Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

I am afraid I have an objection to this clause as amended. I am in the extraordinary position that although I accepted the amendment at the Committee Stage we found, after having gone into the matter properly, that this amendment was in conflict with other provisions relating to procedure in the legislation. We are now in the difficult position that we either have to make quite a few other amendments or the Attorney-General will be compelled to order a summary trial in all cases. If the latter course is followed, it means that the amendment made by the hon. member for Houghton is worthless in any event, and consequently I propose that the amendment to this clause be negatived.

Amendment put and negatived.

Bill, as amended, adopted.

(Third Reading)

I move—

This Bill seeks to deal with terrorists and the justification for it has largely been given by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Police in several speeches over the last week or so. In Committee we of the Opposition attempted to amend the Bill in certain respects. We wished to delete the provisos to certain clauses which made obligatory minimum penalties, and we also objected to the granting of powers to certain police officers to detain persons for questioning. The hon. the Minister has met us in certain respects with regard to the minimum penalties. He admitted that there was reason for our concern in view of the wide definition of the crime of terrorism. He agreed to consider one of our suggestions, namely that section 352 of the Criminal Procedure Act be retained in order to give the Judges power to suspend portion of the sentences. The Minister did not say that he would accept that suggestion. He said he would consider it and, I take it, that he will, if he does accept it, make the necessary amendment in the Other Place. We still hope that the Minister will accede to our request, because if he does so it will largely meet our objection to that proviso.

We also had objections to the provision allowing detention of people for interrogation purposes. Of course this provision which allows a police officer to detain persons for interrogation is not something new. We would have preferred the Minister to have kept the provision which was applied by him last year, but unfortunately he could not accede to our request. I think he was largely guided in his refusal by the case put up by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Police, who dealt with the difficulty confronting the police in handling the position in South-West Africa. However, the question now arises as to what our position should be at the Third Reading of the Bill, because the Minister having refused to accept our amendment in regard to the interrogation clause we have to decide whether to support the Bill or not. But our answer is definitely in the affirmative. We do support the Bill because the overriding principle in the measure is to deal with and contain the activities of terrorists.

In this Bill the definition of a new crime is provided and we consider that this is the main principle of this measure. It might be said, as was said during the Second Reading by an hon. member, that the answer lies in relieving the complaints of the people who are apt to support the terrorists, but we of the United Party say that it is not for us to say what should be done. It is the Government of the day which has to maintain law and order. They are the only people who have the power to do so, and irrespective of whether other policies might be the answer to this problem, the fact is that we are not in a position to apply any such policy, and we have to decide whether or not we will support the Government in maintaining law and order. I say that we, the official Opposition, as I stated in another debate, have had experience before of troubles of this nature. We know what our duty is, and therefore we will support the Government in its endeavours to maintain law and order and we certainly trust that they will be successful and that this type of organization will be wiped out completely. The offence of terrorism which is dealt with in this Bill affects people the majority of whom probably do not belong to the same group as we do, but our duty is to look after the interests of all the people in the country, and the people whom this Bill will deal with will mostly be active among the other groups; they will try to use the other groups to attain their objectives by means of intimidation and other methods. We say to the Government that in rooting out this threat, especially at the present time, they can rely on our support.

The offence admittedly is very widely described, but there is this protection to the innocent person that in the first place the Attorney-General will decide whether there is to be a prosectution or not and he will have to give the matter his personal consideration, knowing very well that the case will be tried by a superior court. We say, too, that the protection to the innocent person lies in the fact that the case does come before a Judge in the superior court, and because the offence carries with it the capital punishment the accused will be furnished with a defence counsel. If he is unable to afford to employ counsel for his defence, the State will furnish counsel for him. Therefore we say that, knowing the prestige of our courts, and of our superior courts especially, we on this side will support this measure. We trust the Government will find that these measures they ask for now are sufficient to deal with this threat and they will not have to come and ask for any more powers to be granted by this Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened very carefully to what the hon. member for Transkei has said, and I think really the kindest thing I can say about the official Opposition at this stage is that it is inconsistent; I will not use harsher words than that. I think the official Opposition has probably gathered during the Second Reading debate what I thought of its strange attitude to Bills of this nature, particularly as many of the things which the hon. member has said about this Bill, which the Opposition are supporting at this Third Reading—just as they supported it at the Second Reading—could equally well have been said about the Sabotage Act, which the official Opposition fought tooth and nail only five years ago. The Sabotage Act also brought in a new definitive crime, and also made it extremely wide, just as this Bill in one of its principal clauses, namely clause 2, makes a new definitive crime of terrorism and makes the definition of that crime very wide indeed. One might well say, looking at the two Acts, that the wording is so similar that one wonders why there was any need for this new measure at all. Because the definition of sabotage and of terrorism are indeed almost, if not entirely, identical in the two measures.

Clause 6, which contains the other main principle of this Bill, goes very much further, in fact, than the Sabotage Act which the United Party opposed. The hon. member for Durban (North) raised the point that I had forgotten that in the Sabotage Act there was also a “house arrest” clause. On the contrary, I never forget things like that. I know full well that in the Sabotage Act there is a “house arrest” clause and that very many people in South Africa are still under “house arrest”, never having been charged in a court, never having had the opportunity of knowing in fact what particular crime the Government alleges they have committed, and never having been given the opportunity of defending themselves. Clause 2 of this Bill contains powers which enable the Government to detain somebody not at home under “house arrest”, where at least a person is with his own family and may have freedom during certain hours of the day, but in a prison, or in a police cell, or anywhere at all, and for an indeterminate period.

If the Opposition felt that the Sabotage Act was bad enough to be opposed because it had a widely defined sabotage clause and had a “house arrest” clause, one fails to understand the argument why it should not oppose this measure for the same reason, a measure which has a wide definition of terrorism, and grants very wide powers indeed as regards indeterminate detention. I should say that the crime of sabotage is surely part and parcel of the work of terrorism. They are much of the same nature. A terrorist who comes across the border or operates in South Africa does so mainly to perform acts of sabotage. Therefore the crimes are very much of the same type. As I say, the kindest thing that I can say about the Opposition is that it is completely inconsistent. This protection of the superior court which the hon. member for Transkei referred to, applies equally well to people who were charged with sabotage. Because that also carries the supreme penalty, and the State is also obliged to provide defence counsel. So exactly the same argument obtains as far as the Sabotage Act was concerned. Where the rule of law is abrogated, is not that the person who is charged does not appear before a superior court and is not defended; the abrogation of the rule of law occurs when a person is apprehended and held in custody and not given the opportunity of knowing what the charge is against him, or appearing before a court of law, or of having defence lawyers supplied for him. That exactly is what obtained in the Sabotage Act, and of course it is exactly what obtained in the 90-days Act, which the United Party did not oppose. Whatever the hon. member for Durban (North) says, the United Party supported the principle of that Bill. Anybody who knows anything about parliamentary procedure, knows perfectly well that if you vote for a measure at Second Reading, you are supporting that Bill and if you vote against it at Second Reading you are opposing the principle of the Bill. The main principle of that General Law Amendment Act was the 90-day detention clause. Everybody knows that. Nobody denies that at the Committee Stage the United Party put up a bold fight against the 90-day clause and even, as the hon. member for Durban (North) pointed out, kept the debate going longer than I did. With 50 more members, I should rather hope that they would be able to keep the debate going longer than I could at Committee Stage. I do not begrudge the United Party that triumph. I am delighted that it fought the measure at all. But let us not please try to deceive ourselves that by fighting a clause in Committee Stage, one has fought the actual measure, which introduced this repugnant principle of detention without trial. As far as I am concerned, as the hon. member for Transkei has pointed out, nothing has in fact happened since the Second Reading started to change anything in this Bill in any way. Since the hon. the Minister has had to withdraw the amendment he accepted at Committee Stage, it has emerged in exactly the same state as it was at the Second Reading. The fact that the hon. member for Transkei has obtained what I would call a rather uncertain undertaking from the hon. the Minister about the suspension of sentences, does not, I think, in any way alter the principle contained in this Bill in clause 2, which is extremely wide indeed. As the hon. the Minister himself said, exaggerated examples could be given of how this particular clause could be used. I am not interested in giving any such exaggerated examples any more than I gave any exaggerated examples during the debate on the Sabotage Bill. The fact is that it contains very wide definitions. Most important of all it puts very extensive powers in the hands of the police to arrest anybody whom they suspect of terrorism, or whom they suspect is likely to commit terrorism or who is likely to know anything about terrorism. They can hold such a person for an indefinite period anywhere they like. They can interrogate such a person. What is more nobody need be given any information whatever about such a person, not even the next of kin. When the 90-day Bill was debated in this House, the hon. the Minister of Justice did say that it was not his intention to have people disappearing in the night and that he would try wherever possible to see that next of kin were at least notified that the police had apprehended the particular person who had been taken into custody. I have not had any such assurance from this hon. Minister. I do not know whether it is his intention where possible at least to let next of kin know what has happened to people who are arrested as suspected terrorists or as persons suspected of knowing something about terrorists. It may not always be possible to notify the next of kin, but there are cases where it would be possible. I cannot see any reason why at least this undertaking should not be given by the hon. the Minister.

Even a terrorist?

Yes, even a saboteur or a murderer.

Even you.

I do not know whether the hon. member is trying to infer that I fall into that class. I would not suspect him of anything quite as base as that, not even that hon. member. Even a person suspected of murder, or sabotage, or high treason does at least have this facility, namely that the next of kin is notified that the police have apprehended him.

I know the arguments which are always offered when measures of this kind are introduced in this House. We have had an unending succession of such measures from 1950 onwards. Always the excuse is given that we are on the verge of an emergency and that South Africa is about to be taken over either by communists or saboteurs or well-poisoners or terrorists. [Interjection.] I can quote from Hansard the speeches of hon. Ministers introducing those measures and the hon. the Deputy Minister for Bantu Administration will see that I am not exaggerating. We always have these stories. One would think that we have now reached the stage where the Government has taken sufficient arbitrary powers to enable it to cope with any situation. If it cannot do that it should declare a state of emergency. Then nobody will object to extreme powers being taken. This is a recognized step to be taken in a state of emergency. If we are in a state of undeclared war, I would say that we have a very large and capable army, which should be able to deal with terrorists. We are to-day spending R256 million per annum on our army. We have a vastly enhanced police force, which should also be able to cope without these massive onslaughts being made …

The hon. member is going very far now.

With respect, Sir, may I just point out that the hon. the Deputy Minister of Police, in giving an explanation outside this House, about the need for these measures, pointed out that armies were on their way to invade South-West Africa. I am simply saying that I have every confidence that our army will be able to deal with any such situation. I understand of course that we cannot militarize South-West Africa in terms of the mandate. That is not permitted. But I also understand that there is absolutely nothing in the mandate to prevent South Africa having ad hoc military expeditions if necessary or having troops stationed in the area if necessary to cope with any such emergency action which we may fear from terrorists. I believe that we ought to be able to cope adequately with these suspected onslaughts. Instead we have this Bill which is another onslaught on the rule of law in South Africa. To me the right of habeas corpus is not something which should be lightly disregarded and discarded in South Africa. Hon. members of the Opposition have in the past spoken strongly about the retention of the rights of habeas corpus. I may say that hon. members on that side of the House in their day, during a declared state of war, made very eloquent speeches in favour of the right of habeas corpus, in favour of the right of an individual to know what he is being charged with and to appear in a court of law before the might of the State can be used against him. [Interjections.] I am always against detention without trial, but in a time of declared war there might at least be some excuse. My point is that hon. members in those days, in a time of declared war, made many passionate speeches about this matter in this House. Some of the most eminent members of the Nationalist Party made such speeches. Dr. Malan was one of them. Mr. C. R. Swart, as the member for Winburg, was another such person. To-day we do not hear any voices raised in the defence of habeas corpus. For all the reasons I have given, and because no changes at all have been introduced into this Bill during the Committee Stage, I wish to move the same amendment that I moved at Second Reading. I move:

Mr. Speaker, I want to say that this side of the House appreciates the attitude of the official Opposition in this regard, in that they support the principle of the Bill. We have come a long way if the official Opposition and we are unanimous in respect of such a serious matter. But I want to say that the main recommendation of the official Opposition with regard to this Bill, namely that clause 6 be made of application only to South-West Africa, is in my view a most impracticable recommendation. As South-West Africa is still world news, it will be seized upon immediately as discrimination of the worst degree if clause 6, which is a far-reaching clause, is made of application only to South-West Africa and not to the Republic.

But I want to deal at once with the hon. member for Houghton. I want to refer to what she said during the earlier stages of this Bill. The hon. the Deputy Minister of Police mentioned in passing that the hon. member for Houghton could not expect terrorists to receive better treatment than prisoners of war. She had the following to say to that—

Later in the debate she said—

The hon. member for Houghton is clever and malicious, but her malice frequently puts her cleverness in the shade. I want to set out to the hon. member the position of these people in international law. Then we shall find that the ideas of the Deputy Minister are not so extraordinary, but that her ideas are extraordinary and perhaps also charged with a hint of mischief for overseas consumption.

Terrorism is a type of armed conflict which has no international character. At the most it is a form of civil revolt which enjoys no international recognition as warfare. A great authority in the field of international law, Oppenheim, states in his seventh edition (volume 2, paragraph 126) that where there is no international armed conflict only the following prohibitions are of any importance:

1. (a) Violence to life and person; in particular, murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture.
2. (b) Taking of hostages.
3. (c) Outrages upon personal dignity: in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.
4. (d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court.

