May I claim the privilege of the half-hour? Under this Vote I want to deal with two particular items. The first is one which appears to be becoming a very controversial issue at the moment. I refer to the unfortunate manner in which the 80-year-old issue of the incorporation of certain parts of East Griqualand in Natal has been brought to public notice in the course of the past few days. My object in raising this issue under this particular vote is to try to bring sanity back to this issue before any more damage is done. [Interjection.] Sir, if the hon. the Minister cannot hear me it is not because I am not shouting; it is because there is so much noise. This issue, as I have indicated, is not a new one. It is at least 80 years old. But if it was an issue 80 years ago it is a very much more urgent issue to-day, and I think in the light of those two facts we should discuss this issue. I am not asking the hon. the Minister at the moment to proclaim East Griqualand to be a part of Natal, but I am asking him to apply himself to the position which has arisen to see if we cannot have this whole matter discussed in a calm and proper atmosphere. I hope that what has been termed an acrimonious display of provincialism and what has been dubbed by the hon. the Prime Minister as highly irregular action will not in fact interfere in the calm consideration of this matter which is in fact an issue. This issue was raised in the Provincial Council of Natal in 1965 and because of an amendment it was brought into its proper perspective. Whether the hon. the Prime Minister knows about this or not I do not know, but let me just read out, for the benefit of the Minister and the Prime Minister, the original motion and the amendment. The original motion sought “a thorough and independent investigation into the desirability or otherwise of incorporating the magisterial districts of Matatiele, Mount Currie and Umzimkulu into Natal”. In an amendment moved by a member of the Executive Committee he added: “and seek the approval of the Cape Provincial Council to incorporate the districts of Matatiele, Mount Currie and Umzimkulu in Natal”. I think the hon. the Prime Minister and the Minister will agree that that amendment is in line with section 114 of the Constitution. It was quite in line with it and therefore it was in order. It was adopted unanimously by the Provincial Council of Natal. [Interjection.] Yes, by both parties.

Action should not be taken unilaterally.

The hon. the Prime Minister has given strength to my introductory remarks when I said that I wanted to make an appeal to the Minister before any further damage was done, because I want us to see this matter in its true perspective. Let us get down to some of the facts because I think that is the only way in which we will be able to consider this matter properly. The first fact that I think we must state is that we in Parliament cannot deal with this matter if we take proper cognizance of section 114 of the Constitution. We cannot deal with it here but we can take cognizance of a recommendation from the two provinces concerned. I believe that the hon. the Minister of the Interior can start a dialogue here which has in fact already been started abortively from time to time and that he can get it somewhere. Let us see whether this subject has a proper foundation or whether it is founded on sand. Let us take some of the facts. First of all, this is not a new subject. The first time it was raised was some 80 years ago, a little before my time. Surely if it was a valid issue then it is a far more valid one at the moment—I am just trying to put the facts as I see them—because in the meantime the Transkei Bantustan has been formed, and if we are to believe what we have been told, it is aiming towards independence. When that independence is granted these particular areas of East Griqualand will be completely isolated from the Cape Province of which at the moment they form part. How are they in fact going to communicate with the provincial authorities which at the moment govern them? I do not know, but I think these are questions that have to be decided by proper discussions.

Geographically I think it can be honestly said that this area or these areas—call them what you will—in East Griqualand have been more closely associated with Natal over the course of the years than they have with the Cape Province. Commercially I think you will find that their wholesalers are the Natal wholesalers. The main source of their supplies for their commerce and industry, whatever industry they have, have in fact emanated or sprung from Natal, and that has been the source of their supplies.

From the point of view of communications, their communications have always been with Natal and I would suggest to this hon. the Minister that he should turn up the Government telephone directory for Natal and he will see that both Kokstad and Matatiele telephone subscribers are listed as being “a Natal country town”.

Then there is also the agricultural point of view, which is most important as far as these areas are concerned, because East Griqualand is a very great producer of milk products. Where do their supplies of milk go, where are they treated, where are they made into cheese and cream and other milk products? In the creameries of Natal and their own creameries. They go to Natal to dispose of their agricultural produce.

Where do they enjoy their sport, where do the districts compete with one another? They enjoy their sport with the areas of Southern Natal, and this has been accepted over the years. It is not something new. It is a fact which exists.

Then there is also the question of schools. Their best, their nearest schools are centred in the midlands of Natal, and many of their children, in spite of the fact that they fall under the Cape provincial administration for the purpose of education, are sent to the private schools in the midlands of Natal because they are far more accessible and the parents can visit their children on their free week-ends. When the terms are over, they can collect the children within easy reach of their homes.

We also have a new factor, in regard to which the hon. the Minister of Justice will bear me out, and that is the fact that the regional court for this area is centred now at Pietermaritzburg. I read not so long ago in the Government Gazette —I do not have the reference now but I am quite sure the Minister will bear me out—that because of the intrusion of the Transkei administration the regional court which serves this area is the court based at Pietermaritzburg and which travels from there. Even the Government is recognizing more and more that this area is more accessible to Natal from the courts’ point of view, from the communications point of view, than it can possibly be to the Cape.

There are many other reasons which I could put forward but I do not want to weary this House with them. There are other aspects such as their communication by road and their family ties. One will find that many of the families in East Griqualand are duplicated throughout Natal; they recur in all the main areas of Natal. They are all of the same family. What I want to put forward here is that the spirit of East Griqualand is the spirit of Natal.

Quite recently and in regard to these particular issues the hon. member for Aliwal, in whose constituency these areas fall, gave the people of East Griqualand the assurance that these areas would always remain White. We have had this assurance before. If that assurance is correct, and I believe it is and I am not questioning it, then surely …

It is correct, it was stated by Dr. Verwoerd time and again.

I am glad to hear that, because that is my view too. I am not quarrelling with that. But surely this now strengthens the argument which has been brought forward. If these particular areas, which are so isolated from the Cape and more isolated now than they have ever been, are going to remain White, as the hon. the Prime Minister has now confirmed, then surely now is the time for a full and complete investigation as to where the future of these people is going to lie? Is this not a good time to do it? I believe that it is, because you cannot just leave a pocket of people isolated. This is logic. You have only to look at the map. You cannot merely leave a pocket of people isolated who are part of one community but not of it, because they are administered from another place over the mountains, and that is where they are going to be—over the mountains. I believe that this is the time when consideration should be given to this particular issue. I am not asking the hon. the Minister, as I said before, to get up and say: “Yes, East Griqualand will be incorporated in Natal”. I am not asking for that at all. I am asking him to be the flux in an intelligent, honest and sincere dialogue, which has to be undertaken to discuss the future of these territories. In spite of the assurances that have been given here again to-day, there are many of the people of East Griqualand who would feel far happier if they were tied now to the province of Natal. Then their future would be settled for all time. I believe that this Government would be far better off if this were done. I believe that they could collect a lot of kudos. I believe that this hon. Minister especially could collect a lot of kudos, and he needs it at the moment, if he were to initiate a discussion which would lead to action. Even if it is not finalized that East Griqualand should become a part of Natal, at least the people of these particular parts of East Griqualand would have the opportunity of saying where they want their future to lie. Give them an opportunity to express their wishes on this subject. Above all I feel that this hon. Minister—and this is my appeal to him to-day—should re-establish the goodwill which existed before, the goodwill on the basis of which intelligent, quiet and reasonable discussion in the determination of the future of these territories can be held. That goodwill is essential. But at the moment with both Administrators flying at one another’s throats and with accusations and counter-accusations being flung at one another through the newspapers, it is not doing anybody any good at all. It is not doing the administrations of the provinces any good, it is not doing certain personalities any good and it is not doing the major issue any good. I believe that this is the time when this hon. Minister must step in and take some action to establish a dialogue between the two provinces with a view to the settlement of this issue.

I would remind this hon. Minister that his Department has given rulings in the past, and especially in 1967, in which he has stated quite clearly that he will respect section 114 of the Constitution and that he can only take action if the request is made from both parties for the boundaries of a province to be altered. We accept that and we believe that that is what he should do. We are bound by the Constitution and we accept it. Mr. Chairman, I hope you will not mind if I wait while other hon. members carry on their dialogue. We believe that it is only by the intervention of this hon. Minister at the moment that this issue will be satisfactorily settled and that the right and proper conclusion can be arrived at. I am going to appeal very strongly indeed for this hon. Minister not merely to walk in and push everything aside, but to start discussions, which I hope will be fruitful and provide the proper solution to this problem which has been with us for 80 years so that it will be settled to the satisfaction of the great majority of the people who live in that area. That is the one issue with which I wanted to deal.

The second issue I want to raise with this hon. Minister, has from time to time been called the “book of life”, the “new passport” and various other such names. I want to give the hon. the Minister a little background to this matter. I put some questions on the Order Paper to the hon. the Minister in the light of certain newspaper articles which were published in Natal. The first article which was published on the 24th March of this year indicated that the new “book of life”, as they called it, which is a new population register, will contain certain data which has not been divulged. They said amongst other things— and I want to make this point quite clear— that one of the main issues was the fact that this was not going to be a purely civil department, that the information which was going to be gathered and computerized, was going to go a lot wider than that. It said, for example, that—

It refers to the suggestion that, under the new scheme, the Police should have a watching brief over the entire national register. It said, too, that—

As a result of that report and the report which followed in a newspaper on the 31st March, I put some questions, and I put one to this hon. Minister on the 5th April. I asked this hon. Minister.

1. (1) When is it expected that the scheme to condense personal and identification documents into a single document will be introduced;
2. (2) whether the Police are to administer the scheme or any part thereof;

That is the gravamen of my question. The reply to that was No. The Police are not to administer any part of the scheme. I want to bring to the notice of this hon. Minister and I want to ask him very pertinently if in fact that is so. I shall tell him why. I am not doubting the hon. the Minister, but I have had information from two sources. The first is from a newspaper article of the 14th April by the same person who wrote the original article and written after the reply of the hon. the Minister. [Interjection.] By Aida Parker. Yes. I think that is important, as my colleague points out to me. Aida Parker says in the article that she is right and the Minister is wrong. That is what she said. The hon. the Minister can have this article if he wants to read it. I sincerely hope he has seen it already. She goes on to quote in this article the history of events. She says:

I want the hon. the Minister to listen to this—

I quote this fairly fully, because according to the reply given by the hon. the Minister, this was not going to happen. He indicated that this was not so, and answered “No” to our questions in this regard. Now this very reporter has come back and denied what the hon. the Minister said. Here we have the position that Parliament must know once and for all, and this hon. Minister must make a statement. We want to know exactly, not with reference to any particular newspaper, what is going to happen to the population register. This is what I want to know. Who is going to control it? Who is going to operate the various sections of it? Are these sections, which are reputedly to be operated by the Police, in fact going to be operated by the Police or will it be operated by someone else? I want to know what the exact position will be so that people will know. There has been a big outcry about certain indications of the way in which the population register is to be operated. I know the basic aspects of this, because the hon. the Minister took the trouble of sending certain people to tell us about it. What I do not know is who is actually going to control these various operations and who will be administering and keeping the records. I accept that these records will be very complete indeed. I want to know, and I believe everybody in South Africa wants to know, exactly what this hon. Minister intends to do in keeping these records and administering the register.

Who is going to get the results of the records?

My colleague, the hon. member for South Coast, asks who is going to get the result of these records. Are they going to be freely available to the Police? There has been other criticism, for instance when someone’s driving licence is taken away because of drunken driving. The whole book is then taken away and a new one is issued but it is obvious that he has been issued with a new one. There are many other aspects that I can raise, but which I will not raise now because I do not want to confuse the main issue. At the moment my question to the hon. the Minister is to find out how this register is going to be administered, who is going to administer it, and to whom it is going to be available. In the past information given for income tax purposes has been kept private from other departments. It has not been used for the information of other departments. This is the case in other public departments all over the world, and not only in South Africa. Information which is confidential remains confidential. Once a population register is made available to all departments on demand, and to all sorts of other people, then it starts to get a bit dangerous. People’s confidence starts to break down. A book which you carry around with you, containing all this computerized information, can be a very dangerous thing. The average person who does not know which demands to accede to and which demands to refuse, produces his whole life story to anyone who likes to come along and demand it. But that is another issue, and I want to get back to the original issue. To whom is this information going to be available? Who is going to administer the various aspects of the population register? Is it going to be broken down into various departments so that each department will administer a different section? I believe that this is the opportunity for the hon. the Minister to, as one might put it, come clean, not only with this House, but with South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, leaving aside the objections of hon. members in this House, I want to tell the hon. member for Umlazi that I welcome his inquiries which he addressed to me during his half-hour speech. I think that both matters he mentioned have substance, and could lead to misunderstanding and confusion, so that it could have a prejudicial effect on something which ought to function smoothly if everybody understands it.

I want to reply to his inquiries in sequence. The hon. member for Umlazi said that the problem of East Griqualand, i.e. where those people should really be grouped geographically, according to their historic background, is a problem of 80 years’ standing or more. That is true. However, it is not the only place in South Africa where it is found that provincial boundaries have caused certain problems with the development of the country. I want to mention examples of this. When I was Minister of Agricultural Technical Services, South Africa was divided into eight agro-economic regions. For a proper scientific division on that level we could of necessity not confine ourselves to provincial boundaries. For reasons of efficiency in connection with information and research we divided the country into eight agro-economic regions, which crossed provincial boundaries for example. I should like to mention an example of this. We incorporated the Mafeking-Kuruman-Vry-heid region into the Western Transvaal.

Vryburg.

Vryburg, I am sorry, not Vryheid. Vryheid is too big a word for the United Party to swallow. We incorporated it into the Transvaal region. That is only one example, but recently the Provincial Administrations of the Cape and the Transvaal were faced with a problem in respect of control over a town, when it was ascertained that at Jan Kempdorp, here at Vaal Harts, the boundary between the Provinces virtually ran through the middle of the town. Now, how can one have divided control over one town? Must both Provinces take responsibility for running it? I mention that as a practical example. The first example of classification I mentioned has never caused problems, because it is only natural that if one wants to govern one’s country well, and if one does not regard one’s country, as in the old colonial times, and even in the time of the old Republic, as consisting of four watertight Provinces, but as one country and as a unit with its variety and subdivisions caused by reasons I have no need to mention, one must lay down norms in order to eliminate any anomalies which may arise.

What happened at Jan Kempdorp? In that case the Transvaal and Cape Provincial authorities acted in strict accordance with section 114 of the Constitution, and found a solution. A petition was submitted to Parliament, and Parliament approved it. Now we have the problem in East Griqualand, which, at this stage, is perhaps not such an acute one as the one which existed at Jan Kempdorp. That problem was really an acute one, and an arrangement had to be made there. But I do not at present regard East Griqualand—nor do I think the hon. member for Umlazi regards it in this way—as such an extremely acute problem as he would like to pretend it is, or which he says it has become as a result of an announcement, right or wrong, by the Administrator of Natal. He wanted to know what was going to happen to these people. Everybody knows that geographically they have been practically cut off from the rest of the Cape by the development of the Transkei. This is a geographic fact. But there are also historic facts and grounds which have to be taken into consideration. I want to read out a quotation here, because this is not the first time that this thing has crapped up.

I do not think the difficulty on this occasion arose for precisely the same reasons as in 1965, but when it cropped up in 1965 and the then Prime Minister, Dr. Verwoerd, had to react to it, he reacted as follows. This happened as a result of newspaper reports. In 1965 Dr. Verwoerd issued a Press statement in respect of this matter, because at that time the United Party in particular, for political reasons, thought they could stampede the National Party Government and kick up a great dust-cloud, particularly in those parts. Then Dr. Verwoerd issued the following Press statement—

Now, for the information of the House, I may just add that I have at no time been directly approached in regard to this matter by either of the two Administrators, i.e. of Natal and the Cape, as the official link between the Government and the Provinces. What did in fact happen, was that in 1966, the Griqualand farmers through their farmers’ association, I think, adopted a resolution at their annual congress. They forwarded that resolution to their Member of Parliament, the hon. member for Aliwal, Mr. Botha. He forwarded that request he had received from the farmers’ association to me.

I replied to him in the proper manner, and stated that I would go into the matter. I had just become Minister of the Interior. I went into the matter very thoroughly, and I furnished him with a full reply. I do not think it is necessary to read out the entire reply I sent to the hon. member to this House, but the fact of the matter is that in that reply I explained the position to the hon. member, who had every right to send that reply through to his farmers’ association. The reply was in the first place that it was not a matter for the Central Government, but was one which according to our Constitution had to be dealt with by the two Administrators of the Provinces in question, who had to see whether they could not comply with the requirements laid down in the Constitution, i.e. that they should together, if possible, institute a commission of inquiry and submit a petition to the Government. I remain the go-between, and I shall gladly take action when they submit the matter to me, but the initiative remains with the Provinces.

I also included in that letter this reply given by Dr. Verwoerd in 1965 in regard to the matter, when Minister De Klerk was Minister of the Interior. I also sent copies of that reply that I sent to the hon. member for Aliwal to the Administrator of Natal, as well as the Administrator of the Cape for scrutiny by their provincial secretaries. They must therefore have it in their possession. The reason for my doing so was that if I inform an hon. member that it is a matter which rests with the Administrators of the Provinces, I think it is no more than right that I should inform them in regard to the standpoint of the Central Government in respect of such a matter. The first I heard of the matter was when a statement was issued by the Administrator of Natal.

