice Diemont, the Minister referred to the court proceedings. He quoted what Mr. Justice Diemont said when he heard a certain case. The judge said that certain prescriptions had been given to him and that the Act laid down certain prescriptions which unfortunately were not adequate to permit of a decision by a court. Then the court said, in the words of Mr. Justice Diemont, that the definition as provided, namely the criterion of general acceptability and general appearance, was not adequate to permit of a decision. The Judge pointed that out and in his speech the hon. the Minister dealt fully with the finding of Mr. Justice Diemont.

The hon. member asked where the creeping integration came in. If a responsible member of the Opposition can refer in the same breath to the creeping integration of the Mount Nelson and the Arthur’s Seat, I now want to ask: What happened at the Arthur’s Seat and at Mount Nelson that was worse than the infiltration of Coloureds into the White race? Can the hon. member tell the House and can he account for it outside if he says that the Government allowed creeping integration at the Mount Nelson and at the Arthur’s Seat? What is the hon. member referring to? If it is a reference to the meeting between the Prime Minister and people from abroad. I now want to ask the hon. member: Who is doing South Africa a disservice by remarks of that nature?

Finally, the hon. member asked where the amalgamation came in, of which the hon. the Minister was so scared. I read the speech by the hon. the Minister. I thought I had missed it, but I could not find it in the speech by the hon. the Minister. He did not speak of amalgamation and of the White nation being overwhelmed. I did not read that anywhere. Surely none of us has such fears.

We do have other fears. We do have justified fears of things which were proved in recent years. It is no use pretending now that this is the novel idea of a new Minister and that it is a novel idea which the Government has suddenly conceived. I should like to read to the Opposition from Hansard of 26th April, 1962. The hon. member for Parow then quoted the words of the Minister of the time. The hon. member for Parow said (Hansard, vol. 3, col. 4470)—

In 1962, the words of the erstwhile Minister, who spoke in 1950, were repeated in the House, namely that this criterion would eventually come. If we in fact consult Hansard, we shall see that the Minister warned at the time that these things were already taking place, things of which the present Minister has warned. The hon. the Minister said (Hansard, vol. 3, col. 4438)—

It is not this Minister who has just discovered that. There were warnings of it even at that time. In his speech on Friday the present Minister told you that since that 1962 Act the cases had doubled from one year to the next, and he envisaged that in future cases of this nature might increase even further. One thing becomes quite clear if one reads the records, and that is the change which has come about very quietly in the approach to this race problem in South Africa. And this legislation serves even further to complete the good progress which has been made and is still being made. It sounds like a long time, but it is only 17 years ago that in this House a prominent member, not of this side of the House, but of the United Party, said the following words: “Now White women will also have to carry passes like kaffir women.” Thank God that after 17 years we have made so much progress that that approach to problems has at least been shifted into the background to some extent. [Interjections.] Those were the words of the late Mr. Sarel Tighy, the then member for Florida. That is how it is recorded in Hansard. I am not referring to that to revive stale issues or to rake up old sores. I am merely referring to that to point out the positive progress that has been achieved. This positive progress cannot be valued too highly. Last year, when we were discussing a Budget Vote here, the hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also spoke of these Coloureds as a separate group, and said in reply to a question by the hon. the Prime Minister that they accepted racial separation. That—and these are the words of the hon. member for Yeoville—was not possible under the 1950 Act. Last year he admitted that there were in fact differences between the Coloureds and us.

So what?

So what? Who are the Coloureds whom you recognize? Are these borderline cases no longer recognized as Coloureds who differ from us? So what, you ask me? But I want to ask you, who are those Coloureds—are they the 20,000, are they the 10,000, the 60,000 affected by this borderline law? Who are the Coloureds whom the frontbenchers of the United Party admit are recognized as a separate group? I want to ask whether we have not reached the stage where amendments of this kind may be discussed purely on merit.

Then there are these cases which are held up to us, cases which are supposed to appeal to our emotions. I hesitate to speak of Christianity and matters of that kind, but this afternoon accusations of unchristianity were flung across the floor of the House. There was the case mentioned by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, of a person who suddenly discovered that she was a White. Now I want to ask him, if there had been a population register 40 years ago, and if that person had then been recorded in the birth register as a White, if she had attended a White school and had lived among Whites, would that pitiful story have been told? Have we not a duty to future generations to see to it that there will never be any need again to describe cases of that nature? The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said in his speech—

Here the plea is that all those children, i.e. from the first and the second marriage, should be classified as White. But supposing that man had first married a true native woman and subsequently a White woman. Should all the children from those two marriages then he classified as White? Why are these hard-luck stories selected, cases one wishes to handle with the utmost sympathy; sympathy because those children are innocent? Why are cases of this kind selected and elevated to the general rule in order to represent this Government as heartless? I say more of these cases may be mentioned. [Interjections.] If that hon. member tells me that he may mention more cases, then I may tell him that I have also dealt with such cases. But with regard to those cases 1 may also say, in the words of the hon. member for Primrose here in front of me, that they will be treated as sympathetically and compassionately as any hon. member on the opposite side can treat them. I would not like to deal any further with this type of case, because I do not want to bore you with them. Finally I just want to say this to the Opposition, that from this side of the House it has been said on various occasions what we envisaged as far as the Coloureds, the Bantu and the Whites in South Africa were concerned. As for the Coloureds, the hon. the Prime Minister said only last year that he could not yet see the end of the road, but that he merely indicated the course. He takes the hands of the Coloureds and leads them there. This measure is also intended to take the hands of the Coloureds and to lead them even further to national pride and to self-reliance, in order that they may no longer be ashamed of being Coloureds.

In his closing remarks the hon. member for Witbank indicated that the Government had sincere intentions towards the Coloured people and was, so to speak, taking them by the hand. However, they say sincerity alone is not enough. As a matter of fact, the inadequacy of the Government’s sincerity can be seen in the number of Coloured people who leave our shores because they feel there is not a sufficient future for them here.

But I should rather like to deal with another aspect mentioned by the hon. member; and I want to do that because I believe he, as so many other members of the other side, is confusing two things—they are confusing maintenance of the heritage of the Whites with the maintenance and continuation of a Classification register. The hon. member said that after 300 years a large number of Whites have succeeded in maintaining their whiteness and want to continue to do so. Right, that may be so, but does the hon. member suggest for a moment that in this whole time the very type of situation with which this Bill is designed to deal has not been taking place? The extent to which it is taking place is still very limited but it has been going on all these years amongst, no doubt, a small proportion only of the total population. A day or so ago we had figures from the hon. the Minister suggesting that the number of cases which are occurring can be counted in their hundreds. He said that there was a certain increase in these. Does he for a moment doubt that this sort of thing has been going on year after year since the beginning of time in South Africa, and are we any the worse for it? The fact is that these cases are so limited in number. We are proud of everything that has been built up, we are proud of the South African people—and here I think particularly of the White people—and this notwithstanding this process which may have gone on slowly.

I suggest that in this amending Bill we are concerned with whether we should now draw a much more rigid line between two sections of our people, whether we should in fact place a barrier where before there had been a line of very limited flexibility. The numbers show this. The numbers that have moved across, and are moving across, show that they are extremely limited. I want to suggest that in this amending Bill we are doing two things, in addition to those mentioned already. Certain people to-day, as the law stands, have the right to be classified as White people. To those people we are going to slam the door as it were, in their faces. Secondly, by virtue of this Bill I think that we are going to reopen a number of doors to the disadvantage of many people, because as I read this Bill, being retrospective as it is, and introducing the new criteria, it seems to me it may be necessary to reclassify many people who had already been classified under the old criteria. In the result the children of those people will indeed be uncertain of their classification. But before I get to that, I want to say that I think the hon. the Minister’s reasoning indicates that the Government have been stampeded here by a very insignificant number of cases. It is said that the law does not interest itself in small matters—-de minimis non curat lex. I believe that in this Bill the Government and the law are being brought and being used to take care, as I say, of small matters, of matters that would be called de minimis in the old Latin tag. This is what the minister said—

He said that it worked well, except where certain people in our community are attempting to abolish the colour line. Well, in the light of these limited figures, that is, at the very worst, a very minor force. I want rather to say that, whilst claiming no credit for this side of the House as was done by other hon. members of this House as regards particular assistance which may have been given concerning these matters, these people are almost certainly motivated by the best motives of humanity. Everyone knows that in South Africa to-day it is more advantageous to have certain classifications as against others, and one knows how one is approached for assistance in hard cases, and how one tries to help. It is in that spirit that this sort of work is done. As I say, and the numbers prove me right, that these cases are very limited in number indeed. Apart from the aspect of the limited numbers, the Minister said that this measure has worked well, and I regret, therefore, that the Government has been stampeded by these very few cases into coming with this measure, which is indeed harsh to those who are affected by it.

I mentioned certain people who have acquired rights to-day. As the law stands people satisfying certain qualifications and answering to certain criteria are entitled to be classified as White. What we are doing here now is, as it were, retrospectively to close the door to those people and deny them their rights. The retrospective removal of people’s rights is something against which this House would normally set its face. In this particular case I see no adequate justification for doing otherwise.

The hon. member for Prinshof, speaking in this debate, indicated that the citizen could, in fact, apply for a reclassification in terms of the Act. He said: “Die pad is wawyd oop om sy klassifikasie te laat regstel”—his road is wide open to have it changed. With respect to the hon. member, I fail to see anything in the Act as it now reads, or after its amendment, which indicates that this road is indeed wide open. A limited right only is given to the citizen to approach the Secretary for a reclassification. As I read this, the last word rests with the Secretary unless he has acted mala fide or has not exercised his discretion properly. The Act will read as is proposed now in clause 2. The new section 5 (4) will then read as follows—

There is therefore, in my submission, a very limited right indeed to the citizen himself to obtain a reclassification. As I say, only if he can show that the discretion is not properly exercised, that the Secretary perhaps acted mala fide or did not apply his mind to the problem, a reclassification might be possible. The serious aspect of the amendments to me is this, they throw the whole question of classification back into the melting pot to a large extent, so it seems to me. There is an obligation on the Secretary to maintain a correct register. To him is given the right, as I have read, to reclassify people. Now he is obliged, because this measure is retrospective, to have them classified and reclassified in accordance with the criteria which we shall be introducing when this Bill becomes law. In other words, where the old classifications from, 1950 onwards were done on the grounds of acceptance and appearance, now new and more stringent tests are being applied. It seems to me that the Secretary is not only free but perhaps even obliged to reclassify with these more stringent criteria in mind. If that is so then it seems to me that the position of very many people is thrown again into the melting pot. And instead of having greater certainty, which is doubtless the aim of this Bill, we still get uncertainty. I say this because of the following. I read to this House the circumstances in which the Secretary may alter a classification. Now he must consider the circumstances which are applicable when he does seek to reclassify a person. The new subsection (5) reads as follows—

1. (a) a person shall be classified as a white person if his natural parents have both been classified as white persons; …

I ask hon. member to note that he shall be white if both his natural parents have been classified as White. The subsection continues—

1. (b) a person shall be classified as a coloured person if his natural parents have both been classified as coloured persons or one of his natural parents has been classified as a white person and the other natural parent has been classified as a coloured person or a Bantu …

In other words, the situation is this. If any person’s parents are of two kinds, namely White and Coloured, then that person shall be Coloured. Now we must look at the possibility of reclassification of our parents. All of us in this House whose parents are alive or whose parents were classified under the 1950 Act are liable to find that the Secretary, with the application of new and more stringent tests which are now being introduced, including descent and other things, can classify one of our parents as a Coloured person. Once that is done our own classification falls away and we must ourselves be reclassified as Coloured people. In other words, it seems to me that in this way we are, by virtue of this amending Bill, throwing back into the melting pot classifications which were largely thought to be beyond the reach of anybody. The only classifications which are sacrosanct, as I understand the Minister and upon my reading of this Bill, are those which were made as a result of a decision of a board or a court. Those classifications, although made under the old criteria, are apparently to remain. That is good and well, Sir. But those of us who have not been classified by a board or by a court are liable to find ourselves or our parents being reclassified in terms of these new and stringent definitions. That, in turn, will affect our own classification.

So it seems, Mr. Speaker, that where this Bill is designed, as it were, to put an end to this matter and to close the particular chapter, indeed the whole book, the very opposite is being achieved if this measure is carried out, as it can be, in terms of its provisions. When one can add, in addition to the criticisms of and the points made on this Bill by this side, the two criticisms which I have mentioned, then it seems to me that this measure is opening a new chapter in this whole matter, one which will certainly not be in the interests of our country.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the hon. member for Pinelands with great interest and I want to pay him the compliment that he is one of the few members on that side, from the hon. the Leader of the Opposition right down to the most junior backbencher, who has gone into the merits of this amending legislation.

I want to deal immediately with the important point raised by the hon. member as regards third-party objections, of which, according to him, there is only a limited number. That may very well be the case. However, that is not the point. As the hon. the Minister pointed out in his introductory speech, the numbers are steadily increasing. In 1962 there was not one single case of a third-party objection, but in the succeeding years third-party objections increased by no less than 222. I want to point out that although these cases may be few in number, they afford a foothold to those who sabotage and undermine our traditional policy of separate development, and that is the point which is at issue here. They use these cases of third-party objections to try to frustrate our policy in an underhand way and to ridicule it in the eyes of the world. If they can prove that we cannot even classify the various races in this country, they may also contend that our policy, which is based on the population register, which is one of the corner-stones of our policy, has failed.

I simply cannot understand the Opposition’s attitude to this measure. After all, the reason for this legislation having been introduced is not to afford an opportunity to discuss the old principle again, as you have quite rightly ruled, Sir, but to give further proper effect to the existing Act of 1950. This main principle was approved at that time after a very hard struggle, which even included an all-night session. As I see the matter, it is not the duty of the Opposition to-day to fight that battle over again, or to rip up old sores, even if they do not like the principle of race classification. This principle has come to stay, and it has been confirmed with mounting and resounding majorities in one election after another. In this amending legislation we are dealing with the loopholes we have in the existing legislation. This legislation has only one object, namely to plug those loopholes as effectively as is humanly possible. The Opposition have only one task—and I make bold to say that only a few of them have fulfilled that task—and that is to advance arguments why these loopholes should not be plugged, or why they should, in fact, be plugged. But that they do not do. They prefer to stir up feelings once again over this whole question of race classification by making use of the back door and by acting in a completely irrelevant manner. We have again experienced this this afternoon, particularly through the mouth of the hon. member for Sea Point, who even dragged in the name of Christ to give substance to his political stink-bombs in this House.

Order! I should prefer the hon. member not to use that word.

I withdraw the word, Sir, and I say that he tries to substantiate his political propaganda in this House in that way. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout also spoke about “overtones of the master race”. All this was merely intended to stir up feelings against this measure.

The Opposition has also gone further trying to create the impression in a subtle manner that the Government is guilty of inhumanity. But they did not succeed. I took the trouble to find out over the week-end and this morning what the reaction in the public Press was and with a few exceptions there was virtually no major or violent reaction in the newspapers and certainly not in those which support the opposite side of this House. That shows us that the people of South Africa have accepted this principle long ago and that they welcome this measure, which has been introduced to make this Act function even better. It is for the very reason that the Government is aware of how delicate this matter is and that it has treated this matter with so much caution in the past that we have come with this amending legislation once again. In this measure “appearance”, “acceptance” by the community and “descent” are defined more closely and thereby the Government is seeking to eliminate the confusion which has been experienced up till now as regards interpretation. By opposing this measure hon. members opposite are trying to perpetuate the confusion which arose in the past as regards the interpretation of these three basic concepts, namely appearance, acceptance and descent. They want to do that because it suits them politically if confusion exists. The more uncertainty there is about the definitions of these three concepts in the Act the more difficulties and problems can arise and the more dissatisfaction can result. They want such dissatisfaction to exist for political reasons. One thing we may, however, say without any fear of contradiction about these concepts which are being defined more closely in this measure, is that they are now much clearer and less susceptible to uncertainty than they were before. That is very important, because for the past two days we have been hearing from virtually every speaker on the Opposition side of the so-called “hard cases” as they call them. As I see the matter, the less uncertainty there is and the clearer the definition of these three touchstones of race classification, the less dissatisfaction there will be among the borderline cases and the fewer of those so-called “hard cases” will be left, over which the hon. speakers on the Opposition side are shedding so much blood and tears now. Anyone who views this measure impartially and objectively will agree with me that its object is not to act in an inhumane way. This has been shown quite clearly by previous speakers on this side. All that is intended with this legislation is to eliminate those problems and those loopholes which have become evident in the practical application over a long period of 17 years, problems which could not have been foreseen initially without the legislation having been properly applied in practice. As I have said, the principal Act is national policy, and it has the approval of the electorate. It is the duty of the Government now to implement that Act further by means of this amending legislation, and we are determined to do so in spite of the Opposition’s resistance. We shall apply this legislation with the greatest amount of sympathy and consideration, which belong with such a delicate matter, and in the same manner as we have applied all previous legislation relating to race classification. If there are loopholes, such as we have now seen to exist in practice and as a result of which this legislation is before this House, we shall plug them because, Sir, we are dealing with a major issue here, an issue the United Party is apparently not so much concerned about as is this side of the House, namely the survival of the white man’s identity in South Africa. The hon. member for Green Point, for example, even spoke sneeringly in his speech this afternoon of the fact that there was supposed to be a pure white race in South Africa. As I have said, we have dealt with this matter with the greatest humanity all along. Of course, this matter is not something one can play with. But what have we found during the past year? We have found that this human approach we have had to the matter, an approach which has allowed a great amount of flexibility in the application of the Act, is the very thing that has been exploited and abused scandalously by agitators and integrationists in order to promote their policy of integration, something which they cannot do in any other way.

