Mr. Speaker, I beg to move as an unopposed motion—

That the following Address be presented to the State President:

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House would like respectfully to be associated with this motion, and I also have great pleasure in seconding the motion.

Motion put and agree to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

That the Bill be now read a Third Time.

This Bill has emerged from the Committee of the whole House without any changes and without any amendment. So far as we are concerned it has the same weaknesses that it had before; it has the same defects and it is just as unacceptable as it was when it was read a Second Time in this House. Accordingly I move the same amendment, namely—

Sir, the debate to-day should be directed mainly, of course, to the effects of this Bill in an attempt to prevent its finally going on to the Statute Book. I want to suggest that this Bill is going to have three main effects, all equally disastrous for South Africa and the cause of racial amity. The first of those effects is that this Bill is a further unjustifiable diminution of the political rights of the Coloured people. The second effect is that it is a further political betrayal of the Cape Coloured people and the third is that it will lead to a further alienation of the Coloured group from the White group in South Africa.

Sir, I would like to deal with each of those effects individually, starting with the first one, namely that it is a further unjustifiable and unjustified diminution of the political rights of the Cape Coloured people. When I say that there is a diminution, we have to ask ourselves what the position is to-day. The position to-day is that the Cape Coloured people are represented in this House by four representatives who are elected on a separate roll by the Cape Coloured people in the Cape Province. The Cape Coloured people in Natal who were registered on the Common Roll still have the right to vote for members of this House. The Cape Coloured people in the Free State and Transvaal had no political rights, except if they were prepared to be treated as Bantu for the purposes of the old 1936 Act by which senators were elected. That Act has fallen away, and they have no political rights at all. They represent a very small proportion of the Cape Coloured people in the Republic of South Africa.

Sir, that is what they have at the present time. They have also a Coloured Council with a number of nominated and a number of elected members whom they are entitled to elect on a basis of manhood and women-hood suffrage over 21 years of age throughout South Africa. That is what they have now, but what are they going to get after this Bill? After this Bill they are going to lose a say in the Central Parliament of the Republic of South Africa; they are going to lose a say in the Parliament which has the power in South Africa, the Parliament which controls the destinies of all the peoples of South Africa, whether they be Black, whether they be Brown or whether they be White. In lieu of that they are getting under another Bill a council with more powers. That council will not be entirely elected: it still will not have the right to tax, and it is still going to be elected by an electorate which, as to a portion, will be illiterate. Its functions are going to be largely advisory and administrative. No legislation can be introduced into that council without the consent of the Minister of Coloured Affairs and when it is passed it can be vetoed by the State President. That council and the Coloured people will have no say whatever in respect of powers which are not delegated by this Parliament to the Coloured People’s Representative Council. In other words, they will have no say over a large field of matters which concern every citizen of South Africa. I have no doubt that I am entitled to claim that this is a definite diminution of their political rights. I know I am going to be told that in fact the vote for this Parliament was only exercised by some 33,000 Coloureds who took the trouble to get themselves registered as voters in the Cape Province, but what is the potential? Surely the potential is many hundreds of thousands on the qualifications as they are at present. Surely those many hundreds of thousands, if they took the trouble to be registered, would have been representative of the majority of the Coloured group in South Africa.

Hon. members opposite are saying that for the first time we are extending the vote to Coloured men and women throughout South Africa, but in the first place we are not doing it for the first time. They did it in 1964, so there is nothing new as the result of this legislation. But the point that has to be made is: What is the good of a vote for a member in a council with limited powers as opposed to a vote for a member in this House, as they have at present, which has completely sovereign powers over the whole of the Republic of South Africa? Not only is there a diminution in their political powers, but I have said that that diminution is unjust and unjustified, because why is it being done? It is being done, we are told, because the Coloured people were exploited by certain European political parties for their own political ends. It seems to me a strange type of judgment when you punish the person who has been exploited, and the person who does the exploiting goes scot free. Surely if people are exploited you attempt to protect them and to assist them in order that they may exercise their political powers more freely and without interference. But you do not take away their political rights.

Then we would have imprisoned half of the United Party members as well.

The hon. gentleman is making one of his typically facetious remarks. I want to say that anything I learnt about funny business during elections I learnt by bitter experience from the Nationalist Party. When it comes to talking about electoral tricks, the hon. gentleman on that side of the House had better keep quiet. [Interjections.]

Order! These interjections are doing the debate no good.

Therefore I say that if regard is had to the evidence that was brought before the Commission on Improper Interference, which dealt with the exercise of the political rights of the Cape Coloured people, there is no justification whatever for their removal, because that evidence showed that what malpractices there were, were malpractices covered by the Electoral Act, and if that Act were properly applied those malpractices could easily be eliminated. Therefore I say that this Bill will have the effect of unjustifiably and unjustly diminishing the political rights of the Coloureds in the Republic.

Secondly I believe that this Bill is a further political betrayal of the Cape Coloured people. Those of us who have been in politics for some time will remember that there was a time when the Coloured vote was sought by all parties, when they were on the Common Roll. One remembers how their vote was sought in the 1930’s in order to get the necessary majority to place the Bantu voters on a separate roll. One remembers the promises made to them that if they assisted the white man to place the Bantu on a separate roll, then that form of apartheid would not be applied to the Coloured people. But what happened? That promise was broken. Attempts were made to break it, not only constitutionally, but also unconstitutionally. It was a particularly sad chapter in our history in respect of the votes of the Cape Coloured people and their political rights. What emerged was another promise to the Cape Coloureds, the promise that they would get something better than they had had in the past, namely representation in this House on a separate roll, representation here by people elected by them alone who would look after their interests. We have heard from members opposite in many debates, and particularly on the public platforms, how well this system works and what it has done to improve race relations between the Coloureds and the Whites in South Africa.

What has happened now? Despite the fact that it worked so well and improved race relations, suddenly we find that a new type of council is going to be given to the Coloured people, and when we ask questions as to what happens to the representation of Coloureds in this House we are told that there is no intention whatever of abolishing that representation. Sir, you have heard many references to debates in this House on that subject and I do not propose to weary you by once again quoting from Hansard what assurances were given. But there were very definite assurances given by the then Minister of Coloured Affairs and the then Prime Minister. Those assurances were given as late as 1966, by responsible people in South Africa, and they were reiterated in this House in 1966 by the present Minister of the Interior in reply to questions put to him by me. The hon. gentleman said quite clearly that there was no intention whatever of removing the Coloured representatives from this House. I do not think it is necessary for me to read that portion from Hansard because my time is limited.

What day was it?

It was the 26th August, 1966. The hon. the Minister said—

I was the hon. member referred to—

That was on 26th August, 1966.

Then he talks about a conscience.

That bore out the statement made earlier by the Minister of Indian Affairs, to which attention has not yet been directed. It is in Hansard of 21st May, 1963, col. 6434. The then Minister of Indian Affairs, who is now the Minister of Community Development, said this—

I repeat the Minister’s statement—

I want to emphasize that, because here is as clear a statement of policy as one could have. There was no indication that that policy had been changed. Even when the original Improper Interference Bill was introduced in this House, and opposed by me at first reading, that Bill contained provisions ensuring that its general content would not apply to the representatives of the Cape Coloured people who were still in the House and who were obviously meant to remain in the House. Now we are told that despite all those assurances in fact plans were being made by this Government, by this party in power, to deprive the Coloured people of their representation in this House. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, will those people not feel betrayed, and will they not have the right not to accept the Government’s word on anything, when they have been given assurances over a period of years and they now hear from a responsible Minister that, while those assurances were being given, in fact the Government was already planning to remove their representation from this House? What a tragic chapter in the rather sordid history of the representation of the Coloured people in this House.

The effect of this Bill is that the Coloured people, the most developed non-White group in South Africa, are in fact going to be in a poorer position than the Bantu people in South Africa. Is it small wonder if they feel betrayed, if the result of this legislation is that the Coloured people feel they have been betrayed? I go further. Is the result of this Bill not going to be a further alienation of the Coloured group from the White group? Look at the blueprint of which this is now a facet. The blueprint is such that it will cause the Coloureds and the Whites to grow apart in the political sphere. The only political contact in future will not be in this House. The only political contact with the Coloured people will be through the Minister of what is going to be called Coloured Relations, reporting to this House and perhaps some unspecified method of consultation about which we know nothing at the present time. How will we know what those people are thinking? How will we know what their aspirations are? How will we know what they feel about important matters which affect South Africa? The only contact will be through one Minister, who may or may not attend sittings of a council as opposed to having representatives in this House speaking for their own electors whom they have to satisfy if they wish to be returned to this House again.

I go further. I said it will alienate the Whites from the Coloureds. Already with this legislation we are taking a step contrary to the weight of the evidence given before the Commission on Improper Interference. Not only is it against the weight of the evidence but it is clearly against the wishes of the majority of the Cape Coloured people. The hon. the Minister for Coloured Affairs himself admitted in this House that it without doubt would hurt a section of the Coloured people. In essence what is being done now is contrary to the ultimate idea of the star witness for removal of the Coloured representatives from this House, namely Dr. I. D. du Plessis, who said, because they live with us in the same territory, ultimately we will have to have an umbrella body in which Whites and Coloureds take responsibility for the future of South Africa. Why remove this representation here then when this body can act as that umbrella body?

