I move—

I should like to revert to the discussion we had in the Committee Stage when an amendment was proposed by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. We thought it was a reasonable amendment. It was implicit in that amendment that the Minister, in making appointments to councils and boards which are provided for in this Bill, would recognize the bilingual character of our South African people—our white people, of course, because the Bill provides for the promotion of the culture of the white population of South Africa. The Minister seemed to think that provided the members appointed were bilingual South Africans, that would be sufficient. Sir, that is hardly in accordance with the views that have been expressed on occasion by the hon. the Prime Minister. He has told us, and he has told us very earnestly, that we have two separate cultures, two groups of people, but we have one common loyalty to South Africa, and we are very much in earnest about this loyalty. In other words, he recognizes that there are two groups in the population. We felt that it was not sufficient to provide for bilingualism alone, because apart from bilingualism we are accustomed to saying that South Africans are Afrikaans-speaking people and English-speaking people. Sometimes it is very difficult to say what a man is because he belongs to that common group that the hon. the Minister had in mind. We felt that in these appointments to boards, the Minister ought to have made provision for both sections of the population. I call them “sections” but I think “groups” is a better word. I am sorry to say that the hon. the Minister seemed to be annoyed. He suggested that his intentions were good and that we were not prepared to accept his good intentions. That was not our feeling at all. We did not feel that way. What we wished to emphasize was that both groups should be well represented. The hon. the Minister and I have had differences of opinion in the past on this subject. I do not wish to revert to those now, but I should like to mention at this Third Reading stage that we had that in mind and that we are disappointed that he was not prepared to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout.

I said very clearly and explicitly yesterday that the amendment which was moved by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and which was rejected during the Committee Stage, definitely meant that I would have been able to appoint unilingual Afrikaans-speaking persons and unilingual English-speaking persons on the Cultural Council. I still maintain that when a cultural council is established, it is absolutely essential that the members of the council should in the first place be bilingual, and should in the second place have a reasonable knowledge of both cultures in order to be able to appreciate them. I fully endorse what the Prime Minister said, i.e. that we have two cultures and that two languages are being used at present. Under this legislation we are placing it all under one cultural council, and therefore it should be possible to have mutual appreciation. I also said it would be a foolish and stupid Minister who did not appoint bilingual Afrikaans-speaking persons and bilingual English-speaking persons on the council in the correct ratio if he could get them. What the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said, as well as what the hon. member for Kensington said a moment ago, is wrong. It would be fatal to appoint unilingual persons, from whichever language group, to such an important council.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Chairman, during the Second Reading debate on this Bill we raised certain matters on which we did not receive satisfactory replies. Under clause 1, for example, we raised the question of water supplies, the use of water, the possibility of the use of sea water, etc. I particularly raised the question of the pipeline terminal in the sea, to which the hon. the Minister did not reply at all. I asked him whether the Administration intended to establish such terminals in the sea, in particular at Richard’s Bay. Under other clauses we put similar questions. I am now standing up to indicate that we on this side of the House do not intend to take all these points further at the Committee Stage because we shall have the opportunity next week to discuss these matters on a broader basis. I can assure the hon. the Deputy Minister that when the Railway Budget debate takes place next week we shall once more raise some of the points which we raised during the Second Reading debate and to which he did not reply. They link up with other points which we also want to raise. Therefore this side will at this stage not discuss this measure any further, but we shall definitely take these matters further next week.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say the following for the record. At the moment the Railways do not intend constructing any further pipelines, nor pipes with terminals at the sea, about which the hon. member is so concerned now.

Why do you only tell us now?

Furthermore, it is not necessary for me to tell this Committee at this juncture what liquid is going to be used when we have pipelines to convey solids. The reason for this is that the Administration and the Railways have not yet decided to construct pipelines for solids. When this decision is taken one day, the matter will be dealt with on merit, depending upon where the material will be conveyed from and where it will be conveyed to and what kind of water is available.

Mr. Chairman, I am sorry, but we cannot accept that reply. We asked certain questions during the Second Reading debate, to which we received no replies. The hon. the Deputy Minister is in charge of this Bill and it is no use for him to say now, at the Committee Stage, that he need not reply to them. After all, it was his duty to reply to our questions. I want to put on record that we asked questions at the time and that we regard it as his duty to reply when questions are put to him.

Clause put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

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

Both the Minister of Agriculture and his Deputy had to go to certain of the drought-stricken areas to-day. Hon. members will understand.

Motion put and agreed to.

Mr. Chairman, how can we discuss the Bill when the Minister in charge is not here? We have a measure before us for which we are asked to vote.

Order! I put clause 1, and the hon. member is not discussing that now. He is out of order.

No, Sir, I am speaking in regard to clause 1. How can we be asked to pass this clause when any issues which we may wish to raise with the Minister in charge could not be answered? But I see that we have delayed the proceedings sufficiently. As usual, without his top hat, we will now give the Minister the opportunity to answer questions.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 2:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

This is only an amendment of the English text in order to bring it into line with the usual term “chemist and druggist”. May I just add that the same amendment also appears on the Order Paper in respect of clauses 7, 8, 11, 12, 24, 25 and 26. The same reason applies in the case of all these amendments.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 6:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendments standing in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

All that is done here, is to change “1969” to “1970”. This is intended to afford students who are studying at the moment the opportunity of continuing with the course as it was previously, before the change in respect of the length of the course was made.

Mr. Chairman, I have no quarrel with the hon. the Minister about the amendment which he has now moved, but I have a difficulty in respect of which he may perhaps help me. That is with regard to the wording of subsection (a) (i). The provision reads—

My problem is the following. This is to make provision for the existing system to carry on until the end of this year. Under this system a student did his first year at a university or a college. He wrote his examination. Thereafter he did a two-year apprenticeship and continued with his academic studies after that. On the first day of January it seems to me, that he may be in neither of those positions. He would have concluded his term as a student, I assume, when he writes his examination and when the term for that particular course closes and the training institution closes down for the year. He need not necessarily be apprenticed at that date, because he is awaiting the result of the examination before he can really approach a would-be master to accept an apprenticeship agreement. There might be some legal explanation or interpretation which will cover this problem, but as I see it, there could be a gap when a man is no longer a student because he has finished his studies and he is not yet an apprentice because his apprenticeship has not commenced. If the hon. the Minister can clear this up, I will be grateful.

Mr. Chairman. I want to ask the hon. the Minister if he will define the term “good character”, because this clause is putting it in afresh. It was not there before. This phrase was removed or negated in Act No. 13 of 1928 after a lawsuit here in Cape Town in which a certain very well-known doctor from England was refused registration by the Medical Council on the grounds that he was not of good character. The court ruled that they could not define good character and they ordered the Medical Council to register this man. I therefore cannot understand why the phrase has suddenly been brought into this clause. I want to move an amendment that these words be omitted. I therefore move—

Mr. Chairman, I would like the hon. the Minister to tell us what his reaction is to the arguments put up by the hon. member for Durban (Central), because he raised a very valid point. If a court is unable to say what is meant by “good character” can the hon. the Minister tell us how it is defined now and how the court will be able to interpret it now?

Mr. Chairman, to begin with I should like to reply to the question the hon. member for Berea asked in connection with the date of 1st January, 1970. His problem is that at that moment a student may not know exactly to which group he will belong. Yesterday and the day before yesterday I had the executive council of the Pharmacy Board here and they pointed out to me that the first day of January, 1969, is of course a problematic date. However, they had considered all the aspects, also those raised by the hon. member for Berea a moment ago, and they are quite satisfied that, if the date is 1st January. 1970, it will not cause them any problems. It is therefore specifically at the request of and after consideration by the advisory council of the Pharmacy Board that this amendment is being made to this clause.

As regards the amendment moved by the hon. member for Durban (Central) I am rather surprised at his moving something like that, and I am sure the hon. member will not insist upon it. The hon. member has been a member of the Medical and Dental Council for many years. I am no lawyer, and a case such as the hon. member mentioned may have occurred in previous years. However, the fact of the matter is that if I accepted the amendment moved by the hon. member, I would place the Pharmacy Board in a much worse position than they are in at present. If it should prove to be difficult to interpret this particular phrase “of good character” in the courts, it is still no reason why this should be removed from the powers the Board has at present. Moreover, I am informed that from a legal point of view there is no other way of putting this matter. I therefore put it to the hon. member that we should not deprive the Pharmacy Board of this power simply because on one occasion there was some difficulty in interpreting it. On the other hand, there may be cases where it is very clear that a person is not of good character, and where this may even be proved in court. I therefore should not like to place the Pharmacy Board in a worse position than they are by removing this provision.

Up to the time the board has registered a person as a druggist and chemist, the board has no jurisdiction over him whatsoever. Consequently, they cannot judge him; they have no means of judging whether he is a good character or not.

They may have information.

The Supreme Court here in Cape Town has ruled that before action can be taken against such a person, he must first be registered. But until he is registered, the board has no jurisdiction over him at all.

The point at issue is not the jurisdiction over a person before he is registered. The point is that the board has jurisdiction over its own actions. It can, for instance, refuse to register such a person. Before he is so registered, he is just not registered. It is not then for the board to take the person concerned to court but for this person to take the board to court.

I must, with due respect, disagree with the hon. the Minister once more. If a person fulfils certain conditions, conditions unconnected with the question of his character, the board must register him. They have no option but to do that. If a person meets the academic and practical qualifications laid down, then the board cannot refuse to register him, except then where he has a bad character. But for this purpose they have to define what a “bad character” entails. Furthermore, they must be able to explain why a person is from their point of view a bad character, because the man can take them to court. And as I have said before, the Supreme Court here in Cape Town held in the medical case, the case of G. D. Reid v. S.A. Medical Council, that as the board has no jurisdiction over a person until such time as he is registered, they cannot refuse to register him. The same applies here and it is for that reason that I have moved the deletion of these lines. As a matter of fact, I think it will be well for the Minister to leave out these words, because they are meaningless in any case.

I am not prepared to omit these words. I should just like to explain one point. The board need not explain or define what considerations they took into account in arriving at the decision that a person has no good character, unless of course they are taken to court. Let me refer the hon. member to the Afrikaans text.

*The phrase “iemand van goeie sedelike ge-drag” is used in the Afrikaans text. As I have said, I am not prepared to omit these words, and I do not think the hon. member really wants them to be omitted either. However, I undertake to go into the matter to see whether we cannot word it more strongly in the English text as well. Then I can make an amendment in the Other Place. The English word for “sedelik” is “moral”, but I do not want to make the amendment right now, because I first want to make sure what is the strongest way in which we can put it.

Amendment proposed by Dr. A. Radford put and negatived and amendments proposed by the Minister of Health put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 7:

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 8:

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 10:

Last night, during the Second-Reading debate, we accepted as a principle, contained in this and in subsequent clauses, that the classification of drugs would in future be handled by the Drugs Control Council. I am in favour of this principle. However, as I indicated last night, I have certain problems and reservations about the constitution of the body which will be called upon to make decisions on classifications. Can the Minister at this stage give us an indication how this body will operate and in what manner it will be constituted, with reference especially to equal representation on it of the medical and the pharmaceutical professions?

I have already said, for the information of the hon. member, that the Drugs Control Council is governed by a separate Act. Unfortunately that Act is not under discussion at present. As the hon. member quite rightly remarked, there is a preponderance of medical representation on that council, because an important function of that council is to provide security as regards the clinical application of the registered remedies. As this function will now be transferred from the Medical Council and the Pharmaceutical Board to the Drugs Control Council, however, I intend consulting the first-mentioned bodies in that connection when the latter council is constituted again. This is the only undertaking I can give at the moment. I do not think the hon. member can, in dealing with this Bill, expect me to discuss the constitution of a body which is constituted under another Act.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 11:

I move the amendment standing in my name, as follows—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 12:

*The MINISTER OF HEALTH; I move the following amendment—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 16:

I move the following amendment—

Here again I have no quarrel with the amendment moved by the hon. the Minister, but I want to raise a matter in respect of the new subsection (3) contained in clause 16, which reads as follows—

I have no objection to this and I was very gratified last night when the Minister, in his reply to the Second Reading, indicated that he was prepared to see that there would be no discrimination in the inspection of records vis-à-vis doctors and chemists and druggists. But as I read this, when a prescription has been dispensed for the last time, this particular phrase to my mind refers not only to the chemist who dispenses it for the last time, but also to a doctor who does his own dispensing. When he decides in his wisdom that that particular item will be supplied for the last time, I should imagine that there would be some record, not in a prescription book, but in his case card. Now I want to ask the Minister whether it is the intention, as I read this clause, that the Registrar of the board or any member of the Police of or above the rank of sergeant will now be in the position to call upon that general practitioner and ask to inspect his prescription records, because that is how I see the matter as it stands in terms of this amendment.

All I can say is that the hon. member’s view of the matter is absolutely correct. This is the situation, and this is what the hon. member wants to achieve and what we want to achieve. I cannot add anything, because I think he has put the position so accurately that it is now clear to both of us what we want to do.

I thank the hon. the Minister for his explanation and I am very grateful to have it recorded in Hansard. Now the hon. the Minister has moved an amendment to the proposed section 65bis (4) (e) in which he has changed the word “drugs” to “drug”, and I wish to move a further amendment—

I do this because this clause is now giving authority at the discretion of the Secretary for Health, for bodies and organizations to handle certain potentially harmful drugs. I believe that the amendment the Minister has made in limiting the word “drugs” to the singular, “drug”, will to a certain extent restrict the position and also allay a certain amount of anxiety which has existed in pharmaceutical circles. In the light of the Minister’s explanation during the Second Reading, that it is the intention to allow the S.A. Council for the Blind and certain Bantu nursing services to handle these drugs, I must admit that I have no objection to it; I think it is reasonable, but I feel that before the scope is extended to any further bodies or organizations, there should be some consultation with the S.A. Pharmacy Board which I believe, representing the chemists of the country, has a direct interest in this matter. I do not ask for this amendment lightheartedly, but I do so because I believe that there is a precedent, and if the Minister will refer to another clause in the Bill which was also dealt with last night, i.e. the clause which by registration allows midwives to handle potentially harmful drugs and habit-forming drugs, he will find that the enabling power for that particular amendment comes from section 72 of the Act, which reads as follows—

In the light of that, I believe it is reasonable, since potentially harmful drugs are causing a great deal of concern to many people throughout the country and since the leakage of potentially harmful drugs can be a menace to health, to ask that before further avenues are left open for their distribution, consultation should take place with the board. That is the sole purpose of my amendment.

Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the sentiments of the hon. member in endeavouring to make quite sure that potentially harmful drugs will not get into the hands of persons who might not be as careful with these drugs as one would expect them to be. The hon. member has referred to section 72 in terms of which the Minister may make regulations after consultation with the board. The position here is not quite the same because, after all, regulations made by the Minister under section 72 are regulations affecting the board and its members. In this particular instance the board and its members are not affected at all. It is the public that we are concerned about and that the hon. member is particularly concerned about. I think we can say without fear of contradiction that the Secretary for Health would be very, very careful indeed in issuing these permits. That is the first point. Secondly, there would be a big delay in issuing such permits if on every occasion the Secretary has to go to the board. For practical reasons, therefore, I am afraid I cannot accept this amendment, but I do think that we can fully trust the Secretary for Health, in his wisdom, to be constantly on his guard in this respect, as indeed the board would be if they were consulted.

Sir, I understand what the hon. the Minister has said. I rise only to make one point clear. It was not my intention that every single application for a permit should have to be considered by the board. My suggestion was this: If an organization like Santa, for example, wished to distribute to certain tuberculosis sufferers a drug which fell in the sixth schedule and it was felt in the wisdom of the Secretary for Health that Santa should receive authority to do that, then I believe, when it comes to granting permission to a new body such as that, that it would be right and proper for the Secretary to consult with the Board, I did not mean that each individual case under the Bantu nursing services should be handled in that way.