Where do you get that from?

These liberalists have now resorted to the techniques the communists have applied so successfully in the past, namely to infiltrate by means of loopholes in legislation and to promoting their ideas in that way. This measure will now make it impossible for those liberalists and integrationists who do not believe in such a thing as a pure white race, to use innocent people, people who often do not want to get involved in this, as pawns not only to sabotage the Government’s policy of separate development, but also to ridicule it both externally and internally. As I have said, the Opposition suggests that there is only a small number of cases and that we therefore should not introduce this legislation. They say the game is not worth the candle. But, as I have pointed out already, that is not the case. These applications for reclassification, which are received in ever increasing numbers, will threaten to become a deluge. They will definitely become a deluge if the loopholes in this Act are not plugged. To my mind this matter goes much further than the mere plugging of those loopholes. Undermining the objects of the Population Registration Act, together with frontal attacks on segregation in sport and entertainment, are at present the three main instruments with which our enemies, externally as well as internally, want to destroy our policy.

I want to emphasize that these loopholes in the Population Registration Act were noticed by certain bodies abroad long ago; loopholes which can make it possible for somebody who was originally classified as a Coloured person to be re-classified as a white person, on the strength of certain affidavits as regards his association with Whites, and so forth. I make a study of the activities of these hostile organizations abroad and I sometimes receive documents from a confidential source on their activities. I am therefore in a position to state here to-day that nobody abroad is more upset by this amending legislation than those enemies of our country who all hide under the sheltering umbrella of the so-called Anti-Apartheid Movement in London. All of them are to-day advising their evil accomplices in South Africa

how to exploit the loopholes which we are trying to plug now.

Which clause is that?

I am indicating why this legislation is necessary. As I say, these loopholes have to be exploited to destroy the Government’s policy of apartheid. I know why the hon. member for Durban (North) does not want to listen to this part of my speech. There are undermining organizations abroad, organizations undermining South Africa. We have the International League for the Rights of Man; the Union of Democratic Control; the Congress of Peoples against Imperialism; and the African Bureau, to which Michael Scott is attached. Then there is also the Citizens’ Council for Human Rights … [Interjections.] I am coming to the point now. Hon. members opposite should not become so impatient. According to a document I have seen quite recently, the advice this Citizens’ Council has given to our enemies in South Africa —the hon. member for Durban (North) should listen very carefully now—was that as many people as possible should be smuggled over the colour bar by means of loopholes in the Population Registration Act so that the Government’s policy may ultimately become quite ridiculous and can be presented to the outside world as such. That is precisely what is happening at the moment and that is why this legislation is necessary. Now, it gives one cause for regret that the United Party have shown through their reactions this afternoon that they are laughing at the position which has developed. They laugh because our enemies want to undermine us in this manner. They are laughing about it. In that way they are, I believe quite unintentionally and without realizing it, strengthening the hands of our enemies. With the type of speech we have had from that side of the House this afternoon, these blood and tears speeches to stir up the feelings not only of South Africans but also of those abroad, they are helping our enemies to take a stand against us, those enemies who want to undermine our policy.

By acting thus the United Party willingly and without realizing it becomes the instrument in the hands of our enemies. Although it is not their intention, they act as the parliamentary front in South Africa of our enemies overseas. They do so in the illusion that they are performing a great and humane role.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, is the hon. member allowed to say that we are the parliamentary front of the sort of people overseas that he has been referring to?

Mr. Speaker, I say without its being their intention and without their being aware of it, they are acting as the parliamentary front in South Africa.

On a point of order, Sir, the hon. member says that we are the parliamentary front of the sort of people he has been referring to.

I said without your being aware of it.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

What does this amending legislation actually do? It does three things. Firstly, it gives a definition of the concepts of “appearance” “acceptance” and “descent”, so that there will be less confusion about and fewer divergent interpretations of them. Secondly, “descent” is now being added for the first time to the other two touchstones for the purpose of classification, namely appearance and acceptance. In other words, for the first time classification does not rest on only two legs, but on three legs, and it has been clear for several years now that that was something that had to come.

May I ask the Minister whether he is aware that the officer concerned on 22nd February circularized hoteliers offering his services on a commercial basis in negotiations with the National Liquor Board regarding classification?

The hon. member will have to Table that question.

When the House adjourned yesterday evening, I was pointing out that this Bill did only three things. The first was to define the basic concepts of appearance, acceptance and descent more closely in order to prevent confusion. In the second place I pointed out that a third leg, descent, was being added to the other two legs of race classification which have to serve as criteria in the classification of individuals. And in the third place we now have the abolition of third-party objections to race classifications which have been disposed of, which, as I indicated at the commencement of my speech, have in the past been exploited in a scandalous way by the enemies of our policy in order to try and ridicule our policy and to present it as being impracticable.

Nonsense.

Yesterday, when I accused the Opposition of stirring up feeling not only in this country, but abroad as well, with the great excitement and the emotion with which they dealt with the matter, there was consternation in their ranks. I also accused them of unconsciously being the tool of the people who are hostile to our policy. I now want to announce here that even to-day, in the lunch-hour, we reaped the bitter fruits of this action on the part of the Opposition. I am referring to the action taken by and the picketing by the so-called “Lanfervroue”, also known as the Black Sash, which we again had to experience during the lunch-hour. These poor women, who often do not know what it is all about, and who then allow themselves to be taken in tow by the type of speech we have heard here from the United Party Opposition and also from the hon. member for Houghton, are now picketing outside this building. The television cameras were whirring this afternoon so that the blackest possible image of South Africa may again be presented abroad. That is what has happened and those are the bitter fruits we have already reaped as a result of the actions of that side of the House. But I shall leave it at that.

Allow me, Sir, in the few minutes I still have at my disposal this afternoon, to say a word about the assertion that has been made from the side of the Opposition that this legislation is supposedly the most drastic which has ever been introduced in South Africa for the purpose of determining the race of any particular individual. That is not so. The Leader of the Opposition would do well to go and consult the hon. member for South Coast, who, if he is well-informed, will tell him that in Natal there is a provision in respect of the descent of school-children which is far more stringent and drastic than this amending measure could ever be. It deals with the admission of children to white schools and the way in which they are to be classified as Whites. The requirement in Natal—and I quote—is as follows—

[Interjections.] I can see the Opposition does not like this example I am mentioning, but I want to stress that before any child may be admitted to a white school he has to prove that he is of white ancestry for three generations on both sides. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, is the hon. the Minister of Sport entitled to say to me “damn humbug”.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the words “humbug” and “damn”. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, is the hon. the Minister entitled to withdraw what he said and say:“What I think is the same?”

Mr. Speaker, I said nothing further that I would have to withdraw.

The hon. the Minister’s withdrawal should be unqualified.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I withdrew the words without qualification originally.

Mr. Speaker, in other words, before a child may be admitted to a white school in Natal, the school must be satisfied that that child is of white ancestry for three generations on both sides. Now, Sir, I ask you: “Is that not a much more drastic race classification than is contemplated by this legislation?” I shall mention to you the source of this decision. Its source is the case of Seneque v. The Natal Provincial Council (1939, N.P.D., 271). As far as I know this decision has never been rescinded. I want to add that this decision was given by the late Mr. Justice Feetham, who on occasion was a member of the House of Assembly of the old South African Party. Before concluding I wish to say that, after listening for a long time to the speeches made by members of the United Party, the question occurred to me who are really the guilty ones who have made it necessary for us to introduce this amending legislation to-day, and who also made it necessary for us to introduce the previous legislation. There they are. The United Party are really the guilty ones and I level this charge against them to-day.

It is the United Party who, for many years, while they were still in power, were responsible for the indescribable sorrow and distress of those unfortunate people over whom they are now trying to shed blood and tears in this debate. They are the ones who simply let matters take their course. They are the ones who allowed mixed marriages to continue. They are the ones who fought the Immorality Act tooth and nail. In that way all the border-line cases arose for which we have to make legislative provision to-day. Now, as is evident from their attitude to this amending legislation, they want to carry on doing nothing and letting things slide. Before resuming my seat, I want to say that we are enacting this legislation with a clear conscience, that it is an honest attempt on the part of this side of the House, in the face of a very difficult, thorny, delicate human problem, to try and clear up these human tragedies in the most humane possible way, tragedies many of which we have inherited from that side of this House. Virtually all of them have been inherited from that side of this House because they were not prepared in the past to act timeously to prevent our being faced with these tragedies.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the amendment moved by the hon. Leader of the Opposition. I feel that the measure before the House is unnecessary and one that can only add to the misery of many of our citizens. The human tragedies, some of which were described by the previous speaker, which have been brought about by race classification in this country are already so serious that it is most unwise to add to them. I feel that this Bill rather than tending to ameliorate these human tragedies, will add to them. This Bill contains a number of provisions and principles which are really repugnant to the South African legal traditions. I will in due course deal with some of those principles to show that they are repugnant to the ideals and traditions which we have had in this country up to now. Generally speaking I am of the opinion that this is an unnecessary Bill and one which should not have been proceeded with, particularly in the present circumstances.

In addition I am not at all satisfied that the hon. the Minister has made out any case at all justifying the introduction of this measure before the House. I feel that the Government is going too far in this amending Bill and is virtually retracting many of the assurances which were repeatedly given when the original Bill was introduced in 1950 and in the various subsequent amendments to this Bill. These assurances, summarized, were to the effect that whilst the Government was of the opinion that a Population Registration Act was necessary in this country nothing would be done to impose any hardship on any people in the compilation of that register. That is the effect of the undertakings given. Indeed, the responsible Ministers from 1950 onwards have given public assurances in this House and outside that the register will be compiled in the most humanitarian way possible and that every aspect of race classification would be approached in that way. We were assured that the greatest degree of humanity would be used in the compilation of this register and that every step would be taken to prevent any hardship being inflicted upon any section of our population. Previous speakers in this debate have drawn the attention of the House to some of the assurances given by the responsible Ministers previously. I have no intention of repeating those assurances. I would, however, particularly like to remind the House what the hon. the Minister’s predecessor had to say in regard to the manner in which the population register would be compiled. On the 26th April, 1962, the then Minister of the Interior, the hon. Senator De Klerk, when dealing with an amending Bill after having dealt with the test of appearance and acceptance, had this to say and I quote from Hansard, Col. 4436—

Order! That quotation has already been read to the House.

Mr. Speaker, I want to continue with the portion that has not been read to the House.

What do we now find in this Bill before the House? Despite the acceptance of the principle that in race classification the community itself or public opinion was the best judge, the hon. the Minister now proposes to disregard public opinion and introduces new principles of race classification. One of the principles envisaged in this Bill is the descent factor. In every debate since 1950 we were assured time and again that the Government did not intend to investigate a person’s descent or to delve deeply into that aspect.

That is not correct.

I say that it is correct. The hon. member says that it is not correct but I want to remind him that I raised this issue crisply in 1962. The hon. member for Heilbron, who followed me, and who appears to be the Government’s mouthpiece in these matters on various occasions, had this to say (Hansard, Vol. 3, Col. 4484)—

[Interjections.] Now what do we find in this Bill before the House? Despite the acceptance of the principle that in race qualifications the community itself or public opinion was the best judge, as the hon. the Minister’s predecessor said, the Minister now proposes to disregard public opinion and to introduce a new principle of classification. I say that that new complication he is introducing is this aspect of the descent factor. I want to say again that these assurances were given repeatedly. I do not want to waste time by going through them. Despite those assurances this descent factor is now being introduced as an important element in the compilation of our population register. I would like to say to the hon. the Minister that in my view this is grossly unfair and an extremely dangerous principle. Apart from that, it is contrary to all the assurances that we have been given since 1950.

Further, in terms of this Bill, any admission made for instance for the purposes of the 1951 census, would be the means of pegging for all time the person’s race with effect from the date of that census. Does the Government not realize the grave consequences which may flow from such a law? It would mean that the race qualifications of the individual, whether right or wrong, whether made wittingly or unwittingly, will remain rigid and permanent and will for all time peg a person’s race qualification. That will be the effect of the law as it is presently before the House.

We know how many entries on a census form are made. Very often they are made by census enumerators who try to complete their work in the shortest possible space of time. Many an entry has been made on a census form, which has not been personally made by the individual concerned. There have been instances—and I have known of these instances in the course of my experience over many years—of one occupant of a house giving the required information in respect of all the other occupants of the same house, without in any way interrogating any of them. I am sure that there have been many instances when the information given in the census form has been given in sheer ignorance. And yet, in terms of this amending Bill as it stands now—I will deal with the hon. the Minister’s proposed amendment in a moment—any admission made for the purpose of the census will be regarded as an admission of descent made for the purposes of race classification. That is how the Bill reads now. I was very glad indeed to hear yesterday in this House that it was the hon. the Minister’s intention to amend the Bill in such a way as to make it clear that any documentary admission about one’s descent will only be used in registration and evidence if the admission was made for the purposes of race classification. This does at least soften the original intention of the Bill, but even so I am still convinced that even in this amended form, the introduction of the principle of descent is contrary to the repeated assurances which we have received in this House, namely that the descent factor will not be brought in in the compilation of the population register.

I now want to deal with another aspect. The term “mixed descent” has often been used by individuals in total ignorance of the serious implications that flow from it. I have had a case of a person, undoubtedly European, having been described in his birth certificate as being from mixed parentage, because—and these are the facts—his father was South African born and his mother was born in Lisbon. He was described as having mixed parentage. Both parents were Europeans but the father was South African and the mother was born in Lisbon. He was unwittingly described as having mixed parentage. Under this Bill, if the word “mixed” or “gemeng” is used on a census form or any other form to describe a person’s descent, that description will be deemed to be a reference to a Coloured person. This will mean that, despite any proof to the contrary, the race classification of that unfortunate person will be fixed, and he will be classified as a member of the Coloured Group. When that is done, all the embarrassing consequences and hardships will commence to flow. Surely the Government does not intend to make our race classification so inflexible and permanent. Surely the Government does not intend to abandon the assurances which have been given to us over the years by the responsible Ministers, namely that every approach towards the compilation of the population register would be dealt with in the most humane way possible. Again, in fairness, I want to say that I was glad to hear yesterday that it is the Minister’s intention to amend the original Bill so as to provide that when the term “mixed” is mentioned in any official return, this will not be conclusive and that an opportunity will be given to the person concerned to prove that he is in fact not a Coloured person. However, whilst this is some concession, it is by no means completely satisfactory to my mind, because the onus will then be passed on to the individual. The onus passes on to the individual to prove that he is not a Coloured person. I repeat that the proposed amendment does soften the original implications and intentions of this Bill, but it will in no way eliminate the hardship with which some of these people are going to be confronted. Then again, the Bill provides that if either of the parents of an individual have been classified as a Coloured person, he must be classified as Coloured. This will become the fixed classification in terms of this Bill, despite the fact that this individual may over the years have removed himself entirely from all association with Coloured people, and may have become generally accepted as a White person by reason of his employment or his business or his social activities. There are many of them—many of our citizens in this country have crossed the line. They have dissociated themselves entirely from their ancestry. They have mixed with, associated with and become known to White people and they have become accepted as White people. In terms of this Bill once such a man’s father or mother has been classified as a Coloured person, he must be classified as a Coloured person. I ask the hon. the Minister: Is this a humanitarian way of dealing with an unfortunate individual of this sort? Is this the type of treatment that is going to be meted out to individuals, an example of whom I gave the House a few moments ago?

I wonder whether the hon. the Minister realizes in human terms what hardships and frustrations are inflicted upon a person such as I have described if he is classified as a Coloured. He reverts from being a first class citizen in his own country to becoming a second class citizen, with all the disabilities that that relegation carries with it. It is no good laughing or smiling this off. Yesterday afternoon we heard some of the hon. members saying that they should be proud that there are pure-blooded Coloureds, etc. We know only too well of the human tragedy and the enormous disabilities which these people have to suffer. When I speak of disabilities, I have no intention of restricting it to the political aspect. I refer generally to the relegation in his economic and social status which, in terms of this Bill, remains a permanency. Surely it was never intended by the Government that we should forsake compasion in the Government’s determination to inflict upon this country a complete separation of our racial groups. Surely it was never intended that we should forsake compassion. Surely it was never intended that we should completely ignore the humanities involved in compiling our population register. This should be uppermost in our minds at all times. We should deal with this matter in the most humane way possible.