These are all that Oppenheim lays down as conditions for terrorism. A whole series of other provisions apply, in terms of the 1949 convention, to people who become prisoners of war during an ordinary war which assumes international proportions. I contend that this Bill which is now being passed, in view of the fact that it is explicitly intended to give a civilized hearing in a civilized court to all people who are captured on account of terrorism, in no way abrogates international law. The comments of the hon. member for Houghton in this regard, intended for overseas consumption, were charged with unwarranted malice. But, furthermore, the hon. member for Houghton also said—

She was then referring to the hon. the Deputy Minister of Police—

In a later stage the hon. member said the following—

In advocating a system of social justice the hon. member was of course referring to her Party’s franchise system, which will eventually result in “one man, one vote”. In fact, she would also give out that this would decidedly eliminate terrorism at this stage. In my view it is, of course, ridiculous to suggest anything of that nature in the times we are experiencing. What is the position in a country such as Angola, where there is no colour bar and where 46 per cent of the entire administration of the country is handled by non-White natives? Within a few weeks after hostilities had broken out on 15th March, 1961, 1,300 white settlers and 12,000 natives were killed by terrorists. A person such as Ronald Waring, who had the privilege of investigating the position on the spot and who had interviews with captured terrorists—he interviewed them privately, with nobody else present—said the following. He said that most of these terrorists whom he asked for what reason they had committed terrorism, said: “The witchdoctor told me to do it.” And almost half of those whom he questioned said that they aspired to independence. And when he asked them what independence meant, most of their replies amounted to the following: “First of all we kill all the white men. Then we take over their women, their houses, their plantations, their cars and their banks. Then it will be all right.” Waring said that among these terrorists he encountered the notion that their banks, in particular, would prove to be an unlimited source of wealth in future. How could one, when dealing with people of this type, say that first of all there should be a system of social justice? This Government and any right-minded person will constantly bring his conscience to bear on whether we could improve our system. But in dealing with these people there is only one answer, and that is to hit back as hard as possible. Amongst other things, Waring also has the following very interesting comment in connection with his observations—

I therefore say that this side of the House is determined to pass the Bill as it is before the House at present, and to take spirited and purposeful action to wipe out root and branch this grave danger which is threatening our country and our people. To the hon. member for Houghton and those of her mind I want to say that a liberty which has been built up over more than 300 years with the blood and the tears of the Whites, will not be jeopardized simply because we have to respond to the ridiculous criticism leveled by her and her henchmen.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Kroonstad has risen to make a point he wanted to make in relation to what the hon. member for Houghton has said. And he has made it. It is not necessary for me to follow on what he said.

I hope not.

The hon. member for Houghton says she hopes not. She probably hopes that one will follow on what she said. One must unfortunately deal with what the hon. member for Houghton did say. I rise merely to point out to the hon. member for Houghton that, as always, when she deals with gibes against the official Opposition, she relies very heavily on parliamentary procedure. But when she deals with the facts, she relies very heavily on her imagination. The hon. member must appreciate that she may appear to herself to be terribly consistent when she accuses us of being inconsistent. And so I would not deny her that. I could have foreseen exactly what the hon. member for Houghton would have done about this Bill the moment it was published. I say this simply because the hon. member does not appreciate and does not apparently want to appreciate what the facts are. She said we acted inconsistently. In what way were we inconsistent? She said that we opposed the Second Reading of the Sabotage Bill. Indeed, she is quite right. We were in favour of the crime of sabotage being established. We said so. When we were the Government we in fact had to administer the crime relating to sabotage. We were in favour of the establishment of a crime of sabotage. What we disagreed about as far as that part was concerned, was the question as to the definition of the crime. When we came to look at the rest of the Bill it dealt with arbitrary powers in the hands of the Executive, in relation to house arrest, in relation to all sorts of powers to ban without trial and without reference to any independent investigation. The rights of the individual were subject to arbitrary executive powers, and we opposed the principle of that Bill.

Then we come to the 90 Days Detention Act, as the hon. member calls it. I do not know why the hon. member calls it the 90 Days Detention Act. She does so, Sir, because she relies for her gibes, or perhaps for her thoughts in this regard, on Parliamentary procedure. It was not called the 90 Days Detention Act.

By everybody else it was.

By everyone else?

Of course.

The hon. member means by all her supporters because that is what she told them. But the Bill which contained the 90-day provision—one clause—was a Bill which might more properly be called the Poqo Bill. And you will recall at that time there were the most dreadful riots at Paarl and that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, who sits here to-day, called for a judicial commission of inquiry into those riots. And his plea was met. A judicial commission was set up. His Lordship, Mr. Justice Snyman, sat as the commissioner and while he was investigating the riots and the causes of the riots, he felt it necessary to produce an urgent interim report which he submitted to the Government. And what he said was that his investigations revealed that a situation had developed which had to be dealt with, and had to be dealt with urgently.

If the situation was not dealt with urgently, he indicated, this organization called Poqo (amongst other things) would have taken control of the urban townships and would have taken control in some of the other Bantu areas, and he said that something must be done right now to deal with this situation. The matter was brought before Parliament in the form of a Bill.

Many weeks later.

That was the principle of the Bill and we supported it. We supported it because whatever the causes are —and we will have to go into the causes of these things—if that situation exists then you have to stamp it out. Sir, you cannot talk about the rule of law in this situation where you do not have law and order.

Why did you oppose it at the Committee Stage then?

Why did we oppose what?

The arbitrary measures.

Sir, I did start by saying that the hon. member for Houghton relied upon Parliamentary procedure. It is quite obvious that what I should have said is that the hon. member for Houghton relies upon what she believes to be Parliamentary procedure. The fact of the matter is that that was the principle as we saw it and we therefore voted for the Second Reading. So far as the 90 day provision was concerned we fought it in Committee Stage; we were opposed to it and we continued to be opposed to it. Our opposition to it—and I assure the hon. member that it was our opposition to it and not hers—resulted in the fact that this provision was not subsequently re-promulgated.

The hon. member says that in her opinion the right of habeas corpus is not something to discard lightly. The hon. member must not believe, or try to give the impression, that she alone is the defender of the rule of law. Sir, if the official Opposition did not defend the rule of law in this country, it would not exist.

Do not bluff yourself.

It is not the defence of the rule of law by the hon. member for Houghton that ensures the survival of the rule of law. Not only do we understand Parliamentary procedure better than the hon. member but we understand the rule of law perhaps a little better than the hon. member. I think that what one must appreciate, and what the hon. member for Houghton must appreciate, is that one lives from day to day and from year to year in a world which no one would have foreseen would exist; in a world in which we find suddenly all sorts of unlikely and untoward events, as we see today. The whole world may well be changed by some of the events which are occurring to the north of us. The fact of the matter is that we have a lot of terrorists on our borders; we have a lot of armed invaders, and as far as we are concerned this is a fact we cannot ignore, and I hope the hon. member for Houghton does not say that these things are not happening. If they are happening and if these people are there, then so far as we are concerned, they must be exterminated in the same way as you would exterminate vermin attacking your house; it is exactly the same thing, and if you need special powers to exterminate them then we are prepared to give those special powers.

Sir, the hon. member for Houghton is no General Dayan, but I think she is being a little unrealistic as to how we should patrol the borders of our country, when one has to deal with conditions such as those described here by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Police.

The hon. member then says that the fact that we are on the verge of an emergency is no excuse for taking these powers. We are opposed to clause 6; we are opposed to these powers of detention. We would have liked the provision of last year to have applied, as we have indicated, but it is quite clear that as far as South-West Africa is concerned, the hon. the Deputy Minister of Police has made a case that it cannot be applied there. We are not convinced that this provision should be applied all over South Africa as well.

But the fact of the matter is that so long as you have a physical invasion of our country and of a territory committed to our charge, so long as you have what the hon. the Deputy Minister called “oorloggies”—and we do not deny it—then you have to stamp it out root and branch and you have to do so right now. And if this Bill will effect that, then we will support it. At this stage we do not like clause6.We appreciate that in South-West Africa the existing provision is not practically applicable. But so far as this Bill is intended to deal with terrorism, which must be dealt with right here and right now, we understandably support it. Furthermore, we support it because the situation that exists must be stamped out if we are to have any sort of law and order and if we are to have, in those areas where this situation exists, what is called the rule of law.

It was most interesting to watch the skirmish between the official Opposition and the hon. member for Houghton. I do not want to take part in it. I should like to reply briefly to the various points raised by the official Opposition during the different stages of the debate, and then I want to refer briefly to the hon. member for Houghton. We have now reached the position that the official Opposition is adopting the attitude that there is in fact a threat of terrorism; that they agree with the Government that it should be wiped out root and branch, and that as far as clause 6 is concerned they are even prepared to concede that it is necessary to apply it to South-West Africa. I appreciate the attitude of the official Opposition. It means a tremendous deal to our country that the outside world should know that the Government of the country and the official Opposition are unanimous as regards opposition to and the elimination of terrorist activities. As regards clause 6 and its application to other territories, we simply cannot wait until the situation develops which has now developed in South-West. If the hon. the Deputy Minister of Police were to give hon. members further particulars, he could tell them that the terrorists intend entering not only through South-West but also through other territories. We must consequently make clause 6 applicable throughout the country.

As regards the minimum penalty, the hon. member for Transkei virtually gave the reply himself. I undertook to reconsider section 352 and to see whether I could not delete the reference to this particular section from clause 5 (g). In the first place I want to point out that prosecution will be instituted only on the personal certificate of the Attorney-General. Furthermore, the hearing will take place before no less a person than a Judge; thirdly, pro deo legal assistance will be provided to the accused in every case. I conceded that there might be cases of technical contraventions of this measure, but in view of all our safeguards and in view of my personal confidence in our Attorneys-General I doubt whether such a case will ever arise. But I am prepared to bring this particular section specially to the notice of the Attorneys-General and to point out that in the technical sense such a case might occur and that they should consequently act most circumspectly as far as this clause is concerned. I am referring to clause 2 (1) (c), read with clause 2 (2) (g). I think this should satisfy hon. members. My reply is therefore that I cannot delete the reference to section 352. for the reason that we should like to render these people harmless for at least five years.

As for the hon. member for Houghton, I want to say right at the outset that the hon. member attacked this measure from the beginning and that I believe, with all due respect to the Chair, that what she said was not always relevant, because she criticized left and right in connection with the 90-days provision and the 215My provision, and as the hon. member for Durban (North) said, her memory was not always accurate. I just want to read what she said during the Second Reading, for example. In the first place she said—

She then continued and said—

On a previous occasion I made it clear that this passport case related to the very fact that the accused had been bringing communists into this country from Red China.

Why were they not charged with that in court?

That is what they were detained for, because they sought to further the aims of Communism, and for that reason it was fully within the ambit of this Act. But the hon. member for Houghton continued and said—

This is most interesting. I want to tell the hon. member that I made inquiries from the Attorney-General of Natal, and his reply was that nobody had been detained under the 180-day provision in connection with the shooting of Sea Cottage.

That is how it was reported in the Press. [Interjections.]

Those are the facts on which the hon. member attacks this side of the House, but I shall correct her. What happened was that a certain Labuschagne, who was also involved in the shooting of Sea Cottage, has been detained in the Transvaal in connection with cases which have nothing to do with Sea Cottage, namely a whole series of robberies with aggravating circumstances, which are fully within the ambit of this provision. [Interjection.] The hon. member asked me to explain, and I am now doing so. But I am merely pointing out to the hon. member that she does not always have her facts straight.

Then I want to refer to something I said during my Second Reading speech. I said that the hon. member for Houghton was always interceding for elements that seek to bring about the downfall of the White man in this country. I also said that she was doing so continually, but that I had not thought she would go to the point of interceding for terrorists. I now feel that I have offended, under the rules of the House. Under the rules of this House one may not ascribe unworthy motives to anybody, but I have done so and I should like to withdraw it. But in withdrawing it I want to tell the hon. member that although she did not intercede, the saboteurs and the terrorists and the other subversive elements must have derived great solace from her speech or speeches in this House.

Order! If the hon. the Minister withdraws, he should do so unconditionally.

I withdraw unconditionally. After the Third Reading speech by the hon. member for Houghton, however, I now say that I believe the terrorists and the saboteurs will derive great solace from her speech.

I want to reply to just one further point. The hon. member for Houghton asked why we did not send our Defence Force to South-West Africa. But surely she knows as well as we do that we are not allowed to militarize South-West.

I said so.

I also want to tell the hon. member for Houghton this: In this entire discussion, in which we dealt with people of this type, surely the least one could expect of her was that she should have stated her disapproval of terrorism, but I cannot remember her doing so. Her whole theme was that these people were justified in their actions; that basically there were reasons for their actions. That was her attitude.

I said you should capture them, charge them and punish them.

Listening to the hon. member for Houghton, one would think that the 900 Ovambo to whom the hon. the Deputy Minister of Police referred were not terrorists; she gives one the impression that they are mere tourists. That is the attitude adopted by the hon. member.

I want to conclude by telling the official Opposition once again that to our country, to South Africa, it means a tremendous deal that the Government and the official Opposition take a unanimous stand on this danger to our country.

Question put: That the word “now” stand part of the motion, and a division demanded.

Fewer than four members (viz. Mrs. H. Suzman) having supported the demand for a division, Question declared affirmed and amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, the reasons and the motivations for the objections to this measure which were made known by industrialists and which were voiced in this House by the Opposition still remain to-day at this reading, despite the amendments which have been adopted by the House and by the Committee of the House. I propose to deal with these objectiones seriatim. The first one is that in our view the measure before us to-day removes the democratic concept which was inherent in the Natural Resources Development Act of 1947. That concept is being replaced to-day by autocratic authority in the hands of the Minister. I say that because in terms of the 1947 Act there were certain procedures to be adopted, healthy, acceptable procedures which are now dispensed with in the measure before us. For instance, the Natural Resources Development Council was required to report to the Minister and its reports were to be tabled in this House for the information of everybody concerned in the country. When the Minister had regard to these reports and the recommendations of that council he would devise a scheme for the development of the natural resources of the country, and that scheme would be published for general information and for the receiving of objections thereto. That has been a normal, accepted procedure of government in this country up to the present time. Those objections would be considered and then at some stage thereafter a proclamation would be published by the Minister when he had adjudicated upon and weighed up the objections and the comments which were received. That disappears in terms of this Bill. What is more important of what is disappearing is that the actions of the Minister in regard to the planning and to his schemes were subject to the concurrence of the Administrators of the provinces, and that requirement now disappears. These safeguards will disappear. These safeguards of the vigilance of Parliament over what is being done by the Minister will disappear. The Minister has made it quite clear. The hon. gentleman said to us that the reports which he is to receive from his new council will be secret. What is more, the House will not be able to judge whether or not the Minister is acting in accordance with the advice that he receives from that council, because that council’s report and advice will never see the light of day. The Minister will keep unto himself the secret whether or not he is acting in accordance with the advice which he has received from this council.