Amendment proposed by Mr. L. F. Wood put and negatived and amendment proposed by the Minister of Health put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 17:

I should like the hon. the Minister to clarify one further point, please. The proposed new section 65ter provides—

I am sure that this enjoys the wholehearted support of everybody in this House. But there is one problem that I have in regard to the implimentation of this section. Last night I pointed out to the Minister that it was a considered opinion that medical representatives, who were neither registered with the Medical Council as medical men nor with the Pharmacy Board as chemists and druggists, often find themselves in the course of their business, in possession of samples of potentially harmful drugs. I know that there are many firms of high repute who employ individuals of integrity who may not be qualified, but who fall without the control of either the Council or the Board.

I believe there are also people who are not of such high integrity and firms which may not have the same standards to which I have previously referred and where there may be abuses. These people carry drugs about, potentially dangerous and harmful drugs; they do not exercise sufficient care in handling them, and may leave them in their briefcases in the boot or in an unlocked car. These drugs are then liable to be stolen. What is more, there can also be indiscriminate distribution at the discretion of a person who is not really qualified to handle them. There are cases where some representatives have, out of the goodness of their hearts, offered anti-biotics and potentially harmful drugs to people who, in their opinion, were in need of these drugs. This is something which should not be permitted. I should like to hear from the Minister whether it is intended that this clause should cover such a loophole, and I seek his assurance on this matter.

Mr. Chairman, as the hon. member knows, this clause prohibits the possession of potentially harmful drugs which have not been acquired in terms of the provisions of the Act. This clause seeks to cover a loophole in the Act whereby control over potentially harmful drugs will be intensified. It is not a question of there being no control; we simply want to intensify the control. As I see the matter, the specific case mentioned by the hon. member is not being covered by this clause. I am also fully aware, like the hon. member, that what he mentioned is a danger and constitutes a problem which we have to combat. On the other hand, however, we would be creating major problems for the people who have to bring these drugs to the attention of medical practitioners and other bodies and persons, because by whom should that then be done? I shall give further consideration to this matter, however, and I want to give the hon. member the assurance that if there is any way of intensifying the control even more, I shall most definitely do so with due regard being had to our practical problems. At the moment, however, neither the hon. member nor I have an amendment before us in terms of which this can be done.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 24:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 25:

Mr: Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

Agreed to.

Clause as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 26:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

Agreed to.

Clause as amended, put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

Mr. Chairman, the Official Opposition during the Second Reading stage indicated its opposition to the abolition of trial by jury. We stated a very clear case for maintaining this form of trial, which is recognized as one of the hallmarks of the democratic system. However, the House, in its wisdom, decided to accept the principle of the Bill and we now have the Committee Stage of this Bill before us. There is nothing we can do in the Committee Stage. We can move no amendments which will bring back trial by jury. The principle has been accepted. The fundamental clause is clause 2. That, in fact, is the clause which abolishes trial by jury. All the other clauses are consequential to clause 2. We shall divide on clause 2, but indicate, in respect of all the other clauses, as we shall do in respect of this one, our opposition to this measure.

Clause put and agreed to (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause 2 put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—92: Bodenstein, P.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, M. W.; Botha, P. W.; Carr, D. M.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, J. A.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Jager, P. R.; Delport, W. H.; De Wet, C.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, H. R. H.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Erasmus, J. J. P.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Haak, J. F. W.; Havemann, W. W. B.; Henning, J. M.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Horn, J. W. L.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J.; Le Roux, J. P. C.; Lewis, H. M.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Marais, W. T.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, H.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Potgieter, S. P.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Raubenheimer, A. L.; Reinecke, C. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J. D.; Stofberg, L. F.; Swiegers, J. G.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Van Breda, A.; Van den Berg, M. J.; Van den Heever, D. J. G.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van Niekerk, M. C.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Visser, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wentzel, J. J.

Tellers: P. H. Torlage, G. P. van den Berg, P. S. van der Merwe and H. J. van Wyk.

Noes—33: Basson, J. A. L.; Bronkhorst. H. J.; Connan, J. M.; Eden, G. S.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff. De V.; Higgerty, J. W.; Jacobs, G. F.; Marais, D. J.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Smith, W. J. B.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Sutton, W. M.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Waterson, S. F.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

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

Clause accordingly agreed to.

Remaining Clauses, Schedule and Title of the Bill put and agreed to (Official Opposition dissenting).

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Mr. Chairman, when you reported progress and asked for leave to sit again just over a week ago, I was replying to the speeches of the hon. member for Green Point and the hon. member for Wynberg. What I had pointed out in the short time at my disposal at that time was that there in point of fact was a basic difference between this side and that side of this House. This basic difference is that we should like to attach a high value to South African citizenship. The amendment moved by the hon. member for Green Point is an indication to me that he does not attach such a high value to South African citizenship as we should like such citizenship to have. [Interjection.] I shall prove this now. The hon. member says this is nonsense, but he obviously does not know what we are dealing with at the moment. In the course of the few remarks I am going to make, I shall indicate that it forms part of our considerations to regard it as essential that a high value should be attached to South African citizenship. In the first place it should be remembered that to be issued with a passport is not a right or something which can be claimed automatically. Nobody can claim to be issued with a passport automatically. This is neither the position here in South Africa nor in any other part of the world, as far as I know. In other words, passports are under the control of the State and the departments concerned. A passport as travelling document is either issued or withheld, according to the consideration of all the merits which may be applicable to the person applying for such a passport. It often happens that passports are not issued to certain people who apply for passports. There may be various good reasons for doing so. For the purposes of our argument we have to accept that those reasons are in fact good ones, because this discussion does not afford us an opportunity of arguing whether or not the reasons are good ones. But the fact of the matter is that a passport is refused under certain circumstances. It then happens that some persons decide, in spite of the fact that they have been refused passports, to leave the country all the same. They then apply for permanent exit permits. An exit permit cannot be refused. It must be granted. But, Sir, there are far-reaching implications for a person who applies for such an exit permit. I assume that anybody who makes use of an exit permit after he has been refused a passport, knows what implications that has

I should like to deal with the technical aspects of the various clauses here. But before doing so, I should like to indicate that to a large extent this is what hon. members on that side of the House object to. Our attitude is that when a person cannot obtain a passport or travelling document and leaves the country permanently in spite of the refusal of such a document and in conflict with the wishes or decisions of the Government, such a person, who leaves the country on a permanent exit permit, is no longer entitled to the protection and the facilities he would otherwise have enjoyed as a South African citizen. I should like to explain a few of the technical aspects of this matter. Section 6 of Act No. 34 of 1955, as substituted by section 8 of Act No. 23 of 1964, provides that a person who leaves the country permanently on an exit permit will be regarded as a prohibited person for the purposes of Act No. 22 of 1913, i.e. the Admission of Persons to the Republic of South Africa Act. When a person makes use of such an exit permit, the only deduction one can make is that it is no longer his intention to travel under the protection of a South African passport.

Not necessarily.

Under those circumstances it is so. It cannot be otherwise. Such a person wants to leave South Africa and for that reason, in spite of all the far-reaching implications that has for him, he makes use of an exit permit to leave South Africa. In that case the only deduction one can make is that that person no longer intends being a South African. In that case his intention is to leave South Africa permanently and to cease being a South African. In fact, the Act I have just mentioned, provides that such a person shall then be regarded as a prohibited person for the purposes of Act No. 22 of 1913. But section 15 (c) of the South African Citizenship Act (Act No. 44 of 1949), provides that prohibited persons shall cease to be South African citizens. In other words, if a person makes use of such an exit permit he becomes a prohibited person in terms of the first legal provision I have mentioned. In addition he also loses his citizenship in terms of section 15 (c): of the South African Citizenship Act.

What does he become then? Stateless?

That may be the position, but not necessarily. The hon. member for East London (City) says such a person will become stateless, but this is not necessarily so. Such a person may adopt the citizenship of another country, which does in fact happen in many cases. These are the people that we keep in mind. It is people like this, people who become citizens of foreign states, who, according to us, are not entitled to return to South Africa. The hon. members for Green Point and Wynberg obviously want these people to retain the right to return to South Africa. We do not accept this. We say that if such a person adopts the citizenship of another state, he should no longer enjoy that right.

But I proceed. Section 4 of Act No. 22 of 1913 gives a lengthy exposition of what persons are to be regarded as prohibited persons to the Republic, and then we have the next section, section 5 of the same Act, which provides what persons are not prohibited persons for the purposes of section 4. But section 5 makes no mention of section 24 of the same Act. Section 24 makes provision for the issue of passports and visas, and it provides that anybody who does not have a passport or a visa is a prohibited person. As a result of that, the explicit implication surely is, and there could have been no other intention, that if a person has become a prohibited person because he has used an exit permit as a result of which he has lost his South African citizenship and can no longer obtain a South African passport, he is a prohibited person in terms of section 24 of Act No. 22 of 1913. That is the case which is being covered here. But what is more, as I have just said, some of these people adopt foreign citizenship. Some of them travel on foreign travelling documents, on the passports of another country. In such cases we issue one or two warnings to these people in advance that they may not travel on foreign passports. Hon. members will probably agree with me that if a South African citizen does not make use of a South African passport—if a South African passport is not good enough for him to travel on—and wants to avail himself of the facility to use a foreign passport as a travelling document, he most certainly no longer deserves the treatment to which an ordinary. South African citizen is entitled.

The amendment moved by the hon. member will, from the nature of the case, water down the whole intention of this legislation, and because of that I regret that I cannot accept this amendment. I want to emphasize the fact—I think I have mentioned this before—that we are nevertheless, in spite of everything, obliged in terms of the Hague Convention to take these people back. If these people are not acceptable to the country in which they find themselves and if they are stateless, we are obliged in terms of the International Convention to take them back if they are returned to South Africa. The hon. member for Green Point spoke of “in the glory of his isolation”. The hon. member knows enough about the administration to know that this is not so. The position is not that I sit there, have a document placed in front of me, and that I then have to pass judgment.

The decision is yours.

Yes, now the hon. member is explaining it better. I have to accept responsibility in this Parliament. Hon. members opposite have the opportunity of criticizing me, and my Department through me, when we come to the discussion of the Vote or on some other occasion. That is quite correct, but the hon. member knows that when a decision is being taken I do not sit in the isolation of my office without any information at my disposal and take a decision based on my opinion of the man’s appearance. Decisions are not taken on those grounds. The hon. member knows that the entire Department of the Interior, with highly trained people who are experienced and have the necessary information, are at my disposal to make recommendations. The hon. member also knows that in cases where there is any doubt, further information which has been obtained from the police or from other sources, is taken into consideration. These are the circumstances under which we take decisions in connection with passports and other travelling documents.

The hon. member for Wynberg spoke of the deposits we ask for. I am afraid that these deposits have nothing to do with this clause. I think the discussion of the Interior Vote will provide a better opportunity for discussing this matter. It is so that we do ask for deposits in certain cases, but I do not want to elaborate on that now because this is not the right opportunity for doing so. I should like to explain to the hon. member under what circumstances we ask for deposits as well as everything we take into consideration in connection with deposits and guarantees, but I think it would be better to do so during the discussion of the Vote.

The other side of the picture is this. When somebody applies for South African citizenship, high requirements have to be met before such a person can obtain South African citizenship, and I think that when people are indifferent towards South African citizenship, we should ask them to meet the same high requirements as those which people have to meet when they want to obtain South African citizenship. In the light of these circumstances this amendment will merely be a watering down of the intention of the legislator, and consequently I cannot accept it.

I unfortunately missed the previous discussions on this Bill through circumstances beyond my control, but I have done my best to follow the discussions from newspaper reports, and also I have listened now to the hon. the Minister’s explanation of the very severe action, which he is taking in this amending Bill. If one has not had previous experience of what happens with the refusals of the Minister of the Interior—not necessarily this Minister, but certainly his predecessors—in regard to the issue of passports, one might have been more inclined to accept ministerial assurances and explanations more readily; but unfortunately my experience in the cases that have been brought to my notice is that there have been many completely unreasonable refusals of passports, that people have been compelled to take exit permits as a result and therefore the Minister’s explanations this afternoon do not carry any weight with me. People who have been refused passports are not given the opportunity of appearing before the Minister and giving an explanation, or at least being given the opportunity of defending themselves against whatever accusations have been made against them by the Security Branch or by any other sources of information that the Minister has at his disposal. Therefore it seems to me to be a tremendously punitive action the Minister is taking here against people who never know what the charges are against them and who are given no opportunity of having a confrontation with the Minister and explaining their point of view and perhaps of asking him to give some explanation as to the action taken against them. That is the one thing.

The hon. member for Wynberg has mentioned the case of many of the Coloured people who wish to leave South Africa and take jobs in Canada and in other countries where opportunities for their economic advancement appear to them to be much greater than they are in South Africa, and also because they feel that there is little future for their children in this country under the disabilities they suffer. Many of these people have to leave on exit permits because they have not been allowed passports. They really did not wish to abandon their South African citizenship and the privileges attaching to it, but circumstances have forced these things upon them, and therefore I think this is a very unfair measure indeed.

The other instance the hon. the Minister mentioned was that of people using passports of other countries instead of South African passports. I should like a little clarity as to whether the policy of the Government has changed in this regard. To the best of my knowledge, over the past few years the Government has turned a blind eye and indeed has actually given permission to large numbers of people to travel on British and other passports for commercial purposes, people who wish to open markets for South Africa and who are unable to go to certain countries using a South African passport, particularly to other countries on the Continent of Africa. I believe some of these people have attempted to make sure that they are not jeopardizing their position as South African citizens by using the passports they are entitled to, by virtue of the dual citizenship allowed them by the other countries, such as people for instance who were born in Britain but have become South African citizens and who are always at any time entitled to take out a British passport, or people whose fathers were born in Britain. They are always allowed to revert to the privilege of obtaining a British passport. In the past, to the best of my knowledge, there have been many such cases of persons travelling in Africa and elsewhere using British or other passports, with the connivance or the knowledge of the Government and its approval in order that South Africa’s export trade may be increased.

With their approval?

Yes, very often with their approval; or where they have heard of it perchance, certainly no punitive steps have been taken against people in that regard. It is specific people who are singled out for this punishment, people who are on the political list of the Government, people on whom the Security Branch has files. These are the people who suffer if they happen as South Africans to use the passport of another country even though their journeys, I might say, are perfectly innocent. They may be travelling simply as tourists for pleasure and not for any subversive purpose whatsoever. I would like the hon. the Minister to tell this Committee whether the Government has changed its policy and is now adopting an overall policy towards people who use the passports of other countries while they have South African passports as well.

The hon. member for Houghton—other hon. members also did this on another occasion when this subject was under discussion—is now trying to take up the cudgels for a certain group of people who are being affected by this legislation. The hon. member made specific reference to one group of people, i.e. certain Coloured people, as she called them, who left this country to seek better prospects in other countries. Sir, if these people decide that South Africa is no longer good enough for them and that there is not enough room for them and their children to make a livelihood and they bid South Africa farewell fully aware of the fact that they are taking a risk in leaving this country on an exit permit but nevertheless prepared to go to another country where the grass seems to be greener to them, and if they eventually find that things are not so good there and that South Africa is a better place, it is thei: just desert that they should remain where they are.

What about the Whites?

I have never left this country with the intention of not returning. Sir, let us now really come to the essence of this clause. The Act now provides that any person who does not have the elementary travelling documents, i.e. a passport or a visa, is a prohibited person. Such a prohibited person does not have the right of appeal. Hon. members on that side now want certain persons to be exempted from these provisions of the Act simply because they were born here in South Africa; for that reason they should now be treated differently to all other prohibited persons and should be allowed the right of appeal without their being in possession of the elementary travelling documents, which any person must have to travel in the international world. Let us go into the details. Who are the people for whom the hon. member for Houghton and hon. members of the Opposition have been acting as champions here today? There are three groups of people. The first group consists of those who have left the country on an exit permit, who have shaken the dust of South Africa from their feet. After the authorities concerned had decided that these people should not obtain passports or travelling documents, they said that they were not prepared to accept the decision of the authorities. They do not want to accept the decision of the Government of South Africa and they nevertheless wish to leave South Africa of their own free will without a passport or visa but merely on an exit permit. This is the first group of people on whose behalf hon. members opposite want to take up the cudgels. The other group consists of people who travel about in the world under a different nationality than the South African nationality, who repudiate South African citizenship in the international world as soon as they are out of our sight, and then, when it suits them to return, when it is convenient for them to return, we should be good enough to throw our doors open to them and to make an exception in their case simply because they were born in South Africa. Mr. Chairman, there are many of their kind in the world. We say “good riddance” to them. We do not want to have them back in South Africa ever again.