When I look at this Bill I ask myself what reason has motivated the Government in introducing a measure of this kind, which inevitably must produce further bitterness from a section of our people. The Minister gave to this House his reasons for the introduction of this Bill, and his main reason was the fact that the present Act as amended made it possible for people who were not White to become classified as White. He went on to say that this led to a form of insidious integration —and I am using the Minister’s own words— which was assuming alarming proportions. I am afraid that the facts which this House has do not justify the hon. the Minister’s claim. I am afraid that the figures that have been presented to us by no means indicate that this so-called insidious integration was assuming alarming proportions. The Minister, in the course of his introductory speech, said this—

I am afraid that this statement is completely inconsistent with the facts which were given to this House by the Minister’s predecessor. In 1962 the then Minister of the Interior pointed out that, despite the fact that race classifications were made in this country on the basis of the 1951 census, there had only been 3,593 cases where formal objections had been lodged to race classification. There were only 3,500 cases. The vast majority of these objections were satisfactorily disposed of, and I say this in all fairness to the credit of the Government. They were disposed of satisfactorily. At the time of the Minister’s statement the Race Classification Appeal Board and the courts had heard 279 cases of which 233 were decided in favour of the objectors and only 46 cases against the objectors. This afternoon, from a reply given by the Minister to the hon. member for Wynberg, it would appear that there are some 300 odd appeals pending now. Do these figures substantiate the Minister’s claim that there is an insidious integration of so called borderline cases? Is the fact that there are but 300 odd cases an indication that there is insidious integration of so-called borderline cases? Do these figures justify this Bill, a measure which can only aggravate the misery and the heartbreaks and the sorrow of many families in this country?

Those were only the objections that had been submitted to the board and the courts—the figures which you quoted. Those who had lodged objections to the Secretary were not included in those figures. They are many more.

Well, assuming we double or even treble these figures, does this still amount to such an enormous integration figure, an insidious integration of the so-called borderline cases? I ask the Minister in all seriousness: what calamity can result really if by any chance a Coloured person who is a doubtful case becomes classified as a white person? What calamity can result? Would this mean the downfall of our Republic? Would it put an end to our western civilization in this country if it so happens that a hundred or two, nay. a thousand or two doubtful Coloured persons by descent perchance became classified as white persons.

They are not doubtful cases. They are only cases of whom it can be said that most of them could prove acceptance not by the general public but by a few members of the public.

They had crossed the borderline. Would it bring about the downfall of our Republic?

Maybe you would like them to cross the borderline for ever and ever. They can keep on doing that for ever and ever. [Interjections.]

What harm has been done? These people have left their original surroundings. [Interjections.]

Order!

Not necessarily.

No, Sir. A man who has not left his original surroundings does not bother, he does not take the trouble to appeal and try to become classified as a White. I go on to say that even if a thousand, even if ten thousand of these people in our population crossed the borderline, would it be such a terrible calamity.

I am reminded of this fact, and I want the hon. the Minister to bear with me. The South African Institute of Race Relations a little while ago made a survey as to the number of possible cases that would fall into the borderline class and the conclusion that was arrived at was that as little as under 1 per cent of the Coloured population would be affected. Therefore I ask the Minister: Would it matter one hoot if all the borderline cases in those circumstances were permitted, if only on the grounds of compassion, to cross the line? Is it not more humane for us to extend our law in favour of liberty rather than to amend the law in terms of this Bill so that many of our South African citizens should not have the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads and should not have to live in fear. That is the point that I want to put to the Minister. Is it not in the interests of our country to accept people in the racial category in which the community itself has accepted them, which has been the case over these past 15, 16 years? Is it not right that we should continue to allow public opinion to be the sole judge of the race classification of our citizens? For generations many families have been accepted as white people, despite the fact that in the dim and distant past there may have been an admixture of Coloured blood going back several generations. I repeat: Would it mean the downfall of our Republic if we were to allow this situation to continue? Would it do us much harm if we allowed this situation to continue?

I want to ask the Minister this specific question: Does the Government think that the publicity, such as I read in an article which appeared in the London Evening Standard of the 13th February, 1967, does our country any good? I have the cutting before me, and in it appears a photograph of a family consisting of a mother and three sons. The caption to this article is: “Split by law—the family of ‘Coloured and white’”. I repeat, Sir: “Split by law …” For reasons which I will explain I am not going to use the names of these people because it so happens that they have a brother who is a South African Government official. I think that I must mention this article to show the adverse publicity which laws of this kind is giving to South Africa. The article starts off as follows—

The mother and two sons were going to be classified as Coloured, whilst another son of the same parents held a white identity card.

You are now pleading that we must split more of them by law.

No. [Interjections.] Let me read what the mother said. The report continued—

[Interjections.] Well, I should like to see the hon. member separated from his parents and children. He says that it is all nonsense. Well, here is a family of a mother and three sons, two of whom and the mother were going to be classified as Coloured whilst the other son had been classified White. The report continued—

That is why we are altering the law.

The hon. member says that that is why they are altering the law. By doing what? By going into the descent of people over many generations. The hon. member is talking nonsense. Surely the Government must realize that publicity of this sort can only do our country incalculable harm. I ask the hon. the Minister: What offence has this family, obviously of mixed descent, committed? They were a decent, law-abiding South African family living happily with their own relatives and their friends until they became the victim of the Population Registration Act. Rather than suffer the misery created for them by the law in splitting their family they decided to abandon their fatherland. Sir, this case which I have quoted here and which incidentally was only reported in February of this year in the Evening Standard of London is one of many cases of extreme hardships which has been inflicted upon a section of our people, many of whom have left the country of their birth forever. There can be no doubt that this law was originally designed to deal with our Coloured people. They were the main target and they were the main reason for the introduction of the measure, but the Government tried to apply the law in the most humane manner possible and allowed the test of a man’s race classification to be the judgment of society. This Bill is radically departing from that old accepted humane principle. In this Bill the Government seeks to impose race classification on people on an inflexible and permanent basis regardless of the political, the social and the economic consequences.

There is another provision of this Bill I want to deal with. Under our existing law third parties were allowed to object to race classification. This was a means of remedying many injustices. This Bill seeks to abolish this procedure, and the only reason the hon. the Minister has advanced is the fact that there have been too many appeals. In the Minister’s speech and again in his answer given to the hon. member for Wynberg this afternoon in reply to a question, he disclosed that there were some 300 border-line cases where people had lodged appeals, and then he went on to say that they would be subjected to the provisions of this Bill. Sir, can these 300 pending appeals, by any stretch of imagination, justify the Minister’s claim that there have been too many appeals? Does the Minister not realize that these appeals deal not only with the future destiny of the appellants themselves but of their children and their children’s children, probably for generations and generations to come? Sir, I said earlier that there were certain principles in this Bill which were repugnant to the legal traditions of this country. In this connection I refer particularly to that portion of the Bill which lays down that the Bill will be deemed to come into operation on the 7th July, 1950, i.e. the date on which the original Act came into force. I say that this is grossly unfair and it will prejudice a large number of people, including those whose appeals are presently pending. These people have already incurred great expense. They have sought legal advice; they have engaged attorneys and advocates and arranged for witnesses and they have generally done everything that is necessary for them to carry on with their appeals in terms of the existing law. They are now confronted with retrospective legislation in terms of this Bill. Sir, generally the legal tradition in this country was that legislation was not made retrospective if by doing so people would be placed at a disadvantage. [Time expired.]

In the course of my speech I want to refer, firstly, to certain statements made by the hon. member for Peninsula; I also want to refer to a statement made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and to a certain statement made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. It was striking that several speakers on the Opposition side, and also the hon. member for Peninsula, admitted that we had acted very sensibly and very humanely in our implementation of the original Act, and that the number of people who complained of having been wronged or who asked for their race classification to be changed, was very small. The hon. member for Peninsula mentioned the figure of 3,500 here. If we take that into account, it bears out an important truth for us, namely that we in South Africa have various population groups which, through the application of sound human judgment in the course of our history, have been given a definite form, have developed their particular distinctive characteristics and have been consulted as such. That is why it astonished me that the Opposition could succeed every time to raise so much dust in advancing so many arguments in support of their argument, namely that terrible cruelties and injustices occurred in regard to certain people. I want to point out that the hon. member for Peninsula made a terrible blunder in his argumentation as a whole this afternoon. Other hon. members of the Opposition were also guilty of that. They kept on harping on the idea that we had a measure here which was much stricter and harder than any previous measure. The way the hon. the Leader of the Opposition put it, was that with this measure we wanted to draw the line very rigidly and very clearly, and the hon. member for Peninsula suggested that it was our intention to delve into the ancestry of people as deeply as possible, and if subsequent to that we were able to prove that there was a little Coloured blood in a person, such a person could be reclassified to the detriment of his whole family or generations to come. I want to tell the hon. member for Peninsula that he read the Bill totally wrongly. This Bill does not make provision for revising the classification of people on the basis of descent and on the basis of the fact that there may possibly be Coloured blood somewhere in their family. This Bill does not refer to descent, but refers explicitly to classification. The hon. member’s statement that the principle of acceptance by the community is now being destroyed, is not true; that is not a true reflection of the facts. This Bill starts from the assumption that the principles, as laid down in 1950 and the principle added to it in 1962, are still valid; that they still form the basis on which classification should take place, and then the following is being added—

I want the hon. member for Peninsula to note the words “have … been classified”. In other words, this Bill starts from the assumption that a classification has already taken place; it builds on the Act of 1950 and what was effected subsequently. The Bill provides further—

In other words, there is no question of delving into his past, into his descent, to find out who his great-grandfather was. The Minister and the Department are guided by the large amount of data which has been collected since 1950 in terms of the Population Registration Act. The most important reason for an amendment Bill now being introduced by the hon. the Minister, is because certain problems have cropped up in connection with a relatively small number of cases which are still being considered, where the persons concerned lodged appeals or where other people raised objections to their classification. Allow me to say that we have actually reached the stage where the vast majority of the material has already been sifted, and there are only a few cases left. But what has happened in the last few years, and particularly in the last two years? People have discovered that the original Act leaves a little loophole. In other words, they discovered and admitted that the Act was being implemented very fairly and that there was an opportunity to help certain people, who had previously been considered to be Coloureds, across the colour bar. I want to say this afternoon that there are people who have made that their business. There are even people who are making money out of that; they look for these people and then they persuade them to object to their classification. Such people do exist. We do not want to expose this type of thing, as the hon. member for Peninsula exposed the affairs of the hon. member for Houghton’s party on a certain occasion, but it is without fear of contradiction that I say that there are people who are making this type of reclassification and this type of objection to the classification of certain people their business, and it has also become apparent that there are more and more people, third parties in fact, who are lodging these objections. That is why the Minister says that this Bill is calculated to define these concepts of appearance, acceptance and descent further in an attempt at putting a stop to this creeping integration, and this creeping integration he referred to is that deliberate attempt at changing the classification of certain people. I shall return to that later, because some rather illuminating opinions were expressed here by members of the Opposition during the course of this debate.

Now I want to tell the hon. member for Peninsula that I find it disappointing that at this stage he, who is supposed to be a representative of the Coloureds, of the more developed section of the Coloureds in the Peninsula, regards this as a much sought after opportunity for the Coloureds to be declared Whites. This is virtually the only ideal he sees for the Coloureds. If he has a whitish skin, has made some progress and associates with Whites here and there, then one puts the machinery into operation to have him declared a White person, and then one serves the Coloured community. I want to tell the hon. member that the National Government has not only classified the Coloured community, but has also given them, as a population group, identity as well as national self-respect, and it is also giving the Coloured community living-space in the economic as well as the educational sphere; it is giving living-space to the Coloureds who are South Africans by birth, who are proud citizens of South Africa, the same as to any White person. A world of possibilities has been opened up for these people and especially for the leaders in the Coloured community. But the hon. member for Peninsula failed to notice that. He thinks that he can only serve those people and retain their support if he is able to have a few of them declared White. That is a very naive approach, and then the hon. member, who is a jurist, says that it is the purport of this Bill to investigate only the descent of people; but in the Bill explicit reference is made to their classification and, after all, the Bill cannot go back further than 1950, when the original Act was introduced. People have only been classified since that time. In other words, it can only go back to their classification, and that classification took place on the basis of acceptance and of appearance, not on the basis of descent. That is why I want to leave the hon. member there. I just want to tell him that he made a very poor impression to-day, particularly since we are prepared to accept him as a person who is able to pass a reasonable judgment and to adopt a sensible attitude in regard to a matter. I hope that he will examine this matter, and that he will find that there is an awakening national consciousness and national pride amongst the Coloured population as a whole. [Interjections.] An awakening national pride and national consciousness is to be found amongst these people, and now my charge against the hon. member for Peninsula is this: Why do you want to have their leaders declared White? Why does the hon. member want to pull the group of leaders of those people across the colour bar, instead of leaving them where they are so that they may take the lead in their own community? What can you offer them? You cannot offer them that which they can be offered by the Coloured population group, where they naturally belong and where they may take the lead and rise to the topmost strata. You merely want to make out of them an appendage of the Whites, which cannot have any significance for them.

But now I should like to refer to a further statement which was made here by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. He made the statement that race had become a golden calf in South Africa; in other words, the hon. member is suggesting that we in South Africa are worshipping the idea of race and the grouping of people into various race groups. The golden calf, as you know, was made and worshipped by the Israelites on their way through the desert. I want to tell the hon. member that if he makes such statements, he should not take it amiss of the hon. member for Brakpan if he says that you say a certain prayer when you go to bed at night. That is a bad insinuation; it bears testimony to bad taste and it does not make any impression on me whatsoever. [Interjections.]

You are thick-skinned.

Order! Did the hon. member say that he was too thick-skinned?

No, I did not say that he was too thick-skinned; I said that he was thick-skinned.

The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it.

As far as that remark is concerned, I do not want to say any more about the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. I only feel that he, who is a frontbencher of the Opposition, might just as well refrain from making this type of statement and put his case in a more responsible manner instead, because that is really the only type of thing which is being propagated abroad to the detriment of South Africa, and, surely, as a good South African, he does not want to harm his country by saying that we in South Africa have made race a golden calf. On the contrary, I want to say this afternoon that as regards race and the grouping of races we in South Africa are very moderate. Actually, we have no race classification in the strict sense of the word. We have population grouping. When it comes to the white group, it is not a question of people who belong to one race only. In this group we have people of Jewish, Greek, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese descent; and there are many other races as well, even Syrians. In our white group we have assimilated people who are descendants from a tremendously varied number of nationalities. Our white group represents a large variety of races, and the same applies to the Coloured group. I do not want to go into that any further. I just want to say that we in South Africa are not at all obsessed with race, but the fact that we are living in a country which has in the composition of its population the greatest diversity of races in the world, makes it the responsibility of all of us. We are proud of the fact that under the guidance of the National Party we have succeeded in effecting a grouping of the population groups—a race classification, if you want to call it that—in the face of this great diversity of races which in earlier years showed signs of our heading for chaos and for bad relations amongst the population groups; and we are proud of the fact that we have succeeded in effecting orderly development and peaceful co-existence. [Interjections.] The hon. member says we must leave it as it is, but in which direction would it have developed if we had merely left it that way in our urban areas? In which direction would it have developed in Johannesburg if those Bantu slum areas had been left alone and if a grouping had not taken place anywhere, a grouping which resulted in the various population or race groups being provided with proper housing in their various residential areas? The hon. member says: Leave it as it is. That is the policy of the United Party, the policy it inherited, the laisser-faire policy. That is not the policy of this side of the House. On a certain occasion the previous Prime Minister of the Republic of South Africa said that that was the difference between us and the Opposition. They say: “Leave it as it is. Let these things develop. Let these things continue in this way.” We believe that a nation and a government has the responsibility to look the particular problems of its country in the face and to shape the future of that country, and to give constructive thought to its future, to effect order and to foresee future developments and to make provision for them, and to provide the necessary impetus for those ideals to be realized. We do not say: “Leave it as it is.” It is the United Party which says so. That is why, as far as the United Party is concerned, the electorate also said: “Leave it as it is.”

Now I should like to refer to what the Leader of the Opposition said in this regard. He often returned to the idea of a genealogical register which the Minister now wants to close off. The Minister now wants to remove that appendage. In this regard the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said—

In other words, he says that the Minister is now doing a very wrong and cruel thing. He now wants to close the door to a very fine form of continuous additions to the white group of South Africa, from the Coloured population group. In other words, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition admits that their real objection to this Bill is that a door which was formerly open, is now being closed. Where these people are able to get a foot in the door, they are gradually opening this door wider and wider, because what is happening? What will happen if acceptance and appearance remain the test? Many people have been allowed in precisely because the Act, as hon. members on that side have admitted, has been applied very sensibly and tolerantly. These are the people who have closer associations with people in the Coloured population group. In other words, it only needs a small number of people, who are of Coloured or of partly Coloured descent, to state that they accept those people in the Coloured population group as Whites. Then they help them across the line. Acceptance is a conclusive test. It was the original test. There were people who had, those associations and who mixed socially with those people. They pulled other people across the dividing line. They made use of every possible loophole in the Act to accelerate that process and to help more people across. According to the statement made by the Leader of the Opposition, that is actually what he wants. I want to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition or, in his absence, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who is really their main speaker on this matter: Is it the policy of the United Party to keep that door open and to continue to help people to cross over from the Coloured population group to the white group? The Deputy Leader may also reply. Is it the policy of the United Party to keep that door open and to keep on bringing over people from the Coloured group to the white group? [Interjections.] In terms of the Bill, which the Opposition opposes, people are classified as Coloureds if one of their parents has been classified as a Coloured person. I am now asking that hon. member, who is also opposed to this Bill: Is it the policy of the United Party to keep that door open so as to keep on bringing over people, who have been classified as Coloureds, to the white group?

