Mr.Speaker, at the commencement of my reply to the debate, allow me to express my sincere regret at the fact that the hon. member for Constantia has been unable to be with us during this Budget debate. Although the hon. member for Constantia and I differ sharply with each other on many points, his presence in this House is something which we value highly. I just want to say that I hope that he will make a complete recovery and will be back in our midst soon.

In the first place I want to convey my personal thanks to hon. members on both sides of this House who congratulated me on my first Budget speech. I realize, of course, that the delivery of a first budget speech is a special occasion for every Minister of Finance in view of the responsibility one has in that regard and in view of the influence which such a Budget may have on the economy and welfare of a country. I want to convey my sincere thanks to all the kind people who congratulated me. In the second place, I want to convey my sincere thanks to hon. members on both sides of this House who congratulated me on the good reception this Budget has had. Although there are persons who do not agree with the Budget, they are aware of the good reception it has had in wide circles. There are, of course, persons who react in different ways to any Budget; there are some who criticize it and some who welcome it. You will agree with me, Sir, that there has never been any Budget which was so perfect that it could satisfy everyone. Every Budget, however good, will come in for its share of criticism. But I think you will agree with me, Mr. Speaker, that this Budget has had a reception which has exceeded almost all expectations. I believe that even my hon. friends opposite were sorely disillusioned when they saw how this Budget was on the whole accepted in virtually all sectors of our economy. With a good deal of bravado and in an unmistakably fighting mood the hon. member for Pinetown launched his first attacks on 22nd March after the Budget speech had been delivered, and we expected that after the Easter recess we would have to face a heavy onslaught, but I think the hon. member and his colleagues calmed down considerably during the recess, probably because they realized during the recess that the public did not support them. The Budget debate conducted by that side of this House has therefore been correctly described in the words of the Financial Mail, “Budget debate more flop than fizz. The Budget debate on Dr. Diederichs’s Economist’s Budget has been a bore for lack of controversy and it never looked like being anything else”.

I thank hon. members for having congratulated me on the reception this Budget has had. In the third place, however, I want to thank everyone who congratulated me on the contents of this Budget, and they are many; they are inside and they are outside this House; they are people of all political convictions; they include newspapers and periodicals, some of which do not support the Government. It was realized at an early stage that it would be very difficult under the circumstances in which we found ourselves to introduce a Budget which would be of such a nature that it would satisfy all groups and meet all demands of the times, but I think that it is generally accepted that this Budget has succeeded to the extent possible under the circumstances. It is not necessary for me to quote what all the various periodicals and newspapers said about the Budget. I want to refer to the Financial Mail of 23rd March, which wrote—

In the second place, I refer hon. members to the Rand Daily Mail, which wrote as follows about this Budget—

The Rand Daily Mail of 23rd March wrote in a leading article—

[Interjection.] Those opponents are much more honest than these opponents want to be. The Sunday Times said in its leading article—

I am modest enough not to reply to that. I leave it to these people to speak. I have here a great many telegrams, one of which comes from a very well-known financial writer in our newspapers whose name I need not mention and which is typical of all the telegrams I received. It reads, “Congratulations on your very sound and workmanlike Budget”. [Interjection.] During the past week hon. members opposite themselves paid me the highest tribute that any opposition can pay a government, the fact that they were unable to detract in any way from the basic principles of this Budget in the course of a debate of five days, is proof to me of the Budget’s soundness. They naturally tried to criticize various minor points and they often contradicted one another, but they never touched on the essential ideas, the basic principles of the Budget. Of course, the hon. member for Hillbrow, who is not present now, said that this Budget contained no basic principles. The hon. member complained that there were no long-term monetary or fiscal policies. He said we had no fundamental policy, what we needed was a permanent and long-term plan. But the National Party Government has never tried to plan and control our country’s economy all along the line. Ours is not a socialistic state which tries to control the course of the economy down to the minutest detail. Hon. members know that we have a five-year economic development plan which indicates general direction. The hon. member also knows that we have been guiding the economy of the country during the government of this Party but that we have left it to private initiative itself to plan its undertakings down to the minutest detail. The hon. members know that under the guidance of the National Party the economy of South Africa has reached unprecedented heights, heights comparable to those in any period in the history of our economy and any comparable country, because we know that we should place our trust in the private entrepreneur.

It seems to me as though the hon. member for Hillbrow wants the State to plan business life down to the minutest detail. According to him we ourselves have to say where money is to be invested and where not. We have to take a hand in the simplification of tasks in industries. We, as the State, must directly interfere in the labour turnover and in the work in the factories. The hon. member wants us to take on our shoulders things which are the responsibility of the employer and of the entrepreneur. Apparently the hon. member has no confidence in the quality and in the ability of our entrepreneurs. He apparently has a very low opinion of them. The hon. member for Hillbrow spoke of our economic strength. He said that our economy was strong but that that could not be otherwise because we had goldmines and mineral riches and cheap labour. To him those are the elements of wealth. He never mentioned the Government, but let us forgive him for that. Nowhere in his speech did he refer to the power of the entrepreneurs in South Africa and did he mention that they would achieve something. We on this side of the House have the highest regard for our entrepreneurs and for what they have already done. Our policy is to give guidance and not to lay down a plan in a socialistic form for regulating the entire economy. The hon. member for Hillbrow said we had three choices. We had the choice either of mass production and mass consumption, as in the United States, or of the welfare state as in Britain, or of the state that strived after prestige projects as in Russia. He said we had to choose one of those three alternatives. But, Sir, those are not the only alternatives, because it is possible for some of those things to go hand in hand. We are not seeking one of those alternatives in our endeavours, but our endeavour in our economy and in the Budget is to reconcile the greatest measure of growth with the highest degree of stability—growth and stability; stability with growth.

During the past number of years under the rule of the National Party, we have succeeded in achieving major successes in the growth of our economy. The records which we set up in all spheres prove that, and hon. members also admit that now. We have succeeded in achieving a high degree of stability in our economy. Throughout the entire period of our government we have reconciled the two to a very high degree, better than in many other countries. It was only in recent times that the stability of our economy began to be disrupted by a too rapid growth and that inflation began to make its appearance. That is a recent, and we hope a temporary, phenomenon in our country, something which we also find throughout the world, and the time has now arrived for more emphasis to be placed on stability within the framework of our entire policy of stability and growth and for slowing down the rate of growth so as to ensure steady growth for the future. Therefore we are asking in this Budget for inflation to be curbed even if growth is to suffer temporarily. We must slow down our rate of development; we must slow down the rate of growth. That is the central theme of our Budget.

In this regard there are two misunderstandings which I should like to clear up. The first misunderstanding was again on the part of the hon. member for Hillbrow. He complained that by imposing taxes and levies on companies the Government was taking away their capital and that consequently they were no longer able to grow and expand as rapidly as before. It was at that stage that I made an interjection and told the hon. member that I thought that he had a better understanding of the nature of inflation, because that was precisely what we wanted. That is precisely what is called for at this very moment, that at this stage there should not be so much growth; we must now have a smaller number of undertakings, a more marked slowing-down, more consolidation and greater stabilization, and we must achieve those things for the sake of our long-term policy. If we do not make fewer investments now, if we continue spending and growing, our long-term growth will be adversely affected in the long run. We have to suffer now and we have to pay now in order to reap the advantages and the fruits later. This is the whole nature of our struggle against inflation. Hence our plea for greater savings, not only on the part of the man in the street, but also on the part of companies, and hence our plea that we have to spend and expand less, build up more reserves and consolidate and stabilize to a larger degree. The second misunderstanding was on the part of the hon. member for Kensington. The hon. member for Kensington misunderstood the hon. member for Queenstown. The hon. member for Kensington alleged that the hon. member for Queenstown had said that inflation was a prerequisite for prosperity and progress. But that is not what the hon. member said. There are other people who say that inflation is a prerequisite for prosperity, for economic growth. There are American economists who maintain that, but that is not what we say. What is true, however, and what the hon. member for Queenstown said, is that here in South Africa at this stage, inflation is the result, not the cause, of a too rapid growth. We all know that.

He said that that was the price we had to pay at this stage.

That is the price we are now paying for a too rapid growth. That is the result. Because we have grown too rapidly, and every economist will tell you that, for our available sources of labour and capital, etc., we are now experiencing inflation and that is the price we have to pay for a too rapid growth. If hon. members accuse the Government of being the cause of inflation they must also accuse the Government of being the cause of prosperity in the country. If they accuse us of being the cause of the prosperity in this country, we can only say that that has come about because the public, locally as well as abroad, has this tremendous confidence in South Africa under this Government. The hon. member for Parktown once more used the words “too little and too late”. This empty cry, which is dramatic in its effect but quite meaningless, was the highlight of his speech. In that he closely followed what his Leader and others had previously said in this debate, but when I asked the hon. the Leader of the Opposition what he really meant by that and what the implications of his remarks were, he was not able to give a reply.

I did not participate in this debate.

That was during a previous debate. I now come to the hon. member for Parktown and ask him what he meant by the words “too little and too late”. In the first place he accused the Government of having done too little in combating inflation. What does he mean by “too little”. Does the hon. member want, in the first place, that we should have done more in the form of taxes and loan levies on companies? Should we have hit companies harder and should we have imposed higher taxes and higher loan levies on them, because then we would have been doing more? Is that what the hon. member wants? What would the hon. member for Hillbrow have said had we imposed even higher taxes and even more loan levies on companies? There are members, however, who maintain that we are already taxing companies too much. If the hon. member for Parktown agrees then I put my second question to him. Should I have imposed higher taxes and loan levies on individuals? What would the champions, the so-called champions on that side of this House for the man in the street, have said in that case? In the third place, should I have increased indirect taxation by which the man in the street would really have been hit harder? I want to place it on record here and now that that hon. member, who is one of the important speakers on that side of this House, clearly stated here that the Government was doing too little. I now ask him whether we should have imposed heavier taxes, loan levies, company taxes, individual taxes and indirect taxes? [Interjections.] That has nothing to do with this matter. Not only did the hon. member say “too little” but he also said “too late”. We should have acted earlier. But what did the hon. member himself say in 1964; in 1964 when inflation in this country was nearly three years old? As we all know taxation is one of the means of combating inflation. That hon. member said at that time—

That was at the time in which, as they allege, action should already have been taken and when the previous Minister of Finance had already begun imposing heavier taxes. At that time that hon. member pleaded for tax relief and for concessions in that sphere. Mr. Speaker, I think it must be clear to you that they all complain about inflation, but that the hon. members have not suggested anything for combating inflation, but have done exactly the opposite. To have acted sooner and to do the right thing, one must have a correct diagnosis of the position. One must know what a disease is and that there is a disease before one can prescribe something. If one wants to know whether a party has made the correct diagnosis, one must look at the leader of that party to see whether he knew what was going on. What did the leader of that party tell us just over two years ago when inflation was in its fourth year?

Is that when you were saying: “Spend for Prosperity?’

I shall come to that. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition addressed a meeting of ladies at the Witwatersrand and I have referred to that before in this House but I want to do so once more. At that time he spoke of the “so-called boom”, and the “short-lived boom”. Mr. Speaker, where can one find a greater accusation than that against a party from the mouth of its leader who maintains that we should have acted much earlier but who said 2½years ago that there was no boom, that there was no prosperity in South Africa and that the boom which had existed was “short-lived”. In other words, the boom ceased to exist, long ago. Hon. members opposite never wanted to admit that there was prosperity in the country and that we were progressing. They ridiculed and belittled that. How would the hon. members have acted who did not want to believe that there was prosperity, a doctor who did not even know that there was a disease or what that disease was?

What about “Spend for Prosperity”?

I shall deal with that right now. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and hon. members opposite often accused me, though I did not regard that as an accusation but as a commendation, of having said at a certain stage of our economic development that we should make greater use of our buying power. I did so in a Press interview in Durban and I said that we should increase our consumption. To that I added that I did not desire a spending spree but that everyone was to buy what he could afford, because the country’s consumption had not grown as it ought to have done. There was at least one hon. member on that side of this House who saw matters as I did. He is a person who played an important role in the economic debates, namely the hon. member for Jeppes. In January, 1961, he said in this House—

Is that not very clear? The hon. member for Jeppes, who was an important speaker of that side, said in this House in January, 1961, “Consumption has not expanded rapidly enough”. On 23rd March, 1961, the same hon. member said that there were two things which the Minister should have done. In the first place he should have stimulated consumption. In the second place he should have stimulated investment. He said, “Of course there is no point in stimulating investment if you have not got consumption first”. Therefore, from the point of view of stimulating consumption, the hon. member said on 21st June, 1962, in regard to our prices which had increased to such an extent, “This points to a static condition as far as consumption itself is concerned”. It should be very clear to hon. members that one of the most important former members used three different occasions in this House for saying that consumption must be stimulated. But when I said that in 1962, it was a great sin.

As regards inflation, if one has diagnosed a disease one must know what to do to cure that disease. One of the remedies which is always suggested for trying to arrest inflation is that one should relax import control if one has the foreign exchange to do so. I notice that the hon. member for Yeoville is lowering his head. He will lower it even more when I have finished. What does the hon. member for Yeoville say about that? Is it true that one has to relax import control if one has the foreign exchange to do so and there is a period of inflation?

We suggested that last year and you refused to do so up to December.

The hon. member says that we refused to do so up to December. In July last year, when the previous Minister of Finance intimated in a statement that import control was to be relaxed, the hon. member wrote to The Argus. You have just heard the hon. member saying, Sir, that they had advocated the relaxation of import control. But he nevertheless wrote as follows in The Argus at that time—

So what?

So what? It is quite clear to me that the hon. member does not understand. Here he is attacking the hon. the Minister of Finance for having announced the relaxation of import control. Is that not clear? Only a minute ago he said that they themselves had commended that.

[Inaudible.]

Sir, with certain people one cannot argue. Hon. members opposite consistently adopted the attitude that this Budget was not disinflationary. Some said that this was a “mild budget”. Some said that this was a “neutral budget”. At the risk of being boring I just want to mention a few points to hon. members—because they are such important points—in respect of which this Budget really is disinflationary. In the first place the surplus of the previous year, both on Loan Account and on Revenue Account, is not being transferred to the next year. I see that some writers say that this is the first time that this has happened. I do not know, but if a Minister of Finance does not transfer the surplus of the previous year on his two accounts to the next year—an amount of more than R60 million— and thereby in fact withdraws R60 million from circulation, is that not disinflationary? In the second place net taxation is being increased by R57.5 million and loan levies by R45.8 million. That is a net increase of R103.3 million. Is that not disinflationary? In the third place this Budget shows a total surplus of R7 million. In the fourth place this Budget is not being financed by means of bank loans but is being financed in a non-inflationary way. I may just add that a large portion of State expenditure will take place abroad whereby even more money will be withdrawn from circulation. In the fifth place there is no additional taxation for the lower income groups. In respect of those with slightly higher incomes there is only a higher loan levy. In the sixth place this Budget encourages productivity. The Productivity Advisory Committee is being given R50,000. There are tax concessions in respect of students. There are concessions in respect of donations for bursaries and technological education. There is increased provision in the Budget for technical and higher education. In the seventh place this Budget encourages concessions in connection with estate duty. In the months ahead the Government will do its utmost to draw more savings from the public by means of savings bonds. In the eighth place the Government is proceeding with its policy of issuing treasury bills in excess of its immediate requirements, in order to drain the excessively high liquidity of the country by those means. If such a budget, in respect of which I have just mentioned eight points, is not disinflationary, then I do not understand the meaning of the word “disinflationary”.

