I announce that on behalf of the Senate and the House of Assembly, Mr. President and I have accepted a painting of the first Ministry of the Republic of South Africa, by Dr. Irmin Henkel, presented to Parliament by S.A.N.L.A.M., and that the painting has been hung in the Parliamentary dining room.

I move—

Sir, we are about to put to rest the second variation of the conundrum “when is a university not a university?” We have had the Fort Hare Bill and after this Bill we are to have the third of the Bantu university Bills. Sir, we are concerned here with developing the foundations of an institution of higher learning. This should not really have been a matter of party political controversy and that is why we asked at the Second Reading that the matter be referred to a Select Committee before the Second Reading so that one could get some discussion on a plane different from that which we had here, especially in the Committee Stage of this Bill, as to how this object should be achieved and how one could best build the foundations for an institution of higher learning for the Bantu. But, Sir. this was refused. Every single amendment of any consequence during the Committee Stage was also refused by the Government. In the result we find at this stage that despite our efforts to make this an institution for higher education, for university education for the Zulus, all our efforts having been refused, and in the result we cannot support the Third Reading of this Bill. Quite apart from the money involved, and quite apart from the disproportion that exists in respect of teachers and students, we feel that at this stage the University College of Zululand should not be removed from the umbrella of the University of South Africa. It is not ready to be put out into the intellectual cold, out of the light of learning and into the fastnesses of the darkness of the hon. the Minister’s Department. It is quite amazing that the Government could come with this legislation at this stage, having regard to the fact that when earlier this month, when the hon. member for Kensington asked who were the members of the advisory senates of the three Bantu University Colleges, the reply was that there were no such members because they had not found anyone who was qualified and suitable to be in that position. If that was the answer—and I believe that was on 4th March this year—it is amazing that we are asked to-day to project this university college into the status of a full university. It is very important that one should have regard, in judging whether this should be a university, to how the council is constituted. If you have a university for the Zulus, we believe that the Zulus ought to take part in running it in some way: otherwise it should not be called a university in the first place and it certainly should not be called a university for the Zulus. Despite the fact that at the Second Reading it was decided that this institution should now be given the status of a university, it was decided to keep the advisory council and the advisory senate, which is not consistent with the status of a university. What is more, as the hon. member for Kensington has said time and again, it is an insult to the people for whom this university is intended.

The question we have to ask ourselves, amongst others, is whether these institutions are ready at this stage for the status of a university. The hon. the Deputy Minister in charge of this Bill tried, especially in the Committee Stage, to make some political capital out of our appeals not to abolish these two bodies, the advisory senate and the advisory council. He went into a sort of semantic seance and he talked about integration.

You should go into political realities.

The hon. Deputy Minister is quite right. We are in a state of political reality, and we are trying to bring the Government into some state of political reality. The argument of the hon. the Deputy Minister during the Committee Stage was that you had to have an advisory senate and a senate and you have to have an advisory council and a council, but white was white and black was black and ne’er the twain shall meet, except where they do in fact meet. The Deputy Minister was at great pains to say that this was “aparte ontwikkeling”, this was separate development, because they had two separate bodies, one for white and one for black. Nowhere in the Bill, however, does it say in fact that the one body should only comprise of white people or one only of black people. In the end I think the Deputy Minister conceded it. In the course of his semantic orbital excursions he dealt with the hon. member for Kensington and he said he had in fact publicly connected the United Party with the thought that there was, as he called it, “half-integrasie”. The Deputy Minister nods that he in fact said that. Now. what is “halfintegrasie”? One assumes that the Deputy Minister envisages that the other half is segregation, so we have something which is half-integration and half-segregation. Here we then come to this wonderful semantic exercise—Does he then describe this as integrated segregation or segregated integration? This is the stage that we have reached; it is all a matter of words. The Deputy Minister uses a word and then it means whatever he wants it to mean. What does it mean? What did he mean when he talked about half-integration? Because his argument was based entirely on this premise.

I was very kind to you when I spoke about half-integration.

It is all very well the Deputy Minister saying he was very kind to us when he spoke about that, but I think what he does not appreciate is that he delivered himself a death-blow and he delivered his policy a death-blow.

The Deputy Minister went off half-cock.

Well, I am talking about half-integration at the moment. The difficulty of the Deputy Minister is this. He said their policy was—and this is what distinguished the two sides—that they wanted “aparte ontwikkeling” and therefore you had to have two bodies, one white and one black, but he conceded they had to meet each other, the one had to advise the other. He was quick to point out that they did not meet each other merely through letters; there was in fact a meeting of the rector and various professors who actually went and discussed matters with the black advisory council. When he realized that this might be pointed out as being integration in the sense that he uses that term in respect of our proposal, he chose to distinguish it by saying they did not actually have a vote there. The fact of the matter is they were there, they did consult with them, that they do go there in practice and consult with them, and this is the only way you can in fact consult with them.

Are you in favour of one integrated body?

I would have thought that if the Deputy Minister had really seriously considered the amendments that were put up, he would have appreciated that that is so.

That is all I wanted to know.

It is not as simple as saying, “That is all I wanted to know”. Hon. gentlemen on that side are very good at taking things out of their context. What does he want to know? Does he want to know whether we in fact want the situation where we lead and guide and help these people to become a university, to develop to that stage, or do we not want that?

You want it integrated.

There you are, Sir, we now have the other Deputy Minister “brooming” about us wanting integration. The hon. the Deputy Minister who is “brooming” there was not at Oxford; otherwise instead of the Deputy Minister in charge of this Bill he would have had the reputation of being the man upon whom Oxford made the least impression. In practice what we propose the Deputy Minister tells us is done, but when we propose it in a proper sense then he rejects it.

We are going to lead these people, and they need to be led, taught and taken to the place where they are not at the moment, one has to sit with them to teach them. In fact, this happens in practice.

As I have said, all our amendments apart from those which were proposed from this side of the House in respect of certain matters and were taken over in the case of each Bill, were turned down. In those circumstances, because we feel this matter should have been investigated properly and the evidence of the people concerned should have been heard by a select committee before the Second Reading, we cannot support the Bill at the Third Reading, especially in view of the most unsatisfactory attitude this Government has taken during the Committee Stage.

Mr. Speaker, I simply want to record my objection to the Third Reading of this Bill. I have no further arguments to add to those I have used practically ad nauseam over the last few days about the preceding Bill. Therefore, I shall, of course, register my protest in the usual way and vote against the Third Reading.

Mr. Speaker, I want to start my reply to the hon. member for Durban (North) by saying that I have always thought that it is quite a qualification to study at the University of Oxford, but judging by the course matters have been taking recently, whenever I speak in this House, I am beginning to become very convinced that I have a great deal of leeway to make up in life because of the fact that I studied there. [Interjections.] Particular emphasis was placed on this leeway when my colleague, the Deputy Minister who is seated here on my left, allegedly started grumbling.

One could have very enjoyable and lengthy discussions on the questions the hon. member for Durban (North) raised. In fact, I really feel tempted to do so. But then we would have a repetition of the squabble we had in your absence last night, Sir, during the Committee Stage. I can tell you that I enjoyed it very much, and, judging by their facial expressions, I think that hon. members opposite also enjoyed it. But I am not keen on having a repetition of that now. However, I want to point to a few matters. Here at this Third Reading of the University of Zululand Bill, at which stage we have thoroughly thrashed out this matter and have discussed these three Bantu universities for hours, I want to associate myself with the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development who made an appeal to the Opposition in the course of the Third-Reading debate on his Bill. We have now discussed this matter thoroughly. Sometimes we got angry with one another and sometimes we discussed this matter in peaceful, calm waters. At times the discussion was at a low level.

I think that generally speaking it was discussed on quite a good and passable level, having regard to the Opposition we have over there. But now I also want to make the appeal that, once these Bills have been passed, the Opposition should on their part do everything in their power to get away from the inherent concept which they once again evinced in regard to these universities in the course of these discussions. I exclude the hon. member for Kensington. Amongst his fellow-colleagues there are people who are inclined to regard these universities as “tribal colleges” and who still refer to them as if they were such. This attitude is detrimental to these universities.

That is why I make this appeal, i.e. that those hon. members should see to it that this does not happen any more. Regardless of all the criticism hon. members may raise, there is one point which is beyond suspicion, and this is the underlying principle of this legislation, i.e. that it is our aim to place these universities on a course of academic autonomy so that they may be in a position to achieve the highest summum bonum which any university can in fact achieve. In that regard there can be no difference of opinion. Hon. members should therefore stop disparaging these academic universities.

The hon. member for Durban (North) once again raised the question of autonomy, and the charge he wants to level at this side of the House is that, whereas we have here a council for the universities which consists of Whites and an advisory council which consists of Bantu and a senate which consists of Whites and an advisory senate which will consist of Bantu (which is stated permissively in the Bill), all of which is in keeping with our policy, we want to create the impression that we will have separate councils consisting of Whites and non-Whites whereas it is, after all, nothing but integration as a result of the fact that the rector is an ex officio member of this advisory Bantu council and may include professors when a specific matter is concerned and expert advice is required. After amendments had been moved to this Bill by hon. members opposite, the hon. member stated plainly that they advocated a mixed council, in other words, an integrated council and an integrated senate or a mixed senate.

Hon. members opposite cannot get away from this, but now the hon. member for Durban (North) is trying to run away from his own standpoint and those which his side of the House, along with the hon. member for Houghton, have recently been stating here very clearly. It is necessary for us to see very clearly the difference between this side of the House and that side of the House in regard to this matter, and to put it beyond any suspicion. The difference is very clear. Hon. members opposite want a mixed council, but in practice we have, in terms of our policy, two councils, i.e. a white council and a separate Bantu council. The answer to the charge the hon. member tried to level at me and at this side of the House, is very simple. We on this side of the House avoid integrated authority, the so-called sharing of power, but that side of the House advocates it. We call it apartheid and you may call it just what you please. It is for this reason that I think that I was being kind to hon. members opposite to call it half-integration. In actual fact it is full integration. The difference is that we on this side of the House say that there should not be integrated authority. Are hon. members opposite not thinking logically? They fail to see the difference between authority, on the one hand, and consultation on the other hand.

In the history of the Republic not one single day passes without there being consultation on some level or other between the Whites and the Bantu, the Whites and the Coloureds and the Whites and the Indians. In most spheres of activity we work shoulder to shoulder. This is the point of difference which the outside world also fails to see in respect of the policy of distinctive development. Good relations exist and we do not avoid one another. Consultation will take place at this university and at the others, and in South Africa this is the most natural thing. I could elaborate on this at length and in detail, but I do not wish to do so now. Consultation takes place between employees and employers, the farmer and his servants, the housewife and her servant and on all levels right to the top. But now we say that there should not be integrated authority, and last night I tried to explain this point very clearly in that I told hon. members that these professors who join the members of the Bantu advisory council for talks, do not have a vote and have not been vested with any authority in this specific capacity. This is a very profound and significant difference, and I hope that I have now cleared up any misunderstanding which could have existed in regard to this matter. I want to point out to hon. members that, whereas this is not the time and the place for making political capital out of this matter, they should nevertheless appreciate that a great deal of political capital can in fact be made out of this and that this side of the House will certainly report to the electorate outside what attitude that side of the House is adopting in regard to this matter. We shall not remain silent about this. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. the Deputy Minister must come back to the Bill. The election is only due to take place later on.

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to make this point so that they may be aware of it. Hon. members opposite also had a great deal to say about the so-called autonomy of these universities. It is true that in terms of this legislation the Minister is granted certain very important powers in regard to this university. But since the State provides the funds of that university, it is necessary for it to be this way. He is the person who has to report to this Parliament on how those funds were spent. That is why it is necessary for him to be granted these powers. But now hon. members opposite are confusing this aspect of the matter with the autonomy of the university. That is not necessary. For instance, this university is going to be completely autonomous—academically autonomous—after this legislation has been passed. There are many examples of such universities in the world, of large universities which are dependent upon the State for their finances and are, as a result, governed by an external authority, an authority which nominates councils, rectors, and so forth. The hon. member for Houghton asked me repeatedly to mention examples of such universities. Well, I now want to furnish her with such examples. There is, for instance, the State University of New York, a large university, where this is the position. And yet that university does not complain about its not being autonomous. It is completely autonomous, even though its rector is appointed by the Governor and its funds are derived from the State in which it is situated. Then there is the University of California. Incidentally, I visited it a few months ago. This is a large and powerful university. It is well known, renowned and famous. I suppose that it is known to the hon. member for Houghton as well. Well, exactly the same situation prevails there, because the rector is appointed by the Governor …

And the council?

The council and the rector.

And the senate?

I do not know, but as far as the council and the rector are concerned, this is definitely the position. Then there is the State University of Ohio, another large and powerful university, with the same set-up. In England there are such universities; in France there are such universities, and in Australia there is the University of Canberra, a large university with a similar set-up. Then I do not even mention the universities in Greece, to which the hon. the Minister referred. But that is not all. An authority whom hon. members opposite are fond of quoting, expressed very clear views on this matter. I am referring to Dr. E. G. Malherbe who expressed a view on this matter in a booklet entitled “Die Outonomie van ons Universiteite” (The Autonomy of our Universities), which he published in 1959. On page 4 he says (translation)—

That is exactly what we also say. Hon. members opposite should therefore not confuse the autonomy of a university with that degree of control over it which results from the fact that it obtains its funds from the State. In practice the council is autonomous and advises the Minister on certain matters only, matters on which the Minister then has to decide.