We will never reach that body; we do not want it.

The hon. gentleman says they will never reach that body, in other words, the witness upon whom he is relying and upon whom he is building his case, disagrees fundamentally with the policy of this Government in respect of the Coloured people.

No, he said they never wanted that body. [Interjections.]

I am very clear on what Dr. Du Plessis said. Dr. Du Plessis said he favoured the removal of Coloured representatives from this House, but he said because Coloureds and Whites live together within one territory, ultimately you would have to have some sort of umbrella body where they took joint responsibility for the future of South Africa. What is happening now is that with the removal of these representatives here, growth points are being established for the Cape Coloured people which will not only tend to alienate them from the White people but are going to be causes of friction in the future, causes of friction for a number of reasons. This House is going to have to vote the funds made available to the Coloured Council which has no taxing rights. If they do not get what they want how are they going to feel about it? Nobody is here to plead their case, nobody is here to say “You are not treating us justly or fairly”. This is going to be one of the biggest causes of friction.

But I go further. Because the Whites and the Coloureds are inextricably linked economically, attempts to separate them politically must tend to cause friction, because their economic interests will tend to be the same and they will be controlled not by the Council but by this House, in which the Coloured people have no say and no representation. The result inevitably is going to be friction and an alienation of the White group from the Coloured group as a result of this legislation. And all because of the Government’s inability to apply the Electoral law in such a way as to avoid abuses under the Act. Those are three long-term effects which, in my submission, are good reason for not passing this Bill. But there are short-term effects as well. One is that there is already a vacancy in one of the Coloured seats, and under this Bill that vacancy is not to be filled. In other words, we are discriminating between one group of Coloureds and another; one group that was entitled to representation here and is being deprived of that representation by the death of its representative. Is that likely to lead to good feelings? Is that fair and just towards the Coloured people? That is something that should be avoided.

Then we are again prolonging the length of term of office of those representatives in this House at the present time. That period has already expired; the time has come when they should be consulting their electors again. It is not easy for them to keep contact in the way contact should be kept. What objection is there to having an election and ensuring that as long as Coloured representatives are here they are truly representative of the people?

I think when one looks at this Bill then one cannot but conclude that it represents a watershed in thinking, a watershed in the thinking of those who want from all the groups in South Africa one loyalty to one Government and one State, and those who differ and who want to push this theory of separate development to the ludicrous position of having separate and perhaps alienated and perhaps warring nations within one territorial unit. While we are taking this step to-day, I think we must appreciate that, while hon. members may not realize it now, in fact in future they will find that they are derogating from the dignity and from the value of the White man’s word to the non-White in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, in the course of my speech I shall deal with each of the three main points which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition mentioned here and which he regarded as the three most important reasons why his Party cannot support this legislation. I want to deal with lesser points first. The hon. member made a great fuss here because we as Nationalists had traversed the country and had praised the present dispensation which has obtained since 1956, and had said that this dispensation had brought so much good to the Coloureds, that it was such a great improvement and just the right step as compared with the common voters’ rolls. We admit that we said these things. We have said that it was a great improvement. This dispensation at least created a ten-year period of calm which afforded this Government an opportunity of doing a great deal of constructive upliftment among the Coloureds. But that good was not done by the representatives sitting in this House. It was done despite their presence here. Every positive measure piloted through the House by this Government to achieve this work of upliftment and to bring about this good for the non-Whites, they slavishly opposed tooth and nail along with the United Party.

Furthermore, I want to make the admission to-day that this dispensation could probably have continued to exist for a considerable time if matters had taken their normal course, but certain events occurred of which the Leader of the Opposition is fully aware. There were disturbances. The present dispensation was upset through the actions of these people, firstly because the United Party allowed the hon. member for Karoo to interfere in the Coloured elections with political motives, an example which was followed by the Progressive Party. That upset this dispensation. It meant that this Government had to make a reappraisal of the present dispensation. If the hon. the Leader and his Party and the Progressive Party are to-day shedding tears they have only themselves to blame for our coming forward at this early stage to put an end to the present dispensation.

The hon. member said that we were now severing all links here. The hon. member conveniently forgets that at the right time, after consultation with the Coloureds, an adequate link will be created whereby the Government will learn how the Coloureds feel about their affairs. The hon. member made a point of it and tried to level the reproach at us that we were discriminating against certain Coloured voters who would in any case still have political rights until 1971, in that we were not filling the vacancies. When it suited the hon. member, when it suited his political purpose, when his Party was threatened by the Progressive Party and when it was politically expedient for him, he mustered his Party to vote for discrimination in not filling this vacancy until 1969. A great deal has been said throughout this debate, and by that hon. member as well, about solemn assurances and promises which were made to the Coloureds. The second leg of the hon. member’s argument again deals with this. He said that there had been a betrayal of the Coloureds, by which he meant that certain solemn assurances had been given by this side of the House through the years and that we had not honoured them. Is it fitting for this hon. member and his Party to point a finger at others in this House? Who has given the Coloureds more solemn assurances and promises since 1956 in respect of their political rights and then summarily broken them than the United Party? Every accusation made here by the Opposition I can simply throw back at them. It has been alleged here that the late Dr. Verwoerd and the hon. the Minister of Defence gave certain solemn promises.

Is it true or not?

I want to take you along another course to-day. I want to say to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that since 1910 the Coloureds in this country have slavishly accepted the United Party as their political home. Since 1910 they invariably voted for the United Party and its predecessors at every election, until the latest Provincial Council election. Then the Coloureds suddenly turned their backs on the hon. the Leader’s Party and went to seek their political salvation with the Progressive Party. What drove the Coloureds into the arms of the Progressive Party? Is it not because the Coloured population were deeply disappointed and disillusioned in the United Party in respect of all the promises which had been made to them since 1956 and which were subsequently scandalously broken one after another by the United Party? That is the reason why the Coloureds were driven into the hands of the Progressive Party. It is because they are disappointed and disillusioned in the United Party, on which they placed all their political hope in the past. Can we blame the Coloured population for writing off the United Party Opposition?

Can one accept the word of a political party which opposes this National Party with an argument that it is abolishing the Coloured representatives in this House while certain matters are being discussed in this House which concern the Coloureds and which will not be discussed in the Coloured Council and about which no decision will be taken in this Council; while the United Party has just announced a policy whereby they want to abolish the Coloured representatives in the Provincial Council; while the Coloureds have as much interest in certain matters which are dealt with in the Provincial Council as the Whites of the Cape Province or any other province? The Provincial Council has the sole authority in regard to the health services of the Coloureds in the Cape Province. These health services will not be discussed in their own council. What is the United Party’s argument for wanting to discriminate in this way against the Coloureds? Must we accept it as being political opportunism? Must we accept that the Coloured representatives in the Cape Provincial Council should be abolished merely because they are two members of the Progressive Party and not two members of the United Party? How can one accept the word and the political integrity of a political party which acts so inconsistently.

Everything said here lately may be said, but two things we cannot get away from. Two basic facts are as plain as a pikestaff. Even the United Party ought to concede these to us. The first is that the National Party has always adopted the attitude that the present political dispensation could not be the culmination of the political rights of the Coloureds. We have always admitted that. We admitted it to the malicious delight of the Opposition, which taunted us in this House and elsewhere from time to time and which contrasted our policy in respect of the Coloureds with our Bantu policy, which has been mapped out far into the future. We admitted that the present political dispensation was not the omega as far as the Coloureds’ political rights in this country were concerned.

The second point which is very clear is this. The National Party’s point of departure in respect of the extension of the political rights of the Coloureds was always in a direction away from political integration. That is the direction in which we moved when we placed the Coloureds on a separate voters’ roll. That is the direction in which we moved when we established the Coloured Representative Council. We are now moving in the same direction by severing this last link of political integration. While saying and doing this, we again admit that what we are now doing is not the omega of the Coloureds’ political rights in South Africa. But in taking this step we are remaining true to the basis of our Party’s policy of separate development in every sphere, including the political sphere.

We sincerely believe that what we are doing to-day is for the good of the Coloured people, for whom we are acting as guardians in this country. We believe that this is the road along which we should lead them for the present, and what is to happen later the future will show us. With this legislation we are standing on the threshold of a new political dispensation in South Africa, a dispensation which, when it comes into operation at the expiry of the term of this House, will for the first time bring about the position in South Africa that each race group in this country will be allotted its own political institution. Admittedly they will be political institutions which will not be equal in power, but they will offer sufficient scope for everyone to practise his own politics and to pursue his own political ideals which will be beneficial to his own population group.

This new dispensation will therefore make it possible for the Whites to have for the first time in history a parliament the members of which will be elected by Whites only, a parliament which will be free of any form of political integration. For the Coloureds it will mean the end of a dispensation in which a small number of Coloureds for many years shared political rights with the Whites and always were the political camp-followers of White politicians and always got the shortest end of the stick. It has been a dispensation which embodied a great element of frustration, disappointment and humiliation for many Coloureds as human beings, because since 1910 they have never been considered good enough as persons by any Government to sit in this House. Their vote was good enough for this House, but their persons were never good enough.