Hon. members opposite alleged that the Government had done nothing for arresting inflation in the country. The hon. member for Salt River said that they had been warning the Government for many years and that the Government had at long last woken up. The hon. member for Musgrave said that the Government was “quite unconcerned” about inflation. Do the hon. members not know what the Government has been doing with a great deal of success since 1964? The Stellenbosch Bureau for Economic Research and the Reserve Bank have stated on more than one occasion that those Government measures have exerted a great influence, and that if they had not been taken inflation would have assumed much greater proportions. Six months ago, when the debate in this House was in progress, the Opposition was asked whether it supported those measures taken by the Government in the past. That was six months ago and they refused to give any reply. The hon. member for Parktown even asked for lower taxes in the past. I now want to ask hon. members whether they support the measures—monetary and other measures—taken by the Government up to now for combating inflation.

Accusations were brought against us that expenditure by the authorities was too high. Hon. members wanted to know how a government could ask other people to save when it itself was not saving. In the first place it is true of course that a government has to cut its expenditure as much as possible in a time such as this. That has also been done, but there are limits beyond which it is not possible to cut expenditure without causing harm to the country. You must remember, Sir, that there is a major difference between expenditure by the private sector and expenditure by the Government. Expenditure by the Government is not expenditure for itself. Expenditure by a government is expenditure for the country and for the nation. In the case of an ordinary company, we may accept that its expenditure is mostly incurred for enhancing its own prestige, for expanding and for increasing its profits or for strengthening its position, mostly in its own interests, but the Government does not spend for itself, it spends for the public and everything it spends goes to the public. The expenditure is in the service of the public. The Opposition was often asked in the course of this debate what they wanted to cut from the Budget. I now want to allege that it never brought any economic evidence for justifying any cutting of expenditure. Hon. members opposite came forward with ridiculous proposals—the number of Cabinet Ministers had to be decreased; the Public Service had to be investigated in order to avoid overlapping. The latter is important and it is something into which we shall look. They also came forward with the senseless statement that the Government had to abandon its ideological activities and promote integration.

Who said that?

The entire plea of hon. members opposite and virtually the only point which they made in the entire debate, was that non-Whites had to be absorbed to an increasing extent in the economy of the white man in order to combat inflation.

But you are doing so.

Their entire point revolved around the Government’s so-called ideological activities. In other words, this Government has to abandon its policy, it must not implement its political principles. Does the Opposition think for one moment that we shall do so? That is why we are here. That is why the nation elected us, namely on account of our political policy. The nation that placed us here to implement a specific policy is also prepared to pay for the implementation of that policy. One election after another proved that. The nation asked us to ensure its future, to ensure the continued existence of Western civilization here; it asked for internal security, it asked for protection against outside dangers; it asked us for many other things. The nation is prepared to pay for that and we shall carry out its instructions. This Government is not prepared to abandon its policy merely on account of financial considerations in order to satisfy the Opposition and to please countries abroad.

Hon. members opposite adopt the attitude that we are governing here and not them, and, because they are the Opposition, they need not make any positive contribution. Their attitude is that they have to make no positive proposals for combating inflation. On a previous occasion in this House I said that a party that adopted that attitude showed that it had abandoned all hope of ever again coming into power and that it had reconciled itself to the idea of always remaining in opposition. But what is more, in a democratic country such as our Parliament consists of, inter alia, a government and an opposition. An opposition forms part of Parliament and because it forms part of Parliament it is expected to make its contribution in a positive and constructive way. If it cannot do so and will not do so it has to make way for a better opposition.

It was alleged here that Government expenditure was too high. That is not true. The hon. member for Florida quoted figures in a very clear and competent way to illustrate that Government expenditure in South Africa compared favourably with that of other countries. I do not want to repeat those figures. Hon. members must bear in mind the fact that we in South Africa are in a unique position. Ours is a large and growing country. Ours is a country with a colour problem as no other country has. I sometimes wonder whether hon. members realize what costs are involved for the State if a country has to deal with a colour problem as we have to do. Had the United Party been in power here, that would have applied to them as well. Ours is a country which has to deal with the development of our non-white areas; be they homelands under our policy or geographic federal components under the policy of the United Party, the expenditure has to be met. Ours is a country which has to be protected against dangers and threats from within and from without. We are in a unique position. And all these things cost money.

The hon. member for Pinetown alleged,“the Government is the main contributor to capital spending”. But that is not true. If the hon. member would only go to the trouble of looking at the White Paper with which all hon. members had been supplied, he will find on page 13 that that is not so. If we simply take the year 1966 we see that the capital expenditure of all “public authorities” amounted to R721 million whereas the total gross domestic investment amounted to R2.117 million. Therefore expenditure by public authorities represents approximately one third of the country’s total expenditure.

Whose is increasing most rapidly?

I can quickly work out the figures for the hon. member. I also want to ask the hon. member: “For whom is the expenditure increasing? For whom is the State building railway lines? For whom is it building post offices? For whom is it building universities and schools?” To say that Government expenditure is unproductive—as the hon. member apparently means—is also false of course. Just as it is incorrect to say that the work of the directors of the staff or the management who work in offices and who do not work with their hands is unproductive, just as incorrect would it be to say that the work of a government and the public service is unproductive. The State organization forms just as much a part of the economic structure of a country as a country’s infra-structure, as its fixed investments, as its working capital, etc. Many a good country has been ruined by a bad state organization and many a poor country has been taken to great heights by a good government.

Hon. members spoke of increased Government expenditure. Now I want to draw their attention to the question of the infra-structure. The infra-structure which we have to provide in a country such as ours, things like roads, railway lines, telecommunications, education, public services, etc., costs a great deal of money. The Government does not spend that money for itself but for the growing commerce and industry and for the business life of our country. It cannot always curtail that expenditure, because a good infra-structure is sometimes required for decreasing costs, increasing production and combating inflation. A main characteristic of this Budget is that Government expenditure is not being financed in an inflationary way. It would have been a completely different story had hon. members been able to allege here that we had extremely high expenditure which was being financed by means of loans from banks. That happened once when the Government could not do otherwise. But in this Budget all expenditure is being financed by means of taxes or real savings, which is in a disinflationary way, and not by means of credit from the banks.

In conclusion I want to say this. It is striking that hon. members who complained about increased expenditure constantly asked for more and more concessions. They asked for more and more expenditure. The hon. member for Kensington even asked R10 million more for pensions. Had we complied with all demands made by hon. members opposite our expenditure would have been much higher.

They were not inflationary.

Of course it is inflationary if an additional amount of RIO million is put into circulation. Whether that is money for old people or for young people, it is money which is put into circulation. I do not know whether there is any difference between a rand spent by a child of seven and one spent by an old person of seventy. It has the same effect. The Opposition spoke a great deal of the little man. It is striking that it has become the champion of the little man.

We have always been that.

It is striking because one asks oneself the question whether they have now left the big man or whether the big man has left them because he no longer saw any future in them.

This Budget is also to the advantage of the little man. I quote from The Cape Times of 23rd March—

In addition The Cape Times of 23rd March stated. “Little man welcomes concession”. In one of the reports in the Sunday Times the financial editor wrote that although the Budget was sound in general there was one thing which had to be guarded against and that was that the big man would be taxed and that the money would be transferred to the lower income groups. That is the opinion of the public. The little man benefits from this Budget firstly because his taxes and his loan levy are not being increased. Only taxpayers who pay R100 or more per annum in income tax to the Central Government will have to pay an increased loan levy and do you know, Sir, how many these people number? They number 430.000 approximately one half of the taxpayers. From a population of 18 million 43,000 people are being effected. [Laughter.] Mr. Speaker, I do not know why hon. members opposite are laughing. Are they not the ones who tell us all day long that we are a nation of 18 million people? We hear every day that we are a nation of 18 million people. Our inhabitants number 18 million and of that number of 18 million 430,000 are directly being affected by this Budget by means of increased levies, in other words, 2½per cent of the population. How can hon. members say that this Budget is affection the little man if it only affects 2½per cent of the population? I think there is no other country in the world, in other respects comparable to South Africa, which is comparable to South Africa in this respect and which can impose an increased loan levy on only 2½per cent of its population in a time of inflation.

And 15 per cent does not even pay it.

The hon. member may be right; if that is the case then there are still more persons who are exempted.

The hon. member for Green Point complained here about the extra tax burden which was now going to descend on the person who earned R3,000 per annum and who had two children. The hon. member apparently made a mistake in his calculations, because a person whose income is R3,000 and who has two children is not being asked to pay additional tax or an additional loan levy. It is only the taxpayer who has a taxable income of R3,070 and who pays normal income tax of R100 per annum who will have to pay the increased loan levy. The real lower income groups are not being affected by this Budget.

Nor are they being assisted by it.

The Budget does not even make provision for indirect taxation, except on cars, which would affect the little man. This Budget is to the advantage of the little man in the sense that it makes major concessions in the social sphere. I need not again refer to the concessions in the sphere of education and to pensioners. But the main point as regards this Budget is that it is aimed at curbing inflation and nothing can be of greater importance to the little man in particular than the Government being successful in combating and curbing inflation in this country. If this Budget, along with the monetary measures we are taking, succeeds in curbing inflation, the little man would benefit much more from that than the big man and much more than he would have benefited had we not taken these measures.

In conclusion, as regards the little man, there are very many subsidies which this Budget is giving him. On butter there is a subsidy of R6.6 million, on bread R23½ million, on mealies R31½ million, on fertilizers nearly R14½ million, fertilizer which affects production and the eventual price of products. Subsidies which in the long run benefit the little man amount to no less than R74 million.

Mr. Speaker, in the course of the debate a number of questions and various subjects were put to me. Hon. members will realize that I cannot reply to all those questions. In the first place I shall not reply to questions dealing with taxes because taxes will be dealt with when we go into Committee of Ways and Means. But I do want to deal briefly with a few of the odd matters which were raised here. In the first place the hon. member for Pine-town asked what control there was over defence expenditure. I can understand the hon. member being concerned about defence expenditure possibly getting out of hand. That is a fair question. In order to reassure the hon. member and this House I want to say that quite exceptional control is being exercized in respect of defence expenditure. In the first place we have the normal departmental and Treasury control and control by the Tender Board. In the Treasury there is a special section which occupies itself with defence matters virtually to the exclusion of everything else and to which all contracts for the procurement of goods which fall outside the normal are submitted for consideration. As regards the Tender Board, a special committee on which the Treasury is represented has been appointed to consider contracts for the procurement of supplies. In the third place, there is a defence board which advises the Minister of Defence in regard to all projects and in the fourth place there is a Cabinet committee on which the Ministers of Defence and Finance serve under the chairmanship of the hon. the Prime Minister. This committee approves defence programmes and watches their progress. In the fifth place, there is the Controller and Auditor-General and in the sixth place there is the Select Committee on Public Accounts. I think hon. members will agree with me that there are a whole series of bodies of control for exercising control over this expenditure.

A second question put to me was the following: I mentioned here that national earnings in the form of increased exports might bring money into circulation in the country which might have an inflationary influence; on the other hand I announced certain measures for promoting export, and hon. members asked me whether these two things were not in conflict. I do not believe that hon. members of the Opposition wanted to intimate thereby that we were to discourage exports; that would of course be unwise. Whereas we hope to overcome the threat of inflation, as a temporary phenomenon, within the foreseeable future the promotion of exports must be one of the permanent objects of our economic policy. With the anticipated decrease in the production of gold and with the anticipated expansion in the economic field, larger exports of other commodities than gold have become an essential requirement in our economic endeavours. The inflationary effect which increased exports may have, can be warded off by other means, for example, by increased imports or by increased savings and by fewer bank loans, etc., and added to that there is the fact that increased exports, as a result of the increased production which they may bring about in an industry, may bring about decreases in costs as well as decreased prices as a result of the decrease in costs on account of the larger volume and that that may be anti-inflationary. In other words, I want to hope that the acquisition of permanent markets and of larger exports will be permanent elements in our economic structure.

The hon. member for Sunnyside also asked questions in regard to the Usury Act. I appointed a committee which is at present conducting a detailed investigation into the entire operation of the Usury Act with a view to drafting legislation, if necessary. The detailed remarks of the hon. member for Durban (Central) will also be taken into consideration in that investigation.

I now come to a point on which hon. members often criticized me here. More than one member on the opposite side of this House as well as in the Other Place blamed me in previous debates and in this debate for being responsible for the increase in sugar production and consequently for increased exports of sugar at a lower price, which led to an increase in the local price. That hon. member is nodding his head; he is saying that that is true. Because hon. members would perhaps not believe me, I approached the Sugar Association through the Department of Commerce and Industries and asked it to furnish me with a reply to this accusation. [Interjections.] Does that hon. member have no confidence in the Sugar Association? In reply to my inquiries the Association said the following in a telex communication under the heading “Proposals to increase sugar production”, and it referred to a document which accompanied a letter addressed to me by the Sugar Association at the end of 1963, and which stated the following—

At the bottom of the telex communication the Association stated—

Sir, I believe that it is not necessary for me to say anything more about this matter.

The hon. member for Pinetown saw nothing in this Budget “to convince us that the inflationary process will be completely contained”. I want to concede that to a large degree the hon. member for Pinetown is correct in saying that this Budget, taken by itself, cannot contain inflation completely. But it is not the intention that this Budget should take on itself the entire burden of putting an end to inflation by means of fiscal measures. The Budget must be seen as something supplementary to the monetary and other measures already taken, because inflation is an enemy which must be combated on a wide front. The struggle is not one for the State alone to wage; it is a struggle in which everyone must take part—every individual, every group, every company, every organization must take part in that struggle because it affects the interests of all of us. The Government can, of course, put a sudden end to inflation. The Government can take such drastic measures that a virtually immediate end will be put to inflation, but then the danger always exists that that may lead to a recession from which it will be very difficult to free ourselves. At present we have examples of that in several countries in Western Europe where measures were somewhat too drastic and led to a recession. Hon. members opposite will agree with me that the economic structure of a country is a very delicate mechanism which one has to handle with a great deal of care. We, with our particular position in the world, cannot run that risk of landing our country in a recession or a depression. I can hardly imagine hon. members opposite wanting something like that, but I should like to give hon. members the assurance that we are not quite powerless. We can take drastic action if we have to do so. The co-operation of the public and of the business world and also that of the Opposition will determine to what extent we shall have to take more drastic action if that becomes necessary. In addition I want to tell hon. members that ours, as I said before, is not a socialistic state. We have always prided ourselves on the fact that our economy rests on the basis of private initiative. The State does not interfere unless it is obliged to do so in the public interests, and we should like to retain that freedom in our economy. But then the public and the private sector have to contribute their share as well as the investors and the consumers, the labourers and the entrepreneurs; everyone has to contribute his share.