We on this side of the House feel that that is an unhealthy position bearing in mind the form of government which we enjoy in this country at the present time. We want to know, and the country is entitled to know, what is motivating the Minister in the decisions which he might take under the far-reaching powers which he has under this measure. One hears so often that “justice must be seen to be done”, and we on this side believe that we must know and we must see what is motivating the Minister in the decisions which he takes in these autocratic powers which are given to him under this measure.

I pass now to the second point, and that is the composition of this new secret advisory committee.

Why do you call it secret? Where do you get the secret from?

The Minister has told us that their advice will be confidential, and we are not to know what their reports, their advice, and their recommendations are. Of course it is a secret committee. I know the Minister gave us a long list of people who will constitute this committee. I will deal with the constitution of the committee. But he told us that we would never know the reasons for and we would never have sight of the reports.

Which committee is that?

The advisory committee to which the Minister referred.

What is this committee? I believe that the Minister is going to find the committee that he announced during the Second Reading Debate not only unwieldy. What is more, I should like to know when that committee is likely to meet in plenary session. It will be more difficult to convene such a session than a plenary session of the U.N.O. The committee is to consist of the following persons. It will consist of, first of all, a chairman who will be the chief director of the Department of Planning. Also in that committee are the heads of 15 Government Departments, not their deputies but the heads themselves of 15 Government Departments. To that is added the chairman of ESCOM, the economic adviser to the hon. the Prime Minister. The managing director of the I.D.C., four provincial representatives, one representative from S.W.A., and 13 nominated members from the private sector to which the Minister has referred. That gives us a total of 36 members.

And you call that a secret committee?

The Minister knows perfectly well that I said earlier its composition is not secret, but its functioning will be secret. Also its recommendations will be secret. Whether or not the Minister will have the slightest regard for what the committee recommends, will also remain a secret. Of course, we are able to know and judge the Minister at the present moment. The Bill which he is asking us to adopt is flying in the face of the advice of the Prime Minister’s economic advisory committee. We will never know in future whether he is doing that in so far as this new committee is concerned. But not only is the committee unwieldy. I ask you, Sir, when it will be possible to convene a plenary session of this committee consisting as it does of 15 heads of departments plus the other officials and personages to whom the hon. the Minister has referred?

The matter goes a little bit further, because one finds that on this committee of 36 there are 13 nominated members from the private sector, and of these 13 nominated members I see from the Hansard report of the Minister’s speech seven are academicians. They are professors. Only six of the 36 may have any real connection with private industrial enterprise in South Africa. That is the representation that the Minister gives the private sector. I think the Minister was not quite correct when he said the following during his Second Reading speech on the 26th May (Col. 6759, Hansard)—

This is the machinery which the hon. the Minister states he is setting up. In this machinery there is no reference to the fourth and most important leg, namely that the most important factor upon which his planning is to be based is the desire that there should be no unrestricted increase of the Bantu in the metropolitan areas. The hon. the Minister was quite silent about what his planning is in fact to be based on. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that I do not think that that three-legged stance with the fourth leg somewhat concealed will be of any value in the development of his planning in terms of this particular Bill. What is remarkable is when one reads this exposition from the hon. the Minister, we must also accept at the same time that this council of 36 members with its three legs and the advisory councils here and there will be able to put the Minister in a position to say yes or no to a telephone call, if an industrialist wants to expand his factory. The Minister must accept that the position is quite unwieldy. Such consent will not be given at the end of a telephone. It will not be given at the end of a telephone and it will be quite impracticable.

I never said so.

The Minister kept saying that he is not going to retard progress. All that has to happen is for the industrialist to pick up his telephone and to put through a call to him and he will be told what to do.

I want to come now to the third objection which we have to this Bill. That is that the planning which will be undertaken by the hon. the Minister will not be motivated by the acknowledged factors for the establishment or the extension of factories. The planning will not be motivated by the principles of industrial development in South Africa. The planning will be motivated by the policy of separate development which is the obsession of this Government. All planning will be subjected to the test of whether or not it falls in line with that policy. The hon. the Minister himself in the Committee Stage deleted the obligation to have regard for the acknowledged factors. He said, “No, I want to be completely free. I am not going to be fettered by any factors which I must take into consideration”. But he was frank enough to say to us that the real factor was to control the unrestricted increase of Bantu in the metropolitan areas. The Minister has said that the industrial development must conform to the Government’s ideology which aims at pegging the number of Bantu in the urban areas. The Government has all the powers it needs at present to restrict the number of Bantu in the urban areas to those for whom there is employment and who are employable because it has influx control. It has influx control by which it can ensure that there are no surplus Bantu who are unemployable or for whom there is no employment. That law exists. That law has the support of this side of the House. We have always supported the principle of influx control to prevent the swarming of Bantu into our cities where they can find no employment and where they will cause the difficulties of which we have had experience in the past. The Minister’s plan now is that by some wave of the hand and by replanning he will restrict the number of Bantu in the cities but he is going to create for South Africa a greater problem in another portion of white South Africa, namely the areas in proximity to the reserves where there will be an adverse ratio of White to Black. This ratio will be far less favourable than that which now exists in our metropolitan areas. He will have the added disadvantage of establishing on the borders of what are to become foreign independent states, the future industrial development of South Africa. That too will be a consequence of this measure if it is to be applied in the manner in which the Minister has indicated.

I want to come to the fourth point of objection. Our fourth point of objection is that the Bill is a negation of the accepted basis for the planning of industrial development of countries in any part of the Western World. I have here only to refer to the statement which was issued by the late Prime Minister in 1960. The late Prime Minister said:

That is a realistic approach. Let us give encouragement and freedom to the industrialist, encourage him if we can to go to the border areas to establish his industries there. The reasons for the hon. the Prime Minister making that statement are of course apparent if one has regard to the report of the Economic Advisory Committee. The hon. the Minister has throughout the discussion of this Bill lost sight of what the Economic Advisory Committee has said. The Committee said this—

But the Minister’s attitude has not been to seek the co-operation and participation of private enterprise. He has said, “The Government wants industries away from the metropolitan areas. To the extent that you swallow that you can come and talk to us as to how you are going to establish your industry somewhere else”. That is not seeking the cooperation of private enterprise. In his statement the Prime Minister went further. He said—

There is nothing in this Bill which has regard to the economically feasible. The Minister has told us that his driving force and motivation is one thing and one thing only, namely to get industries away from the present metropolitan areas, not because it is economically feasible to do so but because it conforms to the policy of this Government.

The fifth reason why we are opposed to this measure is because of the cost, not only in rands and cents, but the cost as far as this country of ours is concerned. The Prime Minister in his policy statement recognized that if there is to be development, the development must be motivated by what we have referred to already and what was referred to in the draft Bill as the acknowledged factors for the establishment of industries. The Prime Minister, in dealing with border areas development, indicated what, in his opinion, the cost would be to the country. He gave a list under ten separate headings. The country will have to bear the cost of these inducements. The costs are:

assistance in the provision of basic services, assistance in the provision of housing, increased allowances in respect of depreciation, allowances for the moving of factories.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member has just woken up. I am talking about the inducements for border area industrial development. Other costs are allowances in regard to the erection and lease of factory buildings, the maintenance of wage differentiation, concessions to industrialists in respect of railway rates. That was the cost. Those were the inducements to industry. Why, with all those inducements, must we have this Bill? Merely because the Government’s attempt to induce industrialists to go to the border areas, with all these financial concessions, has not been able to overcome the fact that it is not economically feasible to move to the border areas. Even these costs are not sufficient inducement to overcome this fact. Finally we object to this Bill because we believe that it will retard the development of manufacturing industry.

We have heard that story so often that it does not cut ice any more.

If the hon. member for Heilbron were satisfied with the development of the border industries, why do we have this Bill which now introduces compulsion? That is only one reason. The is because all the inducements have not succeeded in establishing border industries.

The second point I want to raise in regard to this Bill in our final assessment is that the whole basis and the whole principle of planning is now being hitched to the policy of separate development. At a time like this on the African continent there is no regard for strategic planning and the strategic location of industries. Our new industries must be planted right next to states which will be black independent states if this Government’s policy is ever carried out.

Are you afraid of that?

It is not a question of being afraid. It is a question of strategic planning. The Minister is now having no regard to strategic planning. Finally I want to say to the hon. the Minister that we are opposed to this legislation because, by the very concept of having to go cap in hand for grace and favour permits from the Government, industrial initiative and economic ambition in South Africa is being put into a political strait-jacket.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Green Point has once more conjured up the old bogey in respect of which the hon. the Minister tried to reply at such great length the other day. He once more made accusations in an attempt to make people believe that there is something sinister going on here in this legislation and that the democratic concept which prevailed in the old N.R.D.C. legislation and that Council was being done away with here. He went further and said that a secret committee was now being constituted, one which would work secretly in regard to these matters, and he said that it would not be open to inspection. At the same time the hon. member stated that there would be a long list of representatives from the various Departments, from the Provincial Administrations and from the private sector on this Advisory and Planning Council. What is so secretive about them if it is constituted in this way with various organizations which are interested in planning? If they are on an advisory body such as this one, what is so secretive about it? The only thing which will remain a secret is the report submitted to the Minister.

Yesterday the Minister said in a reply to a speech by the hon. member for Newton Park that the reports as drafted by this planning council, would quite probably be laid upon the Table from time to time, just as in the past, provided they contained nothing of a confidential nature which could encourage speculation in regard to these matters. This was done without there being any provision in the old legislation. In future it will quite probably be done in exactly the same way. The report will be laid upon the Table whenever it appears necessary to do so. The hon. member also went further. He said that it was a negation of the procedure in respect of planning which was being laid down in the Western world to-day. He quoted from what the former Prime Minister had said, i.e. that there would be no compulsory removal of industries to the border areas. I am asking the hon. member for Green Point, who is a reasonable person, in a very humble and polite way: Where in this Bill does he read that any compulsory removal of any industry is going to take place as a result of this legislation? The hon. the Minister stated clearly in his Second Reading speech, and it has also been stated by this side, that there is nothing sinister in this legislation. I want the hon. member to understand that very clearly. It is correct that this legislation is principally aimed at ensuring that the policy of apartheid will be carried out in this country. We make no secret of that. The hon. member need not ask whether this legislation is now being introduced for that purpose. This Bill is being introduced as a very important aid to the implementation of total apartheid in this country. We make no secret of that.

I hope that the Opposition will accept that once and for all now, and that they will recognize that purpose in this Bill. The hon. member also asked: Must we, as a result of what is happening in the world, not think of strategic planning? He asked whether it was strategic to locate a border industry on the border of these Bantu homelands. Now I ask myself, also viewing the matter from a strategic point of view, is it not more important to get these Bantu out of the white areas and take them to the Bantu homelands, giving them avenues of employment there, than to allow them to infiltrate into the white areas and ultimately to allow the white areas to be inundated by them? I am now asking the hon. member for Green Point: Seen from a strategic point of view, and also from the point of safety, would he not prefer that these people were removed from the white areas? Should they not rather be placed in the border industries where they can be in their own areas? But this is what we are always getting from the Opposition: They proceed from the assumption that the Bantu in the Bantu homelands will be the enemies of the white man in South Africa. I want to maintain—and if the hon. member for Transkei wants to maintain the opposite, he can stand up and do so —that the tendency in the Bantu homelands in South Africa, as well as in the Bantu areas which recently became independent, i.e. Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, is for those people to begin to accept us as good neighbours. There is peace and amity between us; those people are our friends.

I want to tell hon. members of the Opposition that if their policy were to be applied, that if we were to allow those people to live in their own areas without creating proper avenues of employment for them so as to enable them to make a proper living and to feed and accommodate their families properly, then it would contain the germ of agitation and revolution and then we would be making agitators and actual enemies of South Africa of those people. We see what is happening to-day; we see the tendency of development. I want to accept that if this policy of ours is carried through to its logical conclusion— and we hope that the day will still come when the Opposition agrees with us—these people in the Bantu homelands will become the friends of South Africa. I see no possibility therefore of the implementation of our policy constituting any strategic threat for us.

Sir, this much as far as the hon. member for Green Point is concerned. I think the hon. the Minister is also after his hide and will probably deal with him. I want to come now to the Bill itself. Sir, after sitting listening here to the speeches made by hon. members of the Opposition, I want to say that I have heard no substantial arguments from any of them. In their opposition to this Bill they have produced nothing substantial. It has been irrefutably proved that this Bill, when it is subsequently applied, will without doubt be a tremendous aid in implementing the objectives mentioned in the long title of this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I want to state the following, and state it with conviction: Every white inhabitant of South Africa who is genuinely concerned about his survival in South Africa as a white person, every white worker in South Africa, employed in industry, who is concerned about the security of his work in South Africa as a white worker, every white political party in South Africa which is honest and sincere in its intentions as regards the policy of the maintenance of white supremacy or white leadership, that policy which we heard so much about from the United Party during the last election, have only one choice and that is to support wholeheartedly the application of this measure. Sir, what have we had here from the United Party over the last few days? We have had a complete somersault as regards the policy which they tried to dish up to the voters last year during the general election. Last year they tried, with banner slogans, to convince the voters that the United Party were the protectors of white leadership in South Africa. But what attitude have they adopted in this debate? Here we have a measure in terms of which we will gradually remove the Bantu from the white areas where they can become a threat to us because of their greater numbers, but the United Party has opposed this Bill from beginning to end.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to deal with a few things which the hon. member for Yeoville said the other day during the course of his speech. With great prolixity, the hon. member tried to persuade us at the outset of his speech, arising from the statement made by the National Party, one to which we all adhere, i.e. that economic integration must necessarily lead to social integration and also eventually to political integration, that we already had economic integration in South Africa to-day. He said that the creation of industries in white man’s land on the borders of the Bantu homelands, industries in which the Bantu from the homelands could come and work, was nothing but economic integration. Sir, the National Party maintains that this is not economic integration. If one wanted to establish an industry in a United Party reserve, as they are advocating, where one throws White and non-Whites together, where one makes Whites and non-Whites partners in that industry, then you actually have economic integration in that industry. What does the National Party say?