We do not classify people; we do not keep a genealogical register of people.

Well, we do. In other words, that is the policy of the Opposition. It is the policy of the United Party to keep on trying to classify Coloureds as Whites. That is their aim. They want to keep on bringing Coloureds across. The Leader of the Opposition has admitted it. The Opposition will not be able to run too far now. Without any reason he stated that he would like to retain this “fine form”, as he called it, of reinforcement of the white group. It is a kind of perpetual movement which must continue. When we reach this point, it is clear to me that there is no essential difference between the United Party and the Progressive Party in this regard. They are moving in the direction of integration. They want to keep the door open. The hon. member for Yeoville admitted that they did not want to classify people. They do not want to divide people into groups. They want to keep on bringing people over. What they really want to do is to circumvent existing legislation in respect of which they have stated outside that they accept it, and they want this door, which may be slightly ajar at present, to be opened wide. We on this side of the House accept this legislation. We accept it and we support it, because we realize that this task of classification must at some stage or other reach finality. We must put an end to it. We cannot continue dealing with an endless stream of cases, in this respect a stream which is gradually becoming stronger, for the purpose of trying to classify and reclassify people. If a person’s parents were classified as Coloureds on the basis of acceptance and of appearance, what objection will or can such a person have to being classified as a Coloured? The suffering which is the point at issue here and which was mentioned by that side of the House, is not as real as it is professed to be. What is more, instead of emphasizing this suffering and human cruelty, I want to say that we on this side of the House are convinced that this Government has not only given the Coloured population a new national personality and identity, but we have also created living-space for them. We foresee that very strong and competent leaders will arise amongst them, and that these people who may now possibly feel that they would be more at home if they were classified as White, will be able to realize themselves equally well amongst their own people because there is no one who has stronger associations with the Coloured population than those people who will now be classified. These will only be people who are in fact Coloureds by association and appearance, and who will be able to realize themselves in their own population group. Those people will really be able to develop qualities of leadership and they will help the Coloured population to foster an innate national pride and to render a worthy contribution to the development of the Republic of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, it is strange that the hon. member who has just resumed his seat regards the question of descent as of so little importance in this legislation. That, of course, is not the attitude adopted yesterday by the hon. member for Primrose. The hon. member went further and said that the fact that the United Party was opposing this legislation and the fact that a great deal of publicity was being given to it was going to do South Africa much harm. I want to say to the hon. member that what is going to harm South Africa is this legislation itself, and not the publicity we are giving to it. We have not introduced the legislation. The Government has introduced it, and it is going to do South Africa harm.

The hon. member has asked us whether we always want to keep the door open for Coloured persons to be reclassified into the white group. That is not what this legislation is about. This legislation deals with the doubtful cases. This amendment deals with those people who have been classified into one group and who think that that classification is wrong. As far as I am aware the Coloured people as a rule are not anxious to be classified as Whites. They want to remain Coloureds, but there is a group of people who do not know what they are. It is this group that we are concerned with, and not the Coloured people as a whole. No one wants to turn Coloured persons into Whites or Whites into Coloured persons. That is not what we want to do in this debate. Neither do we want to deprive the Coloured people of their leaders, as we have been told by the hon. member for Piketberg and the hon. member for Parow, whom I thought had more sense. Who ever said that? Surely there is no question of that? We are trying to step into the breach for those people who are doubtful cases, and not for the large body of Coloured people.

It is not a question of wanting to absorb them. We say that the existing Act is sufficient for handling those cases. If the Classification Board or the court says that a person must go to the one side or the other, that is fine—it does not matter to which side. Why do we want to tamper with that now?

The hon. member for Witbank referred to the unfortunate case of white parents who first had a white child and then a Coloured child, and then he asked: What about this Coloured child now? Should he be absorbed as a White? But surely the answer to that is obvious—if it can be proved that he is a Coloured child, he should be classified as such.

Mr. Speaker, what sterile arguments did we not have to listen to about this Bill in the past few days! From the hon. member for May fair, for example, we heard that the Almighty had set up dividing lines between the various races, but now, he said, we on this side want to break down those dividing lines. Here, surely, we are dealing not with the dividing lines set up by the Almighty, but with problems which we ourselves have created? That is what we are dealing with.

And which you do not want to bring to finality.

The hon. member for Primrose became very heated about this subject yesterday and alleged that we on this side were indifferent to this vital problem, as he put it. But surely it is not so vital a matter, because the figures that have been quoted over and over again in this House show that this is only a minor matter? The hon. member suggested that the United Party simply wanted to let things slide. Mr. Speaker, this is only a drop in the ocean, something so small that it is not going to make any difference whatsoever. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Witbank was very concerned about racial mixing. He alleged that we wanted to mix the races. But that is not so. There are laws which prohibit mixing. Admittedly there are people who contravene those laws, but the hon. member for Witbank cannot tell me that because one or two clergymen have contravened the law, all or many of them are doing it. It only happens in exceptional cases—as with the rest of us. These are the exceptions and as such are of minor importance.

I may tell you that the clergymen were not the only ones.

No, and I have said that.

But why do you choose clergymen in particular? You again want to cast suspicion upon the Afrikaans clergymen. I know you people.

Oh no, Mr. Speaker! For the information of that hon. member I want to say that those people who cause racial mixing are only a very small group. For that reason we say that this is not a matter of vital importance. After all, this is not the pattern of our way of life. The vast majority of Whites do not go in for that type of thing. For that reason I say that we do not need a law for that. After all, if we are well educated, we would not do this type of thing. The hon. member for Witbank went so far as to say that this legislation grew out of the people. But surely that is not the case? It grew out of the Nationalist Party, and surely the Nationalist Party is not the people, not by any manner of means. They represent only a section of the people.

I am sorry that the hon. member for Heilbron is not present. He made a shocking statement in his speech yesterday when he said that the hard cases would no longer crop up. But what is to become of them now? The hon. member for Turffontein also made a heated little speech. He reminded me of a Malay trying to conjure up ghosts but only succeeding, after a great to-do, in getting hold of a little frog by the hind leg, a frog with a tuft of hair on it, perhaps a rather frizzy tuft of hair, but in the last resort he still did not succeed in getting hold of anything worth while.

What I personally am concerned about is the question of descent. You see, Mr. Speaker, I belong to a family which has been in this country ever since 1699. So it has been a long trek with many out spans. I do not know what happened at those out spans. I think the hon. member for Prinshof is in the same position as I am; the same applies to the Minister— his family has probably been here longer than mine. I knew both my grandfathers and my grandmothers. They looked perfectly White to me, but I do not know what their predecessors got up to. The same applies to all the gentlemen on the opposite side—for that matter, who amongst us can beat upon his breast and proclaim that he is of pure white descent? But now we start this witch hunt. The hon. member for Primrose says that he cannot sleep even if he hears of only one single case. Well, once this legislation has been passed, many of us will lie awake for many a night. No, Mr. Speaker, I say that this is foolishness and that we must leave it alone. To-day a person can produce an identity card which indicates to which race he belongs. But 50, 60 years ago our forefathers did not even have baptismal certificates.

What I find very unfair about this legislation is that we are going to apply it to our own people, people who are not sure of their case, people who speak the same language as we do, who belong to the same churches as we do and who have the same way of life. They are the ones whose cases are now going to be investigated, and if they are fortunate, they will fall on this side; if not, they will fall on the other side. What is the hon. the Minister going to do in the case of all the immigrants coming into the country at present? There are many thousands of them. Of course, we are glad to have them. There are Italians, Portuguese, Greeks, Cypriots and others. Many of these people have darker complexions than I or the Minister or any of the other hon. gentlemen here. Some of them we shall have to allow to bleach first before we shall be able to accept them—as a matter of fact, if they become a little suntanned we shall have to leave them for a fortnight before trying to determine whether they are in fact White. What are we going to do with these people? Are we simply going to accept them merely because they are immigrants, while we are going to apply the legislation to our own people, people who stand with us? [Interjections.] Surely that is not right?

What has happened in the past? Hundreds, no thousands, of these people, including light skinned Coloured persons, moved to the Free State and the Transvaal. What happened to them there? There they were accepted by the Whites, they were accepted in our schools, in our churches, in the community … [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I hope you will afford the hon. member for Prinshof an opportunity to speak. As I say, they were accepted, and who has suffered any harm as a result of that? Who? They even appear on the Voters’ Roll and on top of that the vast majority of them are Nationalists. [Interjections.]

Why do we have to fight about that now? They ought to be glad. It has not caused any harm. If we leave the matter aside, if we leave it alone, it will never even be mentioned three or four generations hence.

We regret very much that this legislation has been introduced at this particular juncture. Our Prime Minister is helping to improve South Africa’s image greatly. Will this measure do the same? This Minister is torpedoing most of the good work being done by the hon. the Prime Minister. Therefore I ask the hon. the Minister rather to drop this legislation. I now want to make a plea to the Minister. It is not yet too late. Throw out this legislation. You know, Sir, when the hon. the Prime Minister came in here yesterday and sat down next to the hon. the Minister, I thought he wanted to take him by the scruff of his neck and throw him out the back door legislation and all. But unfortunately he did not do that. It is a great pity that he did not.

This legislation is unnecessary. It is cruel, and dangerous to all of us. One of the hon. gentlemen said here that this legislation was going to rake up old stories. Well, I hope that in that process they do not come up against some coloured ancestral spectres. And that can happen very easily. The old Act has been sufficient, and I hope we are not going to pass this measure. If we do pass this measure, we should not call ourselves Christians—we may call ourselves Nationalists, but certainly not Christians.

Mr. Speaker, I trust that the hon. member for North Rand will forgive me if I do not follow his line of reasoning immediately. It is obvious that we are dealing here with a very delicate but very important matter. We as white South Africans are in a unique and peculiar position in the world. The hon. member over there laughs. I do not know why. We are in a peculiar position as we are a white nation in a black continent. We are determined to maintain our identity here. It has been placed upon our shoulders to arrange and order the relationship in South Africa, with its multi-racial structure, between the different races and ourselves. This responsibility we inherited from the British through history. It is upon the National Party, who believe in and who have advocated a policy of separate development, or apartheid, or parallel development that this responsibility rests. It is fundamentally a policy where each racial group maintains its own identity. As I say, it is upon us that that responsibility has been placed, and it has been placed upon us by the electorate. As the hon. member for Parow said the other day, if we are going to have a society consisting of separate racial groups then it is absolutely essential that we have a population register. We are, of course, pioneers in this matter. A law was passed in 1950 to establish a population register, but as South Africa changed from a largely agricultural to an industrial country adjustments had to be made. Moreover clauses that were put in with the best intentions in the world have been used by the enemies of white South Africa and of South Africa as a whole, in an attempt to undermine our position. Those matters have to be put right.

The Bill provides that a person whose parents are classified as White shall be classified as a white person. I think that everyone will accept that without question. A person of whom one parent is classified as Coloured or Bantu shall be classified as Coloured. The Coloured group especially is given attention in clause 2.

What is a “Coloured" person?

Can you not read the Bill?

What is a “Coloured" person? Give me the definition of a “Coloured” person?

You have had plenty of time in which to read the Bill. This Bill is necessary to give the courts guidance as regards our intentions as a legislative body. It also provides the courts with certain definitions. Moreover, it is necessary to validate the groupings of Coloured persons into different ethnic groups. This has been done, and correctly done, but the courts have ruled them to be invalid.

Mr. Speaker, I have heard here over the past few days a lot of sentiment and, if I may say so, a lot of ignorance regarding the Cape Coloured people. I do not know much about the Bantu, and I do not know the Indian people, but as a man of the Cape I do know the Coloured people very well. Now, who are the Coloured people? Many people do not seem to realize that when Jan van Riebeeck came here there were no Bantu here. There were only a few Hottentots and Bushmen in the vicinity. The Dutch had slaves, and those freed slaves, together with the remnants of the Hottentots and the Bushmen, later coalesced. [Interjections.] Where are the Hottentots today? All these groups became one people.

What does “coalesce” mean?

I cannot give you an English lesson now. It is perfectly true that there are admixtures of white blood. It is also certain that a new people has slowly developed, just as we have developed from Dutch, British, German, etc. origin through historical processes to become the South African nation. There is now developing a new Brown nation in South Africa, and the foundation of that nation is the freed slaves of the Hollanders, together with the Hottentots and the Bushmen, combined with small admixtures of white blood and also later Bantu blood.

Now, what is the future of this new nation to be? It is clearly obvious that on the one hand the white people are quite determined to maintain their identity, whilst on the other hand the Bantu want to maintain their identity also. So provision must be made for the future of the Coloured people. The Coloured people are not one nation but they consist of different ethnic groups. If we read the history of Van Riebeeck’s time we will find that the people had a very great Christian evangelical zeal and most of the slaves were converted to Christianity. There were, however, slaves who came from Java and other places in the East who were Mohammedan and who wished to maintain their Mohammedan religion, and their descendants have remained adherents of Islam to this day. That is basically the origin of the Cape Malay. The other slaves were converted to the Christian faith.

What has that to do with this Bill?

Everything. I will come back to it just now. [Interjections.] Then we have the Griquas and the Indians.

What is a Griqua?

Order!

These Coloured people, and the Malays, are very keen to maintain their own ethnic identity. So, too, the Griquas. The same can be said of the Cape Coloured people. Unfortunately the courts ruled that this grouping was invalid, and by passing this amending measure that grouping will be made legal. In the course of my life in the business world I came into very close contact with Coloured people. I never spoke politics to them. But once a very intelligent Coloured person said to me, “Sir, you people believe in apartheid. Many of us, our cousins and members of our families, are helped by white people to become white. We know them and we despise them.” Another Coloured man said to me: “Sir, you are supposed to believe in apartheid. Why don’t you protect us against the Indians? You allow Indians to become classified as Coloureds in order to get business rights, and we resent it.” Sir, I had no answer to give that person, but this Bill provides the answer. This person’s case was this: “Why should I, who happen to be brown, remain classified as Coloured whereas my cousin or my half-sister or my brother is white enough to be classified as white?” That is a most frustrating thing. It seems to me that the Coloured people are blocked on the one side by Whites and on the other side by Bantu. This Bill provides them with their own identity. We have given these people tremendous economic assistance and education but man cannot live by bread alone; he must also be given something for his spirit. We are making provision for the Coloured people to develop in South Africa as a brown people with their own pride and their own identity.

What were they before this Bill?

You never gave them an opportunity.

In recent times the Coloured people have become frustrated and irritated because they have seen their leaders helped to cross the white line; they have seen Indians classified as Coloureds and they have seen Bantu classified as Coloureds with a view to obtaining business or residential rights.

Whose fault is that?

Who did that falsely?

We are now correcting this. We are making it possible for the Coloured man not only to advance economically but to find his own political soul and to become a man who can be proud of his own nation.

Which clause are you dealing with?

As far as the white people are concerned, people in my constituency and in other parts of the country, have expressed very great anxiety about the racial erosion that has been occurring by allowing Coloureds to be classified as Whites. The principal Act contained a clause which enabled a third person to lodge an appeal. That section was included in the Act with the best will in the world but I think it was wrong to make provision for third-party appeals. Surely if I were wrongly classified I would not wait four and a half years until a third party suggested that I should lodge an appeal. Provision is made in this Bill for the secretary to make a correction at any time if a genuine error has occurred.

That has always been the law.

There is no intention to institute a witch-hunt under this Bill. This Bill deals with classifications in the future. If a genuine error has occurred then the secretary can correct it, but I am absolutely certain that no normal person will wait four or five years until somebody suggest that he should lodge an appeal. Everyone knows what his race is.

What about the retrospective effect of this measure?

It is not of retrospective effect. This is for classification in the future. Those who have been classified will retain their classification unless there have been genuine errors.

Read clause 7.

Order! The hon. member for Durban (North) has far too much to say in this debate without getting on to his feet.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, my time is limited. There is great anxiety in the white community over what has been happening in the past. This anxiety has been expressed by several people in my constituency and elsewhere. Do hon. members opposite realize that by bringing a person across the colour line, you are setting the stage for possible human tragedies?

Which way?

I will explain it to the hon. member. Take the case of a person who by appearance is apparently white but whose mother in fact is coloured. That person goes to the Transvaal, passes as white and marries a white girl, and the girl then discovers that he has coloured relatives. You are merely setting the stage for human tragedies by allowing people to cross the colour line. Sentiment in this matter is no good at all. We must be realistic, and the only way in which we can solve these problems is by facing the realities of the situation and by means of goodwill. We in the National Party have a knowledge of the Coloured people and there can be no doubt about our goodwill, nor can there be any doubt as to our realistic approach in this matter. Sir, I listened yesterday to the speeches of hon. members of the United Party with a sense of shame. People can always differ on principle …

Why so upset?

