Mr. Speaker, I move, as an amendment to this amendment—

The object is merely to make the wording clearer.

The hon. the Minister was good enough to draw our attention to this amendment and we have no objection.

Agreed to.

Amendment, as amended, put and agreed to.

I move—

We do have objections to the Bill at this stage. When this Bill was introduced at the Second Reading, the hon. the Deputy Minister in dealing with the two contentious clauses of the Bill firstly glossed over clause 10 and said it just followed as a consequence on the Public Service Amendment Act, which set up the Bureau of State Security, and not one other word did he say in explanation. Then in relation to clause 29 the hon. the Deputy Minister, when he introduced the Bill to the House, merely said that this was to consolidate the law in relation to the privilege of the State and how this could be controlled when it was a matter affecting public policy and the security of the State.

We had a full discussion on it in the Committee Stage.

Yes, I am coming to the Committee Stage. The hon. the Deputy Minister, when he had a chance to reply at the Second Reading, still did not see the point and did not answer the criticism we made, and instead of that he embarked on a rather rude reply of a personal nature. When we came to the Committee Stage and discussed these matters in detail, the hon. the Deputy Minister conceded …

I conceded nothing.

Well, we will examine that. He confirmed our interpretation of clause 29 when he said it was possible …

I said it was a hypothetical case and it would not happen.

There you are. Thank you. The Deputy Minister has repeated it. It is possible, but he did not think it would happen. It concedes just this namely that the power exists in terms of clause 29 for this to happen, and the two things mentioned were, firstly, that it could prevent an accused person giving evidence in his own defence, and secondly, it could prevent a plaintiff in a civil action from giving evidence on his own behalf to found the ground upon which his action might lie against the State for an assault, for example, or unlawful imprisonment. He conceded that the power existed in clause 29 for this to happen.

As it exists to-day.

We will examine that as well. It does not exist to-day. The Deputy Minister says it exists to-day and the only authority he can quote for this proposition is section 233 of the Criminal Procedure Act, which I want to read to the House. The rubric is “Privilege from disclosure of facts on the ground of public policy”, and it reads as follows—

The first point is that it says “Except as in this Act is provided”, and in this Act it is provided that the accused shall have certain rights relating to the evidence that he gives.

[Inaudible.]

Yes, he may make a statement not on oath and he may go into the witness box and give evidence on oath, that is, “except as in this Act provided”.

Read section 228.

Section 228 merely provides for the privileges of an accused when he is giving evidence and says that he shall not be obliged to answer certain questions which relate to his character or to previous offences committed by him. Then it provides for certain exceptions to that, as in the case where he challenges the character of the witnesses for the prosecution and so on, so what that has to do with it, it is very difficult for me to understand. However, “except as in this Act is provided” clearly means “except as is in this Act provided in relation to any other witness”, and if the accused is a witness, as he is when he gives evidence, then clearly this is intended to be an exception to that particular rule. But quite apart from that, the hon. the Deputy Minister ought to know that every court in this country would find that on ground of public policy and on the grounds of public interest an accused should be allowed to give, evidence in his own defence. Sir, that power does not exist as a result of the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act; it does not exist now, but the hon. the Deputy Minister again concedes that that power exists here, and his only and lame excuse for it is that it will not happen, that they will not do it. Sir, what guarantee do the people of South Africa have that it will not be done? The say-so of this hon. Deputy Minister that it will not be done?

If he is not going to use it, why does he take it?

As my hon. Leader says, if he is not going to use it, why does he take it; why does he not restrict it? Perhaps the hon. the Deputy Minister will give us an answer to that.

I explained it fully, but you do not understand Afrikaans.

The hon. the Deputy Minister explained it in the Committee Stage; he put his cards on the table, and he has not got, a case; he has not got a hand. All he said was that they would never do it. Sir, it is our duty in this House as the representatives of the people to ensure that the Executive does not take this power to deal with those individuals; that is our function here, and that is why it has been so terribly disappointing in this debate to find that during the whole of Friday, when we discussed this Bill in the Committee Stage, that there were only two contributions from hon. gentlemen on that side; the one was on the question of offices of profit under the Republic and the other one was on clause 10. Those were the only two contributions that we had from hon. members opposite and they were from two members of the legal fraternity; we did not have one contribution on clause 29 and I am not surprised, because no lawyer could possibly defend the provisions of clause 29.

What about the Deputy Minister; is he not a lawyer?

Well, that begs the question.

Is that one of your personal thrusts too?

The hon. the Deputy Minister, when he behaves as he did in the Second-Reading debate, must expect a personal thrust back again when he deserves it. After all, as the hon. the Minister of Police said, this is not a “sissy game”. As far as the civil law is concerned, the hon. the Deputy Minister’s case is based entirely on Van der Linde v. Calitz, and that case certainly does not go as far as this. Sir, the other thing which the hon. the Deputy Minister disclosed during the Committee Stage, was that this organization, B.O.S.S., is in fact going to have a far wider field than one might have thought it might have. He disclosed that they are not only going to deal with these matters, but that they are going to be a sort of co-ordinating body involving all the State departments. If they are going to deal with matters that involve all the State departments—and it must be remembered that clauses 10 and 29 go together and that clause 29 applies to all matters that affect the interest of the State—and if this power can be used in relation to anything that any State department does, then it is wider even than one imagined it was at the Second Reading, and we come here at this stage to find that it is even worse than one thought it was. There has undoubtedly been—this Session has shown many examples of it—an authoritarian trend on the part of this Government to take unto itself all the powers that it can possibly take, and, if necessary, to take them away from Parliament and to put them in the hands of the Executive. That is bad enough. [Interjection.] The hon. the Deputy Minister is indicating, without actually using a rude word, that he does not agree, but the fact of the matter is that this is the trend; the Executive must deal with everything; Parliament must not deal with it, and there are even hon. members on that side who will say: “Yes, that is quite in order because we trust the Minister.” Sir, we trust no Ministers and no Member of Parliament should ever trust any Minister if he takes certain powers which is not necessary for him to have.

When you agreed to the Terrorist Act, you did not say that; you conveniently forgot that.

That was a big mistake.

Sir, the hon. the Deputy Minister once again conveniently forgets the facts of that case. We supported the Second Reading of the Terrorist Act because something had to be done to deal with terrorism and the Minister made a case for it, but we opposed that clause in the Bill dealing with interrogation and made some constructive suggestions in regard to it. Sir, let us get our facts straight. Sir, what is this dealing with? As the hon. the Deputy Minister has already said, and as other hon. members have said, we supported the setting up of B.O.S.S. Of course we did, but what was B.O.S.S.? Read what the hon. the Minister of the Interior said when he introduced the Bill.

Read what your Leader said.

Yes, I want to remind the hon. the Deputy Minister of what my Leader said. My Leader’s speech in this regard makes it quite clear that he was supporting it on the basis that it was a necessary organization to have in the modern world in which we lived. He equated it with an organization like the C.I.A. in America and that is what we were dealing with. But, Sir, I do want to remind the hon. the Deputy Minister that what my hon. Leader said was this (col. 5881)—

My hon. Leader quoted that with approval and then he went on to say—

He then indicated that he supported the Bill. That is why in the Committee Stage we moved an amendment to clause 10 to provide that one was not entitled to disclose anything about the organization of B.O.S.S. That is what my hon. Leader said when he supported the Second Reading of that Bill, that there should be secrecy, and quite obviously there should be secrecy. We moved an amendment to provide for that but it was not acceptable. Now, Sir, this legislation comes long after my Leader made that speech, but he did warn what would have to happen and what responsibility was being assumed. Sir, the hon. the Deputy Minister has displayed an irresponsible attitude, if I may say so, irresponsible in the sense that he says, “Well, we are taking these powers; we can do the things you say, but in fact we are not going to do them; don’t worry; just trust us that we will not do it.” That is not the way to deal with this matter.

You have completely missed the bus.

Well, the hon. the Deputy Minister can argue his case, and I hope it will be a better one than the case he has put up so far. So far he has not persuaded us that he has a case, except to admit that we are right. Sir, this authoritarian trend is bad enough but this also affects the courts, and our courts are what come between the individual and the authoritarian action of the Executive. That is what we have them for; that is the part they play in our Constitution. This Bill, particularly clauses 29 and 10 read together, can subvert the protection that the individual has in our country against unlawful acts of the arms of the Executive. Sir, that is the most appalling aspect of it. [Interjection.] It is no good saying that I am talking nonsense.