What the hon. member is asking me now is not that I should throw the matter into the lap of the Provincial Administrators, who may possibly not come to an agreement in regard to this matter, but that I should, as Minister of the Interior, try to give guidance and to see whether I cannot assist the Administrators in complying with the provisions of the Constitution, and then in this way, try to find a solution to a matter which, according to the hon. member and according to what Dr. Verwoerd wrote, is possibly deserving of particular attention. That is all the hon. member wanted, and I have no objection to doing so. But the hon. member for Umlazi must understand that the Central Government is not going to interfere with and prescribe to the Provinces. The Provinces have certain powers, and I am not going to prescribe to them. Either of the two Administrators is at liberty to approach me as the link between them and the Central Government and to call in my assistance, and I shall afford it gladly. Up to now neither the Administrator of Natal nor the Administrator of the Cape has done so. It appears to be a very urgent matter for the Administrator of Natal.

I do not want to say anything here in regard to the merits of the case, but I am prepared, if they approach me, to take steps according to circumstances, and to see whether it is possible or not. I do not think that the matter should be tackled precipitately. The hon. member asked what the position is going to be if the Transkei should become independent. Neither he nor I nor the Transkeian Government, not even this Government, nor anybody else, can foresee when the Transkeian Government will have made such progress that it will be possible for them to accept the responsibility of independent government. Independence for the Transkei is therefore not something which I foresee in the near future, but it does not mean that for that reason one should not give attention to this matter. Perhaps it is better to give timeous attention to a matter before it becomes a bone of contention, and in that sense I am grateful to the hon. member for Umlazi for having raised this matter here to-day, as well as for the way in which he did it. I think that he broached the matter in a reasonable and constructive way. It seldom happens that I am able to pay the hon. member a compliment, but I do so gladly this afternoon.

I then come to the second matter which he raised, i.e. the so-called “book of life”. In this regard I want to say that it is an entirely revolutionary institution which I regard as of the utmost and greatest importance to the Republic of South Africa, with a view to orderly government, proper identification and control —much better control than we have to-day and than we have ever had in the past, and I am saying this with all due respect to the present and former governments. I think that the system which has gradually developed in the country, can be changed and improved in order to comply with the demands of the times, and possibly, too, with the demands of the future. Personally, I think that there are few countries in the world, which are geographically situated as we are, surrounded by threats, that can afford—and South Africa can afford it least of all—to have a system of control, which can in fact be called an apology for a system of control. I think that there is much room for improvement. We owe it to our country and our people to effect an improvement in this regard. There is a time for everything. A step which one regards as essential to-day, cannot be taken because one’s people are not ripe for it, or because the circumstances are unfavourable, and then one must simply bide one’s time.

It has been said that one can do the wrong thing at the right time, and that it sometimes does less harm to do the right thing at the wrong time. But I am now doing the right thing at the right time, and the hon. member for Umlazi, believe it or not, regards it as the right thing at the wrong time. He saw all kinds of imagined dangers. Who conjured up these imagined dangers for him? The Sunday Tribune of Natal. [Interjections.] It makes no difference to me whether it was the editor or a columnist. Even if it had been an Afrikaans newspaper, I would have attacked it in the same way. I do not care at the moment whether it was a he or a she who stampeded the hon. member, nor does it make any difference to me what high standing they may have in the journalistic world. I do not take it amiss of them if, by way of a process of anticipation, or as a result of information they have acquired, they put two and two together and then make five; I do not take it amiss of them. But if questions are put in the House by a responsible member, such as the hon. member for Umlazi, not only to me but to the hon. member for Police, and he receives an adequate reply and then still wants to create the impression that there is something sinister afoot and that we have something to hide, then the hon. member must not blame me if I take it amiss of him. I regarded this matter as something completely divorced from politics. I had hardly been Minister of the Interior for six months when I felt that something could perhaps be done in this regard. As hon. members know I am a farmer by occupation; I am not an office worker, but at least I am realistic. Hon. members must not think that because I am a farmer I am stupid. One sometimes finds stupid office workers as well.

That is not the reason at all; that is just natural.

I am not apologizing for the fact that I am a farmer because I am one of those people who believe that no man, whether he has two or four or five talents, is born and bred to do only one kind of work properly. I believe that every man is capable of doing more than one kind of work properly, provided the dedication is there. I have got to know the ropes in this task. After all, I could have refused; I could have resigned, and there are perhaps many people who would like to see me resign as Minister. But I do not want to resign. I still have work to do; I still see a future for myself.

Where?

Not under the United Party. With them there is no future for anybody who has ideals. Anybody who is creative by nature and who is an idealist, does after all want to achieve something, no matter what situation he chooses, to which he can look back later on. After all, I do not want to leave the world exactly as I have found it. If that had been my philosophy, I would not have been a farmer; if I wanted to make money I would have been anything but a farmer. Consequently I gave instructions that this matter should be investigated by the best inspectors in the Public Service Commission; that they should go into it properly and make a report. This was subsequently done, and after a thorough investigation they have submitted a final recommendation. That final recommendation has been discussed with the Cabinet, and the Cabinet has only to take one decision in regard to principle, i.e. in regard to the broad basic principle of a centralized address bureau which in the first instance will include compulsory notification of changes in address for the entire population, excluding the Bantu. That is the green light I am waiting for, and once I have that we will proceed and expand the scheme. These people submitted certain ideas to me, of which the Cabinet was aware. I went further. I had these officials of mine, people who are divorced from politics, provide proper information to the caucuses of the National Party as well as the United Party, because I wanted their co-operation when we introduce this new, and to my mind, most important step, and improve it to the benefit of the country and the nation.

I stated to the caucuses that they could pose all manner of questions to the officials and that they would be furnished with replies. I know how many questions were put in the National Party caucus, and I know of a few which were put by the United Party caucus. After that I proceeded with the matter and did something which I should perhaps have done the other way round. But I still think that I did it the right way. Why should I hold a Press conference first in regard to a matter which really affects Parliament, and only after that approach Parliament and the various parties? That is why I approached the parties first in this case, and held a Press conference after that. That was last week. I told them that I wanted to inform the Press in regard to what we want to do, and that they could ask questions. Hon. members know how Press men can ask questions, and with what purpose they ask them!

I can give hon. members the assurance that I have received letters from many eminent sources and people of high standing. There is almost no walk of life from which I did not receive such letters. They did not number thousands, such as in the case of Enoch Powell. He received 85,000 letters—I think I received 25 at the most. But they are certainly representative! The senders of the letters wrote that they saw a great future for this scheme. They wished me success in my efforts. I am going to send these two men overseas shortly to countries which have introduced something similar, to go and see what their problems were, what aspects of their schemes we can use, what part we can eliminate, etc.

In conclusion I just want to say this to the hon. member, and I said the same thing to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. To introduce this scheme will require legislation. I shall not come forward with legislation in this House and simply lay it upon the table expecting the Opposition to agree, or go along with me without their having had time to study the matter properly, I think I will supply them with information in regard to the legislation I want to submit to the House before it is laid upon the Table.

Cannot the Government do so with all legislation?

No, not necessarily with all the measures, because then the Opposition would make the laws. After all, the Government is there to decide itself what legislation it deems necessary. A measure such as this, or any resultant legislation, is another matter however. I want to concede that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is right, and I think it would be a wise thing; it would contribute to better government, and it would contribute to better national unity and relationships, and it will also cause less confusion outside, if I inform the House beforehand. Whether the Press will be as happy in regard to our unanimity, is another question, because there would then be less sensational matters for them to dish up. I am not here to sell the Press on something. I am doing something for my country, and I am going to try and do so to the best of my ability. I will have the assistance of extremely capable staff in my Department as well as elsewhere in the Public Service. The third leg of my Department will be the organization which will undertake this project. Its establishment has already been announced, and the already-appointed deputy-secretary who will take care of this matter, is the chief inspector, Mr. Fourie, who together with Mr. Swartz, addressed the caucuses. I think he is an extremely capable official. I want to emphasize that the Police will not control this matter. This book of life will contain certain facts, but no prejudicial facts. It will of course be available to the Police, because the principal motive for the introduction of this system is to centralize Government activities, registrations, etc., into one unit. As Government Departments may require these factual particulars, it will not be necessary for them to keep records in order to have it at hand in this way, because they will then be able to obtain them from the central department, and that is the third leg of the Department of the Interior, the leg which we are now establishing. They will be able to obtain it from this body for the purpose of Government administration, as required.

Mr. Chairman, border disputes in the Republic are as old as the population of South Africa itself, and for that reason I shall not participate in a discussion of the point raised by the hon. member for Umlazi. However, I do think he has reason to be grateful to the hon. Minister for the way in which he was furnished with a reply, and I think it ought to satisfy the hon. member.

I should now like to express a few thoughts in respect of elections in South Africa. In addition to many other things, South Africa certainly has reason to be happy with, and feel proud of the basic principles on which we conduct elections, and of the electoral laws on which the elections are based. The electoral laws and the regulations grant, at the highest possible level, every registered voter the democratic right to cast his vote for the candidate and the party of his choice. In the first instance our electoral machine is geared to making it possible for the greatest number of registered voters in South Africa to cast their votes.

Except in Umlazi.

An hon. member says, “Except in Umlazi.” I do not want to become personal now and go into that matter, but even there a great deal of latitude is allowed. There are also many opportunities for that person, who owing to circumstances cannot visit the polls in his registered constituency, to visit the polls in another constituency in order to cast his vote. We are all of us probably very grateful that there are so many facilities in existence which enable an absent voter to make his cross. He can do so by means of a postal vote, or by means of the new special voting procedure. The opportunity is being created for the highest possible number of voters to cast their votes. The minimum amount of obstacles are placed in the way of the voter who wants to cast his vote. All we can do is be very grateful for the co-operation we receive during elections from the officials of the hon. the Minister’s Department, as well as the officials of the Department of Justice. I think it is fitting on this occasion to pay tribute to those people who go out of their way, in the midst of their daily tasks, to render assistance at general elections. We are all of us only too well aware of the great amount of work entailed by such an election. That is why I say that we are very grateful to the officials for the assistance they are rendering.

In the second place our election system is geared to eliminating irregularities. We know that there are people who at all times will try to introduce irregularities into such an election, particularly if a party can benefit by it. These are the unfortunate things which we do not want to examine under a magnifying glass. I maintain that our electoral laws and our electoral machinery is geared to eliminating these irregularities and malpractices during an election. However, it is also true that there are certain deficiencies, and I should like to bring them to the attention of the hon. Minister again. On occasion the hon. Minister stated after the last election that he would ask for comments by electoral officers and presiding officers, and all other bodies concerned in the election. He would ask them to send in their comments, with recommendations, which would indicate the deficiencies which existed in regard to holding an election. We are very grateful for that and we should like to ascertain on this occasion whether the hon. the Minister can inform us what progress has been made with this, what the reaction to his appeal has been, and whether there is any information which has been processed by his Department. In addition I should like to make an appeal to the hon. Minister, in the same way as his Department has done in the past, to make that information available and to refer it to a Select Committee of Parliament, which will consist of all the parties, so that this information can be processed, because what we want in regard to the electoral system is the greatest possible unanimity between the various political parties. In that regard we would not like to stand divided, and we would like, as far as possible, to have the greatest possible unanimity in this regard. We are continually seeking to achieve greater efficiency in the holding of elections. It affects our highest legislative assembly, and that is why we must at all times ensure that elections are above suspicion and that our people will be able to go to an election with every confidence because they are protected by the electoral laws and the regulations which control and regulate our elections. I should like to ascertain what progress we have made, and what the reaction was to that appeal by the hon. Minister, and whether the Minister will consider making that information available, and whether he will perhaps refer it, for further processing and recommendations to a select committee of the entire House. Mr. Chairman, if you will allow me to mention this in passing, I want to say that this could also perhaps be the forerunner to the consolidation of our electoral laws. I am well aware of the fact that in the Committee Stage I cannot plead for statutory amendments, but I am on this occasion merely suggesting in passing for the consideration of the Minister that our electoral laws were last consolidated in 1946, and that many amendments have since been made. With every amendment a new set of regulations were laid down, and those regulations must be interpreted by electoral officers and presiding officers in every constituency of the Republic. That entails, not wilfully but quite honestly, that different interpretations can be attached to these amendments and regulations; that is why I think it is essential that we should as rapidly as possible progress to the consolidation of our electoral laws.

I also want to make a further recommendation, namely that the hon. the Minister should consider furnishing information at conferences which can be organized on a regional basis. Although this is going to entail additional work, it is also going to save a great deal of time, and eliminate many problems after an election. I want to ascertain whether we cannot have a few of the officials from the Department of the Interior to address conferences in regions when an election is called, in order to furnish the necessary information and the correct interpretation of regulations at such a regional conference, to which all the electoral officers and presiding officers, and the representatives of political parties who may be interested, can be invited in order to benefit from that information. I simply want to repeat that we know that incorrect interpretations are not being attached deliberately and maliciously, but that many regulations which are being interpreted by many people lend themselves easily to various and conflicting interpretations which may subsequently lead to court cases, a thing which could otherwise be avoided. That is why my plea is that the necessary information should be made available before a general election.

Mr. Chairman, I am very glad that the hon. member for Wolmaransstad has supported the plea which I made when we had the patchwork Electoral Laws Amendment Bill before us, for the reconsideration of major aspects of the Act. The hon. the Minister promised a major amending Bill and a Select Committee and obviously both sides of the House are agreed on the need for this. I do not want to repeat any of the arguments used by the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, but rather to strengthen them and to draw attention to the implications of the Odell case in Pietermaritzburg City, following the 1966 election. The judgment in that case carried some very serious implications from the point of view of the running of elections. It is vital that that judgment should be properly and fully considered and that the problems that arise from it should be corrected. I am worried about the fact that time is passing. These are not issues which can be settled briefly or hastily. They are issues that require long and detailed study. The last select committee sat through a session and a recess before it was able to produce its report. I hope that the hon. the Minister can give us an indication as to whether this vital work to which we have referred on various previous occasions is now coming to a head. Earlier this year I also raised with the hon. the Minister the question of the administrative bottleneck which is almost certainly going to occur with the census, the general registration and an election all taking place more or less concurrently. I think that it is a problem which should be enjoying the attention of the department to a greater extent, namely the problem of trying to hold a complete census of the whole population, a general registration and an election, all within a very short period and the resultant danger that in the administrative follow-up to the field work you are going to have chaos and delays which can affect the elections which follow. I hope that the hon. the Minister can give us some indication that he is aware of this problem and tell us of the steps which he has taken to enable an already heavily laden department, a department whose electoral section already finds it difficult to keep up, to handle the tremendous additional burden which is going to be placed on them.

I also raised with the hon. the Minister— and I hope that he can give us a reply in this regard to-day—the question of the general registration in the Orange Free State and Natal. The first election following that general registration will be a provincial election. It will take place on constituency boundaries different from those of the parliamentary constituencies. I hope that the Minister has considered holding the registration and, when the voters’ rolls are prepared, printing them immediately, as provincial voters’ rolls and not as parliamentary voters’ rolls. If this is not done, Natal and the Free State are going to be severely hampered in that a parliamentary voters’ roll will have to be completed first, then recast and reprinted and only then will the provincial rolls become available. I hope that the Minister can give us an assurance that the first roll to be printed in those two provinces will be on the provincial basis which will be required for the next election.

I now want to come to a very serious issue. We have recently had a by-election in a place not unknown to my friends on the other side of the House, namely Swellendam. The Nationalist Party appear very concerned at the serious drop in their majority there. I want to say that that majority should have been approximately 400 less than in fact it was because 432 voters were added to the voters’ roll in Swellendam after the nomination date which automatically closes the voters’ roll. 432 names were added to the roll after nomination day, but in terms of the Electoral Act, it is absolutely clear that on nomination day the roll shall be closed. The only additions which can be made afterwards are those to correct errors or omissions made by the electoral officer.