I am not upset at all; the hon. member should be upset. As I have said, one can differ on principle, but is it necessary to impute the worse possible motives to your adversaries; is it necessary to accuse them of Nazism, of race obsession and of viciousness? Is it necessary to consider the Population Register in terms of a cattle stud book? We on this side do not think at that level. Sir, when I heard the speeches of hon. members opposite I felt a sense of shame because how would they sound in American ears, in British ears and Australian ears? Hon. members opposite do not hurt us but South Africa by saying these things. We represent the majority of the electrorate and we are concerned about the good name of South Africa. Sir, I often wonder whom they represent, because as I know the white electorate, I know that they want separation between white and non-white. I believe the United Party got thousands and thousands of votes at the last election under false pretences. I was told by voters in my constituency that they had decided after all to vote for the United Party. I ask them why, and they told me that a United Party canvasser had come to see them and had asked them why they were going to vote for the National Party. They replied that they were going to vote for the National Party because they believed in the Government’s policy. The canvasser then said to them: “You mean you want apartheid?” When they said “yes”, the canvasser said to them: “Don’t worry; you can vote for us then because we also believe in apartheid,” not separate development but apartheid. Thousands of people not only in my constituency but throughout South Africa voted for the United Party in the mistaken belief that the United Party also stands for apartheid when in fact they do not. They told us yesterday what they want; they want no colour line; they want to do nothing about this matter.

Is that clause 5 of the Bill?

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

Under the system of classification and separation which this Bill seeks to achieve we want to keep South Africa a civilized, happy and peaceful country. If the United Party ever came into power, they have told us that they would repeal the Population Registration Act and they would abolish separation, and thereby they would abolish the civilization and decency we have in South Africa, and then we would have misery and hatred, but fortunately that will never happen because the voters of South Africa will see to it that the United Party is never returned to power.

I find it very difficult to follow the hon. member for Maitland and I hope he will excuse me if I do not travel around with him in his constituency, but I do want to tell him this, in regard to his statement that people should not have the right to appeal after three or four years …

I did not say so; I referred to third parties.

Does it really matter who appeals on their behalf? The hon. the Minister of the Interior, as far back as 1959, said that the door to an appeal is never closed.

It is still open.

The tragedy about this legislation is that it makes the future of the people concerned another political football. What should have happened after 1950 was that this matter should have been taken out of politics and should have been dealt with by people who could hear appeals from the people affected, and we should not have had debates year after year in this House affecting the people whom I call “no-mads”: people who do not belong to either the one race group or the other, but who are desperately endeavouring to find their home in one of those race groups. But they are never able to settle down in their quest because every time this Act is amended and there is no security for these people. They do not know where they are. Some of them are on this side of the border and want to cross; others are already on the other side of the border but are being chased back. These are the people who are affected. I want to say at once that the Coloured people are a proud race group. [Interjection.] The Coloured people do not try for White. There are certain people who try for White, but they are a special group; they are a small minority. I want to repeat the words of the hon. member for Peninsula when he said to the hon. the Minister: You have not disclosed the number of people affected. I want to say that the Minister, in my humble opinion, did not take the House into his confidence by telling us how many people are affected. The impression I have received from speakers opposite is that they are afraid; there is a fear complex about them, and I say that this legislation stems from that fear. I would like to say that any legislation which stems from fear is bad legislation. The Minister said in his speech, when he spoke about the intervention of third parties, that—

Sir, a whole 135 people are going to “verongeluk ons strewe”. I am going to ask the Minister in his reply to tell us what is behind this amending Bill and how many people are affected. I have absolute confidence that the figures quoted by the hon. member for Peninsula are not wrong. I would be prepared to say there are 100,000 people, which is an insignificant number compared with the total population of South Africa. But the Minister in his introduction has given no reason at all why the 1962 Act should again be amended. May I remind the hon. member for Maitland of what the Minister, Senator De Klerk, then said?—

That is in Col. 4440 of Hansard of 1962.

Order! I want to remind the hon. member that those words were quoted here twice yesterday. Hon. members should stop repeating now.

I thank you for your guidance, Sir, but I would like to say that in Col. 4442 the Minister said: “I want to give them an absolute assurance on the points raised,” and in the same column he said: “I made these people a promise.” So we had an assurance from the Minister, and we also had a promise from the Minister, and both the assurance and the promise are to-day being nullified by this amending Bill. In view of your ruling, Sir, I should like to quote from the Bill itself. The first clause of the Bill talks about a person who in appearance is obviously a White person. What part of his body must be obviously White? Only his face? I know of many people who are dark in their faces, but when you see them undressed their bodies are as white as those of anybody else. How can you judge appearance merely by looking at a man’s face? I want to say quite seriously that that is one of the points which worried the officials in the Roeland Street Office of the Department, and when I took people to that office I made them take off their jackets and their shirts and the officials looked at their faces and they were satisfied, in nine cases out of ten, that these people were White, although in appearance they might not have been regarded as White. The hon. the Minister has referred to the 1951 census and I want to say that that aspect of the Act of 1950 was so fully discussed in 1962 that the people affected were given the assurance that the 1951 census will never be used in race classification. That was the assurance given by the hon. the Minister Jan de Klerk. Mr. Speaker, you have said that I must not quote but that is so.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for Parow says that that was the basis; that was the basis for the register. I agree, but after 12 years of experience the hon. the Minister said:

“We will not use it any more.” That was an undertaking and a promise given by the then Minister of the Interior who was in charge of the Bill, to the people affected. He said that that was his promise and undertaking. Why does the hon. the Minister now revert to the 1951 census? The hon. members who spoke here spoke as vehemently and as strongly in 1962 in support of the then Minister’s contention that the 1951 census must be removed as a basis. To-day they come back to it. The hon. the Minister has indicated an amendment to clause 3 with which I was going to deal but which I will now in view of the amendment leave until the committee stage.

Now I want to ask the hon. the Minister to reply to a few of the questions I will put in regard to the Bill. If a person shall be classified as a White person if his natural parents have both been classified as White. I should like to ask what happens if a mother or the father died before the 1951 census or before classification and only one parent is alive. Does this apply to both parents or only one? What happens if one parent is dead and he or she has not been classified? Will the one be sufficient?

Do you think nobody will know whether he or she was classified as a White or a Coloured.

The point is that there would have been no classification if she died before 1950. The mother might have died in childbirth. The father might be classified as White but the mother is not living. Who will know what she was? Must it be one or both parents? In the case of those people who only have one parent, will they be precluded in terms of this clause? The Minister must be fair and say whether he will accept one parent in respect of classification. After all, the Minister does not want a lot of informers. He will have to have a host of people travelling around asking whether anybody knew the late so and so. Surely that is not the intention.

The children themselves will have appearance, and acceptance and they have a parent.

With due respect I want to say that the Minister does not know his own Bill. I am talking about the fact that in terms of this Bill a child whose parents are both classified as White will automatically be White even if he has a mixed birth certificate.

How can he have a mixed birth certificate?

I should like to tell the hon. member for Parow that we who were in the legal profession have sufficient knowledge of these cases to know about them. I can give the hon. member several cases where the parents are classified as White but the child has a mixed birth certificate. Under what clause will that person be dealt with? Will he be dealt with under this clause which provides for both parents being White or under the clause which says that if you have a mixed birth certificate, you are Coloured? I was merely pointing out the inconsistency of this Bill and the difficulties which will arise.

Have you seen the amendment?

I think I should try to clarify this point for the benefit of the hon. member for Parow. The clause provides that if a person has a birth certificate which says “mixed”, he shall be Coloured in terms of the new amendment unless he can prove that he is not a Coloured man. The other clause says that if both his parents are classified as White, he is automatically White. I know of dozens of such cases where the persons concerned have mixed birth certificates but their parents have been classified as White. Under which clause would this be applicable? I shall leave the matter to be dealt with in the committee stage.

Mr. Speaker, a clause which has not been dealt with very fully is the new section 15 (1). This is what I might call the informers clause. People will come and complain about people who have had identity cards issued to them when they do not conform. The new clause 15 (1) provides:

Does the hon. the Minister realize that nobody in this country who has an identity card or who has an appeal considered by the department and not the Board is safe if somebody comes and informs on him and says, “I can prove that that man is Coloured and that he has got a white identity card”. The whole heresy hunt then begins. Is that what the intention is? I do not want to embarrass the Minister. There was an article in the Cape Argus which indicated that a considerable number of cards have already been recalled. I believe that it is not the Minister’s department but another department of the Government which is responsible. I do not know whether the hon. the Minister knows about it or whether it is sub-judice. I had people coming in to see me and saying to me, “My identification card has been called back”. I then made a telephone call to the department who had called them back and asked them what was going on. I was told that a number of cards had been recalled but that my people need not worry because they were classified by a board. What I am trying to show the Minister is this. Are we never going to have an end to the classification? Once a man is classified, leave him be in peace. Do not let him have the sword of Damocles hanging over his head because some informer might come along at a later stage and say that he can give information about that man. Will the Minister please tell us why he wants these powers? Why does he want a card recalled? I do not think that the Minister has given the House all the information in this regard. I am not going to press the hon. the Minister if he feels that it is not in the public interest to make this known or that the matter is sub judice. We have read certain things in the newspapers about people being arrested for fraud charges etc. If this is the clause in terms of which the Minister wants to rectify any case that comes to his knowledge, will the Minister give us the assurance—I do not know whether any assurances are valid because we have had so many in the past—that it will not be used for a witch hunt or become what I have called the informers clause. I will accept it.

Generally, I want to say this. The third party objection has loomed very largely in this debate. The Minister has made out no case at all because the Minister has indicated that from 1951 to 1961 there were no cases, but there was suddenly a rush of 135 applications, a tremendous rush, destroying the whole South African nation and polluting the Coloureds and the white people of this country! I want to associate myself with the appeal made by the hon. member for Peninsula and ask the Minister not to pursue that aspect. Let us accept the principle enunciated by previous Ministers that the door will always be open to people to appeal and to have their classification rectified. The Act deals with that. Let it always remain open. Let me point out to the hon. the Minister that even the previous Minister in 1959 admitted that people do not read about the right of appeal and some of them are ignorant of the right of appeal. If indeed somebody is satisfied that he has been wrongly classified, why should he not appeal? The mere fact that some of these appeals have succeeded, after the third party has intervened, is surely proof positive that there are certain people who have been wrongly classified and that the proof they produced was sufficient to have them reclassified. In 1962 the hon. the Minister pointed out that approximately 230 out of 290 appeals were successful. What would the hon. the Minister have done if this legislation had been of full force and effect before these appeals were heard? The majority of these people who succeeded in their appeals would never have been able to go forward. In other words it will be on the conscience of the Government that certain people who to-day have been classified as white would not have been classified as white had this legislation been in effect a year or two ago. This shows that there will always be people who will find that they are wrongly classified. Once a person cannot by law appeal, surely somebody should come to his assistance. The Government surely does not want to see injustice done.

He can go to the Secretary.

I want to say that I have the greatest faith in the present Secretary of the Interior, but he will not always be there. Mr. Speaker, in terms of the ruling of the Deputy-Speaker, who occupied the Chair before you, I am precluded from quoting something because he said that it had previously been quoted.

The hon. member is still precluded from quoting it. I was present at the time.

I want to tell the hon. the Minister that he must not worry about the Coloured people. He must not worry about the white people. All the Minister must worry about are these unfortunate people who ask for justice and fair treatment, and who ask that their cases should be investigated and that they should have the right to go into the race group which they believe they are justified to go into. I want the Minister to disabuse his mind and the minds of the members in this House and indeed the minds of the people of South Africa that there is danger of the white people becoming brown in this country. There is no such danger and there never will be such a danger. I say that this Bill is completely unnecessary. It is unjustified and it has made a complete mockery of previous undertakings by this Government. It has re-opened this most unfortunate question once more. It has brought uncertainty once more into the minds of the people who thought that they were now safe in regard to their classification. The Government is not only doing a disservice to itself but it is going to add more and more tragedy to an already tragic situation.

Mr.Speaker, I could not follow the hon. member for Boland very well as he did not address himself to me, but I nevertheless succeeded in catching a few of the things he said. I just want to reply to one or two of the matters he raised. He referred to the Act having been amended so often before. He said that every time the Act was amended there was less security for the Coloured group. Whether or not there is less security for the Coloured group is a matter about which the two of us may differ.

I did not say that.

The hon. member may read his Hansard at a later stage. It is my contention that it is a natural thing to do in the dynamic epoch in which we are living to amend Acts from time to time in order to adapt them to changed circumstances. That principle that we have to adapt to change is concerned in this matter to a large extent. The hon. member said that the Coloured group was a proud group. To that he added that they were not people who “try for white”. Did I understand him correctly?

Not the genuine Coloureds.

Yes, that was what the hon. member meant. Now I want to ask the hon. member: Is it a good thing if any Coloured person—and it is so often said that there are so few full-blooded Coloureds—is to be wronged by a third party which takes him in tow and wants to introduce him into a group of which he ought not to be proud if he is a good Coloured?

Then he is not a good Coloured.

The hon. member will have another opportunity of making a speech during the Third Reading.

As regards these third party objections, I find it very strange that when this Act was amended in 1962 the Opposition was opposed to third party objections. They thought that there would be “informers”. I recall that Field-Marshal Smuts said on 8th March, 1950 (Hansard, Vol. 71, Col. 2528)—

Mr. Speaker, that did not happen. On the contrary, the opposite happened. There were abuses in that other people took these people in tow and wanted to introduce them into the white group in underhand ways.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

Mr Speaker, I am now making my speech. I am not prepared to reply to questions now. This Bill contains an amendment to existing legislation. Here, to my mind, the attitude of the Opposition is once more revealing itself very clearly. On the previous occasion they received sound advice from the then Minister of the Interior. He said that he hoped that the 1962 Amendment Act would not be regarded from a party political point of view. To that he added (Hansard, Vol. 3. Col. 4447)—

Judging from what I have heard over the past few days, I believe that we are not so much concerned here, as far as the Opposition is concerned, with sudden objections to improving an Act which needs to be adapted to changed circumstances. I think what we are concerned with is simply the old resistance to race classification. They do not want to accept the fact of race classification and now, in their opposition, they are once again displaying all the bitterness they feel about the fact that an Act on population registration has been on the Statute Book for 17 years. I have already given the telling example of third-party objections which are now being abolished. They do not want them to be abolished. At first they were opposed to third-party objections. As regards this Act, and as regards essential amendments being effected to that Act, they are, to my mind, of the same mind as the Progressive Party. There is no difference, as regards this measure, between the view of the United Party and that of the Progressive Party. That is why the hon. member for Houghton said that this was an attempt “to define the undefinable” and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition spoke of an attempt “to classify the unclassifiable”.

What about it?

Well, if it is true that they cannot be classified, if this is an attempt to define something which cannot be defined, if this legislation is going to be such a failure, why does the Opposition fight this measure so fiercely? In that case the measure will be a failure. I do not think that the Opposition is very sure of itself.

The hon. the Minister gave us a very good, chronological account of the events which had given rise to this measure, and for that reason I do not want to refer to them again. He said the main object of this Bill was to give closer definitions of the terms “appearance”, “acceptance” and “descent” in an attempt to put an end to this gradual but nevertheless, to his mind, dangerous integration of White and non-White which appeared to be the object of certain persons in this country. At the outset, the Government, in passing the original Population Registration Act, tried to create order from the chaos which it inherited from the United Party, from the old policy of laisser-faire, by means of legislation which the United Party nevertheless opposed. At the time it was fair in that it regarded acceptance by the community as being the most important standard. As the years went by—12 whole years—new problems revealed themselves. As the old ones died and others joined their ranks, these liberalists and people who would like to see integration found loopholes. I say. Sir, that this Government acted very fairly in the beginning by regarding the test of acceptance as the standard. Consequently there could not have been much grief, because, Sir, does it really cause a person more grief if he is not accepted where he would like to be, than it does him to be accepted where he himself ought not to be? In this regard the Government was fair. However, over the years the test of appearance was added because at times there were many people who were obviously Coloureds and who were nevertheless accepted as Whites. Therefore the position arose that if a person looked like a Coloured person he was not classified as a White person but as a Coloured person. That was contained in the amendment of 1962. In other words, the policy of the National Party adapted the standards of differentiation as the years passed. Then two loopholes appeared.

Order! I should like the hon. member to tell us something new.

Thank you, Sir, you are best able to tell me whether or not I am repeating. I am trying to submit to your ruling.

Well, the hon. member is definitely repeating.