The National Party says that we want to establish industries on the borders where the Whites will have a general say as far as the management and the financial investment in that industry is concerned. However, the United Party wants to build up a very strong Bantu middle-class in the metropolitan complexes, which could ultimately become a propertied class, because they want those people to be granted proprietary rights. If they become a propertied class then they will also eventually become a strong economic group which is going to establish its own industries in those areas. The National Party maintains that this policy of the United Party constitutes a danger to us and that it is economic integration, and that once we have economic integration then it must eventually lead to social integration, for what is the policy of the United Party? They want to grant proprietary rights to those people in the metropolitan areas, in the urban areas and even in the towns and the country areas. Mr. Speaker, if the Bantu are granted proprietary rights then taxes will also have to be collected from them, and if taxes are collected from the Bantu in such an urban complex then they will later have to be given a say in the spending of the money which is being collected from them in the form of taxes for the services supplied to them. How is one going to give them a say in the spending of that money other than to give them representation in the town and city councils, either by means of elections or by means of nominations, the way in which the United Party wants to give a say to the Bantu here in Parliament?

Once one has started doing something like that in one’s local authorities then one will ultimately have a series of town and city councils throughout the country on which non-Whites are serving. Sir, to my mind this constitutes the germ of the greatest agitation which we will ever have in this country for more rights for those people, politically and otherwise. Once the Bantu are serving on one’s local authorities, then they will eventually say: “We are serving here as nominated members; now we want the franchise.” It is this sort of thing which, to my mind, contains the germ of agitation and revolution. The National Party cannot agree that its policy, i.e. that of regarding the Bantu as temporary inhabitants in the white areas, and stating that they are working here on a temporary basis—our entire pattern of development is set up on the basis of temporariness and not permanence, as the United Party wants—could be regarded as economic integration.

I want to mention the example of the domestic servant. If the United Party’s argument, i.e. that the Bantu who are working for us to-day have already been economically integrated, is correct, then it must also be true that the Bantu working in one’s homes or in one’s business is integrated there. The National Party does not accept that; we say that those people are merely temporary workers. But I want to mention the example which we find in Europe. Take a country such as Switzerland or Holland, which make considerable use of migratory labour from countries such as Italy, Spain and Portugal. Does the United Party now want to maintain that the fact that Switzerland makes use of migratory labourers from other countries, means that Switzerland is economically integrated with the countries surrounding it? No, we say that the Bantu who come to work in our white areas are temporary workers, in precisely the same way as those European workers who go to work in other countries on a temporary basis. Their ties, proprietary and otherwise, are in their homeland, and that is where they must ultimately find their domicile. That is why I cannot agree with the argument of the hon. member for Yeoville, i.e. that we are already economically integrated because of the large number of Bantu here.

The hon. member for Yeoville also made the following point: Why this legislation? He said that this legislation was specially aimed at Johannesburg. It has been said repeatedly here that Johannesburg forms a part of the entire Republic of South Africa, and that this legislation will be applied throughout the Republic. It is the ideal of this Party that the ratio of Bantu to White in South Africa should be 1 to 1, or 1 to 1.5 at the outset. That is the ideal we are striving to attain. Now I want to furnish the figures. The hon. member for Yeoville juggled with figures, and I regret that he did not take the trouble to obtain the latest figures. But that is typical of the hon. member for Yeoville. He is always grabbing something out of the air and then trying to make a point out of it. But the latest figures which we have at our disposal are those for 1963-’64, as supplied by the Bureau of Statistics, and they indicate that the ratio of White to non-White in Pretoria is 1 to 1.86 at present. For the entire Witwatersrand it is 1 to 1.16. That is a poor ratio, which we will rectify. In Vanderbijlpark the ratio is an ideal one. It is 1 to .91. In Vereeniging it is 1 to 2.44. That must be rectified. In Port Elizabeth it is ideal. It is 1 to .94, and in Uitenhage it is 1 to 1.48. As far as these ratios are concerned, we want to regard this legislation as an aid wherewith to rectify this ratio, and we hope and trust that we will be able to succeed in doing so by this means. The hon. member asks why we are concerned; the ratio is a good one, and everything will in due course turn out well. But I want to say this. If we take the Witwatersrand as it is to-day, and I am considering only the Vereeniging-Pretoria-Johannesburg complex, there is still, in that entire complex, a total of 2,000 morgen which has been proclaimed as industrial land but which has not yet been developed. In addition there is a further plus-minus 3,000 morgen of zoned industrial land which can also be developed, a total of 5,000 morgen which can be industrially developed in that complex. If we do not regard the position in the right light, the position will be that we shall, within the foreseeable future, if we continue with uncontrolled industrial development, have to bring in an extra 5,000 Bantu into the entire Witwatersrand area. Now I am asking the United Party whether they are in favour of that happening?

Surely you will have thousands more White people as well.

If that is the position on the Witwatersrand, how much worse will the position not be in the other large cities in the country? The National Party says that a stop must be put to this sort of development and to the influx of Bantu into the white areas, and further state that they will have to return to their homelands.

The hon. member for Yeoville also referred to a demographic survey which had been made by Dr. Scheepers, and tried to prove on that basis that we should not feel concerned about Johannesburg and the Witwatersrand; the ratio there is a good one. He said that the demographic survey made by Dr. Scheepers proved that the conditions in the rural areas were much worse. Let us accept that. I am grateful to Dr. Scheepers for bringing these matters to our attention. But I am now asking what the United Party’s attitude to that matter is? Their attitude is this: Let things take their course, and let the Bantu help things to take their course. We say that the most important things should come first. We accept that we have an unfavourable ratio of White to non-White in these regions covered by the survey made by Dr. Scheepers. But we say that the removal of the Bantu to the homelands from the densely populated areas which have a tremendous concentration of Bantu should receive top priority and that we will deal thoroughly with the other aspects at a later stage. I am now asking the United Party whether they are in favour of our reducing the number of non-Whites in those areas which Dr. Scheepers pointed out in his report? If they are in favour of that they must say so in this House, and if they are not in favour then I want to ask them once again how they are going to maintain their white leadership in South Africa if they do not see to it that a stop is put to the number of Bantu who are streaming into our areas? We are aware of the fact that these are major problems which are staring us in the face, and because they are major problems we must obtain the necessary aid to help us rectify these things. For those reasons we are now passing legislation of this nature in order to help us to do so.

The hon. member for Yeoville went further and he made use of terminology which I should like to consider for a few moments. He said the following—

Have you ever heard terminology of this nature, which refers directly to the most extreme liberalism and the most extreme progressive attitude in South Africa from a person who does not pride himself on being a liberalist or a progressive? He spoke of a “common urban community”. What must we assume is being meant by this? It is a community where the people are thrown together communally under one roof, under one government, and under one authority. That is what I deduce from those words. He spoke of a “common purpose”. What is a “common purpose”? It is a common purpose which they share to live communally in this white South Africa. What was meant by “co-existence”? I am asking the United Party again: Are they honest and sincere in their intentions that the Whites in South Africa should take the leadership upon their shoulders? Or was it simply an election cry of the United Party? How can we desire white leadership in South Africa if we side with those people and tell them that we have a common purpose and that we form a “common urban community for the most peaceful co-existence in South Africa”? Where does their cry of white leadership come from? No, Sir—we have seen the United Party here in its true colours. I am asking them; why this change of front now? Is it not as a result of world pressure which they realize is again going to be applied to them?

I say that the United Party is bluffing the people of South Africa. Judging from the speech made by the hon. member for Yeoville this Party has once more revealed itself as that old progressive and liberalistic party which we have always known. The hon. member for Yeoville accused us of being frivolous and superficial. But I want to say that the attitude of the United Party towards this measure, which is intended to be an aid to the development of apartheid, has caused them to stand revealed as one of the most liberalistic and progressive parties which we have ever seen in this country.

Mr. Speaker, we have listened to a very interesting political speech from the hon. member for Benoni this afternoon. It was a very interesting speech.

Was it political?

Of course it was political. The hon. member gave us the essence of the apartheid policy of the Government. I did not hear him talk very much on the Bill which we are discussing. He did however give us the very essence of apartheid, and that is very interesting, because he is the only person in this House on the Government side who bothered to do that. Up to now we have listened to long and reasoned arguments from the other side about the need for decentralization, about the impossibility of continuing with huge metropolitan areas, as if, by the way, South Africa has got these huge metropolitan areas. It is laughable to me. I do not think we have more than one city with a population of more than 1½ million people in the whole of South Africa. Johannesburg has that number of people. The whole of the Witwatersrand, which, after all, is 70 miles in extent, has a population of 2¼ million people. Cape Town has a population of just over three-quarters of a million, namely 800,000 people. Where are these vast metropolitan areas that hon. members talk about? One would think we are living in Europe or America where you really do have vast cities.

They are vast because we are not in Europe but we are in South Africa.

They are vast because we are not in Europe! Now we hear they are vast because we are not in Europe. This is absolute nonsense. A city of H million people is not a metropolitan area; it is nothing like one. There is no over-crowding as is known in the metropolitan areas of Greater London or any of the other vast cities in Europe, like Paris for instance, or in America. The situation is just not comparable at all. But now I have diverted myself—as I was saying, those are the sort of arguments we listened to until this afternoon. We heard about the dangers of water shortage. We heard about the need for decentralization. We heard about the need for encouraging under-developed areas. We heard all those things, but we did not hear a word about the real essence of this Bill. We were told that the Government was adamant about not allowing more Africans to come to what they call the metropolitan areas, but we never at any time got the real essence, the kernel of the Bill as has been advanced by the hon. member for Benoni this afternoon. I listened to what he said with very great interest, but I must say it was full of fancy.

You live in a fool’s paradise.

No, I think the hon. member lives in a fool’s paradise, and I will tell him why I say that. I live in the realities of South Africa, and those realities consist of South Africa with a population of some 18 million people—of which about3½ million are white, about 11-12 million are Africans, 1½ million are Coloured and half-a-million are Indian. Those are the realities of the situation. They do not consist of Lesothos and Swazilands or Botswanas as yet. Nothing like it. We have got one not even independent African territory, the Transkei, which contains South African citizens, but for the rest there is not the beginnings of the inklings of independence for any of them. Not even the Transkei is fully independent. Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana never belonged to South Africa. The way the hon. member talks one would think we had created these independent states. They never belonged to us.

I never said they belonged to us.

No, you never said so —the hon. member did not say so, but he gave the impression that here were already three of these friendly, independent African territories.

And there are lots more to come.

Yes, and lots more to come, the hon. member says. They are friends of ours, and there are lots more to come. The hon. member speaks as if we created those three territories. What absolute nonsense. We have always had Swaziland, Basutoland and Bechuanaland as High Commission Territories. They never had anything to do with us, and their independence has nothing to do with us either. What has to do with us to-day, and what has always had to do with us, is their dependence on us, and that is a very different thing. That might also account for some of the friendliness, too, let me tell the hon. member. Because if it were not for the fact that they were allowed to send tens of thousands of their workers into South Africa to earn their living as migratory workers and to take those wages home with them those territories, apart from Swaziland, anyway, would not be able to survive. Lesotho is entirely dependent on the earnings of migratory workers coming to South Africa. Botswana has always been dependent on this country as a market for its meat. Swaziland has a close economic relationship with us as well. We should remember that. I do not know what the hon. member thinks he is creating when he says that there will be many more of these independent friendly states. As far as I am concerned the realities are that these independent states of South African Africans do not exist. They just do not exist. He has based his whole argument on the basis of their existence, on their going back to their “tuislande” as the hon. member put it.

What has that to do with this Bill?

It has everything to do with this Bill; it has everything to do with the arguments advanced by the hon. member for Benoni. I do not know whether that hon. member was here when that hon. member for Benoni spoke. [Interjections.] Then the hon. member should know what I am talking about

The other fallacious statement made by the hon. member for Benoni was that if we allowed the present situation to obtain, with thousands upon thousands of Africans in the so-called white metropolitan areas, sooner or later this must be economic integration as he understands it. Because, the hon. member says, it would mean that these people become independent business-men—which, of course, some of them are, but the majority are wage-earners—and also, so the hon. member says, they become taxpayers. I wonder what he thinks they are right now? Does he not know that Africans pay taxes right now? If an African earns a taxable income he pays a tax, and he pays on exactly the same basis as that hon. member, or any other hon. member in this House. So the African pays taxes. He pays taxes even if he does not earn a taxable income. Unlike white citizens in this country he pays a tax the minute he becomes a pass-bearing person of 16 years of age. That is unlike white people. He goes on paying that tax until he is 65 years of age, whether he is earning anything or not. The hon. member looks astonished. Did he not know that? Has he not heard of the payment of head taxes by Africans? These people are taxpayers already.

I was referring to municipal tax on the grounds of freehold.

They still pay their ground rents, their ordinary rents and a dozen other taxes in the municipal areas. Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could be allowed to proceed unhindered?

The hon. member should not react to every interjection made.

It is very difficult because I am surrounded by people who are constantly interjecting. I therefore ask for your protection, Sir.

The payment of taxes has nothing whatever to do with economic integration and subsequent political rights because if that were the case, Africans in South Africa would long ago have had those political rights. The hon. member also talked about the use of migratory workers in Switzerland and he said that those people were not considered as integrated with the Swiss or the Germans or the Dutch or the people of any other country that uses migratory workers. Does he know that when migratory workers come from Italy to work in Switzerland, they have to join the trade unions. They have to be paid the same wages as the citizens of those countries. They are completely integrated economically. They have to join a trade union and they come under exactly the same conditions of labour. Indeed in some of those countries after a certain number of years they are allowed to take up citizenship if they desire to stay.

They cannot.

They can. The hon. member is quite wrong. I made a personal study of this and I got the necessary information. After a certain number of years they can elect to take up citizenship. [Interjections.] I do not wish to argue this matter. The hon. member’s whole argument is based on fallacy. He also seems to think that if you convert permanent urban dwellers who were born in this country, in Johannesburg, Langa or Soweto, with a stroke of the ministerial pen, into migratory workers, as human beings they apparently disappear. The “danger” that faced white South Africa disappears but these people are still physically present. Whether they are legally permanent dwellers or whether they are legally temporary dwellers the physical danger as such, is still what it was. I personally am not frightened of these people. I do not know why hon. members think that this is the most dangerous thing that can happen to us. One would really think that South Africa’s economy has not always been based on what it is in fact based on, that is the initiative and the capital and skill provided by the Whites and the labour largely provided by the non-Whites. There is of course a large white working class as well, but numerically speaking there is not one single member in this House who can deny that industry, agriculture and mining are to the very largest possible extent dependent upon non-white labour. [Interjections.] I do not care whether you call it skilled or unskilled; I am talking about its racial composition. Without this “dangerous” labour, as hon. members seem to consider it, you would not work a mine, a farm or a factory in this country. There are very few factories in this country which could be completely automated because automation is firstly extremely expensive and secondly it depends upon a very large market indeed.