In conclusion I want to make a serious appeal to everyone to co-operate in all respects in the endeavour to curb inflation in our country. In the first place I want to make an appeal to our Press. There is a section of our Press which often goes out of its way to wrest any increase in price from its context in regard to inflation and by so doing to arouse fear amongst the people. I want to make an appeal to our Opposition, which forms a part of this Parliament and a part of the nation of South Africa, to co-operate with us in a positive and constructive way, to speak less of inflation in an exaggerated form and not to belittle the measures of the Government to such a degree as though they did not exist and as though they would have no influence. I want to make an appeal to our business world to be careful and judicious in regard to further expansion, rather to proceed at a slower pace, borrow less money and consolidate more. Here I want to address a word of warning to everyone. Optimism in our future is a major reason for the tremendous expansion we experienced in the past. Optimism in our long-term future is a good thing, but I have to warn the country to-day that if the Government’s measures succeed, and they will be persisted with until they do succeed, some over-optimistic expectations amongst investors on the Stock Exchange and in other quarters will not be realized. We want growth in this country but we cannot allow there to be excessive growth at a rate which is too high in terms of money and which will lead to inflation. Those people who buy shares on the Stock Exchange or who expand their businesses in the expectation that such excessive growth will always take place in our country in the times ahead, may find that they will be disappointed in their over-optimistic expectations and that they will burn their fingers. I appeal to our businessmen to be more careful as regards the future. I appeal to our financial institutions to contribute their share to decrease the amount of money in circulation in order to slow down capital and consumption expenditure. I appeal to the public to work and to save, to be more productive and to spend less. And if we co-operate in this common task of us all, we can and we will soon overcome the danger of further inflation.

Question put: That all the words after “That” stand part of the motion.

Upon which the House divided:

Tellers: P. S. van der Merwe and H. J. van Wyk.

Tellers: A. Hopewell and T. G. Hughes.

Question affirmed and the amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Mr. Chairman, hon. members will know that it is not customary to have a discussion on this Vote. Nor am I getting up now to break away from that custom, but I do so because this is the last Vote on which matters affecting the State President, who is due to retire on 31st May, may be discussed. The thought may have occurred to some members that we should avail ourselves of this opportunity to say a few words of farewell to the State President as far as this House is concerned. My attitude in this connection—and I may say the hon. the Leader of the Opposition agrees with me—is that the status of the office as well as the worthy manner in which the State President and Mrs. Swart have discharged the duties attaching to this office for a period of five years justifies that it should be done not through this Committee, but by means of a substantive motion introduced in this House. Accordingly I have discussed this matter with Mr. Speaker, and I shall introduce such a substantive motion in this House on 30th May— the day before the present State President is due to retire.

Mr. Chairman, with the discussion of this Vote we reach in a sense the end of an epoch, in that it is the Vote which makes provision for the succession of the first State President of the Republic by a second State President, the present State President Elect. While I agree with the hon. the Prime Minister that this is not the occasion for an expression of appreciation towards the State President and his consort for the manner in which they have conducted their duties during their period in office, I want to raise two other matters in connection with this somewhat historic occasion.

The first concerns the participation of the public in the inaugural ceremony by which the new State President will assume office. The second is the manner in which office will be handed over from the existing State President to the new State President. I have been at pains to look for precedents in respect of this matter. One’s mind has naturally gone back to the old South African Republic and the old Oranje Vrystaat. I have been unable to find any account of a handing over or an inaugural ceremony in the old Oranje Vrystaat, but on inquiries made, I have received a report of the first time President Kruger was sworn in on the 9th May, 1883, as President of the South African Republic. It reads as follows:

President Burgers of course took over from President Pretorius. I tried to find out what happened on that occasion. Although it is not entirely substantiated, it seems that President Pretorius was so dissatisfied that he refused to participate in the ceremony.

In England you have the legal principle “The king is dead, long live the king”, and one monarch never hands over to another. A monarch is crowned, normally speaking, only on the demise of a former monarch. So I looked for precedents to the United States of America. There of course the inaugural ceremony is one of the greatest occasions in the whole period of presidential office. There is a tremendous attendance. Every possible effort is made, as in the case of the coronation in Great Britain, to allow the public to play the maximum part. I would plead that things be so arranged here, when the new President takes over, that the public, with due regard to the religious ceremony which I know will take place and which has its rightful place, as it does in a coronation ceremony in England, be given the maximum opportunity to participate on this occasion.

Then there is the question of whether there should not be some ceremony in which the existing State President hands over to the new State President. In the U.S.A. the President and the President-elect are both on the platform at the same time during the ceremony, and I understand the position is that the President who is relinquishing office remains President until the new President has finally taken the oath of office. At that moment he ceases to be President and there is in a way a symbolic transfer of the insignia of office to the new President.

I wondered whether we should not consider the introduction of some such occasion in the ceremony here when one President takes over from another. I appreciate, of course, that the resident of the U.S.A. occupies an executive position, a very different position from that of our President. Nevertheless, it is the place of the first citizen of our country, it is the most distinguished post in the country at the present time, and one feels that there should be some symbolic handing over of office from one President to the other.

It is possible that it may not be possible to arrange these matters in such a way on this occasion, but it does seem to me that it is right that there should be thinking in that direction so that this will be a ceremony in which there is maximum representation by the people, a ceremony worthy of the history of the country, and a ceremony worthy of the office involved.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has raised two matters. In the first instance he spoke about participation by the public. In our country, as the hon. member knows, and as was also quite evident on 31st May, 1961, the main emphasis at the induction of the State President falls—if I may put it this way —on the religious aspect and on that ceremony, which in fact takes place in the church. In this case it will take place in the Groote Kerk. I can assure the hon. the Leader and the public that the Arrangements Committee has gone to great pains to invite representatives of as many organizations as possible, in addition to persons on the protocol list, to the Groote Kerk in order to give as many representatives of the public as possible the opportunity of taking part in the ceremony. Thereafter, as was the case in Pretoria, the State President will appear before the people—an announcement in that connection will be made later—and the public will be afforded an opportunity of taking part in the further ceremonies. In other words, as far as this matter is concerned, we shall in the main follow the same pattern that we followed in Pretoria at the induction of the State President. Of course, much will depend on the weather conditions in Cape Town on that day, particularly as far as 31st May is concerned. It is still fresh in our memory that even on that day five years ago it rained heavily in Pretoria. A great deal depends on that. To summarize—considering the nature of the ceremony, we should like the public to take part in the ceremony as much as possible.

The hon. the Leader also mentioned the question of the handing over of office by one State President to the next. We have given attention to this matter as well. There was the one line of thought that one should consider having such a ceremony. Then there was the other line of thought that one might to a certain extent detract from the dignity of the ceremony in that way. I do not want to cast any reflection, but I just want to compare these two offices: this ceremony should not be placed on the same footing as that of mayors succeeding one another, where the one mayor hands over the chain of office to his successor. We have in any case discussed this matter in full. Apart from the fact that one would like to discuss the matter further, it appears to be impossible in practice to have such a ceremony, as the commitments and appointments already accepted by the outgoing State President in this connection are such that it would unfortunately be impossible for any such ceremony to take place, even if one would at this stage be in favour of it.

While on this subject I may just mention to the hon. the Leader that I have made a certain request to hon. members on this side of the House and to the caucus, and I am now making that request to hon. members on the other side as well. We are breaking new ground. We are establishing new traditions in this connection. I have told hon. members on this side of the House that I shall welcome any suggestions they may have to make in this connection. I shall also welcome any suggestions from hon. members opposite. Indeed, I shall welcome any suggestions from members of the public outside who have an interest in these matters. If they submit those suggestions to us, we will have them before us for consideration when the whole matter is reviewed. We shall then be able to establish as fine a tradition as possible as far as the State President is concerned.

With those few words I think I have replied to a large extent to the points raised by the hon. the Leader.

Vote put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote 2,—“Senate, R342,000”:

Mr. Chairman, as an old Parliamentarian I should like to raise a certain matter which, I believe, comes under this particular Vote. I wish to refer to the question of the opening of Parliament. You will recollect, Sir, that after the elections last year there was the normal ceremonial opening of Parliament. When the opening took place this year it was decided, presumably by the wisdom of the Cabinet whose function it is to decide these maters, that there should not be a ceremonial opening of Parliament. I believe that that was a great pity. As it is, we have little pageantry, little ceremony in this country, and the result of that decision regarding the opening of Parliament this year—and I think I voice the opinion of many members —was that the opening was a dismal affair. It was a half-baked affair. What happened was this. The President, as convention and custom demand, gave his normal banquet for the Cabinet and other leading persons, for instance the diplomatic corps, and quite rightly so. I believe the hon. the Prime Minister entertained Ministers and others, to lunch in the House, which is the normal thing. But as far as the rest of the House was concerned there was little or no participation in the opening of Parliament. What I am more particularly concerned about, for the public outside, too, there was little or no participation in the ceremony. I believe that in a democratic Parliamentary system it is essential for the public to be brought into it. By doing so we reaffirm, we demonstrate to the public that this is a democratic Parliamentary Government that we are under in this country. I do not believe that it is something which can be done too often. I do not know what reasons actuated the Cabinet in coming to their decision—perhaps to save money—but to their minds it may be a good reason why it was not done. As a result I feel—and I feel quite strongly on this matter—that the opening went off as a damp squib. I hope that in future, although it may entail two ceremonial openings of Parliament fairly close together, that we shall have a proper opening of Parliament, everybody participating, with a proper procession through the city of Cape Town. I do hope that this half-half manner of opening Parliament, observing some of the things whilst doing away with the others, will not be repeated. I believe that it is essential that we should make known that Parliament is opening; that this is the system under which we work. We should publish it. If I may say so, there is all too little pageantry and ceremony in South Africa. I believe that as far as the opening ceremony is concerned there might be room for improving matters. Perhaps the political parties could get together in the same way as was done in the previous matter which has just been mentioned. They could then consult on the matter and, according to our traditions, perhaps other matters suitable to the opening of Parliament could be incorporated in the ceremony.

Order! I have allowed the hon. member to raise this point here, but I think it should be raised under the Prime Minister’s Vote. In the circumstances, however, I will allow the hon. the Prime Minister to reply.

It comes to the same.

The matter which the hon. member has just raised was discussed at length in the Cabinet when my predecessor was still there. The question was whether there was to be a ceremonial opening last year or this year. The practical problems in connection with bringing the police and the horses here and everything connected with that made it very difficult to have two ceremonial openings within the short spare of a few months. The Cabinet then decided that the ceremonial opening would be held in the middle of last year because it was a new Parliament that was to meet then. In view of the fact that the duration of the recess was only two or three months, it was then decided— and I fully agree with the decision that was taken—not to have a ceremonial opening this year. I think the hon. member is aware of the fact that the question was raised whether the present Parliament was a new one and whether this Session was merely a continuation of last year’s session, and purely in view of that the Cabinet decided not to have another ceremonial opening within so short a space of time. Those are the facts, and one cannot read anything more into the position.

It is not a fixed precedent?

No. It is not even a measure to combat inflation. The decision was taken simply because the one session followed so closely upon the other.

Vote put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote 3,—“House of Assembly, R1,036,000”:

It always distresses one to see how much valuable time is lost through divisions in the House of Assembly, and I have wondered whether it is not possible for us to have the introduction of an electronic system of voting at divisions investigated. Divisions form an essential part of our parliamentary procedure. There are occasions when one wants to have the individual votes on record. I do not think it will be argued that an Opposition should not call for divisions, but it usually takes eight minutes of the time of the House to complete a division and in cases where mistakes are made in the counting it takes as much as ten to 12 minutes. Of course, the number of divisions depend on the amount of contentious legislation. but we have already had one session, in 1959, in which 210 divisions took place. Under the new rules we have between 60 and 120 divisions per session. At an average of about 100 divisions per session one is able to work out the approximate cost to the State, but the figure arrived at will not be quite accurate. I do not think one can calculate accurately what Parliament costs the State per minute, but if only the direct costs are taken into account the cost is calculated at R31 per minute. In other words, if there are 100 divisions during a session it will cost Parliament R24,800. To my mind not only considerable time but also considerable expenditure will be saved if another system is introduced, and I suggest that we should consider investigating the system being used in Norway and whether it cannot be introduced here. In Norway they have an electronic system. The system simply amounts to this, that there is a panel and a button on every bench and that by simply pressing the button, indicating either “yes” or “no”, one has the result available within seconds for announcement by the Speaker. Moreover, this instrument also records the names of members, and the names of the members and how they voted are printed in the Minutes of Proceedings the next day in the usual way. I should like to suggest that we give serious consideration to introducing such a system in this House with a view to saving time and money and achieving greater efficiency.

The suggestion which has just been made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout to provide us with “electric chairs” is, of course, something we cannot discuss amongst ourselves here. To my mind this is a matter for the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders. I think one should leave the matter at the speech made by the hon. member. I am sure the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders will take cognizance of it and will consider it at its next meeting. I feel it is a good thing to save time if one can do so, but in passing I want to warn against the suggestions which also appear in the Press from time to time to the effect that a session costs this or that amount of money. We are paid in any case whether we divide or not, and I think that these calculations of the cost involved are completely divorced from their proper context. The impression is sometimes created that we are merely wasting money when we assemble here, and one must at all times guard against the impression being created that whenever we meet here it is a waste of money. That cannot be so, and it is certainly not a waste of money.

While the matter which I wish to raise to-day is important, it is not one with which I shall detain the House for any length of time. I have had discussions with members on both sides of the House about the lighting in the House of Assembly. It appears to me that members on both sides are dissatisfied with the lighting in this House. I am given to understand also that a committee of the C.S.I.R. has recently investigated the lighting and has found it unsatisfactory. I therefore trust that the necessary steps will be taken to improve the lighting, at least before the next sitting.

I notice under item F, “Hansard”, that R71,000, the same amount as last year, is being asked for. One wonders what percentage of that amount is required for printing two Hansards. Everything has to be printed twice, once in English and once in Afrikaans. Added to that there is the cost.

Order! I must point out to the hon. member that the laws of the country provide that all official publications shall be in both languages, and that this matter does not belong in this debate. The hon. member may submit it in writing to the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders.

I just want to make it clear that I am not pleading that official records be printed in one language only. I want to confine myself purely to the parliamentary reports, as recorded in Hansard, of the proceedings in this House.

That is an official publication.

Vote put and agreed to.

Progress reported.

I move the amendment as printed in my name—

In line 44, after “he” to insert “for the

purposes of his classification”; and in line 5,page 4, after “person” to add “unless such person proves that he is in fact not a Coloured person”.

Agreed to.

We on this side welcome the amendments as proposed by the hon. the Minister. They add a great deal of clarity to section 1 (2) (b), particularly as far as the form is concerned. With your permission, Sir, I want to move two amendments as printed in the Order Paper. The first one is as follows—

In order to explain this amendment, I should first of all like to read the subsection as it reads at the moment. It reads that “it shall, in the absence of proof that any person is generally accepted as a white person or a Bantu, be assumed that he is generally accepted as a Coloured person”. In other words, if a person were to appear before the Secretary or before the Board for the purpose of being classified or reclassified, and no evidence is led in regard to his circumstances— where he lives, etc., that he is generally accepted as a white person or as a Bantu—it is indisputably assumed that he is accepted as a Coloured person. But may I just refer to clause 6 of this amendment Bill which converts section 19 (1 )bis into section 19 (1). I shall read section 19 (1)—

In other words, in terms of this section, if a person who appears for classification before the Secretary or the Board is obviously a Bantu, the onus of proof is transferred to him to prove that he is in fact not a Bantu and also that he is not generally accepted as a Bantu. But now I can picture to myself an example of a person appearing for classification. He is obviously a Bantu, but before this section applies to him, so that the onus of proof is transferred, he does not lead any evidence whatever; he merely sits down. Then this first section which I read, comes into operation, namely that “it shall, in the absence of proof that any person is generally accepted as a white person or a Bantu, be assumed that he is generally accepted as a Coloured person”; consequently it is possible to have the position that, when he does not lead any evidence, it must indisputably be assumed that he is a Coloured person, while he is a person who is obviously a Bantu.