We are coming to the end of a dispensation in which the Coloureds had a semblance of political power which was never anything but a semblance. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said that with this legislation we were depriving ourselves of the privilege of hearing the voice of two million people in this country. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also put it very clearly in one of the points he mentioned. We have never been able to hear the voice of the Coloureds through the medium of these representatives. I say that it was a semblance of political power, and I say it because the Whites and the white political parties which through the years applied the Coloured vote for their own purposes, dealt so unilaterally and autocratically with it that the Coloureds merely became a passive political football. The best evidence in support of this statement of mine is the evidence of the hon. member for Outeniqua before the commission by way of his memorandum and his oral evidence. The hon. member for Outeniqua knows the United Party. The hon. member was an organizer of the United Party. He was the personal secretary and confidant of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in his constituency. He knows more about the relationships between the Coloureds and the United Party than any hon. member on that side of the House. The hon. member for Outeniqua said in evidence before this commission that, firstly, at each election the United Party, without consulting the Coloureds at all, simply foisted white candidates upon them. It was done quite unilaterally. The voice of these people was never heard. When they wanted to make their voice heard, when there were movements among the Coloureds to put forward white candidates for nomination, they were ruthlessly treated by the United Party, slighted and disregarded. Secondly, the hon. member said in evidence that his connection with the United Party made it virtually impossible for him to make the voice of his constituents heard in this House. He was so ruthlessly subjected to the caucus whip of the United Party that it became impossible for him to make the voice of his people heard in this House, so much so that he could no longer endure it within that party. What can be said of this hon. member, can just as well be said of other hon. members who sat in this House from time to time. [Interjections.] Although some of these hon. members sat here as independents, all of them were members of the United Party, all came here on the ticket of the United Party. They all sat here by the grace of the United Party. The hon. members could never free themselves from the United Party. Even the hon. member for Peninsula, who has many virtues, cannot free himself from the pressures of the United Party. On account of political expediency, owing to their connection with the United Party, these people, who represented the semblance of power which the Coloureds had, could not act on behalf of that national group in this House. Furthermore, because of the set-up, which was beyond the control of these hon. members, it was simply impossible for them to make the voice of these people properly heard here, because the constituencies were so extensive that the members could not make proper contact. Therefore I can state here to-day that because of the fact that the hon. members were not asked and nominated by the Coloureds to represent them here, the fact that owing to circumstances they did not have contact with their voters and therefore could not speak for them here, and the further fact that they were only four in a Parliament of 170 and could exercise no political influence, they were useless instruments, simply political white elephants in an obsolete system.

With this legislation we are coming to the end of an obsolete political dispensation for the Coloureds and we are substituting for it a more practical, effective political instrument, namely the Coloured Persons’ Representative Council. I say that we are coming to the end of a dispensation which afforded the Coloured little opportunity to develop his own political thought, to realize himself politically and to make himself felt in his own field in the interest and to the benefit of his own people. This is bringing us to the end of a dispensation which meant a large measure of disappointment and resentment for the Coloured leaders. I want to read to you what the chairman of the Coloured Advisory Board, Mr. Tom Schwartz, said in respect of the dispensation which is being terminated by this legislation to-day. He said—

The policy of the partial integration of the Coloured people which has been followed in this country for many years, has failed to bring the Coloured people any substantial benefits. It does not matter where you examine it—in the political field or on the civic level. The Coloured people were mostly treated as poor relations who were always kept in the background.

[Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, if you throw a stone into a bush, and the dog whines, you know that you have struck it. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition asserted that we were taking this step in spite of the weight of the evidence. This assertion was already dealt with very thoroughly on a previous occasion, and although I do not want to indulge in repetition, I nevertheless merely want to state three facts. I venture to say that with this legislation we are giving expression to the feelings of the majority of the organized Coloured political parties in this country. Although none of them put it like this in their memoranda, they made it clear in no uncertain manner that they expected this commission to recommend that the Coloured Representatives be removed from this House. They further made it clear that they would not shed any tears if this were in fact done, because these representatives were of no use to them and were often a source of embarrassment to the Coloureds. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, if only the hon. member would stand up and say what he wants to say, properly, instead of carrying on here like a chatterbox …

Did the Coloureds not ask for their own Coloured representatives to represent them in this House of Assembly?

One Coloured political party did ask for it. I am speaking of the majority, the preponderent majority. [Interjections.] After all, hon. members of the Opposition want to know what the weight of the evidence was. Well, I am dealing with it. The weight of the evidence furthermore proves that the Coloured population regards the present Coloured Representatives in this House as representing the Coloureds for a transition period only. They believe that when the Coloured Council eventually comes into being, that council itself would ask that these people be removed. This is clear from the evidence. Nor is this the first time that this idea has come forward. As far back as 1963 it was the subject of debate in the present Coloured Advisory Board. This debate followed upon the introduction of a motion by a very prominent member of the board and a personal friend of the hon. member for Karoo—board member Kemm of Kimberley. His motion was widely discussed at the time. Therefore I say that this is not the first time that the organized Coloureds have expressed this idea.

We are taking this step because we know that the new dispensation will open new doors to the Coloured population. In the past it had only a semblance of political power. Now, for the first time in the history of South Africa, it is receiving real and effective political power and say in connection with certain matters concerning its own group. Admittedly these powers and this say are as yet limited to a defined field, but it should be pointed out that the Coloureds are receiving these powers and this say in specifically those matters which are of extreme importance to them in their daily lives, in their daily weal and woe, also for their socio-economic upliftment. This legislation incorporates the possibility that the proposed Coloured Council will be able to receive additional powers from time to time—in proportion as the Coloureds are ready and ripe to take over such additional powers. For the first time the door is being opened for Coloured leaders to come to the fore. We have seen how this national group has already produced leaders, leaders who have made their mark on the basis of separate development; in all other spheres—in the ecclesiastical, educational, cultural and sporting spheres. In these fields the Coloureds have already produced leaders, leaders who have made their mark and have risen above their people. In the political field, however, this has not yet happened. But now, for the first time, this national group will also get the opportunity to produce leaders in the political field instead of the frustrated political agitators we have had in the past. What is also of the greatest importance, and as such I cannot over-emphasize it, is that on the basis of this beginning, it is being brought within the power of the Coloureds themselves to plan their own future place in politics in collaboration with the white rulers of this country. In contrast with that their political fate in the past was determined by the Whites alone. This parallel development in the political field, a development in which the Coloureds are now also going to share, places the Coloureds, as someone expressed it so aptly years ago, outside the political danger zone. In addition it makes the Whites feel themselves free to work more readily than in the past for the upliftment of this population group. It makes it easier for the white rulers of this country gradually to transfer more and more powers to the Coloureds, because the position of the Whites can no longer be endangered by this. At the same time it enables the Coloureds to exert themselves politically in the interests of their own population group. In brief, this step opens new horizons to the Coloureds; fields are being opened to them which the masses could never enter in the past. This has always been the privilege of only a small group. I say that this step opens new fields for them to enter. Under a policy of integration this would never be possible. Opportunities are now being created for them which they would never get under the policies of the Progressive Party and the United Party. This new dispensation will, as Mr. Fortuin once said, enable the Coloured to make his own socio-economic bed and to sleep under his own political blanket.

With this legislation we are to-day creating a new dispensation for the Coloureds. We are doing this with a clear conscience because we have never sought to derive political advantage from the Coloured vote; we have never abused the Coloured vote and we have never tried to ride into Parliament on the backs of the Coloured voters; we never made election promises to them. On the contrary, the National Party has always dealt fairly with the Coloureds and has thereby won their respect and esteem. This will be the position in future as well.

I have only a limited time at my disposal in this debate and, consequently, I do not intend wasting very much of that by becoming involved in a political argument with the hon. member for Parow. However, I feel I must deal with one matter raised by him in the course of his lengthy address in this third-reading debate. I was amazed to hear from him that one of his justifications for this Bill is the fact that since 1910, so he alleges, the Coloured people had supported the United Party and “had found themselves at home with the United Party”, to use his own words.

Thereafter, he went on to say, they stopped supporting the United Party and then proceeded to support the Progressive Party. In effect the argument advanced by the hon. member for Parow means that if the Coloured people had chosen to support the Nationalist Party and not the United Party or the Progressive Party, this Bill would never have seen the light of day. That, in effect, is the argument raised by the hon. member for Parow. If that is correct, then I think we have reached a disgraceful state of affairs. When the Coloured people, in exercising their democratic rights as citizens of this country, decide to vote for a party or for an individual of their own choice, they are precluded from doing that under the threat of abolishing their democratic rights. But if they were to support the Nationalist Party, then this Bill would never have been introduced. Sir, I think the country and the world will be shocked to hear an argument such as that advanced here by the hon. member for Parow.