These universities are now being granted full university status. Let us make no error—in the history of these universities the date on which they are granted full university status, as well as full academic autonomy, will be recorded as one of the most important dates, despite everything the United Party may say in this regard. There is no doubt whatsoever in our minds that these universities are now being placed on the road to maturity. We are proud of that. We have discussed these matters exhaustively and at length. Now I want to ask the Opposition to lend their active support to these universities once this legislation has been passed.

I want to conclude by quoting to you, Sir, a point of view put on record by myself in 1956, i.e. four years before these university colleges—with the exception of Fort Hare, of course—were established. This point of view is as follows (translation)—

That is what we are offering the Bantu nations in this legislation. Let all of us from now on co-operate in developing these universities on the course that has been adopted.

Motion put and the House divided:

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

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

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

I move—

We have now reached the final stage of the final Bill in the trilogy of the hon. the Minister of Bantu Education and there is very little left for us to say that would not be repetition. I should like to say at this stage that we have always been willing and anxious to assist in the establishment of universities, because we believe that whether our policy is accepted generally or whether the policy of hon. members opposite is accepted, we must have highly educated people of all races in South Africa. The future depends on that. Therefore we have always encouraged the establishment of universities and we have been anxious to assist the Government when they bring forward proposals for the establishment of universities. For example, quite recently we established two, one at Port Elizabeth and one in Johannesburg. Demands in that direction were made by the public and we have always considered such demands favourably. In the case of this proposal to create the University of the North where there is now a university college, we feel the time is premature for it, although this is probably the most promising of the three colleges. The reason why their numbers have increased gradually is that they draw on five ethnic groups for their student population. Well, I am surprised that the numbers have not increased more rapidly, seeing that it draws on five groups. Therefore we shall have to wait several years before they are strong enough numerically to justify the creation of a university, but the Government thinks otherwise. The Government tells us that Unisa is not able any longer to carry on the work of examinations, and therefore the Government has granted to this college what they call academic independence, academic self-reliance and academic responsibility. Well, I do not think they are quite ready for that. I do not think their degrees will have the status of the degrees of some of our white universities. And when we create a university in South Africa we are creating one on the South African model. I am very sorry that the hon. the Deputy Minister has gone to the U.S.A. and other countries for a new class of university. That is not the South African way. The South African university is modelled on the great universities of the Western world. The new creations, whether they be technological colleges or new kinds of universities, have not been what we have created in South Africa in the past.

Now there has been a good deal of talk here about integration and separation. I regard all that as so much quibbling about terms —words, words, words. People do not define them; they do not say what they mean. There is always a measure of integration in South Africa. Economically there is a measure of integration, and socially there must be, otherwise people could not live together in the same country. Those things are necessary. In the case of this university we are considering now, the University of the North, if there is to be any discussion as to what is integration and what is not, surely it is for the Bantu to say what they want, because this is their university college which is now to become a university.

The Deputy Minister, with his background of early training, has spoken about Jack and Jill and Humpty-Dumpty. Let me quote from Alice in Wonderland what Humpty-Dumpty said: “‘When I use a word’, said Humpty-Dumpty in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less’.” I think that is what the Deputy Minister means when he talks about integration, separation, and all the other “-ations” that he talks about. That is not the way to approach race relations in South Africa; we should look for something better. What we should look for in South Africa is not new methods of separation but new common ground.

Under one blanket?

We must have common ground. The hon. member is constantly thinking of getting under a “kombers” with somebody. I do not want him to get under a blanket with anybody; I want him to live a normal life, the sort of life that we try to live here. But that is not the point. That is all right if he is addressing a meeting of reactionaries somewhere, I will not say in his own constituency, on in some other constituency, but that is not the approach and especially not for university education. If we are not going to meet together when we control a university, when are we going to meet together? The Government says there must be an outward look in policy. We are quite prepared to do that when we consider African people from other countries, but what about an inward look for a change? I am trying to apply the same principles as the Government is applying to the outward look.

I do not know what I am going to say about this Bill. We are going on to another one and I have hope for the Bill to create a university for our Indians in South Africa. I am optimistic, and I say with Clough—“Say not the struggle naught availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain. The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been, they remain.” I do not think they will remain as they have been; I think there is hope for the future, and I am looking to the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs to give us that new lead. Therefore at this stage I want to intimate only that all our efforts to improve the Bill have been brushed aside. The Minister and the Deputy Minister would have nothing of our suggestions, nothing of our proposals; they would not have our co-operation on a select committee. Therefore there is no alternative course open to us than to vote against the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, but I cannot share the optimism of the hon. member for Kensington in respect of the University for the Indians. I know the Minister of Indian Affairs very well and I am convinced that he will proceed along the old well-proven Nationalist course and deal quite effectively with the United Party here this afternoon.

At this Third Reading stage of the last of these three measures, I want to make the following points. The first is this. These measures, and especially two of their clauses, afford the best guarantees conceivable that the necessary academic standards will be maintained at these universities. The hon. member for Kensington again expressed doubt as to whether the necessary standards will be maintained at these institutions. Clause 10 provides that in respect of each faculty one or more professors in a corresponding faculty at another university institution will have a seat in the senate. This is a guarantee that the standards will be maintained at these universities. The hon. members should realize and take note of that.

A second clause which affords such a guarantee, and specifically in respect of the University of the North, is clause 30, which provides very explicitly that in respect of each subject leading to a degree, diploma or certificate, an external examiner and an external moderator shall be appointed. This is in the best traditions of the most famous universities in the world. If I may say so, this is also the position at the University of Oxford. Throughout the Western world it is recognized as one of the best methods of ensuring that academic standards are maintained. Here it is provided by law in clause 30. Seen from this point of view, these two clauses have never, throughout all the lengthy discussions conducted here, received the emphasis which they in fact deserve. That is why I am now mentioning them here at the end. The guarantee for academic standards at this university and at the other Bantu universities forms part of this legislation. The Department of Bantu Education, which has accepted co-responsibility for these universities, the hon. the Minister and I myself, want to give the undertaking that we shall do everything in our power and go out of our way, as has been done in the past, not only to maintain, but absolutely to ensure the highest standards at these universities. That is why I cannot understand why the hon. member for Houghton can doubt that these universities are potentially able to gain, to use her own words, “world recognition”. As a result of this guarantee in regard to standards, my standpoint is that they will gain it. The only reason that I can think of for their possibly not gaining it, may be political considerations. I think the hon. member for Houghton is helping to precipitate these political considerations. Then I still say that in the end academic standards will overshadow all political considerations. That is why I do not doubt in the least that these universities are capable of developing to the fullest academic maturity. One looks forward eagerly to what the results will he at these universities in the next ten years.

Then I want to mention a second point. Hon. members argued a great deal about this point. The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development has proved one thing beyond any doubt over the past years, during which he has made such a brilliant success of being in charge of these universities. I want to place it on record here to-day. There has been no desire on his part to act autocratically in respect of these universities. Neither did our Department or our officials have any desire or show any such desire for acting autocratically. We have had the best co-operation and consultation. That is why there has been no trouble at these university colleges. Embodied in these Bills is the fact, which the other side of the House must take note of, that future Ministers will also be bound by the bodies and councils which are being created, not to act autocratically in connection with these universities.

Mr. Speaker, you must please forgive me as regards the last point I want to make. We are all in politics.

Order! I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister will not pursue the political aspect any further.

No, Mr. Speaker, it only relates to the University of the North. During the long discussions we have had on these universities, a very clear difference in policy between the United Party and the Progressive Party on that side, and this side of the House, has once again emerged. I now conclude, Mr. Speaker, and you may call me to order: With this it has been proved that that Party cannot get away from the fact that it is after all an integrationist party.

Order!

Motion put and the House divided:

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

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

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

[Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, again I say that I am very impressed with the reception which the Opposition always gives me!

Are they cheering you, Frankie?

I have previously referred to the great effort by the hon. member for Kensington in maintaining control of the series of Bills before this House on university matters. Well, I do hope that I did not hear a note of weariness in the hon. member for Kensington’s voice when he made the appeal to me, because if it is so I would be very disappointed just as I am sure he is going to be very disappointed in the hope he has put in me when he indicated that he was sure that I would handle this measure differently to my colleagues.

He was too optimistic.

Basically the position is this. This Bill constitutes a step which is being taken by the Government towards the development of this university college into a university. The university college was created by the Act of 1959 as the University College for Indians in Durban. Thereafter it was changed into the University College, Durban. Now, in this Bill, it is being named as the University of Durban-Westville. These stages have been taken administratively by this Government. I would also like to point out to members of this House that the Bill provides at this stage for the own charter of this particular university. It is a university for Indians, to serve the Indian population. This is the basis of this Bill. The Bill also provides for certain academic responsibility for the proposed University.

I have also dealt with the matter of standards which should be maintained as far as the faculties and examinations are concerned. I have indicated that the university already has certain experience in handling certain features of its academic work. It also has a senate composed of professors and other men from universities outside. In this Bill it is also ensured that there will be external examiners and moderators. On that point, I myself have confidence that it would maintain the high standard which it has previously maintained, as an independent body and not under the direct control of the University of South Africa. Sir, I am confident that the senate and the academic staff of the University College, Durban, will maintain the same standard they set while the University of South Africa was the controlling body. They are highly qualified men and women who have proved themselves in their particular fields. I take this opportunity of paying tribute to them for the fine work they have been doing. The stage of development we are embarking on to-day would not have been possible had it not been for their enthusiasm and dedication to their task. Here too I thank the University of South Africa for its contribution to the development of the university college and to place on record my appreciation of its willingness at all times to assist in placing the academic processes at the university college on a sound basis. On the other hand, the Government is not prepared to disregard the fact that the university is still wholly State supported. The State intends to retain authority so as to be able to direct the administrative relationships between the Government and the university. This concept of academic and administrative separation is common in university organizations in all parts of the world, and it has been proved elsewhere that this type of arrangement does not mean that the university will be tyrannically oppressed. The goodwill of the Government, the general esteem already enjoyed by the University College, Durban, the tradition of appreciation of higher education rooted in this land, and the solidarity between the university council and the Government, as represented by the Minister and his Department of Indian Affairs, result in a co-operation which has in the past made conflict a rare phenomenon. The Minister of Indian Affairs, while exercising control, will also function as the channel of the university in its relationship with the Government. In regard to the matter of control, the control provided for in the Bill centres on the policy of the Government and matters affecting the financing of the university. It is the policy of this Government that there should be a separate university to serve the Indian population. This feature of the policy has been accented by the majority of the electorate and those opposed to it, of course, have the democratic right to undo it at the polls.

Do you call this a university?

This part of ministerial control, as provided for in clauses 21 and 22 of the Bill need not, therefore, be further emphasized by me here. The financial control of the Minister is organizational in the sense that the Minister shall have the final word about how the money appropriated by Parliament, should be used. The established practice is that the council makes its recommendations about the administration, i.e. about the academic and financial aspects, to the Minister and unless such recommendations run counter to Government policy, the Minister generally accepts its suggestions. Furthermore, when the annual Budget has been approved by Parliament, and the university is notified of its allocation, it is virtually free, as far as the Government is concerned, to satisfy independently its needs out of the appropriated moneys.

Semi-colon!

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, when a Minister introduces a Bill, the procedure is that he reads to the House all the relevant information, so the hon. member’s sarcastic remark leaves me cold. I think the hon. member was the one who talked about the White Chaka empire in referring to this Bill.

Is that you?

Furthermore, when an annual budget has been approved by Parliament, and the university notified of its allocation, it is virtually free, as far as the Government is concerned, to satisfy independently its needs out of the appropriated moneys. The council of the university is therefore a very important organ in the planning of the running of the university and of university policy. To say that the Minister exerts iron control over the affairs of the university is, therefore, both untrue and slighting of the council, the rector and his staff. The fact that these controls are statutory provisions must be regarded as a safeguard to ensure adequate consultation between the Minister and the university.

The Council of the University of Durban-Westville will have a bigger say in the affairs of the university than the council of the university college, Durban, has at present. The Bill provides for more consultation between the council and the Minister. Consequently it can be said that the Minister will have less control under this Bill than he has under the existing Act.

Turning to the evolutionary development of this establishment the following facts should be noted: The growth of the university college, Durban, is reflected in the following statistics, which show the remarkable progress made since 1960:

The hon. member for Durban (Central) will remember that he stated that we would not get students for these universities.

Where was that?

The hon. member will find it in Hansard.

When?

I will give the hon. member the full reference. I had the unfortunate task of having to go through the 1959 Hansard because I was not here in those days.

Good old days!

The hon. member wants to know what was said and I will quote it to him in a moment because his memory is very short. I have the reference somewhere here and I promise the hon. member that I will give it to him.Sir,when I reply to the Second Reading debate I will read out to the hon. member what he said and he will have an opportunity of replying to me. I took this particular cutting from Hansard and it refers to a speech made by him in this House. I know that hon. members opposite want to forget what they said in this connection in 1959. In fact, I am going to quote quite a bit out of what the hon. member had to say. This is what he said (Hansard, 10th April, 1959, col. 3470)—

I want to ask the hon. member whether he thinks that this university which is there to serve the Indian population and which started in 1961 with 114 students and which now has 1,701 students, is slowly but surely dying? Hon. members opposite were all Jeremiahs as far as these universities are concerned; they prophesied that they were going to go downhill, and that they were going to shut down. They said that these universities were a disgrace and now, of course, they are finding themselves in a very difficult position, so they use the hon. member for Kensington to try to pull the rabbit out of the hat for them.