We never called it dangerous labour.

Hon. members keep talking about the “gevaar” to white South Africa, if these people are here. I do not know what turns this into a danger. I really do not understand it. Most important of all is that changing the status of these people does not remove their physical presence from white South Africa. That is what I cannot understand. [Interjections.]

They are supporting you now.

I appreciate it.

As far as I am concerned this Bill is an act of aggression upon private enterprise. That is what it really is. It is an act of aggression against the entrepreneurs, the risk takers, the people whose initiative and, one might say, courage, have really been the basis of the economic development of South Africa. Why this is necessary we have not yet ascertained from the hon. the Minister. As other people have pointed out, the hon. member for Heilbron and the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration are always claiming that the policy of border industries, which in itself is decentralization, has been a tremendous success. If that is so, there should be no necessity for this Bill. The hon. the Minister denies that there is any compulsion in this Bill. I want to know whether he has made any investigations in depth to find out why his border industry policy has not been a sufficient inducement to get entrepreneurs to expand or to open up new factories in those areas voluntarily. What has gone wrong? Has a sufficient infrastructure not been provided in those areas? Is it because, as the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs tells us, the standard of productivity is low in the border areas? Mr. Marais Viljoen said that the standard of productivity was very low in the border areas. Has the hon. the Minister at least had an examination of this situation? Has he seen what he can do to increase the productivity of people in the border areas? Maybe this is an inducement which would make it easier for industrialists to decentralize. No real study in depth has been made as to why the inducements have not been sufficient. They clearly have not been sufficient, because if they had been, the hon. the Minister would not have introduced this Bill, which does have a measure of compulsion in it, despite what he says. He denies it, but in fact it is a negative compulsion, if you like. He cannot make an industrialist go to a border area, but by excluding that man from opening up anywhere else and by the very process of prohibiting him from opening up anywhere else, there is an element of compulsion in this Bill. He must admit that. That is surely the whole idea behind it.

The Minister has told us that it is essential that we decentralize industry. No one is against that on an economic basis. However, I do not agree for one moment with his comparison with other countries, because, as I have said, the situation is quite different. Every part of England has the necessary infrastructure. In any case our metropolitan areas cannot compare with Greater London as an example. Therefore I disagree with him. Forced decentralization has been tried in France and in Italy without any conspicuous success at all. In France all that has happened is that the areas immediately around the restricted area now have more factories. There has been no new adjustment of balance between North and South in France as a result of inducements or prohibitions on building in the Paris area. The same position is found in Italy. It has not been conspicuously successful. There have been pockets of development in the South, but this prosperity has not permeated through the whole of Southern Italy, by any means. I would suggest that a better way of decentralizing, for instance as far as Johannesburg is concerned, would be to decentralize the urban townships. An area like Soweto could be decentralized. I have never understood why all the African workers in Johannesburg have to be concentrated in one huge area, getting further and further away from the towns.

Where do you want them?

I want them near the areas where they work, for instance near Isanda. There is lots of room for more townships there. Just north of the Isanda area there is lots of room between Isanda and the Pretoria area. Then we would solve some of our transport problems. Instead of trying to move the whole population from Soweto into Johannesburg at certain hours of the morning and out again at certain hours of the evening, creating a vast transport bottleneck, we should have decentralized residential areas near the industrial areas on the Witwatersrand. If the hon. member for Vryheid and his colleagues would not be so difficult about allowing the industrialists to use their labour anywhere they like in the urban areas, he would also solve some of his problems, because then labour could live all along the Witwatersrand in a decentralized way instead of having to live where the firm itself has its head office.

What about the economic laws of decentralization?

These laws are very important and as soon as they become strong enough, industrialists naturally decentralize. They do not need Bills like this. Just as in the Free State there was decentralization when the gold mines were discovered. Nobody would have thought of planting an industry in Welkom or Odendaalsrust before the natural attraction of the mineral wealth which was found in the Free State manifested itself. That is part of the natural law of decentralization. It is where the raw materials are. It is where an adequate and well trained labour supply is. It is proximity to the market and an adequate supply of transport and power. These are the economic laws of decentralization. But to-day, in this day and age, when we have developed as we have, to try and go back to 1923, to the labour situation of the days of the Stallard Commission—which is exactly what the hon. the Minister is doing, namely that labour should only be in the White areas as long as it is required by the Whites and for no other purposes—is quite hopeless. We have gone long beyond that. We have had a world war in between. We have had vast industrial development and, most important of all, we have a permanently urbanized African population growing up in the cities, whether the hon. the Minister likes it or not.

I want to say in conclusion that the overall effect of this Bill is going to be a rise in costs and the increase of inflation in South Africa. I also think that it is going to seriously affect our whole economic development and potentiality, because if there is one matter that sticks out like a sore thumb, it is that apartheid and economic prosperity are incompatible. Because apartheid goes directly contrary to the normal economic laws. It is just not possible. The border industry policy can be developed up to a certain point, but all one can accomplish when doing that, is to transfer the integrated areas from one area to another area. That is all it means. You are still going to have White managerial skills in the border industries, you are going to have White supervisors, and you are going to have African labour. This is integration, and on a very unfavourable ratio because the ratio in the border industries of Whites to non-Whites must be surely the worst ever. You are going to have little pockets of industry and little urban areas developing along the borders of the reserves. [Interjections.] The African workers are going to be within White South Africa for the whole of their working hours, not so? So the whole thing as far as I can make out depends upon the status of these people— whether you call them de jure permanent residents, or de jure temporary or migratory workers. But whatever you call them they will still be physically present in White South Africa. This is what we all are going to have to face. Sending them back into the reserves also does not solve the problem because we will then still have a problem of unemployment, only it will be out of sight. But you still will have Africans of whom you must take cognizance because the days of these homelands being independent are still long off. In all honesty the hon. member cannot tell me that he believes that by 1978 he will have managed to denude industrial South Africa of its black labour and have substituted only migratory workers—everybody else will have been sent back to the homelands to live in independent African states on the same sort of friendly basis as Botswana, Swaziland and others. [Interjections.] Well, Sir, I do not know who is living in a dream world— whether it is me or the hon. member for Benoni. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister says he never said it. I am repeating what the hon. member for Benoni said. He sees this resolving itself entirely about these independent homelands. What the hon. the Minister did say is that he was going to advance this optimistic date of 1978. He was going to do even better than the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration. Apparently there is a competition between them to see who is going to get there first. And for my money neither of them is going to get there anywhere near the time that they expect they will get there, because I do not believe that this can be accomplished. I do not believe that you can turn the clock back on South Africa’s industrial development and I do not believe that any measure which the Government takes is going to be able to reverse the situation, unless the Government is prepared to face the very serious economic consequences that a measure like this will have on South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, what I found quite surprising to-day was the fact that the hon. member for Houghton should appear to you for protection when hon. members made a few interjections. The hon. member for Houghton herself makes very pungent interjections. I have sometimes come under the impression that when she is being attacked she becomes so hysterical with her interjections that she forgets that she is a lady. However, when she herself has to endure interjections, then she becomes a lady again and appeals solemnly for your protection. In any case, I am grateful that you did nevertheless afford her your protection, because what she had to say, contributed very little to this debate. The hon. member referred derogatively and with extravagant gestures to our metropolitan areas in comparison with Greater London, for example. She referred with so much pride to Greater London that one would think she had built it herself. I can only say in this regard that the rate of development in South Africa, the rate of development at which the industrial areas in South Africa are growing, —amongst others also the Witwatersrand complex—is most probably much more rapid than the rate at which Greater London was built and developed. It took at least a few hundred years. However, if we bear in mind that these metropolitan areas in South Africa have over a period of a few decades developed in a spectacular way, then it is not for us to say without more ado that we cannot in any way compare with the major industrial complexes in Europe or in America. If we were to allow this industrial development to continue unplanned and unimpeded, we would within a few decades, take fright at the work of our own hands, particularly if we were to face up squarely to all the implications of that development in the social and political sphere. Then I also want to say that those remarks and that opposition from the hon. member are very insubstantial. When reference was made to Phalaborwa here the other day and it was asked, “What about Phalaborwa as an example of something which has a bearing on this legislation?” the hon. member for Houghton said by way of interjection that Phalaborwa was a natural border industry or a development area or a point of growth. However, I can point out to her that this Government is not so bereft of its senses that it will plan or locate industrial development in the most unnatural places against all natural or against all economic laws. She will be surprised to find that there are more such natural points of development to be found, and that they will be developed. I want to leave the hon. member for Houghton at that and I want to make this statement this evening, i.e. that while we are dealing here with the last phases of this planning legislation, it will in future appear to be one of the most important pieces of legislation which was dealt with in the year 1967 by this Parliament. Since we, as a country, are standing on the verge of major industrial development, and since we are a country with tremendous natural resources, with a tremendous development potential, it is absolutely essential for us to introduce legislation such as this. Since we are dealing here with what is almost a new Department, i.e. the Department of Planning, which is now beginning to give guidance and direction to our development, that is why this Department is under the guidance of a young and energetic Minister who is making his mark. This Department is engaged on pioneering work. Even if the private sector is a little sceptical at present in regard to this planning and this legislation, I am certain that when they have seen and considered its full implications, and have also seen how this legislation is applied, they will give their active support to the Department of Planning in the implementation of this legislation. We have in our country a strong nucleus of active, enterprising and skilful industrialists and business executives, and we enjoy the interest of industrialists and businessmen of other countries as well. That is why we are convinced that these people will adapt themselves to this pattern which is being created, because it is important, for various reasons, that this piece of legislation be placed on the Statute Book, and that it should in future be the compass for our industrial development.

In the first instance I welcome this legislation because I feel that we are, through this legislation, beginning to think fundamentally and constructively again in regard to the sitting and planning of industrial growth in South Africa. Our industrial development has actually taken place spontaneously and without control. You will agree with me that the basis of our industrial development has been the gold mining industry, which gave rise to certain subsidiary industries. The result was a major industrial complex on the Witwatersrand. In addition other industrial complexes developed close to our coastal cities and our harbours, and the incentive for that industrial development was mainly the fact that the industrial complexes were strategically situated on our main lines of communication which gave these industries access to both the interior as well as the exterior. However, we must admit that we cannot leave it at that, and that we must, through the Department of Planning and the advisers to the Minister, begin thinking and planning anew in the light of the experience which our country and our government and also our industrialists have gained up to now, and that we should apply this experience so that we will ultimately, in our development, not become bogged down and reach a stage where we will have to admit that we cannot go any further. I welcome this legislation, and I predict that it will have a great influence on our industrial development, also as a result of the fact that provision is being made here for the co-ordination of the activities of various Government Departments. The Minister will utilize and co-operate the services of people from various Departments in order to furnish him with advice so that he can take into account all the considerations and in this way plan industrial growth and industrial lay-out in a proper way. Apart from the Department of Planning, we have provision for linking up with the Department of Labour, of Bantu Administration, Economic Affairs, Indian Affairs, Coloured Affairs and Water Affairs. This is something we have never had before. We have all, on previous occasions, felt that it is essential in a young country such as South Africa, with its great potential for industrial development, that the various interested bodies should consult and plan in order by so doing to give attention to all the factors which have to be taken into account in industrial planning and development. That is why this legislation is to my mind the attaining of an ideal, the ideal of proper co-ordination between interested Government Departments, with proper consultation with and linking up of the private sector, the industrial leaders in our country, etc. I am convinced that the hon. the Minister will obtain the co-operation and the good advice of those people and will also put it to good use. It is a fact that the private sector is inclined, in its industrial development and planning, to adopt the easiest course. It usually follows skilled labour; it establishes its industries where it is most easy to procure skilled labour; it establishes its industry in an area where the market for the product which it is manufacturing, is closest to it, and where power and water is available, regardless of the effect which the establishment of that industry may have on a series of other important sectors in our political economy. It is the Government’s task to take the entire picture into account. It is the task of the Government, which exercises control over some of the basic factors such as the supply of water and power, to plan on a national basis.

That is what the local authorities are doing.

But that hon. member has never seen further than the local authorities. The local authorities, from the nature of the case, cannot undertake national planning. I am speaking emphatically of national planning where factors like the supply of power and water, transport, markets, the availability of labour and similar factors, and all the implications of those things, are taken thoroughly into account. Up to the present there has been a real need for national planning. It was high time a Department of Planning was established. I am convinced that the former Prime Minister of the Republic of South Africa and the Government has, in the course of our industrial growth, felt this deficiency. The former Prime Minister, with the establishment of the Department of Planning, tried to supply this deficiency. This legislation is now being placed on the Statute Book in order to try and realize that ideal. The Department of Planning cannot merely be a department which in general devises schemes and draws up plans and which does not give active guidance and advice.

I want to come to a second point in regard to the effect of this legislation. This legislation ensures that the establishment of industries in South Africa will take place on a broader basis. We must admit that industrial development in South Africa has up to now, as I have already said, been not only uncontrolled to a large extent, but has also, to a large extent, been insular and vulnerable. I will explain what I mean by this. I have pointed out that the gold-mining industry was the principal incentive for the development of an industrial complex on the Witwatersrand. But in due course we began to realize that our industrial planning had certain weaknesses, that it was being strangled by a shortage of labour and water. We have, during the past few years, even up to last year, been feeling this need very strongly. We realized that the large industrial complex of the Witwatersrand was vulnerable in that it was dependent upon one or two sources of water. If that water supply fails then we run the risk of the entire industrial development on the Witwatersrand being crippled. In addition, our transport system is overloaded, and that creates considerable problems. Sir, if a drought emphasizes these weaknesses in our development programme during peace time, what about during a time of war?

So what? What happened during the last war?