In terms of section 18 (2) it is stated quite clearly and specifically—

Then there is a proviso that, if any person has inadvertently been omitted, he may be added. What happened in Swellendam, was that in terms of section 22 of the Act, objections were lodged to the retention of the names of voters in other constituencies outside Swellendam. These were voters who had moved into Swellendam, but who had moved in too late to qualify and had not been registered on the normal voters’ roll then current. In order to overcome their inability to get them onto the voters’ roll, the Nationalist Party and others followed when they saw what was happening, but basically and overwhelmingly it was the Nationalist Party, lodged objections to people being retained in other constituencies on the grounds that they were now resident in Swellendam. Those persons then completed the normal application forms in response to the resultant inquiry from the electoral officer. The normal RV.l application form was filled in and returned to the electoral officer. Now again it is perfectly clear in terms of the Act, that, when a person submits an application on the prescribed form, that application shall not be dealt with until the next supplementary registration takes place. I have not the time to quote the relevant sections, but the Minister is aware of them. These periodic supplementary registrations are the next occasion on which a person, filling in an RV.1, an application to register, can be placed on the roll. These persons were nevertheless placed on the roll, and the United Party objected. Representatives of the party personally called upon the electoral officer and then raised the matter with the chief electoral officer. The party was informed that these persons were placed on the roll in terms of action taken under section 30 bis of the Act. Section 30 bis of the Act, however, provides that when a person fails to respond to an inquiry the electoral officer may then institute inquiries and if he is satisfied, he may transfer a person to his correct constituency. In this case, the electoral officer had not made inquiries. He had sent out the normal prescribed form and had received in return a normal application for registration. The electoral officer had no right to place those voters on the roll after nomination day in terms of the Act, which this Parliament had placed upon the Statute Book. As the Minister is no doubt aware, the United Party has appealed against the retention of those names under section 22 of the Act, and that matter must be before his Department at this time. But that does not and cannot form the basis of any query about the outcome of the election, because the number involved is not greater than the reduced majority of the Government party. The fact is, Mr. Chairman, and I think it is important that this should be clearly stated that, had those names not been added to the voters’ roll after nomination day, the Government majority would have been well below a thousand, in the region of 750 to 800 votes. It would have been 750 to 800 votes, and this has been checked by canvass. That puts a much more important emphasis on the result of the Swellendam election, an election which I believe is significant for South Africa in many ways, and an election which would have been seen to be even more significant had those 432 votes not come onto the voters’ roll after nomination day. The hon. the Minister is responsible. If he was aware of this then I hope he will give us an explanation. I cannot see what explanation he can give which will satisfy the clear provisions which are laid down in the Electoral Act.

It sounds like improper interference, does it not?

Mr. Chairman, in his speech on the Electoral Laws Act, the hon. member for Durban (Point) tried to indicate that they would have done better in Swellendam than they did in fact do. But I am not fully acquainted with what actually happened there, except that I know that portion of those voters who were placed on the Swellendam voters’ roll were actually a direct result of what the United Party tried to do previously in Worcester. There they objected to the registration of certain voters who were still on the Worcester voters’ rolls but were already living in Swellendam. They objected to those voters who in this way were placed back on to the Swellendam voters’ rolls.

What was the arrangement in that case?

The hon. member who is now adopting this sacrosanct attitude in regard to the malpractices which were supposedly, according to him perpetrated in Swellendam was, according to my information, in fact the driving force behind a former attempt in Umhlatuzana, when an effort was made to rope in 130 voters in that way … [Interjections.] The attitude of this hon. member strengthens me in my support of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad in his plea he made here this afternoon, i.e. that we should institute a thorough investigation into the entire matter, after the Minister and his Department rejected the suggestions put forward by the various political organizations, and by the presiding officials. That is the only way in which we will be able to clear up this point, because at this stage the hon. member for Durban (Point) is standing behind the door, which fact actually offers easy access to that door to anybody else. It may also be possible then to devise a system of revising the registration of voters, and so on. There should be a greater incentive wage connected with the registration of voters, since registration officers are at this stage being compensated per block and it does not really matter whether he has got in touch with all the voters, or not; they should be compensated per voter in order to encourage the officers concerned to take the trouble of having the voters placed on the voters’ roll.

Reference was also made in the debate this afternoon to this “book of life”, as the hon. the Minister calls it, and its various facets which would entail that it could ultimately be used for election purposes. However, we would like to request very earnestly here this afternoon that, although this book may set an absolute ideal for us in South Africa, the use of it for election purposes should be put off to the very last moment, because we would first like to test the use of this book according to this system before we apply it to elections.

I then come to the question of census taking. We are concerned about the fact that this will take place at the same time as the election, in the year of the general election. We want to recommend to the hon. the Minister that apart from the officials in his Department, whose services are being utilized for these census purposes, the political parties should be consulted in this matter and that their recommendations in connection with people to assist with this work should be requested. I cannot speak on behalf of the Opposition, but our own organization is geared to reaching people, and reaching them on an intensive basis. I believe that we will achieve the very best results with a census when we use the normal political canvassers for that purpose, although they need not function on a political level.

To conclude, I want to say that we are still experiencing various problems in regard to the Electoral Laws Act in its present form, although tremendous improvements have been effected since the last commission of inquiry. That is why I want to associate myself very strongly once again with the request of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad that when the recommendations of the various officials dealing with the matter are analysed, they should once more be referred to a select committee where the entire matter can be thrashed out in order to evolve a more effective policy.

I want to raise one or two matters with the hon. the Minister dealing with the question of film censorship on the one hand and book censorship on the other hand, and I want to say a few things about the refusal of the Government to allow people to remain in the Republic.

Some time last year the hon. the Minister gave an interview in which he stated that the policy of the S.A. Film Censorship Board had become increasingly liberal in recent years and would continue to do so. I wonder whether in fact what has happened to film censorship over the last year or so has borne out what the Minister said. From a reply to a question— another hon. member put a question as well as myself—I find that during 1967, 695 films were actually viewed, and of these more than 25 were banned completely and 325 were approved subject to excision. Some of these excisions were very radical, because I happened to see some of these films overseas and I saw them here, and I know that the excisions were fairly radical. That means that more than half the films which have been viewed have not been passed except with excision. I wonder whether the Minister would tell us what the criteria are which are used in judging whether these films are fit for South Africans to see or not. For instance, I see that this well-known film “Bonnie and Clyde” has been banned in South Africa, and I understand that the hon. the Minister is reconsidering this question. There is a final appeal to the Minister, and I understand that the Board has in fact banned it, and the Minister is considering the appeal. I hope that he will allow this film. It is certainly a film with a good deal of violence in it. It is a film about a notorious young couple who operated in America in the 1930s, and they were certainly a very violent young couple, but it is a brilliantly acted film. I saw it overseas last year, and it has won every major award. I think that our audiences are largely adult enough to be able to see a film of this nature. Incidentally, I see it is being shown in Swaziland, and according to the chairman of the Swaziland Film Society, a thousand people have come from South Africa, crossing the border into Swaziland to see that film. It seems to me ludicrous that people have to cross the border to see a film which, as I say, won so many awards overseas. It seems that our audiences are not trusted to see such a film. On the other hand, there was passed without any ban or excision what I consider to be one of the most savage films ever shown on the screen, and that is “Africa Addio”. It is a film which preaches racial hatred.

It is a fine film.

That hon. member probably thinks it is good because it depicts what he imagines all South Africans should have as their image of Africans. In other words, it depicts the brutality and savagery of Africans against white people and against animals. I should say that the main reason why it should not be shown is that it is known not to be authentic. It is known that many of the scenes were dubbed, and they depict Africans in a state of complete savagery. In a country like ours, where the majority of the people are Africans, I do not think it does any good to the public morale and it does nothing but stir up racial hostility to allow this sort of film to be shown. If we are going in for film censorship, although in principle I do not like film censorship except to stop real pornography on the screen, I would say that this is the sort of film that certainly should have fallen under the ban of censorship. [Interjections.] The producer of this particular film specializes in showing the most unattractive side of life. He has produced other films, notably “Mondo Cane”, and a film exclusively devoted to women, and I can assure hon. members that it is a film which most women would hate to have shown widely, because it depicts only the very worst side of women, just as “Mondo Cane” shows the very worst side of humanity. All the ugly features of humanity are depicted in these films. This man specializes in this type of shock production. As I say, “Africa Addio”, which has been banned in every other country in Africa, and which created a furore when it was shown in other countries, before it was withdrawn, is the sort of film which stimulates racial hostility and as such it should not be shown. But a film like “Bonnie and Clyde”, which is about something which really took place over 30 years ago, and which has been awarded every major film award, is one which should have been allowed to be shown here, although it depicts violence. But what interests me are the criteria used, which seem to vary so much from one type of film to the other.

Of course the same sort of thing applies to book censorship. I have had a great deal to say about this in the past, and I want to say again that it is high time that we have some sort of index of these thousands of banned books, which the censors seem to delight in banning. Some of our best authors have had their works banned in South Africa, and it is impossible to know which books are banned and which are not. The Minister did tell me last year that he was thinking of printing a proper bibliography so as to make it easy for libraries, booksellers and the public at large to know what sort of publications have been added to this ever-growing list of banned books. I notice, however, that there seems to be no difficulty in having a really disgusting little sheet circulated in this country, which is a real promoter of racial hatred. It was sent to me through the post and it comes from Pretoria. I was wondering whether the hon. member for Innesdal perhaps decided to send it to me, because it had some very interesting things to say about the racial groups. [Interjection.] I do not want to give it any further publicity. I will send it across to the hon. the Minister. It is openly anti-Semitic, on the one hand, and on the other hand it likens the Negro to an ape. It is a most disgraceful sheet. It comes from overseas, from Georgia, and having got into South Africa, it seems to have had no difficulty in being freely circulated through the post.

Why blame the Minister?

I am not blaming him, but it comes from Pretoria and I would be very interested to know who distributes it.

Perhaps the hon. the Minister will also tell me something about the reasons for the refusal to renew the visa of Bishop Robert Mize, according to the report in this morning’s paper. [Interjections.] I know the Minister promulgated regulations some time last year which enable him to hold the sword of Damocles over the head of any churchman who comes to South Africa, in case he should take too much interest in politics. I know that all these visas are subject to review. They are only valid for six months and have to be renewed every six months, and they are subject to constant review. The basic aim, apparently, according to a newspaper statement, of these regulations which came into force last October, is to ensure that the Government has an immediate remedy against any religious worker who is too outspoken in regard to the Government’s race policies. I know that the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town has been trying to get the Minister of the Interior to reconsider his decision in regard to Bishop Mize, but apparently his protests have fallen on deaf ears. I would be very interested if the Minister would perhaps give us some indication of why this churchman, who has been in South West Africa for many years, apparently since 1960, and who has done a fine job there, according to the Archbishop of Cape Town, should not be allowed to stay here. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Houghton has once again shown us her true colours here this afternoon. I must say at once that by now we know those true colours of hers very well, and they are by no means attractive. She did not want South Africans to see the film “Africa Addio”, but on the other hand she pleaded for other liberalistic films to be shown without any restrictions. Surely that is not fair. I have seldom found myself in a position where I differed so diametrically from an hon. member as I differed from the entire speech made by the hon. member for Houghton to-day. The only thing we could perhaps have agreed on was that pamphlet she spoke about, but she did not show it to us. But if that pamphlet came in here from America, and if it pictured a Negro as an ape, then of course most people would disagree with it, and that includes me. But I really do not know what is stated in that pamphlet, and the hon. member is so clever she does not even want to state what the name of that pamphlet is. She made veiled reference to the fact that it came from Pretoria and that it had perhaps emanated from the hon. member for Innesdal. But that kind of petty politicking does not hold water at all. We have great appreciation for the hon. member for Innesdal and his actions, and she need not make those veiled assertions here.

But I maintain that I differ diametrically from the hon. member, and in regard to the film industry I would in fact like to plead for something entirely different to what she pleaded for. I, on the contrary, am of the opinion that the motion picture industry in South Africa, viewed against the background of the facts, should in fact be examined and investigated because there are few mediums which exercise a greater influence on the people of South Africa than the motion picture industry. I am of the opinion that motion pictures are being screened here which should preferably not be screened because they seriously undermine the morals of our white population. I want to point out that we in South Africa have 400 ordinary cinemas, 20 café bioscopes, and more than 100 drive-in cinemas. There are therefore approximately 500 cinemas to which more than 300,000 Whites go every night to attend performances. The number of parking bays at drive-in cinemas alone is in the region of 60,000. The last particulars I was able to obtain were for December, 1966, and these figures are for Whites only. Do you know that in December, 1966, according to my information, no fewer than 4,465,000 Whites attended cinema performances in that one month? That proves what a tremendously important medium it is. Just imagine, four million Whites per month, more than our total white population, attend our cinemas. In 1967 more than R17 million was paid by Whites alone for cinema admission tickets. On a conservative estimate more than R20 million has been invested in the cinema industry. That is why I maintain that we are dealing here with a powerful industry, with a particularly influential mass medium, through which the philosophy and moral approach towards life of our people, particularly our young people, is being very seriously influenced. Volumes could be written about the effects this has, and specially the prejudicial effects this has, and in particular about the American films being exhibited here in South Africa.

I want to mention an example to you, which is not even the most blatant one I could have taken, but I am taking this example because I want to be fair. Take for example the so-called “Dirty Dozen” motion picture which is being exhibited here in South Africa. I believe that that is a picture which definitely cannot do the morals of our youth and of our people any good, and I am afraid that there are other motion pictures about which one could say the same thing. I want to refer you to a good newspaper in which the following review of “The Dirty Dozen” appeared (translation)—

Then I want to read out to you that I read about this motion picture in an American film review, but in South Africa this motion picture was exhibited without restriction and many thousands of our young people went to see it, a motion picture which deals with people who had committed every possible kind of misdemeanour such as murder, rape and theft. About this motion picture, in regard to which you are told by newspapers that you cannot but accept these people as your heroes, the film review in America states that—

After explaining the ins and outs of the plot, the publication goes on to state—

Then the publication goes on to say that one can describe the motion picture as “an irresponsible film”.

Mr. Chairman, young Afrikaners in South Africa are being used, on a large scale, to advertise this film. Here I have a clipping from a newspaper in which Dirty Dozen is being advertised and in which a photograph appears of a young girl sitting on a man’s lap, shavingoff his beard. R1,000 in prizes were put up by way of advertisement for this type of thing. Here I have another clipping from another Afrikaans newspaper, “A clever advertising gimmick” where students of our universities were used to advertise this motion picture. And then we read in our newspapers what happened recently in regard to our young people in Hillbrow, and we ask ourselves how this happened! To a large extent the reply is self-evident. It happened as a result of these pernicious films which are being exhibited in South Africa.

The point I should like to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister is the following: As the Act in this regard reads at present, the position is that when a motion picture is banned by the Publications Board, an appeal can be lodged with the Minister of the Interior against the banning imposed by the Publications Board. So far, so good. But I want to ask, against the background of the few facts which I have had to sketch here very briefly, whether it is not time, since there is no provision in the Act for an appeal against a picture which has been approved by the Publications Board, whether specific powers were entrusted to the Minister of the Interior to make an appeal to the Publications Board when such a motion picture has in fact been approved and it appears that it may have a prejudicial influence on our people, particularly the young people in South Africa. That is my friendly request. I want to ask that this matter be given very serious attention, and that the Minister should be granted that power. Hon. members must try to understand me. I am not pleading that the rights be given to a third party to make an appeal if a motion picture has been approved, because that would result in chaos, since every person has his own opinion in regard to every motion picture. I am pleading for one specific thing, and that is that the Minister, who has the power, according to law, to make an appeal when a motion picture has been banned, should have the right to appeal to the Publications Board, against a film which has been approved, if it is necessary to do so. I realize that there are problems. I repeat that I am not asking that third parties should have the right to make appeals. That would cause difficulty and trouble because then everybody could come along and appeal against a specific film. I think that if we regard the matter in this light, and tackle the matter in this way, and grant the Minister more power, we will go a long way towards keeping this powerful industry, which undoubtedly, particularly in this time in which we are living, exercises a prejudicial influence on our youth, within bounds and limits, and towards building up a White nation in South Africa which is basically sound as far as its normal standards are concerned. [Time expired.]

It is really an outrageous proposal which we have just had from the hon. member for Primrose. It sounds like a proposal emanating from the Broederbond, in collaboration with the Ruiterwag, and delivered by the Rapportryers. The proposal is to turn the Minister into a super censor, a person who can decide on his own to ban films which were approved by the Publications Board. I think that even the hon. the Minister would reject such a proposal with the contempt it deserves. Mr. Chairman, I shall have a few things to say about film censorship later on, but you can deduce from what I have just said that I do not agree with the hon. member for Primrose in this connection.

We would not have expected it of you.

I want to say something in connection with the unsatisfactory position in regard to the censorship of books in general in this country. The Minister is the head of the Publications Board; he is the one who appoints the persons who serve on it. If there is one thing which has caused a great deal of dissatisfaction among a large number of people, then it is the application of the Act by the Publications Board. Since the passing of this Act, more than 11,000 different titles have been banned. In addition, thousands were held back by the Customs Department. The holding back of books by Customs does not fall under this Vote. But what does happen, is that some of the books held back by Customs are sent to the Publications Board, and one out of every three books submitted by Customs is then banned by the Publications Board. There is the censorship applied by the selection committees of libraries in the country districts and in the towns; there is a far wider censorship than that applied by the hon. the Minister by means of the Publications Board, and the time has come for a searching enquiry to be instituted in order to counteract this widespread unsatisfactory situation.

There are a few undesirable aspects which are particularly prominent. The first is the large measure of uncertainty about the interpretation of what is really undesirable literature or undesirable films. If one consults the Act, one finds that no less than 97 different definitions or examples of what is undesirable are given —almost a hundred. How can the ordinary importer of books possibly know how to find his way in this wilderness when he wants to import and sell books? The provisions are disconcertingly vague and the time has come for the Publications Board to give greater clarity in this regard. A few years ago even the Burger wrote in connection with those provisions (translation)—

I think the time has come for the Board to give greater clarity and guidance to the purchasers of books and the importers of films when it does ban a film or a book; that in general it should give reasons for doing so and not merely refer the poor importer to a certain section in the Publications and Entertainments Act itself. Let the Board tell us how it interprets the Act, so that there can be some or other guiding principle and so that there will not be this great uncertainty. It has been estimated that owners of bookshops or importers of books lose up to R½ million a year as a result of the application of this Act. They do not know whether the books which they import are going to be approved or not, and, of course, they have to bear the cost of returning the books. In some cases they can recover some of the money; in others they cannot.