I just want to say this. The more elderly people amongst the Coloured group have had 17 years in which to register themselves. In terms of the court decision which amounted to the period of 30 days not being mandatory, to the period in which they may register or be classified not being mandatory, some of them obtained reclassifications as late as five years and even longer after the time. Subsequently they changed their addresses and went to live somewhere else, and when they eventually came back they had been accepted as Whites for a short period and then they were Whites. These are the people who “try for White”, the people who, as the hon. member opposite said, do not exist. For that reason new standards were applied as time went by. We know that Dr. Dönges said 20 or more years ago that the question of descent would have to be taken into account in future. The question of acceptance would gradually become less important whereas the question of descent would constantly become more important. Who are now being wronged? At this stage it is not a question of descent to the very early ancestors but descent as regards the immediate ancestors only, and then merely on the grounds of the classification of the parents.

The Opposition spoke a great deal here of what grief would be caused in future. They placed excessive emphasis on grief. They virtually waxed lyrical in their melancholy. However, I think that much more grief would be caused if we did not amend this Act in order to introduce descent as a factor in determining a person’s classification. The South African national concept and our belief is separate development and no biological mixing. Surely the United Party accepts that. But now they simply do not want to accept the word. They are opposed to mixing. In essence this measure is aimed at preventing mixing even more effectively. Nevertheless they are opposed to this Bill. I want to ask them to abandon the old concept about race classification, to abandon the old philosophy which was based on race separation and to give their attention in future to the new idea of nations and relations between nations which has taken root in recent years. They must be prepared to accept that; then they will be able to see this matter much more clearly. However, relations between nations do not carry any weight with them. The duty of this Party of which I am a member is, if we believe in what we want to do, to take measures for carrying out our belief, and this is a measure which improves an Act in order to carry out effectively the mandate which we have repeatedly received from time to time.

The Opposition complained that the Secretary was getting too many powers in terms of this legislation. However, the Minister gave them the assurance that the classifications of people already classified would not be affected.

I do not know whether they want to accept that assurance, but that is the assurance which he gave them. As regards the powers of the Secretary, I cannot see how they can object to them, because the procedure followed, the procedure of appeal, is, as far as I am concerned, totally in accordance with the rule of law in connection with which hon. members opposite so often complain.

It was also a shock to me to read that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said, “I think it is throwing away a very fine form of, shall we say …” My notes do not include the rest of his sentence. In any event he spoke in this trend, namely that because of this measure we were throwing away a fine opportunity of supplementing our population. Well, to me that was a shock. I think the United Party may as well accept this advice: Where race classification does exist and where it is necessary for us to come forward every time with legislation so as to adapt the principal Act—one may virtually say as a matter of administrative necessity—I ask the United Party to throw in their weight with us and not, particularly in view of the delicate situation in which our nation finds itself, to oppose race legislation time and time again with so much venom as they have been doing here over the past few days.

Sir, when I hear a speech such as that made by the hon. member for Gordonia at this late stage of the debate, the third day of the Second Reading debate, it makes me wonder whether hon. members on that side of the House have merely accepted the interpretation of this Bill as given to them by the Minister or whether they have in fact read the Bill. I very much doubt whether some of them have read it, particularly the hon. member who has just sat down. I think it is important therefore to realize that the principle of race classification is not in issue in this Bill. That issue was dealt with in the original measure. We have before us to-day not a Bill which has to do with the principle of race classification but a piece of amending legislation, and all that this House is concerned with to-day is the proposed amendments. If hon. members look at the Bill they will find that the proposed amendments have to do with a very small category of people; they do not have anything to do with the general measures for classifying people as White, Coloured, Bantu or what-have-you. These amendments have to do with just a certain category of people, namely the borderline cases, and not, as it was put by the previous speaker, with the try-for-white cases, which was the expression that the hon. member used in an obviously derogatory, slurring manner. The people who are affected by the amendments contained in this Bill are those who in many cases claim to be White but who are to be classified as Coloured or placed in some other race category either by the Government or by Government officials. They are people who claim to have the right to be classified as White, and it is time hon. members opposite realized this: These people claim to be Whites; they claim that they have the right to be classified as such and they object very strongly when the Government or a Government official seeks to classify them with some other race. Surely every member on that side of the House will concede that if a man claims to have the right to be classified as White, he should be entitled to state his case without having any slurs cast upon him, as has been done here by the hon. member for Gordonia and other hon. members opposite.

Sir, I want to deal with certain statements made by the hon. members for Primrose and Witbank. These hon. members and others on the Government side have said that the Government treats people in this category with the greatest sympathy. We on this side of the House say: “Let us look at your actions and then we can decide whether or not you treat these people with sympathy.” Sir, what do we find when we look at their actions? In the Bill which is before the House to-day, where is there one word indicating sympathy for people in this category? There is not. On the contrary every single proposed amendment will make it more difficult for those people who claim to be White and who wish to be classified as Whites, to be classified as such. Where is the sympathy which hon. members opposite claim to have for these persons? None at all!

Which Coloured people cannot appeal against their race classification?

I wish the hon. the Minister would listen to what I say. I have made it perfectly clear that my contention is that every single one of the amendments in this Bill will make it more difficult for those persons who claim to be Whites and who, according to the Government, are not, to be classified as Whites. I challenge the hon. the Minister to show when he gets up to reply to this debate that what I have just said is not true. Sir, there is no other way to describe the attitude of hon. members opposite except to say that they are hypocrites when they say that they have the greatest sympathy for this class of person. Their actions show the very reverse.

On a point of order, Sir, is the hon. member entitled to refer to us as hypocrites?

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

Sir, is it your ruling that I am not allowed to say that hon. members opposite are hypocrites?

Yes, that is my ruling.

If that is your ruling then I must withdraw it. Let me say then that hon. members opposite, particularly the hon. member for Primrose, ought to know that the statement that under this Bill a sympathetic attitude will be adopted towards border-line cases is not true, and as a senior member of this House he ought not to make statements which he ought to know are not true.

On a point of order, Sir, is the hon. member entitled to say that I have made statements which I ought to know are not true?

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

I now want to deal with other points which arise out of this legislation, and as we have not yet had a clear answer to some of these points, which I will now put again pertinently, I hope that we will get a reply either from subsequent speakers or from the Minister. First of all, the hon. the Minister has admitted, although some hon. members on his side have been doing their best to adopt a different point of view, that in terms of the amendments which are proposed in this Bill, descent now becomes a very important factor in the classification of persons, for the first time since the original measure was introduced, and despite the statements to which the House has already been referred by the hon. member for Peninsula and which were made by previous Ministers of the Interior to the effect that ancestry or descent would never be adopted as a test by this Government.

Read the Bill.

What I would like to know from the hon. the Minister is how far back he now intends to go, because there is no definition of descent either in this Bill or in the original Act.

It is not even mentioned in the Bill.

The Bill only refers to classifications.

Sir, the Bill does not only refer to classifications. I am amazed that the hon. the Minister should make such a statement, because if he really believes it then he does not know the contents of this Bill.

Read subsection (5) of section 5.

If the hon. the Minister will look at clause 1 he will see that descent becomes one of the most important factors in classification in terms of his own Bill, and if he looks at his Second Reading speech, which obviously must have been prepared for him by one of his officials, he will see that he says there that descent now becomes an important factor. I ask him therefore: How far back does the Government now intend to go in order to decide who is and who is not a white person?

Natural parents; that is the simple answer.

Sir, we will discuss this question in more detail when we come to the Committee Stage, but I merely want to say to the hon. member for Parow that he does not know what he is talking about either. I ask this question particularly in view of the statement made by the hon. the Minister about “volbloed-blankes” and the statement made by the hon. member for Mayfair about “suiwer blankes”. In view of these statements the public is entitled to a clear statement as to what is meant by a “volbloed-blanke”, and “suiwer blanke”. In other words, how far back does the Government intend to go in deciding whether a man is a pure White or not?

I now come to the definition of a Coloured person. I have never heard such nonsense as that uttered by the hon. member for Primrose when he referred to section 5 (5) as containing a definition of a Coloured person. It does no such thing. The definition of a Coloured person, in the Population Registration Act, is contained in the definition clause, section 1. There you have the definition of a Coloured person. What does it say? It says: “A person who is not a white person or a Native.” Sir, what a wonderful definition! It tells you absolutely nothing at all. This is the sort of thing that we have to put up with. We are told by hon. members opposite that everything is perfectly clear under this legislation and that it will be even clearer under this amending Bill. Let me deal with subsection (5) about which the hon. member for Primrose had so much to say. All that this says is that if the natural parents have been classified in a certain way, their progeny must be classified as set out in this clause. That is all it says. This is no definition of what a Coloured person is. How are they to be classified as Coloured persons? You have to go back to the definition then.

But you just said that the definition in the original Act also said nothing.

If the hon. member for Primrose does not understand the conclusion from the statements I have made, perhaps I can tell him clearly. It supports the contention that my hon. Leader and others on this side of the House have made, namely that there is a certain category of people in this country, generally called the boderline cases, many of whom are unclassifiable, and by trying to draw a straight line, as the Government tries to do in terms of this Bill, it will mean that some white persons, persons who should be classified as White, will be classified as Coloured, and that in addition a great many people will be humiliated and degraded and will have their self-respect considerably damaged.

Give us your definition for a change.

We have told the hon. members opposite ever since they introduced the Population Registration Act in 1950 that in dealing with those cases, they were trying to classify the unclassifiable. Surely the facts over the last 17 years have shown that. The hon. member asks what my point of view is about this. The Minister himself, in introducing the Bill, said that the number of people involved in this category is a very small one. So what on earth does it matter to the white race and to the South African nation … [Interjection.] It would make absolutely no difference to the status of the white man if a few people, and even a few thousand, whom the Government thinks should be classified as Coloured but who claim to be classified as White, are in fact classified as White. If this sort of thing will bring down the white nation in South Africa, then I am very sorry for the white nation. But I have a great deal more respect for the white nation than apparently hon. members opposite have. I do not think this sort of thing will damage the white nation in this country in any way. [Interjection.]

I come now to the powers of the Secretary in terms of this Bill. We would like a very clear answer from the Minister as to what this amending section is intended to do, because as we read it means to us—and I think in fact the Minister may already have conceded that our interpretation is correct—that other than those who have already been reclassified, or who have been classified as the result of an application to court—other than those two categories, all other persons are subject to be reclassified by the Secretary if at any time he thinks, or evidence is placed before him to suggest, that there has been an incorrect classification. This, to us, means that the whole question of classification, right back, is wide open, and to us this is a very sad state of affairs indeed. We want a very clear answer to this, and I hope that the Minister will give it. I may say that this is no reflection on the present holder of this office who, we believe, applies the very greatest sympathy to applications which come before him. It may also be that the same will be the case with future incumbents of that position, but that is not the point. Once you give the opportunity to have the whole thing re-opened by anybody who can place information before the Secretary, there is no longer security for anyone who has been classified under this Act.

I come now to these third party objections. The argument which has been advanced by hon. members opposite to justify doing away with this is that there has been abuse. They do not seem to appreciate the facts. Why is it that third parties are resorting to this? The hon. member for Parow ought to know that there is a time limit for a person who has been classified, to appeal, and a very short time limit. Many of these people are uneducated and do not know their rights. They tend to be a bit lax and do not do anything after their classification for a while, and then they go to an attorney and find they are out of time and nothing can be done unless the Minister is prepared to exercise his discretion. But that discretion has been exercised on very, very few occasions. In any event application to the Minister is limited to one year. There are not many of these people. How many people who are in the borderline category will know the law and will know that there is a right to ask the Minister to extend the period within which to appeal?

It just does not happen. So it is because they are out of time for their appeals that resort is now being made to this provision which enables a third party to object on another’s behalf. That is why it was done; there is no sinister motive behind it. There is no intention of undermining the white race in this country, as hon. members opposite have suggested. There is no intention of undermining the policy of separate development of the Nationalist Party, as other hon. members opposite have suggested. Sir, all this is a smokescreen to try and confuse people into believing that there is a justifiable reason for doing away with third party objections, whereas in fact there is no justification whatsoever. This, in fact, is another example of how this Bill, far from adopting a sympathetic and lighter attitude towards the borderline cases, makes it harder for them.

In conclusion, I merely wish to say that as regards this so-called creeping integration which this Bill is supposed to stop, here again, if that is the main reason the Government can find for justifying this Bill, then they have made a very poor showing indeed; because the number of cases involved is so small that there cannot possibly be such large-scale creeping integration which would undermine the position of the Whites in this country. So, in conclusion, I would repeat that this Bill is a tragedy because it will result in many Whites being classified as Coloureds. [Interjections.] In other cases it will lead to humiliation of a great many other people, and all for what purpose? That is the tragedy. There is no justification for it whatsoever, and for that reason, despite three days of debate, we are even more opposed to this Bill than ever before.

I have been listening attentively to the hon. member for Musgrave and I just want to tell him that he referred to the hon. member for Gordonia, who, as everybody knows, is a Van der Merwe, and now it is my turn to speak and, as everybody knows, I am a Van der Merwe too. But the hon. member for Gordonia has already made mincemeat of the hon. member for Musgrave. I have often sat listening in this House, thinking back to my student days, and I have actually sought the products of Nusas in this House. Up to now I have not actually been able to recognise any here; but when I listened to that hon. member I could see the link between that student group and find its results in our public and political life here this afternoon. It seems to me that the hon. member would feel much more at home next to the hon. member for Houghton, and when I return later in my speech to the hon. member for Houghton I shall deal with the two of them together. [Interjections.] It seems to me the hon. member for Musgrave is really a very worried man. I want to assure him that he need not really be concerned about his days on Mauritius, and he need not be concerned about his possible link with Buckingham Palace. I just want to return to one thing I said. He, together with his hon. Leader, stated that the National Party wanted to classify the unclassifiable, and the Opposition has been asked repeatedly what they meant by that and what they were going to do with those so-called unclassifiable people. The reply became very apparent this afternoon in the speech made by the hon. member, i.e. that they want to assimilate everybody in South Africa who appears to be unclassifiable into the white group. If that is so I want to refer them to the ideas and views of liberal geneticists and anthropologists who state that there is no race living in Africa which did not at some stage or another undergo a process of mixing. In other words, if one were to apply that principle consistently, one would, according to their view, have no classification here. But I want to ask the Opposition this. Sitting in their Caucus is a member who represents the Coloureds, and I want to ask this very simple question: Who does that member sitting in their Caucus represent? Who are the people he represents? The member who is going to speak after me must tell me whom that hon. member represents, and who the Coloureds are?

But I want to get away from the negative aspects and return to the positive. Sir, before you call me to order as you called my hon. colleague to order, I want to tell you beforehand what I want to discuss. In the first instance I want to reply to certain statements made by hon. members of the Opposition, and then I want to give particular attention to the amendments which are being proposed in clause 1 of the Bill. But by way of an approach for my speech, I want to say that I think it is necessary that every new member in this House should sum up the background in this way, i.e. that it is general knowledge that the principles of the sections, sections which are being submitted for careful amendment here, were accepted 17 years ago. During the course of these 17 years the provisions of these clauses have developed even more precisely. and not only that, but the voting public has also noticed to in increasing extent that it is only the National Party which understands the full significance of race and population questions in South Africa and that it is only the National Party which is trying honestly to convert them into legislation. The Opposition, on the other hand, has during those 17 years not yet learned how to learn.

Order! The hon. member must return to the Bill.

Coming to the Bill, I want to reply to a few things which were said by certain hon. members of the Opposition, things which cannot remain unanswered. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and other of his followers have, during the past few days, given us another example of their typical laissez-faire, laissez-aller attitude. Amongst other things, they have said in regard to this amendment, that it is “vicious”, in other words, that they are malicious and spiteful. This terrible allegation was made by them without adducing any proof. They did not want to prove it because what they had said was said to support and strengthen those people who want to bring about the downfall of the National Party. But it was for other reasons, too, that they said it. I have a little book here, entitled Suid-Afrikaners onder die Soeklig—’n Wetenskaplike ontleding van hedendaagse houdings. One of the writers of this book is the hon. member for Hillbrow. On page 15 of the book there appears a table of events. Opposite the year 1950 the hon. member has said (translation)—

But, Mr. Speaker, this scientist proceeded in a very unscientific way. He did not test the effect of that Act against the political thinking of South Africans. Quasi-scientists use this type of speeches for the sole purpose of making the general public afraid of the National Party. At the same time they want to present themselves in a better light. But I want to come to the hon. member for Port Natal, my actual neighbour—in fact we can even co-operate in writing a book with the title “Sonde met die Bure” (Trouble with the Neighbours). But I want to reply to certain statements which he made. He and the hon. member for Sea Point allege that these amendments which are now being proposed, are un-Christian. But clause 1 surely has only to do with a closer definition of “descent” and “acceptance” when they are used as an acknowledged scientific criterion in a multi-national and multi-racial country where those people have to be classified for the sake of the accented norms and order of that country. Since these hon. members are now alleging that these amendments are un-Christian, I want to quote from one of the best known works on reformed ethics. If you would only afford me an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, I shall tell you later on how I relate this quotation with the provisions of this Bill. The work from which I am quoting is titled Gereformeerde Etiek by Professor Dr. W. Geesink. On page 528 he writes, inter alia—

But in order to refute their argument I do not want to dwell on reformed ethnics only. I also want to read a short quotation from the Roman Catholic world where a man such as Louis Luzbetak recently wrote a very modern book, a book which is accepted by the Roman Catholic Mission. The title of the book is The Church and Cultures. On page 1 of his preface to that book he states—

Does the Church support this Bill?