Sir, I wish to record my final protest against the passing of this Bill, and particularly against the main effect of the Bill, which is the abolition of Coloured representation in this sovereign Parliament of their own country. Nothing has been said on the Government side either in the second-reading debate or in the committee stage or indeed by the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, which has made me change my mind in regard to this measure. No justification whatsoever—I repeat, no justification whatsoever—has been submitted to this House for abolishing a form of representation in Parliament which the Cape Coloured people have enjoyed in this country for over a century, or for breaking the pledged word of the white leaders of the nation, repeatedly given to our Coloured citizens over these many years. I say that this Bill —and I say this despite what the hon. member for Parow and others on the Government side have said—is in defiance of the overwhelming representations which were made to the Muller Commission for the Coloureds to retain some voice in our central Parliament. The only reason advanced by the Government for this Bill is that it has now found a new solution for our Coloured people. Sir, the hon. the Prime Minister himself indicated during the course of one of these debates that the Government would not have embarked on the step of abolishing Coloured representation in Parliament unless it had some other solution, to use his own words, to give them something in place of the rights which they were losing. This is the hon. the Prime Minister’s reason for the Bill we are discussing this afternoon.

That solution, Sir, was the expansion of the Coloured Persons Representative Council, with authority to deal with limited matters affecting their own people. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition has put to the House very succinctly this afternoon what limited powers this enlarged Coloured Representative Council will have. I say that this so-called solution, this Coloured Peoples Representative Council, enlarged as it is going to be in accordance with Government planning, can in no way be regarded as being equivalent to a voice for the Coloured people in the central Parliament of their own country, and the Government knows this. The proposed Coloured Council can in no circumstances compensate the Coloured people for losing some say in the sovereign Parliament of their own country. Sir, the establishment of this alternative form presupposes that our Coloured people are a separate and separable racial group and that as such they are to have completely separate political arrangements. That is really the basis of this whole approach. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Randfontein acknowledges that that is the basis.

Is that your main objection to it?

No, it is not my main objection, for the reasons that I am giving now. I am glad though that the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Randfontein acknowledge that this new solution presupposes that our Coloured people are a separate and separable racial group and that as such they are to have completely separate political arrangements. Sir, I say that that in effect puts the Coloureds in the same category as the Bantu in this country. But there is a great distinction the Government has overlooked. In the case of the Bantu, as has been said so often here, they have their own homelands; they can proceed to develop their political rights until perhaps one day, who knows, they may have parliaments of their own.

Yes, and they may fly to the moon.

The Coloured people, unlike the Bantu, have no homelands of their own. Their homelands are inter-mixed with the homelands of the white people of this country. Their way of living, their languages and their religions are all ours. They are the only westernized section of the population in South Africa who could be likened to the white people of South Africa. Sir, these facts that I have mentioned this afternoon including the fact that you cannot separate the Coloureds from the Whites and put them into a water-tight compartment as the Government intends doing under this Bill, was acknowledged and admitted by the white leaders of the nation over many years. We have heard here time and again of public assurances given in the nature of solemn pledges by our national leaders, by men like the late Gen. Smuts. Gen. Hertzog, Dr. Malan, Mr. Strijdom, Mr. Havenga, and Dr. Verwoerd, all now of revered memory. Those assurances were given by them repeatedly to the Coloured people and to the country and to the world at large that come what may the Coloureds would always have some voice in the highest forum in their own land. Let me deal with the departed first. I say that these men would turn in their graves if they knew how these solemn undertakings and solemn pledges have been broken and repudiated. But, Sir, what of the assurances given by living members of the Government, by present Cabinet Ministers? The hon. the Leader of the Opposition this afternoon has quoted assurances given by members of the present Government to the Coloured people and to the world at large that their political rights, in so far as representation in this sovereign Parliament of South Africa is concerned, would not be abolished. What about those solemn promises? What faith can we expect the Coloured people to have in any future promises and assurances given to them by the white leaders of our nation? I agree with the statement made here by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that the Coloured people will regard this Bill as an unjustified diminution of their meagre political rights. Many of them have already indicated this, but out of sheer frustration they are not taking any action at the present moment. They regard this as an unjustified diminution of the meagre rights they still have left in this country. I agree with what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has said, namely that this measure can only have the effect of further alienating our Coloured citizens from the white people of South Africa. It can only have that effect; it cannot bring them closer together. It can only have the effect of alienating them more from their fellow white citizens. I am sure that as time goes on the Coloured people will more and more resent the steps which have been taken against them by this Government in depriving them of some form of representation in their own Parliament. They will regard this Bill as a betrayal of their rights as citizens of South Africa.

Sir, as I have said, I have a limited time and I wish to give others an opportunity of taking part in this short debate, but I want to conclude by saying that for my part I regard this Bill as a retrogressive one and as inflicting a great injustice upon our Coloured citizens and I record my emphatic protest against the passage of this Bill.

The hon. member for Peninsula who has just resumed his seat tried to make us believe that the Coloured population group as such is supposedly not a separate population group, which should be developed separately, and his entire argument is based on the idea that this population group, because it is so close to the Western civilization in respect of language, culture, traditions and religion, should be brought closer to the Whites. Now what I want to say to the hon. member is simply this. One’s choice is very clear and simple. One either accepts that one has in South Africa one nation, with one fatherland and one loyalty, as the United Party feels. In that case this Parliament becomes the political home of each one of those population groups. Then each one realizes itself fully here, and if one believes in democracy, one must eventually bow to government by the majority. That is the one alternative. No artificial measures or “checks and balances” will ever prevent the majority from ultimately governing if one gives all the population groups in one fatherland the same political rights, for if that were not so democracy would no longer be a democracy. That is the one choice. The other one is that you say that you regard this as a union of a multi-national community, in which various nations exist, and where one gives each nation its own territory and its own development according to its own ability. Then this is the political home and the political realization of the ideals of the Whites and of the Whites only, and then there is no place in this Parliament for any other population group, Bantu, Indian or Coloured.

It is as clear as daylight, and that is why we have chosen to follow this course. I am not impressed by the hon. member’s standpoint in regard to the language of these people. I reject completely the idea that the Coloureds must be regarded as brown Afrikaners. There is no such concept. The fact that they use the Afrikaans language or belong to the same creed makes no difference at all. The Germans and the Austrians speak the same language and share the same religious beliefs, but they are most certainly not one nation. The English-speaking people in Britain and in New Zealand, and in Australia or Canada are not one nation, although they speak one language. Let us reject at once this make-believe story that the Coloureds are brown Afrikaners. The Coloureds are a nation on their own, and they must be led in that direction. The Opposition can argue until they are blue in the face, but these are the facts.

When a hurdler tackles the 110 meters hurdles, he does not start off and keep his eye on the last hurdle he has to jump. He takes each hurdle as he gets to it. If he were to keep his eye on the last hurdle from the start, he would stumble over the first. That is why all Governments in this country have adopted the attitude that they will cope with each problem and overcome it step for step as things develop. I want to state at once that here we have two opposing points of departure. We have the points of departure of the United Party and all of those who are inclined to the left, such as the Progressive Party, the Liberal Party and the Communist Party. Their standpoint is very clear, as I stated a moment ago. We have one fatherland here for all, and whether the tree which grows out of that soil has other leaves from time to time does not make any difference because it bears the same fruit every time, i.e. the fruit of ultimate total integration. This must be the case, because a fruit tree must be true to its origins. It is as clear as daylight, and this is how the United Party and all the other leftist parties have consistently viewed the colour question, whether in regard to the Bantu, the Coloureds or the Indians, i.e. that they are gradually working, step for step, in the direction of ultimate total integration. Nobody wants to have it immediately, but in their field as well, they are clearing each hurdle as they come to it. At the outset now they only want six representatives here, and a few in the Other Place. That is the first hurdle. The second hurdle is to increase that number here, and ultimately they must be Coloureds, and later on Bantu must sit here. They are clearing one hurdle after another, and when they clear the last hurdle on their way to integration, then one will have an integrated Parliament and one beautiful fatherland for all in which the majority will have to govern; otherwise democracy is not worth the paper on which it is written down. That is the one direction.

The other direction is equally clear. That is the direction which the National Party chose from the beginning and in its field as well it has also cleared one hurdle after another. Initially it began by saying “We will first separate the races from one another”. I want to state clearly that before 1929 the National Party had paid so much attention to what was at that time the predominating question, namely the Bantu question, that the leaders before 1929, Dr. Malan and General Hertzog, were prepared to regard the Coloureds as an ally of the Whites against the Bantu. History makes this quite clear; it becomes apparent from numerous speeches. They reached the stage where the line could be drawn, politically at least, according to the standpoint Bantu against non-Bantu. In those years the situation gradually developed where they even wanted to expand the Coloured vote to the north, and to the Coloured women. But it was very clear that they began by unraveling the intertwined ethnic groups, and that in the process they recognized in the first place that the Bantu, with their weight of numbers, would create problems, and that is why they wanted to range the Coloureds on their side, if that was practicable. That was the first hurdle they overcame. [Interjection.] No, hon. members must not interrupt me now. This was followed by the next step. At the election in 1929 it became very apparent, and I can quote from Hansard to prove this, that the Coloureds did not intend to choose the standpoint of the Whites. I am not talking about the National Party, but about the white man. A man such as the Coloured leader, Dr. Abdurahman, stated very clearly at that time that they would never leave the Bantu in the lurch. That was a clear sign and it caused the National Party leaders of that time to say: We are handling the matter incorrectly. The next steps followed upon that.