Why are there so many exceptions?

There is a third group for whom the hon. member and her henchmen are acting here as champions, and they are the people who travel abroad, not on South African passports—I do not know whether they are ashamed to do so—but on the passports of other countries, people who renounce South Africa openly of their own free will, and after they have done so, hon. members expect us to make ourselves cheap by making special concessions to these people by exempting them from the provisions of the existing Act. We are not in fact introducing a new principle here. The principle is that if a person does not have a passport and a visa, he cannot return to South Africa; in that case he is a prohibited person, and these hon. members now want us to allow these people, who have openly renounced South Africa, who have decided to ignore the Government of South Africa and its civil administration by disregarding its decision, to return when it suits them to do so, when they deem it fit to return to South Africa—and that will be the day!

It is unfortunate that the hon. member for Parow did not get his facts sorted out before he attempted to present an argument to this House. He referred to those prohibited immigrants under the Act who are now deprived of the right of appeal. They never had South African citizenship. They are aliens only. We are discussing under this particular clause persons who have lost their South African citizenship. Secondly, the hon. member for Parow talks about people who travel on a passport other than a South African passport as though it is a grave offence. Does the hon. member not know that of 492 applications made to the hon. the Minister’s department, or to his predecessor, all but 38 were approved? Permission was granted to all but 38 to travel on foreign passports! It is not a crime to travel on the passport of another country. The department itself approved of all but 38 of 492 applications to travel on the passport of another country; so there are good reasons, as I am sure the hon. the Minister will appreciate. But this particular provision means that if any of the 38 remaining applicants choose to disagree with the Minister and his department …

That is the point.

… then they must lose their citizenship, and the hon. member for Parow says, “that is the point”. Sir, I submit that we have not yet reached a stage of dictatorship in this country. The Minister is quite right, a passport is not a right; it is in the prerogative of the Executive to grant it or not to grant it; it is a grace and favour which is exercised by the Minister on behalf of the Executive. But that right to exercise that grace and favour is not fettered in any way. There are no laws which say on what grounds a passport can be refused. There is no means whereby a person who is refused a passport can go to a court to test whether he should have it or not. If an application for a passport is refused by the Minister—I concede, after consultation with the Special Branch or anybody else he wishes to consult—then that applicant must sit down and in a docile manner accept the Minister’s decision or run the perils which are now provided for here. The hon. member for Parow nods his head. I wonder whether everyone in South Africa is prepared to acquiesce in having no right to query the judgment of one person which determines their whole future in this country. I want to tell the hon. the Minister, who comes and makes this allegation by means of a tortuous and round-about argument that we do not value citizenship, that it is because we value citizenship that we do not wish to see this power concentrated in the hands of one person, the power to decide whether or not a person should retain his citizenship. That is the value of it. I want to ask the hon. the Minister this question, and I hope he will be frank with us. Has there ever been a case where he had to change his mind and grant a passport which he refused to grant in the first instance? Can he tell us that there has never been such an instance? Perhaps I can remind him of one—the case of Dr. Van der Ross. He was in the first place refused a passport, but then, suddenly, that decision was changed. Where, then, is the infallibility we are expected to accept about the hon. the Minister or about any future Minister? If there had been provision for a procedure whereby an unfortunate applicant could have the decision against him reviewed, the position would be different. But that is certainly not the position at the moment. I have mentioned that there are cases where the Minister, exercising this prerogative on behalf of the Executive, found it necessary to change his mind. Now, why would he change his mind? Because he may have heard representations on behalf of the aggrieved person? But the aggrieved party has no right to be heard. The Minister can close the door and tell him that he is not prepared to hear him; that he is not prepared to hear him on the question of whether or not he should get a passport.

I submit that we are jeopardizing the value of citizenship by proceeding on the lines laid down in this Bill. The true position is exactly the reverse of what the hon. the Minister tried to accuse this side of the House. It is because we value citizenship that we are not prepared to agree that the power to grant or remove it should be in the hands of only one person.

The other matter I would like to raise is the question of exit permits. It would be interesting if the hon. the Minister could indicate to us how many of these unfortunate people there are. I say “unfortunate” because of the consequences to them of the fact that they have to take an exit permit. How many of these unfortunate persons are there who have no option, because of the conditions with which they are confronted by the Minister, but to accept an exit permit? I refer to conditions such as conditions in regard to deposits. But not only this. Also where there is a blank refusal to grant a passport, the man being told that he and his family can go, but on a permanent exit visa only. The Minister knows that is being done. The person, consequently, is left with no other option. Hon. members talk about looking for green pastures elsewhere. Personally I should prefer to see a person returning to South Africa disillusioned by what he has seen elsewhere, than have him confined and kept here grumbling and disillusioned because the Minister would not permit him to go and see the outside world in order to compare it with his own country.

Do you want Goldreich and Wolpe back here?

The stupid interjection of the hon. member for Parow shows how futile the argument is which hon. members are trying to put up against our approach. We are not dealing here with a man who is convicted; we are not dealing with a man who can be dealt with under the Suppression of Communism Act or as a prohibited immigrant. For these people there is legislation in terms of which they can be dealt with. There is power in other legislation to punish such people. The hon. member for Parow can think of two names of people who should come back. There are many young South African students who have left this country on exit visas only who, I hope, will return to South Africa, because they can be very good citizens. Many of them who have gone overseas to take up bursaries are very good citizens and we may still live to see their value to this country if they are allowed to return. Why did these have to leave the country on exit visas? Because of the decision of one man, however much he may have consulted. These people have no right of appeal, neither to the Minister, nor to anybody else. They have no right to go to the Minister and tell him that they have a right to see him and that they demand to see him. If the Minister or his department does agree to see such a person, it is only because they are doing him a favour.

Sir, I can see no justification at all for the presence of this provision in the Bill and, consequently, I hope that the Minister may even at this stage be prepared to accept its deletion.

Mr. Chairman, I can hardly believe that the Opposition will be able, with a view to the coming election, to build up for itself the image of being a South African, bilingual and patriotic party by persevering in a debate such as this to act as the champions of those people who have abandoned their South African citizenship in this way. This is what the hon. member for Green Point, the hon. member for Wynberg, and obviously the hon. member for Houghton, have been trying to do all along in this debate. Young students, or anybody else, who leave South Africa on a one way permit, do so of their own accord. Not one of them is forced to do so. When this does happen, it usually happens in a blaze of publicity in which South Africa is besmirched. The Press of the Opposition Parties uses this in a way which puts South Africa in a bad light everywhere in the world. Now they are coming up for these people, they are acting as the champions of those people, and, what is more, they want those people to be able to return to South Africa without any further problems. Surely this cannot happen. I believe that if there are some of them who want to return to South Africa, their applications will be considered with the necessary care. The fact that so many South African citizens have been allowed to travel on foreign passports is indicative of the circumspection being exercised in dealing with these cases. There must have been good reasons for that otherwise it would not have been allowed. The fact that a mere 38 of such a large number of applications were refused, confirms this. We accept that those 38 applications were refused for very good reasons. The Opposition is interceding here for people who do not deserve the protection of South African citizenship. The people who have abandoned South Africa, have forfeited their passports. The argument here concerns people who want to return to South Africa under the Immigration Act of 1913. I want to support the hon. the Minister in his attitude in this connection, because the issue here is people who first have to prove themselves again through the attitude they adopt towards South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I was going to start off by saying “with respect” to the hon. member for Waterkloof, but I think I will not use those words after what he said. I do not believe he really knows anything very much about this subject. I very much doubt whether hundreds of cases of people in personal difficulties which are unknown to many members of this House, have ever come to the attention of the hon. member for Waterkloof.

That is sob-stuff.

It is not sob-stuff at all and the hon. member for Parow knows that perfectly well. The hon. the Minister, who happens to be an old friend of ours, because we were together in the Cape Provincial Council in the old days, has repeated a statement which he made last week when this debate was adjourned. According to him, people who left this country on exit permits, and have done so over the last few year, did not value their South African citizenship. Let us cut out all the ordinary generalizations over this issue and get down to a few facts. Very often, as the Minister knows, people who want to go elsewhere have no option except to go out on exit permits; otherwise their careers or study opportunities or their hope of greater training are affected. Frequently there is nothing wrong with their characters, with their political activities or anything else. However, the Government, for one reason or another, does not wish them to have these documents.

I have a whole bundle of cases in my file, and the Minister is welcome to see them any day he likes. I want to speak about a particular case which I have in my file here to-day. It concerns a family consisting of a father, a mother, and two children. In September, 1968, they applied for travel documents to Australia because this man has virtually reached the top of his profession here in Cape Town. He is not a professional man, he is not in the teaching profession or anything like that. He is employed by one of the most reputable travel and indent agents in Cape Town. He applied for travel documents in the ordinary way to go to Australia, not necessarily leaving South Africa for good, but in order to improve his position. He was offered a better job there with better pay, and he also wanted more experience. The fact of the matter is that this man might very well under normal circumstances have returned to South Africa after staying in Australia for four or five years, whilst obtaining a great deal of additional experience there. He could have come back and been an extremely useful administrative leader amongst the Coloured people in South Africa. He cannot get any higher in his present job, he cannot obtain an executive position here where he exercises authority over white persons in this country because of our way of life. He can get no further promotion in this firm. He was offered a job in Australia and in due course he applied for passports for his family. He received an evasive reply from the department, saying he must put down a deposit for him and his family of R900, or a banker’s guarantee for that amount. At the present moment this man’s salary is R250 per month, higher than the salaries of a great many white working folk in South Africa. He has not the slightest interest in political activities of any description, he has no character defects, as far as I can make out from his firm, which consists entirely of reputable Cape Town citizens. He owns his own house and the piece of land upon which the house is situated. The interesting part about this case is this. In April and May of 1968, the Minister’s department quite happily permitted this man to travel on South African travel documents, a passport and everything, to Germany and Sweden on behalf of his firm here in Cape Town. They considered him to be a good advertisement for South Africa. He is a Coloured man. I want to know why he was considered suitable to travel on a South African passport to visit overseas countries for his firm in 1968, and yet he and his family are now summarily refused travel documents, when he accepts a post in Australia in order to gain greater experience in the field in which he works. This man has a letter of acceptance from the Australian Government, so there is no phoney business attached to that side of it either.

He informed the department that he was sorry that he was unable to put down R900 deposit, because, in order to pay the passages of himself, his wife, and their two children, and possibly keep a little money in reserve, he had to sell his house and the land. What he is doing is, of course, for him a big step. When I tried to pin the Minister down and asked whether a refusal to pay this type of deposit was in itself valid reason for refusing travel documents, he wrote the following to me in a letter dated the 14th January, 1969: “The inability of an applicant to satisfy the department that he will be able to return to the Republic without official assistance, is considered as sufficient reason to refuse a passport.” I have the letter here, the Minister knows it quite well, he was quite honest with me about it. But this raises another issue which was started by the hon. member for Green Point.

So many of these people want to come back to South Africa. As I said, this man has a decent salary, he earns R250 per month. He can pay for their passages, they are not being paid for by the Australian government. He is not an emigrant in that sense, he is an independent man who wants to improve his position. The Minister has refused him the documents without giving any reasons for the refusal, as he is entitled to do. They are leaving on exit permits and now they will be told they are bad South African citizens. I say there was no need for them ever to have been put into such a category. This man’s financial position is very sound. His salary in this country is R250 per month. He would not take up the overseas post if he did not have an offer of better pay. He would be more than likely, with the money paid in this good post, to pay his own way back to South Africa. He could have come back on proper travel documents and made his contribution here like a student or a businessman or anybody else in this field. But he was refused the necessary documents. He was depressed and asked me to make representations to the Minister. I tried and finally I got a little letter with three lines, saying, “Your representations have been rejected”. The man concerned wrote to me on the 10th February this year telling me he had given up his efforts to obtain passports and they were now going away on exit permits. This means that if these people return to South Africa they will in effect be aliens in the land of their birth. I say this is punitive action which is not justified at all. The loss of this type of South African citizen, be he White or Coloured or whatever the case may be, is very grave indeed.

When the Minister replied to the debate last week he said it was clear there were persons who were previously South African citizens, or even Union citizens, who lost their South African citizenship because they gave it up of their own free will by taking out these exit permits. But many of them did not take out these permits of their own free will. I have many people coming to me with this sort of case, for one reason or another; perhaps they think a woman has got a softer heart than some of the hon. members opposite. They come to me, they are worried, and I have many of them with whom I have to deal.

The serious aspect of this whole situation is this. If they come back, in terms of this clause, they come back as aliens, and I wonder whether the Minister is really taking the right step in dealing with people of this category in this way. Let me say in conclusion that forcing people to leave the country, which the Minister is doing, I maintain, very often for purely ideological reasons of policy is bad enough. But there is something which is worse. I maintain the Government is making every effort as far as the Coloured community is concerned, including a subtle form of official intimidation, to force them to remain in the country, very largely for purely ideological reasons also flowing from policies explicable only to this Government. That is infinitely worse. To be logical if they are not considered suitable citizens, why should we make them remain here? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, an interjection was made to the effect that the hon. member for Wynberg was telling us a sob story, and this is in fact so. [Interjections.]

What she said was the truth.

It might be the truth, but let us analyse it. The fact of the matter is that the Minister has the right to refuse someone a passport without giving any reasons. We should not want to argue about that. That has always been the position and hon. members opposite have always been satisfied with it. Then the Department has the right to demand a deposit from certain people who wish to go overseas. That, too, is quite justified. People who go overseas might possibly be repatriated to this country at South Africa’s expense. The Department must then be in a position to recover those expenses from the deposit paid. There is no injustice in a case like that. If, in spite of his inability to pay the required deposit, a person obtains permission to leave the country on a one-way permit, he does so with his eyes open. The whole point is that such a person is not forced to leave the country. He has a choice. If he does it with his eyes open, it means that he simply does not rate his citizenship highly enough. In that case he only has himself to blame if he loses that citizenship. Then the hon. member for Wynberg cannot come forward with a sob story to the effect that the Government is unjust, i.e. when a person has so little regard for his citizenship that he is prepared to risk it.

Mr. Chairman, a moment ago the hon. the Minister spoke about the citizenship of persons who leave the country on an exit permit. The hon. member for Prinshof has now referred to the “sob story” of the hon. member for Wynberg. This makes me think that the Minister and other hon. members feel that every person who leaves the country on an exit permit is a criminal or a potential criminal; as if there are no circumstances in which a person has no alternative but to go overseas on an exit permit, because he is not allowed to travel on his passport in certain given circumstances.

I want to mention such cases. If a father wants to give his son, who wants to go to Australia or some other country, part of his inheritance, and the rate of exchange control authorities refuse to allow him to take that amount out of the country, then the hon. the Minister’s Department will only let him go on condition that he travels on an exit permit. From that moment that person is stateless. It is terrible to be stateless. He can obviously not get citizenship immediately from the country to which he goes. No Western state grants citizenship before one has resided in that country for two years. In the meantime he might realize that he has made a mistake. It need not necessarily be that he is a bad citizen or, as the hon. member for Prinshof said, that he did not value his citizenship. It might be a lad of 23 or 24 years who thought that the facilities in other countries were better than they are here. A great many people who have already left the country on exit permits, would like to come back but cannot, because they cannot ipso facto be re-invested with their citizenship. He must follow the normal procedure and re-apply for citizenship, and in the meantime he remains stateless. A person who leaves the country without his passport, i.e. on an exit permit, is stateless until such time as he acquires citizenship of another country. But he is still not in a position to return to his fatherland. However much he values his passport and would like to retain it if he could, he cannot do so under those circumstances. I know of the son of a very good farming family who went to Australia. The Department said, “Yes, but if the father wants to give him such a large amount of money, instead of only R4,000, he can only leave the country on an exit permit”. He duly did so, and is now stateless. He is neither a citizen of Australia nor a South African citizen. He is an asset to South Africa, but he does not have citizenship. My argument is that if the Minister is not prepared to accept this amendment, it is its duty and its job to make provision in the Other Place to the effect that these people will not be declared stateless on the strength of the fact that they have left the country on an exit permit. They are not potential criminals or criminals. They may have left the country through ignorance or other circumstances and would like to come back to South Africa and have their citizenship restored.