I say that as a legal man you should be ashamed of what you say.

Sir, if anyone should be ashamed of himself as a legal man, it is the hon. the Deputy Minister. Sir, our courts have no peer in this world and it is no good building up a system of justice such as we have, providing Judges of the calibre that we have, if we are going to chop their arms off with legislation like this. They stand between the Executive and the people, and that is the only protection they have. The attitude which this Government adopts towards this Parliament is bad enough, and they must not come along and tell us how wonderful our courts are when they do this sort of thing. In whose judgment has it always rested whether as a matter of public policy a State document should be privileged? It has always been in the hands of the courts. Is that not what was decided in Van der Linde’s case? It is left to the discretion of the courts. Are the courts not responsible enough to know what is in the public interest and what is against public policy?

That is not what was decided in Van der Linde’s case at all. It dealt with residual jurisdiction only.

Yes, but then they said that it was a matter for the courts to decide. Is that right or wrong? The courts lay down the rules under which they will accept a certificate from a Minister as to whether a document should be produced or should not be produced. Is that not so? Sir, those rules have developed, not as the result of any statutory law, except in criminal cases, but in civil cases we have to rely upon the common law in determining this. Let me give the House an example of what I mean. Here you have an investigation. The Security Branch is being used more and more for more and more things.

According to the hon. the Deputy Minister this organization, B.O.S.S., is now going to deal with all sorts of things relating to almost every State Department. Let us take the case of the investigation of an offence under clause 10. In terms of this clause one may have done something which may have a prejudicial effect on the interests of the State. I may say that what that hon. gentleman considers to be in the interests of the State and what I consider to be in the interests of the State, are sometimes two different things. Anyway, let us assume that such a case is investigated. One may not disclose the facts of such a case if B.O.S.S. is dealing with it. But the point is that one may not know what B.O.S.S. is dealing with. Therefore one can commit an offence. At any rate, one can be investigated. The Security Branch will then investigate the matter. They may in fact detain one. They may charge one. They may even assault one. It can happen. At any rate, they may detain one. If this were unlawful detention in any other case, one would be able to go to court and claim damages. In the case of an investigation into theft or something of that nature, one could always put the facts of the matter before the courts. On the grounds that no reasonable man could possibly have thought that one had committed such an offence, one could prove that such detention was unlawful. One would then be able to claim damages. But how can one ever prove that, in these circumstances? One is never able to know the circumstances under which one is being arrested. One is never to know the circumstances of the offence in respect of which one is arrested. Therefore one can never bring a case before the Court in the case of such unlawful detention. If one were wrongly detained, one would not be able to claim damages. One can never know whether in fact B.O.S.S. was dealing with a matter in respect of which one was detained. How can you ever know that? How can you ever go to court and say: “I was unlawfully detained”? To that extent again the courts are excluded.

I shall go further. If it were in fact possible for you to show that B.O.S.S. was not dealing with the matter in respect of which you were arrested—this is actually impossible in terms of this provision—or that it was unreasonable for you to be detained on the strength of the information available, you could still be prevented from giving evidence in court. You would therefore, be prevented from advancing grounds for any redress from the Executive. It is the courts which heretofore decided such matters. Now the courts are deliberately excluded. The hon. the Deputy Minister has done nothing to allay our fears in this regard. He has in fact gone so far as to confirm all the things he said during the Committee Stage. We are not satisfied. Furthermore, since the Second Reading, as I have indicated, the hon. the Deputy Minister has indicated that the provisions of this clause go even further. He has admitted that we are right. He has admitted that our worst fears are well-founded. All he could offer in consolation, however, was to say that they would not ever do such a thing. No self-respecting institution, representing the people, can accept such a situation.

Nobody asked you to.

Nobody asked us to?

Why are we here?

Sir, is that not typical? The Deputy Minister says: “No one asked you to”. In other words, he means: “Do not worry. We do not give a darn what you do. We are going to pass it”. One wonders why they bother to come on the floor of this House at all, except that it is necessary, in terms of the Constitution, for them to do so. That is their attitude to this Parliament. What does he think this is? A Nationalist Party caucus? This is Parliament. This is a House of Representatives of the people. It is here that we discuss these matters. One presumes that there is some discussion and that what is said is thought about. One presumes that some sort of discretion and some sort of independent thought is exercised by hon. gentlemen who sit on that side of the House. But apparently this is not the case. This is the attitude they have to this Parliament and to the courts. In all these circumstances, there is only one amendment I can move at this stage, and I therefore move—

Mr. Chairman, it is not my intention to reply to this extremely personal attack the hon. member for Durban (North) made on the hon. the Deputy Minister. I shall confine myself to the question put by the hon. member for Durban North in connection with clause 29. He asked, “What is the guarantee for the rights of such a witness? I want to give him a frank reply. The guarantee is the Supreme Court of our country.

Regard should, in the first place, be had to the fact that two requirements have to be met before a certificate of privilege may be issued in terms of this Bill. If the hon. member had read this Bill he would have seen that it contained two very clear requirements which have to be met before the Minister, or the person to whom he has delegated his powers, may issue such a certificate. The first requirement is that the evidence to be submitted has to affect the interests of the Sate or public security. This does not relate to ordinary evidence, for example, evidence with regard to assaults or something of that nature. This has to be evidence which materially affects the interests of the State or public security. The second requirement, which arises from the wording of the Bill, is that the disclosure of such evidence is prejudicial to the interests of the State or public security. As regards the signing of the certificate, I am of the opinion that the directives of the appeal court case of Van der Linde v. Calitz will be applicable in such cases. You will remember, Sir, what was stated by our Appeal Court. Before I quote to you what was stated by the Appeal Court, Sir, we should first ascertain what will happen in practice before a certificate will be issued. A certificate is issued by the Minister or his delegate to the effect that certain evidence will be prejudicial to the State. The two requirements I have mentioned are met. But the two requirements I have quoted to you, Sir, are requirements which have to be tested by the court before the court will allow the privilege to apply. The court will not be able to determine whether those two requirements have been met before the Minister or his delegate has shown his hand to some extent by producing certain facts. After all, the certificate must contain certain facts so as to enable the court to ascertain whether the necessary requirements have been met. That is what was stated by the Appeal Court.

What Act makes provision for that?

This Bill makes provision for that. I do not know whether the hon. member wants me to repeat these two requirements. I take it hon. members opposite have read the Bill. I do not want to read it again. I now want to quote the heading of the Appeal Court case I have mentioned. It reads as follows (translation)—

As far as the two requirements are concerned, let us assume that the certification is inadequate in that it does not disclose sufficient facts to enable the court to ascertain whether privilege should in fact be granted. In that case I think the heading of the Van der Linde case will be applicable. The heading reads as follows (translation)—

The test laid down by the court is as follows (translation)—

In other words, if the certificate of privilege had been issued and the court were to feel that sufficient facts had not been disclosed to enable it to take a decision as to whether these two requirements laid down in this Bill had been met, the court may ask for additional information to be furnished to it so as to enable it to exercise its discretion in this connection and it may request the disclosure to it of the documents in respect of which privilege is being requested, whereby it is being placed in a position to meet these two requirements. I do not know what more than this my learned friend wants. Surely he does not want more than our Supreme Court having the right to decide whether or not the privilege should exist. It is clear in this Bill that We are giving the courts the final say, because otherwise we would not have imposed the two requirements which are factual requirements and which have to be met before this privilege will be granted.