The amendment I propose is as follows: to add at the end of that clause “except where such person is in appearance obviously a member of an aboriginal race or tribe of Africa”. In other words, what we are effecting by means of this amendment is that we are bringing section 1 (2) (b) into line with section 19 (1), so that—if I may refer to my example again— if a person who in appearance is obviously a Bantu, were to appear, then this section would not have applied to him if he were indisputably accepted as a Coloured person, and then the onus of proof in terms of section 19 (1) would rest on him to prove that he is not a Bantu. The consequences of these two sections are that if these sections were to remain as printed, we shall find that Bantu persons, persons who are obviously Bantu in appearance, will, in this way in terms of clause 1 (2) (b), find a loophole for having themselves classified as Coloured persons. We on this side of the House are of the opinion that what we are contemplating by means of this Bill, is a pure classification of the various races, so that we view the possibility of a Bantu being classified as a Coloured person as seriously as we view the possibility of a Coloured person being classified as a white person. We feel that if the Bill remains as it reads at present, it is unfair to the Coloureds, because it makes it possible for Bantu persons to be classified as Coloured persons by using this loophole. What my amendment aims at, is that in the interests of the Coloureds a stop should be put to that sort of thing.

My second amendment reads as follows—

I should like to read that clause. Clause 1 (2) (d) reads as follows—

As the clause reads at present, it means that if a person fills in a form for his spouse, or if his guardian has filled in a form on his behalf, the facts in that form may at a later stage be used against him at a classification. With the amendment I am proposing now, it means that we shall now have the position that only such facts as are taken from a form which he himself has filled in personally in his own handwriting and which he himself has signed, may be used against him at his classification. That, in my modest opinion, corresponds entirely with the recognized rules of our law of evidence. I am referring here to page 142 of Scoble’s Law of Evidence—

With this amendment we are providing now that the contents of this form may only be used against a person who has completed and signed it personally. In passing I may just add that, in my modest opinion, this does not deprive him of the rights he has in terms of the proviso in section 1. The definition of a white person means a person who in appearance obviously is a white person or who is generally accepted as a white person, but does not include any person who for the purposes of his classification under this Act, freely and voluntarily admits that he is by descent a Bantu or a Coloured person “unless it is proved that the admission is not based on fact”. In my humble submission that last part —“unless it is proved that the admission is not based on fact”—still stands part of this clause, in spite of the subsection we have here. In other words, if a person were to admit that he is a Coloured person and it should for some reason or other transpire later that that fact is not correct—for instance, that he was brought up by Coloured parents and that he might perhaps have been a foundling and that at a later stage of his life he discovered that he had in fact had white parents but was brought up by Coloureds—such a person would be able to prove that his admission was not based on fact. He will still be able to prove that, but what he will not be able to deny, is that he did in fact make that admission. That is the effect of this provision, namely that he cannot claim now that the form has no significance and that he made a mistake. He has to prove that the facts contained in that form, are wrong. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, we are going to oppose this clause in spite of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Prinshof, part of which indicates that he should be on this side of the House arguing the Bill with us, because he has put the point of view of the person effected, a point which we have hammered again and again in respect of every amendment in this Bill. He has now come to the conclusion that we are right and that the hon. the Minister is wrong. I sincerely hope, in spite of that, that the second part of his amendment will be accepted by the hon. the Minister. I am not so sure about the first part of the amendment. Why does the hon. member not adhere to the original wording which was inserted by the 1956 amendment. Let me read section 3 of the 1956 Act—

That is where he stops but section ibis goes on and says—

That is the spirit in which this was inserted in 1956, namely that the possibility is allowed that he is not accepted as a native. But this hon. member says that to stop them creeping through the fences it were, that part must now be left out so that a person cannot creep through the fence. In other words, he wants to defeat the object of the amendment brought in by the 1956 Act. But this will be dealt with more fully as we go along.

I want to come now to the hon. the Minister’s amendment. We are prepared to accept it except for the fact that he has, in my opinion, put it in the wrong place. He has put it in line 44 after “he”. Surely he has made a technical mistake. “He” for the purposes of classification “admits or has admitted”. Surely this should go in after “has admitted” so that it will read “He admits or has admitted for the purposes of his classification”. I would suggest to the hon. the Minister that he take cognizance of that technicality and removes his amendment to the right place because here it is only for the purposes of classification if he admits now but not if he has admitted in the past. I am sure that that is not the hon. the Minister’s intention.

We are opposing this clause because by opposing it, if we succeed, we will revert to the 1962 section 1. That is what we want to do. We would in fact like to go further back and revert to the 1950 position for the sake of continuity so that the people affected, the borderline cases, these people sitting on either side of the chasm would have some continuity and know where they are going and would know where they are going to stay and which side of this fence they are going to be allowed to stay. What is happening here is that although in this clause we are not in fact amending the description of a white person, we are laying down such a set of circumstances and we are tinkering with the description to such an extent that we are virtually making a completely new description. Apart from everything else the new section 5 (5) is being introduced by this Bill which we will discuss later. By the time that we have amended and passed this clause the description of a white person, governed by all these new factors, is going to be something completely different from the 1962 amendment which is still on the Statute Book because this clause lays down so many new factors which must be taken into consideration. It is so set out that it virtually changes the whole description. This is what has happened since 1950 until we get to this Bill. In the 1950 Act we started off and said that the community will be the judge. There will be no other judge, the community will judge. For 12 years that succeeded. This hon. Minister’s predecessor made that case for this 1950 legislation. From our point of view you could have no finer advocate. I do not want to refer to Hansard but I might quote a little later from what he said. He made out the perfect case for us wishing to go back to the 1950 amendment. Then came the 1962 amendment because of a man called Song. I think that it was sparked off by him. Then we had a different picture. The community still judged but appearance now came into it and a little descent if he made an admission under a certain set of circumstances. Now we have come to this. Let us have a look at a few of the provisions.

Where do you see a change in the description of a white man?

This hon. member does not listen. I have just said that the description remains the same as in the 1962 Act. Let us read the provisions which now govern it in this clause. The new section 1 (2) (a) provides, apart from the new section 5 (5) to which we will come later and which is rather a vicious clause:

This is something entirely new. How do you take education into account?

Upbringing.

No, it does not say upbringing. It says “education” quite distinctly, if the hon. member can read. Is a man’s colour now going to be decided by the standard of his education? How stupid can we get. If a man has bad habits, what colour will he be made? If he has good habits, what colour will he be made in terms of this amendment? What do his habits have to do with his colour? I do not see by any stretch of my imagination how this can be done. In regard to deportment the only thing I can think of is that this position has become so stupid because a judge in his judgment said that a man must for instance be able to walk into a European hotel and be acceptable there. What happens? The Minister then puts in the word “deportment”. I take it he means the way in which he walks into a European hotel. Is that what he means? I do not know. I have only just started and this clause continues over the page. What does his “demeanour in general” mean? I honestly do not know what this clause means and I want the hon. the Minister to tell us what it means. Because I frankly do not know.

I think I understand the English language reasonably well. But let us go on a little. The hon. member for Prinshof now has an amendment to the next clause, which I think is a bad amendment. Then we lay down, to comply with the judgment of Judge De Vos Hugo, in paragraph (c) provisions in regard to a man’s association with the members of his family. Surely we are not going to go this far in our mad chase to make sure that everything is exactly white, exactly coloured, etc. Surely we are not going to go this far. The paragraph goes further: … and in his association with the members of his family and other persons with whom he lives”. The Act at the moment provides that a person who is not exactly white can in fact become white according to the legislation of this Government. It is this Minister and his Department who have made this position possible. Now he is introducing another factor. If a man is classified differently from his parents either way—and here we must remember that his parents come into this very much at the moment—his classification can be upset. There are so many factors in regard to this matter—my time is short—which can now change the compartment into which a man has been placed, and where he has been compartmentalized in this first clause, that we could go on discussing each one for a long time. I sincerely hope that the Minister will take up these various aspects. [Time expired.]

Before I call upon the next member to address the committee, I want to appeal to hon. members not to rehash the Second Reading debate. We have already had quite a lot of that.

Mr. Chairman, we have heard what the hon. member for Umlazi had to say. He tried to ridicule some of the underlying principles of this clause. In the beginning it was not clear to me whether he said that we were changing the 1962 concept or whether he said we were not changing it. I could not hear him very well. I beg the hon. member’s pardon if I did not follow him well. I want to make the request that we should not return to the 1950 or even to the 1962 debate. Let us confine ourselves to the clause before us, as adopted by this House during the Second Reading stage. In the first place, I want to make the statement that the status quo, as we find it in the 1962 Act, has not been disturbed. Section 1 of the 1962 Act becomes subsection (1) and that definition has been retained. The status quo has not been disturbed, all that happens here, with the addition of this subsection, is that certain rules, giving specific indications and instructions, have been drawn up for the furnishing of evidence. The contents of the principal section, which now becomes subsection (1), remain unchanged. The concepts of appearance acceptance and admission in respect of descent are the three fundamental concepts in subsection (1). They have been retained. They are in the 1962 Act. The hon. the Minister has already told us in the Second Reading that the courts had experienced certain difficulties in determining the contents and the interpretation of these three concepts. Arising out of those court rulings, and in order to clarify the intention of the legislator, we have decided to give this provision its present wording. In his Second Reading speech the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that a person had to comply with all these categories from now on. He called them “categories”, and that argument was repeated by the hon. member for Umlazi in the same tenor, as it were. I want to make the statement that we are not dealing with people who are being subjected to a whole series of categories. We are merely dealing with people who are being tested against the concepts of the 1962 definition— concepts of which the components are now being defined. They are not new categories. They are things which one’s common sense would tell one to take into account. It is not merely a statutory still-life of man, but the overall picture of man. After all, his appearance does consist of the way he looks, the way he is accepted, the way he behaves himself, the way he talks. Now it is being asked, “How does one determine his habits, and so forth?” It is an overall picture. It is not a matter of separate categories. It is the overall picture a person with common sense will take into account in deciding on a person’s appearance. Likewise, the factors mentioned here as a guide to the courts, are nothing but the natural components which define acceptance. For instance, there are the following questions: Where does he live? With whom does he live? With whom does he mix socially? Who are the members of his family? Where does he work? Surely, these are the natural components of a single concept, namely how is he accepted and what does he pass for?

How does he speak, how does he walk?

Yes, all these things are part of one’s personal appearance. If the Minister has sinned in this regard, I refer hon. members to the fact that the courts themselves said the following in the case of May:

That was after the courts had been limited to a visual observation; in other words, what I mentioned a moment ago—a statutory still-life of man. All that happens now is that those components are being grouped together in this Bill—components for furnishing proof, in respect of appearance and acceptance—components which our common sense and our experience prescribe to us as guides for determining these concepts. There is nothing wrong or ridiculous about them. If they were ridiculous, our courts would also be ridiculous. I do not think hon. members on that side will go as far as to say that.

Thirdly we come to the question of admission. That is the third element of the 1962 definition. It is now being prescribed how such admission may take place. In respect of that admission, I want to say that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has given guidance to his Party and has stated his point of view. He told us that he had objections to the fact that a person might, for instance, have admitted that one of his natural parents was not generally accepted as a white person, and that it might then count against him. Then he said: Where did he have to make that admission? In passing? In the course of conversation? That was never the intention. The Minister stated clearly what his intention was. Now I want to state this. As regards the objections raised by the Leader of the Opposition in respect of the contents of this clause, he was accommodated all the way. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said, “There are certain circumstances where a man makes an admission before a board, and I have no objection if they hold that against him”. That is one of the subsections. He said, “I have no objection if they say that should be held against him. There are certain cases where he makes an admission under oath, and one would accept that.” Then the Leader of the Opposition said that it worried him that one person could state in a return in respect of someone else that the latter was “mixed”, that is to say, that he was of mixed descent. In this respect, too, there was willingness to oblige so that there might not be any doubt. If that were to count against him, all he has to do is to prove that he is indeed a white person. Now I come to the census which is being dealt with in sub-paragraph (d) (ii). The amendment proposed by the hon. member for Prinshof has eliminated that problem as well. What a person has completed and signed himself, will count against him now. Consequently, if we read this clause in the light of the objections raised by the Leader of the Opposition, we are complying with all the requirements in respect of which they had problems. They ought to accept it in toto now, because they themselves are saying that if certain things were said by a person, that person ought to be bound by them. The Minister has now gone all the way without invalidating the legislation, and every reasonable objection raised by the Leader of the Opposition has now been covered.

Mr. Chairman, I have listened with interest to what has been said by the hon. member for Odendaalsrus. I think that he misses one point, and that is that in the clause now before us there is an attempt to give some rules of guidance to the Court as to how it should interpret “appearance” and “acceptance”. I would be indebted to the Minister if he would explain to us in this House why this guidance to the Court is necessary.

The information which he gave to me in reply to a question shows that the classification appeal board appears to have been dealing with these appeals quite reasonably and quite successfully. During the year 1966 119 objections were lodged with the Race Classification Appeal Board of which 70 were upheld and 49 rejected. 108 persons who had been classified coloured were re-classified white. No persons who had previously been classified white were re-classified Coloured.

Is the Minister suggesting that the board found extreme difficulty in determining appearance and acceptance to the extent that it must now have all these rules of deportment and so forth brought into the Act? If one goes further and one looks at the figures of the appeals from the board to the Supreme Court then one sees that of 17 appeals five were allowed. It is not an unreasonable number of appeals when it is a question of applying rules. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister will not now at this stage tell us—and I am sure it would help the debate—why it is necessary that the Court or the classification board which has to apply the 1962 definition, namely one of appearance and acceptance, should now be told specifically that it must consider all these interns mentioned under paragraph (a). I do not want to go into their effect—we have already debated their effect. But will the Minister tell us why it is necessary to attach those items to the definition for the purpose of classification?

I want to say that, from my experience of these cases, and after having handled some of the successful appeals, the successful appeals were those of white people who had to prove that they are white after being wrongly classified as Coloured. They succeeded in proving that they were white. They were not Coloureds “trying for white”. [Interjection.] I can only talk of my own personal experience. The Minister was good enough to have certain cases continue before the tribunal whilst we are debating this matter here. Only last week a case which the department refused to reclassify was reclassified by the classification board and the individual concerned was accepted as white. I wonder whether, if we accept this clause in toto, we are not going to upset the very basis of the Act as it was given to us in 1962, and that is that public opinion is the best judge as to how a person should be accepted by way of appearance and general acceptance.

Order! The hon. member is repeating what was said in the Second Reading Debate.

I wonder whether the Minister would explain to us why this is necessary.