“Chestnuts out of the fire” is the correct term.

Order! Hon. members must give the hon. the Minister an opportunity " to make his speech. They must not treat everything as a joke.

May I ask a question, Sir? The hon. the Minister gave us the enrollment figure for 1969. Can he tell us how many of the students are taking degree courses and how many students, who only have the school-leaving certificate, are only doing diploma courses?

I will get that information for the hon. member in due course. The figures which I read out here referred to all enrollments. As I have said, the number of students has grown from 114 to 1,701, and I maintain that that shows the confidence that the Indian population of South Africa has in this university which hon. members opposite considered was going to die. Then I want to give the House the following further information to show the remarkable progress of this university: The number of faculties (Arts, Sciences, Education, and Commerce and Administration) has increased from two in 1961 to four in 1969. The number of departments (branches of faculties) has increased from 17 in 1961 to 30 in 1969. Then I want to give the House the following information with regard to the courses offered:

Then I give the number of degrees awarded (the year in which the students wrote their final examinations is given): 1963, 9; 1964, 26; 1965, 71; 1966, 91; 1967, 127; 1968, 143. Sir, I ask the hon. member whether he really believes that this university is slowly but surely dying in view of these figures? In spite of the Opposition’s criticism of these universities, in spite of the insinuations that they were going to be a failure, these universities have made tremendous progress; they have made headway all along the line. They made these prophesies of failure in 1959 and this is what has happened over the past ten years. Then I come to the number of diplomas and certificates awarded: 1963, 1; 1964, 23; 1965, 33; 1966, 104; 1967, 94; 1968, 119. The position with regard to the college staff is as follows:

The Indian personnel comprises one professor, four senior lecturers.

Was that a Nat?

… 22 lecturers and 58 other technical and administrative staff. The lecturer-student ration in 1961 was 1 to 7, in 1962 1 to 11, in 1963 1 to 11, in 1964 1 to 11; in 1965 1 to 11, in 1966 1 to 10, in 1967 1 to 10, in 1968 1 to 10, and in 1969 1 to 12. The note here is that the decrease is due to the introduction of new courses, necessitating the appointment of additional lecturers.

Would it not be nice if white students had that ratio?

Ah, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is letting the cat out of the bag; he wants to go back to Newcastle and say: Look what they are doing for the Indians; look at the amount of money they are spending on the Indians. This comes out into the open now. Unfortunately the hon. member has again put his foot into it by talking about the ratio at the white universities. The hon. member is just trying to play a political game, and I know the hon. member for Kensington appreciates it. But this ratio compares very favourably with the ratios at white universities in the Republic, which range from 1 to 6—1 to 15, with an average of 1 to 10. Is that an answer to the hon. member’s question? It was 1 to 12 in 1969, and at the white universities it was 1 to 10. I do not think he will make much political capital out of that. I suggest that the statistics I have given show that before long the university will have an enrollment of some 2,000. I say this also because the University College of Durban has established for itself a place of pride in the Indian community.

A new modern university is at present being built in Chiltern Hills in Westbrooke and I can say now that the new University of Durban-Westville will receive even greater support from the Indian community than the present University College received while temporarily accommodated at Salisbury Island. All that I have mentioned here was achieved in a relatively short space of time while the university college was temporarily housed at Salisbury Island, where accommodation was limited and improvization was necessary to meet the growing demands. Despite these difficulties, the college proved itself in all respects and, what is more, proved how successfully it could and did function and flourish as a separate institution for higher education. It fully deserves its success and it has earned the recognition which has been accorded to it by this Bill. The Indian community and the university college authorities also realize and recognize that all that has been achieved was achieved under the present Minister-College relationship and control. They wish to retain a similar arrangement of partnership under the new status given to the college by this Bill. They are content to rely on proved methods and will develop further, particularly when later opportunities and facilities become available to both the staff and the students at the new university being erected at Chiltern Hills. This Bill was made available to both the University College Council and the All-Indian Advisory Council. They studied it find gave careful consideration to all its provisions and implications. Both the College Council and the Advisory Council have made it clear that in their view the Bill caters for the requirements of the university in its present stage of development, and they have therefore given it their support.

Firstly I should like to thank the hon. the Minister for his kind remarks last night and the manner in which he supplemented them to-day. I think that shows a very good spirit in which we can approach the discussion on this Bill. I can assure him that I am not weary of these debates. In fact, I have come back refreshed, not to say rejuvenated, because during the lunch-hour to-day I listened to an address on the future of universities not only in South Africa and not only for one special race, but universities throughout the world, by one of the world’s greatest educationists, Lord Butler, who for many years was Minister of Education in Britain and now is the head of a great college at a great university. What he has had to say about the modern development in universities made me realize that I have, in coming back here, to come from the clouds right down again to the conception they have on the other side of what a university really is.

I am very sorry that the hon. the Minister has been, I think, misled by his colleagues, the Minister and the Deputy Minister of Bantu Education. He should not have followed their example. His problem is a completely different one from that of the Department of Bantu Education. Here we have three Bills dealing with Bantu universities, one for Coloureds and one for Indians, and the Government has agreed that they should all be treated in the same way. But they should not have been treated in the same way because they are at different stages of development. In fact, in development and in progress they have very little in common. Therefore I am surprised that the hon. the Minister has introduced a Bill which follows closely the pattern of the other Bills.

Let me tell him how his case is different from the case of the others. The circumstances are different and the Indian population, as we have it in South Africa, is not scattered throughout the country like the Bantu population. To a great extent it is concentrated and therefore a university can be developed with extramural classes and all the other advantages. There is another good reason why this case is different. I think the Indian community, as they have proved in the past, are able to support their institutions financially, certainly more so than the Bantu or the Coloureds. There again I think he is on quite different grounds.

But then I come to the most important thing of all, which he has referred to himself. We have heard from a Deputy Minister that numbers do not matter in considering these things, but they matter a great deal when one has to establish a university. The numbers the Minister has given are rather more up to date than mine, but I will give mine as I receive them from the Department, and I thank the Department for providing these figures. These are the figures I have for December, 1968. I always ask how many of these students have matriculated, because that is the test. We are discussing a university here which in addition to providing degree courses can also provide diploma courses, and the test is how many students have matriculated; and the number is a very large one. In December, 1968, 1,143 students in that institution had matriculated; 86 per cent of the students were matriculated.

Let us compare that with the Bantu colleges under the same Government. All these Bills are Government Bills. We suggested to the Minister of Bantu Education that he should consider establishing one Bantu university with constituent colleges, but he turned that down. Apparently the Government cannot consider any new suggestions or ideas, and they turned it down. Let me say this: The matriculated students at the University of Durban-Westville number R1,143, and the three Bantu colleges together have only 1,012—fewer than at Durban-Westville. When we come to Coloured students, there are only 416. So these Bills are not compatible and I hope that the Minister, when he has heard what we have to say, will be more reasonable than his colleagues were and will be prepared to meet our objections and to accept our constructive criticism.

Now I am going to take a look at the progress this college has made. To determine the progress. I generally go to the results they yet in their degree examinations, not because the lecturers at one place are better than at another, but I think Indian students have had better opportunities from the time they first went to school. They are more privileged than our Bantu students have been because our Bantu students have had to depend upon the Bantu education system, which leaves room for great improvement. Now I am going to make a comparison. I want to take and compare the average passes of Fort Hare, Zululand, and the University College of the North with the Indian college. I want to compare the average pass percentage. The average passes at the three Bantu colleges for the first year was 32 per cent. At the Indian college it was 33 per cent. Here we have indications of the same progress—the winnowing out of those not fitted for a university career. The position during the second year is: 39 per cent on an average for the Bantu colleges and 58 per cent for the Indian college—19 per cent more. For the third year the average for the Bantu colleges is 60 per cent and for the Indian college 77 per cent. This bears out what I said at the beginning, that we are discussing a different case here. It is different also for other reasons, as I shall still point out. But what does the Minister do?

I said he was misled, maybe out of a sense of loyalty to his colleagues. But he has definitely been misled. He has given us the same old clause 4 for the constitution of the university. Similarly, he has given us the same old clause 8 for the constitution of the council. He tells us that the principal will be appointed in the same way as at the Bantu universities. He even goes so far as to provide for an advisory council and an advisory senate. Is there anything more absurd than that? But that is what he has given us. This, then, is the first part of my criticism.

Now I come to a more important part of my criticism. In the Indian community in Natal and within the Indian Affairs Department there is an established tradition in higher education, although it seems to me as if the hon. the Minister is not aware of it. Had he been aware of it, he would never have presented this Bill. This is not the first institution for higher education we have created for the Indians. We created another one only last year. The hon. member for Rissik, who is not here at the moment, will recall that last year we debated a measure for the creation of another institution for higher education for the Indians, i.e. Indians Advanced Technical Education Act. There can be no question that this is an institution for higher education because in the year before, in 1967. the Minister of National Education came along with his trilogy of Bills, one of which, No. 41 of 1967 (section 44), describes what is higher education in South Africa. One of the institutions for higher education is this created by the Indians Advanced Technical Education Act. This measure was almost word for word the same as the measure responsible for the creation of colleges for advanced technical education for the Whites, institutions which we hope will ultimately develop into universities of technology. We have a great future and, therefore, we should encourage their development in that direction. The Indians are already on their way. What I want to do now is to compare the present Bill with the measure of last year, in which I was interested and in the debate on which I took part. It may be necessary for me to quote not only the Minister but also what I said. When one compares the two one gets the same pattern. So you get a council and you get a senate, although called “a board of studies”, in the measure of last year. As I say, you get the same pattern running through both these measures—how this council is constituted, how the institution itself is constituted, and so on. Let me now make my comparison. First of all, let us compare the status of this new university with the status of the college for higher technical education. What do we find? We find that the status of the technical college is better and higher than in the case of this university. That is clear from clause 3. In clause 4 the constitution of this university is dealt with and should be compared with section 6 of the Act which set up the technical college. There they provided for a principal, a council, a board of studies—the same structure throughout. But the most important clause of all is the one which we have criticized the most right from the beginning of our consideration of these Bills. I refer to the clause dealing with the constitution of the council. Sir, you have heard our arguments about this. The Minister ought to be familiar with them now because let me say this for him, he dutifully sat in his bench listening to the debates on the other Bills. Consequently, he ought to be familiar with our argument on this point. Let me say, first of all, what the constitution of the council of this university is to be. What do we find here? We find the old story—eight nominated by the Minister, two to come from the senate and the rector to be appointed by the Minister in consultation with the council. Let us now look at the constitution of the college for advanced technical education for Indians. In section 8 of that Act the constitution was dealt with. It says—

This is to maintain his majority, which is reasonable, I think, at this stage.

When we spoke of past students being represented, our criticism was ridiculed and thrust aside.

He may add people and the council may coopt people, if the Minister approves. Here we have a representative body, representative of the community. This is what we have been asking for in the case of the Bantu universities, right from the beginning. This happened a year ago in Durban, in the case of this College of Technology.

And the heavens have not fallen.

The heavens have not fallen yet.

I take it that is not integration!

No, I am coming to that. I am very glad hon. members are anticipating that. I now come to that part of it. Who are these people that are going to be nominated? I am coming to that next. To do that I shall have to come to the debate of last year in which I had the honour to take part. I heard the Minister’s introductory Second Reading speech. My eyes opened, I was surprised. I said, “We are entering a new era —reason has entered into the minds of this Government.

What has happened to the Minister?

Ah, we know what happened to him. This is what the then Minister said (Hansard, volume 22, column 1043)—

That was for white university colleges, what we call technical colleges. Here is another extract from the Minister’s speech, from the same column—

What about the hon. member for Peninsula when he said the following during the debate on the proposed University of the Western Cape: “You have a Coloured council, why don’t you consult them?” But it could not be done. Yet last year the Minister said they had consulted the S.A. Indian Council. I will quote from my own contribution, which was not a very long one. You will understand my surprise, Sir, having heard the arguments of the hon. gentlemen on the other side when they discussed university colleges. I said this (column 1044)—

—not 11, not eight nominated—

The Minister nodded assent; he sat there and nodded. I continue quoting from my speech—

Of course, they changed their mind! I said what I felt about it.

Now I come to the Minister’s reply. He did not say anything which we could not accept in this House. There was nothing doubtful about what he had to say. He was quite frank, and he was very proud of his new creation in higher education. This is what he said (column 1050)—

There you are, Sir. So you can imagine not my surprise but my consternation when I heard what I did hear later on. I came back to it in the Committee Stage, which was a very brief process in this House. It was “clause 1—agreed to, clause 2—agreed to …”, until we came to clause 8 and then we paused for a moment—not long, just a moment. I said this (column 1123)—

The Minister of Indian Affairs said, “Yes, of course, they must be donors”. He said it was at their discretion, they could send an Indian or they could send a White. I continued and said—

Paragraph (e) is the one I mentioned—“… such persons as the Minister may appoint, subject to the provisions of …”. That means he is going to appoint them himself. They will not be appointed by the authorities. I continued—

May I ask the hon. member a question? Could he tell the House whether the Minister had to approve of donations for this technical college or whether they could just be accepted?

The Minister was ready to accept donations. As I was saying, the Minister said Whites and Indians would be appointed. I continued and said—

That means that ordinary people will be coopted by the Minister. The Minister then replied and said: “Yes.” Then the clause was put and agreed to. That is the tradition of higher education in Natal under the Indian Department of Education in Natal.