Mr. Chairman, I feel I must rise to reply to the hon. member for Prinshof. The stories, as told by the hon. member for Wynberg and others, are not sob stories; they are hard, actual facts. They indicate, display and show to us the total disregard of the hon. the Minister with regard to Coloured people and their interests. He discriminates against them in no uncertain terms. I say to him across the floor of this House that the only reason he is stipulating this large sum of money which these people are required to put up by way of guarantee, is to keep them in the country and prevent them from going out. The best people among the Coloured community are heartily sick of the situation and want to get away and shake the dust of the country off their feet. The Minister is creating in this country something similar to the Berlin wall. He is building barriers between these people and ourselves. [Interjections.]

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

I asked the hon. the Minister some time ago, how many people are repatriated under the requirements of these guarantees. The answer was most unsatisfactory. Last year I had a case similar to that of the hon. member for Wynberg, where a young man of 19 wanted to go and study overseas. He was refused a passport. He went with an exit permit. I made it my business to investigate the matter. The concern that was sponsoring him in England is 100 per cent aboveboard, a legally registered and wealthy organization. The Minister had no ground whatsoever for refusing to grant that person a valid passport. He had to leave with an exit permit. What other choice do they have? Now the hon. the Minister says that these people will in future be treated as aliens and will have to go through the processes of being taken into the country once again as a citizen.

I say that the time has come when the public of this country should know that the arbitrary methods of the Department of the Interior, and this Minister in particular, are reprehensible in the highest possible degree.

Mr. Chairman, I do not intend to get myself involved in a contentious debate here. Nor is that the attitude I adopt in this House. I steer clear of it. I represent the Coloured voters of Outeniqua and I steer clear of contentious debates. It does not further my cause. The hon. member might as well snigger at it, as I can very clearly hear, but my views differ from those of the hon. member who is making those noises. But, Sir, over the 11 years during which I have been a member of this House, I have at least gained a little experience of the matters which have been discussed to-day. The hon. member for Wynberg spoke of the person, for whom I have sympathy, who could not pay the deposit. The hon. member for Karoo also spoke about the same matter. Now I want to ask the hon. member for Karoo the following question: In the time during which he has been the Coloured representative for the Karoo constituency, for how many students has he signed security to go overseas, instead of their paying up themselves? [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member must not go into the personal affairs of members.

Fine, Mr. Chairman, then I shall leave it at that. Since I became a member of this House, I have understood that it has always been the policy of the Department that security must be provided in the event of that person being deported from that country to this country. In such a case the South African Government has to pay the expenses. They require either the money or security. In that way I have already assisted at least seven students who have gone overseas; not in cash, but in another way. That is what it amounts to. [Interjections.] What guarantee can any member of this House furnish to the effect that any person who applies for a passport to study in the United States, Britain or Germany, would not perhaps get into trouble on account of which he would have to be deported to South Africa? This has been the policy and I have always accepted it in this way.

They will probably ask you for a deposit when you go out of the country too.

Yes, if I have to leave the country, I shall most probably be asked for a deposit or a guarantee, and if this applies to me, it will also apply to the hon. member.

Will you be allowed there?

Mr. Chairman, whether I shall be allowed there, depends on circumstances, but I want to say that if certain people of whom I know, are allowed there, I shall also go there. There are many cases, and I myself dealt with a few, where a passport or travel documents were refused. On one occasion I had the privilege of taking the matter as far as the former Minister of Justice. I want to say this much for the hon. the Prime Minister, i.e. that what I saw in his office while he was still Minister of Justice, convinced me—although I had very strong feelings about the matter—that, if we make a fuss here because a passport was refused or because immediate permission for the issue of such a passport or travel documents was not granted, we are speaking as laymen and we do not know what information the Department has at its disposal. I saw it with my own eyes and, unfortunately, I cannot let it out here, for I gave my word of honour …

But then you did not see it, surely.

I saw it with my own eyes, and my word of honour is just as good as that hon. member’s. The hon. member for Wynberg mentioned a specific case here. I am sympathetic towards that case, because I myself came across such cases where I did not see my way clear to being of assistance. They did not have the money, nor did they intend to get hold of the money or security, in spite of the fact that they owned property. The case of Dr. Van der Ross’s passport was also raised here. I may be wrong, but I only know of one case where Dr. Van der Ross was involved in a passport matter, and that was when he was refused an endorsement for Basutoland. He had a passport in his possession.

He never had a passport.

Who is making this speech, you or I? [Interjections.] By way of interjection mention has now been made of “the same nonsense”, but when I speak of Dr. Van der Ross, I know that I am touching upon something which is a sore point with the hon. member sitting next to me. On this occasion Dr. Van der Ross’s endorsement was refused when he wanted to go to Basutoland to be interviewed for the purpose of being appointed to a position at the University of Roma. At that stage it was felt that this Coloured’s ability in the field of education was worth more to South Africa than it would be to Basutoland.

Is that why they refused them now?

Yes, and it was right to do so; the hon. member might do well to look at the office he holds to-day and what he is doing for Coloured education. I am not concerned with the education of the Basuto, because the Basuto Government can look after that. However, if I could have Dr. Van der Ross here in the position he holds to-day in respect of Coloured education, then I agree whole-heartedly that he should be kept here in South Africa.

Good old Grey Shirt philosophy!

Here he is worth much more to South Africa and the Coloured population than he would have been to the Basuto. I just want to say that when we start levelling vociferous criticism in regard to this matter once travel documents have been refused, we as laymen do not have the information which the Department has at its disposal.

Do you have it at your disposal?

I could illustrate cases to you which would make your hair stand on end, if you have any, if you hear what information the Department has at its disposal. Mr. Chairman, I just feel that we should not kick up too much of a fuss when the Department takes action in regard to such cases. Through its contacts and the combination of circumstances the Department has information which the layman in the street does not have, and until we have satisfied ourselves that the Department has done the necessary as a result of the information it has at its disposal, we should not kick up too much of a fuss here and level accusations and charges which we cannot prove.

Mr. Chairman, before the hon. the Minister gets up to deal with what has been raised, I want to put two specific questions to him which I will be grateful if he would answer.

The first question arises from the speech delivered by the hon. member for Outeniqua who appeared to speak with authority after discussion with members of the department he sees so frequently. I would like the hon. the Minister to indicate to us quite clearly, and I am sure he will be frank with us, if his policy in regard to the issue of passports to Coloured people is dictated by the desire to retain them here in South Africa, in other words, that conditions are made as difficult as possible, as has been suggested by the hon. member for Outeniqua.

The second point I want to raise with the hon. the Minister is that it appears that the difficulty that many of these people, and Coloured people particularly, get into is that not being in possession of funds they cannot get a passport and that they then take an exit permit and leave the country without having made a deposit. It has been suggested that these are people who should not be encouraged to come back at all and that they are bad citizens. I take it that before there is a request for a deposit from the department the hon. the Minister is satisfied that those people are good enough citizens to warrant them getting a passport so that if they bring the money they will get a passport. It is therefore merely the fact that they are unable, or that they refuse to make the deposit, that the steps they then take to continue with their journey deprive them of their South African citizenship. I would like the hon. the Minister to answer these two questions.

There is one other matter I want to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister. This matter arises out of what was said by the hon. member for East London (City). The hon. the Minister must concede that this clause which is now before us, must and will hit good innocent South African citizens. If that is so, and I see it is inevitable that it must happen, is the hon. the Minister prepared even at this stage, even if he will not accept the elimination of this clause, to give us an undertaking in this House that he will consider ways and means whereby justifiable cases of former citizens who genuinely want to come back to this country can be accommodated within these provisions. The provision, as it is now, closes the door completely. A South African, who has lost his citizenship, and who comes back to South Africa is regarded as an alien for all purposes of re-entry into South Africa. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to deal with the aspects I have mentioned.

The hon. member for Houghton said, “The Minister’s explanation does not carry any weight with me”. That does not astonish me, because in regard to these matters we hold completely different views. As regards the issue of passports, the hon. member will appreciate that from the nature of the case the refusal to issue a passport and the reasons connected with it are matters which should be kept secret. For that reason it is not possible for me to discuss reasons here.

That is the easy way out.

It is not possible for me to discuss reasons, especially not in regard to these specific cases. The hon. member for Houghton now wants to ask me specific questions, but she knows that I cannot take her into my confidence; how can I furnish her with confidential information? But apart from that, the hon. member for Wynberg mentioned a case here which is perhaps a pitiable case, but merely in general I want to tell her that for the one case she mentioned in respect of which it might be desirable to decide differently, there are scores of cases in respect of which it is essential to decide differently. It is precisely in respect of those other cases that we want to take these precautionary measures.

Do you not feel sorry for some of them?

Of course, and that is why I should like to give the assurance that I shall try to administer these matters in a humane manner. But hon. members will appreciate that I am also under certain obligations to my country and to Parliament. It is for the very reason that I am under those obligations that I sometimes have to do certain things which are not popular with everybody. Hon. members opposite never made any mention of the scores and scores of people who left South Africa on exit permits and who went and joined our greatest enemies abroad. Why do they not refer to those people?

No, they are protecting them.

I could mention numerous names of such people, and I am making this premise, i.e. that if there is a person who really values his country and his citizenship, and who knows what implications they have for him, he would think ten times, irrespective of the circumstances, before leaving this country on an exit permit, knowing that he would then be a forbidden immigrant and would lose his South African citizenship.

The hon. member for Green Point asked a very fair question. He wanted to know whether I would perhaps inquire into the possibility of granting assistance to people who had left the country in all innocence and who had most probably behaved themselves very well in the countries to which they had gone, and whose actions over there had been satisfactory as far as South Africa was concerned, and whether it was perhaps desirable to allow them to return, in spite of the fact that they had lost their citizenship. I shall undertake this for the hon. member. I do not know what ways and means we can find for doing so.

Could you perhaps do so in the Other Place?

I doubt whether it can be done here, because it is a complicated matter. The fact of the matter is that the present position is such that we can only receive back those who are forced upon us by the countries to which they went. We are obliged to receive them, as I indicated a moment ago, in terms of The Hague Convention. But I do not think that I can say that the others are lost to South Africa, because in by far and away the majority of cases we are probably better off without them than we would be with them. I do not have the slightest doubt about that.

The hon. member for Wynberg wanted to know what our policy was in regard to foreign passports, and the hon. member for Houghton also wanted to know this. I have already said that we are warning South African citizens not to travel on foreign passports, because they may lose their citizenship. Then the hon. member went further and said that there were cases where we granted permission to people to use foreign passports. That is quite correct, but one cannot make that a rule. We want loyal citizens of South Africa in this country, and we do not want people who walk about with two or three foreign passports and travel on them.

But you do want it.

No, I think the hon. member for Yeoville does not understand this clearly. He has only just entered this Chamber.

I suppose he came from Windhoek.

I want to be a little more specific in this regard. The standing rule is—and people know this because they are being warned—that they should not travel on foreign passports. We are warning South African citizens that they are running the risk of having their South African citizenship withdrawn if they do so. It so happens that there are cases where people may want to travel to countries in which they would be completely unwelcome with a South African passport, and in such a case they approach us for our permission, and if circumstances justify it, we grant that permission. This is the simple answer to the question put by the hon. member for Houghton.

But what about your policy?

In no country can one have rigid rules. If that were the case, I would probably not have been necessary there, nor the heads of my Department. In that case we could merely have appointed people to work out little calculations, and perhaps this could have been done by machines. But this is being done precisely because we must have a discretionary power in order to adapt to various circumstances.

I do not know whether it is necessary for me to go into very great detail in dealing further with this discussion. In regard to these deposits we require, or the guarantees, I just want to point out to hon. members, and particularly to the hon. member for Wynberg, that from 1st April, 1968 to 30th November, 1968, we had already spent an amount of R5,712 on repatriation, and in 1967 this amounted to R6,338. When we realize that a person wants to leave the country, whether on a passport or by whatever other means, and that he may be a potential repatriation case, then, surely, it is our duty to see to it that we do not burden the State with that expense and that we make provision for it. Surely, hon. members know that in by far and away the majority of cases we do not require that deposit. We most certainly did not require that from the hon. member for Yeoville when he went abroad last year.

But you were very negligent.

I think we have now discussed the clause in very great detail, and I do not think it is necessary for me to say anything further.

I would like to tell the hon. the Minister that we are extremely grateful for his assurance this afternoon that, if not in terms of this Bill which we understand it would be difficult for him at this stage to re-draft in order to deal with the situation, he at least undertakes not to penalize those people who are forced out on exit permits, particularly those who behave well overseas and want to come back, and who left on exit permits because they were not able to furnish money for their repatriation. If the Minister carries out his policy on those lines, I think we are very grateful to him for this assurance he has given.

I just want to make one or two more points. The Minister said that I was slightly confused about the demand for a deposit, but I would like to tell him that I do not think I am confused. It is quite correct, and in fairness to the Government it should be said, that I am talking particularly about Coloured people but it does apply to Whites as well. I have been in touch with the officials of the Minister’s Department, and they will verify any statement. A deposit is asked for because it will cost the Government a great deal if they cannot come back and they have to be sent back to South Africa, and then the Government has to pay for their repatriation. In many cases people who have paid the deposit or, if they have not paid, have given a banker’s guarantee, have been given South African passports on which to travel. I think it would be quite unfair not to state that fact. But what worries me a little is the question of students, and I am not here concerned with students who are interested in creating trouble. I am talking about bona fide students who want to go overseas to study. Many of these youngsters do not necessarily go to academic institutions for purposes of study. A lot of them are youngsters who do not go to the universities at all, but they are journalists or musicians and they go overseas to work and to study and to gain experience. The Minister knows perfectly well that the parents of many of these people were formerly citizens of the United Kingdom. I deal with the United Kingdom specifically because the Minister’s figures given to me in the House the other day show that by far the larger number are in that category. The Minister also knows that none of our youngsters can go to work in the United Kingdom without permission from the Labour Office of the United Kingdom here, and they can go from here to one specific job and there they have to stay. Now I had a very interesting experience over this with the Minister’s predecessor, who gave me, in each case when my two sons went overseas, a special letter of dispensation allowing them to have a British passport which enabled them to work in the United Kingdom, because one was going as a journalist and the other as a musician. In both those two categories of work you have to move about; you cannot sit in one place or else you do not learn what you go over to learn. But may I tell the Minister that his predecessor, when I first made application for one of my sons, wrote me a letter saying that under no circumstances would he allow him to take out a British passport as well as a South African one. He happened to be born in the United Kingdom, Sir, because my husband was serving in the Forces over there and they had to be where their mother was when they were born. [Laughter.] The Minister’s predecessor wrote me a letter in which he said he took the greatest exception to my application for my sons to travel on the passport of a foreign country; they ought to be proud of their South African citizenship, particularly with me doing the kind of work I am doing. I was so angry that I called the Minister out to come and have a chat with me one day, which he was kind enough to do, and when I explained the position he wrote me a letter the next day and put it right. But there must be lots of cases where people are not as privileged to know the law as well as we happen to know it here. I would therefore ask the Minister to let the public generally, particularly where these youngsters are concerned, know by whatever means he has at his disposal, what the position is. If they go and climb Kilimanjaro as a bunch of students in the university vacation for instance and the Kenyan Government will not accept a South African passport—I have some friends who did it this recess—when those children come back, will they have their citizenship removed and be made aliens in this country? It is ridiculous. I would ask the Minister as regards youngsters who go overseas to work, or to gain experience, and can only move around on the basis of a different passport, he will give them the same consideration even if they were not aware of the law before they left, as I was fortunate enough to be given.

Amendment put and negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to (Mrs. H. Suzman dissenting).