Mr. Chairman, I was rather astonished at the way the hon. members for Umlazi and Green Point argued. They did not try to meet or refute the arguments raised by the hon. members for Prinshof and Odendaalsrus, because they were unable to do so—there are no holes to pick in those arguments. Apparently they take delight in regarding the entire additional provision concerning appearance which is being inserted here, as separate categories, as the hon. member for Odendaalsrus expressed it so clearly. On the strength of their experience, the boards, officials and also the Judges have repeatedly emphasized the fact that it is not so easy to judge and classify a person merely by looking at him.

The hon. member said here that the cases of which he knew were all, without exception— or if there were any exceptions, they were in the minority—cases of white persons who had been classified wrongly. I am not going to argue with him by saying that it is not true. Those boards judged to the best of their ability. But even the officials who had to make classifications in the first instance, would perhaps have made different classifications if they had taken into account what the intention was originally, an intention which was not stated. If they had had to take these factors into account by law, they might perhaps have decided differently. I think that in all probability most of them took these factors into account as a matter of course. If they took the other factors into account, if they did not only have to take the description of a white person into account—and, as everybody admits, it is extremely difficult to give a description of the appearance of a white person—and if they were not bound by that vague description but knew or were told that they could also take the other factors into account, they could have given a different classification originally.

Now I want to tell hon. members something. After this measure had already been laid upon the Table, I saw a certain person with my own eyes, and if I had to judge on visual appearance only—and the person concerned was White enough in colour, but I know what a non-White looks like—I would, without having regard to the other factors, have put my foot down and I would not have condoned reclassification. But when I had taken these other factors into account, I decided differently. We do not provide here that a person has to comply with all these factors. The person who makes the classification can determine by himself how much importance he is going to attach to certain factors, how many marks he is going to allocate to them, and how high or how low he is going to assess these additional provisions which are being inserted now—where the person is ordinarily resident, is employed, carries on business, the area in which he lives with other people, and so on—in order to get the correct overall picture. It does not follow that, if it is found that some or other factor tends to classify a person under a certain race group while other factors tend to classify him under another race group, he has to allow that particular dubious factor to count for so much. He himself has to decide on the appearance of that person, due regard being had to the other additional factors. After all, a human being is never a still-life. Then he has to decide how to classify that person, and it is possible for him to do so. I have quoted how Mr. Justice Diemont said that it was difficult to judge merely by looking at a person, and what a tremendous help it would have been to him if he could also have taken into account other factors, factors which are being inserted now. I checked these cases—the Secretary reclassified them—and they occurred after this Bill had been laid upon the Table. The reason for this addition is actually to make it easier for the person who classifies to come to a correct decision, but, on the other hand, I want to say that it will perhaps be much more difficult for many people who apply for classification or reclassification into a higher group, to obtain a decision in their favour on the strength of appearances only. If these factors are taken into account, it will perhaps be more difficult for a person to be classified into a higher race group, and I think that the gist of the objections raised by hon. members on the other side is to be found in that. As the hon. member for Odendaalsrus said. I really went out of my way with the amendments I myself proposed to accommodate the real objections, the objections which I regarded as valid and which I thought deserved consideration. The hon. member for Prinshof proposed two amendments. I am prepared to accept both of them because I have received letters, inter alia, from Coloured leaders whose complaint it is that it is very clear to them that in this Bill we are making it much more difficult for people who do not belong to the white race group or who are of dubious descent, to be assimilated into the white stream. But they are telling me that they would like us to protect the Coloureds as well against integration on the part of the Bantu. It worried me and I felt that as the Bill read, without this amendment proposed by the hon. member for Prinshof, there was a very large loophole for Bantu persons to cross the colour bar and to be classified as Coloured persons. J discussed the matter with jurists and they told me that it could not happen so easily under this Bill as it read before the amendment. It is not really necessary to accept this amendment, but if it will make the position more clear, also for the people who have to interpret the Act, then I do not see anything wrong in it, because it is not my intention to keep people out of a race group to which they do in fact belong.

The hon. member for Umlazi advanced the argument, inter alia, that we were changing the definition. No, the definition has not been changed. The intention is merely being stated more clearly. The definition is merely making it easier for people to arrive at a decision within the purport of the legislation so that we may achieve our aim with this Act.

Mr. Chairman, I think that I have now replied to the important questions which were put to me.

The hon. the Minister has proved on his own showing that the objections which we raised against this Bill were well-founded because he found a case himself where he reclassified the person concerned.

I cannot classify people.

At any rate, the hon. the Minister recommended it.

He said he condoned it.

We say that there are thousands of other cases similar to that particular case and we say to the Minister that they should all have an opportunity of proving what this man proved to the Minister’s satisfaction. I think the hon. the Minister has indicated that as far as third parties are concerned he is prepared to have second thoughts and that he will accept the recommendations which have been made from this side of the House. The hon. the Minister says, in so far as paragraph (c) is concerned, that the person affected need not comply with all the requirements mentioned there; that he need only comply with one of them. That is the way the hon. the Minister reads it. Sir, that is not the way we read it, but if the Minister now says that the person affected need not comply with all the requirements, then I think we have gone a little bit further in this matter. But I would like to point out that now that the Minister has accepted the amendment of the hon. member for Prinshof, there will have to be a further amendment. I would like the hon. member for Prinshof to listen and to tell me whether he agrees that the words “or in respect of him” will also have to be deleted if the Minister accepts his amendment to omit those words in lines 40 and 41. I submit that there will have to be a further amendment in line 50 and also in any other clauses in which those words appear. If the Minister accepts the hon. member’s amendment to omit “or by his spouse or his guardian in respect of him” in lines 40 and 41, I submit that the words “or in respect of him” also be omitted in line 50. Paragraph (ii) of paragraph (d) reads—

Paragraph (e) reads—

I think the words “or in respect of him” should be deleted.

I am afraid you are misreading (e).

If the principle is accepted, as the hon. member for Prinshof has said, that nothing shall be counted against the person unless he himself has made the statement, then it seems quite wrong that in the one form it shall be evidence supplied by the person himself while in the other form under (e) the Minister will accept what somebody else says about the person affected. It seems to be contradictory unless the Minister is prepared to accept my suggestion as well. Sir, I do not want to make a joke about this question of speech, habit, education, deportment and demeanour, but what about the queers who walk our streets? Their deportment and their speech are most peculiar. One cannot tell from their deportment and their speech whether they are White or Coloured. There are many Coloured people whose habits, education and speech and deportment and demeanour in general are as good as, if not better than, those of many Whites. If a man does not walk too well or speak too well or if his education has been neglected, surely that has nothing to do with whether he is a White or a Coloured person. I feel that these things should not be taken in consideration in deciding whether a person is in appearance obviously a white person or not a white person. I feel that the provisions of paragraph (c) will cover the position adequately. They give the board or the secretary sufficient information upon which to decide whether a person is white or not, and I feel that the Minister does not need what I regard as the stupid and unnecessary provisions contained in paragraphs (d) and (e).

I just want to correct a point which I myself made. I referred here to the extension of the definition of “appearance”, and I do not want there to be any ambiguity. In deciding whether or not any person is in appearance obviously a white person, his habits, education, speech and deportment and demeanour in general should be taken into account, but the way in which these factors will be taken into account, is being left to the discretion of the person who does the classification. These factors will help him to form a picture. That is what those words mean. The person who applies for classification or reclassification has to satisfy, jointly, all four requirements which are set out in paragraph (c). If he is ordinarily resident with Coloureds as a Coloured person, he does not qualify; if he is employed or carried on business as a Coloured person, he does not qualify; if he mixes socially or takes part in other activities with other members of the public as a Coloured person, he does not qualify. He cannot be a Coloured person in one area and a white person in another area and then ask to be classified as a white person. In other words, he has to satisfy all those requirements. The hon. member says that I condoned the reclassification of a certain person. but there are thousands more who want to be reclassified. In this Bill we are not depriving any person of the right to be reclassified if he is dissatisfied with his classification. It is still possible for him to apply for condonation. The position remains exactly as it was before.

The Minister has made a strange statement in connection with this clause. In fact, he has made a number of strange statements, but I want to deal with one in particular. That is where he says that the definition remains the same and all that the Government is trying to do by this amendment is to make it a little easier to understand this definition, or to put it into effect in practice. Sir, that is not so. It is correct that the definition remains the same under subsection (1), but the whole object of the proposed amendments in subsection (2) is not merely to enable a court or an official to interpret the clause better, but it in fact makes it more difficult for a person who claims to be white and who claims to associate with Whites and who wishes to be classified as a white person, to be so classified.

What is wrong with that?

Sir, this interjection by the hon. member for Parow shows clearly the attitude of that side of the House. They attempted during the Second Reading debate to lead this House to believe that they were very concerned about the whole question of classification and did not wish to make it hard for anyone; but that they merely wanted all the races in South Africa nicely classified in one box or another. But in the light of this interjection, that is obviously not the case, because the hon. member for Parow asks me what is wrong with prohibiting a person who claims to be white …

Not prohibiting him.

… who claims to be White and who associates with Whites and wants to be classified as White. We on this side of the House say there is nothing wrong with classifying such a person as a white person. [Interjections.] I will say it again very clearly to hon. members opposite. We on this side see nothing wrong in classifying as white a person who claims to be white …

Even if he is a Coloured?

Now wait a minute. Those hon. members are trying to put words into my mouth which I am not using, and when I try to clarify the position they interrupt me. If they will listen carefully, I will tell them precisely and in very clear language what we on this side mean. We on this side of the House see nothing wrong in classifying as white a person who claims to be white and who is generally accepted as a white person in the community in which he moves. If the hon. members opposite see something wrong in that, perhaps they will get up and tell us what is wrong with it.

It leads to many loopholes.

The Minister, in introducing the Bill, made the following statement at col. 3172. He said the intention of the Legislature at the time was and still is (and I emphasize this) that the classification of a person should be made according to the views held by the members of the community. Their own Minister said this. Now the hon. member for Parow apparently disagrees, because when I made the statement that if a person is generally accepted by the community as white, I see no reason why he should not be classified as white, he raised a hue and cry.

Because that is not the only test, and you are not closing any loopholes.

There we have it again—closing the loopholes. We pointed out in the Second Reading that the whole intention of these amendments was to make it more difficult, and then hon. members denied it. Now we have it from the mouth, firstly, of the hon. member for Parow and, secondly, from the hon. member for Turffontein. Sir, let me make it quite clear once again. These borderline cases are the ones to be dealt with in terms of these amendments, and they amount to no more than a few hundred. Why, in order to make it more difficult for such persons, should amendments be introduced which are going to be so wide that they will cause a great deal of hardship and injustice to a great many others, not merely to the so-called borderline cases but others also, as will become apparent when we deal with the other clauses of this Bill.

I now want to deal with certain other aspects of clause 1, which is now under discussion. Firstly, I want to deal with the use of information from the census form. I wonder whether the Minister realizes the implications of this clause as it is worded. I would ask him to give serious and careful consideration to the proposition I am about to put to him. I am now dealing with clause 1, the amendment which is being introduced as subsection (1) (d) (ii). This says—

1. (ii) in any form or return referred to in section 3 or 9 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.

The words I refer to specifically are “there appears a statement”. In other words, it is not necessarily a statement which he himself made on that form, as long as there appears a statement in anybody’s writing. This is important. It is not far-fetched, because everyone dealing with these census forms will know that there often appears on these forms statements of one sort or another in the handwriting of other people, people other than the person who signs the form. The amendment introduced by the hon. member for Prinshof does not do away with my objection. If he listens to me he might understand why. What he has deleted are the words “or his spouse or his guardian in respect of him”. But this still leaves the position that on a census form there may appear words which have been inserted by somebody else. [Time expired.]

First of all I just want to thank the Minister for accepting the amendments which were requested. It proves that the hon. the Minister is in earnest as regards this Bill and that he is paying as much attention to it as possible in order to make it a good Bill.

I must tell the United Party that what one of the hon. members said a moment ago, was in actual fact amusing, namely that they are glad to see the Minister responding to their agitation. It is almost pathetic to see how a party which is bankrupt, how those hon. members are saying now, after members on this side of the House have set about their task in all earnest and tried to improve this Bill, after this Bill has already been laid upon the Table, that it is as a result of the action they took that the Minister is now effecting changes. I just want to tell them that it is, of course, not so, but if they want to labour under that delusion, they may continue to do so.

I just want to refer to the hon. member for Boland first. He said that if we changed section (d) (ii) in the way it has been agreed to now, we should also change (2) (e) by deleting the words “or in respect of him”. I must tell the hon. member that it seems to me as though he does not understand the clause very well. This clause does not concern the contents of a form at all. It merely deals with the fixing of a date and does not concern the contents of the form at all. If the hon. member reads it, he will see that it says—

In other words, this section fixes a date; one has to determine in what way the person concerned was accepted on that specific date when he completed the forms, whether he completed them himself or whether somebody else did so on his behalf. The object of this clause is to fix the date, and it does not concern the contents of the form at all.

Then I want to refer to what the hon. member for Musgrave said in regard to the census return. There is absolutely nothing in the census return which is being abused by us. I do not know where the hon. member obtains that information. As the amendment reads at present, (d) (ii) provides that—

Only such information as was personally completed and signed by him, may be used against him, and there is no mention of third parties who may perhaps have completed his form. The hon. member is making a mistake there. It remains a form which he himself should have completed and signed, and it is not unfair to use that information against him.

But if something is added by another person?

Then it cannot be used against him as evidence. Those hon. members do not understand the amendment.

It was suggested during the Second Reading and also in the Press that the contents of census returns was absolutely secret, but in this respect we are not divulging the secrets contained in census returns. Let us read the original section 3 of the 1950 Act.—

In other words, for the past 17 years it has been quite clear that the contents of those forms are used for this classification. It was laid down in the Act, but above and beyond that, let us see what the Census Act of 1910 provides. Section 18 provides the following, and I shall read it in English because at that time the Act was drafted in Dutch and because my Dutch is rusty—

Now I just want to tell hon. members that even if it were the case that census returns would be used here, then this is still not a “civil proceeding”. That this is not a “civil proceeding”, I shall prove now. In this regard I want to refer them to the case of T. v. Secretary of the Interior, in which Mr. Justice Watermeyer said the following—

In other words, these are not “legal proceedings”.

But the Department uses it.

But these are not legal proceedings, surely, Legal proceedings result when one serves a subpoena on a person and wants to use these forms. Then such a person may say that the information in those forms may not be used because it is against section 18 of the Census Act. But in 1950 it was made quite clear to people that this information was required for their classification. It is being said again here. It is being said here that this information which the person concerned has signed and furnished himself, will be used in his classification. If a person said in that form that he was a coloured person, he cannot change his mind to-day and say that he is a white person. What is wrong with that? After all, the person himself said that he was a coloured person. I say that that is quite fair. I want to tell hon. members that they are seeing far too much in clause 1. The definition remains exactly the same. We all grant that. We are ad idem as far as that is concerned. There were court cases in which it was maintained that, as the Act read in 1962, the court first made a note based simply and solely on appearance only. I think hon. members will agree with me as far as that is concerned. However, one of the Judges, Mr. Justice Diemomt, said—

But now hon. members on the other side of the House want to ridicule the words of this honourable Judge.

No.

Yes. That is so. Now they ask: “What does education mean?” “What does accent mean?” “What does habit mean?” This hon. judge said that if we had taken those things into account, it would have helped us to decide on a correct classification.