I shall tell the hon. member. If our industrial development were to remain restricted to a few areas, then it simply means that during a time of war our entire industry can be crippled by the destruction, for example, of our strategic water resources. Even hon. members on that side will agree with this statement. Up to now this has been one of the weaknesses in our industrial development; it underlines for us the lack of far-sighted planning. Up to now little attention has been paid to the important factor of the geographic location of our minerals. Little attention has been paid to the potential of water and power provision at other places. Now hon. members can ask me: How will this legislation alter that position? We can understand very well that the State cannot alter the picture with a magic word in one day, or one month or even one year; nor is that the idea. The actions of this Government since 1948, when pessimistic prophecies in regard to the disruption which the Government would bring about were made time and again, prove that the Government will not allow any disruption in our industry. With the help of this legislation the Government is going, through the Department of Planning, to lay its finger on the geographic location of our minerals, and since the Government is going to do that, it is certainly also going to make provision for the provision of power and water; that is part of its planning. In fact, I have already pointed out that the various departments which will link up with this advisory or planning council, will be thoroughly consulted. Sir, the Government must definitely also take into account the presence of a potential labour force. If we have learnt anything during the past few decades then it is that we cannot remove an unlimited number of people from their homelands in the Transkei, or in Zululand or Lesotho, or any area whatsoever in order to come and work in our industrial complexes as migratory labourers. We are maintaining the position of these people as migratory labour, but we admit that it is not the ideal state of affairs and that we must, as far as possible improve and alter that position. That is why the Government must also take into account the presence of a labour force if it allows industrial development to continue in a certain area. Where people have to be brought from far afield to come and work in a specific vicinity as labourers in the employ of specific industries then it is a serious question whether the industries to be established should not be established on the borders of the homelands of those labourers, particularly since the Government will be able to supply water and power there.

I want to mention a third point. This legislation will also have an effect on our social life. Industrial development has created a suction force which has drawn people to our industrial areas, White as well as non-White, and one of the problems with which the Government and local authorities are having to deal is the provision of proper housing. That is one of the major problems. If one has allowed one’s industrial complexes to develop to the absolute maximum, then one not only has to deal with the problem of housing provision, one has also to deal with the problem of transport, the problem of taking the workers to those factories in which they work. Sir, I would just like to mention a figure here in regard to the increase in the Bantu population of Johannesburg. It is calculated that in the year 1980 the Bantu population of the Johannesburg metropolitan area will be 794,620. This figure is based only on the natural increase of the Bantu which are there to-day. According to estimates, that Bantu population of Johannesburg will be 1,035,000 in the year 2000. These figures confirm the fact that provision will have to be made for those people at a tremendous rate if we want to accommodate them properly.

But you are going to send them back to the Transkei.

What is more, we know that it will place a tremendous burden on our water supply and on our transport system, as we are experiencing at present. It we allow our industrial development on the Witwatersrand to continue without planning, then the question is what the number of Bantu on the Witwatersrand will be in the year 2000. If additional manpower has constantly to be drawn from the Bantu homelands, what will the Bantu population of Johannesburg then be? Sir, one is amazed at the inconsistency of a person such as the hon. member for Houghton who, on a previous occasion, got up here and pleaded that the Bantu should be with their families, that their families should be allowed to come to the cities where they are working. But when we come to discuss industrial planning, when we are considering the possibility of taking the industries to those people so that the worker may be with his family, then she is opposed to it. One wonders sometimes whether the circumstances of her motives are sincere. One wonders whether she and the people who think as she does are really concerned about those social problems and shortcomings, or whether they want to bring the Bantu into the white areas at all costs in order to inundate the white man in his fatherland. I have a strong suspicion that that is what the hon. member’s real objective is.

I want to put another point, and that is that this legislation will bring development to the rural areas, perhaps not everywhere in the rural areas, but to various places in the rural areas where the necessary minerals are to be found and where the possibilities of a power and water supply exist. Phalaborwa is most certainly not, as I have already said, the only natural point of industrial development in our industrial planning. Whereas the rapid rate of growth of our urban complexes and our industrial complexes have, during the past few years, been conducive to inflation, a large portion of the rural areas has actually been experiencing conditions of depression. What we would also like to see happen is that this planning should bring industries to the rural areas as well, to those points where the minerals are present and where the basic services of power and water provision can be supplied. I can only think that when the Orange River scheme has been completed and water and power is available there it will create a point of growth and that, for various reasons, it will be possible to have industrial development there.

Who will work in those industries?

There will be an increase in our country’s population, and if the hon. member asks me who will work in those industries, then I want to ask him, who will work in the industries which he wants to allow to develop without restriction in the present industrial complexes? The hon. member knows that our policy of border industries makes provision for those industries to be placed strategically on the borders of the Bantu homelands so that those people can work there. I thought the hon. member would at least know that.

I spoke about the need for industrial points of growth being established in the rural areas as well. I am convinced that this legislation will make provision for that and in particular that the Government, through planning, will supply the basic services which will make it possible for industrialists to launch industrial development over a wide area. This legislation is intended to direct industrial development to its natural resources. Because our natural resources are widespread it is inevitable that we have now reached a phase in our industrial development where we will have a broad geographic location of our industries throughout the Republic. Let me add the following in the interests of the rural areas. In past years the rural areas have made a major contribution to industrial development in our urban areas. It has supplied the essential manpower and I think it is high time now that our industrialists, who have drawn both labour and minerals from the rural areas, began thinking of going back to the rural areas and returning part of their knowledge and prosperity and industrial power to the rural areas.

This legislation will also have good political results. The hon. member for Benoni referred to that. In respect of the Whites, it will have good political results because, in my opinion, it is not a good thing for the political power in a country to be concentrated in a few large urban complexes which, because of their large population, have political hegemony. It is sound development for the political representation in this House as well to be as widespread as possible. But let me leave it at that.

This legislation will also have its good results in respect of the non-Whites, and here I want to associate myself with what the hon. member for Benoni said. We have an Opposition, with people such as the hon. member for Houghton and others who think as she does, who are endeavouring to give the urban Bantu political rights in this House. According to the way they reason and think, it is only logical that as this urban non-White population increases, they will say that those people do not number one million any more, but two million, and that they must now be given more political rights or must be given greater political representation. That is why the Opposition is always speaking of the “foreseeable future”. This legislation will bring industries to the rural areas as well as to the Bantu homelands. This legislation will enable South Africa to plan its industrial expansion on a broader and sounder basis and make it less vulnerable to the future. [Time expired.]

The short time left to me does not make it possible to deal in detail with the speech of the hon. member for Piketberg, but I will only say this about it. Coming to the end of the Third Reading of this measure, we have noticed that some members of the Government have put a brave face on this measure, while others have come with a very querulous attitude to our opposition. The hon. member for Piketberg is one of those who put a brave face on it. one of those who, I am sure, is not an industrialist yet, but who feels that industry can be summoned out of the ground more or less where you want it. Unfortunately in this regard he finds himself clashing with the experts of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, who find themselves unable to advise that this measure be proceeded with. He finds himself clashing also with the Federated Chamber of Industries and people who are deeply concerned with the success of our industry in this country.

I do not think it can be denied by hon. members opposite that it is a great disappointment to them that they had to come with this measure. The high priests of their policy said that the border industries would provide the complete answer; but it has not yet been the answer at all. I want to say, that just as this particular balloon has been pricked, just as this further illusion in the Government’s policy has been shattered, so will the high hopes of the hon. member for Piketberg be shattered in time to come if he believes that by the gentle methods that so many members on the Government side have indicated will be used in the implementation of this measure, we will make any appreciable change in the population ratios in South Africa as they are to-day. We shall, if they are still left to guide our destinies, which I gravely doubt, come back and remind them of this, too. I would have thought that they would listen more carefully to arguments from this side, since it was we who forecast that the border industries and the incentives provided there would be nothing like enough.

I want to stress that this is the shattering of another illusion. We had it from no less an authority than Die Burger, an organ of the Nationalist Party, in its exchange of articles with Trouw, that one of the two questions with which Nationalists went to bed at night and stood up in the morning, was whether the black man would be sucked out (uitgesuig) from the white area. That question has now by this Bill been answered in the negative. They will not be sucked out; and so yet another pillar of this policy comes tumbling down. Therefore it has to be supported and propped up by a new and compulsory measure in order to keep the Nationalists happy. I have no doubt that the courage of my hon. friends opposite and their faith in their policy will be sustained for another few years by this means. But I want to say at once that we on this side do not for a moment believe that this juggling with population ratios is of the consequence they consider it to be. We can tell them now that even though the ratio continues to be as adverse as it is, when they have thrown in the towel we will pick it up and carry on. [Interjection.]

This represents an appreciable change of policy. Nobody less than the late Prime Minister said that the presence or even the increase of the Bantu in the white areas is no violation of his policy. Well, why come with this measure if you still believe that? Because here we are, with considerable compulsion, the voluntary enticements having failed, going to attempt to achieve the very contrary to that. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister what comment he has to make on that quotation from the late Prime Minister. I would be very glad to hear. I would like to say in advance what my reply is. If he had any belief any longer in that statement of policy, he would not be piloting this measure through the House.

I would like to ask the Minister and all my friends opposite, where we are passing this Draconian measure to marshal industry, for what population ratio are they now planning? This Bill is called the Planning Bill. For what population ratio are they planning, for what proportion of black to white in the various areas, and by when do they expect to achieve it? The hon. the Minister who is piloting through the measure shakes his head. Of course he will not reply because he realizes that this will be just another broken illusion. But it is most important; because in 1956 when the Tomlinson Commission proposals were published, the Government was rash enough to say that by the end of the century they expected that the population ratios in the so-called white area would be roughly equal, and that this number was necessary for our security. I would like to know from the Minister what ratio he is now planning for, since he is in charge of planning, and by when will he achieve it. If he is not prepared to tell us something about that in some detail, I say that this is just another propping up. It is just there to cheer up our friends opposite. It is just another prop in the facade. This is not a measure which can affect the population ratios about which so many members have spoken.

The 64-dollar question, of course, in this whole matter is not what this measure says but what its application is going to be. Is the Minister going to be really tough? When people ask for extensions to factories, will he be tough and send them to the border areas? Depending on the answer to this, it will either harm the economy gravely, if he is tough, or it will affect the numbers of blacks in the so-called white areas and the ratios very little if he uses it very little. I should like to know from the Minister exactly how tough he is going to be, because where hon. members opposite have been saying that it will not have any great effect, it of course means that they believe that he will not apply it toughly, and I believe that even if he does apply it he will soon realize that it will not get him very far. I want to say at once that if he does apply it, or even before he applies it, he is going to put costs up very much. He is going to make our industries less competitive at a time when some of his colleagues in the Cabinet are pleading for greater productivity. There is a good deal of unused capacity in our factories; land, buildings and machinery already established in our various factories which, in the ordinary course, should be taken up by means of reasonable extensions. If it is denied to those people to have these extensions it is going to force up the costs of their products and this can have serious consequences in time for our economy. Because increasingly we shall live upon the foreign exchange that our industrial exports can earn, and we can very easily price ourselves out of the markets.

It is perfectly true that the Minister may not in fact use these powers very much, but if he does not use these powers very much it will have even less effect than we on this side believe it will have.

It may have been the hon. member for Randfontein, but I think it was the hon. member for Soutpansberg—they both sit together —worked upon the assumption that we will have the same amount of industry in this country, whether we have this measure on the Statute Book or not. Their idea was more or [less that industry is crying out to be established—it is simply a question of where they actually are established. I say nothing could be further from the truth. With many industrialists there are marginal considerations influencing them to come to South Africa at all, or whether not to come. And if they are South Africans, whether to expand or not to expand. I want to say that if they cannot go to a place where they consider they will be competitive, it is highly likely that they will not establish themselves at all. They will certainly not be agreeable to putting up uneconomic satellite units outside our urban areas.

It has been shown that there is a close and direct relationship between a developing country’s rate of economic growth and its degree of industrial concentration, and as other hon. members have said, our cities by world standards are small affairs. Therefore we may very well find that we are left behind in the economic race if this measure is applied.

I must move to a close. I should like to remind the Minister, because he was not in South Africa when the speeches were made, that two of the most respected businessmen and financiers in what is known as the “Afrikaans world” have stated that the population trends of South Africa entitle one to infer that there will be 12 million Native people in our urban areas by the end of this century. This was not stated by people on the United Party side but by two of the most respected people on the side I have mentioned. In the view of people of that ilk, that is what they think as to how effective this measure will be as far as the numbers of our black and white people are concerned.

The population of Johannesburg has been mentioned. The last speaker said that the forecast was that the Native population of Johannesburg will by the year 2000 be over one million souls. I am speaking of the Native population alone. It is most important for those people to be employed, and it is by no means a certainty that they will be employed.

To conclude I wish to say that we on this side believe that this measure will not achieve what it attempts to achieve, and that in a year or so to come it will be seen even more clearly how this Government is trying to fly in the face of the facts.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 68.

Mr. Speaker, we have now come to the end of a very pleasant afternoon, and I am pleased to see the satisfaction and happiness on the faces of the United Party members. Their faces are beaming! Just look at the hon. Chief Whip on the opposite side! I shall tell you why their faces are all beaming like this. It is because that side feels safe and reassured as long as this Government is in power. The hon. members feel certain, after this legislation as well, that they are going to enjoy the prosperity in which they have shared for the past 19 years in the next 19 years as well.

An hon. member asked me, “How tough are you going to be?” Now I just want to tell the hon. member that I am going to reassure him as well. We are going to achieve what we want to achieve, and I know it will give him satisfaction. Although he does not say so, he also wants to view South Africa in the same light as we on this side want to do. I want to refer the hon. member to certain figures which were mentioned here in respect of the ratio of Bantu to white in the metropolitan areas. It varies from 1:2 to 1:4. The figures which were given here were correct. In Vanderbijlpark the ratio is one White to .99 non-Whites. Now hon. members will know that for many years, for the past 20 years, I have been associated with Vanderbijlpark. We have a favourable figure there and the hon. member may rest assured that while I am handling this Department it will be our endeavour—as we have succeeded in doing in Vanderbijlpark —to achieve throughout South Africa whatever the National Party wants to achieve. That is how “tough” I am going to be.

What will the ratio be when you have established the township for 150,000 Natives in your area?

The other point I want to deal with straight away, arising from the hon. member’s question, is a point which was raised by the hon. member for Houghton. I must admit that during the past few years the hon. member has become much more irritable than before, but I nevertheless want to say to her that it happens to the best of us. The hon. member did something here which I cannot allow to pass without comment. She made it appear ridiculous here that we could speak of a metropolitan area in South Africa. She referred to Europe and the concentrations there in cities such as London, etc. She also spoke about the concentrations in New York. After that she asked how we could compare cities in South Africa with those great cities—there are only a million people on the Rand she said. The hon. member for Piketberg mentioned one important consideration in this regard. He said that this tremendous development in South Africa had taken place over a period of 75 years, and in some cases only 50 years. But let us consider what the relative concentration is. On the Witwatersrand there are at the moment 2 million people out of a total of 16 million in the entire South Africa. That is 1:8. In New York there are 12 million people out of a total of 180 million. That is 1: 15. Thus the relative concentration on the Witwatersrand is greater than that in New York. Let us just for a moment look a little further. In South Africa 81 per cent of our industrial production is produced on 2.2 per cent of our total territory.