Clause 3:

Sir, I trust that the sweet reasonableness which eventually emanated from the hon. the Minister when we dealt with the previous clause, will again be evident when we deal with this one—at least reasonableness to the extent that he was able to concede that there was some substance in what we had been trying to drive home to him. This clause provides, inter alia, that the decision of the Minister in regard to the question whether the removal from the Republic of a person referred to in paragraph (a) of the proposed new subsection (3) of section 22 is or is not in the public interest shall not be subject to appeal to or review by any court of law. Sir, in the course of the Second Reading we indicated to the hon. the Minister our basic reasons for objecting to this particular amendment. The hon. the Minister indicated to us that there were reasons, which he felt to be valid reasons, why it was undesirable that the information which motivated the Minister in coming to his decision should be placed before a court. It might disclose the source of the information. Sir, I do not think that deals completely with our objection. What concerns us here is exactly what has concerned us in regard to other aspects of this Bill, and that is that there is a final decision in the hands of one person, namely the Minister, and when the Minister makes his decision on such information as is placed before him, there is no means whereby that decision can be tested. The Minister himself has indicated that he does not accept, as some of his predecessors have done, some air of infallibility about his decisions, and it is undoubtedly as sure as one is sitting in this House to-day that there will be occasions when decisions are taken which are based on facts which have not been correctly represented to the Minister or on complaints which have arisen through malice. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that it is absolutely essential to have a safety clause which gives some right of review of his decision.

I am sure that the Minister as a legal practitioner would welcome some form of review of his decision so as not to make it final and binding to the extent that it is now and to the extent that it affects the life and the livelihood of persons. It appears to us on this side of the House that it would be quite easy for the Minister to establish some machinery of review. We agree and we accept that there may well be cases where it is undesirable to disclose this information in a public court, but there is no reason why this review cannot be entrusted to a panel of Judges sitting in camera to decide on the particular issue. The position at the moment is simply that if false information is placed before the Department and comes before the Minister, there is no means whereby the person concerned, except as an act of charity or an act of indulgence on the part of the Minister, can become aware of the grounds on which the Minister based his decision, or can even have a discussion with the Minister and can contest the validity of the grounds on which he has based his decision. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that it is not too late to establish some form of tribunal—this is not a new conception—consisting of a Judge or two Judges who can sit in camera to deal with appeals of this nature. That would meet the hon. the Minister’s difficulty and it would certainly satisfy our objection to the fact that the whole decision is left in the hands of one person without some form of review. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister will give consideration to that type of amendment which could possibly be inserted in the Bill, not now, but when it is dealt with in the Other Place.

I just want to add a word or two to what has been said by the hon. member for Green Point on this particular clause. We find these powers draconian, to say the least of it. Surely there should be some kind of review for this type of case. I would agree that the Minister is quite entitled to keep the source of his information secret. That is something that we understand and accept. We would not ask him to divulge the source of his information, but the crisp point is that the reason the charge (if any), which causes doubt in the mind of the public if nothing is ever said, let alone in the mind of the person concerned, and which leads to the person’s deportation, should at least be made apparent even if the matter is dealt with in camera as the hon. member for Green Point has suggested. There is quite a difference between the source of the Minister’s information, which is one thing and could lead to consequences of which we are quite aware, and the reasons which he gives to the persons concerned for the need for them to be removed under a deportation order. Sir, let us admit that in this country as much as in any other, this sort of power invites people—and we have unpleasant people in every country—such as informers to pass on information which could be false. The hon. the Minister’s judgment and his sources of information are not infallible. The information could be only partly true or it could be information given in a spirit of vindictiveness, for one reason or another. After all, smear campaigns and character assassinations are by no means unknown in our own political life, as the verkramptes will tell you. The point I wish to make is that the hon. the Minister could so easily in these issues be misled or even falsely persuaded. I would suggest therefore that we make a clear distinction between the source of his information which remains confidential, and the reason which could and should be given to the person concerned who should have the right to be heard before some body which will give him a fair hearing.

Mr. Chairman, you will appreciate that in other cases of removal appeals may be lodged; it is only in this case, where it is in the public interest, that there is no right of appeal. This has become necessary now since the real intention of the legislature at the time has not been carried out in practice. I should like to quote a few excerpts from speeches made here by Dr. Dӧnges when he handled this legislation as Minister of the Interior, but before doing so, I should first like to make the statement here that the legislature never intended that there should be a right of appeal. In other words, this is not a case of our removing a right of appeal which was provided for by the legislature. The legislature’s intention was that there should be no right of appeal, but since it was explicitly stated in the legislation that there was no right of appeal, the courts interpreted it as though there should be a right of appeal. I also want to make this further statement: The power under this clause is only used in isolated cases, but it is nevertheless used, and if I am forced to go to court in cases of this nature and to furnish reasons for having arrived at such a decision, then the proper implementation of this clause would be rendered quite impossible for me. All that we are in fact doing here—and I think this settles the matter—is to adhere to the intention of the legislature as laid down in 1956. I should like to quote now what was said by hon. members at the time. I am first of all quoting what was said by Dr. Dӧnges (Hansard, Volume 92, col. 5936/7)—

I am only making excerpts here and there which I find illuminating—

I am reading only these excerpts, without advancing any arguments in connection therewith, to make it clear to hon. members what the intention was at the time. Dr. Dӧnges went on to say the following (col. 6283)—

Further on, in the same column, he referred to the “aliens order” in the United Kingdom and said—

My purpose in quoting this is to show that these circumstances also exist in the United Kingdom.

Do they have no right of appeal?

No, I cannot say for certain that they have no specific right of appeal. I should also like to quote the words used during the Second Reading: In column 6360 Dr. Dӧnges said the following:

If you have to be specific and show what the real reason is, you have to disclose the sources of information, and if you do that, you make it impossible to use those sources again.

Dr. Dӧnges and this House gave consideration to these same factors at that time. Now I should like to quote what Col. Jordan said in this regard—

I do not want to burden you unnecessarily, but this is very illuminating. Later on he said the following—

This is the spirit in which the discussion was held at the time. There is no doubt, and if you will take the trouble of reading the Hansard of the time in more detail, particularly if you look at the amendment moved at the time, and subsequently withdrawn, by Col. Jordan, then you will see that this House had no doubt that the Minister has the sole right to decide in these matters and that there should be no right of appeal.

What was his amendment?

I have not brought it with me, but the hon. member would do well to look it up. The hon. member would come to the conclusion that this House accepted at the time that this is a decision to be taken by the Minister and that for the reasons given by the Minister at the time, which in fact prove tc be the same as those discussed by us, it is not possible to make a decision of this kind subject to appeal. The hon. member for Green Point told me that he just did not want such a decision to be taken by one person. The hon. member suggested that we consider the possibility of perhaps appointing only one judge in camera or a tribunal. There will then perhaps be two or three persons serving on a tribunal of this kind. The fact of the matter, however, is that in the light of the experience of cases of which I have already become aware in my short term in this Department, I must give the House the assurance that in most of the cases made use of in the public interest—in probably by far the most of these cases—it is not possible for me to furnish the reasons for my doing this. And if I cannot furnish reasons, then I will not be able to defend myself on appeal. As a result I am afraid that we will have to leave the clause as it is at present.

I regret that the hon. the Minister does not see fit to agree to the suggestion from this side of the House. We felt that it was a way in which we could to some extent by legislation meet a difficulty which the Minister tells the House exists. The hon. the Minister has quoted at length from a debate which took place in this House on an amendment which we do not have before us and which was withdrawn. But if my memory serves me correctly, and I may be at fault, the matter which was then under discussion was the making of the first decision, namely that it was in the public interest that a certain deportation order should be issued—who should make that decision. It was felt at the time that that decision should be made eventually—as indicated by the hon. the Minister in the passages he read out to us—by the Minister after he had consulted with his officials and others who could furnish him with information. But we are not discussing that issue now. That is net before us, namely the question that the Minister could make that decision as was decided at the time of the debate to which he has referred. It had nothing to do with the question of appeal. Not one word of what the hon. the Minister has read has dealt with anything of an appeal. It was a matter of what should happen antecedent to a decision being taken. It was not a question of what rights a person had after the decision had been taken to have that decision queried. The hon. the Minister knows that what has happened is that the courts have accepted jurisdiction to handle appeals. This matter is before us today because the courts have said that they cannot finalize an appeal unless they know the information upon which the hon. the Minister has come to his decision. And the clause which is now before us is to emasculate the right of appeal which a person has at the present time by restricting it only to virtually a review on the grounds of mala fides or irregularities. And even that is now out as far as this particular aspect is concerned, namely whether it is in the public interest. The hon. the Minister himself has indicated as he did in referring to the previous debate and which he obviously quoted with approval, that we are dealing with persons here who have not fallen foul of the law. We have no quarrel about the person who has been convicted. There is no question but that it is in the public interest to get rid of an alien who has been convicted of crimes in this country. But here we are dealing with a person who has not fallen foul of the law. We cannot accept that that person should be subjected to a decision of this nature without an appeal. For that reason we will oppose this clause.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister has not seen fit to accept the recommendation and request of my hon. colleague. In his reply he alluded once again to the question as to when this is “in the public interest”. As my colleague has pointed out our objection is to the fact that only one person, in this case the hon. the Minister, would be the one who will decide whether or not it is “in the public interest”. I should like him to understand that in referring to the hon. the Minister, I do so in the light of the fact that he is the present incumbent of that post. But he is not always going to be the incumbent. He has not always been the incumbent. Any remarks that I might make do not refer to him personally but to the incumbent of a position. The hon. the Minister quoted from speeches in Hansard made by the late Dr. Dӧnges who referred to people who indulged in activities prejudicial to the State. Where these are subversive there is recourse to law and the courts, and as has been pointed out by my hon. colleague we have no objection to the repatriation of people once they have been convicted. But, a tendency has developed of late in this country of certain members of the governing party to equate their party, the Nationalist Party, with the State. And, the position can arise here where the person in control can decide that somebody who has been critical of the Nationalist Party or of the ruling party, should be removed. Now, he has no right of appeal. All that need happen is that the relative Minister need merely allege that it is not in the public interest to divulge the details. And this person has no right of appeal whatsoever. He has no right of review. We have also had the position recently of certain clergymen who have come into this country—not South African citizens—who have been removed. They have been removed for various reasons. It can arise here too, that the hon. the Minister, not this hon. Minister in person, but the Minister concerned, can decide that in the public interest it is better for these clergymen to be removed. This could perhaps have happened over such incidents as Limehill that we had last year.

Are you back to Limehill now?

No, we are not back to Limehill at all, I am merely quoting this as an example. This is another one of the reasons why we have asked the Minister for this undertaking, which undertaking he has declined to give my colleague. I am afraid that, without such an undertaking from him, I consider this power which the Minister seeks is not only autocratic but, moreover, is not in the public interest.

Mr. Chairman, it seems to me as if hon. members opposite are losing sight of the fact that this subsection is applicable to persons who are not South African citizens. In other words, it is not a case of an injustice being done to somebody when he is refused recourse to the courts in this case, because, surely, every country has the right to open or close its doors to whomsoever it wishes. If we should, for example, tell a person at one of the places of entry into the country that we do not like the looks of him, it is our right to be able to say so and we are not doing him an injustice by doing so. If a person from a foreign country arrives here and he is sent back by us, we are not doing him an injustice. In what way has an injustice been done to him? This provision only applies in cases where people are refused entry in the public interest. In the first place, this clause affects somebody who is not a South African citizen and who enjoys no so-called rights here and who has no claim to South Africa and, in the second instance, it will relate to cases where the Minister actually has information which causes him to make such a decision in the public interest.

Can he prove it? That is the point.

What is at issue here is not whether he can prove it or not. In the first place, what is at issue here is that, according to the responsible opinion of the Minister, it is in the public interest to tell an alien that he is no longer welcome in South Africa and that he should go back to his country of origin. He is not done an injustice. All that happens here, is that the person is able to waste time in this way when he appeals or does something of this kind. There are people who abuse the process of law to enable them to stay for a longer period in a country in which they are not welcome. According to the experience I have had, this court procedure may be protracted for more than a year. While this is happening the person stays in the country contrary to the public interest, and while he is here he tries to whip up the Press in his favour, and so forth. He has neither any right to be here nor any claim to South Africa. We have to accept that the hon. the Minister is not going to refuse entry in an arbitrary manner. Surely, he will exercise his responsible discretion in a case such as this; surely, he will to the best of his ability test the facts laid before him against the truth before making such a decision. For that reason I cannot see how we shall do any aliens any injustice in this connection.

Mr. Chairman, in reply to the hon. member for Prinshof, I wish to say it was not necessary for him to point out to us that this refers only to aliens, because we are fully aware of the fact. We are also fully aware of the fact that the hon. the Minister in his Second Reading speech made the point quite clear that as far as he and this Government were concerned, aliens do not have a right of residence in this country. We accept all that. But this goes further. This refers to someone who has been given a right to remain in this country for a while, a person with a certificate of permanent residence.

What is the position of an alien who comes into this country with the intention of taking out South African citizenship and who is still in the process of living here for five years to qualify for South African citizenship? What happens when, for no rhyme or reason, he is advised by the Minister he is no longer welcome?

He is not refused for no rhyme or reason!

As far as he is concerned, for no rhyme or reason he is advised that he is no longer welcome in South Africa. The man might have been here for four years and nine months and he is about to qualify. He has no right of review. The Minister need merely aver that it is not in the public interest to reveal the reasons for his decision.

Order! The hon. member is now discussing paragraph (a), which is not under consideration.

No, Sir, I am referring to the right of appeal or review.

No. The hon. member is discussing the stipulation laid down in paragraph (a), and he cannot do that.

With submission, Sir, once the Minister has made this decision, the person concerned has no right of review or appeal in terms of the amendment introduced by paragraph (b), and this is the aspect to which I am taking exception. I am not taking exception to the fact that the Minister can take that decision, because he has the right do so, I am objecting because the person concerned no longer has the right to appeal or have his case reviewed if the Minister makes that decision. To be extreme, as I said before, there is this tendency to equate the Nationalist Party with the country. To be extreme, if it comes to the notice of the Minister that the person concerned will vote against the Nationalist Party when he gets citizenship, the Minister can turn around and say, “Oh, we have cancelled your certificate; you must leave”. And there is no right of appeal or review.

Order! That is the only point the hon. member made which was not a repetition of arguments already used.

I do not think there is any need for me to go any further. I have made my point and I wait for the Minister’s reply.

Clause put and agreed to (Official Opposition and Mrs. H. Suzman dissenting).

Clause 5:

Mr. Chairman, I move the following amendment standing in my name as printed on the Order Paper—

I wish it to be made obligatory that certain steps should be taken when once a person entering the Republic without authority has been arrested. There should, I submit, be an investigation of his position. At the moment subsection (2) reads as follows—

I raised this point during the Second Reading debate on this Bill and the Minister then said he would go into the matter. It seems to me that with the permissive “may” in this subsection the arrested individual is left in the air, because there is no responsibility whatever on the person detaining him to take any action. I believe it to be desirable that the person detained “shall …” be brought “before a passport control officer for examination …”. I understand that the reason why the decision or examination cannot be done by the person who effects the arrest is because the arrest may occur in some remote corner of the Republic and the person effecting the arrest may not be a passport control officer as defined in the Act. One does not want to stipulate a period in which it must be done, because there may be difficulties in getting the detained person to a passport control officer within say 12 or 24 hours, but I do believe it should be obligatory for the detained person to be brought before the officer for the examination referred to, so that his status can be determined.

Mr. Chairman, both the hon. member for Green Point and I are lawyers and I think we may come to a settlement in respect of this little matter—we probably need not fight it out in court. I want to express my appreciation to the hon. member for having brought this little point to my attention, because upon maturer consideration it seems to me as if it would be better if a certain measure of obligation was placed on the person doing the arrest to bring the arrested person before a passport control officer. As I said during the Second Reading debate, however, there are certain practical problems involved. I just want to mention a few of them briefly. The arrested person may be ill. It may be a woman who is expecting a child. The passport control officer before whom the arrested person has to be brought may not be at hand, it may not be possible for him to bring the person before a passport control officer immediately, as is requested by the hon. member for Green Point in his amendment. There is also the possibility of long distances being involved. Such a person may be arrested at a place which is situated at some distance from a passport control officer. We realized these practical problems and that is why the clause has been worded in this way. We realize full well that the arrest is made for the purpose of bringing such a person before a passport control officer. The only difficulty is the practical problems involved. As I said, under the circumstances I should like to suggest something on the basis of which we may come to a settlement on the matter.