The only evidence on which this clause has any bearing, is that evidence which an applicant usually leads when he applies for a classification. When he appears before the Classification Board, he states where he went to school and where he lived, and the Board can, of course, see what he looks like. On those grounds he applies for a classification. This is the evidence to which reference is made in this clause. The effect of that is that, whereas previously a judge only assessed an applicant visually—he did not ask him where he came from or about his environment, his habits or things of that nature, but merely looked at the person in question and decided whether he was a white, non-white or Coloured person on the strength of what he had seen—the position at present is exactly the opposite. In future, when a case is tried by a judge, there will be no need for him to make a visual assessment only, but he will have to take these other factors into account first—in other words, only at the end of the court case the judge will say whether the person before him is Coloured, white or non-white in appearance. At that stage he will have taken all factors into account, as it ought to be. Only then does he arrive at a final finding which tallies with his final classification. Surely, Mr. Chairman, this is logical. I repeat that hon. members are seeing much more in this clause than it actually embraces. All that happens here, is that the same evidence is submitted, with this difference that the judge does not give a ruling on the appearance of a person at the beginning of a court case, but at the end of it.

I want to congratulate the hon. member for Prinshof on the fact that the Minister accepted his amendment, particularly as far as the latter part of it is concerned. To my mind it is a great improvement. But as far as the first part of the hon. member’s amendment is concerned, I think that the hon. member did not take into account everything that had been taken into account in paragraph (a). In terms of paragraph (a), if there is any doubt about whether a person is a white or a Coloured person, his habits, education, speech and deportment and demeanour in general are also taken into account. Now the hon. member asks for the following words to be added at the end of paragraph (b): “except where such person is in appearance obviously a member of an aboriginal race or tribe of Africa”. Therefore a person’s habits, education, speech and deportment and demeanour in general are not being taken into account here. I want to tell the hon. member about an experience I had in the Transvaal a few years ago. I agree with the hon. the Minister that over the past few years experience has shown that there is a great deal of alarm amongst large sections of the Coloured population at the fact that people who are obviously members of other race groups, are being classified as Coloured persons. But I want to remind the hon. the Minister that this amendment does not offer a solution to that problem. The reason is that when the different sub-groups were established, Griqua and Malay groups were introduced in addition to the existing white, Coloured and Bantu groups. It is because of the Malay group that Indians have become Coloureds, and it is because of the Griqua group that Bantu have become Coloureds. It does not really fall under this clause, but these are two absurdities which I shall discuss under clause 2 and then I shall give a clear indication of how wrong they are. In 1964 two cases were brought to my notice and after I had gone into them, I found that there were many more such cases. I want to mention one example to the House. With the battle of Vegkop, when the Voortrekkers marched upon Moselekatse and drove him out of his capital, it inevitably happened—from the nature of the operation which was carried out there and of which there are still many other examples —that in such a large city there were small children who could not get away. The Voortrekkers did not kill those children, but took them along and subsequently they grew up among the Whites on their farms. In Pretoria I had the case of a person who was a Black man in every respect—a big, well-built black man—who brought his wife, a Coloured woman, along when he approached me; allegedly it has been proved that she was the granddaughter of one of the earlier presidents of one of the Republics. But she was obviously a Coloured woman. As far as appearance was concerned, the man was a Bantu through and through. However, I was astonished when the man spoke to me, because he spoke Afrikaans like an Afrikaans-speaking person, like a Coloured person. I asked him a few questions. He said that he came from Pilgrim’s Rest and he referred to the Bantu as “kaffirs”. When I asked him how it was that he referred to the Bantu as “Kaffirs” and what nationality he was, he said that his father had been one of the old slaves. That was a new thing to me and therefore I asked him what he meant by the old slaves. He replied that the old slaves had been those Bantu who had grown up amongst the farmers and who had acquired the language and habits of the Whites and had lived like them. This man could not speak a single word of any Bantu language—only Afrikaans. In terms of the hon. member’s amendment, this man has to be classified as a Bantu. His difficulty was that he was living in the large Bantu township of Pretoria and that his children had to be escorted by a constable from their home to the station and back. Despite the fact that he has been classified as a Bantu, the Bantu do not want to accept him and his wife and his children, because he does not comply with their standards and does not have their way of life. Therefore I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he will agree to the same concession being made here —namely that a person’s habits, education, speech and deportment and demeanour in general should also be taken into account— by making this provision read as follows—

While the Minister has made that concession where there may be borderline cases between White or Coloured—as the judge rightly alleged and as was quoted here by the hon. member for Prinshof—I am asking the Minister to take into account those considerations as well when it comes to a case where a person may appear to be a Bantu, but has in actual fact been rejected by the Bantu community or is not being accepted by them, and where it is being made impossible for him to live amongst them because he has no ties with them.

The hon. member for Prinshof said that it was not necessary to have an amendment in line 50, as suggested by the hon. member for Boland. Of course he is quite wrong, because his argument was that this particular paragraph only fixed the time. But of course that is quite wrong, because the intention of the measure is quite clear. It says:

[Interjection.] Yes, that has at all times been so. That is correct. This does not only refer to the 1951 census. It refers also to the details given under section 9 of the Act. [Interjection.] I think the hon. member must listen to me for a moment. Section 9 makes it obligatory for persons to furnish information in respect of their wards of under 16 years of age. That is a thing that goes on and on and on. Now, how is this person going to be held responsible in one case for information furnished by another person and not in another identical case? The hon. member cannot have it both ways.

That has to be put right, and I intend to move: On page 1, line 50, to omit the words “or in respect of”. I want to go further. Subsection (3) reads:

There has to be an amendment here, too, if the hon. the Minister has accepted the first amendment. It has to come in line 50 and also here. As a result, I am going to move: “On page 4, in line 1, after ‘return’, to insert the words ‘completed by the person concerned and’ ”. In other words, let him be responsible for his own destiny. Because in terms of this subsection (3) somebody else can state that this man is a Coloured person and he will, in fact, be deemed to be a Coloured person. In other words, his destiny under sections 3 and 9 can be determined by some other person. These two amendments which I have now suggested are consequential amendments. The hon. the Minister cannot escape it. He has to accept them. He has no option.

There is another question that I want to deal with here. That is the question of the census. The hon. member for Prinshof seems to have forgotten the assurance given to people when a census is compiled. The 1951 census, which is referred to in section 3 of the Act, in particular, is an example. It says:

I accept that the hon. member has brought forward other argument. The other argument is that under section 17 of the Census Act, this can be used by the Board, but it is not admissible as evidence. It has been ruled out already. So it will be in the future. But are people going to be classified on evidence, first of all which is not admissible in a court of law except in a criminal case, where it has to be divulged? If this information is going to be used, surely these people must be told on the census forms from now onwards, because we have in our minds a little thought that an instruction was issued to the people who took a census recently that they must make a particular note of what these people look like, on these forms they have to fill in. They had to decide whether they look white or Coloured, whether they associated with Coloured people, whether there were Coloured people running around there. These are facts. But is that put on the form? Of course it is not. We must remember that this applies also to reclassification. In a future census a person who is now white, has the information put on the census form by the enumerator. He signs it or someone else does so on his behalf. If these amendments are not accepted, hon. members have to accept that he can find himself coming under the attention of the Secretary, and the Secretary, under a later clause, has the power to either reclassify this man or refer his case to the Reclassification Board. Immediately he loses all the advantages of being white, because my honourable Leader said at the Second Reading that the effect of this Bill is going to be to move people from the white group to the Coloured group. Now we must remember this. The tide is not going to flow the other way.

So, in our discussions, I am taking this particular aspect into consideration, namely that people who are now white, can by a census or by information given by a guardian, not only be classified as Coloured, but they can also be reclassified from the white group to the Coloured group. What happens to the children? This is a point that has just been raised here, what happens when they are reclassified? Now that the aspect of the census has been brought in here you may have the admission made therein that either of his natural parents is, or was not generally accepted as a white person. Hon. members must remember that on the question of descent, the previous Minister of the Interior gave us the assurance, and I want to ask this hon. Minister whether he is going to give it to us here. He said in respect of the 1962 amendment: “I want to give the assurance that the descent of Whites will not be investigated as a result of this power now being given to the Secretary to investigate, because descent is not a decisive factor in race classification”. He went on “If we were to do that, we will put many people who, for many generations perhaps, have passed as Whites in a difficult position”. I hope the hon. the Minister is listening. If he does this, according to his own colleague, his predecessor in this office, this is what he is going to do and I am going to repeat: “If we were to do that, we would put many people, who for many generations perhaps, have passed as Whites, in a difficult position”. He gave the undertaking that this would not happen and he confined the use of this power to one class of persons only: The person who had admitted that he was not white. He had in mind the case of Song who stood up in the witness box and said: “I am a Chinaman. My parents were Chinese. I accept it. But the advantages of being white are so great, I want to be classified as white.” And he was classified as a white man.

It was not so easy.

Of course it was not easy. But the point was that he was in fact classified as a white person. But now, the hon. Minister, backed by the hon. member over there, is introducing factors over which they are going to have no control and which can only work in one way. They can only reduce white people to Coloureds. That is all they can do. They can only bring them down, because the people affected here are white people. The previous Minister of the Interior, this hon. Minister’s predecessor, made that quite clear in his speech in 1962. So I want to make this point quite clearly, and I move my two amendments—

Mr. Chairman, regarding the question of the census which the hon. member for Umlazi and other hon. members raised here, I think they have it all wrong. The form referred to in clause 3 of the Bill is only one specific form, namely the census form of 1951 and no other census form.

But it is nevertheless a census form.

The impression that the hon. members wanted to create here, and what the hon. member for Umlazi has just said, is that if in future a person said in a census form that he was a Coloured whereas in the past he had said in other census forms that he was white, then he would be classified as a Coloured. That is utter nonsense. I just want to repeat it again quite clearly for the edification of the hon. member and also for the edification of the hon. member for Rosettenville, who understands nothing about this matter. Hon. members on the opposite side try to create the impression that a reference to “a form” in terms of clause 3 means any census form of any census, for example a census of 1960. That is the point I want to make. Hon. members on the opposite side would suggest that it is any census, any census of the past and of the future. That is not correct. It applies specifically and exclusively to the census of 1951. Does the hon. member for Umlazi understand it now?

I have understood it all along.

Let me explain it further to the hon. member for Umlazi. They say it is dishonourable and unethical to use information contained in a census form for the purposes of race classification. We have to bear in mind that the Population Registration Act was passed and promulgated in 1950. The census on which this Population Register was based was taken in 1951. In 1950, a year before the census, everybody was told, over the radio and in all possible ways, that the census information of 1951 would provide the data for the compilation of the population register. Now hon. members come along afterwards and try to create the impression that we swindled the people. They say that under the protection of the Census Act we asked the people for confidential information but afterwards went and classified them in accordance with that information. That is not the case. In 1950 this Act was promulgated, and a year beforehand, a year before 1951, everybody, the whole world, every person was told that the information furnished in the census would form the basis for race classification. If a person knew a year before the time that the information he would furnish in the 1951 census would determine on what register he would be put, why may it not be taken into consideration to-day?

It was confidential.

How can it be confidential? The hon. member for Wynberg is like a parrot—she can only say certain words. I hope hon. members on the opposite side will in future be somewhat more careful when they try to sell this argument.

What did the hon. member for Umlazi say here? He talked about “any future census”. How could he say such a stupid thing? It does not relate to “any future census”. It merely relates to the information furnished in the 1951 census. I therefore hope hon. members will now leave this old census story at that.

Then the hon. members for Umlazi and Musgrave—people who come from Natal and who know virtually nothing about this reclassification and its concomitant problems, which we have to deal with here—tried to tell us about the problem we are facing here. The hon. member for Outeniqua is an example to them. They tried to poke fun at the fact that in terms of the new subsection 2 (a) of the Act habits, education, speech and deportment and demeanour in general shall be taken into account when deciding about a man’s appearance. It is not all that ridiculous. It is not all that ridiculous to the hon. member for Outeniqua, who knows about these cases. Nor should it be all that ridiculous to the hon. member for Green Point, if only he would not be mischievous. It should not be ridiculous to the hon. member for Wynberg either, if only she would not be stupid. They know that that is the case. They know that by taking into account a person’s habits, speech and actions a picture is formed when his appearance is decided on in order to ascertain whether he is white or non-white. [Interjection.] I do not expect the hon. member for Rosettenville to know anything about this. I want to call the hon. member for Outeniqua as my witness. The hon. member wants to go further than the National Party. Because the hon. member knows what he is talking about, he wants us to extend the Act and to insert these sentences in other sections as well. It is no use for the hon. members for Natal, who know nothing about this problem, to try to be very clever and very legal here.

Then the hon. member for Musgrave also advanced an argument. What the hon. member actually said—I should like the United Party and its leader to listen to this—is that the United Party is prepared to accept as a White any person who “claims to be White”. [Interjections.] No, wait, I have not finished —hon. members should not be so sensitive.

That is what the hon. member’s argument means in effect. The hon. member for Musgrave added a tail to it, and I want to step on that tail as well—then it will be even more sensitive. The hon. member for Musgrave added this tail to it: “Provided that such a person is generally accepted in the neighbourhood in which he lives.” But does the hon. member for Musgrave know the circumstances prevailing here in the Peninsula, where we have virtually 99 per cent of these cases? Has he paid a visit to parts of the Peninsula where there are still mixed residential areas, after the National Party has done a great deal to clear up certain mixed areas? Even to-day there are still residential areas where one may go from house to house without knowing who lives here or there. All the hon. member for Musgrave now wants is that one Coloured should come along and say that his neighbour …

No.

Of course, he wants to do that. The hon. member said quite clearly that it should only be necessary for him to be accepted as a White in the neighbourhood in which he lives. Did the hon. member not say that? He said: “He must be generally accepted in the community in which he lives.” If that is to be the case, the hon. member may just as well tell us that any person in the Peninsula who derives from certain areas should be classified as White. I do not want to mention names, but I may tell the hon. member that these areas are sometimes situated on the perimeter of select residential areas. One finds such areas in Newlands, in Rondebosch, in Mowbray and in Observatory. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Parow is quite right, of course, when he says that it is only the 1951 census that applies to this amending Bill. Nevertheless, this does not in any way override the objection to the use of that particular census for the purpose of classification, firstly for the reason already advanced from this side of the House and that is that the original undertaking was that information collected in the census would be used for statistical purposes only and, secondly, due to the fact that it was admitted in this House in 1962 when the previous amending Bill was before the House, that a great deal of inaccurate information was furnished in the 1951 census, and therefore his point is quite irrelevant in that respect. The Minister, in giving the House the reasons in 1962 as to why certain investigations will have to be conducted into classifications based on information given in the 1951 census, said—

That was one of the reasons which the hon. the Minister advanced. He went further in 1962 and this is what he said in referring to the provision which allows an investigation into the accuracy or otherwise of the description of the person according to the 1951 census—

In other words, he was even admitting the possibility of mala fides …

These were the reasons advanced in 1962 as to why the 1951 census was inaccurate, and no argument has been advanced in this debate to nullify the very good reasons given by the Minister in 1962 for not relying on the 1951 census.