Let us go a step further, let us look at these essential clauses. How do they fit into this picture? We have been arguing on those lines now for several days to try and bring the light across to the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs and the hon. the Minister of Bantu Education, without any success. Now this is my last hope.

In the light of what I have quoted, we now have to consider this aspect: What about the board of studies, that is to say the senate? I come to the senate now. It is not called a senate here, it is called a board of studies. But it is the same thing, of course; it only has a different name. I have dealt with the appointment of the rector. He is appointed by the council, there is no doubt about it, not by the Minister. He does not have anything to do with that. What about an advisory council? There is none; there is no advisory council. It is the kind of council we have been advocating here. Now we come to the senate. That is dealt with in clause 10. Let us turn to section 9 of this Act. I quote—

1. (a) the principal, who shall be chairman of the board;
2. (b) two other members of the council, designated by the council, who shall hold office during the council’s pleasure (the usual two representatives); and
3. (c) such members of the teaching staff of the college as the council may from time to time determine.

There cannot be a professor as at a university. So they say that they will appoint the senior men to be members of the board of studies. It is as simple as that. They did not have the structure of a university.

Now I come to the final one, namely the advisory senate. There is no advisory senate.

How are they operating?

I do not know. I do not wish to labour the point. In the Gericke Commission Report we are told that they hope that these institutions will develop into fully-fledged tertiary institutions. Well, the one I quoted is a fully-fledged tertiary institution.

Now I come to my final point. Should the hon. the Minister proceed with this Bill, as the other Ministers have proceeded? Surely the argument is devastating. He is acting contrary to the academic tradition of the Department of Indian Affairs in introducing this measure. I think what the hon. the Minister ought to do now, if he wishes to persist in this, is to go back to the Indian community, the people who have helped in financing, and say, “I have failed. Will you form a committee, come to Parliament and ask for a university, because I intend giving you what you should have”. I think that is one course. Another course is embodied in the following amendment which I now move—

Mr. Speaker, I should have liked to reply at length to the hon. member’s speech, but my time is very limited. Therefore I merely want to make this comment. At the beginning of his speech the hon. member for Kensington said that the problems in connection with the Indian university college are altogether different in nature from those of the Bantu university colleges. At this stage I want to give him the assurance that the broad principle in connection with the establishment of this university is precisely the same as the principles on which the establishment of the other universities is based.

The hon. member also referred in great detail to the clauses, something which the hon. member could more conveniently have done during the Committee Stage. In the course of my speech I shall also try to deal with the hon. member’s other remarks.

The greatest progress in the field of higher education for the Indians, i.e. education at university level, was made in 1960 when the Government decided to establish a separate university college for the Indians on the same basis as the university colleges which already existed then for the other peoples and race groups. This university college came into being on the one hand as a consequence of Act 45 of 1959, which also supports the Government’s policy of parallel development. On the other hand it was a consequence of the democratic tendency in education. It is true that after the First World War there was particular interest in higher éducation. After the Second World War interest increased especially in respect of university and tertiary education. The Government realized that the university of the second half of the twentieth century could not merely be an academic ivory tower, but that it should be a community institution and should also be sensitive to the pulse of the community and able to react positively to that pulse.

The universities and university colleges in South Africa were established by the Government to give sufficient opportunities to all the peoples and race groups for the satisfaction of their highest academic aspirations. The National Government therefore wanted to give the various peoples and race groups in South Africa the maximum opportunity for the maximum development, on a higher academic plane as well. It is consequently also against this background that the establishment of a separate university college for the Indian population took place in November 1960, which was also the beginning of a new era in the history of higher education for the Indians. They are at present accepted as an indigenous national group which must be accommodated within the White sphere. At the same time it is also quite clearly the Government’s policy that it must accommodate the Indians separately. In the more than 100 years in which the Indians have been in South Africa, this population group retained and maintained its character as a separate cultural community. As far as the Indians were concerned, there was very little talk of integration with other national communities. What has been done at various levels in Government spheres for the Indians, has been rightfully aimed at preserving and perpetuating their identity as a separate group. The Indians already realize that, under the policy of the National Party Government, education is helping them at all levels, apart from supplying knowledge, to retain their own lanuage, traditions, culture, background and identity. The university college, where the number of students has in recent times increased with rapid strides, has developed an individual educational pattern under White guidance and guardianship. It is also developing to greater maturity. In this connection I merely want to associate myself with what the hon. the Minister said, i.e. that one would very much like to pay tribute and give thanks to the University of South Africa for the work which has been done there.

Initially there were, on the one hand, actual attempts at boycotting this new university college. On the other hand, there were attempts to have the Indian community at least aloof from this new development. The sincere efforts which the Government made were initially treated with suspicion. Doubts were expressed in respect of the staff, the Salisbury Island building, which was a former naval building, the standard of work and the examinations, which would possibly be inferior, as we have also heard in the debates about the other university bills. The university college therefore had to take its first step in a very hostile atmosphere. The Indian community was also stimulated by unfavourable criticism on the part of the Press, so that the first students were confused and unsure. Those more or less 114 students, 103 of whom were full-time students, enrolled when the college opened in spite of the destructive criticism. This first small group of students can therefore be regarded as the pioneers at that university college. To crown it all the increased matriculation exemption standards came into force in 1960 and this decreased the numbers admitted to the college even further. These first 114 students, some of whom were extra-mural students, actually went to that university in fear, because bogeys had been conjured up by the unsympathetic Press and other bodies hostile to this idea. In time the sound barrier of prejudice, suspicion and mistrust was broken. The able rector of this university college and the dedicated staff tackled their task in great earnest. They gained the respect of their students, and because it radiated out from that centre, of the Indian community as well. Greater confidence in and acceptance of the institution developed among the Indian community because they fully realized that the State had only the best in mind for them and that only the best was good enough. This fact is clearly proved by the well-equipped laboratories and libraries which exist at this university college.

On 1st April, 1963, the university college became the administrative responsibility of the Department of Indian Affairs, while it was academically still tied to the University of South Africa. The practical proof of the confidence and acceptance of the Indian university by the Indian community and the gradual breakdown of prejudice is very well reflected in the increasing number of students. I merely briefly want to quote a few figures. I have already referred to the number of students in 1961. In 1962 the number of students increased to 433, in 1964 to 973, in 1966 to 1,129 and in 1968 to 1,407. At the present moment the enrollment at the Indian College is 1,701. This is a growth rate of which the university college and its competent rector, Professor S. P. Olivier, as well as the Indian community, can justifiably be proud. One should actually label this increase in the number of students as phenomenal. The university college has also expanded as far as its directions of study and faculties are concerned, since provision was made for more directions of study. In 1961 there were merely two faculties with 17 departments. In 1968 there were four faculties with 30 departments. The hon. the Minister has already referred to the lecturing and administrative staff and I do not want to cover the field again. Apart from the increase in the number of students, staff and departments, there was also an increase in courses and subjects taught. For example, in 1961 there were only 32 subjects offered, but in 1966 there were 66. I should like to refer to one course which was recently introduced at the university college, i.e. the course in Oriental studies. This is a unique course because it is the first time that such a course has been introduced on such a basis at a university in Africa. The Oriental languages offered include, inter alia, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu and Sanskrit. There are only two universities in Africa, namely the University of Pretoria and the University of Cairo, which offer certain of these Oriental languages as courses. This course in Oriental languages was very cordially welcomed by the Indian community. At the new university which is under construction and to which the hon. the Minister referred, the number of courses will naturally be extended further because more facilities will be available. The construction programme is already under way and it is expected that the University of Durban-Westville will be completed by 1972, and that it will be able to accommodate about 2,000 students.

The progress of the University College of Durban, the standard of work done there and the extent to which this institution has been welcomed and accepted by the Indian community, serve as a straightforward and resounding proof of the wisdom and success of the Government’s policy and the definite direction it is taking. It is specifically under the National Party Government’s apartheid policy that the Indians in the Republic are coexisting without friction with the Whites on the one hand and with other race groups on the other, according to their own distinctive pattern.

I want to conclude and briefly refer to the speeches made by hon. members opposite. I should merely like to ask hon. members opposite one question, and that is in connection with clause 21 of the Bill. Clause 21 reads as follows:

Through the mouth of the hon. member for Houghton we know what the Progressive Party’s policy is, which she has often informed us of. At this stage I should like to ask the next hon. member of the United Party who takes part in this debate to tell us very definitely what their policy is, because I have facts here of the debate in 1959 in connection with the extension of university education. In the discussion of the Extension of University Education Bill the hon. member for Orange Grove asked the following question in his speech (Hansard, Volume 100, Column 3233):

I should like to ask the United Party to tell us frankly what their policy is. Would they in fact also like white students to be admitted to this university, as the hon. member for Orange Grove stated in 1959?

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great attention to what the hon. member for Koedoespoort had to say, particularly when he began his speech by saying that he was going to answer what the hon. member for Kensington had put to the hon. the Minister. He said that he did not have very much time at his disposal, but that he would in the course of his speech reply to what I think are the unanswerable propositions put forward by the hon. member for Kensington. True to form, however, we received no answer. Not one single word was said by the hon. member for Koedoespoort in reply to the excellent case put forward by the hon. member for Kensington where he showed emite incontrovertibly that the attitude of the Department of Indian Affairs was quite different last year when it came to the establishment of a technical college for Indians. Whether this is because we have a new Minister of Indian Affairs or not, I am not sure.

“Verlig”.

I do not call people “verlig” when they belong to the Nationalist Party. We had a verkrampte Minister of Indian Affairs last year and this year we must have a super-verkrampte Minister of Indian Affairs. He might be a super-verkrampte, because it is not difficult to be one. This is the only possible explanation, because the hon. member for Koedoespoort could not find an answer and I doubt very much whether any other hon. member on the other side of the House, including the hon. the Minister, is going to be able to explain why it was acceptable to the Government last year to have a council which was appointed from certain bodies like the local authorities and why the Government is apparently unequivocally prepared—and the hon. the Minister will no doubt put me right if I am wrong—to allow the Indian College of Technical Education to accept donations without any reference to the hon. the Minister and without needing his approval.

It has been going for a long time.

I do not care how long it has been going. The University College of Durban—now to be the University of Durban-Westville—has also been going for quite a long time. By now it should be quite obvious to the hon. the Minister that there are a lot of very responsible Indian citizens who are quite capable of running the university. There are many who want to give donations and they do not necessarily want the hon. the Minister to put his little stamp of approval on those donations. It is rather insulting to have to submit a donation for Ministerial approval. We had a very interesting interjection by an hon. member last night who said “Do you want Defence and Aid to give a donation there?”. Presumably he felt that they would start chains of terrorism or some such nonsense. It is all so far-fetched and ridiculous that it is not worth any argument.

Here we have a community, where some of its members are well-to-do but by no means all of them, contrary to popular South African opinion which is that every Indian in the country is rolling in money. On the contrary, about 70 per cent of the Indian population live in very impoverished circumstances. About 30 per cent of the Indian population are well-to-do and a small number of that 30 per cent are very well-to-do. But it is significant that the Indian population has been one of the most generous of our racial groups in supporting the education of their own children. They are a very advanced section of our community, even in comparison with white South Africans, in that they place enormous store on education for their children; and since it is not compulsory for Indian children to go to school—although the Minister’s Department has stated that that is their aim and that they are working towards compulsory education for Indian children—it is the Indians themselves who have supplied millions of rand over the years in order to set up educational institutions of all kinds—primary schools, secondary schools and university colleges—for their children. They are, as I have said, a very advanced and educated section of the population.

Which university college?

Well, they are certainly giving money to the technical college; of that I am sure, and I am sure that they are supplying bursaries to the university too. I am quite certain that they are sending a large number of students to the medical school in Natal. I would be very surprised to find that I am wrong in this regard.

But that is not this college.

I am talking in general. I doubt whether they will give donations to this college; they may not give donations to this college because they have to have it vetted by the hon. the Minister. This already casts a sort of slur on the whole objectivity of donations. Maybe they will feel differently about it. But I am sure that they are supporting many Indian students who attend the medical school in Durban. This is a very special population group therefore, and I agree 100 per cent with what the hon. member for Kensington has said. This is a very special case and it is quite beyond me why for the fifth time we have to pass exactly the same Bill that we had to pass for the first, second, third and fourth times in respect of three African universities and one Coloured university. As I say, culturally this is the most advanced section of our non-white population.

They still have a lot to learn.

So has the hon. member for Algoa a lot to learn, if it comes to that, and so have all of us a lot to learn. That does not mean a thing. I am talking about a whole section of our community, the Indian section, which is by far the most advanced, culturally and academically, of all the non-white groups, and I might tell the hon. member for Algoa that there are very many Indian people who are better educated and more intelligent than a great many white people in this country.

Who denies that some are better educated?

Whether he likes it or not, this is one of the facts of life, and we have to accept it. I want to say at once to the hon. member for Koedoespoort that, of course, he is quite right in saying that my views are well known about the segregation of the universities. The line which I take here is no different, of course, from the line which I took in the case of the other universities. I accept the principle that a university should not be segregated. I say that the Durban-Westville university should be an open university and should be allowed to accept students of other races. Sir, I have to say this at this stage; it is part of my Second Reading contention anyway, because it is one of the things that I object to. It is one of the reasons why I will vote against the Second Reading, but unfortunately I do not think I will be present when the House divides on the Second Reading. However, I wish to make my views unequivocally clear in this regard. At the Committee Stage I will call for a division on this very important clause, just as I will call for a division on the conscience clause.