In other words, the acknowledging of diversity and the right of survival in diversity …

Order! I want to point out to the hon. member that he is arguing the principles of the original Act. Although it falls outside the scope of this Bill I have nevertheless allowed the hon. member to make the quotations dealing with churches and religious faith, but the hon. member must now return to the provisions of this Bill.

I just wanted to point out to the hon. member that his allegation that the actions of the Government are un-Christian, are unscientific and incorrect.

Order! But that hon. member resumed his seat very quickly.

Yesterday afternoon the hon. member for Sea Point held up the works of Mr. Hoge very theatrically, and in doing so reached a low-water mark in his speech. The hon. member for Sea Point gave himself out here as an authority in the field of genealogy, in the field of the history of South African families. During the course of that speech he made extremely ugly insinuations. But what work by Hoge did the hon. member hold up here? This writer published four works. I discovered from our library yesterday afternoon that we only had one of those works here, and when I wanted to borrow it I was informed that the book had already been taken out. I want to suggest that the hon. member for Sea Point never read that book, because if he had done so he would have known that that book is merely a very brief resumé of a much greater work written by De Villiers under the title Die Geslagregisters van ou Kaapse Families. There are more than 1.200 pages in that book. With that he did not even come to the work of Du Toit-Malherbe in which a few hundred thousand South African white families are dealt with. When one comes to the question of purity, I want to ask the hon. members to go and read those works. He did not even read the little book by Van Colenbrander, namely De Afkomst der Boeren, in which the following is said, inter alia, Mr. Speaker, you will have to call me to order again if I am wrong. [Laughter.]

The hon. member is out of order almost all the time.

I shall proceed. We come now to section 1. Mr. Speaker, I would have liked to have read it for the edification of the House, but I come now to section …

Read! Read!

When we come to section 1, as amended, then this side of the House wants to lay down the fairest and most justifiable criteria. Since we want to make use of appearance, acceptance and acknowledgement in respect of descent as guiding lines when deciding whether a person is White then it could perhaps be seen in a clearer perspective if we were to bear in mind that the interests—the clash between White, Black and Coloured in South Africa—is more than just a racial confrontation in the bio-genetical sense of the word; it also includes a fundamental difference in way of life, and consequently an outlook on life and humanity.

These problematical situations are situated in communities which ostensibly reveal a racially stratified appearance; merely because the bio-genetical differences between White, Bantu and Coloured, coincide with the already mentioned differences in way of life and race as the physically more easily identifiable qualities, it is the general section criterion which operates in daily social intercourse. In other words, when we come to these sections, when we want to classify the so-called unclassifiable, then we do not only make use of the somatoscopic, the somatometric or the osteometric methods. We accept these so called unclassifiable people in section 1 as purely physical biological beings. For that reason we will not, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said, treat people as if they were animals. The National Party views the people in this amended section, mankind therefore, not as a physical biological being, but also as a cultural being. It also views him as a physical being. That is why all the criteria contained in these sections, contribute by implication to what we are taking into consideration that we have to deal here with cultural patterns and with the characteristics arising from patterns of life, and they are summarized as effectively as possible in this section in question. Section 1 (2) (a) for example is defined in greater detail by this amendment, by adding the physical appearance, the habits, education, speech, general demeanour and behaviour. In this regard I want to refer to the view of Professor Stanley Porteus, when he stated the following in his little article Ethnic Group Differences. I am reading these extracts from accepted scientific works of our modern times, precisely because the hon. member for Houghton intimated in a typically snobbish way yesterday that the National Party were old-fashioned, were going to work unscientifically and were not keeping abreast of modern scientific views. I shall return later to the hon. member for Houghton.

I never said it.

The hon. member for Houghton did say it. But I shall read to you from that article—

The following is important—

Hear, hear!

I am glad that you agree. Now I can proceed with my speech. I want to state very clearly to the hon. members that it is consequently very clear that before one wants to classify the unclassifiable (I am now dealing with section 1), and the criteria are those which are contained in this section, then what the National Party is concerned with is not racial superiority or racial inferiority. It makes no difference to us whether the one person is better or whether another person is worse. It is not our intention to condemn these so-called unclassifiables or to extoll them. What is at issue is separation for the sake of order and the stability of our country and our society. After all, classification or separation is for us not, and this is very important, the last step. It is not the terminal point of our activities as far as these so-called unclassifiables are concerned, because it is at this stage that the National Party and its policy commences its development of a great and fine national structure here in Southern Africa.

The hon. member for Houghton asked yesterday for scientific proofs. That question from the hon. member for Houghton was born out of political snobbishness, because her Party is a snob party, which disregards entirely a large section of society. They select only the so-called enlightened ones, the so-called civilized ones, the so-called intellectuals from each group. [Interjections.] If the hon. members of the Opposition, on the United Party side, take up the cudgels so fiercely for the hon. member for Houghton I am going to do more than merely accuse the hon. member for Musgrave together with this hon. member. I shall also classify the hon. member for Durban (North) with that hon. member.

Science is a product of man and is controlled by man. There is an intricate inter-reaction between community and science. Often the scientists are in the vanguard with their research. On other occasions, science with its research workers, has to take up the rear. There is a fine, delicate balance between science and community. It is not only the hon. member for Houghton and her Party who are scientists. There are many other people in South Africa, apart from Professor Tobias of the University of the Witwatersrand, who know something about racial classification or about genetics. There is an increasing stream of scientists in the modern world who have returned from the horrors of the Second World War to study in a sober, businesslike and empirical way the problems of race and population questions.

In conclusion I just want to say …

I want to point out to the hon. member again that he must return to the Bill now. He is dealing with fundamental matters affecting the principles of the original Act.

Mr. Speaker, I shall conclude with this and not give the examples I would have liked to have given, i.e. how, in America, after people had simply thrown various races together in the same schools, the best educationists are now beginning to realize that it is wrong to mingle even these so-called unclassifiables in communities, because by doing so one is doing precisely what the Opposition has accused us of doing. That is why I want to say that the amendments in this legislation are neither “vicious” nor un-Christian, and that they comply with all modern scientific requirements. But above all, it is proof that the National Party, even in the finest details, without turning its back on the problem—and that is why the young people of our country follow the National Party—is analysing every problem, is placing the solution on the Statute Book with the courage of its convictions and making it known to the entire public.

Mr. Speaker, if I had to follow the hon. member for Rissik, who has just sat down, I am afraid that you will rule me out of order. But there is one matter in regard to which I think I must answer him. The hon. member asked who the hon. member for Karoo—who is not here now because of illness—represents; the hon. member who represents the Coloured people and belongs to the United Party caucus. I would say that he represents the Coloured people in that area. The Coloured people are a group of people who have come into being over the last 300 years. Those are the people that he represents. But because of the fact that they have come into being over a period of 300 years, as a result of events which have taken place over the last 300 years, it is quite obvious that certain things must happen to that race. One of the things which the Minister must appreciate is this. These are people whose blood differs and as a result there must be persons in that group who cannot be identified either as Coloured or white people. I would say to the hon. member for Rissik that I would be very pleased to represent those persons from that group who consider themselves now to be white people. They can come into my constituency and I would be pleased to represent them in this House. It would be no disgrace to me, and I would not be afraid to represent them.

Hon. members on that side who have spoken in this debate resented the criticism which came from my Leader at the beginning of the debate. Well, I think he was mild in his criticism of this Bill. I would say that this Bill has done amongst others one thing: it has opened up wounds of uncertainty that were starting to heal. That is what this Bill is going to do—it is going to open up these wounds again. And it is going to open up wounds in a group of people who do not deserve to be treated in any other way except sympathetically.

Who are the people who have lodged appeals? Who are the people that have asked to be reclassified? They are people who are already unfortunate because of the circumstances that have arisen. They are neither Coloured nor White. They are the “doubtfuls”. But because of what has happened in the past I am sure that in their veins runs more white blood than Coloured blood. I am certain of that. It will not be very long ere scientists will be able to determine that point. They will be able to determine what runs in our veins —how much Coloured blood, how much Caucasian blood, how much Negroid blood, how much white blood we have. To-day the hon. the Minister must resort to guesswork. He does not take into consideration the findings of anthropologists, of haemotologists, of pathologists and other scientific people. He says that if a person’s classification is in doubt that person must be paraded and his demeanour and walk studied. Has he adopted the upright position already or does he still assume the crouching posture of those who are not absolutely White? This is not the way in which to treat those people. Therefore I think that it is a shame that these things are put in black and white into this Bill. I want to say to the Minister and hon. members on that side of the House: do not blame this side if South Africa gets a bad name. Do not blame us if we criticize these Bills. Do not blame us, do not say that it is because of our criticisms that South Africa gets a bad name. Blame yourself for bringing in this type of obnoxious legislation. If you did away with it, it would be to the advantage of South Africa and all its people.

This Bill does not make any Coloured person White. This Bill does only one thing, and that is it makes of a white person, a person who is accepted as White, a Coloured person. Is that fair? Is that reasonable? Why should a man have to go back to a group of people that he has left? What is worse, Sir, why should he not have the opportunity, if he is dissatisfied with a decision that is made departmentally, to go back to the court and fight his case there if he feels strongly about the matter?

What brought this Bill about? What brought this piece of legislation into this House? Only one thing, and that is the failure of the Minister to stop people winning cases in our courts of law. Because they won their cases, the loophole which found favour in the eyes of the law has to be closed up. More shame on us if we pass this Bill—more shame on us! Have we so little faith in our courts of law that we cannot trust them to decide whether a man is justifiably on the right side of the line? But we are making laws to put an end to that right, and that is what we on this side of the House do not want.

We are dealing here with a very delicate matter. We are dealing with the lives of people, their families and their future. We are dealing with people who have already adopted a certain way of life. They have their friends, they move in certain circles, perhaps their children are already going to white schools. Must all of that now come to a stop? Why is the Minister not generous? Why does he not at least say to those who are dissatisfied, whose cases are already on appeal but are delayed, “If you want to be White, then be White.” Is that going to cause any danger? Is that what the white man is afraid of? Must we always be walking with fear? Must we always be looking over our shoulder to see whether anybody is going to stab us in the back? Well, it will not be the Coloured person. The Coloured person has been patient for years and years. He has really been a model of patience.

Order! I think that the hon. member should come back to the Bill.

Thank you for giving me the liberty of going so far, Mr. Speaker. Let me say to the hon. the Minister that the criterion of descent as set out in the Bill is going to give him a headache in the future. I want to know whether he at any time has taken the trouble to study the Mendelian theory. Does he know what it means? Does he know what is going to happen in the future to persons of mixed blood. Does he know that some of us who are White are going to find that there is a throw-back in our family in some future generation—perhaps the next generation or in the second one? What is going to happen then when there is a throwback? What is going to happen to that child who may not look White but who is accepted as a white person? Surely if such a throwback is going to be accepted in future as a white child, then the same thing can happen now. Why should it only be allowed in, say, two or three generations’ time? What many of these people are afraid of to-day is the uncertainty of the future. I say to the hon. the Minister that if he is not going to be just then at least let him be charitable and let him give these people who are borderline cases the opportunity to choose whether they want to be on the white side of the line or whether they want to stay on the brown side.

This Bill does not deal with the principle of classification. That issue was settled 17 years ago. The question here is the proper implementation of the principle of classification, but if one listens to hon. members of the Opposition in this debate, if one hears statements such as those made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, namely that race classification is something alien to the Western world, and if one listens to the hon. member who has just sat down and who stated that this measure would not change a Coloured into a white man but would cause accepted Whites to be declared Coloureds, one comes to the conclusion that the point of dispute is the principle of race classification all over again. It is quite clear to me that hon. members of the Opposition have no clarity as to the reason why we have this Bill before us. What is there in this Bill to prove to the hon. member who has just sat down that this Bill is aimed at making Coloureds of Whites, and not the other way round? The hon. member alleged here that this Bill was an expression of fear of overwhelming on the part of the National Party.

Yes.

The hon. member says “yes”. I see no sign of fear in the Bill, and I see it on nobody’s face, nor do I see on the face of the hon. member that we are fear-stricken. What right has the hon. member, when we are dealing with legislation to create orderly co-existence of the various race groups in our country, to say that it is an expression of fear? Sir, with reference to the allegation made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout that race classification is something alien to the Western world, I want to remind him of what his own Leader said some years ago in this House when similar legislation was being dealt with. On that occasion the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said the following (Hansard, 1962, col. 4453)—

One-eighth.

Sir De Villiers Graaff: One-eighth, but my impression is that it varied from state to state.

Was it the Leader of the Opposition who said that?

Yes. Although we are also introducing the principle of parentage in this Bill, we do not intend going as far as the United States of America went by laying down percentages. Sir, cannot hon. members of the Opposition who have spoken here and who are lawyers simply take a look at this Bill? If they look at the Bill they will see that the question of parentage is introduced in this legislation only in so far as the parents of the person concerned are classified in a certain race group.

What about descent?

It is the same thing.

If the hon. member does not know the difference between descent and parentage, I have nothing more to say to him. Here we have one example in the leading Western country in the world, which examines a person’s parentage for purposes of their own. They also classify people, although not for the same purposes as in South Africa. In this legislation there is no mention of anything of the kind, and yet the hon. member for Bezuidenhout alleges that race classification is something alien to the Western world. One may quote many other instances of classification of people, apart from America.

Sir, I think it is also important to explain on this occasion what was in the minds of the National Party, the Government and the Minister concerned when the original legislation was introduced in 1950. The Minister concerned then said (Hansard, col. 2521, 1950)—

He then also referred to America, where the test of descent is applied.

So what?

It is true that the hon. member for Durban (North) has not spoken yet, but his colleagues advanced a lengthy argument on the question of descent; they wanted to know why we were dragging in the question of descent. I maintain that in this connection we are not going nearly as far as America has gone. We merely go into the classification of the parents of the person concerned—the classification of his parents, not their descent.

I have already said that this Bill deals with the proper implementation of the principle of classification, in an endeavour to close up loopholes which were discovered in the legislation in the course of time. In course of time loopholes are discovered in any legislation, and there are always people who are prepared to exploit loopholes. Pathetic stories have been told to-day and adjectives have been used ad infinitum to describe the suffering caused by this legislation and its supposed cruelty. But I want to raise this question: Was the suffering of which we heard in this debate not there before a Population Registration Act existed? Would that suffering not have become worse and worse if this legislation had not been on the Statute Book? The suffering that occurs is the result of human circumstances. I regret that we did not have this legislation years ago. because then there would have been less suffering in our country. In an attempt to demonstrate the suffering caused, the hon. member for Peninsula produced a newspaper cutting about a family which was allegedly divided into two. But the hon. member spoke against the legislation before us to-day. He did not tell us that that cutting was the result of loopholes in the existing Act. What did the hon. member try to prove? The test which has been applied until now was the test of appearance and of association, in other words, the test of the society in which the person moves. Persons with ulterior motives very soon discovered that it was not difficult to rebut this test and to obtain a different classification, and for that reason the Minister also said in his introductory speech that if there had not been Whites in this country who resisted the concept of separate development, there would perhaps have been no need to introduce this legislation. How easy it is to evade the law and to prove that a person associates with Whites, by looking for such a person in a different environment altogether and bringing him into contact with Whites periodically in order that he may mix with them socially, and then to say that he is associating with Whites.

The hon. member for Piketberg said that the loopholes were also used by people who wanted to profit by the situation. I may confirm that. I have knowledge of cases of people who acted on behalf of applicants, in their dozens, and who charged R250 a case to do so. In other words, these loopholes resulted in abuse and in the fact that avaricious persons profited, and for that reason I maintain, contrary to what hon. members are seeking to allege, that it is not only problem cases which have resulted in appeals. But why did those appeals not arise all these years, why have they suddenly arisen in recent times? I submit that it is due to the fact that people saw an opportunity to profit by this, and that they approached those people deliberately. [Interjections.] I want to go further. The hon. members said here that there were only slightly more than 100 cases, and what did that matter; how could that affect the white nation? But hon. members are taking a completely mistaken view of our motives. That is not the point at issue. What is also at issue is the fact that the Coloureds are deprived of their best people, and we are concerned with the exploitation of circumstances such as these. I envisage that those 150 cases, in view of the success they have achieved in recent times, would have increased to many more in future if the Minister had not introduced this legislation. It is my submission to-day that as long as there are loopholes in legislation of this nature there will be a price on the endeavours of people to change from one race group to another, because there are people who are prepared to exploit that. The Government has shown through this legislation and through its entire handling, administratively, of the legislation in the past, that it puts a price on the achievements of each race group within its own community and puts a price on service to one’s own community; and for that reason it wants to offer an opportunity to people who belong to a certain race group to progress and to be of service to that community.