That hurdle was cleared, and then the next one presented itself. On 1st October, 1931, the following resolution was rejected by the Congress of the Cape National Party at the Congress at Kimberley: “The Congress is of the opinion that the time has come for the Coloureds to be granted separate representation in the House of Assembly, and in the Provincial Council”. But during this period of searching for a standpoint to adopt the light slowly began to dawn, and only a year later, in 1932, the following resolution was adopted by the National Party Congress at Stellenbosch: “The Congress requests the Joint Parliamentary Committee for Native Legislation, and in the last instance the Government, to give serious consideration to the desirability of separate constituencies for both Whites and Coloureds, as distinguished from Natives”. Here is the clear dividing line. Here the cries of the past for increased franchise for the Coloureds and the extension of the Coloured franchise to the north, all came to an end. Here the standpoint of White against non-White, and not that of Bantu against non-Bantu, was adopted. This was the turning point. But not only that. In the Free State as well, while General Hertzog was Prime Minister and present at the Congress, a resolution was adopted on 21st October, 1932: “The Congress is of the opinion that the Native legislation of General Hertzog should make provision for separate constituencies for Coloureds, but that they should be represented in Parliament by white representatives”. The road is clear. The Coloureds are now being separated from the Whites. They are to receive separate constituencies and are to be represented separately here by Whites. The first hurdle has been overcome, and now the party is proceeding to the next hurdle in its way.

As far back as 1938 we already had an election manifesto of the Re-united (Herenigde) National Party with the late Dr. Malan as leader, which provided as follows: “In addition the party envisages the logical application of the segregation principle in regard to all non-Whites as being in the best interests of Whites and non-Whites, and undertakes accordingly to introduce legislation for separate representation of enfranchised Coloureds in our legislative bodies.” Once again it was provided that the Coloureds would now have to be separate in our legislative bodies. But the standpoint of the National Party has been very clearly formulated. Its victory 20 years ago, in the election of 1948, came as a result of its unequivocal standpoint. Do you know, Sir, what the standpoint of the National Party was with which it received a mandate in 1948 from the voters to take over the Government? Have you ever read the manifesto of the 1948 election?

That was when you wanted to repatriate the Indians.

I am not talking to the hon. Indian for Hillbrow; I am now talking to the people who … [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, is the hon. member permitted to call the hon. member for Hillbrow the “hon. Indian from Hillbrow”?

Order! Did the hon. member call the hon. member for Hillbrow an Indian?

If I called him an Indian, then I withdraw it. I did not intend to call him an Indian. I actually meant to say “the hon. Indian-possessed member”, because that is what he is. That is what I really meant. For we are now discussing Coloured affairs, not Indians. It was his party, not mine, who gave the Indians the franchise in 1946.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member quite clearly referred to my friend as “the hon. Indian from Hillbrow”. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Randfontein may proceed.

In 1947 the Sauer Commission, on instructions from the National Party, instituted an investigation into the entire Colour question. The following persons were members of the commission: Mr. P. O. Sauer (chairman), Mr. M. D. C. de Wet Nel, Professor Dr. Gerdener, Dr. E. G. Jansen and Mr. J. J. Serfontein. They were all men who played a very important part in politics and in public life. Section D of their report dealt specifically with the Coloureds, and I shall read out a few points from that report. One can see how far-sighted those people were as far back as 1947, and in what light they at that time viewed the Colour problem. We are still carrying these proposals, made at that time, into effect to-day. Point No. 8 of their report dealt with a government department for Coloureds, and read as follows (translation)—

This was recommended by this commission as far back as 1947. Such a department was subsequently established. Point No. 9 read as follows (translation)—

In those days such a body was already being envisaged, although in a limited sphere. It was not the intention to expand it to the North. It would operate in a restricted sphere, specifically for the Cape. Point No. 10 read as follows (translation)—

The following was point No. 11 (translation)—

It would be quite limited. Then point No. 12 (translation)—

They proposed that the common voters’ roll would have to be abolished. Now I want specifically to read out what point No. 13, i.e. “Representation in Parliament” was. Listen carefully now to what the Commission recommended as far back as 1947 (translation)—

That was our attitude in 1947. They cleared the hurdle as they saw fit to do so at that time. We now have a set of entirely new circumstances. I am not concerned about the hon. member’s argument at all. At that time already it was very clearly stated that the Coloured Representatives would only have a seat in this House because one could not give the Coloureds different or poorer treatment than the Bantu, because in those days the Bantu still had representatives here. As long as the Native Representatives still had a seat here, we could not give the Coloureds anything less, and that is why it was our standpoint that the Coloured Representatives were provisionally to remain in this House. However, they were not, as the hon. members desired, to be elected by the Coloured voters, but by the Coloured Persons’ Representative Council, acting as an electoral college. Those were the recommendations of that commission. I can quote further from the report, but I am not taking this matter any further. I only want to mention that it was also recommended that a restriction be placed on those Coloured Representatives. The three representatives sitting here would, according to that commission, not have been able to vote on the following matters. They would not have been able to vote on a motion of confidence or no confidence in the Government, on a declaration of war, or on matters affecting the extension of the franchise of non-Whites. In other words, they were, according to this recommendation, not unrestricted, full-fledged members of this House. They were people who were confined to the interests of their own people and they were specifically excluded from these three spheres. They would have no say in regard to these three spheres.

That was the policy of the National Party at that stage. That policy was embodied in an election manifesto in 1948. On that manifesto this party came into power. The voting public of South Africa subscribed to this programme in 1948, as they saw it at the time. We have continued to build on that programme, have cleared that hurdle and have subsequently progressed to the next one.

I now want to come to the hon. members who are continually reproaching us with supposedly having broken faith with those people. They say we promised the Coloureds certain things, and that we have not fulfilled our promises. I now want to state categorically that a nation is not an inanimate body. A nation develops and grows from day to day. One cannot lay down anything which will remain fixed and unaltered for all time. Nobody can, and nobody will, do a thing like that. One must determine one’s direction, and one must move in that direction, step by step as it develops further. Our direction has been laid down so clearly that we have no doubts concerning it at all. On the contrary, if hon. members opposite can prove to me that we have deviated from that direction, that we have gone off course, then I would admit that they had a case. But what we are doing here to-day and what we will still do in the future will merely be further steps in the same direction, which was mapped out from the very beginning. Each leader, as he came forward, did what he had to do in the circumstances then prevailing. The next leader comes forward, his circumstances are different, and he can go further. But the road and the course they follow are absolutely the same. The same can also be said of the United Party. Former party leaders have never had sufficient courage to say that the Coloureds would be represented here by Coloureds. But this hon. Leader has seen his way clear to doing that. He has progressed further on the road to integration. He has taken the next step. He has seen his way clear to doing that. Those who come after him, will be prepared, if their course is to proceed in this way, to go further and to afford representation here according to numbers. The cry has already been raised by them that there should not be merely ten, or a few representatives for those people here. They maintain that the number of representatives should be determined according to the numbers. They are therefore doing precisely the same thing. That is why I say that we are going further along the road we have adopted, and each Prime Minister is going further, step by step. I want to state at once that we need have no doubts concerning these standpoints. Advocate Strijdom, as Prime Minister, proceeded unyieldingly. Eventually he went so far as to enlarge the Senate in order to accomplish legally what he had to accomplish, i.e. to get the Coloureds on to a separate voters roll. He did not even abide by the court’s decision. He had a mandate from the nation, it was the will of the nation, and nothing dared stand in its way, neither the Opposition nor the judiciary. So we can take one leader after the other. I am now coming specifically to Dr. Verwoerd. I am not going to repeat the entire story. It is true that he stated here on one occasion that the Coloured representatives were here and that they would remain here. When he was asked “For how long?” his reply was “Must I say forever?” Now what must one deduce from that?

Read what he said. [Interjections.]

I do not want to cause Dr. Verwoerd any embarrassment now, but in simple Afrikaans it means that nobody can say that this will be the case forever. Nobody can say that. I want to go further and quote from Hansard what Dr. Verwoerd said in this regard. I am quoting from Hansard of 24/1/1961, Vol. 106, col. 89, where Dr. Verwoerd said the following—

That is the language Dr. Verwoerd used in those circumstances. That is not all I want to quote. I also want to quote Dr. Verwoerd in another field, namely when he was discussing this matter on 10th April, 1961, when he gave an over-all picture of how he viewed the entire situation. I am quoting from Hansard, Vol. 107, col. 4191—

We began with that, with local governments—

That is the legislation we now have in mind. They are going to be given control over education; they are going to be given welfare services; they are going to be given local government, etc., according to this legislation now before us. They are going to have control over all those matters. That is the next step. I quote further from what he said as far back as 1961—

In those days he had already envisaged what we would now be doing here. He stated further—

He stated that “a method should be evolved”. That hurdle still lay ahead, he did not want to try and clear it at that time. He cleared the hurdle in front of him. But he saw that he would be confronted by a hurdle, and he stated it in this way, that “a method would have to be evolved to give the Coloureds further rights of self-government over their national interests. The time to decide precisely how and in regard to what this must be done can wait until the development has progressed to that stage”. Where can you find a clearer statement that the matter had not yet been finalized, and that he left it to future Ministers to act judiciously when they reached those problems, in the light of prevailing circumstances, but always along the same course? This is the course of further separation, the recognition of each nation as an identity on its own. I also want to quote what the former Minister of Coloured Affairs, Mr. P. W. Botha, said. He discussed these matters very clearly. I am quoting from Hansard of 10th April, 1964, col. 3996—

Where can one find it stated more clearly than this? The course is the same. The course has not been deviated from in the slightest. The course remains completely steadfast.