Do you deny that we have the same degree of decentralization as there is in the Argentine and Brazil?

Anyone with a modicum of knowledge will surely not, in this comparison which we are discussing now, bring in under-developed countries such as Argentine and Brazil. I want to tell the hon. member for Hillbrow that I have read in the newspapers, while I was away, that he is “the new Jan Hofmeyr”. Hon. members will probably remember that the late Mr. Hofmeyr was one of the people who helped bring about the downfall of the United Party in 1948. My point is that relatively speaking there is already a tremendous amount of over-concentration in South Africa, even as the position is to-day. That is one of the matters which must be faced up to in this legislation. But let me state very clearly now that this measure does not deal with that. This legislation deals with new provisions, as well as with the continuation of the good work which has been done in terms of the Natural Resources Development Act of 1947. This is a Bill which deals with planning in general and which also establishes control over the utilization of land as such. Allow me now to state the following very clearly. We will never lose sight of the fact that South Africa must be seen as a whole. Let us understand once and for all now—and I am also saying this to the industrialists— that Southern Africa does not only consist of one country and that this Act will not be applied in such a way. Southern Africa consists of a white South Africa and several black countries. There are the metropolitan areas, there are the border areas and there are the home industries. The development of all three must be seen as a unit.

The home industries as well?

Of course, the home industries as well. The Bantu who are well provided with capital must go to the homelands and establish their industries there. I have made an appeal to that effect. But let me also say that in the application of this policy we shall also think in national terms, we shall act on a national basis and we will at all times undertake planning on a national basis. All factors will be taken into consideration. But let me also say that it is not only various countries with which we are dealing here. We are also dealing with various nations. In the consideration of the socio-economic demands of South Africa it will always be taken into account that there are various nations in South Africa and that they have various countries, as well as that the borders of those countries afford opportunities for the development of border industries, But allow me to mention one last point, which is namely that it is not only the development of border industries, it is decentralization as a whole.

It is the development of border industries, and it is specifically also the development of homeland industries. The Bantu who are well provided with capital must go to their homelands and begin their industries there, because by so doing they will also be creating avenues of employment for the Bantu who would, under normal circumstances stream in here. Hon. members had quite a lot to say about border industries. The hon. member for Sea Point spoke about the “tremendous problems in another part of South Africa”, referring to the homelands. But let me tell hon. members now that the border industry is situated in the border areas where the industries can develop. They are situated where the resources are, where the labour forces are. The water is there and as far as other resources and agricultural products are concerned, one finds that they are also there.

It is therefore the development of a greater industry because the Bantu working there have the great advantage that they are living in their own country. There is the social coexistence amongst his own people. He will exercise his political rights where he lives. At the same time he has the opportunity of working there. I know hon. members are against that, and I shall tell you why. They, the United Party, are the champions, the advocates, the major party in South Africa which wants to allow uncontrolled influx of the Bantu into the white areas. The hon. member for Benoni read out here what the hon. member for Yeoville had stated, i.e. the definition of their view of integration in South Africa. Perhaps there is a reason for that. I do not want to be too hard on hon. members, but if we consider the true facts of the matter we find that the intention of the United Party’s integration policy is to get their representatives in the House again by means of the black man’s vote, because they will never achieve that object by means of the white man’s vote. These are hard words, but it is the logical outcome of the United Party’s policy of integration. That is why the United Party is so firmly opposed to the development of border industries. Hon. members have ridiculed border industries. But what are the facts of the matter. I have here The Star in which the following has been said about Sir De Villiers Graaff—

Border industries have been opposed from the beginning. What do hon. members then mean by decentralization? In all other countries where decentralization has taken place, certain privileges are granted to decentralized industries. America has gone so far as to decentralize right up to Puerto Rico. They have gone so far as to keep the Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rica. But we may not be allowed to keep the Xhosa in the Transkei. Puerto Rica is precisely in the same situation as our border industries. [Interjections.] Just allow me to make my last point. I will content myself with this, which is that hon. members have hawked some of the late Dr. Verwoerd’s statements about here. Now, what did Dr. Verwoerd say? Dr. Verwoerd said—

In this legislation there is no obligation.

Let me state very clearly now that “one of the factors which militate against the establishment of industries in certain border areas” is the fact that we are allowing the Bantu labour force to be attracted to the metropolitan areas. With this legislation we are removing those attractions. We are now introducing control there. Hon. members may as well put that in their pipes and smoke it. But let me say very clearly that I think that we have, with this legislation, reached an historic moment. For the first time in the history of South Africa industrial development and industries are now being seen in the national sense of the word, in the same way as water and other matters have always been regarded.

It is another nail in the coffin. *

It is another nail in the coffin of the integration policy of the United Party. [Interjections.] It is another nail in the coffin of a party which is seeking to bring about the downfall of the white man, sometimes unconsciously but sometimes not. Let us state very clearly that in the application of this legislation further steps will still be taken to make this country a safe, pleasant and prosperous place of abode for white people, but also for the black people who must have a place in the sun in Southern Africa. In addition one of the most important points of all which were mentioned by the hon. the Prime Minister recently, the elimination of friction in South Africa, is being effected in this Bill. But we will also know, after this debate, that the United Party is known as the Party which wants to make the cities of South Africa and our white Republic blacker and blacker for their own integrationistic benefit and policy of integration. [Interjections.]

Motion put and the House divided:

Tellers: G. P. van den Berg and H. J. van Wyk.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and T. G. Hughes.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Third Time.

Sir, a little later in the Committee Stage I wish to put certain questions to the hon. the Minister in connection with slaughter poles in the rural areas, but under this clause I would like to ask the hon. the Minister if he could clear up one point for us, and that is this: He referred to regional or district abattoirs which will be established by this commission. We would like to know from the Minister exactly what his intention is here. We have the position in the rural areas at the moment that every butcher shop has its own registered slaughter pole, that is to say, butcher shops owned by white as well as non-white licensees.

Order! On which clause is the hon. member speaking?

Clause 4.

Clause 4 deals with the functions and powers of the commission.

That is quite right, Sir. One of the commission’s powers is to acquire, hire, let, hypothecate, sell or otherwise alienate immovable property for the establishment of abattoirs and so on and, with the approval of the Minister, to form an association for the erection, management and conduct of an abattoir. Before I can put my point I must lead up to it. As I have said, in these rural areas we have a number of butcher shops and a number of private slaughter poles registered. Is it the hon. the Minister’s intention, through this commission, to establish a centralized abattoir in a district and slowly to do away with these individual slaughter poles, or is it the intention to leave the situation as it is at the moment?

I think I stated the objects of the commission very clearly in my Second Reading speech. The commission is being established for the very reason of bringing about orderly planning in the establishment, the control and the administration of abattoirs. If circumstances are such that the commission feels that there is some necessity for having a central or a regional abattoir, the commission will have to conduct an investigation and will have to decide what will be in the best interests of the industry and the management of the abattoir. As the hon. member knows, the commission has powers to do certain things in such cases; it has the power to erect abattoirs itself or to appoint agents for the erection of abattoirs or to get local authorities to do so. The commission is there for the very purpose of deciding when it is essential to centralize or decentralize abattoirs, according to circumstances.

Can the hon. the Minister give us any indication at this stage of the kind of policy he intends implementing?

Of course not. The commission is being established to perform all these functions. It will be the task of the commission to decide after a thorough investigation whether the abattoirs should be more centralized or less centralized. We cannot lay down a policy for the commission until such time as it has conducted a proper investigation. The policy it is going to implement, will depend on its findings after a thorough investigation has been made. If the commission finds that it is more desirable to have a central abattoir in a certain region instead of four or five separate abattoirs, it will have to establish such a central abattoir or will have to insist in having it established, with the approval of the Minister. That is the whole object of establishing the commission. We cannot lay down a fixed policy for the commission and prescribe that abattoirs must be centralized or decentralized. It is the task of the commission to take that decision; it is one of the tasks with which it will be charged.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 5:

I move the following amendment—

Seeing that a body is being created here to improve the marketing of slaughter stock in the country, we feel, as I have already explained on a previous occasion, that it is desirable for one of the members of the commission to be nominated by the Meat Commodity Committee of the South African Agricultural Union. This Meat Commodity Committee consists of people who are preeminently concerned with the promotion of meat production in South Africa. When they speak, they do so on behalf of the meat producers of the country. Whenever an investigation has to be conducted by the South African Agricultural Union with a view to the promotion of meat production, the Meat Commodity Committee is usually charged with this task. They submit an annual report to the S.A. Agricultural Union. Some of the most prominent meat producers of the country usually serve on this Meat Commodity Committee. Therefore I regard it as no more than fair that one of the members of this commission should be nominated by the Meat Commodity Committee. If the hon. the Minister accepts this amendment he will give the S.A. Agricultural Union representation on this commission. The S.A. Agricultural Union is pre-eminently the body which ought to have representation on this commission. The hon. the Minister advanced the argument that as soon as one gave representation to the S.A. Agricultural Union other interests would want to know why they could not be given representation on the commission. It is quite right that they will ask for that but the point is this: Who is entitled to representation on this commission? If there is one organization which is entitled to representation on the commission that organization most certainly is the Meat Commodity Committee of the S.A. Agricultural Union. Therefore I hope that the hon. the Minister will meet us in this respect and that he will accept the amendment. The hon. the Minister will most probably nominate one of the members of the Meat Commodity Committee to the commission but if he is going to do so, why does he not make specific provision for that in the Bill?

In his Second Reading speech, the hon. the Minister emphasized that the people who would benefit by this legislation would in fact be the producers. He said that the consumers as such would not benefit and that they were not interested although they were interested in the price they paid for meat. He used that as an argument to justify the imposition of a levy on the suppliers of the abattoirs alone to meet the finances of the commission. Sir, if the hon. the Minister’s argument is correct, then he must surely accept that the person who pays the piper, namely the producer, should at least be able to call part of the tune. The amendment moved by the hon. member for Newton Park is eminently reasonable. He is not asking that all the members of the commission should be producers; he is not even asking that the majority of the members should be producers. He is putting forward the very modest request that the producers should have at least one representative on the commission. Sir, what better body could there be to nominate such a representative than the S.A. Agricultural Union which is the central body representative of the whole of organized agriculture in the country? It is a most responsible body which is completely representative of all the producers in the country. It is also a body which, as far as meat is concerned, has its own experts, namely the Meat Commodity Committee. On that Committee at the moment I know of at least two experts who could well serve with distinction on this Abattoir Commission. One of them was actually a member of the Commission of Inquiry into Abattoirs. For these reasons I hope the Minister will accept this amendment, which is eminently reasonable.

I am sorry I cannot accept the amendment. At the Second Reading I explained that we would not like to make this commission representative of certain interest groups but that we wanted a body which would take an objective stand in regard to all interest groups concerned. The hon. member referred to the S.A. Agricultural Union. I too have known them for a long time. The hon. member spoke of the Meat Commodity Committee of the S.A. Agricultural Union. What is the Meat Commodity Committee? Is it the Beef Committee or the Mutton Committee or the Pork Committee, and which of these three committees is to make the recommendation? Or should the people who slaughter poultry or the people who slaughter donkeys do so? In other words, even if one were to give the Agricultural Union representation and allow them to nominate someone, which is not feasible, they would still differ amongst themselves as to what committee’s representative should be nominated. I deal with boards every day and I know that the farmers belonging to the agricultural unions criticize their own appointments because they say the man does not have their interests at heart because he is a cattle-farmer, or he is a maize-farmer. The Agricultural Union is aware of this legislation and approved of it in this form. The Agricultural Union made no representation in which it specifically requested that it wanted to make a nomination. Only the meat committee of the Agricultural Union did so. But hon. members must remember that the Act provides that this commission must have very close cooperation with the Meat Board, and who is represented by the Meat Board? Surely the Meat Board represents all the meat interests to which hon. members referred. The hon. member said that the farmers had the biggest interest, but the municipality that has to erect the abattoirs has as much interest in the matter because its money is involved. All the other bodies concerned have interests and therefore we do not want to give representation to bodies on this commission. It goes without saying that the persons who will be nominated to the commission will be people who have knowledge of the various ramifications of the industry. And there will be consultations with the various concerns. However, we are not going to provide in the Act that the Agricultural Union is to prescribe to the Minister who is to serve in his committee. That is an entirely wrong principle. Had the hon. member in his amendment referred to the Minister being advised, it would have been a different matter but if a representative must be nominated the position is even more difficult. I am sorry but I cannot accept the amendment.

The argument of the Minister, in regard to who the Meat Commodity Committee of the S.A. Agricultural Union is, does not hold water, because the S.A. Agricultural Union has a Cattle Commodity Committee, a Pig Commodity Committee and a Sheep and Goat Commodity Committee, and over all it has a Central Meat Commodity Committee, which is representative of all those interests. I think that if the Minister gave the S.A. Agricultural Union an opportunity to nominate one of the members of this Abattoir Commission, he could safely leave it to them to decide who that nominee will be.

The second point I would like to deal with in the Minister’s reply is that he said that the municipalities also have a financial interest in the abattoirs. That is perfectly correct, but then the municipality is going to be given a tariff of fees by the Commission which will enable it to redeem its capital and to make interest payments, and presumably since the profit motive is specifically recognized in the Bill, it will be allowed a certain margin of profit also. There is only one body of people who actually have to finance the operations of the Commission, and they are the suppliers to the abattoirs, and it is only right and just that the people who finance it should have a say in the central control and have a seat on the Abattoir Commission.