Since I am on my feet now, I should like to deal with the other objections raised by my learned friends opposite during the Second Reading and the Committee Stage of this Bill. An objection was raised in connection with clause 10 of this Bill. Clause 10 effects a small amendment to section 3 (2) (a) of the Official Secrets Act of 1956 by the insertion after the word “police” of the words “or security”. I just want to bring it to the attention of this House that the Official Secrets Act was passed in this House in 1956 with, I think, the support of the Official Opposition. At that stage the Official Opposition accepted that the Official Secrets Act had to be piloted through Parliament with the word “police” contained in that Act. Under the Police there was also a security branch. That was common knowledge. About three weeks ago a Bureau for State Security was established. The hon. the Minister who piloted that Bill through Parliament, informed this House at that time that Bureau was one which had developed from the security branch of the police as well as from the security division of the Defence Force. In other words, the Official Opposition was fully aware of the fact that a security body, i.e. a Bureau for State Security, was coming into existence from the Police. The Official Opposition intimated at that stage that it was in complete agreement with the establishment of the Bureau for State Security, and consequently one had to accept that it would have to be possible to extend the meaning of the word “police” in the Official Secrets Act of 1956 accordingly, i.e. to include the word “state security”. Therefore it is logical that this had to happen and I find the opposition of my hon. friends opposite to clause 10 quite incomprehensible. In fact, they objected strongly to the definition of “security matter”. That definition, as it now stands in the General Law Amendment Bill, now includes “any matter … dealt with by or relating to the Bureau for State Security”. Once again I want to draw the attention of hon. members to the fact that this House accepted the Bureau for State Security unanimously. It is clear that all of us agree that State security matters are matters relating to State security. I am quite convinced that the definition of “security matter” will be interpreted in the light of the establishment of a Bureau for State Security, which simply means what it says. To me it seems very strange that hon. members opposite should have objected to that definition during the Second Reading as well as during the Committee Stage. During the Committee Stage objections were also raised to the words “in any manner”, which are contained in the Bill. Lengthy arguments were conducted here as to whether the words “in any manner” did include mens rea. I just want to point out that the words “in any manner” have been in the Official Secrets Act since 1956. In other words, the words which were the subject of the argument, i.e. “in any manner”, were completely irrelevant in this debate. I do not know whether this matter is going to be raised again, but I want to say in anticipation that the arguments with regard to mens rea and the words “in any manner” are not at all relevant here as these words have been in the Act since 1956.

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to what the hon. member for Prinshof said in trying to mitigate the damage which one sees could be caused by the introduction more particularly of clause 29 together with clause 10 in the General Law Amendment Bill. His explanation is that there has been a court decision which will obviously make it necessary for certain evidence to be produced by the Minister or the Prime Minister, whoever has produced the certificate, to the effect that the matters concerned fall well and truly within the ambit of this Act, that is, either matters of public interest or State security. I am not a lawyer but it does seem to me, if one looks at clause 29, that this surely is inserting an additional power which, when that case was heard, did not exist in our law. Surely this is the important aspect of the matter, namely that a very important change is being introduced by clause 29.

No, that is not so.

Yes, it is. This is very clear to me. One does not have to be a lawyer to understand the words used in this clause. Clause 29 begins as follows: “Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any law or the common law contained, no person …” and then the clause goes on giving these wide powers. This surely takes precedence over anything which existed either in our statutory law or in our common law up to the time of the passing of this Bill. That seems obvious to me. The two requirements about which the hon. member spoke are, firstly, that in producing the certificate purporting to be signed by the Prime Minister or any other person authorized by him or any other Minister, he must produce a certificate stating that the matter which may not be disclosed “affects the interests of the State or public security and that the disclosure thereof will, in the opinion of the Prime Minister … be prejudicial to the interests of the State or public security”. How does one test “in the opinion of”? This is a discussion we have had over and over again whenever any laws affecting civil rights have been debated in this House. How does one prove mala fides? I have been told by every legal expert I have ever consulted that it is virtually impossible to prove mala fides. It is virtually impossible to prove that despite the opinion of the Prime Minister, the Minister or any other person authorized, a matter is in fact not going to be prejudicial to the interests of the State or public security. One cannot do this and therefore I cannot accept the argument of the hon. member for Prinshof, advocate though he be. [Interjections.] This case firstly took place before the change in the law and secondly this is a very far-reaching clause indeed. It means one has to prove mala fides. It means that the court or the defendant must prove that the Minister has not applied his mind properly. How does one ever do this? I know that as far as the law is concerned, it is virtually impossible to do this. My fears are not assuaged by the speech of the hon. member for Prinshof. The point that really comes to issue here is this. I moved that the Bill be read “this day six months” on the Second Reading of this Bill. I moved it for several reasons. These reasons were based on the inclusion in the Bill of Clauses 10, 23 and 29. Clause 23 does not affect the Official Opposition. I am going to oppose that clause again on exactly the same basis that I opposed it during the Second Reading and the Committee Stage. I will come back to that clause later. Firstly I should like to deal with clauses 10 and 29 which do affect the Official Opposition as well. The point I want to know is this. A few weeks ago the Bill setting up the Bureau of State Security, namely the Public Service Amendment Bill, was introduced in this House. Did the hon. the Minister of the Interior, the hon. the Prime Minister, the hon. the Deputy Minister of Justice and the hon. member for Prinshof, which gentlemen after all had knowledge which the Opposition side does not have, know that within a few weeks of the House having passed that Bill unanimously these provisions would be introduced? Nobody really knew what the first Bill actually meant, it now seems to me, including myself, and believe me I would have opposed the Bill by moving the amendment This day six months, had I known. Did they know that the Government was going to come within a month with two amending clauses in the General Law Amendment Bill which would completely change the whole complexion of the Public Service Amendment Bill? Did they know that? If they did know, they misled this House. If they knew, they misled the House.

In what way does it change it?

It changes it completely. This is no longer what everybody thought it was. It is no longer a South African C.I.A. Bill. It no longer sets up the sort of security body that countries all over the world have. I am referring to security bodies in France, Switzerland, and probably I should imagine also Canada, England and practically every other country in the world which protects the safety of the State on a foreign basis rather than having anything to do with internal security per se or public interest. There is nothing I am sure in the Act of Congress which set up the C.I.A. which had to do with public interest inside the State which can be defined in the widest possible way. Clauses 10 and 29 give no definition whatever of public interest.

Have you seen the American Act?

I have not seen it but I am convinced that the Congress Bill which set up the C.I.A. never in any way intended to cut across the civil rights of people inside America.

They have exactly the same rule of evidence.

I am sorry but I do not for a moment believe that, knowing how carefully the American Constitution guards the interests of the individual. They have a rigid constitution which defines the individual’s rights. That Constitution has various amendments which can be pleaded in cases like this. We have nothing like that protecting the individual in South Africa. On the contrary, we have a mass of legislation which has removed the normal democratic rights of the citizen in this country. This legislation gives wide powers to Ministers to detain people without trial and to ban people without trial. We have had the 90-day law which I opposed because I never trust Ministers past, present or future. I never trust them. We had the 180-day law and the Terrorism Act which I opposed as well for the same reason. I know that even if these original powers are perhaps taken with the intention of implementing them within the strict letter of the law, the temptation to use those powers more widely is always irresistible. They are used far beyond the powers which may originally have been intended. We have seen it over and over again, in the actual implementation of laws, such as the Anti-Communism law where people are banned who have no connection with Communism whatever. We have the 90-day provision which has been used by the police triumphantly saying what a “great weapon” it has been in their hands in cases which have nothing to do with State security. There is also the Terrorism Act which I maintain has been used for the same purpose.

What powers are taken in these clauses?

I will give an example. Let us take a concrete example. Let us take the Lenkoe inquest, where a man who was detained under the Terrorism Act, died. That inquest is being held now and very ugly evidence is being produced. What is to stop the hon. the Minister of Justice or the hon. the Minister of Police from producing a certificate …

What stopped him in this case?

Because this Bill was not yet passed. Now, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any law or in our common law, the Minister to-day can produce a certificate and stop that inquest at once, because it is not in the public interest, in the Minister’s opinion, which cannot be disproved. One cannot prove male fides. That evidence need never come before a court.

Quite.

It is not true what you are saying.

I say that if the hon. the Minister who introduced this Public Service Amendment Bill and the Deputy Minister of Justice knew that a clause was coming later in the year in the General Law Amendment Bill which would change the whole complexion of the original Bill, they misled the House. It is therefore obvious that one has to oppose this Bill to the maximum of one’s parliamentary abilities.

Having said that, I want to say too of course that clause 10 brings security matters within the ambit of the Official Secrets Act. The proposed definition of security matters is so wide that in fact it is no definition at all. Anything may fall under the umbrella of the term “State security”.

It is a non-definition.

It is a non-definition or an undefinition, whatever one wants to call it. It is not a definition. A definition is meant to set the limits wherein a law may be used. This is an enabling law. That is what it is. It is like one of the enabling Acts passed by the Third Reich which gave vast powers but which was done constitutionally. One can do anything. It is a frightening extension of the very wide powers already held by the State. I cannot detail them now. We all know them.

Read the Bill.

I have read the Bill. I have read it most carefully

Read the Bill and the court case; that is all you have to do.