I do not think you will get the Official Opposition to support you in that regard.

Well, that may be so; I will not have the opportunity to find out. [Interjections.] I am sorry, too, because perhaps there might toe other members who would support me in this regard. But as far as the segregation clause is concerned, and also as far as the absence of the conscience clause is concerned—that is to say, clauses 14 and 23, as applied to students and staff at this Indian university—I would take the strongest exception …

I am wondering why you did not move that the Bill be read this day six months.

I will tell the hon. the Minister. I am not against the concept of establishing a university as such. I am not against that concept as I would be, for instance, against the concept of a 90-day detention Bill: under any circumstances I would not accept that, certainly not in peace-time at any rate. I am certainly not against the concept of an Indian university. What I am against is that the constitution of this proposed university contains a number of objectionable clauses which the Select Committee proposed by the hon. member for Kensington could have changed if the Bill had been referred to a Select Committee before the Second Reading. A Select Committee could have rejected the Bill entirely, in which event there would be no university at all at this stage. That is the whole point. As the hon. the Minister knows very well if you move that a Bill be read this day six months, then in terms of parliamentary procedure it means that the Bill must never be read at all. Well, I am not against the concept of an Indian university but I am against it at this stage. I do not think we know nearly enough about the stage of advancement of the Durban University College. That is my point, and therefore I would be quite happy if a Select Committee rejected the Bill entirely, at this stage. I have made it quite clear that I do not think that a Select Committee is enough. I said this on the other Bills and I say it again now: I wanted an independent commission of inquiry which would have gone into all the criteria applying to the transitional stage from a university college to a university. Sir, this is exactly what we had in the case of the white universities. Before the Natal University College became a full university, an independent commission was set up under Professor Brookes and various other educationists. The Commission’s report was tabled and we knew exactly what stage of educational development and academic standards the University College of Natal had already achieved.

Was that done in the case of every white university?

It was done in the case of a great number of the white universities. Of course, it was not done when two or three new white universities were needed immediately. It was not done in the case of the Rand Afrikaans University and in the case of the Port Elizabeth University, but, of course, it was done in the case of Potchefstroom, the Orange Free State, the Witwatersrand, Natal and Cape Town. They were all old university colleges and before they were converted to universities there was this searching inquiry. The criteria that were examined were the academic qualifications of the staff, the achievements of staff and students both in research and, in the case of students, in post-graduate work. This is the sort of criterion that was correctly applied. I might say that in the case of this university that we are dealing with now, two of the objections that I had to the university colleges of Zululand, Turfloop and Fort Hare may have fallen away; I say “may” because I do not know since there has not been an inquiry. In the first place, of course, there are considerably more students already at this university college, according to the figures quoted to us by the hon. the Minister a few moments ago. We know that there are far more than 300 or 400 students, such as is the case, for instance, at the University College of Zululand. There are at present 1,700 students at the Indian University College. That is quite an appreciable number of students. They are not all degree students, of course. Secondly, and most important of all, at least this university is situated in an urban complex. It is within easy reach of thousands of Indian students. They do not have to go somewhere out in the bundu to attend a university, which immediately cuts out all those students who cannot afford boarding fees and it cuts out students who might be able to do some sort of part-time job while they are studying, so the potential number of students at this proposed university is, of course, greater than the potential number of students at Turfloop, Fort Hare of Zululand. But, I cannot say specifically that there are no other objections. I do not know whether the other criteria have been complied with, and therefore I wanted a searching enquiry, and I do not know what the hurry is.

Do you feel that this university, besides being open to Whites, should also be open to all other non-Whites?

Yes.

So it would lose its character as an Indian university?

I do not take the view that we want segregated universities at all. I think that at university level our young people should be enabled to know each other and to understand each other’s point of view. After all, the Government has admitted that the Indians are an integrated section of the population; they are not going to be sent back to India. That idea was dropped years ago. They are here for good. There is no Indianstan or other area which can be set aside for them. They are here, and I cannot see any reason why they should be isolated from the white students or the African students or the Coloured students.

And if they say that they do not want us?

If the Indians themselves say that they do not want it, then that is a different thing, but I do not think the hon. the Minister has consulted them.

They most definitely do not want Bantu students to come there.

Well, let us put it this way: Let us have an open university which students of all races who want to go there, will be able to attend. Let us have one of those and see how it goes. [Interjection.] I know it is against the hon. the Minister’s policy, but he is asking me what I would like to see, so I am telling him. I know that there is very little hope of my realizing my wishes but since he has given me the opportunity of telling him what my wish is, I am doing so. There should be an open university to which all students can go. After all, the Witwatersrand University and the Cape Town University were quite prepared to have African students, Coloured students and Indian students; it was the Government’s policy to close the door. If there were white parents who did not want their children to attend those universities, there were a couple of segregated universities, teaching through the medium of both official languages, to which their children could be sent. They could go to Rhodes which is English-medium and which did not admit African, Indian or Coloured students, to the best of my knowledge. The University of Natal was a semi-integrated university because classes were held separately but the courses were exactly the same and the students presumably did meet on the campus. For Afrikaans-speaking students, of course, there was a great choice of segregated universities. All the Afrikaans medium universities have always been segregated. I do not see this great problem.

Even at Cape Town and Witwatersrand, the non-white students are not allowed to take any part in the life of the university.

That is not because of the university; that is because of the over all shadow of Government policy; that is the reason.

What was the position in 1948?

We have come a long way since 1948; that is 20 years ago. I can give the hon. member who is very young compared with me the assurance that if there had not been a National Government going in precisely the opposite direction, indoctrinating people and bringing the heavy educative value of the law of the land to bear on people’s thinking in South Africa, there would not have been the slightest objection by now at the open universities to students taking full part in all university activities. Let me tell the hon. the Minister that even now there are efforts being made to try to bring this about, despite the indoctrination over the past 20 years …

Individual efforts.

Despite the indoctrination of 20 years, I think if you approach the principals of the open universities you will find that they personally—I cannot speak for them but this is how I would gauge their thinking —would not object. They know perfectly well that there are threats to cut their grants; they know that there is intimidation and talk of pending legislation if they go against the major wishes of the Government. So it becomes impossible. [Interjections.] I am not interested in what the United Party thinks; I can only say what I think. The point is that even with all these restrictions which are presently brought to bear on the non-white students attending the white universities, if they are given the option of whether they want to go to an Indian segregated university or an African segregated university or a Coloured segregated university, I bet you will have a lot of Africans who will choose the white university even though they cannot play rugby or go into the swimming pool, or may not attend the dances on the campus; because they want the tremendous interchange of ideas you get at a great university, where there are people from all over the country and even from overseas. There is a cosmopolitan atmosphere, an enlightened atmosphere, and this is what students of this era want. We cannot turn our backs on student movements throughout the world. The movement is out-going; it is not inward looking or narrow. It is not for people who are “verkramp”. It is really enlightened, and that is what students are looking for. They seek the exchange of ideas and the broadening of knowledge. They want to be educated in the widest sense, in the real meaning of that word. And this university will not achieve this.

As I say, there are many clauses I object to here. There is the senate and the council. To the most educated section of our non-Whites it is an insult to say they need an advisory council and an advisory senate. Does the Minister realize that there are hundreds of university graduates among the Indians? There are professional men and well set-up businessmen who can hold their own with any of the moguls of commerce in this country and who should be able to play their part in the council of that university. Take the senate. Good gracious me, there are medical men and there are lawyers and teachers who have had years of experience who should be able to take up positions on the staff and serve on the senate of that university. This autocracy of the Minister in the hiring and firing of staff, and the regulations he will no doubt apply to students, are more objectionable here perhaps even than in the case of the other universities. Again I mention the conscience clause and the segregation clause, which of course are basically objectionable as far as I am concerned. Again no mention is made of a convocation. Why does not the Minister put in provisions in this Bill for convocation when there are already thousands of Indian graduates who could form a convocation right now? I put it to him as a fair-minded man and as a sportsman of some considerable repute. Does he think there is any justification for this position whatsoever other than a purely narrow racial outlook, a discriminatory outlook, a denigrating outlook, which lowers the status of Indian people below that of white people, irrespective of standards of culture, of education and of achievement? Many of the Indians have achieved great heights, despite all the difficulties they have in this country. Does he think it fair that in the case of the two year old Rand Afrikaans University, right at the beginning, several years before any graduates or any members of convocation could be produced, there is already a clause in the constitution which makes provision for convocation to take over its natural and correct role in the constitution of the university, but here where the Indian University is concerned and where there are already available thousands of Indians who could play their part immediately in running their own university, which the Minister thinks they will be so proud of, they are not allowed to? If they are so proud of their university, surely they should play an intrinsic role in the running of that university. Can the Minister fell me what possible justification there can be for this omission? I do not think he can. The only explanation is that of narrow discrimination, because after all this is not even crossing the colour line; in fact it is in keeping with Government policy and parallel development, each unto himself, up to the top level, the sky is the limit, and all that. Now tell me why in this segregated Indian university the Indian graduates in South Africa, of whom there are thousands, should not be allowed to play a part in the internal running of the university now. [Interjection.] It should have been brought in now, ab initio, as was done in the case of the University of Port Elizabeth and certainly in the case of the R.A.U. It cannot be justified, except on the one ground which I think the Minister might be ashamed to admit, and that is the ground of narrow racial discrimination. Or the Minister does not believe, as the hon. member for Malmesbury had the impertinence to say with regard to the Coloured University, that there are no Coloured people fit to sit on the council. Does the Minister dare to say that about the Indians?

They will have an advisory council.

The advisory council means nothing in anybody’s mind, except that of the Government, which is trying to justify its discriminatory practices. It is a bluff and a farce. It is an appointed body and it certainly has no real powers. All the real powers for running a university which devolve on the council in a normal university are excluded from the purview of this council. Last night I asked the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration what sort of things the advisory council of the University of Zululand was consulted about, and he could not give examples; he just generalized and said all sorts of things. I do not think he gave any specific examples at all, but I could have given him one example. The example I was given was that it was put to the advisory council of the Zululand University whether it was correct for the male students to go to the local store to do their shopping for the odds and ends students buy at the same hours that the female students went there; was this in keeping with the ethnic practices of the Africans? I know this from somebody who was on the staff of that university. Imagine that being the sort of thing they are consulted about. That is very important, is it? I do not know what the Council of the Indian University would consult the advisory council about, but really the Minister must not bluff himself that this advisory council is in any way a substitute for a proper council. It is not. The council is the major executive organ of a university. I can see no justification for this most advanced section of our non-white people to be so rudely—that is the only way I can describe it—excluded from the internal affairs of the university, and what I say about the council also applies to the senate. For all these reasons I am opposed to this Bill. I am going to sit down now because I am exhausted, as I am sure everybody else is who has taken part in every one of these debates, and tried to think up new arguments for each Bill.

You are wasting your time.

Yes, I think I am. This is the tragedy, but one goes on struggling even before one goes down for the fifth time; one gives one last despairing cry before one disappears under the waves. I could have saved myself this trouble, because when the hon. member for Kensington moved his amendment the hon. the Minister simply said that he was sorry to disappoint the hon. member for Kensington, which shows of course that his arguments were given no weight at all, although they were excellent arguments. The trouble is that Ministers come to this House with closed minds—those who have minds. This Minister has come here with a closed mind. He is not prepared to listen to any arguments at all. In fact, I often wonder why all of us in our innocence and in our futile optimism come here and go through the motions. Should we not all just sit here and shake our heads showing that we do not agree and let the Bill go through exactly as this Bill is going to go through, registering our protests but not bothering to think up arguments to put across the floor?

But I am going to accept amendments.

Yes, the Minister says he is going to accept amendments, but what do those amendments amount to? They mean nothing at all. I am sorry to say this. The Opposition might go storming round the country saying what great amendments they moved which were accepted. They can make all the political capital out of it they can for all I care, but I want to say that the amendments accepted by the Minister do not mean a thing. All he is going to do is to allow the council to elect its own chairman, and I think he is going to allow the advisory senate also to do so. Bighearted Frankie, the people’s choice! [Interjections.] But the snag in all this is that both the council and the senate consist of members of whom eight out of 11 are nominated by the Minister.

You are giving me promotion; the State President does that.

All right, by the State President, but I have an idea that the State President just might delegate this important task to the Minister, who in turn might delegate it to a member of his Department. But I want to say that the great concessions he has granted, these two amendments, that he now says he is going to agree to, are not very important. The Government is in a mould. They cannot think differently in any context of racial issues and that is why I say we waste our time when we put up all these eloquent arguments, because they never move the Minister and his colleagues one fraction from their appointed course. The course is decided when a Bill is presented to this House, and from there the mixture as before emerges when we come to the third reading. For all these reasons I shall go down for the fifth time. Unfortunately I shall not be here to vote against the third reading, but I think I have made my views clear.