It is necessary that a searching enquiry be instituted and that an improvement is effected, because there are still too many other parties which are also concerned with censorship in South Africa to-day. We thought that this one body would be able to co-ordinate everything, but no, there is still the censorship which is applied under the Customs Act, the Post Office Act, the Children’s Act, the Native Administration Act, the Criminal Procedure Act and a large number of other Acts in South Africa. This Publications Board is a costly institution. This year it is going to cost the country R53,000 in salaries alone. Other items are going to cost a further R32,000. This means that R85,000 will be spent on this matter. This is a little less than in the previous year, but not sufficiently less. I see that less use is going to be made of volunteers to read books. Perhaps the hon. the Minister can tell us who will in future read the books which have to be examined. The extent of the damage done by such a Board to indigenous literary development in South Africa is tremendous. I am not a literary man, but there are literary men who say so themselves. Hon. members will recall that when the Publications Board came into operation, Professor Rob Antonissen said that “it is very dangerous, simply because it opens the door to abuses—abuses which are even worse than undesirable literature”. Bill de Klerk said, “With this Act we are creating more problems than we shall be able to solve with it … once you want to control a nation’s morals by means of laws and regulations, there is a screw loose somewhere”. Bartho Smit said—

To-day, after many years, Mr. W. A. de Klerk has not changed his views in this connection. He said (I quote the English translation)—

This much with reference to books and with reference to the necessity for a searching enquiry in connection with censorship with a view to improving the position.

The hon. member for Primrose spoke about films. One of the problems, of course, is that there are three different criteria to-day, one set of criteria for books, another for films and a third for dramatic performances. I do not believe for one moment that this Government and the Publications Board are more lenient or more enlightened (verlig), to use the modern term, than they were in the past in connection with films. In fact, last year one out of every two films which arrived in South Africa were cut, apart from those that were banned. But apart from that, how many hundreds of films do the exhibitors not even risk bringing to South Africa to submit to the Publications Board, films which are sought after in other parts of the world and which receive the highest awards?

During the past few weeks, films were crowned with Academy Awards by the Motion Picture Academy. Among these there was the best film of the year, “In the Heat of the Night”, with the best actor of the year, Rod Steiger. According to my latest information this film will not be allowed into South Africa. The hon. the Minister can tell me whether there has been any change. The film which won the prize for the best actress, “Guess Who Came to Dinner”, with Katherine Hepburn, we shall not be able to see either. The film which received the award for the best director, namely Mike Nichols’s “The Graduate” we shall not see in South Africa either. So one can continue mentioning numerous films, of a high artistic standard, which are either held back, or appealed against, and which I hope will eventually be released, especially now that we have made an appeal to the hon. the Minister. Let it not be said of the hon. the Minister that he displays a bigoted (verkrampte) attitude in becoming a super censor, but let the hon. the Minister rather adopt an enlightened attitude in this field as well.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Orange Grove once again delivered his annual tirade against the Publications Board. We have pointed out before that the Publications Board consists of very eminent people. These people have been appointed because of their knowledge of their subject, and they are people who give a well-motivated opinion when banning a book. The hon. member said there were different criteria, i.e. for films, for books and for theatrical productions. Specific criteria, of which very clear explanations are given, are contained in the Publications Act. If the hon. member wants to take the trouble of reading sections 5 and 10 of that Act, he will discover that in point of fact there are a large number of specific instructions which the Board has to take into account. What surprises me, is that the hon. the Opposition allows itself to be used by the liberal press as well as by liberals in the guise of artists, in order to lay down a certain norm. The Opposition follows up the instructions of those people as though those instructions were a law of the Medes and Persians. They then criticize this Publications Board on the basis of that liberal norm.

I hold it against them that they follow these liberals like lackeys and want to apply the same norm in our country as people who undermine the nation want to apply. The hon. member referred to the film “The Heat of the Night”, for instance. He told us that that was a film which had won numerous awards. But if he knew what he was talking about, he would have known that “The Heat of the Night” was a film telling the story of a stupid White policeman who worked with a particularly clever non-White detective. These two always worked together to the detriment of the Whites and to the advantage of the non-Whites. If this is not something injurious to race relations in this country, I do not know what it is. I am of the opinion that the Film Board was quite right in not allowing that film into this country. The hon. member for Houghton said that the film “Bonnie and Clyde” was supposed to be such a wonderful film. She contrasted this film to “Africa Addio”. “Africa Addio’’ was a documentary and every member in this House and everyone who was born in South Africa could see that the things depicted in that film were things which would happen here if South Africa were to allow to happen to her what happened to the north of her. We are not blind and we know Africa. “Africa Addio” told us nothing new about Africa. “Africa Addio” confirmed to us what we already know of Africa. Therefore it will get the hon. member nowhere to throw up her arms here and to tell us that that film was a fraud. We know what will happen in Africa if the black people were to take over this country as that hon. member should like them to do.

You are a real racialist.

Running me down will get the hon. member nowhere. We know that “Africa Addio” is a documentary. I want to tell the hon. member for Houghton that she is upset because “Africa Addio” has been allowed into this country. I take it that what upset her is that there are scenes of violence in that film and that she is of the opinion that those violent scenes should not have been shown in South Africa. But does the hon. member for Houghton realize that “Bonnie and Clyde” is an equally violent film? She suggested quite hypocritically in this House that “Bonnie and Clyde” should have been allowed …

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “hypocritically”.

I withdraw it, Mr. Chairman, but I shall substitute no other word; I leave a space and then hon. members will know what I mean. Let us now look at what Dr. Bensusson said of “Bonnie and Clyde”; let us see whether his opinion is the same as that of the hon. member for Houghton. I presume that he comes from the University of the Witwatersrand. I quote from yesterday’s edition of Dagbreek (translation)—

But yet the hon. member delivered a plea that “Bonnie and Clyde” should be shown in this country. I am completely satisfied that the Film Board is doing its best in terms of this Act and the instructions contained therein. In this respect, however, I want to associate myself with what was said by the hon. member for Primrose. In my modest opinion the Film Board does not have sufficient powers to safeguard South Africa against the banal films which are inflicted on us in cinemas night after night. Let us now openly make the following admission. The South African nation is a cinema-going nation. The film is one of our most important forms of relaxation. When we go to a cinema, we should like to relax and we should like to see a film which need not necessarily be educational but it must at least be interesting. But what do we get? We go to the cinema to relax and one banal film after the other is dished up. Let me just mention one or two examples. Let us deal with that well known film “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”. Fifteen cuts were made in that film. I do not want to express an opinion about the author of the original work, but I should like to make this remark for the information of the Film Board. If it is necessary to make 15 cuts in a film, I, as a cinemagoer, would prefer to see that film disappear from the scene completely. There is no point in making numerous cuts in a film and then releasing a film which still contains such ugly scenes. They can ban the whole film instead.

Let us take a few other films. There is the film “Hawaii”. I am not referring to the film starring the good old guitar-strummer Elvis Presley, but to the other film with the same name which was screened in Cape Town last year. The film dealt with a Calvinistic minister of religion who went to Hawaii to try to convert the inhabitants. I saw that film and I was literally shocked by the caricature of a Calvinistic minister of religion depicted in that film. I am quite convinced that someone who does not know our church would not want to go to an Afrikaans church after having seen that film, because Afrikaans churches are also Calvinistic. We do not need that kind of banality in South Africa. Take for instance a film like “My Mother’s House”. We were told that this film depicted the struggle between good and evil. But the film was about some children who illegally hid the body of their mother, and the film offended against every canon of good taste possible in a film. It could just as well have been kept out of South Africa.

Then there is also the film “The Loved One”. This film dealt with the exploitation of the sentimentality of people by American undertakers. I have never come across any film which was in worse taste.

What now is the problem? The problem is that our Film Board may not pronounce upon the quality of a film. I believe we should place the Board in the position that it may pronounce upon the quality of a film. If a film is not up to a certain standard of public taste, it should rather disappear, disappear completely from the country. We should not be afraid to reject films. This will make the film moguls in South Africa realize very soon that we are not one of the decadent countries. Let the world know that ours is a decent, honourable country which does not want to fall into the morass of modern decadence. This is our right, and it is our duty to ensure that that will remain the position. It does not matter whether hon. members opposite like this or not. It is our duty in South Africa to give the people that kind of film which offers them real relaxation. It is our duty to ensure that the liberalizing decadence which we find in virtually every film to-day is not spread here. It is that kind of film which promotes the political views of the hon. member for Houghton and which undermines our people. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who has just sat down had a great deal to say about films, and one gets the impression that he has seen all the spicy ones—and I envy him somewhat in that respect! I was also most intrigued by the hon. member when he talked about films like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, because I gained the impression that he is afraid of his own shadow. This desire to protect the South African public from “liberal tendencies” is somewhat strange. The hon. member for Primrose used the same expression. It would appear that whenever those hon. members do not like something, it has a “liberal tendency”. I do not think it is the sort of thing which is liberal that they do not like; I think it is anything not propagated by their own party that they dislike, and they then give it the label of having a “liberal tendency”. However, I do not think we can take anything which the hon. member for Prinshof has just said seriously, because he sits just behind the hon. member who the other day said he does not like mini-skirts!

I believe the whole question of censorship in South Africa needs very careful handling. There can be no question about it that over the last three or four years the films and books produced tend to portray life as it in fact is, rather than as a fairy story, which was often the case in the past. Now, this film “Bonnie and Clyde” is freely admitted to have high artistic claims, but the Film Board banned it in this country. Yet they allowed a film like “The Mercenaries” to be shown in South Africa. In the result one is left with much doubt as to just what is their purpose. There can be so little justification for decisions of this sort.

However, I want to leave films and say a few things about books and newspapers, because I believe if hon. members opposite are somewhat nervous about the sort of film people in South Africa might see, they ought to be far more nervous about the type of publication appearing in this country and in fact printed here in South Africa itself. The banning of about 11,000 books and the 300 odd films over the past five years will not help at all if we allow the type of publication to appear in our midst which is in fact appearing in the streets of Cape Town this very day. Not only in Cape Town but in recent months also in Pretoria there is a publication appearing called “Boomerang”. This publication is decidedly anti-Semitic and, moreover, clouded in secrecy; yet this very active Publications Control Board, which has banned 11,000 books over the past five years, is allowing “Boomerang”, a publication which is decidedly unsettling to race relations in South Africa, to go free.

I am going to turn now to a publication which appears in Cape Town and which has a circulation of no less than 40.000 per week. I raised this matter with the hon. the Minister a few weeks ago when I asked him whether there had been any investigations into this particular publication.

The publication I refer to is called the Telegraph. The Telegraph has on its front page certain statements which even I who am certainly not a prude, would hesitate to read to this House.

Pass it over to the hon. member for Prinshof. [Interjections.]

I will not read these lines, but I want to say to the hon. the Minister that, when I raised the question of this publication, which is sold on the streets of Cape Town once a week, with a circulation of 44,000, namely the Telegraph, the hon. the Minister said they were investigating it. On Friday a notice appeared that the first six issues of this publication have been banned. I would say to the hon. the Minister: If this is the way the board operates, it is a very sad thing for South Africa indeed. Both those hon. members who spoke before me have something to be worried about.

Must they ban it in advance?

Yes. This publication was banned after every single issue had been sold. This is the point. What earthly good is there in banning a publication which in fact is already sold, and everybody has got it.

What section do you suggest we can use to ban in advance?

They are very quick to take action against other things, but suddenly when a publication like this appears in the streets, they are slow to ban its publication. Is it because it is printed by a friendly Press? Because there must be some very good reason for it, if the hon. member over there is to be taken seriously in his concern for the morals of the population of South Africa.

Last year I raised the matter of these picture story magazines which appear on the streets as well. I told the hon. the Minister that if he was worried about the increase in the amount of crime, stabbings and so on, he did not have very far to look. A lot of these picture magazines may well be responsible for it.

Who are the printers and the publishers?

The publishers of this particular magazine are Telegraph Publishers, Voortrekker Road, Maitland. It does not say who the printers are.

Mr. Chairman, I raised the question of these picture story magazines last year. Since that date these magazines are now selling something like over a million a month in South Africa. They portray all the worst forms of violence and sex imaginable, and then people on that side of the House worry about a film like “Bonnie and Clyde”, where two people happen to commit a few murders. They can see ten times as much in any publication here in South Africa. In this newspaper, which one can buy on the streets this very minute, appears far more violence and sex than one can see in any American film which has reached this country during the last 12 months. This is the sort of thing that is allowed to continue. A publication like “Boomerang” is allowed to continue but of course “Boomerang” is attacking a section of the population about whom this Government feels nothing whatsoever; so it is allowed to continue. It has been investigated, and the board found nothing wrong with it. But anybody could read this publication, “Boomerang”, and if they do not shudder in their boots, then I say they are not good South Africans.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Port Natal, the hon. member for Houghton and other members have developed the habit of labelling anything that they do not like as “anti-Semitic” or “racialist” and that disposes of the matter as far as they are concerned. Then we must accept that any publication that has been labelled as such, is undesirable. I wish the hon. member for Houghton or the hon. member for Port Natal will take the trouble one day to give us a definition of what they mean when they use these words so glibly, with the express purpose of creating confusion as regards the matters in point. We refuse to be put off by that.

I do not want to say much about what the hon. member for Port Natal said. He referred here to a publication called “Boomerang”. Some time ago a big fuss was made in the Sunday Times about a certain edition of “Boomerang”, and it was stated that this magazine would be banned by the Publications Control Board. If I remember correctly, the magazine was referred to the Publications Control Board, and the Publications Control Board did not ban it. Now I want to ask the hon. member: Does he want to tell me that the decision of the Publications Control Board as regards that edition was wrong? If so, he should, after all, have that edition at hand and quote its contents to us, and what the finding of the Publications Control Board was. That is the only way to discuss a matter of this kind in a factual manner; not by speaking at random in this way.

As far as books and other publications are concerned, many of them are banned. I have said before that I believe that mistakes can sometimes be made with these bannings. But I am much more confident in my own mind that if the board does err, it errs on the side of not banning enough, rather than too many. I am convinced of that. This is caused by the fact that the machinery of the board is inadequate to deal properly with such a mass of literature.

The hon. member for Orange Grove complained about the R53,000 per annum which it costs the country. But let me tell him: This is a very inexpensive premium for safeguarding this country and this nation against the moral subversion to which they are exposed. If this is all we have to pay for that, then I am prepared to say that it must be doubled, as it is of much more value to us than can ever be calculated in terms of money.

As far as publications are concerned, people are always making a fuss about the Publications Control Board being appointed in South Africa as a kind of big censor to withhold literature from the public which they ought to have. The censoring or selection that can be applied by the Publications Control Board is of a very minor nature as compared with the selection that is applied before those books come here. Hon. members should bear in mind that a book does not simply appear out of the blue. A publisher has to be found, and now I ask the hon. member for Port Natal whether he has seen who the people are who are, for example, at the head of the Penguin series on Africa: Ronald Segal and Ruth Furst. Let me put this question to the hon. member for Port Natal: Does he think that Ronald Segal and Ruth Furst can have an unbiased opinion on what should be published on Africa and South Africa? Does he think this is possible? At Pall Mall Mr. Colin Legum is at the head. The hon. member knows Mr. Colin Legum. Perhaps he has read his book “South Africa—Crisis for the West”, by which one may test his judgment on matters.

Mention one or two examples.

I shall mention the following to you: Penguin, the largest publisher of paperbacks in Britain, and Pall Mall, the second largest publisher of paperbacks in Britain. These are the people, avowed leftists, members of the Communist Party such as Ruth Furst, who are in charge of that Africa section. What literature do hon. members think they send into the world in that regard? No, Sir, when the hon. member for Port Natal has acquainted himself with what goes on in the English-speaking world—I do not expect of him to go beyond that—who is in charge of the publishing companies, who decides what is to be published and what not, how people who want to publish something against this leftist school of thought are gagged, then he may discuss the matter with me again. If he can furnish me with evidence that there is in fact a free market on which people can give currency to their ideas, if he can furnish me with that evidence from the English-speaking world, then we can continue our discussion. This is simply not the case, for once a book is published, it is dependent on the reviews which appear on it for its circulation, because this is the way in which the book is brought to people’s attention. And when it appears, a great deal depends on whether these reviews are favourable or derogatory. I can furnish him with a great deal of evidence from Britain and America of how one leftist reviewer sees to it that another leftist author’s book receives favourable reviews and of how there is a kind of reciprocal back-scratching, very much like what Time on occasion described as an “incestuous interquote”. In this way books are lauded to the skies and sales are promoted. Magazines entering South Africa from America and Britain contain the reviews of those books. Accordingly the South African readers of these magazines, namely Time, Life, Newsweek, Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman and Nation, and so forth, are already reading these reviews in overseas magazines. Then the book is brought out to South Africa and once again reviewed here in the English-language newspapers and magazines. One sometimes finds three or more reviews of the same book. Almost invariably —and I am prepared to say invariably, although I can think of one notable exception, namely Burnham’s “Suicide of the West”—the books that are reviewed in this way are leftist ones. However, not only do excellent books that appear in overseas countries on the same subjects never reach South Africa along the normal channels, but the names of these books never appear in South Africa either, so that people may take note of such books and order them. Consequently book-sellers take no interest in such books. They do not want to tie their capital in them, because no market has been created for these books. If you want to buy such a book, you cannot buy it off the shelf, but you have to order it from overseas. Just consider what happened to the book of the British Council of Churches on South Africa. Entire shop-windows were filled with copies of this book here in Cape Town, where I bought it. At the same time “The Puppeteers” appeared, a book in which the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Defence and Aid Fund were presented in their true colours. Not one copy of this book could be bought off the shelf in Cape Town. Books are imported to South Africa through cunning channels which automatically reject certain books. They simply do not get here. On the other hand certain books are brought to South Africa en masse. The same happens in the case of magazines. You can buy certain magazines in every fish shop in South Africa— Time, Life, Newsweek and Post, which have never had a good word for South Africa. But U.S. News and World Report, which has never once said anything against South Africa, we do not see. A large news agency in South Africa has the distribution rights for this magazine, but it is not interested in distributing it here. That is the pattern. It fits in with the news pattern of the English-language newspapers in South Africa and their connections outside. What we are told here by the English newspapers, must be confirmed for us in the book coming from outside. The news which they send abroad on South Africa in order to give South Africa a poor image there, must be confirmed in the book. Then one finds the position that even an encyclopaedia such as Colliers engaged a person such as Anthony Delius to make a contribution on South Africa. Then one finds the party-political idiom on South Africa of the Cape Times and the Rand Daily Mail in encyclopaedias.