The court case took place before this Bill was passed. I am no lawyer but I challenge the hon. member for Prinshof to tell me how it can be that a clause which is passed now does not in fact affect a judgment on the same issue which was given before the law was altered. It is obvious. It is self-evident to anybody with a brain in his head or a will to see.

Will you admit that the Lenkoe case was a Police matter?

Anything can become a matter of public interest. Of course it was a Police matter. It can be a matter of public interest that the methods of the Special Branch are not disclosed. That is the point.

Then it is already covered by section 10.

Now a certificate may be produced by the Minister of Police to say no more evidence may be produced in the Lenkoe case as it is not in the public interest to have this disclosed in a court, because it is not in the public interest to have the methods of the Security Branch exposed. I have heard members say that the Police van incident should never have been aired in this House. They say that it should have been raised departmentally only. What is their reason? It is because they do not think it is in the public interest. They disagree with the attitude taken on this side of the House, that there is nothing better to expose abuses and to prevent future abuses than the beady eye of public scrutiny. That is why the freedom of the Press is such an important issue too. And this of course cribs and confines the Press as well, because they will also not be able to report abuses in the future without fearing that they are going to run foul of this Act, just as it is difficult these days to get the Press to print anything about prison abuses. They are nervous. They see what can happen as a result of Acts which impose strictures on any exposure on prison matters. This Bill goes even further so that from to-day no one will know when it will be safe or not safe to report on any matter that has to do with abuses by the Police or by the State generally. This is as I have said, an evil clause. It is going to have very far-reaching effects on our life in South Africa, just as every other law which took away the normal protection of the individual against the might of the State, the sacred right of habeas corpus, has had an evil and eroding effect on our understanding of civil liberties in South Africa. I shall therefore obviously support the amendment that was moved by the hon. member for Durban (North).

I have one final thing to say and that is simply to reiterate the objections that I have previously expressed on clause 23 which is the clause which disfranchises people who have served a sentence, be it one day, one week, one year or four years, under the Anti-Communist Act or the Terrorism Act.

This disfranchises these people for life and puts them in a worse position vis-à-vis people who have served gaol sentences for rape, assault, robbery, fraud and any of the crimes of violence. It groups them with people who have been convicted for murder and treason. I think it is an absurd thing to do, particularly in view of the fact that the one law, namely the Anti-Communist Act, is very far-reaching and can encompass within its provisions, people who have never committed any crime of Communism and have never appeared before the courts for the crime of Communism. For these reasons I wish to voice my strong objection to the Third Reading of this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Deputy Minister throughout the various stages of this Bill and now the hon. member for Prinshof have introduced remarkable propositions to justify in particular these two clauses, namely clause 10 and clause 29. These propositions are quite wrong. They are wrong in law and I am surprised that the hon. member for Prinshof should put forward such propositions. He, as a practising advocate, should know better.

You should read the Bill properly.

I will explain to the hon. member for Prinshof why he is quite wrong. I think that when he goes back to the Pretoria Bar after this Session and consult his colleagues, he will find that they will agree with what we are saying.

I think you should consult your colleagues.

I now want to deal with clause 29. The hon. member for Prinshof bases his argument on clause 29 on the case of Van der Linde versus Calitz. That case has stated that two factors are necessary, namely that the evidence must protect the interests of the State and secondly it must be confined to the interests of the State. [Interjection.] I listened to the hon. member for Prinshof when he spoke and he must now listen to what I have to say. I do not ask the hon. the Deputy Minister to listen, because he is so arrogant that he is not prepared to listen to any other points of view. I am addressing myself for the moment to the hon. member for Prinshof who, as I say, as a practising advocate I think would understand the sort of language that I am speaking. The hon. member for Prinshof relied on the case of Van der Linde versus Calitz. In that case the court held that the privilege extended to evidence which affects the interests of the State and must be confined to the interests of the State; it must be accompanied by a certificate by a Minister, which must be sufficiently clear to indicate that it goes no further than the interests of the State require. This is perfectly correct and is a judgment given by the highest court in the country, namely in the Appellate Division by the Chief Justice. But that case interprets the common law as it is to-day read in conjunction with certain statutory provisions which have been introduced in the past affecting this position. It deals with that situation and that situation alone.

It also meets with the requirements of this Bill.

This is what the hon. member for Prinshof refuses to see. Clause 29 now supersedes the common law. Surely the hon. member for Prinshof has been practising long enough as an advocate to know that when this Parliament passes a law which is in different terms from the common law or the existing statutory law, the law …

It is not different.

I will show the hon. the Deputy Minister where it differs.

I challenge the hon. member to prove that it is different.

If the hon. the Deputy Minister will keep quiet and give me the opportunity I will prove it to him. But he must listen, because I have been proving it to him during the Second-Reading debate and also during the Committee Stage, but he just shuts his mind to it, like his attitude now. The hon. the Deputy Minister has not got the faintest intention of listening to what I have to say. He is so arrogant that he is not prepared to listen. The hon. member for Prinshof knows that when Parliament passes a law it supersedes the existing common law and the existing statutory law. This clause 29 clearly supersedes it in clear terms. Clause 29 (1) of the Bill reads as follows:

In other words, it says that it does not matter what the existing law is or what the common law is. [Interjections.] If the hon. member for Prinshof wants me to deal with his arguments he must listen to me. If he wants to put me off, he must carry on, in which case I will ignore him. [Interjections.] I will ignore him just as I ignore this hon. Deputy Minister. [Interjections.]

Why are you so afraid to listen?

Yes, this is the point. Why are hon. members so fraid to listen?

Order! Will the hon. member please continue with his speech and disregard any interruptions.

The point I want to make is that clause 29 states clearly in unequivocal language and in the clearest terms a legislature can use—

All that is therefore necessary is a certificate from the Prime Minister or any Minister that the thing, matter, etc., affects the security of the State.

Carry on reading.

The clause reads further:

That is all that has to be stated by the Prime Minister or any other Minister. All that he has to state is that this matter affects the interests of the State and that it is a matter which, in the opinion of the Minister, may be prejudicial to the interests of the State. This clearly changes the common law. It does not give the court any power to investigate whether that certificate is properly based or not. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister suggest that if such a certificate is produced to the court, and I would like a clear answer from the hon. the Minister since he sits there giggling …

If the hon. member makes another personal remark, I will ignore him.

I am putting a serious question to the hon. the Deputy Minister. If he is prepared to give me a serious answer we can debate. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister contend that when a certificate under this new clause 29 has been produced to a court of law, signed by a Minister stating that a particular matter affects the interests of the State and that the disclosure thereof may be prejudicial to the interests of the State, that the court will be entitled to inquire into that certificate?

May I ask the hon. member a question? I will give him a serious answer. Is that not exactly the position to-day as disclosed in all the cases that dealt with these matters?

I accept that that is the position to-day. This is what we keep telling the hon. the Deputy Minister. The Van der Linde v. Calitz. case which is the highest decision of our courts on this subject, is a decision of the Appellate Division. It states quite clearly that the courts have a limited possibility of inquiry. But my point to him, and I wish he would understand this, is that clause 29 now supersedes that judgment of the court and everything which goes before. Clause 29 states in the clearest possible terms that notwithstanding any other law or the common law, if a certificate is produced to the courts, the person concerned shall not be compellable and it states furthermore that the person concerned shall not be permitted to give evidence. The question which I again put to the hon. the Deputy Minister is whether he contends that, once this Bill goes through and clause 29 is passed, what was said in the Van der Linde v. Calitz case will still apply, namely that the court will be entitled to inquire as to whether or not that certificate is justified? Is that what the hon. member for Prinshof says?

It is the two requirements of the Bill.

This is the greatest nonsense that I have ever heard. The hon. member for Prinshof must go and talk to his colleagues when he goes back to the Bar. We are passing a law in this House which says that notwithstanding the common law as it exists to-day, notwithstanding the judgments of the courts, no person shall be compellable or permitted to give evidence if a certificate is produced from the Minister stating that the matter affects the interests of the State and that disclosure of this could be prejudicial to the interests of the State. If that is produced, this is the end of the matter. Any Judge of the court will tell both the hon. the Deputy Minister and the hon. member for Prinshof that we are correct. There is no question about that. It is nonsense to suggest that the courts will still be allowed when clause 29 has been passed, to inquire whether the certificate is justified.

What was the established practice before the Calitz case?