May I reply to one or two points made by the hon. member for Prinshof? Significantly enough, when he was speaking about the use of demeanour and education and speech and all these other criteria which are now being validated, having been declared invalid—although having been previously used by the board the courts threw them out as being invalid—he used the argument that it was just as well because he said that Judge Diemont in giving judgment had stated that it was very difficult just from appearance only, from the visual impression that one gained, to decide whether a person is Coloured or not. Sir, the hon. member keeps on referring to the Judge’s decision, but in the first instance it is not going to be a Judge at all who is going to make this decision; it is going to be the board.

It is going to be an official.

What difference does that make?

It makes a lot of difference. If the hon. member had read the whole of Judge Diemont’s judgment, he would have seen that Judge Diemont had some very derogatory things to say about the way in which officials utilized their powers under the existing Act, let alone how they are going to be able to utilize their powers under this amending Bill which is going to widen their discretion enormously. It is going to widen the discretion of the officials in all those cases which fall outside the easy definition of descent, as introduced by a later clause. Sir, it is impossible to discuss one clause in this Bill without referring to the later clauses because they are all closely interwoven. All those persons who do not clearly fall under the descent clause, that is, where both parents have been classified as White or where both parents have been classified as Bantu belonging to the same ethnic group or where both parents have been classified as Coloured—everybody who falls outside that broad general category—will now fall under this definition. That is correct, is it not? It will be the officials who, as Judge Diemont said, very often act not only incorrectly but in an extremely unfortunate manner towards the people who come up before them, who will now be able to use this wide definition. Everybody outside this straight category of descent, where there is no difficulty in solving the equation that I talked about in the Second Reading debate, everybody who is in danger of being reclassified—because this obviously applies to all the border-line cases where there is no clear-cut decision—will find that these new criteria are applied to him. These new criteria also apply to all children whose immigrant parents have not been classified; they apply to all illegitimate children where one parent is unknown. All these people now fall into this category and these new criteria with their wide ramifications are now going to be applied to these people. I think this clause does in fact make us look ridiculous in the country. I cannot see any justification for retaining this clause as it is and I am certainly going to vote against it. I think the hon. the Minister has improved it slightly by the amendments that he has introduced, and I think the hon. member for Prinshof has also improved it slightly, but nevertheless they have not removed the broad objections to this clause, which is very important indeed because it covers all the border-line cases; all the reclassifications that are going to take place will fall under these broad criteria which, if read in cold, stark daylight, simply make South Africa ridiculous.

It does not follow that simply because a person is educated he must be White, and it does not follow that because a person is not educated he must be Coloured. Under this definition clause, with its added criteria, demeanour is going to mean one thing in one case and a different thing in another case. Sir, you could not, judging by demeanour, tell an educated Coloured man from an educated white man. You could not tell whether a person is White or Coloured just from his way of life. There are people who are Coloured who live on a higher standard than white people. [Interjection.] Sir, the criteria apply in every single case where it is not a clear-cut case of descent, it applies in every case where the parents of people have not both been classified in the same race group. These new criteria apply to all the reclassifications, and I am very worried about the retrospective aspect of this Bill. In later clauses amendments are going to be moved in an attempt to remove this retrospectivity. The hon. the Minister has given an assurance that there are not going to be reclassifications. If there are reclassifications, all the new definitions, in terms of these criteria which are now being validated, are going to have to apply. I cannot see how the hon. the Minister can say that there are not going to be reclassifications when it is encumbent upon the secretary to keep a correct register. If anybody comes along and says that A has been incorrectly classified, whether the hon. the Minister wishes it or not, there has to be a reinvestigation and that reinvestigation will take place not in terms of the existing criteria but in terms of the new criteria which are being introduced by the amendments in the definition clause. Therefore this is a terribly important clause, and for all the reasons I have advanced I intend voting against it.

Normally one would not reply to the argument of the hon. member for Houghton when she speaks on legislation of this nature, because her attitude is well known. But for one reason I cannot let her speech pass without comment. That is that a grave allegation has been made here. It is an allegation which immediately casts suspicion on officials who are appointed by this Government in terms of a specific act, to the effect that they will commit all kinds of atrocities just to prejudice people. [Interjection.] The hon. member says I should read Mr. Justice Diemont’s judgment in that connection, but allow me to say for the information of the hon. member for Houghton why Mr. Justice Diemont could say those things. Mr. Justice Diemont could say that because in classifying persons all possible means are applied to ensure that a person receives the most equitable hearing possible, if he is in the unfortunate position of having to apply for reclassification.

It is taken to the point of making a verbatim tape-recording of the proceedings. And when this is played before a Judge, he can listen to every word in order that he may give a ruling on the basis of that evidence and on the basis of the examination by the members of the board. In view of the fact that the arrangements for a person attending a hearing are so equitable, that he is afforded that protection, that the onus is placed on every member of the board to render account for every word he says and every question asked by him, if he knows that those things may go to the Supreme Court on appeal, and that there is the possibility that a Judge may criticize the actions of the members of the board, I want to ask the hon. member for Houghton: Where could you get more protection for any person who applies for race classification? In view of the fact that the Minister has envisaged the appointment of such a board, I object to the fact that this kind of thing should be said continually, not only by the hon. member for Houghton— though particularly by her—but also by other hon. members, by implication and directly, so that suspicion is cast immediately on the integrity and bona fides of people appointed to such a board to do this work in the interests of our country and in the interests of the various population groups. I know that there are cases where people make mistakes, but from members of this House I have heard irresponsible statements which had the most direct bearing on South Africa’s interests, and I think as far as that is concerned the hon. member for Houghton should search her own heart before casting stones at officials.

Why do you not have the courage to say what you really mean, instead of making insinuations?

I have the courage to say everything I have to say. The hon. member should just tell me what she expects me to say. I shall repeat to her what I meant. If she says things about officials, by implication, that they are guilty of dishonesty or mala fides, and if she drags in Mr. Justice Diemont’s judgment to cast suspicion on all officials, then I say the hon. member for Houghton has done more harm to the peace of the population in South Africa than any official could possibly have done.

But I also want to read to the hon. member for Houghton the essence of what Mr. Justice Diemont said in his judgment, to which she did not want to listen a moment ago when the hon. member for Prinshof wanted to read it. She gave the impression that this clause, which is merely an extension of the old section, was meant to lay all possible obstacles in the way of the correct classification of people. Now I want to make this distinction between the hon. member for Houghton and some other Opposition members—there are also some exceptions. I want to say that as far as this part of the House is concerned, and for my part, we feel that every member of the population should be classified as equitably as possible into his correct group. That is the difference in premise. Hon. members want the wishes of every particular person to be met as far as possible, whether right or wrong. In order to be able to do that correctly, the Supreme Court delivered a judgment calling upon this House for more clarity in the legislation. It has already been read, but it appears to me as though it is necessary to read it once again. Mr. Justice Diemont said, when those people appeared before him and when he had before him the 1962 Act, to which there are several references and of which the first two clauses are still retained—

And then he also quotes other cases—

That is what the Judge had before him, and he gave his judgment. He said that he was in the strongest doubt because—

And then, with a view to making a correct finding, Mr. Justice Diemont said—

Now I ask, if the court, in the words of Mr. Justice Diemont—the same man who, faithful to the traditions of our judicature, had the honesty to criticize people who had acted incorrectly—asks the legislature: “I think there is a deficiency in the Act, and I suggest that these are things which you may do to make it easier for one to decide correctly,” what right has the hon. member for Houghton to say that she is going to vote against the Bill because it is dead wrong? Does she think I nearly caught my death of fright when she said that? Sir, I think it is a recommendation for the Bill that the hon. member for Houghton votes against it.

Mr. Chairman, I think that the hon. member for Witbank seems to believe that it is possible to do what scientists and judges have said is impossible, that is, to define on any scientific basis the dividing lines between the races and particularly between the Coloureds and the white people. The very fact that we are discussing this Bill in such detail at the present moment is because whatever definition we enact it must of necessity be an arbitrary definition which we as a legislature think is the most suitable. There is no scientific basis for what we are discussing here to-day as the hon. member for Witbank would suggest. I want to come back to what the hon. the Minister said and I hope that I followed him correctly. I understood him to say that the definition of 1962 stands. What clause 1 sets out to do is to give guidance and more clarity in regard to factors that must be taken into consideration in applying the 1962 definition. I hope I have understood the hon. the Minister correctly. He indicates that that is correct. I want to ask him then, and we have had several amendments suggested including two by the hon. member for Prinshof to this particular clause, whether this clause as it stands will in fact achieve what the Minister wants it to achieve because if we examine it we will find that it says what must be done in a classification. That classification might be done by the Secretary, the official initially classifying, by a Minister under review, by the Race Classification Appeal Board or by the Supreme Court on ultimate appeal. If we look at the new section 1 (2) (a) there is mention of habits, education, etc. It is not that those are factors which may be taken into consideration or that they are matters which can be considered by the deciding body or person, but each and every one of those factors shall be taken into account. In other words, as the clause stands a deciding body or person must inquire into habits, education, speech, deportment and demeanour. Now let us look at the new section 1 (2) (b) which states:

There is no question that it is a guiding principle or something which may be taken into consideration; it is a fixed assumption which must be accepted by the person applying this definition to a particular individual. If we go to paragraph (c) and inquire what is meant by “generally accepted” we read the following: “A person shall be deemed not to be generally accepted … unless he is so accepted” under four categories. There are no “ifs” or “ands” or “ors” or that they shall be taken into consideration. It is obligatory that he must be accepted 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, and in his association with the members of his own family. A man may be white in all other categories under this definition. He can conform with and meet every test but if he happens to have somebody in his family circle who is classified as a Coloured person and he associates with that person in any form whatsoever, he loses his right to remain classified as a white person, whether it is father and child, child and parent, or brother and brother, because the hon. member for Parow and the other hon. members know that marriage is permitted between persons under a different definition to the definition which applies in the case of a population register. A man and wife can be married legally according to the laws of this country. They can be accepted and recognized in our churches and have lawful offspring, but because one of those people, under this definition, is a Coloured person, that child becomes Coloured and the one parent can no longer have anything to do with the child.

Let us go on to paragraph (d); we find the same position there. It states: “He shall be deemed also to admit freely”. There is no question about it. Then we come to paragraph (e). There the assumptions and the deductions shall be “conclusive proof” at all times. I want to say that the hon. the Minister did, in contra-distinction to the hon. member for Prinshof, concede to the House that he had introduced an amendment because of the strong feelings which were expressed by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. The hon. member for. Prinshof has not been as gracious as that in telling us why he has moved an amendment. I want to say to the Minister with the utmost sincerity that the clause as it is before us now does not meet the very need which he detailed to us a little while ago. This clause is not necessary. I should like to conclude by referring to an extract from a judgment of Mr. Justice Watermeyer in dealing with this particular question of classification. Mr. Justice Watermeyer said:

He then proceeds to say:

That is under the definition as we have it now. That is the manner in which the courts are functioning to avoid injustices and hardships through being tied hand and foot by directives as to how they should try to apply this dividing line between the Coloureds and the white people. I do not think that the Minister can say that the decisions which have been taken by the Board—108 reclassifications in the last year—have constituted a miscarriage of justice because those classifications are under the definition as it stands. I want to appeal to the Minister again to reconsider this particular clause, even to the extent of letting it stand over and go back to his legal advisers, because I say with conviction that it does not meet the objective at which the Minister himself aims, that is, merely to give guiding principles for the Board.

Mr. Chairman, perhaps I should begin with the last speaker. I cannot take it amiss of the hon. member for Green Point when he states that the entire clause in itself, as it stands, is unacceptable to the United Party. We do not regard the matter in the same light on both sides, and perhaps we do not have the same intentions. It has been our experience in the past that we have had varying interpretations of this definition from the courts, from boards and from officials. In paragraph (a) we state that the customs, education, speech and general demeanour must be taken into consideration. The purpose of the remainder of the clause is to clarify our intentions and our aims in regard to the interpretation of what we want done for those people who have to work with this legislation and administer it. I am convinced that there will now be far less doubt in regard to what has to be done. Take paragraph (c) for example, about which it has been said that it would create terrible problems. As I said in my Second Reading speech, this Bill is intended to make it more difficult for this creeping integration to continue. Now the hon. member for Green Point comes along and says that judges have given different interpretations to the Act and that they were correct in doing so because the Act has not been stated clearly. When we found that the implementation of the Act did not comply with our intentions, the only mode of action open to us was to state our intentions more clearly. Of course we are making it more difficult for members of one race group to cross over to another race group. Whether the United Party likes it or not, or whether or not it protests against the removal of what they call this “fine flow which is a strengthening factor for the white group”, makes no difference to me. The intention is to put a stop to it and to make it more difficult for members of one race group to cross over to another race group. But while we want to make this process more difficult, a process which has already caused much hardship and will continue to do so, we want to do it as fairly as possible. The hon. member for Houghton has alleged that a continual reclassification will now take place and referred to what the Minister was alleged to have said in 1962, i.e. that there would be no witch-hunt. But nothing like that was contained in the 1962 Act. Nothing was said about it in the Act. But let me say that hon. members of this House, including members of the Opposition, have expressed their thanks for the way in which the 1950 Act has been implemented, even after the amendment of 1962. However, the hon. member for Houghton is now saying that because there is nothing in the Bill to prohibit such a witch hunt, we are now going to start a witch-hunt of this nature. But surely it is not our intention to create more problems. After 1962 people did have an opportunity of making application to the Secretary for a reclassification, or of appealing against their classification, or of asking for their classification to be revised. If they did not comply with the time limit imposed in Section 11 (3), they could, under certain circumstances, have come to the Minister for condonation. What happened then is that the Secretary goes into the case of a person asking for reclassification to see whether reclassification is justified or not. Here I want to tell the hon. member for Green Point that the Minister himself never undertakes classification. All that the Minister does is to use his discretion whether or not to allow condonation in the case of people who have not complied with the prescribed time limit in regard to applications for reclassification. All that the Minister does is to take the circumstances of a case like that into consideration and exercise his discretion.

In this niece of legislation now before us we are going even further. We are going out of our way to refrain from depriving people of those opportunities. Let me also tell the hon. member that there are in fact going to be applications for reclassifications. Anybody may still go to the Secretary and ask for reclassification under Section 5 (4). If the Secretary deems any such application to be a difficult one, he can refer it to the Board, that is to say if he does not want to undertake a reclassification himself. At any rate the Secretary can reconsider the case of such a person.

He can take it to the court as well, can’t he?

The Secretary can appeal to a court against classifications. If he feels he is in need of a definition or an interpretation of a definition by the courts, an interpretation which might help him to classify, he can go on appeal against one or other classification to the court. Why should he not be able to do it?

When does a classification become final?

That hon. member is too stupid to understand the Act. If the Secretary classifies a person and that person is satisfied with his classification, then his classification is of course complete. If that person, on the contrary, is dissatisfied with his classification, then I cannot say at what stage it will be finalized because I cannot say how long it will take before the long procedure, which we are allowing him out of decency to prove the contrary, will come to an end. But the hon. member for Houghton made a good and a valid point. She said that the former Minister had admitted in 1962—and that I am also doing so now—that the census form of 1951 may contain unreliable information. That is so. But we have said that information acquired in that way, information which we need in regard to classification, will be used by us. Surely one is leaving the door open for a person to come and say that the information on which his classification is based is incorrect. This legislation provides specifically that information on the census form, information which is necessary in regard to classification, will only be taken into account when that information has been furnished by the person in question himself and filled in on the form. I want to say here that most errors are those made by census takers and not by those people who have filled the forms in themselves. It is, in any case, very unnatural for a person who is a white person to state in his census form that he is a Bantu, for example or vice versa.