Mr. Chairman, I therefore move the following amendment—

Amendment proposed by Mr. L. G. Murray with leave, withdrawn.

I would like the hon. the Minister to give me some enlightenment on paragraph (b), if I may use that misused term, Sir. It may be that I misunderstand this paragraph, because I have not followed the discussions on this Bill previously, but it seems to me that the very wide powers, which have been conferred on the hon. the Minister by the Act itself, are now going to be transferred “to any passport control officer or to any class of passport control officers such powers or duties as to the carrying out of this Act, other than powers” that require the consent of a board. The Minister has very wide powers, indeed, under the original Act. Of course, this amending Bill is giving him even further powers, such as the ones that we discussed earlier this afternoon. It does seem to me that one perhaps may have some confidence that the hon. the Minister is going to exercise very responsible control over his powers and that he is going to give every matter that comes before him due consideration. But I have my doubts even as to this, as I have expressed to him. I am not doubting that he will give it his consideration, but that the conclusions he will reach will be necessarily ones which reasonable people would approve of. Are we not going very far in handing over these responsibilities to any passport control officer? Perhaps the hon. the Minister would set my mind at rest with regard to this question.

Mr. Chairman, this paragraph has no connection with the clause we discussed a moment ago. It is an entirely new clause which is being inserted for a different purpose, namely to define the duties of the passport control officers and to make provision for their duties to be such as will be laid down by the Minister. This is really all that is contemplated here.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with an amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, hon. members will remember that the Powers and Privileges of Parliament Act, 1963 (Act No. 91 of 1963), was amended during 1967, firstly, to afford a member absolute protection in respect of anything he may say in Parliament or any committee, whether as a member or as a witness, and to provide that no proceedings can be instituted against him outside Parliament; and, secondly, to leave it to the discretion of the presiding officer to issue a certificate to any witness before Parliament or a committee to protect him against prosecution or civil proceedings.

In order to refresh the memories of hon. members, I may just mention once more for the information of the House that the first amendment removed the uncertainty which existed as to whether a member appearing before Parliament or a committee as a witness was protected or not, and rectified the position. As far as the second amendment is concerned, it may be mentioned that the discretion was previously vested in the Committee, and that, in terms of the amendment, it was transferred to the presiding officer. Amendment Act No. 62 of 1967 was passed the year before last. In the 1967 report of the Secretary to the House of Assembly he also referred to it. On page 9 he stated—

The Provincial Councils of the four provinces of the Republic are all agreed that similar protection is necessary and justified for Members of Provincial Councils, and they accordingly recommend to the Government that the necessary amending legislation in this connection be introduced in the House of Assembly.

The object of the Bill under discussion is, therefore, to provide freedom of speech to Provincial Councillors who appear as witnesses before a provincial council or a committee thereof, and the Bill contains an amendment to section 6 of the Powers and Privileges of Provincial Councils Act, 1948 (Act No. 16 of 1948), and of section 75 in that portion of the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act, 1961 (Act No. 32 of 1961), which deals with the functions of provincial councils.

Mr. Speaker, while the required amendments to the law were being prepared, the Chief Law Adviser pointed out that, while the general provisions relating to freedom of speech in Parliament appear in section 2 of the Powers and Privileges of Parliament Act (Act No. 91 of 1963), the relevant provision in respect of provincial councils is contained in section 75 of the Constitution. No one can explain why this is so, but in order to rectify the position the provisions of section 75, as now amended, are also being transferred in the Bill that we are dealing with at present, to the Powers and Privileges of Provincial Councils Act (Act No. 16 of 1948). In this connection hon. members are referred to clause 1 of the Bill, which they have all probably read already, wondering why it was there. The gap caused in the Constitution by the above-mentioned transfer of the provisions of section 75, is now being filled in a suitable manner by the insertion of a new section 75, which is contained in clause 4 of the Bill now before this House.

Mr. Speaker, there ought to be no opposition or objections to this Bill, and I therefore move that it be now read a second time.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister’s anticipation that there will be no objection to this Bill is a correct one. This side of the House supports it and we note that it has come to this House after consultation with the Provincial Councils and at their request. One also notes that, despite the fact that this protection has not been there for some time, they did not have any difficulties in passing legislation.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, this Bill is a very important measure, and it is with great pleasure that I move—

This Bill is very important in this sense that it is an event of great movement in the history of the University College of Fort Hare; it is also important because it marks a further milestone along the road of development of the Xhosa nation; it is important because it testifies to the fact that Fort Hare has been developed with great success under the auspices of the Department of Bantu Education and the University of South Africa; it is also important because it proves that Fort Hare and its staff have succeeded in maintaining satisfactory academic standards, and lastly it is important because it is clear testimony to the fact that the Government’s intention with its policy has always been an honest one and that it is faithfully implementing its postulated objectives. This Bill is also important in another respect, i.e. in that it has given the lie to the prophets of 1959 and has so irrefutably proved them wrong.

For Hare is the oldest university for non-Whites in the Republic, and has during the more than 20 years of its existence received the enjoyed wide recognition. It is also fitting therefore that since we are dealing in this Session with legislation which is aimed at granting the non-White university colleges greater academic independence, Fort Hare should be the first, as is being done here today. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to burden this House with the entire history of Fort Hare since its establishment. The history is general knowledge and those who are not acquainted with it can look it up in Fort Hare’s yearbook. However, I must go back a bit, as far as 1959 in fact, so that the measure we have before us can be seen in better perspective.

With the passing of the University College of Fort Hare Transfer Act 1959, Fort Hare was brought into line with the Government’s policy as laid down in the Extension of Universities Training Act, 1959, i.e. to supply the Bantu and other non-Whites with all adequate and more efficient university training by means of the establishment of separate university colleges for the various races and population groups. As you know, Fort Hare was then designated as being the university college which would, for the most part, serve members of the Xhosa ethnic unit. One of the most important principles which was laid down at that time in the University College of Fort Hare Transfer Act, was contained in Sections 21 (1) and 22 of that Act. Section 21 (1) reads as follows—

Section 22 reads—

There were of course many other principles which were also laid down, and important principles at that, but I am mentioning this question of examination and the conferring of degrees and diplomas by the University of South Africa because it is the pivot around which everything in this Bill principally revolves. It was, in other words, the fundamental motive which led to the Government’s decision that greater academic independence would have to be granted to Fort Hare and the other university colleges, and that is why I want to dwell for a moment on this topic. I shall return later to the expression “greater academic independence”.

In 1959 the Government, with the take-over of Fort Hare and the establishment of other university colleges, envisaged that these institutions would have to grow under the academic sponsorship of the University of South Africa, and would have to be developed gradually towards academic maturity. At the same time this arrangement supplied the necessary guarantee for academic standards. This period of academic dependence on the University of South Africa was of great value, and I am glad to be able to say that Fort Hare has up to now experienced only the best cooperation from the University of South Africa. From the nature of circumstances certain problems cropped up from time to time, problems which arose as a result of these ties with the University of South Africa. However, both sides had great regard for the other, and this was principally attributable to the fact that it was possible to solve most of the problems, even though the solution was not always a permanent one.

Because Fort Hare—

1. (1) could draw for nine years with beneficial results on the rich academic experience and traditions of the University of South Africa,
2. (2) was fully supported by the State as to its finances,
3. (3) enjoyed unprecedented support from the general Bantu public and the interest of students,
4. (4) built up a sound nucleus of experienced lecturers, who are well-acquainted with the academic management of a university, and
5. (5) began to feel a need for degree and post-graduate training which is not offered by the University of South Africa,

it gradually became increasingly evident that this statutory dependence on the academic organization of the University of South Africa would have to be terminated as soon as possible.

Since 1960 Fort Hare has been developed into an institution for higher education of which any nation can feel justly proud, and I can assure you that the Xhosa nation are very proud of their university. It would be a good idea therefore to see how Fort Hare is faring to-day and how matters stand with the staff, and then draw comparisons here and there with the state of affairs in 1960 when the takeover took place.

1. (a) Buildings, equipment and library: Since 1960 new buildings, (excluding residences) to the value of R1,065,200 have been erected at For Hare. This includes various academic buildings, hostels, laboratories and a library with a surface area of 30,000 square feet, which was provided at a cost of R220,000. This library is exceptionally well-equipped and has almost 70,000 books at its disposal. It was planned to comply with the most modern requirements of a university library. For the immediate future a building for the agricultural faculty, various lecture halls and the construction of a dining-hall for 1,000 students are envisaged at an estimated cost of R248,000.
2. (b) Faculties and departments: When the take-over took place in 1960 For Hare had two faculties and 18 departments. In 1968 there were already seven faculties with 40 departments.
3. (c) Students: The following figures are also interesting and indicate the increase since 1960 in the number of students. Initially there was a decrease in numbers because Coloureds, Indians and students from other Bantu nations were channelized to their own institutions: 1960, 360; 1963, 239; 1966, 402; and 1968 451.
4. (d) Degrees conferred: From 1960 to 1967 the following degrees and diplomas were conferred: diplomas, 136; post-graduate diplomas 81; degrees 278; honours degrees, 45; masters degrees, 3.
5. (e) Number of staff: In 1960, lecturing 38, other 21; in 1968, lecturing 84, other 49. The respective totals 59 and 133. This also gives an idea of the expansion.

During the past few years the University of South Africa has granted lecturers of Fort Hare a greater measure of freedom in the interpretation of syllabi, and this concession was exercised with the responsibility by the college lecturers. The heads of departments and some senior lecturers have been serving for a number of years on the study committees, and deacons on faculty councils, of the University of South Africa (Unisa) and have gained a wealth of experience in the drawing up and interpretation of syllabi. Most lecturers at Fort Hare have also been acting for several years as first examiners, while lecturers from Unisa act as co-examiners. In this way the closest co-operation between Fort Hare and Unisa has been established, and Fort Hare was able to have the privilege of sharing in the extensive and rich experience of Unisa.

Some of the larger independent universities are already appointing lecturers of Fort Hare as co-examiners, up to the level of doctors’ degrees. White lecturers from Fort Hare have also been appointed to autonomous universities in the same or in a higher capacity than the one they filled at Fort Hare. The minimum requirements set for appointment are very high and the selection of candidates very strict. Consequently the staff in general possesses the necessary ability, sense of responsibility and dedication. Of course, Fort Hare also has the power, with the approval of the Minister, to determine syllabi itself and to hold examinations, as well as to introduce and allocate diplomas and certificates, i.e. degrees excluded, in any prescribed subject or course not offered by Unisa. This power has been exercised by Fort Hare for quite some time, and the academic standards which are being maintained in such courses, compare favourably with courses offered under the patronage of Unisa.

It is clear therefore that the staff of Fort Hare are very well equipped to control and manage the institution as an academically independent university, and to help it develop.

1. (f) The research aspect is also interesting. During the past few years a number of research projects have been carried to a successful conclusion. In their own departments and individually, lecturers are continually engaged on research with a view to expanding the knowledge of the various disciplines. The National Bureau for Educational and Social Research, the Department of Bantu Administration and Development and the Transkeian Government have already approached Fort Hare to undertake research in various fields.
2. (g) Post-graduate work is regarded by Fort Hare as being of great importance and everything possible is being done to encourage and to promote it. The number of students presenting themselves for post-graduate study is gradually increasing and praiseworthy results have already been achieved in this section of the work.
3. (h) I also want to say a few things in respect of the needs for training which is not being offered by the University of South Africa. A need is already beginning to arise for the degree and postgraduate training which is not offered by Unisa, for example agriculture, which is perhaps the most striking example. Arrangements in this respect were made, by means of which a faculty of another university, i.e. the University of the Oange Free State, acts as a faculty of Unisa for academic purposes. Although the need for training in faculties which have not yet been established is still small, there are already indications that can increase in the near future, for example, in regard to engineering. With the subsequent establishment of such faculties, however, further utilization of existing faculties at autonomous universities on this agency basis can become too complicated and unpractical.

Mr. Speaker, I have just indicated to you that (a) For Hare has extensive and well-equipped buildings and facilities, (b) the academic services which the institutions can render is of great value, (c) the number of students, including post-graduate students is increasing year by year, (d) Fort Hare has capable and dedicated staff with rich academic experience, (e) Fort Hare has already made its mark in the field of research, and is equipped for greater achievements, and (f) that Fort Hare is on the verge of expansion in important fields of study which cannot be offered by Unisa.

Mr. Speaker, these criteria and motives did in fact apply when the Government decided that the time was ripe that Fort Hare should and could be separated academically from the University of South Africa, and that it should enter the next phase of its development towards ultimate autonomy with university status and greater academic responsibility.

With the granting of greater academic independence to Fort Hare, it thus acquires the right to make provision for its own syllabuses, the training of students, the holding of examinations, the introduction of courses for degrees, diplomas and certificates, and for the conferring of its own degrees, diplomas and certificates.

Academic separation from Unisa also entails (a) that the academic powers and capabilities which the Unisa Council has had and exercised up to now in respect of Fort Hare lapse, (b) that the council and the senate of the University of Fort Hare should be invested with more or less the same academic powers with which the council and senate of Unisa was formerly invested, (c) that the Council of Fort Hare, in comparison with the old college council, should have a greater share in the control and management of the internal affairs of the university which is traditionally associated with academic independence, (d) that provision would have to be made for the appointment of chancellor and a vice-chancellor in order to bring the constitution of the university into line with that of university institutions which are responsible for their own academic affairs.

Mr. Speaker, I have dwelt for some time on this question of “the academic ties with the University of South Africa”, and “the granting of greater academic independence” to Fort Hare, but I have done so because, as I have already said before, it is the pivot around which this Bill revolves. I have also done so because this matter is in fact the only basically important principle in this Bill which, as far as Fort Hare is concerned, is in fact new as compared with the existing legislation.

I want to repeat that the acquisition of greater academic independence by Fort Hare and the accompanying increased powers and competence of the council and the senate, is the only real new principle with which we are dealing. All the other principles which are embodied in the Bill have already been applicable in respect of Fort Hare since 1960, and occur in the existing Fort Hare Act.

Since Fort Hare is now on the verge of becoming academically independent of the University of South Africa, I want to avail myself of this opportunity of thanking the University of South Africa on behalf of the Government, the University College of Fort Hare and the Department of Bantu Education for the great service and assistance it has rendered Fort Hare and its students, and I hope their co-operation, where necessary, will continue to be available.

Mr. Speaker, before I come to a few other important principles, I want to emphasize that the granting of greater academic independence is in fact not taking place completely unconditionally. The Government has laid down as a requirement that there should be a guarantee for the maintenance of academic standards. Consequently provision has been made in the Bill for the appointment of persons who have to be professors in corresponding faculties at other university institutions as members of the senate. These persons will also serve on faculty councils, but will only be able to participate in those proceedings of the senate which relate to the syllabi, the contents of syllabi, examination standards and the appointment of external examiners and moderators. (Clause 10 (2) (a) and (b).)

Will this apply only to the Fort Hare university or to other universities as well?

There is only one University of Fort Hare, and it is going to remain one.

What I meant withis: Is there any other university which we send members to the senate?

No, these can be taken from various universities; they can be taken from the University of South Africa, This concerns the appointment of the examiners of Fort Hare.

Yes, I understand.

The hon. member misunderstood me. What I would like is that we should understand each other very well. We have been doing this for a long time here in Parliament.

I did not see it in the Bill.

If the hon. member did not see it in the Bill, then he perhaps read it at a late hour when he was not concentrating properly, which is what also happens to me under such circumstances, and then I have to read the Bill again the next day.