This is where the hon. the Deputy Minister refuses to understand. The law as it exists to-day is being changed by clause 29 in the clearest terms. Therefore, how can this hon. Deputy Minister continue to say that the position as it existed before will still apply? If that is his argument, why is he changing the law? Why is he introducing clause 29? Perhaps he could explain that to us.

I am asking you what the established practice was before the Calitz case?

The practice before Van der Linde’s case was that the courts considered that they had a limited right to inquire in the interests of the witnesses concerned. It was never a wide power. What is more, it was limited to State documents until the criminal code was passed. It did not affect the giving of evidence. In fact, the hon. the Deputy Minister referred to that very passage in Gardiner and Lansdown to justify clause 29. He referred to this passage in Gardiner and Lansdown which says—

This clearly is limited to State secrets, confidential State documents and communications between the Government and its officers. It says nothing about restricting the giving of evidence. This came under the Criminal Procedure Act. Even there it was limited by the terms of Van der Linde v. Calitz’s case. However, under clause 29 as it is now being passed, Van der Linde v. Calitz is being superseded. If that is not the intention of the hon. the Deputy Minister in passing clause 29, why does he want clause 29? What will be the purpose of it if it is exactly the same? This is absolute nonsense. This is clear language. The cardinal principle of the interpretation of statutes is that a court of law is bound by clear language used by the Legislature. This language could not possibly be clearer. Once again, it says, “Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any law or the common law contained, no person shall be compellable and no person shall be permitted to give evidence” if there is this certificate handed into court by the hon. the Prime Minister or the Minister who is issuing the certificate. I cannot take this any further if the hon. the Deputy Minister refuses to see. But I want to place clearly and unequivocally on record that I am satisfied and we on this side of the House are satisfied that once clause 29 has been passed it will be impossible for a court of law to investigate the contents of that certificate which is submitted in terms of clause 29. The only way in which the court will be able to investigate the certificate, is to inquire whether or not there was mala fides in the mind of the Minister in alleging that the disclosure of the certificate would be prejudicial to the interests of the State. That is an entirely different position.

How is he going to inquire into that?

Exactly, how can he possibly? The hon. member for Prinshof as an advocate, knows as I do that that is absolutely impossible to prove.

You do not know how it works.

Exactly, it is absolutely impossible to prove. How can you possibly prove that …

You have never had a case of privilege. That is your trouble.

Order!

Mr. Speaker, this is nonsense. This is not the way to argue. I am arguing on the merits. I am not arguing on whether the hon. member for Prinshof has had a case or not. I am arguing on what the Bill says. If the hon. member for Prinshof does not know this himself, he can consult his colleagues and he will find that the only basis on which that certificate will be challengeable once clause 29 has been passed is on the grounds of the mala fides of the Minister in issuing these certificates. That is impossible to prove. It therefore means that that certificate, in practice, cannot possibly be challenged. It is for this reason that we say that this clause 29 goes very much further than the existing position. It alters the law completely. It alters it to such an extent that we cannot possibly support it.

I will again repeat briefly what I said at the previous stages of this Bill, namely that under the existing provisions of the law it is not possible to restrain a person from giving evidence in this own defence in a criminal case, or giving evidence in his own interests in a civil case.

Clause 29 goes to this extent that the hon. the Minister in issuing this certificate could prevent a person from giving evidence in his own defence in a criminal case or in his own interest in a civil case. In trying to justify this, the hon. the Deputy Minister relied on sections 228 and 233 of the Criminal Procedure Act. But these sections do not justify him, because, as the hon. member for Durban (North) pointed out in his speech this morning, section 233 clearly says:

The words “except as in this Act is provided” are clearly inserted, but the similar words do not appear in clause 29. In other words, the effect of section 233 is that the other provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act apply and they protect an accused person to enable him to give evidence in his own defence if he chooses to do so.

Just give us one example in the Criminal Code.

It is a well-known principle of this Criminal Code, and if I have time I shall refer to the provisions. I am trying to understand the hon. the Deputy Minister’s question so that I can deal with it and he is trying to put me off. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister suggest that under the Criminal Procedure Act …

[Inaudible.]

Does the hon. the Deputy Minister want me to answer his question or not?

That section only applies in exceptional cases.

The Act clearly makes provision for accused persons to give evidence in their own defence. That right cannot be removed from them in terms of the Criminal Procedure Act. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister, as Deputy Minister of Justice, challenge that? Because if he does, he is talking the greatest nonsense. He ought to know it as Deputy Minister of Justice.

Are you going to keep to your personal remarks? I shall ignore you if you do.

You can do what you like. I am not interested any longer. I am making the point …

Order! I would be pleased if this exchange of personalities between the learned honourable members will now cease. These hon. members should rather deal with the merits of the case.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am indebted to you for bringing me back to this Bill. I should like to continue with the Bill. I do want to emphasize that section 233, which the hon. the Deputy Minister relies on to justify his contention, is quite the contrary, because under section 233 an accused person cannot be prohibited from giving evidence in his own defence if he considers it to be necessary. The hon. the Deputy Minister raised another argument. He referred to Hoffman who has written a text book namely “The Law of South African Evidence”. He quoted a passage to the effect that Hoffman states that if a person was restricted in some way from giving evidence in his own defence, he went on to say that he knows of no such case, the court would probably have to give him the benefit of the doubt, because it did not have the full facts. First of all, I emphasized that Hoffman stated that he knew of no case where this has been done and yet the hon. the Deputy Minister keeps on telling us that this clause goes further than the existing law.

I quoted that he said that he knew of no cases in South Africa, or in England. Do not misquote me!

This is exactly what I am saying. What do you think I am saying? The hon. the Deputy Minister is not listening and when I am quoting him he says that I quoted him wrongly. He must listen. I also want to point out that Hoffman drew attention to the fact that he knows of no such case. Secondly, Hoffman is merely a text book writer. He is not a Judge of a court. He may be a very learned man, but he is not a Judge of a court. His statement there has only the value of a statement of a legal writer. It does not have the value of a judgment of a court of law. There is no judgment of the court, either in the South African courts or in English courts, to the effect that if a person were to be restricted from giving evidence in his own defence he would have to be found not guilty; particularly when clause 29 is in such clear terms. The hon. the Deputy Minister cannot justify clause 29 on that basis. Now I want to refer to clause 10. The hon. member for Prinshof has said that the proposed amendment to section 10 does not really go any further than the existing section 10. But this is nonsense. The proposed amendment adds the words “security matters” and security matters are defined in such a way that it is impossible for anyone to know when it is being transgressed. It is absolutely impossible to know. The hon. member also referred to the fact that as the existing section 2 (a) reads and because it refers to “police matters” and “military matters”, the inclusion of “security matters” does not really take it any further. I want to point out that “police matters” is defined. In Act 65 of 1965 it states clearly that “police matter means any matter relating to the preservation of the internal security of the Union or the maintenance of law and order by the South African Police”. Because of that definition, a person would know whether or not he is transgressing that provision. But because “security matter” includes “any matter dealt with by the Bureau for State Security” it is quite impossible for anyone to know what the Bureau for State Security is dealing with. Therefore it is quite impossible for anyone to know that he is publishing or communicating a matter which has been dealt with by the Bureau of State Security.

But it is dealing with State security.

It is not only State security, because the new subsection (2) (a) refers to the publication and communication, “to any person in any manner or for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the Republic …”. Therefore, it is not only the security of the Republic, but also the interests of the Republic, and the interest of the Republic goes very much further than the security of the Republic. This is the point we have been making in the various stages of this Bill and it does not seem to be appreciated by the hon. members on that side of the House. The interests of the State can be very extensive. Almost anything that is said or done can affect the interests of the State. It does not necessarily affect the security of the State. This phrase “interests of the State” goes very much further. [Time expired.]