It has once more been proved that the United Party and the Progressive Party are in fact merely birds of a feather. The correspondence was once more proved by the delight of the hon. member for Houghton at the point which the hon. member for Kensington made, and then she still said that a reply would not be given because there could be no reply. The reply is quite simple, but it is only people who are dense who want to know nothing of such a reply. In the first place it must be realized that the hon. member for Houghton made the mistake of speaking of the establishment of a higher college for technical education. It was not an establishment. The M. L. Sultan College already existed years ago and was established purely by Indian capital. It was brought into being by the Indians and administered by them. In time they began to receive subsidies from the State, through the Department of Education, and only subsequently was representation given to certain other bodies, including the State. When the technical college for higher Indian education was established by legislation last year, it was not a new college; it was the taking over of an existing institution which already had a tradition of its own and which was brought into being by Indian capital and which had already existed for Indian students for years. The basic difference between the M. L. Sultan Higher Technical College and this university which is now being given university status and academic independence or autonomy by legislation, is that this university was not established with Indian capital. It does not have a tradition of Indian administration. It was established by the State of the Whites of South Africa. It is maintained with the funds of the Whites in South Africa. This is being done for the Indians by the Whites, in their capacity as guardians, until the stage is reached where they will be given greater authority over their own organization. That is the basic difference between the one and the other.

May I ask a question?

No. I am sorry, Sir, I should like to answer questions, but our Whips have arranged matters in such a way that we only have a limited time. Hon. members on the opposite side of the House know that I am always prepared to answer questions, because I can give them the worst end of the stick.

Sir, there is another point of similarity between the Progressive Party and the United Party. It has been said time and again that they are the same, except that the United Party is the Progressive Party in slow motion. The hon. member for Kensington once again argued for a mixed controlling council for the university. It is indeed a fact that they envisage that all educational institutions for the non-Whites now being established by these five Bills, should have mixed councils. They have also said that those institutions should be open universities. The only difference is that the hon. member for Houghton put it more clearly. They are continuing to build upon the same old tradition of colonialism which we have already had for centuries. Centuries ago, when the colonial movement began, one of the first things the British did in India, Pakistan and all those places, was to establish schools there. English was the language used. Then they also taught those people how to play cricket. It has always been their point of departure to make brown Englishmen of those people, if I may use the term. They were never prepared to allow those people to retain their own identity, and to base their development on their own identity. There lies the fundamental difference between the approach of the Opposition, which is actually the extension of the old colonialism of centuries ago, and the approach of the National Party, which still proceeds from the standpoint …

Order! Hon. members may not read newspapers in the House.

There is nothing else to do.

Then the hon. member can go and read his newspaper outside.

The National Party still proceeds from the standpoint that each population group has the right to retain its own identity and to develop it. As long as the National Party’s policy is carried out in South Africa—and that will still be for many years, if not for centuries—that pattern will be maintained. As long as that is the case, the policy of the United Party or of the Progressive Party will not be acceptable. The hon. member for Houghton referred to the difference between the Indian university and the other non-white universities. It is indeed a fact that there are already thousands of Indian graduates, but it must also be realized that this university was established and is maintained by the white State. Until such time as we are in a position to hand over the control of it to the management and administration of the Indian national community, the appointed controlling body of the university will be controlled by Whites. We realize and accept that the Indians are the most educated population group among the non-Whites of South Africa.

It is therefore probable that they will be the first group to whom full control can be handed over. But it will still take a while before that time comes along. We shall not accept the policy of the United Party in this connection. At present the position is that, while there are 1,701 students registered at the Indian university, there are, despite this, an additional 1,775 Indians studying elsewhere at universities. Last year R1,094 of them were registered at the University of South Africa, taking correspondence courses. At the University of Natal, especially the medical faculty, which has a non-white division of the university, there were 351 Indian students. There were also 196 Indian students at the University of the Witwatersrand and 134 at the University of Cape Town. This position is chiefly attributable to the fact that the Indian university does not yet have all the courses for which a need exists among Indian students. There are good prospects that faculties for medical study and engineering will shortly be established at the Indian university. Then many of the Indian students at present studying at other universities could also be taken up at the University of Durban-Westville.

One point on which the Opposition hammered was the fact that the university, as presently established, is not being given autonomy, The university is being given academic autonomy. It is being given academic autonomy in the sense that the lecturing staff, in collaboration with the external examiners, will have full academic autonomy.

Where do you get that?

But it is also a fact that that university will have no administrative autonomy. The simple reason for that is that the university is still being subsidized fully by the white State and economy. Until such time as we can progress to such an extent that the university can be fully maintained by the economy of the Indian community, they shall not be able to obtain administrative autonomy. This is a body established by the Whites, and therefore the Whites will want to retain administrative control over it until that day comes. I emphasized that as Whites we accepted the guardianship and the responsibility expected of us. But this means that at some time or other that guardianship will have to be relinguished, in proportion to the handing over of authority and personal administration. It is in that sense that this university is being established.

Mr. Speaker, I am flattered to think that after the Minister’s Department, and no doubt the hon. the Minister himself, studied the debate on the Extension of Universities Act of 1959—and it was a debate which continued through the night when we spoke for 40 minutes each in order to keep it going, a really colossal task—the mountain groaned and roared and brought forth a mouse. Let me see what the mouse was. I am flattered that through all that debate the best they could find to bring up was this. I am quoting from the Hansard of 10th April, 1959, column 3470—

Now. Sir, it is perhaps a little unwise …

Is that what the hon. the Minister quoted?

The hon. the Minister quoted half the sentence.

This is what I quoted—

Not only am I flattered that out of all those pearls of wisdom that were scattered about the place during that night this is all that could be found, but it gives me a great feeling of satisfaction to think that a man who was then a backbencher could make such an impression on the Government. And they learned the lesson which I taught them. Because what did they do? They said that we were not going to let these universities die. And what did they do? They first of all made it impossible for the students to go anywhere else. Here was a group of people who are well known to be avid for education. They are a group of people, as stated by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana, who put up large sums of money to provide for their children. They put up a tremendous amount of money for the education of their children. They do not get it paid out of taxes as in the case of the hon. member’s children. They put it up themselves. They built this M.L. Sultan Technical College, an advanced technical college. They continue to support it.

And so does the Government.

And so does private industry.

And so does the council.

Anyhow, after all that they firstly said that they were going to fence the Indian in so that he cannot go anywhere. The Indians decided, and it is characteristic of them, to make the best of a bad job. In the second place the Government said that they would see they have enough money. They said that they would not make themselves dependent on donations and that they would pay the lot. We now use Government funds to pay the lot. The colossal amount which these university colleges already cost is well known. Why did they not do what is done in other countries and have two universities, one where the Indian and the mixed people could go and another where the Indians only could go. How soon do they think they will empty their universities if they did that? There are other countries like Holland where provision is made for Catholics and Protestants. The two universities are there. If you go to Ireland you find a Catholic university and a Protestant university. They are not fenced in. They let the students go where they wish. The hon. member who has just sat down accused us of colonialism. Of all forms of colonialism the indoctrination of the growing boy, the indoctrination of the youth, is the worst form of colonialism that is known. It integrates them into the class where the authority wants to put them. That is what is happening. They are put there and they have no choice. I now want to leave the hon. member for Umhlatuzana. I want to ask the hon. the Minister how much trouble he has taken to study the people who have had the misfortune to be placed under his control.

Misfortune?

I think so. I think they think so too. Time no doubt will tell as we progress. Here he is dealing with the products of the oldest known civilization. The people of India are the oldest known civilized body in the world. The oldest documents in the world, the Vedic documents, are in Sanskrit. Sanskrit is the original language, the language from which our own languages are derived. They are not allowed to run their own education. They have produced poets, philosophers, religious leaders and great soldiers. The hon. member for Koedoespoort mentioned Tagore and Sastri, who was the greatest speaker of English in his time. All these men have come from India, and these are the people that Sastri actually came to look after and to uplift. That is why he came here. Now, what is the policy of this Government. Apartheid! And who knows more about apartheid than the Indian. They invented it. They invented it over 2,000 years ago. They still have it. Caste is based on colour. It came from colour, it was the lighter coloured Parsees and Persians who imposed caste on the dark and coloured natural native Indians. It is still there. They still have their undesirables, untouchables and pariahs, and they still have their parsees, at the top. If the shadow of an untouchable is thrown on his food, he throws it away. That is apartheid. Why do we not go and learn from them? I suggest that the Government should go and find out.

I did not know that you have a verkrampte in your midst.

The caste system is not resented. It is accepted. It has almost become a religion.

Accepted by whom?

By the Indian people. They accept it.

Apartheid.

Not apartheid. They learnt from us here under the Smuts Government what freedom can be. That is why they resent apartheid now. Caste has lasted for over 2,000 years. How long is apartheid going to last? We know that it is falling down already. It is falling to pieces.

Order! The points made by the hon. member are quite interesting, but I do not think they have very much to do with the Bill.

Yes, Sir, I appreciate that. There are other things I could say. I can suggest to the hon. the Minister that he should study the people whom I say have the misfortune to be under his control. That is the least he should do. It is his duty to study and see what sort of people these are. They are people who come from an old civilization. Their people were writing and talking when ours were living in caves and killing animals to clothe themselves. They are an advanced people. I should like to tell the hon. the Minister that although he cannot find qualified people for his senate or for his council, the University of Natal is able to find Indians good enough to lecture in a medical school. And what is more, that is at the instance of this Government. When the medical school first started and large numbers of white doctors had to be put in the hospital to keep the medical school going, as they still do, this Government wrote to the University of Natal and said: What do you mean by using white doctors in your hospital? The Government had to admit that the position was impossible and that there were not enough non-White doctors. But the day will come, and it must come, when white doctors will not be employed in this hospital. They will have to make room for the graduates from the Indians and the Bantu. As I have said, there are already Indian lecturers in the Medical School in Durban who are employed by the university to lecture. But the hon. the Minister cannot find one to put in his council. I must say that when I saw the Bill I had hoped that we were coming to the forecast that was given in the days of the Extension of Universities Bill when it was said that there would be a council and an advisory council and it was accepted by me and my colleagues on the understanding that it was a temporary state of affairs, that the day would come when they would move in that direction, and that the council would take on the functions of the advisory council and the advisory council the functions of the council. Now, if the hon. the Minister had studied these unfortunate people, and had realized their quality, their law-abidingness, their capacity for learning, their capacity for suffering, he would never have done this. He would have said that these are a fine people who are able to look after themselves. They have thousands of years of education behind them. He would then have said: I shall change the advisory council to be the council, and the council to be the advisory council. That is more or less the promise which was given to us at the time these university colleges were created. Apart from having assumed control over various other things, the hon. the Minister also controls or think he can control the external examiners. It is laid down in one of the clauses that they will be approved by the Minister and that they will more or less do what he tells them to do. He must have extremely little knowledge of the average external examiner, certainly in so far as this country is concerned. No self-respecting external examiner will take instructions as to his academic work from anybody, be it a Minister or anybody else. No self-respecting external examiner will act unless it is agreed that where he says a man must fail he must fail.

What are you talking about?

I am talking about external examiners that you have never heard of.

When did the Minister say that he wanted control over them?

It is in the Bill. Have a look. Clause 30 of the Bill dictates what services the external examiner shall provide and the manner in which they will carry out their duties. If the hon. the Minister and the Government believe for one moment that these universities will be accepted by outside bodies such as other universities, with that condition, then they are beyond redemption. Because, as I say, the external examiner is the guarantee of the work of the university. It is the external examiner who does not pay the piper but he calls the tune.

Lastly, I want to add my voice to those of the two previous speakers on this side of the House and ask the Minister why he cannot have a convocation. Why cannot the educated Indian who is a university graduate be used to serve his own people? There are hundreds of them, some graduated in this country and others overseas.

I wonder if the Minister appreciates what the absence of the conscience clause in this Bill means? Nowhere in the education of the country is it so important as in this Bill, and he would have known it had he studied the people. These people have probably eight or ten different religions, from Zoroastrianism to Atheism, some are even circumcised. How is he going to control all these people unless he has a very strict conscience clause in the constitution of the university? Nowhere else is it more important that it should be there, and I hope, as he paid so much attention to a small speech of mine in 1959, that he will bear in mind what I have said and carry it with him when he goes home to-night.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak to the amendment of the hon. member for Kensington, which asks that the Minister should refer this Bill to a Select Committee with the purpose of allowing consultation to take place with the Indian community on a really worth-while and large scale in Natal. I want the Minister to tell us when he replies to the debate what objection he has to the suggestion that this Bill goes to a Select Committee. Because what we have got here is nothing less than a strait-jacket which is being forced on the Indian community in Natal because the Minister is simply following along the lines laid down by the other Ministers dealing with other racial groups. All that we have got here is a Bill which is drawn up word for word the same as the other Bills. These Bills deal with five different groups of people who are different altogether. I believe the Minister owes it as a duty to this House to tell us what objection he can have to allowing this Bill to go to a Select Committee which will allow us to take adequate cognizance of what the people most nearly concerned feel about it, namely the Indian community itself.

Education with the Indian community has been a fetish; it has been the one concern in their lives to which they have sacrificed endlessly and continually. The hon. member for Durban (Central) quoted that great man, Mr. Sastri. I wish to read a few words he addressed to the Indian community in Natal in 1927, when he said—

It is this spirit which has led to the foundation in Natal of institutions such as the M. L. Sultan College.

Are the Indian community against this Bill?

Have you asked them?

It is the spirit of dedication which the Indian community in Natal have shown which led to the establishment of the M. L. Sultan College which was taken over by this Government on the basis listed by the hon. member for Kensington destroying the whole argument of this Government in introducing this Bill. I want the Minister to tell us why this method has been followed in this case and why last year, when we had a Bill for Advanced Technical Education before us which took over an established Indian institution founded by their own money and officered by their own teachers, why a different procedure was followed. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana gave the only reply which I have yet heard, and that is that the Indian community had paid for the M. L. Sultan College, therefore integration on the College council was all right. I want to ask the Minister if that is the measure which the Government applies? If the Indian people pay for their own education, are they allowed to have integrated councils?