But I want to go further. We are now discussing the abolition of the representatives here. The hon. member for Durban (North) envisaged it for us. He not only envisaged it, he also recommended it to us on a former occasion. On 15th April, 1964, when we were discussing the powers which are being given to the Coloured Persons Representative Council, he said something which I shall quote in a moment. He referred to the Coloured Council. First of all he said that they would have no powers, and that they would be granted no authority. He stated that they were an emasculated debating chamber, and a lot of other things. To strengthen his argument he referred to the representatives in this House. Then he said, col. 4260—

He asked what their function was going to be. In other words, he asked why we wanted to have those people here. The Coloured Persons’ Council is there which will Have all the powers. What will then become of these people? Why must they be here? The implication is that they may as well be abolished.

I shall reply to that.

Yes, the hon. member has to reply to that, because he is not the only hon. member who said it. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also envisaged this for us. Referring to the powers of the Coloured Council in the same debate on 30th April, 1964, col. 5230, he said the following—

He then went further. He stated that the Executive Committee of the Coloured Council would also have access to the Minister in the same way as these members have direct access to the Minister. He stated it very clearly, as a practical politician would, col. 5232—

The hon. Leader of the Opposition indicated to us the inevitable conflict, but now they have not yet adopted an attitude in regard to the other Bill which the hon. Minister for Coloured Affairs has introduced. We are curious to know whether they are going to accept that Council. In the light of their attitude towards this Bill they may not support that Bill. They dare not support it. One after the other they told us that if we gave the Coloured Persons’ Representative Council increased powers, and developed it further, then it would inevitably lead to a clash between that Council and this House. The hon. members of the Opposition are now asking us to retain these members. Since they are asking us to retain them they must be honest and consistent and also ask that no more powers be conferred upon the Coloured Persons’ Council, because they would then be causing a conflict between these two bodies. If they want to be consistent therefore they must oppose this Bill, and the other one as well. They must oppose this Bill and state that these people should be retained, but they must also oppose the other one and state that they wanted to keep these people here. Consequently the powers of the Coloured Persons’ Council must not be expanded, because that will cause a conflict between the Coloured Persons’ Council and the Coloured Representatives in this House. That is as logical as anything could be.

I want to go further and state that every Minister has seen his way clear to overcoming the hurdle which confronted him. I have quoted and made very clear Dr. Verwoerd’s standpoint in regard to this matter, i.e. as Dr. Verwoerd saw the position at that stage he had no intention at that stage of abolishing the Coloured Representatives in this House. He made a statement to this effect, but he did not bind himself perpetually to that. I made two other quotations from which it became quite apparent that he had stated that that was not the last word in this matter. It would continually have to be reconsidered in the light of circumstances as they presented themselves. We then found ourselves with a new Prime Minister and a new dispensation, and what standpoint did the present Prime Minister adopt right at the outset of his premiership? He was elected on 13th September, 1966, and on 22nd September, nine days afterwards, he was asked by the Leader of the Opposition in this House what his standpoint in respect of the Coloureds was. This was the standpoint of our present Prime Minister in regard to the Coloureds at that stage, col. 2657—

In addition he stated very clearly—

There we also have, stated very clearly, the course of the hon. the Prime Minister, who has indicated that we are dealing with a situation which is continually changing and that in this sphere he is indicating a course removed from the Whites. That is precisely what we are now doing. Subsequently the commission of inquiry was appointed. That commission heard evidence and brought out a report. The majority on that commission stated that the Coloureds preferred, in the first place, that the Coloured Persons Council should be developed as a council. That Coloured Persons Council is going to come into conflict with the present Coloured Representatives; we therefore have no alternative but to abolish the present Representatives. It is on that basis that we are now clearing the next hurdle.

There is still one hurdle which lies ahead for us. That is the question which members are continually putting to us. Where are you going with this Coloured policy? I want to state very clearly now that we will clear that hurdle when we come to it. In the same way as we would not, 20 years ago, have been so foolish as to have said how we were going to clear this hurdle, so we cannot state to-day what we will do then. But the road is very clear. The road has been mapped out and we believe that each race will develop in its own political sphere. The door has not been closed to a political as well as a geographical home for the Coloureds when the time for that arrives.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Randfontein quoted something that my hon. Leader and I had said in the debate on the Coloured Representative Council Bill in 1964. What the hon. member forgets, is that we were trying to find out what the Government in fact had in mind at the time in relation to the Coloured Representatives, and right through the piece the Government was questioned on the subject as to what they had in mind. Indeed there were some hon. members on this side who did not believe the assurances that were given about continued Coloured representation here, because of the pattern that at that time had developed, where all representation in this House by any other race groups had already disappeared. So it was that we pressed for assurances. I want to remind the hon. member of this. I am sorry that the hon. member chose to quote the Minister of Defence in this debate, as if he were a person whose word meant anything at all when assurances were given. It is a pity he did that, because during that very debate the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said to the Minister of Defence, then the Minister of Coloured Affairs—

Could this be more clear, “a permanent part”?—

To that the then hon. Minister of Coloured Affairs replied: “I give it now.” Nothing could be clearer than that. But more than that …

You did not support the Bill.

That is not the point. The hon. the Minister gave his solemn assurance that the Coloured representation here would be “a permanent part”. Then, worse than that, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout then asked the hon. the Prime Minister, the late Dr. Verwoerd—

To that the hon. the Prime Minister replied: “I have already said it here.” And then, so that there would be no doubt about if whatever, when the then hon. Minister of Coloured Affairs replied to the debate, he said—

[Interjections.] Of course. It runs counter to everything the hon. member for Randfontein has in fact said. But if we are going to quote, and we are all going to be men of honour, let me quote from a speech by another hon. Deputy Minister, which was made after the present hon. Prime Minister became Prime Minister. It was on 29th March, 1968, and it is the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education. I am indebted to my bench-mate for pointing this out to me. He went to Klerksdorp in the place of the Minister to speak on the occasion of the induction of the first Bantu magistrate. He said—

It is a remarkable event that that speech was made on 29th March, and the disgraceful performance of the hon. the Minister in this House was on the day before.

What does it prove?

It proves that the word of this Government can no longer be regarded as worth anything at all. The hon. member asked a question and then he runs away. He knows what the answer is. Let me say to this hon. member and to the hon. member for Randfontein, who spoke so piously about Coloured rights, about what this Government is going to do, and all about this new deal they have introduced. If he really believes that Coloureds believe that and if he is prepared to say that the evidence of the Commission was that they wanted this, I suggest to hon. members that, when this Bill goes to the Other Place they should amend clause 3 and make a provision for the filling of vacancies. Then they, as the Nationalist Party, can fight the seat of the late Mr. Tossie Barnett on that deal. That would be fair. If they could win it, they would have some ground upon which they might say that the Coloured people accept this position.

The hon. member talked about a “veelvolkige gemeenskap”. We were all present today and heard the State President’s speech. I distinctly heard the State President saying both in English and in Afrikaans that we were a multi-racial nation.

For the time being. [Interjections.]

As regards the State President I do not want to ask the hon. member whether he has had a private discussion about this matter. [Interjections.] How can the hon. member for Randfontein pretend that the State President said something else? This is as bad as what happened with the hon. the Minister of Defence, if not even worse. I do want to say also, so far as all these wonderful thoughts are concerned, and these “skeidings” that we are going to have, that I was also very impressed to-day with the impressive ceremony, by seeing, lining the streets, Coloured troops with guns.

But only for the time being.

If we are as the hon. the State President said—and he is quite right—a multi-racial country, then this Bill is not going to help us govern such a country. The hon. member talks about a mandate. When did they last have a mandate? The last time they had a mandate was in 1966. In 1966 there was an election.

Order! The hon. member should not refer to anything that happened in connection with the State President’s inauguration. [Interjections.]

You are making deductions from the State President’s address which are absolutely untrue and unfounded.

What is untrue?

Your deductions from the State President’s address. It is scandalous.

Nonsense. The hon. the Minister talks about …

Order!

On a point of order, Sir, the Minister of the Interior now says that there was a “skandalige” statement made here.

The deductions are scandalous.

Yesterday it was ruled by Mr. Speaker that the word “scandalous” could not be used if applied to a member’s speech. I ask you to ask the Minister to withdraw that statement, Sir.

Will the hon. the Minister withdraw the word “scandalous”?