I rise at this stage of the Third Reading of this Bill having listened to the previous discussions without participating in them. I do so because I was a speaker in the earlier stages of the establishment of this Bureau. I rise to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister to be good enough to deal with certain matters which have been left unsaid in the passage of this particular Bill up to this stage. During the duration of this debate I have not heard one single reason why clauses 10 and 29 of this Bill are necessary for the effective functioning of the Bureau of State Security. The question is raised in one’s mind why, when there were no procedural problems to prevent this Bureau being created by one legislative act, this House should have been put in the position of receiving three different legislative acts during this Session for the establishment of this Bureau? The House will know that we were first presented with the Public Service Amendment Bill. We were thereafter presented with the Security Services Special Account Bill. When those Bills were presented they were motivated by the responsible Ministers but their motivation, which I will deal with in a moment, provides no justification whatsoever for this House to-day accepting clauses 10 and 29 of this Bill; because when those Bills were presented, first of all in the case of the Public Service Amendment Bill, the hon. the Minister of the Interior made it perfectly clear that the Bureau was being established to co-ordinate existing Departments which had a special duty to watch over security in one respect or another; in other words, to coordinate what already existed. If I may read from column 5878 of Hansard of 13th May, the Minister said this—

In other words, nothing new was being introduced. It was to be a co-ordination of existing functions. The Minister, when he dealt with the needs for secrecy—and it is interesting to know what he felt should remain secret—proceeded to say—

He refers to functions, what the Bureau has to do. The hon. the Minister then went on to deal with other aspects. My hon. Leader, in supporting that measure, quoted from the memoirs of President Truman and he made reference to a speech President Truman had made, who indicated that it was necessary to provide a mechanism for co-ordinating the work of producing intelligence estimates, so that the President, the Secretary of State and the Defence Heads could have before them a simple, reasoned analysis. In other words, it was nothing new. It was merely a co-ordination in one body instead of in one single security officer appointed to advise the Prime Minister. When we came to the Third Reading of that Bill, it is significant that I suggested to the Minister of the Interior that whether or not this Bureau was effective would make itself felt in two fields only, namely the extent to which our military forces would be prepared to meet eventualities and, secondly, the extent to which the Police were able to maintain law and order in South Africa. I made that specific reference, and what did the Minister of the Interior say? He said—

Now, where is the motivation for the establishment of this Bureau with a wider field of investigation than military and police matters? The Deputy Minister of Finance made similar remarks in dealing with the Security Services Special Account Bill, merely that there should be secrecy as to how money was being spent in respect of what the Bureau was in fact doing. I ask again why was it that the House was not informed initially that the contemplation was to go beyond military and police matters? Because there can be no other interpretation as to the reason for clauses 10 and 29. The Official Secrets Act of 1956 has a wide coverage. It covers every aspect of military and police security. What further public security can be contemplated which does not fall under the existing Official Secrets Act? Does this mean that there is to be political investigation by the Bureau? Because one can be drawn to no other conclusion. What other type of public investigation must this Bureau do in the interests of South Africa which is not military or police?

There you go again.

The hon. member says there I go again, but if the hon. member looked at the Official Secrets Act, and he looked at this particular provision which we are asked to amend here, it covers fully and effectively matters of police and military security. Why then this new definition of public security? Why does the amendment of section 3 of the Official Secrets Act become necessary? I feel there is reason for the Opposition and the public outside to feel that there is something more than police and military intelligence which is to be co-ordinated by the Bureau, but we have not been told what it is. And what lends strength to that anticipation is the way in which this legislation has been dished up piecemeal by the Government for the establishment of this Bureau. If the Minister agrees with me that it covers police and military matters, why was the Government not prepared to accept the amendment moved by this side of the House to exclude from “security matter” matters dealt with by the Bureau? Because police or military matters are already covered by the Official Secrets Act.

Do you suggest that the functions of the British Secret Service are only military?

They are military or police.

Externally?

I do not know their functioning externally. Externally they are probably only military, but I do not know. But as far as the C.I.A. is concerned, it includes both police and military intelligence. That I do know, but I am not certain of the British Secret Service. I think the British Military Intelligence works in two departments, and here we are co-ordinating them into one. But what I am trying to get from the Minister is the reason why this question beyond military or police intelligence was not raised at any stage before the introduction of this Bill. It was never contemplated when those two earlier measures came before us. I want to say this to the hon. the Minister, that this extension was never contemplated when we considered the first two stages in the establishment of the Bureau and our support has given him reason to ask during the course of this debate why we supported those measures and why we do not support this measure, and to suggest that we are inconsistent. The Minister knows that we on this side have in the past always supported those measures which were regarded as necessary, when a case is made out for them, to preserve the security of the State and the maintenance of law and order in this country. He knows well—the hon. member for Houghton referred to it this morning—thatwhen the Government came to us with the Terrorism Bill and gave us a motivation, on this side of the House we were prepared to give the Government those powers for that specific purpose, but these provisions of this Bill do not fall in that category. We have not had one jot or title of information of the type of investigation which is non-military and non-police which this Bureau is to undertake, and until we get that information we cannot support this measure. If it is to go beyond that we cannot support the measure, and that is the reason why I stand here this afternoon, having supported previous steps in the creation of this Bureau, to say that the provisions of this Bill were never within the contemplation of this House when it passed the Public Ser-vice Amendment Bill and the Security Services Special Account Bill. It was never within the contemplation of the House, and this provision now is inconsistent with what was said by the hon. the Ministers for the Government when those previous Bills were discussed in this House.

I am pleased that the hon. member for Green Point has participated in this debate, because he is the only Opposition member, apart from the hon. member for Houghton, who was not guilty of trying to dispose of this serious matter by indulging in personalities, and who did not continually level personal accusations. In fact, I get the impression that the hon. members on the opposite side, who give themselves out to be legal experts, are simply trying to dispose of this matter by indulging in personalities because they do not have any arguments. That is why I am so pleased the hon. member for Green Point has now participated in this debate, and that is why I now want to furnish him with a fair reply to his argument.

You are an unlovely mixture of conceit and ignorance.

Order! Will the hon. member withdraw that. It is not a dignified expression for a learned gentleman to use.

If you order me to, Sir.

I order the hon. learned gentleman to withdraw.

I withdraw.

Now I want to go on again. The hon. member for Green Point said we had two pieces of legislation. The first was the amendment to the Public Service Act, and then a further Bill in regard to an account for this section. The Official Secrets Act granted protection to any police matter and any military matter, and the hon. member stated that this body which has now been established deals only with military and police matters, and that the Minister who deals with it finds no fault with it. I find no fault with it either, but now the hon. member must bear in mind that we have now established a body which is now going to co-ordinate those two divisions, the police aspect of security and the military aspect of security. We are now establishing a Bureau of State Security. But that Bureau of State Security not only deals with policy matters internally, in the same way as our police at present deal only with police intelligence matters internally, but it must also deal with police intelligence abroad. In other words, it is being placed on a par with that body which was established in America, the C.I.A., to which such frequent reference was made this morning, as well as the British Secret Service. In other words, it is going to deal with overseas police matters as well; overseas police matters will therefore not be dealt with by the military alone. Sir, I want to remind hon. members of what the hon. the Minister said when he introduced the Bill on the Bureau of State Security. He said—

I cannot at the moment state what all its functions are going to be, nor do I feel myself competent to do so, but I know that its functions can cover a much wider field than merely the domestic police matters which are now being protected by our Official Secrets Act. That is why it was necessary to make provision in clause 10 for security matters as well. Since section 3 of the Official Secrets Act only makes provision for police matters, we also had to make provision, after the establishment of this Bureau, for matters with which this Bureau would deal, i.e. security matters. It is only logical that this should have been done. Sir, I think that is a reasonable and a good reply to the hon. member.

The British Secret Service is protected in the same way in the British courts, and so, too, the C.I.A. is protected in America. This is the position in any country in the world to-day, When the hon. the Minister of the Interior introduced the Bureau of State Security Bill he pointed out that we were living in times which necessitated steps being taken to ensure the safety of the State, both internally and externally. Espionage and counter-espionage for example is an external matter. It is not merely a military matter; it is not only dealt with by the British Secret Service; it covers all kinds of matters. They also deal with overseas political matters. But I feel that I am not competent to discuss all those different functions here this morning. However, I want to point out to the hon. member that it is essential, since we are for the first time now establishing a body which is similar to those in other countries, that it should enjoy that protection which it has enjoyed in respect of police matters internally in terms of the Official Secrets Act. That is why we are now making provision in clause 10 to the effect that it will also enjoy similar protection in regard to State security matters, and we go further and define “security matters”. Sir, I think that answers the hon. member’s question.