If the Minister were to invite the Indian community to make a contribution to this University and they made a substantial contribution, would that then white-wash the affair to allow some of them to be included on the council? I believe what the hon. member for Umhlatuzana said was this, that the council will be controlled by Whites until the Indians can pay for this University themselves. Will the Minister now please tell us when this is going to be, because it clearly pre-supposes that the Indian community will have to levy taxes on their own people. When is the Indian council going to become a tax-levying body? How is the Indian council going to finance this Indian University? Will the Minister now please come forward and tell us what he envisages the future of this University will be? Will he tell us when the council and the advisory council are going to do this “bollemakiesie” that they talk so much about when the one becomes superior and the other becomes advisory? Because the whole pattern of this legislation is to reduce this Indian University’s status in Natal to a department of the hon. the Minister. That is the only conclusion we can draw from this Bill.

I want to ask the Minister how he reconciles this to the attitude of the Government where it requires the Provincial Administration of Natal to set up independent Indian local authorities? The Government requires the Provincial Administration of Natal to force the Indian community to take upon themselves the administration of the area of Verulam on an elected basis and to handle funds. The Government wants the Indians to take political care of an area, and yet at this institute of learning they are not allowed to express themselves other than in an advisory capacity.

We have the Indian Council which is an organization nominated by the Minister in its total make-up, it is completely at his control, at his beck and call. As was asked in the amendments which were put forward by this side in respect of other similar Bills, we ask that there be consultation with those people and that they shall be allowed to take an active part in the running of this University through certain actions which will be allowed for if the Minister accepts the amendments which we propose to make. I think the Minister’s own department accepts the part the Indian community plays in its own schools, in the government of its own schools, in P.T.A.’s, and that kind of thing. Why then is he not prepared to accept that here in the most important sphere of education for the Indian community in Natal?

The Minister will tell us that he has consulted with the Indian Council, with the council of the University-College, with the advisory council, and that they accept that this is the best method which can be employed at the moment. But the Minister begs the question, because he has given them here a form of government of a university which could have been so much more important, so much richer, so much more meaningful to the Indian community. I ask the Minister whether he does not believe that the Indian community deserves better than what this Bill gives them? Are they not able and capable of handling and coping with the problems which the University will pose to them? Are they not able to make a real contribution to the running of the University with the thousands of graduates that they have? They have people who have experience of a university education prior to the founding of this university college.

I believe the Minister owes this House an explanation. It is not sufficient for him to say the Indians have accepted this legislation. He must also say why he does not wish to give them more than what this Bill gives them, why he wants them to be wrapped up in the same kind of ministerial straight-jacket which every other racial group is being wrapped in, and why he will not accept that there is among the Indian community a large body of people able and prepared to carry far more responsibility than this Minister is prepared to give them.

Mr. Speaker, I was interested in what the hon. member for Umhlatuzana had to say and the facts he presented to the House. I am sorry he is not here. I had hoped to ask him a question, but he is not prepared to reply. I think the hon. member misled the House this afternoon, because the information he gave us was incorrect. He suggested that the capital for the M. L. Sultan College came from the Indian people. That, of course, is quite wrong. It did not come from the Indian people. I have a long memory as far as this is concerned. I have been very closely associated with them. I was the first on the audit of the M. L. Sultan College. I know where the funds came from. I was very interested to hear the hon. member for Mooi River, when speaking this afternoon, referring to the speech of the late Sastri. I was at that address in 1927. Shortly afterwards the Indian community put up the necessary funds and a start was made with the Sastri College. A few years later, when the Sastri College was functioning, an approach was made by the Indian merchants asking for a commencement to be made with the Indian technical college part-time classes at night. They approached the principal of the Natal Technical College, who had just retired. He became the first chairman of the Indian Technical Education Committee. I was a former student of the technical college and he asked me whether I would become the honorary auditor, because they had no funds. In that honorary capacity I carried on for many years. I know that donations came in the initial stages from the Europeans for the Indian Technical College Committee. Many leading European citizens gave money. Many Indians gave money. Eventually the M. L. Sultan Trust made a substantial donation which, together with donations from the Durban City Council and from the Government, provided the necessary funds for the start of the M. L. Sultan College. The college has had a mixed council ever since its inception. The late J. H. Hofmeyr was one of those who gave a start to the M. L. Sultan College. We have had a joint council of leading European and Indian members of the community that have worked together till to-day. It is a showpiece in South Africa. It is so much of a showpiece that whenever the Department of Information wants to show what is done for the Indian people, they take them round and show them the M. L. Sultan College, started by the United Party.

By whom?

The M. L. Sultan Technical College originally was started by the United Party.

You may say it was started during the United Party rule, but it was not started by the United Party.

No, it was started during the United Party rule.

That is quite a different matter.

Yes, but it is quite a different matter when the present Department of Information take people from overseas, particularly, to the M. L. Sultan College and claim that it is part of the Nationalist Party policy. That is my point. It is a great showpiece, but no credit is given to the past. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana stood up this afternoon and tried to claim that the M. L. Sultan College has a mixed committee because all the capital came from the Indians. That is what he tried to infer to the House this afternoon. This M. L. Sultan College is an organization which has carried on for well over 30 years and it is developing every year. Substantial amounts have been given by the Government, the City Council, industrialists in Durban, the sugar industry and the Indian community. It is our contention that this council should have been representative of all sections of the community. The Indian people have given an example of what they can do for themselves. There is no reason why this university council should have an inferior status.

Then I come to a minor item in the Bill, namely the short title which describes the Bill as the “University of Durban-Westville Bill”. The Bill states that the seat of the university shall be at Westville in Durban. I want to tell the Minister that Westville is not in Durban. It has a separate borough status. The description is wrong and we will deal with that in the Committee stage.

Quite right.

This university college was started in Durban, on Salisbury Island. Subsequently funds were made available and land was bought at Reservoir Hills. Reservoir Hills is part of Westville. The whole of the Reservoir Hills area is an Indian group area and has been determined as such. The mayor and the council of Westville have made representations to me, asking that this misleading description should be put right and that this university should be described as “the University of Westville”. That is the wish of the whole community of Westville. A substantial section of the Indian members of the committee have also asked that we describe it as “the University of Westville”. I hope that the Minister will deal with that in the Committee Stage, when further representations will be made to him. But I do urge upon the Minister the advisability of treating the council of this university in the same way as the council of the M.L. Sultan College is treated. In other words, it must be representative of all sections of the community and not just a body the members of which are appointed by the Minister and are not representative of the people concerned. This is in their interest. I am quite sure that there are many leading Indian men, far better educated than many members on both sides of this House, who are prepared to serve on that committee and render a substantial service to the community. With that plea I am asking the Minister to think again, especially with regard to the composition of the council of this university.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to firstly reply to the speech of the hon. member for Pinetown. He spoke to me about the short title of the Bill. As this is a matter that can be dealt with in the Committee Stage, I should like to leave my argument for that occasion. I should also like to say that when it comes to the description of “Westville in Durban”, the hon. member is quite right. The description is wrong. I discussed it with the Department this morning and the alteration will be made. But it does not apply to the title of the Bill. It applies to this particular point.

I want to reply to the hon. member for Mooi River. When I see the hon. member talking for that side of the House about the Indian community, and putting himself on a pedestal, it makes me a bit sick. I shall tell him why. According to him nothing must be done without consulting and having the views of the Indian people. That is the policy of his party.

In relation to the university.

No, the hon. member spoke in general. The hon. member considers, when it comes to group areas and the Pegging Act, which the United Party passed against the wishes of the Indian community, that that was all right. The point that I am making is that the hon. member must not talk with two voices.

Now we come to the university. The hon. member wants to talk about it. He talks about us not consulting with the Indian community. I admit that in terms of this Bill there is a senate, a council and an advisory council. The advisory council, the members of which are appointed by the State President, is an all Indian advisory council. This all Indian advisory council, as well as the council of the university, were consulted with regard to this Bill. To give the hon. member an idea of the quality of the persons who serve on this Indian Advisory Council, I want to read out their names to him, and then he must tell me if these people are not regarded as leaders in the Indian community. The first is Mr. A. M. Rajab, B.A., who is the chairman. Has the hon. member anything against him?

Read all the names.

Then there is Mr. H. Bodasing, who is a farmer and businessman and chairman of the Natal Indian Canegrowers’ Association; then there is Mr. K. P. Desai, who is an industrialist, prominent in various Indian organizations on the North Coast; Dr. M. H. Ismail, a medical practitioner from Pretoria; Mr. H. E. Joosub, a director of companies, Pretoria, and chairman of the S.A. Indian Council; Mr. J. Naidoo, an educationist; Dr. M. B. Naidoo, an educationist and a member of the S.A. Indian Council; Mr. J. B. Patel, an attorney, a member of the council of the M.L. Sultan Technical College and prominent in welfare organizations; Dr. K. M. Seedat, a medical practitioner and chairman of the Indian Medical Service Trust and chairman of the St. Aidans’ Hospital Management Board. Sir, when you hear hon. members opposite you would think that the Minister and this terrible Government tyranically walk over everybody; you would think that they have not talked to anybody and that they have not consulted anybody. This is simply an attempt to sow suspicion where no suspicion exists. This is the way they have been carrying on and these are the methods that they adopt. Sir, I did not start this debate in an unfriendly way. I know that it is the duty of the Opposition to oppose, but why does the hon. member for Durban (Central) say that I never consulted anybody? I say that this is the body which I consulted. This body was given the opportunity of seeing this Bill and they said that at this stage of their development this was what they wanted. I want to say to the hon. member for Durban (Central) that I thought he was almost apologizing for what he said in 1959. Do you know why he was apologizing? He did not make an actual apology but what he said here sounded almost like one. Contrary to what the hon. member for Durban (Point) said here, let us see what the hon. member for Durban (Central) said here in 1959. He said—

Instead of dying, the Indian University has grown from strength to strength. But that is not all that the hon. member said in those days. He now says that he was a little back-bencher in those days and he wants to know why I pay so much attention to what he said. He is quite right; I read the whole of the 1959 debate and I took some extracts from his speech. Amongst other things he said—

That is right.

You see, Sir, that is the sort of language that was thrown about in those days. He also said—

Sir, we get sick and tired of these comparisons with Hitler and the Russians. What has happened since 1959? The electorate are no longer swallowing that sort of stuff; I have said here once before—this is not original—that the trouble with the Opposition is this: I have heard it said that victory goes to a man’s head but as far as the Opposition is concerned, it is a case of defeat after defeat going to their heads. Sir, I find in looking through Hansard that there were 69 divisions and that 70 members voted against the 1959 legislation. To-day their numbers have dwindled to 35. Do you know why? Their numbers have dwindled because of these suspicions which they have sown over the years; the electorate is no longer swallowing these stories. They no longer believe the Opposition; they have cried “wolf, wolf” too often.

Why are you worrying about it?

I am telling the hon. member the truth. The hon. member for Durban (Central) asked me why I quoted him. He comes from Natal and this is what he said about students—

That is what the hon. member predicted at the time, and while the Bill was being discussed in this House in 1959, members of the Black Sash were displaying placards all around the Parliamentary buildings. Sir, I do not want to cross swords with the hon. member for Durban (Central), but I think that when he refers to me he should, for the sake of the dignity of the House, not use the word “him”. He should refer to me as the Minister, and I do not even mind of he calls me “the member”. After all, there is such a thing as courtesy amongst members. I try to honour him, but I did not feel that he was returning the compliment. He talked about the “poor Indians who have had the misfortune to have this Minister foisted upon them”. I do not know why he finds it necessary to say a thing like that.

But it is a misfortune.

I have spoken to the Indians; I have spoken to the members of the statutory council. I had them down here and I interviewed other Ministers with them. These are things which hon. members opposite would never have done while they were in power. That is the sort of thing that we do and that is why this Government is going from strength to strength. I can say to the hon. member for Mooi River and the hon. member for Durban (Central) that the sort of language that they use here does not meet with the approval of the electorate. I have no objection but if they go on in this way they will go lower and lower, as they have done over the years.

Why are you crying about it?

You see. Sir, they can talk about anything but when you answer them then they squeal, as the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) is doing now.

The hon. member for Mooi River wants to know why I do not want to put Indians on this council. I will tell him why. This council, as the Government has said, is eventually going to be an all-Indian Council. But we are not going to have a mixed council.

When is that going to happen?

I cannot tell the hon. member when. We draw up the time-table, not the Opposition. Sir, it amazes me that hon. members of the Opposition always feel that they can tell us when and how we must do things. We are running the country and we are going to continue running it.

May I ask the hon. the Minister whether he agrees with the statement by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana that the Whites would control the university until the Indians were fully responsible, financially, for the running of the university?

Let me make this point clear first. I will also answer his question. He asked me a question about the council and I am replying to his question. If this country ever has the misfortune to be ruled again by a United Party Government, then there is nothing to prevent hon. members opposite from appointing an all-Indian Council and an all-White advisory council.

What you are going to do in time.

The hon. member is right. We are going to see to it eventually that this council is composed entirely of Indians. We are not going to have a mixed council, which hon. members on that side have been pleading for. That is the basic difference between us.

Why have you got one at Sastri now?

No, the hon. member has his facts wrong; it is the Sultan Technical College. I can tell the hon. member what the reason is. The Sultan Technical College …

Order! That has nothing to do with the Bill.