I am glad that the Minister does not want to accept this amendment. I just want to tell the Opposition that they are now trying to convince the Minister to have sectional representation on this Abattoir Commission but of what use can a sectional representative be on the commission? As the meat producers’ representative appointed by the Meat Commodity Committee of the S.A. Agricultural Union he will have to promote the interests of those producers, and here we are not concerned with the interests of those producers. Here we are concerned with the abattoirs as such, as facilities created for the purposes of slaughter. Apart from the product which is handled at abattoirs, the interests of the producer are not really involved. I even want to urge the Minister not to involve sectional interests as the Opposition wants him to do. I foresee that if we grant representation on this commission to sectional interests, that will make the work of that commission inadequate to a large extent.

Amendment put and negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

Clause 8:

I move the following amendment—

Actually I am moving this amendment because the hon. member for East London (City) felt particularly strong about this matter and I myself thought that he had a good point in view of the fact that provision is not made anywhere in this clause for members to retire in rotation. As the Minister can see our amendment is permissive. The State President may decide that members shall retire in rotation. He may perhaps decide, for sound reasons, that they are not to do so, but I nevertheless think that this provision ought to be made for the sake of continuity. If all members retire simultaneously and one has a commission consisting entirely of new members, people who do not have the background of the previous commission, that may mean that the work of the commission may suffer. But if they retire in rotation there will always be members of the commission who know the work and the background and that can only promote the good results we hope the commission will achieve.

Mr.Chairman, may I point out to the hon. member that the Bill already contains what he is seeking in his amendment. Clause 6 (1) reads—

In other words, the State President may appoint one member for two years, another for three years, another for four years and yet another for five years. That will have the effect that they will retire in rotation. The Bill therefore already contains what the hon. member is requesting.

Amendment put and negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

Clause 33:

Mr. Chairman, I wish to move as an amendment—

In his Second Reading speech the hon. the Minister said that he expected a levy to be imposed that would not be more than 6 cents a head in the case of cattle, mules, horses and donkeys, not more than 3 cents a head in the case of calves and pigs, and not more than 1.5 cents in the case of sheep and goats. We on this side are, of course, altogether opposed to this whole provision, because in our view this additional levy which is now to be imposed on the meat producer, is an unfair one. In our opinion the producer is already paying a high enough levy in respect of the stabilization and promotion of his products. But as the Minister is now proposing that such a levy should be imposed, I think that it is only fair that the levy should be determined in this legislation so that in future he will have to come to this House and furnish reasons for any increase thereof. We accept the hon. the Minister’s word that this is what he envisages, and that the levy will be as high as that. Therefore, if the hon. the Minister’s prospects and estimates for the future are correct, I think he ought to keep his word be accepting this amendment of ours. By saying this I do, of course, not want to suggest that we are in favour of this clause —let me make that very clear. We nevertheless think that this is an unfair provision—unfair to the meat producer because he is already paying enough. Therefore we do not see any justification for additional burdens to be placed on him. Besides, this legislation is not only in their interests—there are so many other bodies which will also benefit by it. It will, of course, be claimed that this envisaged levy is not a high one, and that the revenue obtained from that source will amount to between R200,000 and R250,000. But let me remind the hon. the Minister that it is usually the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. In these days of rising production and marketing costs, this levy will not be welcomed by the meat producer at all—the more so because something is being created here not only for the benefit of the meat producer himself, but also for that of so many other interested parties.

I am quite prepared to accept the hon. member’s amendment. It seems to me as though the hon. member is surprised! But I am prepared to do so. At the same time I do not begrudge him the little propaganda he can make amongst the farmers as a result of this proposed levy. However, I say that if it is justified to appoint a commission for the overall control and promotion of abattoirs, it ought also to be worth while for the people making use of abattoirs to pay for it—otherwise it is not worthwhile to have such a commission.

I just want to point out to the hon. the Minister that the attitude we adopt to this matter is not motivated by a desire to make propaganda out of it. Why should we want to make propaganda out of it? And if the hon. the Minister had been familiar with circumstances outside, he would have known that clause 33 is not being welcomed by the farmers. This measure also assists the local authorities—they are assisted in regard to research, and bursaries are also being made available. As a matter of fact, the hon. the Minister wants to do everything to promote the abattoir industry in South Africa in general, while the meat producer is the only person who has to pay for it. If there is any propaganda to be made out of this, the hon. the Minister ought not to expose himself so by inserting this clause here.

I am pleased that the hon. the Minister has accepted our amendment. However, we are still against the clause. The imposition of this levy was fully discussed during the Second Reading Debate and I do not know whether I can go very much further into it now. I should, however, like to know just how this is going to be interpreted.

That is a principle of the Bill and has been accepted at its Second Reading.

That is correct. But the question of the mechanics still remain. In the urban areas a levy is being raised by the Livestock and Meat Industries Control Board. Now this Bill is going to impose an additional levy on the meat producer. In the rural areas each individual butcher has his own slaughter pole. A levy has been imposed upon him by the Livestock and Meat Industry Control Board, a levy of so much for every animal he slaughters. Is it the intention of the Minister to raise an additional levy, or how is he going to interpret it? How is he going to interpret line 29 where it is stated that the levy shall be recovered “from the person on whose behalf such animal is slaughtered”? Is that levy going to be against the producer or is it going to be against the butcher?

It is clause 33, lines 28 and 29, which are causing me concern. Already we have dissatisfaction throughout the province about the levies or taxes being imposed on slaughter stock being sold at stock fairs. There is great dissatisfaction on this matter, and we find … [Interjections.]

Order!

I am speaking on clause 33 subsection (2). I am trying to explain to the Minister how dissatisfied the producers of meat are about the levies or taxes being imposed on stock at stock sales all over the country. And we find that when, for instance, sheep or cattle are being offered for sale on a country stock fair, a levy is imposed on the stock sold. When the stock are sent to an abattoir that same stock will be levied once more. And I believe that since meat is a national commodity, it is most unfair that the producer of meat should have to pay the levy twice.

He does not pay twice.

The same animal is being levied twice.

That is something different.

It is not different. It all comes back onto the owner, the producer of the stock. He will have to pay all the way in the end, simply because the owner of the abattoir has to pay. I want to know from the Minister, as the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) has already asked, by whom will that levy be paid, because if the producer of the livestock is going to pay it it must be taken into account that there is already dissatisfaction and it will create chaos. I am very unhappy about this particular provision. The hon. the Deputy Minister says that the farmer or the producer will not have to pay twice. Is that an assurance we have here this afternoon? I would like to see it in writing.

The hon. member for Newton Park made it clear that our objection to the clause still stands. We object on two grounds: firstly, that the people who are having to pay the levy, namely the suppliers, are not being granted representation as such on the Commission; secondly, that people who are having to pay the levy are not the only people who are going to benefit from the better and more efficient abattoir industry in the country. Everybody using the abattoirs and everybody who uses products which come out of those abattoirs, in other words every consumer of meat in the country, will derive benefit from the operations of the commission. However, the only people who are paying under the clause are the suppliers.

Why did you not frame your amendment according to that?

The hon. the Minister knows that it was not competent for us to move that this should be met from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, which is where we felt it should be met from, and we have tried to limit the application of the clause. I am glad that the hon. the Minister has accepted our amendment. At least he has toned down the inequity of this clause by accepting that limitation, by accepting the limit on the levy. However, as we say, the objection to the clause as such still stands.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and the Committee divided:

Tellers: G. P. van den Berg and H. J. van Wyk.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and T. G. Hughes.

Clause, as amended, accordingly agreed to.

Clause 34:

Mr.Chairman, I move the following amendment—

I rise to perform a little bit about the performance in this clause. We have this amendment put by the hon. the Minister now, which appears to be a complete and utter performance. The subsection as amended by the hon. the Minister now reads—

What a performance!

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 36:

Mr. Chairman, clause 36 provides that the commission shall exercise its powers and perform its functions in a manner determined by the Minister. But in terms of the provisions of subsection (2) the hon. the Minister may at any time amend or withdraw a decision of the commission. I do not think it is quite right towards an autonomous body such as this commission that the hon. the Minister may suddenly declare invalid any of its decisions. Somebody may go to the Minister alleging that he has been done an injustice by the commission, whereupon the hon. the Minister may summarily declare such decision invalid without his having to refer back to the commission. I therefore move—

In other words, the Minister will, in fact, have the right to declare invalid or to amend any decision of the commission, but he will be able to do so only after he has consulted the commission once again. To my mind it is only fair towards this body that this should be so. The hon. the Minister should have great confidence that the commission will not act incorrectly and he in turn should be in a position to amend its decisions only after he has informed it that he is going to amend or withdraw such decisions.

Why do you want it to be laid down by law?

Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. the Minister will reply fully to that. I do not think this procedure is the correct one. Do those people then have to act in a vacuum? After they have taken certain decisions, the hon. the Minister may come along and declare such decisions invalid without even informing or consulting the commission in that regard. I think it would be quite unfair towards the commission to go about things in this way, unless we add that the hon. the Minister may do so only after he has consulted the commission. I should like to hear what the hon. the Minister’s reply is in this connection.

Mr.Chairman, I think that it is absolutely unnecessary to include in this Bill a provision to the effect that a commission appointed by the Minister, or by the State President upon the advice of the Minister, should be consulted by the Minister. But if that will satisfy hon. members, I am quite prepared to accept the amendment the hon. member proposed.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 40:

Mr. Chairman, I move the following amendment—

Mr. Chairman, it is absolutely essential that if this commission is to exercise its duties successfully, particularly in the take-over period when it will be taking over functions which hitherto have been exercised by the Meat Board, that there should be very close collaboration and consultation between the Meat Control Board and the new Abattoir Commission. This is particularly so as regards the abattoirs which in fact are necessary for the efficient functioning of the marketing scheme, namely the abattoirs within the controlled areas. The Meat Control Board has no representative as such on the commission. Therefore, the attitude of the Meat Control Board on any question is not necessarily known to the commission at any time and will not be known to them unless they consult with them. Both in the case of export abattoirs and the ordinary controlled abattoirs where the system of auctions on the hook is in operation, there are certain minimum requirements for the efficient operation of those abattoirs in order to meet the needs of the Meat Board. This amendment is designed to meet the situation where, if an abattoir were to be established, the Meat Board should be able to say to the Abattoir Commission that they may in the future want to bring that area where the abattoir is going to be established under control. The Abattoir Commission can then make provision for that in the design of the abattoir. The same holds good for abattoirs which the board may in future wish to use for export purposes.

Mr.Chairman, the amendment moved by the hon. member is responsible for a slight improvement and I am quite prepared to accept it.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 45:

Mr.Chairman, I move the following amendment—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

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

Bill reported with amendments.

Mr. Chairman, I move the following amendment—

Agreed to.

Mr. Chairman, we have just completed the Committee Stage of another Bill dealing with abattoirs and in which a definition of an animal is given. According to this clause, an “abattoir” means “any place where animals are slaughtered …”

Order! I wish to point out to the hon. member that the Committee has already agreed to the amendment in paragraph (ii).

I agree, Sir. That relates to the removal of the word “land”. I want to speak on paragraph (i) and I also want to refer to paragraph (ii) of clause 1.

The hon. member may proceed.

As I say, the definition of an “abattoir” is “any place where animals are slaughtered.” The definition of an “animal” in paragraph (ii) includes poultry. A question arises here about the places where poultry will be slaughtered. In the Bill which we have just disposed of there is no provision for the establishment of an abattoir for the slaughter of poultry. Here we have the control over the slaughter of poultry. I wonder whether the hon. the Deputy Minister can explain this anomaly to us?

Mr. Chairman, there is no anomaly here. I want to point out to the hon. member that the Abattoir Commission in the measure we have just dealt with is not established to provide abattoirs or slaughtering places for the slaughter of poultry. Since we have a roast chicken industry in South Africa with large numbers of poultry being slaughtered we must apply and carry out the necessary health and hygiene inspections where slaughtering is done for commercial purposes.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 17:

Mr. Chairman, once again I should like to put to the hon. the Deputy Minister a question to which he did not reply well enough during the Second Reading Debate. This clause reads as follows—

Having regard to the definition of “animal” in clause 1, does this mean that the small poultry farmer—or a person who is not even a poultry farmer but only keeps a small number of poultry—will not have the right to slaughter poultry, for instance, on a small holding outside a city or on a farm outside a city, and then to take the slaughtered poultry into that area and to sell it there? Will they be committing a technical offence if they do not have such poultry slaughtered at a registered abattoir which has been issued with a certificate stating that it maintains proper standards of hygiene, or if they themselves are not equipped with proper slaughtering facilities? It often happens that only the bigger poultry farmers are properly equipped with proper slaughtering places complying with certain standards. What is the position in respect of the small farmer, the person who may only have a few hundred chickens? Must they, too, equip themselves in the way the Minister explained under the definition of “animal”? Must they be equipped in the way the large-scale poultry farmers are expected to equip themselves? If the small farmers are also to comply with those standards, a great deal of trouble will be caused to many people who only keep a small number of poultry and who are not in a position, who are not sufficiently well-provided with capital, to equip themselves in that way. If they cannot do their own slaughtering, they will have to take their poultry to somebody else, a person who has equipped property and who complies with the requirements laid down.

Mr. Chairman, I refer the hon. member once again to my Second Reading speech in which I told him that the principle embodied in this measure was actually to eliminate back-yard slaughtering. At the same time I referred the hon. member to clause 42 of the Bill. This clause provides that I may grant exemptions by notice in the Gazette. In my Second Reading speech I said that exemptions would, in the first place, be granted in respect of farmers who slaughter for their own use. In the second place, there are people who live at road camps or at dam construction camps and who also slaughter animals for their own use there. In the third place, I said that there were exemptions in respect of back-yard slaughterings. It is only where slaughtering takes place on a major commercial basis that provision has to be made in this measure so that the necessary standards of hygiene may be applied there. If the small farmer slaughters animals for commercial purposes, the hygiene officer will not require that farmer to have an abattoir. But the officer must have the right to carry out inspection and to see to it that standards of hygiene are maintained on the highest level and that slaughterings are done hygienically and correctly.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 24:

Mr. Chairman, in terms of this clause no person may slaughter any animal otherwise than in accordance with a “prescribed humane method”. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether this provision affords protection in respect of certain slaughterings that take place for religious or ritual occasions. In terms of section 3 of Act 26 of 1934 people do have such protection. Will people who for such reasons slaughter animals according to a certain method still have that protection?

Mr. Chairman, I referred to that in my Second Reading speech and said that we would make special provision for slaughtering in accordance with the doctrines of certain religions and creeds.

Clause put and agreed to.

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

Bill reported with an amendment.