I come now to the points made here by other hon. members. I want to make it very clear this morning why it was necessary to introduce clause 29. We are introducing clause 29 because the court has now given a judgment which, to a certain extent, changes an old established practice. I am not saying that it changes the old established practice completely, but it does change it to a certain extent. That is why I say that the hon. members who argued here on a juristic basis were wide of the mark because they never dealt with the specific reasons why clause 29 appears in the Bill. I should like to quote here from the case Redelinghuys v. Geidel. This is a case which came up in 1963, and in this case the entire history of clause 29 was gone into. The hon. Judge said in his decision—

Now follow the important words—

He then went on to refer to the case which came up before the House of Lords, Duncan v. Cammel Laird in 1942, which confirmed the procedure of the courts in Great Britain. I am quoting from the Judge’s decision—

After he had dealt with the decision in the case Duncan v. Cammel Laird, he went on to say—

Subsequently when the Duncan v. Cammel Laird case came on appeal before the House of Lords, Viscount Simon, who gave judgment pointed out—

Hon. members will therefore see that this has been an established practice in Great Britain since 1822. We took over that part of the law of evidence from the British; this was in fact applied in this way in the South African courts until the date of this case Van der Linde v. Calitz. The decision in the case Van der Linde v. Calitz was necessitated because a measure of doubt arose as a result of the decision of the Privy Council in the case Robinson v. South Australia State. In that Robinson case it was decided that not everything was privileged but that only evidence or documents which certified that it was contrary to the interests of the State to disclose it, but that the court had a residual jurisdiction to see whether the disclosure of certain documents would be in the public interest. That is what the Van der Linde v. Calitz case was all about. That is why we are providing in this clause: “Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any law or common law contained …” It has become necessary because the judgment in the Robinson case introduced a change in an established practice of more than a century and a half. We are simply stating in this clause the old common law rule which has been maintained since 1822 in various cases in British courts and which was also maintained in our courts. That is the reason for the insertion of this provision; that is why it reads like this. It is quite innocent, as I have stated here previously. One cannot state it in any other way. If one codifies the common law then one must provide that whatever the common law was in the past, or whatever the statutory law was in the past, this must from now on be the law. Of one codifies, one must state it like this.

Does the hon. the Deputy Minister not think that there is a difference in England where there are no laws which infringe habeas corpus, as in this country?

All these laws in Great Britain, when it comes to the law of evidence, are subject to the same rule we have to-day. This morning the hon. member for Prinshof, in my opinion very capably, pointed out that this power was not unlimited. A certificate must be displayed to the court in which is indicated why it is regarded as being in the public interest not to hear the evidence or disclose the documents, or why it would endanger the security of the State. It is still within the power of the courts to see whether that certificate is in order. The courts have over the years ruled that a Minister cannot simply state that something is in the public interest; he must state in the certificate concerned that he has scrutinized the documents concerned and that this is his finding after having scrutinized the documents. That is what the courts decided in the past, and it is not being affected by this clause. I cannot understand why hon. members are so suspicious about this whole matter. It is very clear that we are simply codifying here what the legal practice has been over the years, and this is being done in order to eliminate the uncertainty brought about by the decision in the Robinson case, after which our appeal court also upheld the exceptions made in the Robinson case and spoke of the residual jurisdiction of the courts to go behind it, while it was not always the practice that the courts could go behind it. Mr. Speaker, I think that deals with this aspect of the matter.

Now we come to clause 10. Clause 10 introduces nothing new into our law. All the words which appear herein have appeared since 1965 in our law—

These words “in any manner or for any purpose” already exists in our 1965 Act, and any police matter was subject to the provisions of that section. Hon. members will note that the definition of “police matter” is very general. It is defined as—

What is “internal security”? It is as wide as one can interpret it—

which is even wider—

The hon. member for Houghton referred to a certain case which is still sub judice, i.e. the post-mortem case. I would not like to discuss it therefore, but I just want to say that no such certificate is being issued at the moment and that no such certificate will be issued. But there is nothing to prevent the possibility of such a certificate being issued now already. It is already covered at the moment by the definition of police matter, as the Act reads at present, but this is not being done. What right has she then to say that because we are inserting the words “security matter” this will inevitably happen, while the powers are already there which make it possible to do so? Surely it is going too far to say, simply because we are inserting the words “security matter” that we will abuse this power, while we have it at the moment and are not abusing it.

I come now to the last question raised by the hon. member for Musgrave. The hon. member for Musgrave referred to the existing position as far as the accused is concerned. I pointed out to him previously that when an accused is in the witness stand he is a witness. As such, his evidence is subject to the entire law of evidence, except where he is exempted by certain sections in our Code. I asked the hon. member to mention one of the sections which exempted him from the provisions of section 233. But the hon. member cannot do so.

Read section 227.

The only section which exempts him from that is section 228. Section 233 reads, “No witness shall, except as in. this Act provided, be compellable or permitted to give evidence”, i.e. the Criminal Procedure Act. And there is no provision in the Criminal Procedure Act which exempts him from this particular matter.

Read section 227.

Very well. Section 227 reads—

But what does that mean now? It seems to me the hon. member for Durban (North) is quite confused; he no longer knows what this is all about. Section 233 reads as follows—

Suppose an accused came to court and these matters were put to him, these things which you say may not be put to him. Then it is the duty of the court to rule immediately that these things are privileged because they are matters which are in the public interest, even without there being a certificate. That is in fact the position to-day. But suppose the Minister could guess what evidence would be given and, on those grounds issued a certificate, then the court will not be able to permit that evidence. What is the position then? The courts must find that person guilty or not guilty. The court can say that if the inadmissible evidence was in fact admitted the accused would have been not guilty and therefore he is given the benefit of the doubt. That is the position; that is how any legal expert would interpret the matter if it came before the court. But hon. members opposite are looking at this matter through political spectacles and are not looking at the legal provisions as such because if they did that they would see what the position was. The fact of the matter is that we are not afraid that accused will be found guilty under this legislation. On the contrary, the possibility is that they will be found not guilty. The attitude of the State is, however, that we should rather let one man go free than to disclose a State secret, which may not be disclosed. That is the essence of the matter. Therefore I cannot take this matter any further.

Hon. members opposite kicked up a great fuss over this legislation. Much of what they said was not said with a view to arguing the legal position as a legal man would have done; they were playing to the public; they were trying to conjure up spectres and present our name in a bad light. In future the United Party must not come and complain when we accuse them of having made allegations which they could not substantiate, accusations by means of which South Africa is getting a bad name abroad; in other words, that they are trying to mar our good relations with overseas countries by the excessive utterances they are making here for political gain. But I do not know how they can make any political gains in this way, except perhaps to attract a few Progressives to them. As far as the hon. member for Houghton is concerned, she is capable of stating her own case, and she does it a lot better than hon. members of the United Party have done on behalf of their Party.

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

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—101: Bodenstein, P.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, M. W.; Botha, P. W.; Brandt, J. W.; Carr, D. M.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Jager, P. R.; De Wet, M. W.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Erasmus, J. J. P.; Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J M.; Herman, F.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J.; Le Roux, J. P. C.; Le Roux, P. M. K.; Lewis, H. M.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, W. T.; Maree, G. de K.; Mclachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, S. P.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Roux, P. C.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J. D.; Stofberg, L. F.; Swiegers, J. G.; Torlage, P. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Van Breda, A.; Van den Berg, M. J.; Van den Heever, D. J. G.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van Niekerk, M. C.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Visse, J. H.; Visser, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. J.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Vosloo, W. L.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J. J.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: G. P. van den Berg, P. S. van der Merwe, H. J. van Wyk and W. L. D. M. Venter.