Mr. Speaker, in addition provision is also being made in the Bill to the effect that Fort Hare can make use of external examiners or moderators, as provided in clause 30. These arrangements ought to eliminate all doubt in regard to academic standards. However, it is foreseen that Fort Hare will subsequently be able to reach a stage of academic development and maturity, as has in fact been the case with the independent universities, which will then make this arrangement unnecessary. That is why provision is being made in the relevant clauses, namely clauses 10 (2) (a) and 30, to the effect that the Minister can subsequently terminate this practice when and to such an extent as he may deem necessary. With the staffing of the Senate use of necessity will have to be made of professors of the independent universities. The Committee of University Principals was consequently approached in this connection and the Committee indicated that it had no objection in principle to such an arrangement. However, the various councils of the universities concerned will still have to be approached individually on this matter when the time comes when some of their lecturers are needed.

As far as the financing of Fort Hare in its new form is concerned, I want to say at once that for the present no change is being envisaged. The Bantu, with their growing but still limited economic potential, are still by no means capable of making any appreciable contribution to the financing of their own universities. The State, as the guardian of the Bantu, will therefore have to continue to bear this financial responsibility for an unspecified time. Because that is the case, it is necessary that the State should still retain a measure of control over certain university matters. The appointment of members of the council (except two members selected by the senate itself) the advisory council and the rector will, as in the past, still be vested in the Minister (as representative of the State), while the determination of, the conditions of service of staff, the appointment and dismissal of staff, and the admission of students of other non-White nations, will be vested in the council of the university of Fort Hare, but will be subject to the Minister’s approval. However, the Minister is being invested with discretionary power, as far as the appointment and dismissal of staff is concerned, so that he can subsequently leave the appointment, dismissal, etc., of staff entirely in the hands of the council, if he thinks fit.

In addition the Minister also retains direct control over matters which hold financial implications for the State. Examples of these are—

1. (a) allowances payable to members of the council, the advisory council and committees;
2. (b) financial assistance to students;
3. (c) fees payable by students;
4. (d) introduction of new faculties and departments;
5. (e) establishment of institutes;
6. (f) purchase of and control over stores and equipment; and
7. (g) the determination of the establishment.

Financing will, as in the past, be undertaken from the Bantu Education Account. The Government has been, for a number of years already, providing an additional amount for this purpose out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

In this Bill the “double posts system”, namely council and Government posts, which has up to now been in use at Fort Hare, is being abolished. Since the take-over of Fort Hare this institution has been satisfactorily established also as far as the staff are concerned. No difficulty is being experienced in obtaining competent and highly qualified staff.

In the interim the university college was also, as with all other institutions of this nature (including the independent universities) declared to be an associated institution for pension purposes. The result of this is that all new staff members who are appointed are required to become a member of this scheme. Under these circumstances the further retention of Government posts is regarded as obsolete, and all staff members become employees of the university.

The advisory council and the advisory senate are being retained in the new dispensation.

All kinds of alleged authorities were quoted in 1959 to prove that the Government was on the wrong track in this respect. Fortunately, the Government had no doubts in regard to this matter, and the necessary Statutory machinery was established which made the establishment of these separate bodies for White and Bantu possible. The Government made its point in regard to such bodies very clear; that is why I am not going into this at any great length again to-day, except to say that the same standpoint of that time is still being maintained and has in the meantime been proved to be correct and sensible.

These advisory bodies serve as good training schools for the Bantu in order to train them and to give them an insight into the complex control and management of a university institution, and ensure Bantu participation in the control and management of their own university institution.

The experience gained during the past nine years at the three institutions of my Department has taught us that the university college, taking into consideration the present level of development of the Bantu, cannot proceed normally without the advisory council. I shall return in a moment to the advisory senate.

Exceptionally good progress has been made with the training of the advisory council and this body has already proved beyond all doubt its value to the council and the university college, particularly in difficult times.

In practice the advisory council is already dealing with the various matters, inter alia, study loans and bursaries, disciplinary matters in regard to students, the interests of the Bantu staff, etc., and are also making miscellaneous recommendations to the council. The relations and co-operation between the council and the advisory council are good, and in its representations to the council the advisory council is definitely candid. I should also like to point out that quite a good few provisions which have over the years and up to the present been included in regulations which were promulgated, are now being included in this Bill as statutory provisions.

Something which is also of great importance is the fact that the advisory council (a) can speak on behalf of the Xhosa nation; (b) can state more or less what the parents are thinking and can negotiate on behalf of parents; (c) has already shown that it is in favour of stricter discipline than the council itself in respect of the misbehaviour of students, and (d) conveyed a message to the Bantu outside who would like to know what is taking place at the University College.

However, experience has shown that the Bantu cannot take over the control and management of such a complex institution as a university in a responsible way unless they have been fully trained in the essential approach and the problems, and this training will still continue for a considerable time.

As far as the constitution of the advisory senate is concerned, we have not up to now perhaps been equally successful. The reason for that is that a sufficient number of Bantu lecturers with the required qualifications do not become available for appointment to senior lecturing posts. The shortage of adequate senior Bantu lecturers has, in other words, up to now prevented the satisfactory constitution of the advisory senate. However, as the position improves, this matter will in due course be rectified as well. That is also the reason why the advisory senate is not taken to be the sine qua non for the constitution of the university, but is included in a permissive sense in the Bill. If it could in fact be taken to be the sine qua non, it could happen that the university does not, owing to shortage of senior Bantu lecturers, comply with such statutory constitutional requirement, and cannot as a result of that function legally.

Mr. Speaker, with this I have dealt with the most important, and particularly the new principles, in this Bill and I wish to express the hope that we will receive the support of all the members of this House for this measure which is aimed at affording Fort Hare greater academic independence.

Mr. Speaker, I find it is a great honour and a privilege to be able to take part in this debate. The hon. the Minister in his introductory remarks, I am glad to say, briefly sketched the history of Fort Hare and the history of the take-over of Fort Hare by the Government. I was associated with the take-over of Fort Hare. I was a member of the Select Committee appointed by this House. I was also a member of the Select Committee appointed on separate universities, to which the hon. the Minister has referred. That Select Committee later became a commission. This commission sat for quite a long time and eventually a report was drafted. We drafted a minority report. Of the members of that commission and the members of the Fort Hare Select Committee I am the only survivor on this side of the House. There is one survivor on the other side of the House, the hon. the Minister of Health. We are the only two survivors of both the commission and the select committee. Sir, I can speak with some authority on Fort Hare. I want to say that when we drafted our minority report—not on Fort Hare but on the principle of separate university colleges—we drafted our report on the evidence submitted to us by leading Afrikaans-speaking intellectuals and university men of South Africa, and in the report we quote men from the University of Stellenbosch, the University of Pretoria and the University of Potchefstroom. We also had similar evidence from representatives of the English-language universities, but we did not quote them. We were hoping to convince the Government of the day that here we had a good case. But, of course, the Department of Bantu Affairs was adamant; they insisted on a report of their own. Here are the nine points of our report; we drafted the report on that basis and I was one of the two members who did the drafting. Sir, I want to make this clear at the beginning so that our position to-day will be consistent and so that hon. members will know that we have not changed our ground: We said that we rejected the idea of a council and an advisory council for a university institution, whether it was a college or a university. We rejected completely the suggestion of a senate and an advisory senate. We said that the council should be a body corporate, with power to sue and to be sued and so on. We said that the council should have representatives other than those nominated by the Minister. We rejected exclusive ethnic divisions. We said we should not have a college of this kind, a tribal college as they are called, for one ethnic group. We said that if a Bantu college wishes to admit students who are not, in this case, Xhosa, that is if they wish to admit Zulus, they should be allowed to do so. That was our view. We completely rejected the drawing of finance from the Bantu Education Account. We said that it should come from the General Revenue Account. We also said that there should be an association of these individual colleges with our existing universities. This was our plan. Fort Hare would be intimately associated with Rhodes, a university with which it had been associated for many years. We said that the University College of the North should be associated with two universities, namely Pretoria and the University of the Witwatersrand. We said that the College of Zululand should be associated with the University of Natal. We also said that the Government should postpone the closing of the open universities for 10 years. Hon. members who think more radically than I do might want to know why we did not object to it altogether? It is because our Select Committee was appointed after the Second Reading and after the principle had been accepted. Therefore, we had to accept the principle of separate institutions. But we said that the open universities should be kept open for 10 years—and how right we were! The Coloured students are still there. Why are they still there? It is because the hon. the Minister sends them there. These colleges have no facilities for training doctors, engineers, architects or members of other professions that are necessary to carry out the Government’s policy.

But we made provision for that. [Interjections.]

We also said that the Minister for these Colleges should be the Minister of Education, Arts and Science, as it was then, that there should be one Minister of Higher Education. Now we have a Minister of National Education. We think that higher education should come under that Minister.

What did the hon. the Minister say in introducing his Bill? He speaks of the history of Fort Hare. In 1959 Fort Hare was a university college of 43 years’ standing and had a brilliant career built up. It had the co-operation of three churches and also the co-operation of the Xhosa people themselves. Great names like Jabavu were associated with it. That great South African citizen, Professor Matthews—what a great man he was!—was the acting principal of Fort Hare at that time. The name of Dr. Kerr was also associated with Fort Hare. These men had built up a great institution. What did we do? To-day the hon. the Minister speaks of how Fort Hare was taken over, but I described it at that time as the rape and the destruction of Fort Hare. They destroyed all that had been done in 43 years in order to build an ethnic college and to confine it to one section of the community. At that time there were 500 students at Fort Hare. Now the hon. the Minister is boasting of the enrolment at Fort Hare.

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

Mr. Speaker, if I may say so, I am following the hon. the Minister’s example. The hon. the Minister has been outlining the history. I have the notes here, and I am following on that.

Let us look at the position in Fort Hare. Year after year I have asked certain questions to find out what progress is being made. The reason why I have done it is because the reports of the Bantu Education Department is given rather late, not because of a fault of the department, but because it is such a big department. I presume it is difficult for them to assemble the information, but when we ask questions we get the information. Therefore, I should like to pay tribute to that department. I have said that when the department took over 10 years ago, the enrolment was 500. At the end of 1968 the figure was 426, while at the end of 1967 it was 10 more. Thus one can say that the figure remained more or less stable. The hon. the Minister told us about the progress they were making in appointing staff. If I look at my questions to find out about the progress that they are making in appointing staff, I see there were 97 members on the staff for this number of students. That works out at 4.5 students per member of the staff. For matriculated students, not only those who enrolled for diploma courses, there are three students to a member of the staff. It is no wonder that the staff is increasing. The number of students has decreased over the years. That is the position, Sir. And what about the costs? From the 1966-’67 report of the Auditor-General, I have worked out that the cost to educate a matriculated student is R2,600 per annum. For the total number including diploma students who are being trained as teachers and various other professions, the cost even then comes to R1,700, which is five or six times as much as it costs for a White student. The hon. the Minister is proud of the fact that there are more people on the staff.

I shall have a great deal to say about the hon. the Minister’s talk about autonomy, and academic freedom, because I wish to take a very careful look at the Bill. I wish to say this in conclusion about the history of Fort Hare. It was a great blow to the alumni of Fort Hare, men not only of South Africa, but also of the Territories that are now independent states and even from farther north, from Zambia and Tanzania who had come to this centre of culture, namely Fort Hare, when they received news that we had destroyed it to make of it a Xhosa group college.

I have said a word about the cost and I now want to say what one ought to look for in a university, because the hon. the Minister tells us that we are going to create a university. I have jotted down what I think one should have. First of all, one should ask what the status of the institution should be. The hon. the Minister has spoken about the status of the institution. He said that it is even better than it used to be and that we are now going to have a measure of autonomy. Clause 3 gives that and I shall come to it. The next thing we should discuss is how a university is normally constituted and how the university is constituted under this Bill. We shall discuss the constitution and the powers of the council which is being dealt with in clause 8. Also to be discussed is the constitution and the powers of the senate which the Minister has referred to. That is being dealt with in clause 10. The staff of the university and the method of financing are also being dealt with and at the end of the Bill we come to the chancellor and the rector. I should like to say a word about each of those because that is what the constitution of the university is, as given to us by the Minister. Let us, firstly, deal with the status of the university, which is defined in clause 3. Clause 3 has four subsections of which subsection 1 is quite a good one. It reads as follows—

We know what all that means. Let us go to subclause (2) which reads as follows—

The university is free to do this, provided they get the permission of the hon. the Minister! In terms of clause 3 (3) “The University may with the approval of the Minister receive money or property by way of donation. …”. That means they cannot have donors without the approval of the Minister. That is fine autonomy, isn’t it? If the Chamber of Mines should say, “We have had Xhosas coming to the mines now for generations and we should like to make a contribution,” they could not do it without the permission of the Minister. Subsection (4) says the Minister may acquire for the University’s use stores and equipment; he will buy it, “in such manner and on such conditions, as the Minister may determine.” He will tell them what they should have. Paragraph (b) of this subsection says “Such stores and equipment shall be controlled in a manner to be determined by the Minister”. This will be the status of the University! I do not know if hon. members are old enough to remember a very famous cartoon in South Africa called “The higher status”—“Verhoogde Status”. It was the famous cartoon by Boonzaaier of a baboon atop a pole. Here we have the higher status. Well, so much for the status.

Let us come to the constitution of the University. What does the constitution of an ordinary university consist of? We have a chancellor, a rector, and the most important body of all, namely the council, the senate, professors, lecturers, students, the registrar and his staff, convocation, which I regard as exceedingly important, and at the Witwatersrand University they recognize as part of their constitution the Students’ Representative Council. In Fort Hare they will have some of these, but their constitution will also contain two items which one will find in no other university constitution, namely an advisory council and an advisory senate. I do not know whether there is another university in the world that has such a thing. We had it in the College Constitution and now we have it here. I shall have a word to say about it in a moment.

I now come to the constitution of the council of the University, which is dealt with in clause 8. The constitution and the power of the council are the most important items in this proposal that we have for a university. What is the usual constitution of the council? I have jotted down here what one usually gets in the constitution of a council. You get the rector or the principal or the vice-chancellor, whatever you wish to call the senior executive officer. He sits on all committees. Then you have two representatives of the senate, which is the position here, as the Minister says. Then you have representatives of the donors who subscribe money to the institution. Then you have representatives of convocation. Those are the men who have graduated from the college, and Fort Hare has had them over a period of 50 years. They are always represented. And then, of course, the Government nominates members as well. In addition to that we have certain local bodies. If hon. members wish, I can read to them the constitutions of Stellenbosch University or the Witwatersrand or Cape Town. These are the three I can quote because they all had consolidating Bills in 1959, which was the vintage year for university legislation. We find them all in volume 1; they are all there. That is what we usually expect at a university. Let us now take a look at this proposal of the Minister.

What is the Minister going to give them, what is the constitution of this proposed university of the Minister? There will be a team of 11. One will be the rector, two will be representatives of the Senate, and eight will be nominated by the Minister. That is fine autonomy, isn’t it? That is the proposal for this university! Eight of them will be representatives of the Government. That makes eleven all told. I do not know whether it will be like the present college where it is a …

There are many similar cases elsewhere in the world, and if you do not know it, do some reading.

I said when I gave the outline that you would have representatives of the Government. You have them at Stellenbosch and Cape Town, at every university, because the taxpayer, through the Government, is the biggest subscriber. They have to have representation. But let me say this, that in two of the universities here, the representation of the Government is less than the representation of convocation. They are only a section in any real modem university.

I do not want to say what the constitution should be, but I will give the Minister one or two suggestions. I suggest there should be representatives of the Legislative Assembly of the Transkei. Why not? Do you remember the legislation of 1963, six years ago? In this legislation we said—I quote from Act No. 48 of 1963—“And whereas the Transkeian Territorial Authority has requested that more comprehensive powers of self-government be entrusted to the Bantu of the Transkei … and whereas it is desirable to grant further powers …” This Act also said they “will protect and develop their own culture … ”, this university culture. They have a Minister of Education in the Transkei. Must this Minister in this House dominate the whole situation in the Transkei?

They are in the advisory council.