Now you are talking tripe.

That hon. member who is sitting back and saying that I am talking tripe, knows so little knowledge about these matters that he might as well go back to school as far as this is concerned. [Interjections.]

I want to deal now with the hon. member for Houghton, who referred here to a small magazine, the name of which she did not want to mention. I just want to tell her that many things are circulated through the post that cannot be stopped. This is probably what happened. But the hon. member will recall that in 1964 the Sunday Times, for example, published a report on a new communist newspaper which is published in Britain, namely Assegai. The Sunday Times furnished the full address at which one could subscribe to that newspaper. Has the hon. member ever objected to that? Will she ever raise an objection? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Innesdal has set himself aside to such an extent and has focused so much attention upon himself that I think we should leave him there so that he may be judged by those who sit around him and whose allegiances he follows. I think that the most alarming tendency in this debate has been the harangue, which we have listened to from this hon. member. Quite frankly, I do not read the books or see the films which the hon. member for Prinshof likes so much. He seems to have a very intimate knowledge of all the salacious literature, which is on sale to-day as well as the films, which are on view. I believe that these gentlemen take a very great interest in these matters for a good reason. They love it. This is just up their street and they are very happy in their work. Unhappily, I want to break this thread because I have a far more important matter about which I want to talk, compared with the matters we have heard discussed by the previous speaker.

I should like to deal with passports for Coloured persons. I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister and suggest that he might let up a little in the granting of passports to Coloured people. Many complaints reach me about people, who have to wait an unconscionable time for a passport. They say that they do not know why passports are refused. Of course, the Department gives no reason. I can understand this, except that being on the side of the persons who are making these applications, I know how aggrieved, hurt and offended they feel, because they do not know why the hon. the Minister of Interior should refuse to give them passports. We have had several cases in recent times where Coloured persons, usually artisans or teachers, have applied to leave the country. These are people who have attained a high status in their community and who have no interest in politics. These are people who, with their families, want to make a break and go to new pastures, where they believe they and their children will have better opportunities. For reasons best known to the Minister himself, there is a dead set against these people receiving passports. Persons who want to leave the country to take up bursaries and attend foreign universities, are simply refused passports and no reasons are given. I believe that the hon. the Minister should look into these matters a little more. I blame no official of the Department because I get wonderful co-operation from them, when I approach them, but their hands are tied by this policy, namely that Coloured persons, especially educated and intellectual Coloured persons, are to be kept in the country, if it is at all possible to do so. The easiest way of doing that is to refuse to grant them passports and so make them stay here. Apart from that, there is also the tremendous delay between the application for a passport and the granting or refusal of it. I believe that although much has been said about staff problems and so on, I do not think that that argument is valid because I believe that the delay is intentional. These people make bookings on ships and aircraft months in advance, expecting in pleasant anticipation to be able to get a passport on time. Then, as the weeks go by, they find themselves eventually in the position that a passport is refused them, while the sailing date is at hand. Then they appeal to other people, such as members of Parliament, to find out the reason and to ask for assistance. I believe that the Department should accelerate this process. Some priority should be given to the issue of passports and, more especially, attention should be given to instances, where passports are refused, so that these people can at least make some attempt to change whatever may be the background or the reason for the refusal. They can only guess at the reasons. There are cases on record, where the recipient of a bursary who has accepted the offer in perfectly good faith, finds that the organization offering the bursary is persona non grata with the Government. I think that that is a great shame, because these are young people. I do not intend to refer to the white people, who have the same difficulty because that matter has already been dealt with. I am making an appeal for the Coloured persons, who through no fault of their own, find themselves in this humiliating position that a passport is refused them.

I want to go further and say this. I would like to ask the Minister upon whom does he rely for reports as to the suitability of an applicant to be granted a passport? There is a feeling among the Coloured community that this matter is not handled entirely by the Department of the Interior. I do not even propose to hazard a guess, but I would like the Minister to say, plainly and frankly, so that everybody may know, what the hurdles are, which a Coloured person must expect to face, when he or she applies for a passport. I put a couple of questions on the Question Paper asking whether any information was available in regard to the refusal of passports, and also in regard to the repatriation of persons from other countries, who were brought back to this country at the request of themselves or at the request of a foreign government. To my surprise, none of these records are available; they are not kept. I would like to ask the Minister why these conditions are laid upon these people, and then no record is kept of what is actually going on. I went to the trouble, in regard to one country, where the amount of money asked is R300 per person, for the man and his wife and two children, making it about R800 or R900 in all, to enquire whether and from what countries persons have been repatriated. But I could not get any satisfactory reply, so I made some investigations on my own. I found that over a period of some years, in regard to the particular country, in which I was interested, which information is available to the Minister, but is not a matter for discussion across the floor of the House, only one person was repatriated. I believe that this sort of general attitude towards repatriation and the demanding of guarantees is unreasonable. I understand that these guarantees are held until such time as the person takes citizenship in the other country.

That also brings me to the point in regard to the Coloured persons who are not able to get into our universities and who want to go to other universities such as in Basutoland, and their passports are refused. The individual is directed by the Minister of Education to go to the Coloured University in the Western Cape for the first year, to take a degree in science, but a broken university career is not wholesome and it does not make for better feelings between the Coloureds and ourselves.

A final point I want to make is this. Travel agents tell me that when Coloureds ask them to fix up travel documents for them, they are required first to have a passport. The reply from the Passport Office is that they cannot get a passport until they get a landing permit. The travel agents tell me that these people cannot get landing permits until they get visas on their passports so that the importing country, if I may use that expression … [Time expired.]

It does not surprise me that the hon. member for Karoo was in such a hurry to avoid the subject with which the hon. member for Innesdal dealt so competently. I should like to come back to a matter raised by the hon. member for Port Natal, but before doing so, I feel the need to express my gratitude and appreciation to the members and the officials of the Publications Board for fulfilling a very difficult task with great distinction. The task these people are fulfilling in acting as the protectors of the morality of the nation is a thankless one. They have a difficult task because we are living in an era in which violence, crime, sadism and brutality are the order of the day. They have to do so in a world in which sensationalism and perversity are rampant. It is alarming to hear, as we heard here this afternoon, that people can be influenced to such an extent that they advocate that these things should be allowed, and the people who try to take preventive measures are regarded as being old-fashioned or “verkramp” or whatever. The people of our time no longer want to hear about the virtues of self-control and self-discipline. The mass media of communication and advertising techniques of our time have turned man into a victim who craves for sensual stimuli. The craving for sensuality is being exploited unscrupulously by people who are sedulously occupied with undermining the morality of the nation, often for the sake of money. These people have a difficult task because they have to try to examine the masses of reading matter and films and they have to try to give some direction in this regard in order to try to save the soul of the nation in that way. It cannot be denied that it is precisely where this undermining process has taken place, where man has become estranged from his morals, his religion, his national traditions and his self-respect, that the foreign ideology finds the most fertile breeding ground, and it is in fact a method of communism first to undermine one’s morality and then to approach him to impress this ideology upon him. Therefore it is not only the right but also the duty of the State to ensure that some control is exercised, and for that reason we have to pay tribute to the members of this Board of whom the hon. member for Orange Grove said in 1963 that they would be a secret cabal of inquisitors and ferrets in the private affairs of the citizens of the country. I think the hon. member ought to apologize to the members of the Publications Board for what he said.

I say these people have a difficult task because there is an Act and they have to operate within the provisions of that Act. It is not their task to ferret through all publications and to ban them indiscriminately. That is not within their scope. For that reason it must in fact be a member of the public who finds a publication which he regards as an improper one and he must then submit it to the Publications Board for which he has to pay R2. I think this amount may be too high, because many people would perhaps have taken the trouble to submit such a publication, but if they have to pay R2 they would rather leave the matter where it is. It is known that a young Coloured recently submitted four issues of the newspaper to which the hon. member for Port Natal referred to the Publications Board, and for that he had to pay R8. I think the work of the Publications Board would be facilitated if this amount were to be reduced to a nominal amount of 50 cents. But the difficulty with the Publications Board and the banning of publications is in fact that such a publication first has to be considered by the Publications Board and if it regards such a publication as undesirable reading matter, a notice has to be published in the Government Gazette. The hon. member for Port Natal mentioned the example in this newspaper, the Telegraph, but the hon. member for Port Natal tried to lay the blame at the door of the Publications Board and the Minister, and the fault is not theirs. These people can only act according to the Act. No action could be taken against this publication prior to the publication of a notice in the Government Gazette. For that reason I want to advance a plea, and although the hon. member for Port Natal is not present at the moment, he will probably agree with me that the Publications Board ought to he authorized to ban not only individual issues but also, if the Board finds it necessary to do so, entire series. This will have the result that a publisher like this will be much more careful, because after those six issues had been banned, this issue was published and it was pornographic from the front page to the last page. That publisher completely disregarded that warning and the banning of the previous issues, because he knew that this issue too would first have to be regarded as an improper one and that another notice would first have to be published in the Government Gazette and by that time all copies would have been sold. Therefore I want to advance the plea that the powers of the Publications Board be widened to such an extent that it will be able to take action against a series of issues. We find the same thing in connection with picture stories in paper backs. These things appear in series. The case is known of a paper back picture story which was extremely pornographic and which was distributed amongst schoolchildren and which first had to go through the process laid down in the Act by which time the next issue had appeared on the market. Therefore I think the State has an important duty here to save the morality and the soul of the nation. And where this type of publication is in fact distributed amongst our Coloured population, people who are emotionally immature and need protection, I think the powers should be extended to such an extent that the Board will be able to take more effective action.

I want to associate myself with what the hon. members for Algoa and Port Natal said, and I also want to add that the entire question of the censorship of newspapers published in the interior have apparently caused so much difficulty that I think it is necessary to consider the possibility of facilitating the method of censorship of domestic publications, and that a method should be found whereby a stop can be put to the distribution of such undesirable literature before the harm is done. In view of all the good legislation and the good purpose behind it all, it would probably be irresponsible of the House if we did not admit that difficulties do in fact exist which can destroy the purpose of the Act. I want to agree with the hon. member for Port Natal—and there are very few things I can agree with him about—that in the case in question to which he referred, for example, a very good purpose which could have been served by the Publications Board has been more than simply frustrated; I think that it has to a large extent been destroyed by the way in which the entire matter has been tackled. In saying this I in no way intend it as a reflection against the Publications Board, for the work of which I have the greatest respect, and for the integrity, as well as the methods of the members of which I have the greatest appreciation. But nevertheless I do think that there is a deficiency in the entire system of scrutinizing publications for which methods have to be found whereby it may be eliminated. I think the hon. member for Innesdal also referred to the fact that we in South Africa were faced with the problem of the distribution of such publications over which there was, in point of fact, little control. In passing I want to mention that, particularly as far as our Afrikaans publications are concerned, it has more than once caused me concern that the distribution of our Afrikaans daily newspapers from the Transvaal is so unsatisfactory because the proper channels for distribution do not always exist and the necessary sympathetic treatment, particularly of publications which we regard as desirable, is not always there. [Interjections.] I am referring to daily newspapers from the Transvaal, but church publications may as well be included. It would do a lot more good than many of these publications which are being distributed by the one distributing organization which exists at present. I think it is necessary for us to take note of the way in which newspapers are being distributed to-day by one body only, and that we should take note of the fact that a monopoly in regard to the distribution of literature is something which can become fatal for a country. It is a matter to which attention ought to be given, even though the State subsequently has to give certain directives to such a distribution organization.

Mr. Chairman, I have no intention whatsoever of ever advocating in our country, in which the freedom of the Press is regarded as one of our most precious possessions, that we should interfere in this matter. But I want to return and say to the hon. member for Port Natal what I said in his absence, i.e. that the freedom of the Press can be misused to such an extent that it can, as in the case he mentioned, degenerate into a major evil. I therefore want to advocate very earnestly that means be found to put a stop to the distribution of the kind of literature to which he referred when doing so can still serve a useful purpose, and not when the harm has already been done.

The hon. member for Karoo, as usual, made a veiled attack here on the Government, implying that it had acted in a way which could drastically restrict the private rights of individuals. I think it is necessary, even though the hon. member is not present at the moment, to eliminate a misconception which he may possibly have caused to take root. The hon. member alleged here that discrimination was being practiced in the issuing of passports, and that requirements were being made for the payment of deposits. He mentioned no examples, but he referred in passing to bursary holders and others who had had difficulties placed in their way when they tried to obtain passports to undertake overseas trips.

Mr. Chairman, I wonder whether the hon. member took the trouble to find out that requirements are also being imposed on Whites before passports are issued to them. After all, it is the duty of the Government to make certain that anybody who wishes to travel overseas, can afford to return, before he can be allowed to leave the country. It has happened on numerous occasions in the past that people were allowed to travel overseas, and that this Government was then held responsible for the repatriation of such people. This deposit, as the hon. member rightly stated, is subsequently paid back to the traveller, and the purpose of this deposit is to leave a guarantee, at least in part, in the hands of the Government that the costs connected with bringing a person back, if that has to be done, will at least be partially covered. I think that the hon. member for Karoo, as Coloured representative, will concede that the Government also has a duty towards the Coloured population of our country to protect them when they are invited by bodies to visit countries in the outside world. I think the Government has the necessary information at its disposal, and I think it is the duty of the Government, when it has such information, to protect the under-privileged, such as the Coloured population, against bodies that may possibly at a later stage take advantage of them.

That is why I feel strongly that this sort of supervision over the issuing of passports should be maintained in future and that it should be made possible for the Government to continue to see to it that the interests of the Government and the interests of the persons who want to travel overseas are fully protected before an application for a passport is granted.

The hon. member for Witbank will forgive me if I do not follow him, in the limited time at my disposal, on the matters raised by him. I want to raise two matters with the hon. the Minister. The first is in regard to naturalization and naturalization procedures. The hon. the Minister will be aware that from time to time there appear in the Gazettes notices of intended application in which full details are given of the applicant, and then subsequently, in schedule form, there appears in the Gazette merely a list of the names of those who have applied for naturalization and whose applications have been approved. I do hope that the hon. the Minister will give some consideration to the question of including the addresses with those names when they appear in the schedules. To my way of thinking it is perfectly meaningless and quite useless merely to have the names in the schedules without the addresses, although one knows that the addresses appear in the individual applications which are made in the first instance. Sir, while on the question of naturalization, I want to say that there is a general feeling that not sufficient is being done to speed up the taking out of citizenship by immigrants to this country. I do not think that the tempo is anything as fast as it should be.

There is no encouragement.

The responsibility rests with the hon. the Minister to see what can be done and what should be done to speed up the rate of applications for citizenship. I think the first point is that the procedures can be simplified. The procedures cause a certain amount of irritation. People have to go to and fro, obtaining and filling in long forms, and then they have to deal with a large number of irritating details. Sir, the percentage is small, and I believe that our South African citizens are becoming very irritated by the large and growing number of persons who are permanently resident in this country and who are taking no steps whatsoever to acquire South African citizenship. They enjoy all the benefits of residence; they enjoy all the opportunities of following an occupation and making their living in this country. They expect to be unfettered in regard to matters, such as exchange control, which affect South African citizens, and yet the only obligation which unnaturalized immigrants have to this country is that the young men in the family must now undergo some form of military training. They are only required to undergo a course of training; they are under no obligation to render service in the armed forces in times of emergency. I do believe that these are matters in which mere talking is not going to be sufficient. There are means and procedures which are adopted in other countries to make sure that persons who wish to enjoy the benefits of permanent residence, also accept the responsibilities of citizenship. I hope that the hon. the Minister will be able in the near future to indicate what new steps are being taken by his Department to bring about an improvement in this matter.