You can do that for spiteful reasons.

You can do it for spiteful reasons to other people but if you do that then it won’t count against you in terms of this Bill because only that information which you have given or written down yourself and which appears under your signature will be taken into account. As a matter of fact, I think that we are getting more clarity now. Because the person who filled in the form, must have filled it in himself or must have supplied the information himself and must have signed the form himself as correct. If a person has himself given wrong information, the only conclusion I can come to is that he was spiteful towards himself. If he wants to be spiteful towards himself, nobody else can help him. Therefore I think that is really a hypothetical question.

This amendment does rectify it.

The hon. member for Umlazi moved two amendments, but I am very sorry to say that I cannot accept either one of them. The hon. member does not realize that if I were to accept his amendment to clause 1 and were to introduce the proposed words there, it would mean nothing. The new paragraph (d) (ii) of the new subsection (2) would then read as follows—

As I have said, that means nothing and I cannot therefore add those words. It is the person in question who has to do so, and it is the same kind of argument I have just dealt with. This amendment does not improve the measure at all. The second amendment I find equally impossible to accept, i.e. the one dealing with the date. The provision in question, paragraph (e) of the new subsection (2), inserted by clause 1. The hon. member states that there should be a day on which the man’s classification begins. If there is no date it cannot be done. How is the date to be determined? The date is that on which the form has been completed, either by himself or by somebody else on his behalf. However, his classification will not be according to the contents of that form, but only with effect from the date on the form. If we were, for example, to insert there the words “unless he himself has signed it”, or the words proposed by the hon. member, then there are going to be thousands of people in respect of whom there is no date because they did not themselves fill in the form but had somebody else fill it in for them. Then the position would be simply impossible. That is why I cannot accept the hon. member’s amendment. I think that as far as this clause is concerned, we have debated and discussed it to such an extent that I do not know what objections that side has which I can accommodate. The basic reason for this situation is, in my opinion, because we do not view the matter in the same light. Therefore I adhere to what I have said.

Order! I want to warn hon. members that I am not going to allow any more repetition. We have been having repetition of arguments over the last hour.

Mr. Chairman, I want to deal with a few points that arise out of the hon. the Minister’s speech and also arising out of speeches by other speakers. The Minister has referred to the clause dealing with the census form, and suggests that the type of case which I referred to cannot occur because the amendment provides that the form shall be completed and signed …

… by him.

… by him, yes. Well, please do not interrupt all the time.

Order! I will maintain order and I will tell hon. members when they may interrupt and when they may not. The hon. member is always telling the Chair how to regulate matters in the House.

Mr. Chairman, I had not yet completed my sentence when the hon. member interrupted me.

Order! It is for me to say whether the hon. member can do so or not.

The hon. the Minister pointed out … [Interjections.] Mr. Chairman, am I to have continual interruptions?

Order! Will the hon. member continue?

The Minister has referred to the census form. I hope that the Minister will listen to me because I consider this an important aspect and I do not believe that he has grasped the precise point that I am making. I accept that the amendment provides that the form must be completed and signed by the person concerned. But the point that I make is that it often happens that somebody completes a form himself and he signs it but he may leave certain parts of the form incomplete, and somebody else may complete the incomplete portions. That often happens, and it has often happened with census forms. This amendment … Mr. Chairman, perhaps the Minister will listen to the point I wish to make.

If the form is not completed, it is just not completed.

The Minister cannot give that as the explanation because if the form has been completed in the main by a person the court would hold that it has been completed by him. The clause does not say …

The court will never hold that it has been completed by him if he has not filled in all the requirements on the form.

The amendment does not say that every precise section on the form must be completed by him.

The form must be completed.

The form must be completed. He may complete every section but one. Does the Minister suggest that in that event the court would hold that it has not been completed by him? I am reminded that, in any event, his signature to the form is his completion of the form. That is the position in law. The point which I made and which has not been met by the Minister—he is treating this in a very light-hearted fashion —is that this has created a lot of injustice and a lot of heart-sore because in the past the forms have been completed—particularly the 1951 forms which the hon. member for Parow referred to—in the main by the persons concerned, but afterwards it was seen that certain sections were not filled in and somebody else filled those in. Once again I want to point out that this can happen, even under the clause as it is proposed to be amended. I hope that the Minister will consider at least changing this to read that this will apply only to statements which appear on the form in the person’s own handwriting. At least that will cover the position.

One further point that I make in regard to the census form is this. Surely in matters of this kind the opportunity should be given to the person signing the form to prove that in fact the information is incorrect. As it reads now, provided the form has been completed and signed—in the sense which I indicated— this is deemed to be correct and that is the end of the matter. I would point out that the Minister has accepted an amendment to subsection (3) which will now read as follows—

Surely a similar amendment would be reasonable in paragraph (d) (ii) of the proposed new subsection (2)?

I want to deal once again with the statements made by the hon. member for Parow. He has misrepresented what I said, and I want to make that perfectly clear.

You are going back on your word.

No, I am not going back on my word, but I do not wish to have words put into my mouth that I did not use. I do not want what I said misrepresented, and this is what the hon. member for Parow did. I made it perfectly clear that we on this side of the House are quite prepared to have classified as white a person who claims to be white and who is accepted by the community as white. I went even further and referred to the statement by the Minister in this debate in which he said much the same thing. His statement appears in Hansard of the 17th March, 1967 (Weekly Edition No. 8), column 3172, and reads as follows—

These are not my words—they are the Minister’s words. For the benefit of the hon. member for Parow this implies not only acceptance by the people who happen to live near him; it means acceptance by the people with whom he works, the people with whom he has his social activities, because all this is part of the process of living. The hon. member has tried to confine my statement; he has implied that I meant only those people with whom the person was residing.

The community—you specifically mentioned “community”.

The community in which he lives. Well, living and residing are two different things. The hon. member for Parow said that I had said the community in which the person lives and that therefore I was referring only to those people who were his neighbours. The hon. member for Parow must understand that there is a great distinction between the word “living” in English and the word “residing”.

You are playing with words. What is the difference?

The difference is that one word has an entirely wider meaning. “Living” includes not only where one resides, it also includes where one works, where one carries on business, where one has one’s social activities because all these activities are part of the process of living. In any event, if the hon. member for Parow wants explanations he must ask the hon. the Minister because the Minister referred specifically to “acceptance by members of the community”. These were his words.

I want to deal with another matter arising out of this clause to which we have not yet had a satisfactory explanation. The Minister and other members on that side of the House have referred to the judgment of Mr. Justice Diemont. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I wish to deal with the points raised by the hon. member for Musgrave. I refer him to paragraph (d) (ii) of the new subsection (2) inserted by clause 1 of the Bill now before us. As the hon. member should know the court will construe this paragraph very strictly because it is an interpretation against the party. Therefore the court will strictly construe the wording of the section. The paragraph clearly reads that the form must be completed and signed by the party. If the intention was for him to only sign it, the clause would have said so. The paragraph clearly states, “… completed and signed by him …” As I said, because the court will construe this paragraph very strictly on account of the fact that it counts against the party who signs the statement, the court will construe this to mean that the party has himself completed the whole form. I think that deals with that particular point.

As regards the definition of the applicant, the hon. member has stated that the United Party accepts that the definition should be the manner in which the party is accepted by the community in which he moves. That would be acceptable to the United Party.

That was acceptable to you in 1962.

That is quite correct. That was the original definition as stated in the 1950 Act and the 1962 amendment. But because of confusion, inconsistencies, delays in decisions, which arose as a result, it has become necessary to bring some certainty into the law, and that is why the amendment is being brought. Now I want to ask the hon. member for Musgrave, if he has to decide whether a person is acceptable to the community in which he moves, what better definition will he find than that contained in the new subsection (2) (c)? The court or the board will have to inquire where a person ordinarily resides, where he is employed or carries on business, how he mixes socially, what his association with the members of his family is. Those are the factors which should be taken into consideration in deciding in what community the party moves. Therefore these are factors enumerated here for the benefit of the board in order to arrive at a decision.

The same position arises in regard to subsection (2) (a), dealing with a person’s habits, education, speech, deportment, etc. Those are factors to assist the court in arriving at a decision. This is all the whole new subsection contains. This has become necessary on account, as I said, of the inconsistencies which have consistently arisen. It has become necessary to define this more accurately, and it is only for this reason that this amendment is being brought. It is intended to bring more certainty into the position. Actually it is very inhumane to allow the continuation of the indecision in these matters. We want finality, and I for my part am pleased that at last we now have this measure which gives finality in matters in regard to which there are—and we all deplore this—certain inconsistencies. But that is the make-up of this country, after so many hundreds of years. We now have to clear up the position. For my part I am pleased that at last we have come with a definition which, I hope, will settle the matter once and for all.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Omaruru has tried to explain away part of this and to say that paragraph (c) of the new subsection (2) is more or less a restatement of what the position has always been. If the hon. member will read the speeches made when the 1962 amendments were debated he will see that they run entirely contrary to the statement he has made in this House. First of all, there were, comparatively speaking, no delays and there was no confusion. He will see that if he looks at the figures given here by the hon. the Minister. [Interjection.] No, Sir. The fact was that appearance was tied to acceptance, but when it came to acceptance it was not laid down that he had to be accepted in the area in which he was ordinarily resident. Neither did it apply to the place where he was employed or carried on business, or mixed socially or took part in other activities with other members of the public. There was none of that. All that it said was that he had to be accepted by the community. It did not have all the bits and pieces included in this amendment. What is the community? The community is the circle in which he mixes. Why go to all these stupid lengths and put all these stupid items into the Act?

I want to come back to the Minister’s rejection of my two amendments. I want to start with the last one first. As regards the new subsection (3) inserted by clause 1 of the Bill, the Minister rejected my amendment in which I asked that the form should in fact be filled in and completed by the person affected. There is one point here with which nobody has dealt so far, including the Minister, and that is that this information is required under sections 3 or 9 of the Act, as amended. Let me read section 3 of the Act—No. 30 of 1950, as amended—to make my point—

and this applies to the fixed date because this Bill is retrospective to 1950—

1951 is the date fixed—

These things I included when I made my point to the Minister. Let us have a look at section 9 too. The Minister argues my point.

The position now is that the man will have to prove the contrary.

No. The Minister refused my amendment solely on the ground that in section 3 the census is taken as the basis, whilst in section 9 the particulars furnished are taken as the basis. Section 9 reads as follows—

My point is, and this is why I moved my amendment—I want the hon. the Minister to understand this quite clearly—that a person stands to be classified on information received from three sources, according to this, and only one of those sources can be information given by himself. This is the point: His chances are one in three. That is why I moved my amendment. The Minister said that he accepted the amendment of the hon. member for Prinshof, because, so he said, it was completely different. But of course it is not different at all. The hon. member for Prinshof keeps arguing that it is. Let us get down to it and find out what it says. It says the following—

They are the very ones I have dealt with now, the one in three chance—

So it brings the identity card application into exactly the same category as where information is supplied on his behalf and not by him—

That is paragraph (d) (ii) of the new subsection (2). What, I ask hon. members, is the difference between that clause and the two amendments that I have proposed? There is absolutely no difference whatsoever. The only difference which has been exploited here by the hon. member for Prinshof, because he has misread this clause, is that it is a question of an application for an identity card. But the identity card aspect is only tacked on to sections 3 and 9, and, according to the reading of this Bill, his wife can sign that for him. So now he moved to omit the words, “or by his spouse or his guardian in respect of him” and he thinks that he is only doing it in respect of an identity card application! But the case is on all fours with the other two. I want to repeat this; I want to make my point quite clearly and distinctly—my amendment is consequential upon the amendment which the hon. the Minister has accepted from the hon. member for Prinshof. If the Minister does not accept my amendment then it makes the clause more stupid than when I read it when this Bill was first put on my desk. Because the Minister is accepting only a part of three things which are identical. He is amending one part and not the other two. How can this House pass legislation in this manner, in this slipshod manner? This is a bad clause; it is badly drafted any way. Let us look at paragraph (a) of the new subsection (2). It deals with deciding whether a person is in appearance obviously a white person. Paragraph (b) is totally different. It says that “in the absence of proof that any person is generally accepted as a white person or a bantu (it will) be assumed that he is generally accepted as a Coloured person”. Paragraph (c) deals with a totally different thing. It is all jumbled up, and no wonder the hon. member for Prinshof gets mixed up in reading the clause. And no wonder the Minister is having difficulty in understanding the points I am trying to make to him. Because he first has to understand this jumbled-up clause. If he goes into this carefully—and I sincerely hope he has the opportunity of doing so—then the Minister will understand quite clearly that he either has to reject the amendment moved by the hon. member for Prinshof or else he has to accept my two consequential amendments.

Mr. Chairman, each time the hon. member for Umlazi jumps up with his amendments he refers to me and says that the Minister has already accepted a similar amendment moved by me. But he does not understand what this matter is all about. That is his difficulty. Now the hon. member for Umlazi feels aggrieved because the hon. the Minister does not want to accept his amendment, and he wants to blame me for that.

Let me refer to clause 3 now. The Minister has already made the concession. He has said that unless such person is able to prove that he is not in fact a Coloured person, he will be classified as such. If the hon. member for Umlazi were to glance at clause 3 of the Bill he would see that that clause refers to registration of births, marriages and deaths. It is now being said that this measure concerns only the one entry, i.e. “mixed” or in Afrikaans “gemeng’. During the Second Reading Debate the principal objection raised by hon. members on the opposite side was that “mixed” did not always mean “Coloured”. We said it meant “Coloured”, and they then said no, “mixed” does not always mean “Coloured”. They were referring to those kind of cases which Langenhoven spoke about, those people born in Paris while the mother was in Paarl and the father in Japan. They then said that if one spoke of “mixed” one meant for example the offspring of a Frenchman and an Afrikaner. But now it is very easy. The Minister says that unless such person proves that he is in fact not a Coloured person. The Minister is now saying that if that one single entry occurs on the various forms, the birth certificate, or whatever, as “mixed” (in Afrikaans “gemeng”) then we accept that person as a Coloured person. All that remains for him to do then is to say that his father was a Frenchman and his mother an Afrikaner, that being the reason why he wrote “mixed”. Then the matter is rectified immediately. The only point which was made in the previous section was the following. The person filling in the census form, from where the original information has to be taken, had to fill in the form and sign it himself because the possibility exists that he can be accepted as a Coloured person if he did not fill it in correctly. That is held against him. That is why he must fill it in personally. The other is merely the single word “mixed’ in Afrikaans “gemeng”, and the Minister’s amendment already achieves what the hon. member for Umlazi wants.

As far as paragraph (e) of the new subsection (2) is concerned’—it remains the mere stipulation of a date. I cannot help it if the hon. member for Umlazi cannot grasp this point; nor can I help it if the other hon. members cannot grasp it either. If the courts were to interpret it one day hon. members would see that it is only the date one is going to look at after the classification of such a person. We cannot state it any clearer, and if hon. members do not want to understand it now there is nothing we can do about it.

Progress reported.