Saved by the gong!

On a point of order, Sir, the question of the Sultan Technical College was raised by that side of the House.

Order! My ruling is that the hon. the Minister must come back to the Bill. We cannot wander so far afield.

Obviously I must confine myself strictly to the terms of this Bill and, therefore, I want to deal with the amendment moved by the hon. member for Kensington. The hon. member has moved the same amendment here that he has moved in the case of all the other Bills. He also said that he could not understand why the Indians should have the same Bill as the other non-white groups. Surely, it is far better to have a separate Bill or a separate charter for this Indian University than to legislate for this university in a Bill which covers all the various universities? The Indian university will now have its own charter and there is nothing to prevent the Government from amending this measure or from taking administrative steps to permit of faster development at this university than at the Bantu universities, for instance. You can only really change the pace of development toy having separate charters for each of these universities. It is quite possible, therefore, to appoint an all-Indian council. This can be done administratively. You could also have an all-white council at a Bantu university such as the University of Zululand. If necessary, the Act could be amended from time to time to link up with the development that we visualize for this Indian university. That is why I said to the hon. member that I could not understand why he should take such grave exception to specific legislation for specific universities. What I have said here also applies to the Coloured university. Under these separate university charters the time factor, the rate of development, will be under the control of the Minister in charge of the particular portfolio. The hon. member said that he would have preferred all the universities to be under the control of one Minister.

Who said so?

I am not sure whether it was that particular hon. member, but it was said toy an hon. member over there that he felt that the Indian university should not be under the control of the Minister of Indian Affairs, that the Coloured university should not be under the control of the Minister of Coloured Affairs and that the Bantu universities should not be under the control of the Minister of Bantu Education; he would prefer to see all the universities under the control of one Minister. Sir, what was the attitude of the hon. member for Durban (Central) in 1959? Clause 21 of that Bill provided for the exclusion of white students from these universities. The hon. member for Houghton wanted an open university and she called for a division. The hon. member for Durban (Central) voted with her.

That has nothing to do with this Bill.

He is a gentleman.

I want to know whether the hon. member for Durban (Central) is going to call for a division on clause 21 of this Bill.

Wait until we get there.

I hope that the hon. member will show the same courage that he showed when the hon. member for Houghton called for a division and, since she will not be here, that he will come forward like Sir Galahad and call for a division.

Sir, I want to say to the hon. member for Kensington that the Government has decided to go on with this measure, and that it is not going to a select committee. I have decided as Minister that this Bill is not going to a select committee. We are getting on with the job and we are going to carry on with the job, as we have done over the last 10 years, and I am saying that 10 years from to-day you will find that hon. members opposite will claim the credit for the introduction of this Bill.

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

Upon which the House divided:

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

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

Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Second Time.

I move—

This Bill has become necessary as the result of the repeal last year of section 4 of the Electoral Consolidation Act, 1946, and the Separate Representation of Voters Act, 1951, by reason of the provisions of the Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act of 1967. In terms of section 4 of the Electoral Consolidation Act, non-white males in the Cape Province who complied with certain requirements were entitled to be registered as voters at an election of members of the House of Assembly. In consequence of that qualification, they also qualified in terms of the Precious Stones Act of 1964 as it reads at present for diggers’ certificates. A considerable number of Coloureds in the Cape, at present about 60, still are in fact holders of such certificates, and some of them are engaged in digging activities in Barkly West and vicinity. The repeal of the section of the Electoral Consolidation Act to which I have referred and which will come into operation with effect from the date of the dissolution of the present House of Assembly, will result in Coloureds no longer being entitled to be registered as voters at an election of members of the House of Assembly, and with that they will also forfeit their right to obtain diggers’ certificates unless special statutory provision is made so that they can retain that right. That is precisely what is being envisaged with this Bill, which is now under discussion. As will be seen, it is being proposed that section 27 of the Precious Stones Act be extended so that it also makes provision for diggers’ certificates for the Cape Province to be issued to persons who are registered in that province or are entitled to be registered there as voters at an election of members of the Coloured Persons Representative Council of South Africa.

The practical effect of such an amendment would be that Coloureds in the Cape would be able to obtain diggers’ certificates for that province and that the status quo would be maintained. Certificates such as these are only valid in the province of issue. The proposed amendment will also solve another problem which often cropped up in the past. It would make it possible to issue, in deserving cases, diggers’ certificates to Coloured women as well. Up to now Coloured women have been disqualified from obtaining such certificates because they did not have the vote. In this regard it may be added that since 1941 the issuing of diggers’ certificates for digging purposes has been strictly confined to persons who could be regarded as being bona fide professional diggers and whose certificates lapsed as a result of oversight and other factors beyond their control. However, exceptions are nevertheless made, for example where a digger dies and his widow wishes to and is able to carry on with his digging operations. Up to now it has been possible to issue a diggers’ certificate to the widow of a white digger with ministerial approval, but this could not be done in the case of a Coloured widow because she was not, nor could she be, a voter at an election of members for the House of Assembly. If these amendments which are now being proposed are made to the Precious Stones Act, it will be possible for the widows of Coloured diggers to obtain diggers’ certificates in order to carry on with their deceased husbands’ occupation, which in many cases ensures a good subsistence. This Bill will therefore bring relief in such cases and will be a real boon to dependants of Coloured diggers who are robbed of their subsistence by death.

We on this side of the House will support the Bill. However, there are one or two matters I should like the Minister to explain. Firstly, if the Minister looks at the Bill, he will see in line 7 that it says that the Mining Engineer must satisfy himself that the applicant is of good character and in section 28 of the Act the Minister will note, if he looks at subsection (e), that one of the matters which may cancel the diggers’ certificates reads as follows: “has visited a Bantu location or compound on any alluvial digging without the authority of the mining commissioner”. Now, the Minister has just said that it is difficult enough to get a digger’s licence. It is also difficult to make a living there, although the Minister has said that some people do make a living on the diggings. I am a little perturbed because no provision is made in this amending Bill for an appeal against the decision which may be taken by the Mining Commissioner. A digger may quite easily, unwittingly, go to a Bantu location. There may be no ulterior motive whatsoever. But what makes it even worse is that the Act also legislates against a person “who has visited a Bantu location or compound on an alluvial digging”. Such a visit may have taken place some time back. The digger could quite easily then forfeit his digger’s licence. I do not know whether I am in order in dealing with this matter, Sir, but it does relate to the question of good character, when it comes to the issuing of a digger’s licence.

I am afraid that the hon. member is out of order.

I shall leave this matter there, but I hope that the Minister will be good enough to review this matter at some time.

In the second place, I cannot quite understand why the Minister legislates for the Cape of Good Hope only. This provision, which entitles a digger, to be placed on the Common Roll as a voter will only affect those diggers who are to be registered in the Cape of Good Hope. Does that mean that a digger’s licence will only be issued for use in the Cape? Will a person who holds a digger’s licence, and who wishes to move from the Cape to the Transvaal, for example, where an alluvial digging is available, be able to use his digger’s certificate to obtain a licence to work a claim in the Transvaal? There must be some reason for limiting this provision to the Cape of Good Hope. I hope that the hon. the Minister will tell us now, or during the Committee Stage, if he has not yet had an opportunity to discuss this matter with his department, whether he wishes to limit the issue of certificates to the voters in the Cape.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to say that the provision in this Bill is a good one, particularly because of the reasons which the Minister has given. One is that women, because they are now on the Voters’ Roll, will be able to obtain digger’s licences. I should like the hon. the Minister to consider seriously, before the Committee Stage is taken, whether he should not extend the scope of the licence, which at present is valid only in the province in which it is issued. The issue of these licences depend originally upon the individual being on the Common Voters’ Roll. The qualifications for the Coloured man used to be that he had to occupy a house worth £50, be in continuous employment or earn £75 a year, or be a diamond digger. He had to have one of these qualifications to be on the Common Roll. As a result of changes in the legislation over the years affecting Coloured people, those qualifications no longer apply. I would say that, in view of the new basis upon which Coloured people are going to participate in their own affairs, through the Coloured Representative Council, the Minister would be well-advised seriously to consider extending the scope of the licence to the entire country. It has been a sore point for years that these men have been unable to dig in the Transvaal, especially in the Western Transvaal areas of Lichtenburg, Elandsputte, etc., where rich alluvial finds have been made in the past, and where fresh fields may quite possibly be discovered in future.

I should, in passing, like to support the hon. member for Rosettenville in the proposition he put to the Minister in regard to the serious disability he mentioned. I do not wish to discuss this matter, but I just want to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that in terms of the new policy of the Government, all Bantu in the Barkly West area of the Cape Province have been removed to a Bantu township 80 to 90 miles away. In order to obtain labour, a digger often has to go and fetch these people on a Sunday afternoon or a Monday morning, and return them to their places of residence on a Friday night when they stop work. It is possible that a digger can quite unwittingly be guilty of an offence which is purely a technical one. I should like the Minister just to consider this matter.

Mr. Speaker, hon. members raised two points. As regards the first point, that does indeed fall outside the scope of this legislation. However, I should like to point out to hon. members that they referred only to section 28. If they read section 29, they will notice that a right of appeal does exist against the decision of the mining commissioner. If a person is of the opinion that he has been wronged, he may appeal in terms of section 29. This does, therefore, leave them an opening.

In addition, a request was made for this certificate to be extended to the other provinces. The sole object of this Bill is to maintain the status quo. It is not a principle of this Bill to grant an extension of rights to the other provinces, because these rights never existed in the other provinces. If we were to make this Bill applicable to the other provinces as well, we would be departing from the status quo, as we would then be creating something new. This we should not like to do, in view of the fact that these certificates are decreasing in number. They will cease to exist in the course of time. Why should we now extend to the other provinces something which is ceasing to exist systematically? Furthermore, white diggers would not be satisfied if the Cape system were to be extended to the other provinces. I hope this answers the questions of those hon. members.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The Rand Water Board was established in the year 1903 for the purpose of providing water supply services to the municipalities on the Witwatersrand. During those earlier years the Board derived its jurisdiction from ordinances of the Transvaal Government and later through legislation of the Parliament of the Republic. For the purposes of liaison with the executive and legislative authorities it was previously accepted through practice that the Minister of the Interior acted as a link on behalf of the Board. Later this function was passed on to the Minister of Health, especially, it is presumed, in view of the important effect which a perennial and uncontaminated water supply has on the public health aspect of the town communities. This took place against the background of the Irrigation and Conservation of Waters Act, No. 8 of 1912, which made no provision for control over pollution of public water, which control was then exercised only by the Minister of Health mainly in terms of the Public Health Act, No. 36 of 1919. When the Vaal River Development Scheme Act, No. 38 of 1934, and subsequently the Water Act, No. 54 of 1956, were passed, the Minister of Water Affairs gained full control over the water of the Vaal River. In addition he obtained the power under the latter Act to control the utilization of public water for urban, agricultural and industrial purposes and to make regulations in regard to the purification of municipal and factory effluent in order to promote the reuse of water, and therefore control over the purity of water in public streams as well. The Water Act also contains provision for the establishment of water boards and the takeover of regional water supply corporations in Natal.

Furthermore, industrial expansion on the Witwatersrand has reached the stage where it is difficult for water supplies to keep up with the expanding requirements without expensive and vast water supply schemes being constructed by the State. As a result of this it was necessary to impose water restrictions on the Vaal River during the drought in 1966 and to obtain special enabling legislation in this connection (section 9A of the Water Act) during the 1967 session of Parliament. From the preceding it is clear that the Department of Water Affairs is the Government body which has to see to it that sufficient water supplies of the required standard of purity are provided for the development of the Witwatersrand, and of the whole of the Republic. In addition this Department has to see to it that water is effectively utilized, properly purified and as far as possible re-used. Accordingly it is the responsibility of the Department of Water Affairs to plan ahead properly. There must therefore be close liaison between the Department and all large water consumers, of which the Rand Water Board is the largest on the Witwatersrand.

In order to establish better liaison and in order to give the Rand Water Board its logical status as far as liaison with the executive and legislative authorities are concerned, by transferring the powers which the Minister of Health has in respect of the Board at the moment to the Minister of Water Affairs, this legislation was drawn up at the request of the aforesaid department.

It must be noted that the aforesaid transfer of powers cannot affect the Board adversely in any way, as its autonomy, powers and duties in terms of its statutes and laws will remain intact and the sole object of the Bill is to transfer the powers vested in the Minister of Health to the Minister of Water Affairs.

The matter has been discussed with all the parties concerned, and they have all agreed to the proposed change.

Mr. Speaker, I think this Bill is desirable. We on this side of the House accept it willingly. However, I want to warn the hon. the Minister, if possible, to bear in mind the fact that the first thought of the Department of Water Affairs is not usually of the human beings who drink the water. In other words, their standards are not the standards which one expects from the Department of Health. I feel that the hon. the Minister should try, if possible, to have some overall control or, at any rate, some guarantee that the primary use of water, that is, for humans, is adequately protected.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to thank the hon. member for Durban (Central) and the other side of the House for their support of this amendment Bill. I may point out that the control which the Department of Health had in this particular matter or, shall I say, the fact that the Rand Water Board was a responsibility of the Minister of Health, did not in any way ensure that through that the Minister of Health could see to the purification of water and a clean water supply to the public. Matters such as those still remain under other legislation and will scrupulously be attended to. So, Mr. Speaker, I thank hon. members for their support. I think my reply answers the point raised by the hon. member for Durban (Central).

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.