The other aspect which concerns one is that statistics in relation to the naturalization of immigrants, are not readily available to the general public. The returns in the Bulletin of Statistics show the occupations and so on of immigrants as well as the number who enter each month, but nowhere in this book is there an indication as to how many have become permanent naturalized citizens. I take it that this information is available in some form or other to the Department, but it is not available in this bulletin.

Having said that, I want to deal briefly with another matter and that is the question of outstanding cases needing finalization under the Population Registration Act. Sir, last year we on this side of the House suggested to the hon. the Minister, when he was dealing with legislation, that pending appeals lodged by third parties should be allowed to continue and that it should be made quite clear in the Act that they are allowed to continue so that these outstanding appeals could be finalized. The hon. the Minister said: “I am not going to do anything of the sort; my Bill is perfectly clear.” The Department then said that these third-party objections had to fall by the way, and what has happened? A lot of money has been spent; there has been a lot of anxiety and a lot of time has intervened until the Appeal Court has now told the hon. the Minister that under the Act those third-party objections must be finalized. We asked that that be done. As far as I am able to ascertain there is now a backlog of 400 to 500 cases which have to be dealt with.

That is the latest figure that I have available. In each of these cases there is uncertainty and there is a delay in finalizing these determinations. This is causing a lot of unhappiness and a lot of anxiety. I do believe that the Department should take immediate steps to get these cases out of the way. These people were kept in suspense when the Act was passed; they were kept in suspense by the attitude of the Department and some of them have had to spend a lot of money to get this matter determined in their favour by the Appellate Division, which has ruled that pending objections must now be concluded. I hope that the hon. the Minister will be able to give an assurance that these matters will be cleared up with the maximum speed. This backlog applies not only to third-party objections. There are numbers of other matters which have not been finalized and which should be finalized as soon as possible.

The hon. member for Wolmaransstad asked me for certain information in regard to elections, and he spoke about the necessity of consolidating the Electoral Laws, and so did the hon. member for Durban (Point). The hon. member for Durban (Point) also mentioned the amendments we had effected this year in the Electoral Laws so as to make it possible for the special postal vote to be used more extensively. As regards the consolidation and further amendment of the Electoral Laws, I want to say that at the moment the Department is, as I said earlier on in this Session, sifting the information we gathered from the political parties as well as our own officials, so as to see what fundamental matters there are to which we ought to pay attention. I want to tell the hon. member for Durban (Point) and other hon. members that if they have any further misgivings in regard to matters to which they think we ought to pay attention, we should be pleased if they would bring such matters to our notice. I hope that we will perhaps be able to introduce legislation next year, but, in any case, I want to make the promise that if we do so we shall, as the hon. member for Wolmaransstad requested, refer that legislation to a select committee so that it may be studied properly and perhaps amended. That is customary with such legislation. I think that such a select committee can perform its work better if it has before it a basis on which it can found its deliberations and concentrate its ideas so as to see what improvements can be effected to our election system as such.

The hon. member for Tygervallei spoke about this new concept of registration, which might in time to come automatize elections to such an extent that it would eliminate general registrations, provided that the scheme is as successful as we hope it will be. However, I want to give him the assurance that this will probably be one of the last steps we shall take in connection with the implementation of the changed system, but we hope to be able to put the new system into operation during the 1976 elections. It is our intention to introduce the election part of this new scheme as one of the last facets.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) made reference here to a certain matter. I do not take it amiss of him, but I find it very strange that some people can be so delighted about so little. He referred to the by-election held in Swellendam, and one would really have thought that his Party had won there. I want to agree with the hon. member, because as far as I am concerned, I, too, regard that result as an isolated case. There were special circumstances which made the election a special one. The hon. Opposition also regarded it as an isolated case, because if they did not regard it as such, why did they not nominate a candidate to test the sentiments of the country in places such as Pretoria (West), in the Free State and in Oudtshoorn in particular? In Oudtshoorn in particular they had a golden opportunity—that came after the election in Swellendam. We expected them to come forward with candidates there, but strangely enough, they could not even find a Van Eeden to stand for election there!

I agree with the hon. member for Durban (Point) on one point, and that is where he said that he thought that far too much attention was being paid to the result in Swellendam; and all sorts of things are being imputed and attributed to that result, things which for my part do not have so much value and importance that one has to pay too much attention to them. Then he said something else here which was rather important. He said that in his opinion and in that of his Party certain irregularities had occurred in respect of the registration of voters. This was brought to my notice after the election. The correct procedure to follow is to lodge with the electoral officer an appeal against the registrations in question, and that is being done at present. Once the officer has given his verdict and the United Party, or whoever, is dissatisfied with it, an appeal can be made to the chief electoral officer. That is the legal procedure. If he upholds the verdict given by the electoral officer and dismisses the appeal, this case ought to go to court. That is the procedure that has to be followed in order to see who is right. I am not going to interpret the Act, because I do not know all the facts of the case. I do not know what the feeling is. It is for the lawyers to do the interpretation. I want to give the hon. member the assurance that as far as the Department and I are concerned, we shall not put any obstacles in the way of the dissatisfied party, if there were irregularities. However, I believe that if there were irregularities, they were not committed deliberately. However, we shall not do anything whatsoever to prevent this case from reaching the courts so that they may pass judgment in this regard. I am prepared to abide by the judgment of the courts.

The hon. member also asked, as he had done on a previous occasion, whether it would not be possible at the next registration to pay special attention to arranging the delimitation and the registration in such a way that, for the convenience of voters who could vote in the provincial elections, the Provinces of Natal and the Free State might be disposed of first as regards provincial constituencies. He asked that with regard to the provincial elections which are at hand and will possibly be held in 1970, but, in any case, before the general parliamentary election. This is really a matter which should be dealt with by the provinces themselves, and I shall bring it to their notice. It is really an exclusively provincial matter. The provinces pay for those delimitation costs, and not the Central Government, which does pay for them when it is a question of parliamentary elections.

But the registration is done by your Department.

The registrations are done by my Department, but the provinces must pay for the voters’ lists and the compilation of those lists; in other words, they must be consulted in this process if we want to carry this wish into effect. I have nothing against it in principle, and I shall take the matter further with the provinces to see whether the proposal is a practicable one. I trust this will satisfy the hon. member.

What about having the census and the registration at the same time?

My Department does not do census work—that is done by the Census and Statistics Division of the Department of Planning. All of that does not fall under my Department. In other words, it is not the same staff that will handle this matter and consequently complicate its implementation to that extent, as the hon. member thinks. My Department assists where it can, we do co-operate, but this matter is really the responsibility of the Department of Planning.

The hon. member for Houghton had something to say in regard to the censorship of certain films. She referred to certain films which had been banned by the Publications Board and to others that had been approved. Well, the day the hon. member and that Board are agreed on a matter, we must know that we have a very inefficient Board. The members of the Publications Board have a very unenviable task to perform, and I may as well say now that they will never be able to please everybody in this country with their decisions. I now want to avail myself of this opportunity to extend to them my sincere thanks for the way in which they have done their work. I think they are doing their work in a conscientious and responsible way. They are well-qualified people who, to the best of their ability and judgment have to form a judgment, according to the provisions of the Act, in regard to films as well as publications brought to their notice, and in this they are assisted by a panel, particularly in regard to the reading of books, etc. This panel must then submit a report which in turn must be considered and dealt with by the Board, and subsequent to that they have to form a judgment. They are doing wonderful work. Recently I spoke to a certain diplomat, and it so happened that his wife was sitting next to me. I asked her whether there were publications or censorship boards in her country. Then she asked me a few questions about our Publications Board and the censorship we apply through this Board to films that are to be shown here. For the most part we discussed films. She informed me that they did not have anything of that nature in their country, but added that she would be grateful to Providence if they had had such a body. She said she thought that in the times in which we were living it had become a universal tendency to cheapen, disparage and undermine everything that had real ethical and moral value, or had had these values in the past, values on which one’s morality, high standards, decency and orderly way of life and behaviour had been established and built up. This is being done to further certain objects, not one of which is to maintain as high as possible the level and standard of Western civilization, morality and integrity.

I have not seen the films to which the hon. member referred, but I can tell her that the film “Bonnie and Clyde” has been banned by the Publications Board. An appeal has been lodged with me. It is absolutely impossible for the Minister himself to see every film—and, what is more. I usually fall asleep in a cinema. In terms of the Act I designated a person to form a judgment about the film on my behalf, i.e. the chief magistrate of Cape Town. His opinion corroborated the finding of the Publications Board. That is why I say that as far as I am concerned, and in as far as the Act authorizes me to prevent it, that film will not be shown to the public in South Africa. It does not matter whether the film is a good one or whether it has met which much acclaim in other parts of the world. I am convinced that I have good people on the Board, people with whom appeals can be lodged, and I am quite convinced that they will not act precipitately and, in particular, will not ban in South Africa the screening of a film which has attracted a great deal of attention. To tell me that people in their hundreds are going to Loureno Marques or to other places in our neighbouring states to see that film, amounts to recommending to me that State lotteries should also be permitted here for the same reason. Then we must also have casinos and gambling-houses, for there are people who go to our neighbouring states so as to visit those places there. After all, this is not an example. The hon. member for Houghton has even held up to us the African states as an example which we should follow and on which we should base our norms and determine a policy. Of course, I expect that from people who share the hon. member’s political outlook.

Apart from hon. members on this side, amongst others the hon. members for Prinshof, Innesdal, Algoa, Primrose and Orange Grove, the hon. member for Port Natal also called attention to the allegedly unsatisfactory method of censorship in our country. Their complaint was that publications—paper-backs as well as decent books, but especially the monthlies or weeklies that were being distributed—were censored and banned, but by the time the banning orders were published, the reading matter had already been distributed. This morning I read about a similar case in the paper. In an editorial in this morning’s Burger it was said that there was only one alternative which could be considered, and I agree with that. In that case the Act will have to be amended. But in that respect new problems will in turn be created. The new plan is that a book should be censored even before it is published. In other words, the Act has to be amended in such a way that it no longer provides that objections can only be raised at the time of the publication of the book, but that every publication must be censored before it can be published. Now the following questions arise. In the first place, would this be practicable, and, in the second place, how would we then restrict the freedom of authors and literary men? Would this method be an improvement on the existing position?

If hon. members on this side and opposite could make concrete proposals to me, proposals I could consider for the purpose of amending the Act and facilitating the work of the Publications Board, I would pay very serious attention to them. I agree with the hon. member. I do not have the time for that. In fact. I do not even have the time to read the decent publications; where would I find the time to read the bad ones? The publications mentioned here are rather popular and are very great favourites in certain circles. The hon. member for Orange Grove and other hon. members referred to a circulation figure of approximately 40,000, and I do not question that. That reading matter is not worth the paper it is printed on. That merely shows us what the current trend is. To return to films: Certain parts of films are censored and cut or it is stated that persons under the age of 16 or 18, or whatever, may not see them. My personal opinion is—and I have told the Publications Board so—that this is the best advertisement they could give to such a film. I should imagine that if the film is not good enough for young people under the age of 18, they should consider whether it is at all a good thing to show it. What are the real facts? If it is stipulated that only people above the age of 18 are to be permitted at a film show, people under the age of 18 flock to such a show. And they do gain admission, for who is there to open mouths, count teeth and determine ages? This is a practical impossibility.

Therefore, when I am told that consideration should really be given to extending the powers of the Minister so that he may take on appeal not only films banned by the Publications Board, but also those that have in fact been approved, I should say that this suggestion deserves consideration, if it is practicable. In practice there are in fact difficulties which I can foresee. If the screening of a film is approved, one arrives at the same problems to which the hon. member for Orange Grove and others referred, namely the censorship of books. I do not know whether it is practicable. It seems to me as though there are serious practical problems. Nevertheless, it is interesting. I believe that it was mentioned here in earnest, and it does deserve attention.

The hon. member for Karoo departed from the discussion of films and raised the question of Coloureds and passports. I just want to tell him that there are certain inquiries that have to be made in respect of persons applying for passports. Where Coloureds, Indians or Bantu are concerned, there are certain Government Departments that are specifically responsible for the welfare of those people. I do not issue a passport without consulting those various departments in regard to every single case. There are certain people, Whites as well, who apply for passports and in respect of whom one has reason to want to ascertain their record first. Is he not perhaps a person who may disgrace his country abroad? Has he not perhaps committed criminal offences here? It is not a case of having a machine which simply issues passports as quickly as possible.

Secondly, the arrangement which has been in existence—I think it has been the case since 31st May, 1962—among the United Kingdom, Commonwealth countries and South Africa, has been altered slightly. For instance, if people here apply for a passport to the United Kingdom, it will not be granted unless proof can be furnished to the effect that they are sure of employment or a work permit. There are cases, though not very many, of people of whom one has to make sure—hence the deposits they have to pav—whether, in the event of problems and difficulties arising and their being expelled and deported to South Africa, they have enough money, in the first place, to finance the tours and plans they have in mind to undertake and carry out abroad, and, in the second place, so that they may not land in financial difficulties there, and, in the event of that happening, that they have enough money to leave the country at their own expense or to compensate the State for the cost of deportation. Otherwise the State has to pay for everything.

The hon. member for Green Point raised a very interesting point. He wanted to know whether it was possible for us to furnish in addition the addresses of newly naturalized citizens, whose names were being published from time to time, so that people might know: These are the names and addresses of new South African citizens. This is a matter which I shall most certainly investigate, because on more than one occasion, upon reading in the newspaper about the naturalization of a family consisting of so many members, I have felt the need to write a personal letter to congratulate them on having obtained South African citizenship, but I did not know where they were living, and therefore I could not do so. I shall definitely go into that matter to see whether we can effect that improvement.

Then the hon. member for Green Point made another point which is important. He said that in his opinion not enough was being done by the State to encourage people emigrating to the Republic in order to settle here, to become South Africa citizens. Now I must tell the hon. member this. It is a difficult task for the State to do so. One of the things the State has in fact done, was to determine— and this is what the Minister of Defence said amongst other things—whether people refrained from becoming citizens of the country because they did not want to subject their children to compulsory military service. As a result of the change we have effected in the legislation, we shall, I hope, succeed in showing them that they will not benefit by not becoming citizens of South Africa. But I share the hon. member for Green Point’s view that this is really disloyal and unpatriotic. I think that it is indecent to choose a country as one’s future home—where one is going to create a future for one’s family, children, grandchildren and for oneself, where one wishes to enjoy all the rights and privileges possible in that country, financially and otherwise—but at the same time to refuse to become a citizen of that country. I myself addressed, inter alia, the German-South African Society in Johannesburg. I am aware of the fact that also amongst the German-speaking people who have settled here permanently—as is also the case with population groups from other countries that have emigrated here; there is not a single country that one can exclude—one finds a large number of people who have been here for several years and who have still not become citizens. In my address to them I myself raised this matter, and said that there might be reasons—I did not refer specifically to them only, but also to others—why people wanted to retain their former citizenship, i.e. such as the advantages of citizenship of the country of their origin, pensions, and so forth. Therefore it is not always a case of disloyalty. It is possible that they may be experiencing practical problems which prevent their becoming South African citizens. I extended to them the invitation to discuss this matter with my Department and/or with me—provided that I had the time to do so—in order that we might see whether we could assist them in eliminating those practical problems.

Hon. members will be astonished to see what reactions this invitation has called forth —not only as regards the German community in Johannesburg, but also as regards other population groups—and how the applications for citizenship have increased of late. I want to appeal to hon. members on the opposite side of the House—I want to stress the personal approach—to hon. members on this side of the House, to the whole nation, to use their personal influence on such people in our country, people they know and of whom they know. We have people here who have been living here all their lives, people whose grandchildren are living here already, whose children and grandchildren have obtained South African citizenship at birth, but who have never become South African citizens themselves. I think this is something which one should not leave to the State, but which one should rather consider to be one’s own, personal duty; as ordinary people we should make our contribution in this regard.

Then the hon. member said that the amount of statistics available was insufficient. The Department of the Interior has no control over the statistic data to which he referred; that falls under the Department of Planning.

Mr. Chairman, may I just restate my question to the hon. the Minister? I asked where they would be readily available. I asked whether they were included here or in some other publication.

I think they will be readily available from the Department of Planning.

Then the hon. member referred to the outstanding cases in terms of the Population Registration Act. He knows as well as other hon. members about the decision of the court in regard to the Odell case. The court decided that these cases should be heard on appeal. I can give the hon. member the assurance that the number of outstanding cases to be heard is not 300 but well over 200. It is approximately 240 cases. I want to give the hon. member the assurance that we will do everything in our means to expedite the hearing of these cases.

Mr. Chairman, I want to reply briefly to one or two of the matters raised by the hon. the Minister, including one which he raised in an earlier reply to the House. The hon. member for Umlazi raised the question of East Griqualand and the hon. the Minister replied in detail. I should like to say that we on this side of the House accept that he stated the constitutional position quite correctly and accurately. It is of course the correct position as laid down in our Constitution. We on this side of the House would hope that there would be a more regular and more willing adherence to that particular section of the Constitution in other instances. On many occasions we have had recourse to that section and it has been overruled by the Government. We therefore welcome the fact that even though the Government is prepared to ride rough-shod over the Constitution when it suits them, there are times when they abide by and follow the Constitution. So, we accept that that is the correct approach. All I want to add to what has already been said is to make it absolutely clear that we on this side of the House are not taking sides in this issue. We and hon. members on this side from both provinces believe that this is an issue which in the end must be decided by the people of East Griqualand. They are the people who are affected and they are the people whose considered opinion must be the final arbiter. The constitutional channels are there but it is the people who matter and we on this side of the House will not take sides one way or the other. We want the facts and opinions to be expressed by those concerned.