That is one suggestion I can make. What about the Ciskei Territorial Authority? Shouldn’t they have representation? Shouldn’t convocation? I put that to the Minister. Convocation must be represented. The men who have passed through Fort Hare and are graduates should be represented there, too. I can suggest others. One whom I think you should have is a representative of Rhodes University because of their historical association. I do not know about donors, I do not know what donors there are. But it is customary in all universities to have representatives of donors. This council of the Minister, because it is not the council of a university, may suit his university college.

Now I come to this advisory council, dealt with in clause 9. They have had this body from the beginning. Why is there an advisory council? Because under the policy of apartheid or separate development or separate freedom, or parallel development, whatever you like to call it, a Black man cannot sit on the council with White men! They can be on the same staff but they cannot sit on the same council. Afrikaans-speaking professors from their universities gave our Commission the following point of view. They said if a man was not prepared to sit with a non-White representative, with a Xhosa from the Transkei, then he should not offer himself, he should not accept appointment. He should be free to decline. But if a man wishes to serve, as they served for 43 years, why shouldn’t he? Why does the Minister want an advisory council to advise? It is humiliating for these people to be told, “You cannot sit on the council of your own university; you must sit in an ‘advisory’ body.” That is the Minister’s idea of an advisory council. The Minister told us how very useful it was, what a great asset it was. Four years ago I raised in this House the question of an African lecturer of that college who had been dealt with under the disciplinary regulations. He was charged: an inquiry was held, and he was dismissed. The Minister of Bantu Education, after a good deal of pressure, gave me a report of the proceedings which I have never used in the House because we thought at the time the case was sub judice. I asked the Minister of Bantu Education whether the advisory council had been consulted, and his reply was, “They were informed.” Subsequently, on the Minister’s Vote, I came back to it again and I asked him, “Why was this advisory council not consulted?” He replied and said because the advisory council was not in session. But, Sir, neither was the council in session: they sent down representatives of the council. In other words, on a most important issue, on the question of discipline applied to an African lecturer, and there are not many of them there, the advisory council was not even consulted. I do not think very much of that. I think the whole idea of an advisory council in this case of the Fort Hare College is humiliating to those people.

I now come to the senate, dealt with in clause 10. The senate is the academic body of the university. What is the customary constitution of the senate of a university? We have professors and the heads of the departments, where there is not a professor at the head of a department. To preserve this liaison with the council there are usually two representatives of the council. And, of course, there is the rector or the principal; he always sits there. Let us now look at clause 10 (1) (c) that the Minister referred to, where we had a little altercation for a moment or two. Listen to what they have there. They have the usual people, the rector of the university, two people from the council, and then we find in paragraph (c)—“such professors and senior lecturers of the University as the council may from time to time designate for the purpose …”. Do we get the picture, Mr. Speaker? The Minister appoints the council, and the council appoints the senate. Yet he says this is autonomy! This is the autonomy of an African college! Let us go on. I asked the Minister about clause 10 (2), but I will deal with that when we come to the Committee Stage. That is the position we are in at present.

Now we come to the figurehead of the university, and we have some very fine men in this office in this country; that is the chancellor. You know, Disraeli said once, Mr. Speaker, looking across at the government benches, that the Ministers he saw in the government benches were like “a row of extinct volcanoes.” Well, there is nothing like that about the front bench over there. I see a row of volcanic active chancellors. Let us take them from right to left. I see the chancellor of Potchefstroom University, then I see the chancellor of Port Elizabeth University, the chancellor of Stellenbosch University, the chancellor of the Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit, and there I see the chancellor of Pretoria University, too. Now we are going to have three more for the three Bantu universities. We have a Minister and two Deputy Ministers. So what chance do people here like myself have?

How should a chancellor be elected? How is he elected at Stellenbosch? We have Stellenbosch graduates here and they know. How is he elected at U.C.T.? How is he elected on the Witwatersrand? All in the same way, namely by convocation.

The MINISTER OF BANTU EDUCATION. And at Potchefstroom?

I do not know about Potchefstroom.

Oh, that one you do not know.

I said at the beginning that when quoting from universities’ constitutions I am going to quote from those I have consulted to check what I am saying, and I mentioned three universities. Potchefstroom is unique among our universities, as we know. If hon. members had been here when we were discussing the Potchefstroom University Bill and had heard the argument here on Christian National Education, they would know. I do not know what the position is like at Pretoria; probably it is the same as the others. These men who have passed through a university have the tradition of the university, and they decide who is going to be the chancellor, who is going to be the head. So much for the chancellor.

Now I come to the rector. I think we pall him the rector here, or the principal, and so on. There is no doubt about who is going to choose the rector. Not even the council this time, but the hon. the Minister. Let us get the picture complete. The Minister will appoint the council; the council will select the senate; the Minister will also appoint the rector. Therefore, how the Minister to any extent has divested himself of his authority, I cannot see. I think he will now have a firmer grip on the whole thing than ever.

Why do you still want to become a chancellor? It is not necessary.

We are going to have a very good time during the Committee Stage. There will be a little bit of in-fighting, because we will have a lot to say.

Now, Sir, I come to the question of the advisory senate. Nothing in any university’s organization can be absurd as this. Here we have white men and black men on the same staff. Black men may be professors, but they can only be in the advisory senate. You may have white lecturers who are heads of the department. This principle is laid down as a rule, but when the hon. the Minister replied to a question of mine this week he said that there were not enough black people who qualify for the advisory senate. An advisory senate is not only a humiliation for these members of the academic staff, but the whole idea is farcical. To say to a man who is a professor at a university, a learned and an educated man, that he cannot sit in the senate of his own university—I cannot find a word better than “farcical” to describe it. The sooner we get rid of this the better. I think the hon. the Minister is getting rid of it because he said very clearly that there will be an advisory senate only if he thinks it necessary. Nowhere in the Bill is it mentioned that the advisory senate or the advisory council will be black and that the others will be white, but it was mentioned during the original debate. When we discussed it during the debate—and I have it all here if anyone wants it quoted—we were told that this was necessary in order to preserve the sacred cow, apartheid. It was said that there must be apartheid and that white and black could not sit together. They cannot sit together in an African college, that is the story.

I will now go on to the question of the rector. I have told the House what my thoughts are in connection with this, but what occurs to me now is what we should do with this Bill.

I will give you a good idea what to do with this Bill.

This Bill is of a kind we have never had before us before. When we had similar Bills ten years ago, hon. members on both sides of the House said they would like to have more information, and that they would like to meet people who could assist them. Representatives from all the universities were then met and in the case of Fort Hare we met members of their council and members of their staff. We also met professors from other universities. It was a most interesting experience. Before we take the step to say that Fort Hare will become a university with a handful of students, and considering the great sums of money that have been spent for the little that has been achieved, we want a further investigation. In this regard I should like hon. members on this side of the House to assist me. Let us go from this House to meet the people who are concerned. I, personally, would like to hear what the Legislative Assembly of the Transkei has to say, and especially the Minister of Education. I should also like to know what the territorial authority of the Ciskei has to say. I should like to know what these professors, whom the hon. the Minister has nominated to the council (because the council is a council, broadly speaking, consisting of Afrikaans-language professors), have to say because there are some very fine men amongst them. I can mention names of men who have assisted us in the past. One of them from Potchefstroom is a man I regard as one of the greatest educationists I have known in South Africa. The name of this person is Professor Chris Coetzee. As I have said, I should like to meet these people. I do not know how the hon. the Minister feels, but is there any reason why we should not? Should we not say that we should like to know what they think about this university college and the improvements we can make? I have never been there since the days of the old Fort Hare. I was there when I served on the Select Committee, but I have never been there since. I should like to go again to see the changes, but I have never been invited. (Laughter). One can say “This university college Bill is not a university Bill. Throw it out.” What would happen if we were to do that? That would be saying, “We do not want anything to do with it.”, “We want to wash our hands of the whole thing.” I cannot persuade myself to do this. I find this Bill difficult to accept as it is; I know we shall try to improve it in the Committee Stage, but what is the obvious answer? There is only one answer, i.e. this Bill should be referred to a Select Committee before the Second Reading. I should like to be with the same colleagues as I have been serving with on the Select Committee on the Teachers’ Training Bill. In such a Select Committee I would again meet them. Therefore, I wish to move as an amendment—

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that we listened very attentively to the very clear explanation of the hon. the Minister in his comprehensive Second-Reading speech. I thought all by myself that there would not be one Opposition member who would not be sufficiently alert to listen attentively to and take in to good effect the Minister’s words and his fine explanation. But in spite of my high expectations the Opposition nevertheless did not listen attentively!

As far as the hon. member for Kensington’s speech is concerned, there is only one point on which I agree with him, but further I differ from him throughout. Where, at the end of his speech, the hon. member referred to Professor Chris Coetzee as a great educationist, I agree with him, because I also knew Professor Chris Coetzee as such, and I still know him personally.

The hon. member for Kensington ranged far and wide and went very deeply into the matter of the historic background of the minority report prior to the passing of the Extension of University Education Bill in 1959. As far as that aspect was concerned, the hon. member for Kensington could just as well have made the same speech he made in 1959. The hon. member is opposing this legislation on precisely the same grounds as the Opposition did at that time. They must, of course, be consistent and that is why he does it. The hon. member referred here to the fact that no provision was made for certain fields of study at the University College of Fort Hare; he referred here to the medical faculty and others. This is fortunately not the point of discussion to-day, but I refer to it because the hon. member did so. But that portion of the 1959 Act remains—it is not necessary for me to enlighten my old teacher on this point. The hon. member ought to know why non-Whites are still admitted to certain universities in respect of certain fields of study. But it is only done under certain conditions and circumstances.

The hon. member became very technical in the last half of his speech and I am of the opinion that he could just as well have made that last part of his speech during the Committee Stage, because he dealt with virtually each clause here. You know, there is an old saying that one is never too old to learn, but I, as an ex-pupil, must now say that my exteacher—he was a mathematics teacher—has really become too old to learn anything more. In the course of the years he closed his eyes and his ears to what was actually taking place. Therefore I want to say to-day that the United Party’s approach to this matter, through the mouth of the hon. member for Kensington, is actually negative, unrealistic and once more biased. I want to state that the attitude of the Opposition, through the mouth of the hon. member for Kensington, is really anachronistic and that its judgment is still politically coloured and ill-considered. Mr. Speaker, you know that ten years ago, i.e. on 26th February, 1959, the Opposition opposed permission to introduce the Extension of University Education Bill. The same hon. member was one of the most important speakers on that occasion. At the Second-Reading Debate the Opposition also moved an amendment—an amendment which, in certain facets and principles, boiled down to what the hon. member now proposed. On 8th April, 1959, the Opposition moved—I only quote from the portion which has a bearing on our debate to-day:

In essence this is the same as what the hon. member is now requesting. On the one hand the establishment of such institutions was opposed, and on the other hand concern was expressed about the status and the much-vaunted so-called academic freedom of the university colleges that were to be established. Basically, through the mouth of the hon. member for Kensington, the Opposition’s attitude is still the same. Now, after a lapse of ten years, the Opposition has not yet accepted Bantu university colleges, as dealt with in this connection. In their speeches in public and in the House—during the period in which it has been my privilege to sit here—they have merely raised destructive criticism throughout. They did not want to afford these university colleges an opportunity of proving themselves; they did not want these university colleges to be a success. Throughout the years, outside and inside this House, they have suspiciously and scornfully spoken of “tribal colleges”—at the present moment they still talk of “colleges of the bush”, “ethnic non-White colleges”, or indoctrinated colleges.

The United Party reminds me of an expression which I read in connection with the history of the French Bourbons. I hope I quote it correctly. It was said of Bourbon kings: “They forgot nothing, but they also learnt nothing.” This is also the case with the United Party. In the course of the past few years they have become none the wiser in respect of the higher education of the non-White peoples in South Africa. In the course of the years the United Party has adjusted its attitude towards the Bantu university colleges to, and brought it into line with, the prejudice with which they were obsessed in 1959. They are still engaged in this type of destructive criticism which they already expressed presumptuously at that time. The Act is made to serve an ideology, according to what the Opposition said then and still says now. They then said—and they apparently still do, because the hon. member referred to apartheid in his speech—that the colleges are actually trying to comply with the aims of the Government. They maintained that the Government has established the colleges in order to implement its policy, and to satisfy its ideological aims. It was then also maintained, and it is now being done again, that if the principle of autonomy of the colleges were to be deviated from, it would merely create suspicion among the non-Whites. They believe that suspicion will be created because the non-Whites will think that they are being discriminated against.

The Opposition’s main speaker on these matters maintained recently, according to a report which I read, that these Bills did indeed appear to be university legislation, but that there was no sign in them of the elements which makes a university an autonomous body. This is also what the hon. member conveyed in his speech to-day. I want to say that it is altogether a Rip van Winkel view. It is an altogether obdurate view, because even if we compare this Bill with the Bill of the Rand Afrikaans University, and of the University of Port Elizabeth, we note that there are elements in this Bill which are in complete agreement with those in respect of the new White universities.

But I should like to indicate a conspicuous new facet which appears in this legislation. I regard it as very important. The academic detachment of the University of South Africa is being brought about by this legislation. Now the universities can draw up their own syllabuses. They can even conduct their own examinations and issue certificates. This in itself is an important and a tremendous step forward. I now ask those hon. members whether they do not agree with me. The syllabuses of these colleges, and also of Fort Hare, have up to now been seen through the eyes of the Whites. The syllabuses were drawn up by the University of South Africa. But the University of South Africa did, after all, also ensure and agree that adjustments be made. This is what is now taking place progressively. We know that the syllabuses can now be adjusted to the population groups’ own identity and national needs. In other words, the syllabuses of Fort Hare and also the other colleges can be more nationally orientated.

But in addition to that the Opposition is of the opinion that there is an underminig of autonomy. Sir, an attempt is surely not being made to break down academic standards. On the contrary, a special attempt is being made to guarantee academic standards. Since the Opposition have, in the past, specifically alleged that academic standards would be lowered, here now is a guarantee. Since the hon. member referred so frequently to clauses, I just want to quote one of these clauses. This is also the only clause which I shall quote in my speech. Clause 30, inter alia, reads as follows:

I now ask whether the Opposition is opposed to that. The Opposition prophesied at the time, and the hon. member now referred to it again, that these Bantu university colleges, inter alia Fort Hare, would not be able to be filled. In other words, they prophesied that there would not be sufficient students. In addition they prophesied that the standards would be lowered, by comparison with the standards at the White universities. This same Opposition, which was so continually concerned about the standards, must, if it wants to be at all consistent, now praise this guarantee. It is not a curtailment of the so-called autonomy. I believe that the staff of this university, and also of Fort Hare, yes, even the White lecturers there, welcome this measure. Every lecturer and professor will surely want to subject his examination and work standards to the objective judgments of persons connected with the independent universities. Such persons will be able to serve as external examiners and moderators. They will specifically see these persons as helpers, and not so much as critics and controllers.

The Opposition also prophesied that there would not be progress as far as numbers were concerned. It is striking that they were such hopeless prophets. I now want to quote some statistics in dealing with the matter of the numbers of students. It is interesting to note that in the 11 years from 1948 to 1959, before this Act in respect of the Bantu university colleges came into force, the number of Bantu students who registered at both White residential universities, to which they were admitted, and the University of Fort Hare, increased from 365 to 619. This was an increase of about 70 per cent. It represents an average annual growth rate of about 6.4 per cent. By comparison with this, the number of Bantu students who are still admitted to White universities, plus students at Fort Hare and the other two university colleges, increased from 1959 to 1966 from 619 to 1,302. This is an increase of 683, and it represents an increase of about 109 per cent over seven years, which is a growth rate of about 15.6 per cent annually. I may just say that in 1967, 1,313 Bantu registered at the various Bantu university colleges. In 1968 the number of students of the three Bantu university colleges was 1,431. Now I just want to make this observation. The number of students at present at Fort Hare perhaps appears to be less than it was at that time, i.e. in 1959, but we must remember, and it is very important to know this, that at that time Fort Hare also admitted Coloured students as well as Indian students. As a result of the establishment of the non-White university colleges for each population group, those numbers naturally decreased. Therefore it does appear as if there was a decline. However, there was a tremendous increase in numbers from 1959 to the present moment.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23 and debate adjourned.