If that is the ruling, I withdraw that word.

The hon. member for Randfontein talks about a mandate. But when last did they get a mandate? In 1966 they last had a mandate, but what was the nature of that mandate? There was a solemn assurance by the Leader of the Nationalist Party that the Coloured representation in this House would be a permanent part of the political future they had in mind for the Coloureds. [Interjections.]

But I want to come to another point. I raised this point before but this is the first opportunity I have of dealing with the Minister’s reply thereto. This concerns section 29 (2) (b) of our Constitution—for which Constitution, I appreciate, this Government has very little regard. This particular section provides—

I asked the Minister what was going to happen to these senators; whether a change was contemplated. His reply was that they were going to remain. They were just nominated senators, he said; Government senators.

What you have quoted from the Constitution refers to the one senator.

Oh no! Mr. Speaker, this is the third time I have explained this but the hon. the Minister is not yet with me. I am definitely not talking about the one senator. Let me tell the hon. the Minister that the one senator he refers to is the senator appointed under the Separate Representation of Voters Act. The appointee of the Government was Senator Olivier. He died about two years ago and has never been replaced and will never be because his office disappears in terms of the Bill now before us. But this part of the Constitution, the part I have quoted, is not repealed by this Bill. This provides that these senators should not only be aware of the interests of the Coloured people but they should be able to serve as “the channel” through which the interests of the Coloured population may be promoted. Well, the hon. the Minister said they are going to remain. Well, if they are going to remain … The Minister went further and said we were going to have new channels …

They do not represent the Coloureds. They are appointed only on account of their knowledge of Coloured affairs. They must be able to serve as a conduit pipe.

Yes—they must be capable of serving as a conduit pipe for the promotion of the interests of the Coloured people in the Senate.

They do not represent the Coloured in the same way as the Coloured Representatives here in the House of Assembly.

Let me point out to the hon. member for Prinshof that these senators are appointed on the understanding that they are capable of promoting the interests of the Coloured people. Well, this is quite contrary to everything the hon. the Minister said —that he wants complete “skeiding” here; that he does not want any Coloured Representatives in Parliament, because he was now going to provide a new parliament for them and, consequently, there was no need for them to be represented here. Furthermore, he said, this was not the place where their interests should be promoted. That place was the parliament they were going to get, he said. But if that is so, then I ask him again, what about the senators? He says they are going to remain. Are they going to be chosen in such a manner that they can serve as the channel, even “a channel”, for the promotion of Coloured interests? We should like to know this. The Government has gone to the trouble of abolishing the one senator appointed in terms of the Separate Representation of Voters Act. But what about these four senators? What is going to happen to them? If the position is what the Minister stated it to be yesterday then this is a most shameful state of affairs, in that the Government never had regard to this particular provision of our Constitution when they appointed these senators. That is what it means —either one or the other: Either a complete anomaly and contrary to the principles enunciated by the Minister under this Bill, or they have been appointing people without having any regard to this particular provision of our Constitution. Therefore, I hope the hon. the Minister is going to get up and tell us what he is going to do.

They are supposed to promote the interests of the Coloured people.

Yes. They are supposed to be not “a” channel but “the” channel for the promotion of the interests of the Coloured people in the Senate. Now the representatives representing the interests of the Coloured people in this House are being removed leaving this provision in our Constitution whereby their interests may be promoted by senators in the Senate. What absolute nonsense is this? Is the real answer not this, that the Government has no regard at all for our Constitution? You know, Sir, the oath taken by the State President to-day lays the obligation upon them to inter alia uphold our Constitution. Well, it is a great pity that members of the Cabinet do not have to take the oath. The hon. the Minister of the Interior has not tried to reply to my point, except to say they were “somaar Government nominees”. Apparently we do not have to worry about them. But we have a Constitution. The Government has taken out of this Constitution several sections—like a hen in a farmyard they peck out all the little bits where reference is made to the Separate Representation of Voters Act. But this part they left. So, we should like to know what the position is. If they are to remain, as the hon. the Minister says, on what basis are they going to remain? And how are they going to promote the interests of the Coloured people when by the Prevention of Improper Interference Bill, a bill which is now also before the House, they are going to be prevented from properly consulting with the Coloureds. This House is in the process of dealing with this Bill, and if it becomes law these senators will not be allowed to go and address the gathering of Coloureds without committing an offence. They would be committing an offence if they addressed a meeting where of the people attending the Coloureds were in the majority.

You can raise that point when that Bill is discussed here.

I have done so already, and we are awaiting the Minister’s reply.

We are not discussing that Bill now. I shall reply to you when that Bill is discussed.

I wonder whether the hon. the Minister has considered this point at all. Here we have a complete anomaly. The Minister said they were going to remain. We should like to know why the Senate should have people to promote the interests of the Coloureds, while in this House, this most important House, they are not going to have the benefit of someone to promote their interests. There is something wrong here and I hope the hon. the Minister is going to explain it.

The Minister as well as other hon. members have spoken about a “growth point”. Well, the Coloured Representatives in this House can never become such a growth point, in the same way as the Native Representatives could never and did never become a growth point.

But surely they can become a political growth point.

No, they cannot become a political growth point, not if one has as one’s philosophy what we have as a philosophy and to which this Government even comes so close sometimes—that is to say, separate councils for the different race groups with those councils having power to take part in government.

I do not take part in government—I am merely part of the consultative process. But they take part in government; they have the civil servants and the courts dealing with those matters which concern them. But this Parliament is the parliament which must govern them all—call it “veelrassige”, “veelvolkige”, or what you like. No matter how you describe it, you must have a parliament to govern them all and that is this Parliament.

May I ask a question? If you have six Coloureds in this House to represent the Coloureds, and that number becomes 12. or 15, will you still say that that is not a political growth point?

I am glad that the hon. member asks that question. It is not a case of “if that number becomes 12 or 15”. They will not become. [Interjections.]

Never? Are you prepared to say “never”?

Let us assume then that the number increases to that extent.

There were three Native Representatives in this House from 1936 to 1959—through a succession of United Party and Nationalist Party governments. The fact of the matter is that this Parliament was not prepared to grant an increase and so those three representatives sat there for 23 years and performed a very useful service inasmuch as they informed this House as to what the feelings of the people they represented were. If they did not represent their feelings here, they would not have been elected, and there were regular elections. Precisely the same applies to those hon. members who are Coloured Representatives here. The growth point is where you can exercise power; where you can take part in government. They are here merely as part of the consultative process; they are here as representatives of their people to tell us, the sovereign Parliament which makes the decisions for them, what their people think of the bills that we pass and of the motions before the House and what their complaints are. In doing that they fulfil a most useful and a most necessary and important function.

And if they do become more?

How can they become more—lay eggs?

Let me ask the hon. member for Primrose a question: Why did the three Native Representatives not become more under the United Party regime? Why did they not become more under the Nationalist Party regime. They sat here for 11 years under a Nationalist Party Government and for a longer time they were here under a United Party Government. May I ask the hon. member why their numbers were not increased? The answer is very simple and that is because this Parliament did not increase their numbers. We go even further than that and we give even more guarantees than that. But this is not the point. Here you find this confusion. How can it be a political growth point? What is their participation in politics here? Surely they are merely here as representatives to say what the feelings of their people are. Let me ask the hon. member whether he considers that I am part of the Government of South Africa?

No.

Of course, I am not. The people who govern the country are the members of the Cabinet, the executive, the Civil Service. We are here to legislate for the country; we are here to criticize and to scrutinize what the executive and the Government does, but my personal function here is purely consultative. What does the hon. member think happens when Parliament goes into recess? Is the country governed or is it not governed? Who governs it then?

That is not the point.

That is exactly the point.

You are not part of the Government.

Sir, there is a confusion of ideas here and this is what is so dangerous. The hon. member for Primrose who is an educated member, even though he went to the wrong university, confuses Government and Parliament and he is confusing consultation with the Government with consultation with Parliament, and they are two different things. I am not part of the Government, but I am a Member of Parliament, and when I make my decisions in this House and exercise my mind, I would like to have the benefit of knowing what the Coloured people think, what the Indian people think and what the Bantu people think because that is very important in exercising my judgment as a Member of Parliament as opposed to a member of the Government. It is very important for me and it is very important for that hon. member too.

May I put a question?

No, I only have about a minute left. The hon. member for Randfontein, talking about Parliament and the attitude of hon. members towards it, said that they were not going to be affected by the courts; that they were going to have no interference from the courts or from the Opposition. Sir, that is just typical. No interference from the courts!

I did not say that.

I am sorry, Sir, I understood the hon. member to say that they were going to do this without opposition from the courts or from the Opposition. Of course, he said that and that is typical.

You refuse to accept anybody’s word.

He was thinking back to the ugly days of 1951 …

The hon. member for Durban (North) did something here to-day about which I want to express my strongest displeasure, and that is that on this day of the inauguration of a new State President he dragged an address by the State President to the whole nation into a political debate for political purposes. The hon. member made deductions here which he was not at all justified in making from what the State President had said, and I am going to rectify that by saying that the State President is the President of the whole nation of the Republic of South Africa. He said that and he repeated that and that is the position. Secondly, the State President emphasized the fact that the population of the Republic consisted of various race or population groups. He even referred to Coloureds and Indians and Bantu, and in that sense no one can deny that we are a multi-racial country. In other words, we are a multi-racial country because we accommodate various race groups, various population groups, in our country, but it is wrong to pretend here that the State President has set the pattern for the United Party.