We are glad that you are following the example set by the Government.

Yes, it is our good example. The Government is following the channels we have pleaded with them to follow in many other cases including the National Education Advisory Bill and other Bills. We have often pleaded with them to do this. It takes a long time to break through sometimes, but if you keep dripping away you break through the rock and our views are eventually accepted.

Now I want to correct what was said by hon. members on that side of the House in regard to the question of the 432 votes which were added to the voters’ roll in Swellendam. The hon. member for Tygervallei said that what had happened was no more than what had happened in Worcester and Umhlatuzana. That is not correct. In the case of Umhlatuzana I can speak with complete knowledge of the position. Not one single person was added to the voters’ roll as a result of this procedure of R.V.4 objections from another constituency. What happened there—and admittedly we were one step ahead of the Nationalist Party—was that the United Party lodged objections under section 22 against voters who were on the roll already but who should not have been on the roll for Umhlatuzana. Those were the voters against whom objection was lodged. But what happened was that only approximately 30 out of some 360 were taken off up to the time of nomination. Then according to the correct procedure that roll was frozen as far as any additions were concerned. The two cases are therefore completely different. The remarks of the hon. member for Tygervallei therefore have no bearing at all on this case. As far as I know the same position obtained in Worcester. There were objections to people being retained on the roll and not to people being added to the roll. The point I made has been overlooked by the hon. the Minister. My objection was—and I would appreciate it if the hon. the Minister would give me his attention for a moment— that when we complained, through the proper channels, about this step of putting people on to the roll when we believed it was contrary to the law, no notice was at that time taken of our objection. Now that the election is over, naturally we can go through all the procedures. At that stage there was no time to go to court to get a judgment or to do something about it. Now that the election is over it is all very well to say that we must follow the procedure, but previously when there was still time to deal with the matter we objected to the chief electoral officer and said that it was wrong and contrary to the regulations. We did not lodge a legal appeal or a petition or ask for an interdict. We went to the officials concerned and said: “Here is the law and this is contrary to the law.” Nevertheless the names were placed on the roll.

Say for instance this case is taken to court and the court decides that the interpretation of the hon. member is wrong and that that of the official was correct. What will the hon. member do then? Of course, nobody knows what the true position was. Perhaps the official was correct.

Naturally we will abide by the decision of the court. Our point of view is that where discretion is allowed on a matter of sufficient importance such as this, this was not a matter for an arbitrary decision to be taken but a matter for careful consideration and, if necessary, reference to the hon. the Minister. The matter will, however, be tested but I want this on record now at this stage, because in about another six months people will tend to have forgotten about it. They may have forgotten then that this made a significant difference to the result in that constituency. The hon. the Minister can pooh-pooh it as much as he likes, but if 432 votes were added to 1,349 by which the Nationalist majority was reduced in that by-election, we have a total of nearly 1,800 votes. When I look around me at the hon. members for Queenstown, Umhlatuzana and Maitland as well as other hon. members from that side, Í realize that they would not have been sitting there with an 1,800 vote swing against them. Therefore those 432 votes were material to the result.

This is hypothetical at the moment.

No, it is not hypothetical. These votes were counted. In the Nationalist Party reduced vote were included 432 voters who were not on the voters’ roll on nomination day.

There is only one other matter with which I want to deal, arising from the hon. the Minister’s reply to the question of censorship. We all realize that this is a difficult problem in which personal opinions are often at variance. But I think that the spirit of the appeal from this side of the House is to recognize the South African people as an adult nation and not as a lot of children who must be protected against themselves day in and day out. We are an adult nation. We are grown-up. We are living in the 20th century; not in the ox wagon days; not in the middle ages; not in the dark ages. We are living in an enlightened age. We are an adult nation. Our appeal and our whole attitude towards these things is to treat the people as adults, and not to allow a narrow “verkrampte” interpretation and morality, a “verkrampte” outlook towards life which will deprive the people of South Africa of things which the whole world has at its disposal, and that simply because the Government does not like them.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister said that he was prepared to listen to any suggestion that might be offered from this side in regard to the Publications Board and the Publications Act. I made a tentative suggestion and would like to repeat it. It is that there should be a change in the definition of what is desirable and undesirable. To-day the definition is far too wide. If the hon. the Minister should ask me for another definition I would not be able to give it to him immediately. But I am quite sure that there are people with enough ingenuity on both sides of this House to find a clearer definition of what actually is undesirable, and which would prevent some of the wrong decisions of the past. The second suggestion I made was that the Publications Board should give some idea of the reasons why it does arrive at certain decisions. After all, the Publications Board is in the position of a judge. And as a judge it is doing what no judge would do. It is giving no judgment whatsoever. It is simply finding guilty or not guilty and imposing a fine. A judge can issue an obiter dictum. We would like to have obiter dicta from the Publications Board in regard to some of their more important decisions on films and publications.

You are using the words incorrectly.

If the hon. member for Prinshof is so extremely worried about what is being read in this country, my advice to him is that while he should have the right to reject any book, to burn any book he wishes, let him not interfere with my right to read any book that I wish to read. And if he is really concerned about what would happen to his morals and his future in regard to films, my advice to him is this: Never go and see a film for adults only. Go and see films for children.

I now want to deal with another matter, namely that of the population register. The hon. the Minister unwittingly gave an indication of what was wrong with this register in a remark he made. He said that he often wanted to write a letter to an immigrant family who had come to this country to express his appreciation for their step and to welcome them. But unfortunately, he told us, he did not know what their address was. But surely these addresses are supposed to be kept by the population register. The population register is supposed to reflect the address of every person in this country. That is only one of the many things that is wrong to-day with this register.

My contention is that this population register has proved to be the greatest political bluff that has ever been perpetrated on the people of South Africa by the Nationalist Government. It has been a complete and total failure apart from the small benefit which the identity cards might have had. I believe that it has collapsed and that its collapse is complete. There is no longer such a thing as a real population register as originally contemplated by the Act. I believe that the population register contemplated by the original Act as amended, has disappeared from the scene during the last five to ten years. I am not unhappy about its collapse. In fact, we predicted it when the Bill was originally passed. But I am thinking of the thousands and tens of thousands that have been wasted and I am thinking of the fact that the hon. the Minister is now coming with new proposals for a new type of universal book. I am not expressing myself on the pros or cons of this latter proposal. It will have to be studied further. But it does make me doubt, when I see what has happened to the population register in the past and how it has collapsed almost completely.

I want to take the House back to what was promised 18 years ago when the population register was introduced. I want to compare it with what is happening to-day. When the Minister introduced the Population Registration Act in 1950, 18 years ago, he said that it would be a book containing the life story of every individual whose name is recorded in that book. All the vital statistics would be embodied in that book. I want to ask the hon. the Minister where that book is. Where is that book? There is no reply, because there is no population register as such, to-day. We have been bluffed for 18 years in regard to this matter. The hon. the Minister said, in reply to a question I put to him, that the population register has been amalgamated completely with the Department of the Interior. In other words, it was simply dissolved like a handful of salt in water. The population register is not much more than the sum total of the old particulars in regard to the registration of births and marriages and the old particulars in regard to the voters’ roll.

In 1950 we were told that there would be copies of the population register at all magistrates’ offices. In 1960 I asked the hon. the Minister whether that had been done. The answer was yes. He told me on the 16th February, 1960: “Afskrifte van die bevolkings-register word gehou, ingevolge artikel 8 (1), by die magistraatsdistrikte van elke landdros-distnik in die Unie”. What has happened in the interim? A few years later I asked the hon. the Minister the same question. My question to him was: “are copies of the register’s particulars available in magisterial districts?” He replied: “No”. I also asked him in which magisterial districts the records are maintained, and he replied “None”.

In 1950, when they introduced the Bill, the Government told us that “If it is not kept up to date it loses a great deal of its value”. How is this register kept up to date? I challenge the hon. the Minister to show us how many changes of addresses are notified to him. I have asked the hon. the Minister whether estimates have been made of the number of changes of addresses which take place annually. His reply was “No estimate has been made”. I also asked him: “What is the estimated number of changes of addresses in respect of each race group, received on an average each year since 1950?” His answer was “Statistics are not available”. Nobody knows what is going on in regard to the population register.

In 1950 we were told that this population register would make it possible, inter alia, to stop tax evasion, to stop impersonation at elections, and to get rid of the so-called tender votes. Can the hon. the Minister now, in 1968, tell us in what way this population register has been used for those purposes promised originally by the Government? In 1950 a population registrar was appointed, with two assistant population registrars. Up to 1957 those posts were filled. What happened after that? We know how the Secretary, in this amalgamation, took over those posts. That part of the salt which was the population register, dissolved into the water of the overall department. The posts of population registrar and assistant population registrar were specially created. The other day I asked the hon. the Minister: “How many of the posts of population registrar and assistant population registrar are filled at the moment?” The answer was “None. The relative posts have since been redesignated.” The whole system has collapsed.

In 1950 we were promised wonderful things in regard to the population register. It was said that there would be a mechanized card system, that is a separate card for each individual. I believe something along those lines is being done for the voters’ roll. The Government then promised that “the most modern machine will be used in this connection. If there is a by-election, and voters’ lists are required, we merely ask the population registrar (who, as I have said, no longer exists) to furnish a list of persons who are over 21 in that constituency, and the machine will automatically sort out the cards and type out the lists which can serve as the voters’ roll.” Is this happening now? Is that super machine in the population registrar’s office to-day typing out voters’ roll at the press of a button? The hon. the Minister knows that that is not the case. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the United Party apparently cannot decide whether they should adopt an attitude and, if so, what attitude. On two occasions to-day—on one occasion in regard to the Population Register and on the other occasion in regard to the control of publications—the United Party adopted two diametrically opposed points of view. As regards publications, we had, on the one hand, those hon. members who pleaded for stricter action on the part of the Publications Board and, on the other hand, we had those hon. members who associated themselves with the hon. member for Houghton in her plea that the Publications Board should act in a more liberal way, that if should be more permissive, that it should supposedly accept that the people of South Africa were mature and that it should make fewer cuts. The fact of the matter is simply that one finds people who have to be helped in any country which has set itself the task of maintaining a certain standard for its people. For example, in the same way that it is necessary for a city council which exercises control over a certain beach to delegate to its beach attendants the right to determine between which signposts the bathers may swim, it is expected of a government to introduce certain measures of control as far as drugs, for example, are concerned. Certain drugs may not be sold without a prescription. This is done for the sake of the health of the people and to prevent their health from being affected detrimentally. In the same way a government is expected to maintain a certain standard as regards the reading matter which is made available to the people. And this does not only apply to reading matter, but to everything which is intended for public exhibition. I agree that in certain respects shortcomings still exist which have to be eliminated. The hon. member for Port Natal, for example, referred to certain publications, the first six editions of which was banned after they had appeared on the streets and had been sold. The hon. Minister said that certain positive suggestions could be made in this regard, suggestions to which he would give consideration. I should like to make a suggestion. I want to suggest that any firm of publishers which offers books, periodicals or publications for sale and which has three of its publications banned within a period of six months, be compelled to submit all its publications during the next 12 months to the Publications Board for approval before such publications may be issued. A certain penalty provision should exist which should be applied to these people who are not prepared to take any notice of the standards which have to be maintained. I want to make the suggestion that such a measure should be applied.

I want to discuss another matter in respect of which the United Party once again displayed a two-faced policy and which concerns the Population Register. The hon. member for Orange Grove had a great deal to say about the shortcomings of the present Population Register. As the first speaker on his side, the hon. member for Umlazi suddenly chased up hares about the proposed improved population register. Since the Government and the officials have already realized that certain shortcomings exist in the maintenance of the present population register and that improvements should be effected—improvements which, according to the information given to the caucuses of both the United Party and the National Party, are considered essential—one would, surely, have expected the hon. member for Orange Grove to tell his fellow Party member not to criticize the proposed new improved population register. One would not only expect a certain measure of fairness to be displayed but also that hon. members express themselves in favour of the improvement of the Population Register.

One last matter I want to raise concerns the acquisition of citizenship by persons who come to South Africa. I want to associate myself with those who appealed to immigrants who have been resident in this country for a sufficiently long period to qualify for citizenship, not to delay any longer in acquiring citizenship. We in South Africa are aware of the enormous responsibilities attached to citizenship. We are also aware that South Africa is scorned in the outside world. I therefore feel that people who want to enjoy the privileges of permanent residence in South Africa, should show their confidence by adopting South African citizenship. I want to make an earnest appeal to all persons who have been resident in South Africa for a sufficiently long period to qualify them for citizenship, not to delay any longer. In the case of many persons it is a question of negligence in that they neglect to take the necessary steps. In this respect it is advisable that we as South Africans should show a more active interest in assisting these people. There are other people who delay to acquire citizenship even when asked to do so. I want to express the hope that in the future all those people will take the necessary steps to acquire citizenship as soon as they have the opportunity to do so.

Vote put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote 11,—Public Service Commission, R2,617,000.

Mr. Chairman, a very important item on this Public Service Commission Vote is the one in connection with the Public Service Bursary Scheme. From the present report, and previous reports, we notice that there is a great deal of interest in this scheme and that it is being very well supported. This year an amount of R450,000 is being voted for the Public Service Bursary Scheme. This is a fine improvement on the amount for last year, which was R300,000. The extra R150,000 means a 50 per cent increase over the amount voted last year. One feels very grateful for that, because when it comes to the granting of bursaries to, or the obtaining thereof by, persons who wish to improve their academic qualifications, every one of us in this House supports the idea of more extensive allocation. Pleas have been made in this direction in the past. However, in the past such bursaries have been awarded to the more intelligent students and scholars. They have only been awarded to persons with exceptionally good academic achievements. It is also, of course, an easy criterion to judge persons by their academic achievements. I want to plead to-day that other qualities should also be taken into account in the case of persons of average intelligence, so that the good average student may also qualify for these bursaries. I want to emphasize something which is perhaps overlooked in the granting of bursaries, namely the personality characteristics of a student or scholar. The four I want to mention are diligence, devotion to duty, perseverance and determination. When in future the selection committee must select the persons to whom the bursaries are to be granted, I hope that the average pupil or student who displays these qualities in particular, will also qualify. Now, Sir, you will ask me how these are to be determined. I admit that it is an easier criterion to be able to say that a person has excelled in a specific way, but how is one to decide about these personality characteristics? We know that a person applying for such a bursary submits testimonials from his principal, if he is a pupil just out of high school, or from his professor, if he is a student, and this information is furnished in such testimonials. It is my view that these increased allocations have probably been made to afford such students and pupils the opportunity of also obtaining some of the bursaries.

Then I also want to make a general plea for a more accommodating attitude to be adopted in connection with the awarding of such bursaries. Young married persons who wish to continue their studies, cannot do so with these bursaries, because it is impossible for such persons to study and at the same time support a family on such a limited bursary.

A second point which I should like to mention on this Vote is in connection with the shortage of public servants. Very recently there appeared in the Press an address by Prof. J. A. Lombard, professor in economics at the University of Pretoria, on the occasion of a meeting of the junior members of the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce. On that occasion he said that the Public Service was heading for a crisis and that unless salaries were increased by at least 15 per cent, no competent young people would choose the Public Service as a career. He went further and said that South Africa’s infrastructure, the Public Service, was lagging behind the production sector. Now, we all know that this cry of a manpower shortage in the Public Service is heard year after year. Here is a person from the private sector who also broached the matter. But we also know that this shortage occurs everywhere. It is not only in the Public Service that there is a shortage of manpower. It is a phenomenon found in all countries where there is an economic boom. Therefore it is something which we must accept here too, because we are experiencing economic and industrial progress. We admit that there is a shortage of manpower in the Public Service. There is a shortage of motor car drivers, a shortage of plumbers and bricklayers, but there is also a shortage of engineers and magistrates. There is a shortage in all ranks. There is a shortage of teachers and technicians, and there is even a shortage of employees in the private sector. Now the question is whether a mere salary increase of 15 per cent, as this professor mentioned, will help to eliminate the shortage. As soon as the public servants are given a salary increase by the Government, the private sector comes along with a parallel increase, or offers even more, so that there is a continual chain reaction. The private sector continues to draw employees from the Public Service. We know that the Public Service Commission is making every effort to overcome this manpower shortage. In the first place this is being done by means of a publicity campaign. On page 4 of the Public Service Commission’s report for 1966, in paragraph 50, a report is made on the publicity campaign. I shall just read a few lines in this connection—

But the persons at the head of affairs are going even further, and mechanization investigations are taking place. In order to overcome the manpower shortage, these mechanization investigations are being instituted, and this is referred to in the same report of last year, in paragraph 71—

In paragraph 72 reference is made to two investigations in regard to the possibility of employing electronic data processing systems which have been initiated, and a little further no mention is made of an investigation which was completed during the year concerning the establishment of a central electronic data processing bureau. I mention these facts to indicate how the officials in charge of affairs are doing everything in their power to meet this manpower shortage.