I have referred to the heartrending stories of human suffering quoted here, and I want to reiterate that without the legislation before us and that which is already in existence, it would have been possible to rake up such heart-rending cases in abundance, and that the legislation before us is aimed at preventing that. Contrary to what hon. members on the opposite side have alleged, it will not aggravate the position. It will gradually reduce the number of problem cases. By the nature of matters this is not an easy task. It is difficult to come to grips with such a human situation. The hon. member for Umlazi may laugh, but the difference between the Government and the Opposition is the fact that the Government has the courage of its convictions and that it gets to grips with difficult situations, and does so in a humane fashion. If hon. members wanted to criticize, they should have mentioned instances of inhumane action by the Government and the Department. They should not hold up spectres of what this legislation will supposedly do and say that it will make Coloureds of Whites. What I regret most about this debate is the attempt by some hon. members on the Opposition side to assume the mentles of angels, so to speak, and to hawk about piety, in particular the hon. member for Sea Point. It is not fitting to take such a propagandistic line in these matters. In the line taken by those hon. members I see the motive of the Opposition, but they are not concerned with real human suffering but with raising as much dust as possible. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said that it was unpatriotic of the Government to introduce this legislation, and other hon. members also said that; it was supposed to be legislation of this nature which harmed our country. The adjectives used to describe this legislation in the course of the debate had a very well-known ring to me, because 17 years ago I also had the privilege of listening to the debates here, and the words used by members of the Opposition, which were of the same tenor, found a true echo on the outside. [Interjection.] I say the members of the Opposition are to blame. I would rather ask the hon. member for Wynberg who is to blame for the fact that we have to introduce legislation of this nature today. I think she has a great deal to do with that. That is why I say: Measure the Government by its sympathetic treatment of problem cases, and if you can prove that the Government did not handle those problem cases sympathetically, then bring complaints of this nature, but do not in advance criticize the Government, in the most extravagant language, before the world.

One of the Opposition members asked how the Secretary of the Department, with the powers conferred on him by the Bill, would handle these cases. He is the head of a government department. It goes without saying that he will dispose of problem cases which are readily disposed of, and then there is no problem left. But the Bill provides for problem cases being referred to a race classification board, for the first time, a board which is virtually a court, presided over by an ex-judge or an ex-magistrate, who will go about matters in accordance with legal procedure and who will give each person a full opportunity to state his case—in other words, to decide in an independent, judicial way. This will relieve the Secretary of the burden so that he will not be exposed to irresponsible criticism. For these reasons I cannot refrain from expressing my support for this legislation, and I maintain that any person in South Africa whose intentions towards his own people are sincere, no matter to which race group he belongs, will welcome this legislation. Similarly, I believe the Coloureds will welcome this legislation, because one would do well to remind the hon. member for Boland in particular that on one occasion the Coloured Council adopted a resolution which called for action against this process, to which hon. members of the Opposition are amenable, and which has the result that the cream of their people is skimmed off and added to the white section. [Interjections.] The hon. member is completely out of touch with the people he represents, because he has no insight into the endeavours of the fair-minded Coloured who serves his own community.

In conclusion I just want to raise this question. In view of the impression given by members of the Opposition in the debate on this legislation, namely that they are not concerned about the continuation of the process of the inter-changing of groups, I want to ask them this question: What becomes of the United Party policy of race federation, in terms of which they provide for the representation of various races in Parliament on a racial basis? What becomes of that if they hold these views on the matter? I would also ask them: What becomes of the so-called policy of white leadership over the entire South Africa, as advocated by the Leader of the Opposition and his Party, if it is of no concern to them whether the White and the Coloured and the Bantu will continue to exist as separate entities?

Mr. Speaker, I suppose that the answer to the last question of the hon. member for Stellenbosch is perhaps that seven independent black states carved out of South Africa offer a greater danger to white leadership or white status or existence than perhaps 200 or 300 borderline cases that this Bill is alleged to be dealing with. When the hon. member for Stellenbosch or any other member on that side of the House starts to quote from the laws of the U.S.A. to justify a measure which we have here relating to race, then we are really getting somewhere. He says that we are not prepared to go as far as the U.S.A. as far as descent is concerned but does the hon. member not appreciate that in terms of this law someone who is now White, can be made a Coloured person? Does he not realize why there is so much concern and why so many people fall over themselves to try to help these people simply because of the circumstances in which they find themselves if they are suddenly reclassified? If they suddenly become Coloured people as has been so eloquently stated by hon. members on this side already, what happens to them? In terms of all the legislation we have such a person has to leave the area where he lives and go to some foreign part. He has to leave all his friends and his children have to leave the schools they were attending. That is what you are dealing with. You are dealing with human beings and human problems. The hon. member for Primrose said when he made his speech that he could find nothing in the Minister’s speech of 1962 where he gave the assurance that descent would not be used in the future. [Interjection.] Let me read to the hon. member what appears in Col. 4445 of the Hansard of 26th April, 1962:

That was for the purposes of the 1962 Act.

Yes, but that is what the hon. member said. He said that he could not find any speech of 1962 in which an assurance was given by the Minister. What is done in clause 1 is to tell us how we are now to determine how someone is generally accepted or how we are to determine what he is in appearance. We are dealing here with a fundamental statute. This is fundamental to the whole edifice of apartheid which is built upon it.

It also applies to race federation.

No. the hon. member must not get confused about this. We do not need and we have never needed a stud book of the human beings that live in this country in order to determine who belongs to one race or another. I think that the fact that we have had so many amendments to this fundamental statute indicates very clearly just how difficult it is to define just what a white person is. This is the sixth one. Every time there are more amendments. If I may say so, to coin a phrase, when one looks at this Bill, it can be described as being “malice in blunderland”. That is precisely what it is. It is a malicious Bill and it is a Bill which is taking this Department and this aspect of thousands of people’s lives into a blunderland from which I do not think anyone is going to be able to escape. I shall justify what I have said. Every clause contains an attempt—and not only an attempt; they actually do it—to nullify something that was decided in the courts. When the hon. the Minister spoke about this amendment —I think it was last year—he spoke about the courts having distorted this. He gave the impression that the courts had given a wrong impression and that he was now going to deal with the decisions they had given. One must remember that the courts are there to determine what the words that are passed by this Parliament mean. That is all their function is and that is what they do. What the hon. the Minister must remember is that the courts at the same time have the added advantage that we do not have here, namely that they apply the intention of the words that we pass into law, to the individual cases which come before them. That is an advantage which they have and which no one else has. The Minister can in this Bill try to meet every single case that will arise. He cannot do it because every single case, being a human being, is a different case and has different circumstances. If you do not leave anything to the courts, and if you do not leave the application of the law to the particular facts in each case, you will never be able to do justice to each and every person. What the Minister is doing in this Bill is to presume certain things that the courts have held, not as a matter of interpretation, but as a matter of fact and as a matter of law. These are not in fact the things that the Minister proposes to assume they are, as I shall indicate. This Bill makes the exercise of a discretion by a court almost impossible in many cases. Let us look at the new subsection (2) (d). Paragraph (d) reads, inter alia, as follows:

That means that he cannot be a white person if he so admits. Paragraph (d) continues:

1. (ii) In any form or return referred to in section 3 (that is census, Sir) or 9 (that is the application for an identity card) or in any application for an identity card completed and signed by him or by his spouse or his guardian in respect of him, there appears a statement to the effect that as far as his race is concerned, he is not a white person.

But the Minister is going to amend that.

Yes, he is going to amend the clause. I shall come to the hon. the Minister’s amendment in a minute. The Minister’s amendment is to sub-paragraph (iii) and not to the one I have read, which is sub-paragraph (ii). The hon. member who in fact read out what the hon. the Minister’s amendment was going to be, does not appear to know what it is. [Interjections.] No, I am sorry. He did not do so. It was his bench-mate.

I want to point out that what the court said in relation to these forms—I read now from May’s case—such as documents, census forms, identity cards, births and marriage certificates, was—

He went on to say—

One finds those reasons running through almost every case where this has occurred. What the court has in fact said is that this information is no indication, for the reasons that they give. It is stale information. It is something that happened a long time ago. But now the Minister proposes to make it a presumption of law that in fact this should be so. I want to know why. What are we dealing with? We are dealing with the question as to whether or not a person is in fact generally accepted as a white person. If the hon. the Minister wishes to find out whether in truth he is, surely that judgment should cause him to withdraw that part of the Bill. Or, Sir, is it to find out whether in truth he is accepted or is in fact to shut out as many people as he can from the Valhalla of the white man? This is the question—does he really in truth want to find out, to determine, whether someone is genuinely accepted or does he just want to shut them out? Looking at the Bill, the conclusion one comes to is that he wants to shut them out, because he does not want them to have a hearing—he assumes and presumes all sorts of things, things which no court or inquiry may look into. Not even the Secretary may look into it. Not even he can look into it if it is pointed out to him that a person at present classified as a White filled in a form at some time or another. In the application of his powers in terms of section 5 (3) he must reclassify him as a Coloured. He is presumed then to have made an admission and in terms of the amendment of 1962 if you have made such an admission you may not be classified as a white man. This is the situation we have got to and that also is the answer to the question asked by the hon. member for Stellenbosch, how can we say this Bill is going to make of people who are White, Coloured? But this is how it can happen. The Secretary has no option but to apply the law, and so have the boards and the courts. In doing that they have to presume something which in fact is not so but they have, nevertheless, to presume it because this Bill says so.

I should like to ask the hon. the Minister why he is using a census form, because what is happening in these cases? Is it that a person who fills in a census form is being duped into filling in a form for the purposes of this legislation? That is what it comes down to. The law gives protection to anyone who fills in a census form—as a matter of fact, the law goes out of its way to do so.

The Statistics Act.

Yes, but even the Census Act itself lays down—

anything to the contrary in any law relating to evidence notwithstanding.

I shall come back to this point in a minute. But on the census form itself, the census form which was used in 1951 and in 1964, there appear these words—

So, this is then a confidential statement. As a matter of fact, how on earth can one have a proper statistical census unless one has provision like this in the law? Why was it put in? It has been put in for this purpose. Without this statisticians will find it very difficult to compile any information at all. Consequently, the assurance is being given that no information will be divulged to anybody else, but now, all of a sudden, the hon. the Minister comes here with a Bill which says that if somebody puts on that form something like this that person will be assumed for the purposes of this legislation to be a Coloured person. What a scandalous thing to do. What a shocking breach of faith. And what a terrible blow to the Department of Census and Statistics. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister has consulted that Department in this connection. I doubt it very much. Can the hon. the Minister, in this wonderland in which he seems to find himself now and seems to be driving everyone, tell me what is going to be the position if one of these cases comes before a court on appeal? What happens then and what will then be the position of section 17 of the Census Act where it is stated that such information may not be used in evidence in a civil action? And this is what it will be, a civil action. Will the position then be that the census form will be all right for the purposes of the board’s determination but when you go on appeal to a court you may not use it? I wonder whether the hon. the Minister has looked at that. I doubt it very much. But one hopes that he will have a look at a few more things because anomalies such as this appear right throughout this hotch-potch of nonsensical presumptions which are not based on facts but which the Minister puts in here to try and make people who are now White, Coloured. But the final madness of this measure is to be found in the proposed new section 5 (5), paragraph (b) of which reads as follows—

“Has been” and not “is”. But assuming that it means “is”, then how can the hon. the Minister put a thing like this in the Bill? Because he has a statute, of which he must be aware, namely the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 where the definition of a “white person” for the purposes of getting married is, according to section 1 (1) (ii)—

In a case like this any such marriage shall be deemed to be valid. This is exactly the same definition as we originally had in this Bill—general acceptance or obvious appearance, what he purports to be. Facts of the matter are that people get married in terms of this—persons who have not had their classifications changed. Accordingly you can find a person classified as a white man marrying someone who is classified as a Coloured— classified by the hon. the Minister’s Department. But when the test of the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act are applied they can get married.

I have had cases like this myself. In fact, there are cases mentioned in the law reports where people have gone to court and have pointed out that they have these classifications but these classifications are wrong and, in any event, even if they are not wrong, the test under this Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act is whether they can get married. Very often during the year if you go to the magistrate court you will find persons telling the Chief Magistrate that although they are classified as Coloured they are not Coloured persons and, therefore, in terms of this Act they want to get married. They then produce the necessary affidavits to prove to the Chief Magistrate that they are entitled to get married and they accordingly get married. The law says they may marry and they get married, in fact, in terms of a statute passed by this Nationalist Government. Now, however, this Minister comes along and says that the children of such a marriage, a marriage solemnized because in accordance with this Act the parties are White, shall be Coloured. What absolute nonsense! What absolute inhumanity, what height of stupidity and nonsense! This then is the situation we can have. Here again the Minister presumes—it is not a question of fact—that they are going to be Coloured because his Department has classified one as White and the other one as non-White.

The hon. member for Piketberg spoke about the hon. member for Peninsula being a “regs-geleerde” and said that he ought to know better. Well, I then ask the hon. member, as an ex-“predikant”, whether the words in the marriage formula in all Christian churches as far as I am aware, namely, “Those whom God have joined together …” in parenthesis, Sir, with the consent of the Mixed Marriages Act, “… let no man put asunder” mean anything at all?

Surely the proper test is the test which we originally had in this Act, namely the test of general acceptance. Surely it is not necessary now to redefine all sorts of things and to assume and presume that certain states of affairs which do not, in fact, exist are, in fact, to determine whether one is or is not generally accepted?

While one is on the question of the family one is reminded that when the Supreme Court once gave a judgment that was approved of by the Department, the case of Otto v. Race Classification Board, the court said that one was not accepted generally unless one had cut oneself off completely even from one’s family. This was put down on forms which were renewed and sent to all sorts of persons who were inquiring about reclassification. As a result of that people cut themselves off from their families. Another case in point is Francisco’s case in which a judgment was also delivered by the full bench. The judgment was delivered by Tebutt, A.J., concurred in by Watermeyer, J. The judgment reads—

That is the new definition of 1962—

Does the hon. the Minister not agree with this? If he does not agree with this, is he aware of this case? I presume that he is. Paragraph (c) of the new subsection (2) referred to in clause 1 of the Bill, states that—

I do not know whether the words, “and any other person with whom he lives” refer to a member of his family. If so, and if this is a way of getting around Francisco’s judgment then this measure is even more shameful than I thought it was.

Yes.

The hon. member says “Yes”.

I said that all those facts are embodied in this Bill.

Well, how inhuman can one get? How ridiculous can one be? The hon. the Minister indicated in his amendment what the real purpose of this Bill is. The Minister has an amendment on the Order Paper which he proposes to introduce. He proposes to add at the end of clause 1, after the word “person” the words, “unless such person proves that he is in fact not a Coloured person.” In other words, this presumption may not do that. If he can prove that, in fact, he is not a Coloured person, then he can escape from that particular presumption. What does “in fact” mean? Does it mean the opposite of all the nonsensical presumptions that are made in this Bill? What does it mean? I think it means “in fact” “as opposed to what is here in this Bill”, which is not a fact. This is the situation that we are getting into now.

Now, a lot has been said about the humanitarians; a lot has been said about the liberalists; a lot has been said about hon. members on this side making all this fuss. Let me say to the Minister that I can think of nothing more degrading than having to take one’s family, as the law now reads and as one is asked to do, along to the officials in the department, people whose qualifications have nothing whatever to do with racial separation or the ability to judge people in that context, one’s family, one’s wife and children, have to sit down and be examined by one of these persons. That is the first thing. But now the question of deportment, of demeanour and speech come into it. Do they now have to deport themselves in front of this official? Do they have to put on a special sort of demeanour, a special sort of speech? One wonders what would happen to the hon. member for Primrose with his “ought to geknow het” as he indicated to us to-day. If the finding is to be based on these criteria, can the Minister tell me how on earth that man is ever going to appeal? Because in clause 4 of the Bill the Minister takes away the power of the court to inquire into and consider the matter. So the court is bound by the record. How then, if it is bound by the four corners of the record, does the court determine whether the findings on speech, demeanour and deportment were right or were wrong? I wonder if the Minister has thought about that one? I doubt it very much. This cannot be put down on the record, but the court is now going to be bound by it. One wonders whether the court is entitled now to make any finding of its own, independent of the finding of the board, on appearance.

Surely the question of general acceptance must be the test? It is the only test that one can have. So long as we acknowledge that some people are obviously White and some people are in appearance obviously not White, so long as there is that, then the only real, proper, decent, normal human basis upon which the matter can be decided is the judgment of society itself. And that must remain the test. That is indeed the test under the Mixed Marriages Act. The late Senator Fagan, when he was a judge of the Supreme Court here in Cape Town, said of the Mixed Marriages Act that “the Legislature had wisely refrained from drawing a dividing line where the Creator had blurred it”. As my Leader has said, that is the difficulty that we have, that is why the application of this measure is going to be impossible. Let us not make that mistake of trying to draw a dividing line where the Creator has blurred it, because the result of this is going to be a harvest of human tragedy which is not worth the small number of people who may trickle into the white camp.

Mr. Speaker, because, in terms of the Rules of this House, there will not be sufficient time left for me to reply to the Second Reading Debate, I move—

That the debate be now adjourned.

Agreed to.