Order! I do not know what the discussion is about, because I was not in the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, after the hon. member had made the statement, his attention was drawn to the fact that it was not at all permissible to bring the person of or the address by the State President into this debate, and I am going to say no more in this regard.

Order! I just want to draw the attention of hon. members to the fact that we have a special rule which covers this matter and which I should like to read to this House—

I hope that this discussion will not be taken any further.

I just want to bring it to your attention, Mr. Speaker, that something like that has happened and that I too want to register my strongest protest to that.

Mr. Speaker, I do not like to indulge in personalities, but the hon. member is one of the members on the Opposition side whose parliamentary experience is insufficient to justify him having such a high opinion of himself and acting in such a haughty manner in this House. If I, as an older Member of Parliament, were to give him any advice, I would tell him something which one would not like to tell anybody. The impression he creates here as a person, not only amongst us on this side of the House, but also amongst many members on this side of the House, is that if they— and I include myself—could buy him at their price and sell him at his price, they would become wealthy overnight.

Where do you get the idea that that is the point of view of members on this side of the House?

I say so. [Interjections.] I shall not allow hon. members to put me off. The way in which that gentleman carries on does him or this House no credit. Somebody should tell him that, and I have now done so.

What a Minister! …

They could sell you at a penny a dozen.

The hon. member put one question to me which dealt with the Senators who may be nominated in terms of the Constitution by the governing party by reason of their knowledge …

Shall be nominated.

… yes, who shall be nominated by reason of their knowledge of Coloured affairs to serve as, inter alia, channels for the Coloureds to the Senate and in that way to Parliament. The hon. member asked what was going to happen to them. I told him the other day that they were going to remain, because they were not representatives of the Coloureds in the sense in which the Coloured Representatives in this House who had been elected by the Coloureds were representatives. They are nominated by the Government and this Bill does not affect them at all. Hon. members of the Opposition complained a great deal and made much of the point of view that the voice of the Coloured would never again be heard in the democratic Parliament of South Africa, and then asked in the same breath that we should also remove that channel which we had created under the Constitution. They were blowing hot and cold.

We merely pointed out the anomaly.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition, who opened this debate this afternoon, mentioned three reasons for their opposition to this measure. He said it would be an unfair diminution of the political rights of the Coloureds. That may be his opinion. As regards this point we differ from each other, and the entire United Party Opposition differs from the Government. We do not believe that this will be a diminution of political rights, because the rights which the Coloureds had, even when they were on the Common Voters’ Roll, were exercised by a small number and were sham rights. That was evident from the evidence given before the Commission when, with one single exception, no witness said he wanted to go back to the old, Common Voters’ Roll. That was the overwhelming weight of the evidence. But even before this commission sat, the United Party had been promising the Coloureds throughout the years that it would restore them to the Common Voters’ Roll if the United Party were to come into power one day, but in terms of the new policy approved at their congress in Bloemfontein but which has never been put to the test before the nation, the United Party accepts separate voters’ rolls, in other words, representatives for the Coloureds who will not be elected on the Common Voters’ Roll. And they are the people who want to accuse us of breach of promise! Sir, if we want to accuse one another of breach of promise, we really should advance better facts than those, than the kind of so-called fact advanced by the hon. member for Peninsula in reply to the hon. member for Parow. The hon. member for Peninsula drew his own conclusions and put up his own puppets which he then proceeded to knock down. In to-day’s debate the accusation was repeated that we had committed a breach of promise. The other day I read to this House a long quotation from a speech made by Dr. Verwoerd. I now want to read from Hansard, Col. 4246, what Dr. Verwoerd said here on 7th April, 1965, after he had spoken of the problem of minority groups in a Parliament in which the majority of another population group was governing. He said—

He said that during the discussion of the Vote of the Prime Minister, and on the same day, 7th April, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout spoke. The United Party made out here that they had never heard any speech by any Prime Minister of the National Government—the hon. member for Peninsula said this as well— that the National Party had ever given any thought to a change in Coloured representation in Parliament. Where did he get his particulars from? This too was a puppet which he himself had set up. He came to conclusions which he had no justification in drawing. But after Dr. Verwoerd had spoken these words, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said the following in Col. 4264 of Hansard of 7th April, 1965—

On what grounds did he say that? Because he had deduced from what Dr. Verwoerd had said, as he understood it, that Coloured representation would possibly disappear from this House some day, because only in that case would he have known “after this evening” that the Coloured was not going to be given further representation in this the highest council. The United Party makes out that it has never understood the policy of the National Party as it has developed from the beginning up to the present time.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also spoke of a breach of promise and said, inter alia, that I too had broken my promise, because I had given this House an assurance in 1966 in reply to a speech of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. Now, the speech made by the Leader of the Opposition dealt with, as he put it, an uncertain situation which had arisen. That speech was made on 26th August, while the term of office of the Coloured Representatives was to expire on, I think, 25th November. In pursuance of reports in the Press—and the Leader of the Opposition referred to the Afrikaans language Press in particular—the Leader of the Opposition said something was going to happen; we were going to take steps to put an end to those anomalies and improper interference. He then said that he was of the opinion as a result of what he had read in the Press, speculations which he thought had been inspired by the Government, that time was running out for me as Minister of the Interior to tell this House what our intentions were, because we were approaching an election of Coloured Representatives and the Coloured Representatives did not know where they stood or in what way they would be affected by the legislation against political interference. Consequently he wanted to know what we intended doing in respect of that legislation. I replied to him not only in respect of that legislation, but also in respect of the pending election, because the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had said the following—

My reply to him was the following—

What I had in mind was the elections which would have taken place in 1966 if the Opposition had not approached the Government through the hon. member for Peninsula to discuss this matter and to see whether an agreement could not be reached to refer it to a Select Committee. Those are the facts, but what I reject and deplore is the fact that even distortions and misrepresentations such as those were used in this House in a serious debate such as this.

Read the next two sentences.

No, my time is very limited and we shall have another opportunity of discussing this. I do not want to be put off my stride. The fact of the matter is that we are dealing with serious legislation. Here we are dealing with negative legislation, if one views this Bill on its own, but we must not forget to view this legislation in conjunction with the other legislation which appears on the Order Paper and of which hon. members are aware. This Bill, viewed on its own, will naturally present a very slanted and ugly picture, and during this debate the Opposition tried to paint the ugliest all-round picture imaginable of the relations between the Government and the non-Whites, the Coloureds in particular. The fact of the matter is that we are in direct conflict with each other. The United Party and the Progressive Party may be grouped together for the purposes of this legislation, and we are in direct conflict with each other, because what the United Party envisages for the political future of the Coloureds and for their development in the political sphere, is in direct conflict with what the National Government envisages for them. The United Party, as Opposition, realizes that here they have an opportunity and that they have to make the best use of such an opportunity, even if they have to make use of misrepresentations and distortions as well.

On a point of order, Sir, is the Minister entitled to speak of “distortions”?

I am listening to the hon. the Minister and if he uses a wrong word I shall call him to order.

The Government’s policy of parallel development of each separate population group along its own lines which will give each population group, inter alia, political identity and recognition is in direct conflict with the policy of the United Party which may be summarized very briefly and to the point in a reply given by the hon. member for Yeoville in a television interview with Mr. Robin Day of the B.B.C. on 15th June, 1964. Mr. Day told the hon. member for Yeoville that he was of the opinion, inter alia, that there was no big fundamental difference between the United Party and the Government, to which the hon. member replied—

Mr. Day then asked—

The hon. member for Yeoville gave the following reply—

There one has the difference between the United Party and us in a nutshell, and that is why we shall never be able to see eye to eye as regards the basis of and the principles contained in this Bill. I say that they closed their eyes to anything but the negative aspect of this Bill and tried to emphasize that only and that they did not pay any attention to the channels which we said we would create after consultation with and discussions between this Parliament and the new Coloured Council, the Council which will represent the Coloureds throughout the country on a much wider basis than that of the representation they have at the present time. We shall consult with them in respect of channels which can and must be created, and then we shall judge. They omitted to mention that.

Now, in conclusion, in the few minutes at my disposal I want to say that when we look back at the effect of this Bill in five years’ time we shall clearly, even more clearly in the distant future, see it towering as one of the brightest and proudest beacons erected by the white man for the Coloured on the road of development, in the political sphere as well, along his own lines. Later this will be done for the Indian as well. This is my sincere conviction, since everything we did was opposed, but everything we did proved that they were wrong when they said that we were causing the feelings between Whites and non-Whites to deteriorate. I maintain that there has never been better co-operation and more loyalty, greater satisfaction and more peace and a better understanding of one another between the white Government and the non-white population groups in this country than to-day.

Question put: That the word “now” stand part of the motion.

Upon which the House divided:

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

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and A. Hopewell.

Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.