Further on we find a very interesting item. This is in connection with the work-study plans. This is what used to be known as Organization and Method. A great deal of success is being achieved with this. I refer to paragraphs 76 and 78 of the report. I just quote the following portion—

Then reference is made to 2,762 posts which were abolished and the creation of 2,390 posts which was obviated. Then the following portion of paragraph 78 I regard as very important—

[Time expired.]

I rise to deliver a plea for a large number of public servants whom one can virtually regard as the orphans of this Government. I am referring to the temporary public servants. I do not know how many of them there are, but there are probably several thousand, men and women who are to-day doing very good and essential work for the State. Many of these people live in the Pretoria area and they tell me that they have already approached their M.P.s, including the hon. members for Pretoria (Central) and Gezina, to ask them to plead their cause, but they say that these men are hopeless; they cannot present their case here. Accordingly they came to me and asked me to speak on their behalf, because they say that what is pleaded for here by the United Party is eventually put into effect. [Interjections.] In many cases these public servants are persons whom one can almost no longer regard as temporary employees. Three cases were brought to my notice. In one case the person concerned has 19 years’ service as a temporary official; the second has 26 years’ service and the third has 27 years’ service as temporary officials. In actual fact they are not temporary officials; they are permanent temporary officials. They are very adversely affected. They receive no pensions and they also have difficulties in connection with other benefits received by public servants, benefits such as railway concessions, leave, and so on. They also have difficulty in joining medical schemes.

I think that the time has come for us to do something for these people, who are indispensable to us. It is quite true that many of them may be classified as unskilled employees, but surely they also have the right to look forward to a future. Something ought to be done for all of them. The State realizes full well what their problems are. I have here before me a report of a speech made by the then Minister of the Interior, Minister De Klerk, on Wednesday, 6th October, 1965, at the annual conference of the Public Servants’ Association at Pretoria. For the sake of the record I want to quote what he said there—

I just want to draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that the then Minister held out the prospect of these things for these people, three years ago, but that nothing has been done as yet. Is it simply just another instance of the Minister saying one thing and thinking another? I really think that enough time has now elapsed, and I appeal to my colleagues in the Pretoria area, where so many people are affected by this, to support and assist me in persuading the Minister to do something in this connection.

With reference to the first part of the speech made by my hon. constituent, the hon. member for North Rand, who does not live in his own constituency, I just want to declare in this Committee that the hon. member uttered an untruth when he said that the officials did not discuss this matter with their representatives in the House of Assembly.

They did discuss it with them, but to no avail.

Whereas the hon. member quoted from the speech delivered by the hon. the Minister to the Public Servant’s Association in 1965, I now want to quote to him from the latest issue of The Public Servant, the issue of April, 1968—

How does that sound? This issue has just been published. Sincy my hon. constituent railed about a specific group of officials, I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to refer him to column 4974 of last year’s Hansard. On behalf of the session officials I want to thank the hon. the Minister very sincerely for the increase in their allowances from R4 to R6 in the case of married persons and from R2.70 to R3.50 in the case of unmarried persons. I want to assure the hon. the Minister of the sincere gratitude of the large group of officials affected by this. Then, in the second place, with reference to the representations made by the hon. member for Pretoria (District) last year, I want to thank the hon. the Minister for the fringe benefits granted in this Budget, which also met with very great approval throughout the country. I refer to the real adjustment in the subsistence and travelling allowances of officials; I refer to the increased contribution by the Government to the Public Service Pension Fund. These are all matters which have been endorsed by the Public Servants’ Association and for which they have expressed their gratitude. I also refer to the subsidizing of the medical aid scheme, which has now been increased by R401,800 to over the R2 million mark. I want to thank the hon. the Minister very sincerely for this as well. I also want to thank him for the total increase of salaries, wages and allowances by approximately R25 million to R354 million, while in reality there was a decrease in the number of posts.

Is that very good progress?

Yes, it is streamlining, which the Opposition also needs. Mr. Chairman, since the hon. member for North Rand, who lives in my constituency, made representations on behalf of a certain group of officials, I should also like to break a lance today for the women who work in the mornings and who are generally known as “morning glories”. These women, who invariably produce very good work, are delighted at the announcement which has just been made that they will also share in the vacation bonuses received by officials. The fact that they have not received these bonuses until now was definitely a shortcoming, and I want to thank the hon. the Minister for this concession. It meets a great need. I also want to ask that, in cases where some of these married women who work in the mornings, are to become mothers and must then relinquish their positions for four, five or six months and then return when the infant has reached the age of three, four or five months, they be reappointed to their positions, in which they have given good service without any loss of seniority and other fringe benefits. I know that there are cases where this did not happen, and I want to plead that a uniform policy be applied throughout the Public Service in respect of these women. These women are usually senior employees with a great deal of experience. They are rendering a positive service and more and more use will probably be made of their services in our Public Service. I should very much like to break a lance for them here to-day.

I want to deal with two matters which I think are of very great importance to South Africa and to which I think the hon. the Minister must apply his mind. Sir, you will remember that when there was talk, as there is at the moment, of the Post Office becoming autonomous, the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs put forward the thought that this might mean increases in salaries for highly qualified technicians in the Post Office and possibly a betterment of conditions for them. I sincerely hope that that is correct. But if that is going to happen there, surely it is time the civil servants were treated in the same way. Surely they do not have to be freed from the Public Service Commission before such revision of the salaries of highly qualified people is taken into consideration. Surely it should be something which is general throughout the service. But one wonders if it is, because the engineers have appealed for an inquiry into the position of engineers in the Public Service. It is rather an interesting fact, as it was recorded in The Transvaler on 23rd March, that in the Public Service there are probably slightly less than 7 per cent of all the engineers employed by the Public Service, who attain an income of R7,000 a year, whereas of those who are employed in the private sector, 40 per cent earn R7,000 a year or over. It is rather interesting too that the number interviewed in the Public Service totalled 3,687, whereas in the private sector only 2,347 were interviewed. And yet there were those differences in percentage. There Were only 7 per cent of 3,687 in the Public Service who received R7,000 a year or over. And yet out of 2,347 in the private sector 40 per cent had attained R7,000 per year or over.

I have not the figures for all the various groups of technical or professional officers employed by the Public Service Commission, but I would like to know from this hon. Minister if this is a true reflection of the position applying to all these professional and highly skilled technical groups throughout the Public Service. What is going to be done about these people? If something is not done now, and done voluntarily, we are of course going to come to a stage where the Public Service is going to grind to a standstill. It is not enough to say that we cannot compete with the private sector; I think some better reasons than that have to be given, because the country has to have the engineers to carry out its work and draw up the schemes which all departments are planning. I want to know from this hon. Minister what is going to be done about the question of engineers not being able to obtain a salary commensurate with what they can attain in the private sector within a reasonable period. The hon. the Minister might, of course, argue that they are given greater security, pensions and the like in the Public Service. But I wonder if that is the case, because these men are given pensions and good conditions of employment, and their security is just as good in the private sector as it is in the Public Service. So I think there has to be a better comparison of the worth of these people within the Public Service Commission; otherwise the Public Service is going to continue to lose these people.

Then the next matter I want to raise in relation to the Public Service Commission is this. I believe the hon. the Minister appointed a committee to investigate the housing problems of members employed by the Public Service Commission. I would like to know what decisions he has come to and what the findings of this committee are. Because it is not enough to make huge sums of money available to give public servants 100 per cent housing loans. One is only adding to their problems, because the price of property is going up. Will the hon. member be long?

He is talking to the Minister.

The hon. member can talk to him to-morrow; I want to talk to him now.

Mr. Chairman, when I was so rudely interrupted, my point was that it is no good putting aside huge sums of money to give the public servant a deposit-free loan to buy a house, because the average person who wants a house is the young person who has a young family to bring up. On the salary he has and the price of housing to-day a 100 per cent building loan becomes an embarrassment in many cases, because the repayments plus the insurance, plus maintenance, plus the other costs that go with having a house, are so high that they take too large a part of his income. It is all very well for the Department of Community Development to lay down that not more than 25 per cent of the employee’s salary should be used for repayments. When we come to that Vote I will show how that proviso is being circumvented at the moment, but not to the benefit of the person who is getting the high loan in all cases. I want to know from the hon. the Minister what solutions his committee have put forward to him, if they have found any yet, for solving this problem.

Order! The housing problem falls under another Minister.

With respect, Sir, I am talking only about housing which this Minister provides for public servants, which is a different branch of housing altogether. It is not Community Development housing, it is departmental housing.

The hon. member may continue, but I want to point out that housing falls under the Department of Community Development.

Yes, ordinary housing, the housing you and I want, Sir, falls under the department, but in regard to the housing provided by the public service, they lay down certain conditions to enable their employees to get it, though it may be provided through the Department of Community Development. The Minister, incidentally, has appointed a committee to investigate this whole matter. It is no good the hon. the Minister saying the employees will be given bigger and bigger loans and bigger and bigger percentages of the value of the houses into which they go, because that is not the solution at all. I want to know what suggestions have been made by this committee as to what provisions the Minister should make to overcome this fantastic rise in the price of housing compared to the income of public servants. I think this is a very important subject.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with everything that the hon. members for Koedoespoort and Pretoria (District) said, and appreciate the undeserved thanks expressed by them. However, I want to say the following. I think that under the circumstances we can accept that no one would venture to suggest that public servants are better off financially than other officials in the country. But the public servants’ security, income, treatment and conditions of service do not compare unfavourably with those of other officials in the country. I have no hesitation in saying this, and, in fact, the public servants say this themselves. They act in a responsible way when the shoe pinches, when the cost of living increases, when they find it difficult to live within their incomes. They then submit their claims and make their representations, but they always act in a most responsible manner. I think that for this they deserve not only my thanks and that of the Government, but also that of the entire country. Just as in the case of the private sector, the Public Service is not overstaffed in certain professional fields, particularly not in the specialized technical and technological fields. But on the other hand we are not so understaffed as to be in danger of the Public Service collapsing. This is again an exaggeration which is made by the other side. The fact of the matter is that people are lured out of the Public Service just after completing their training in terms of bursary schemes, and a considerable percentage of them leave the Service in this way. They are enticed away by the private sector just when they are beginning to prove their usefulness. Nor can the private sector be blamed for this. This is not something of recent occurrence. It is something which has been taking place all along. These same circumstances and conditions also manifest themselves in other countries of the world. We try, within the resources of our taxpayers, to provide the best conditions of service for our public servants. Hon. members are aware of the new benefits announced in the recent Budget. Perhaps these benefits do not mean direct notch-for-notch salary increases, but they represent more indirect increases, improvements which eventually mean more, financially, to the employees than would have been the case if they had received the improvements in the form of direct monthly increases. I do not want to say that all the improvements are not taxable. Indirectly some of them are taxable.

I am thinking now of the new benefits in respect of the Civil Service Medical Benefit Association. The Government decided to increase its fixed per capita contribution of R24 to a contribution on a rand-for-rand basis. This means that the Government contributes 50 per cent. If this had not been done, the official would have had to increase his contribution to the fund considerably if he wanted to enjoy equal—or slightly increased—benefits in respect of medical services.

However, I want to say that in actual fact the Public Service and the Government Departments are to a large extent, and have been in the past, the training centres which also supply the public sector.

The question was asked here: What is going to be done in respect of recruitment in order to obtain more applicants for the Public Service, especially persons with scientific or technical training, or who are capable of being trained? The bursary schemes have, of course, been expanded. The amounts of bursaries have been increased, so that they are more attractive. We are introducing new methods which amount to this, that we are doing recruiting work earlier or at the same time as the private sector among the school-going youth, the standard ten pupils. I believe that this will bear considerable fruit.

I may also mention how many people left the Public Service only to return to the Service after spending a few years in other spheres of employment. The hon. member for Umlazi says that I should not mention it, but it remains a fact that the Public Service offers one greater security and benefits which are not found everywhere in the private sector. Therefore the private sector must compensate by paying larger salaries and wages, in order to retain their employees.

That is improper interference.

Yes, say so if you want to. Then the hon. member for Umlazi asked me what we were going to do in respect of housing for officials. His point was that granting 100 per cent loans on the basis on which it is being done at present, in some cases does not afford the person the assistance it seems to afford and does not mean as much as one would think. I agree with the hon. member. This is one of the reasons why a commission has been appointed to investigate the matter very thoroughly. This commission must make suggestions and issue a report, and then the Government will consider the matter. The commission has not yet completed its investigation. I may mention in passing that a certain matter submitted to us by a pensions committee is receiving our attention, and some of the improvements suggested have been accepted in order to improve the position.

The hon. member for North Rand spoke of temporary officials in the service of the State. The scheme to which the present hon. Minister of National Education referred was put into effect recently, but it is not being administered by the Public Service Commission. It is a pension scheme and is administered by the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions. The improvements have been in effect since 1st April. This scheme will provide considerable relief and benefits to the officials concerned.

Vote put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote 12,—Government Printing Works, R5,920,000.

Mr. Chairman, there are just one or two points I wish to raise here. If I remember correctly, the hon. the Minister was going to tell us of his policy as regards the disposal of unwanted publications and excess printing material and papers. This matter was raised in this House not so long ago. I also wish to know whether the Minister has done anything towards trying to balance off the prices he recovers for this scrap material when it is sold in the different centres. The Minister may remember there was a big difference in the prices which were obtained.

The second question I want to put to the Minister is this. In view of the information we have had, is the hon. the Minister in a position to tell us what progress is being made as regards the modernizing the whole of the Government printing works, including their buildings and their machinery? I should like to know something of the plans he has in mind, and I would be very grateful indeed if the Minister could give us some information at this stage.

Mr. Chairman, the first question put by the hon. member was what our policy was and what we were doing in regard to the selling of scrap paper and so forth. This question was raised in this House on a previous occasion. The Select Committee on Public Accounts are now dealing with that matter. The Government Printer appeared before the Committee and was duly examined. He gave a very detailed explanation of the whole position. I do not know whether the Select Committee will mention this particular matter in its report.

Order! I should like to point out to the hon. the Minister that when a matter is before the Select Committee on Public Accounts, it is not desirable to discuss it here.

I was just going to tell the hon. member that. I do not deem it desirable to discuss this matter in detail here, as it is before the Select Committee referred to.

As far as the Government Printing Works are concerned, I should like to say the following in respect of housing. The activities of the Government Printing Works were reduced considerably a few years ago. At present these printing works in actual fact deal with departmental printing, with state secrets and other work. The additional work undertaken by them before, is being put out on contract. Tenders are called for. However, the staff and activities of the Government Printer have not been reduced as a result of that; the work of the printing works has in fact increased, owing to the expansion of the administration of the country. As a result the complex of buildings in which the Government Printing Works are housed, leave much to be desired. A piece of land was purchased in the vicinity of Koedoespoort years ago with the express purpose of eventually moving the printing works there. The Government Printer, the Treasury and I are at present negotiating to see whether we cannot get the Department of Public Works to expedite their planning so that we may commence with the resettlement work. A large complex of buildings will have to be erected there to meet the needs of the Government Printer fully and permanently. I can assure hon. members that we are paying serious attention to this matter.

Mr. Chairman, through you I should like to put a question to the hon. the Minister. The last item under sub-head E reads as follows: "Ex gratia remission: National Salvage … R24,000.” I want to ask you, Mr. Chairman, whether we may discuss this matter here now, It is an amount which appears on this Vote. If it has anything to do with …

I have dealt with the matter before.

Then I want to suggest that this House has the right to discuss this amount and to ask the hon. the Minister why this item appears here, and on what basis the amount of R24,000 was calculated. Why, for example, is it not R23,000?

Mr. Chairman, I want to ask the hon. the Minister one question here. I want to know whether the Minister will not give his attention to the amount provided for entertainment by the various heads of Departments. I see the Government Printer is allowed R100 and this amount is found in respect of all the heads of Departments. The Minister’s Department is one which could set an example by fixing a more realistic figure. I believe this figure to be ridiculously low. The expenses connected with the entertainment these gentlemen have to provide run into far bigger sums than R100 per year. What is the Government Printer going to do with R100 in the course of a year? It amounts to just over R8 per month. That amount can be used up in the course of one day. I think the whole matter should be reviewed. I am asking the Minister to make known his views on this subject.

Order! This matter should have been raised on the Public Service Vote.

I am dealing with the item on this Vote, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, but the hon. member also referred to this figure for entertainment generally.

Mr. Chairman, I shall reply to this very briefly. I agree with the hon. member that the entertainment allowance for all heads of Departments is a small one. However, a certain arrangement exists in this connection. All heads of Departments are not required to do the same amount of entertaining, and consequently some need a smaller amount of money than others who have to do more in this respect. If a head of a Department happens to spend more than R100, he submits the matter to the Treasury, and larger amounts are granted on an ad hoc basis. This is considered the best arrangement under the present circumstances.

Regarding the question put by the hon. member for Orange Grove, my reply to him is this. In view of the replies furnished on the Select Committee on Public Accounts, replies which left no doubt at all, I am not prepared to discuss this matter any further in this Committee. I say this as I do not consider it to be in the interests of the State to do so.

Then I am not prepared to vote the money.

Well, vote against it then; I shall not take it amiss of you.

Vote put and agreed to.

Chairman directed to report progress.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.