Noes—35: Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Connan, J. M.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Lindsay, J. E.; Malan, E. G.; Marais, D. J.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Smith, W. J. B.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Waterson, S. F.; Webber, W. T.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

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

Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Chairman, I should like the hon. the Minister to explain in some detail how clause 1 will be applied. It seems to me that the marketable securities tax has now been doubled. That is the effect of this clause. I hope I have this matter right. As I understand it, in terms of clause 1 there is now a 1 per cent charge on the purchaser and 1 per cent on the seller, in other words 2 per cent on the transaction. That is how I understand this clause. I should like the hon. the Minister to explain to me why he excludes any deals in shares between principals who do not deal through a broker on the Stock Exchange. This marketable securities tax is a tax on transactions through the Stock Exchange. Let us take the example of two companies, for instance the Africa Transkei Consolidated Investment Company, Mr. Chairman, you know what names we have in South Africa, and the United Bantu Exploration Company. Let us suppose they are themselves interested in dealing in shares and that one company sells to the other 10,000 or 100,000 shares. Does the hon. the Minister then get a share of that transaction? Is there any taxation on private deals? But let me narrow it down. Suppose the hon. member for Durban (North) and I enter into a deal and instead of dealing through a broker we say we will deal at the high change price of the following day. He then sells 1,000 shares to me and I buy 1,000 shares from him. Do I pay any marketable securities tax on that transaction? As far as I can see the hon. the Minister now only collects when the deals go through a stockbroker. If that is the case it seems obvious to me that all deals should go through a stockbroker. In the case of land purchases which must be registered by an attorney, it is clearly laid down that the tax is payable on registration. With our registration stamp duty on shares the tax is insignificant. The real tax is on the transaction, on the actual sale. I am now not speaking of brokerage, the agent’s charge. I am speaking of the Minister’s charge by means of the marketable securities tax. I should like to know whether the hon. the Minister receives any share when a deal is made between two private persons, whether those persons are individuals or companies. I should like to know where he stands in those cases. Can these people simply say that they will sell one another 1,000 shares and then have the scrip changed and the deal is complete? Will they be able to complete the deal without paying any taxation? This is not fair to the man who says that he wants to deal through a broker. I am not suggesting that we should go so far as to say that deals made privately should be illegal. I am not suggesting that at all. I am, however, suggesting that the hon. the Minister loses a great deal of revenue which he would otherwise obtain. To say to the ordinary man who buys 100 shares that he has to pay tax but that if two companies enter into a deal for 100,000 shares, they will not have to pay this tax, seems to me not to be equitable.

Mr. Chairman, the fact is that there is a marketable securities tax payable on all deals going through a stockbroker. This amounts to a total of 2 per cent. In the case of other transactions which do not go through a stockbroker there is a stamp duty which is half of this amount, namely 1 per cent. The one is therefore a marketable securities tax, and the other a stamp duty.

We all pay stamp duty, so a stamp duty is insignificant.

The hon. member is quite right. It might be insignificant. That is a good idea. It has already been suggested that the stamp duty in cases of a transaction between principals without the transaction going through a stockbroker should be made equal to the duty payable when the transaction goes through a stockbroker. It has been suggested that we should double it and make it 2 per cent. That idea has been considered but we have reached no decision in this regard. We do, however, receive a share when a transaction takes place outside the Stock Exchange.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to add that as clauses 2, 3 and 4 are merely consequential, I do not think we need discuss them.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 6:

Mr. Chairman, I raised this question in regard to clause 6 on the Second Reading of the Bill. The reply of the hon. the Minister was that prior to the decided case in Bloemfontein he had all the time that he wanted in the world to make assessments. He is now limited to two years. Then the hon. the Minister said that so many of these assessments of values of properties, for the purchase of stamp duties and transfer duties, were done by clerks. This may well be true but wherever there is a clerk making such assessments, there is a magistrate, I presume, on the spot. A magistrate is a very senior official. I do not think the hon. the Minister is quite right when he says that he wants the protection of his inspectors because of the fact that junior officials may be dealing with these matters. They may be dealing with them but there are senior officials in every revenue office throughout the country, where there is a receiver or a magistrate, whoever is acting. There are many problems that could arise as a result of this uncertainty for the period of two years. I should like the hon. the Minister to give further consideration to this issue.

Mr. Chairman, I should also like to plead with the hon. the Minister not to proceed with this amendment. I think the difficulty the hon. the Minister referred to during the Second Reading, namely that the junior clerk in some place might make an error, can be obviated. Normally these matters are dealt with in the major centres where there are deeds registries. They are incidental to the passing of transfers of properties. One therefore finds no difficulties in these major centres where deeds registries exist in having the transfer duty assessed. Sometimes further information is called for. I would rather see that in cases of doubt or where an official in some magisterial district is not of a sufficiently high status, that there should be a delay administratively in the issue of a transfer duty receipt or that the transfer of the property itself should be delayed for a short while, than that this uncertainty should subsist for as long as two years. The hon. the Minister will know that under the Transfer Duty Act where it is thought that the valuation declared for transfer duty purposes is not a fair one, the Commissioner then has regard to a certain number of factors. He has regard to the nature of the real right in the land, the period, the municipal or divisional valuation of the property concerned, any sworn valuation of the property concerned which has been furnished on behalf of the person liable to pay the duty or any valuation made by a government mining engineer or any other competent or disinterested person appointed by the Commissioner. In every rural area there is a Land Bank valuator who can be referred to in cases of uncertainty before the transfer duty receipt is issued. In urban areas the Commissioner or a representative from the receiver of revenues office can call for a sworn appraisement. He knows who the sworn appraisers are. They are appointed by the Master of the Supreme Court. He can settle a valuation. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that in the various aspects of administration of legal matters this is going to cause some considerable doubts and considerable problems. Let us assume that a transfer is being passed from an estate to an heir. The estate is wound up and the heir is paid out. The property is then again sold to somebody else or in fact the proceeds may be sent overseas. Is the executor of that estate to sit for two years to wait and see whether some claim is going to come against that estate for transfer duty, which is payable out of the estate? And who is the person responsible? The executor in giving the transfer. The Commissioner is not going to look for the transferee somewhere or other. He is going to come to the transferor.

I believe that this can create an awful amount of uncertainty. Another factor is that property valuations fluctuate tremendously from time to time. If the Commissioner checks up on a local departmental assessment he might see that that property changed hands in a short period at twice its value. Where does one draw the line to assess what the value of the property was two years ago? How does one get anywhere near to determining what the value of such a property was two years ago? I do not know if this matter has been referred to the various law societies and those concerned with the conveyance of property, but I do believe that this proviso is purely to deal with the isolated case, and it will cause a great deal of uncertainty for a large number of people whose transactions are scrutinized by the local Receiver of Revenue.

Mr. Chairman, this is of course a matter with which a Minister never deals in the ordinary course of his activities. It is a matter with which the Department has to do with all the time. My Department informs me that there are quite a number of cases where they found that the duty has not been paid on the correct amount. Later it appeared that these properties were valued at a much higher value in a considerable number of cases. The Government is losing a great deal of money as a result. For that reason the Department feels it is important that we should have a clause of this nature. I can understand that there may be a degree of uncertainty in the course of the two years. I am prepared to take up this matter again with the departmental experts and if we should find a way out, which I cannot promise, we could attend to it in the Other Place.

Mr. Chairman, we are glad to receive the assurance from the hon. the Minister that he will consider taking the matter up in the Other Place. I think it is a very important matter because the values of property in the light of subsequent information can give the official an entirely different impression. For example, let us take the case of the estate of a person who died two years ago in one of our leading cities. The sworn valuation is made two or three months after that person’s death. Some time might elapse before that estate is wound up and it may only be after 18 months that the estate is disbursed. The revenue official may then discover that the value of the property which was assessed at the time as being R100,000 may not be the same after two years, but that the property is then worth three-quarters of a million rand. This sounds extraordinary but there have been cases where the value of properties has spiralled beyond the dreams of any State official or any person acting for an estate. Meanwhile the estate has been disbursed and the heirs have been paid out. The Department may then suggest that the value of that property was assessed wrongly, not in the light of facts at the time, but in the light of the subsequent information as to the value of that property in the property market. At the time this was quite unknown and unanticipated. In the light of subsequent knowledge the revenue official may then try to suggest that the first valuation made at the time was incorrect. This valuation is, however, made by a sworn appraiser in the light of circumstances at the time. We have had some extraordinary values in all our big cities in the past year or so. If there is going to be no finality with estates, the state of affairs can exist where an estate has been disbursed, the heirs paid out and transfer effected, and that there will be no means open to the Government other than to unscramble the whole process. I suggest that there should be absolute certainty about this matter and that if the hon. the Minister wants to make a provisional valuation the executor should be advised. The executor should know that it is provisional and is subject to further investigations. The hon. the Minister should give the executor a certificate to enable him to wind up estates. When accounts have been advertised in the Gazette and if they have been approved by the Master, surely that is finality? When the accounts are advertised in the Gazette all affected parties, namely creditors, legatees and the State have the opportunity of objecting to those accounts. If the valuation was given a year previously and the Receiver of Revenue is satisfied that the valuation is correct, he still has another opportunity when the accounts are advertised and lie open for inspection. If he fails to take the opportunity when the accounts are lying open for inspection to ask that the matter be held over, surely he has had every chance of protecting the interests of the fiscus.

I say this because he has had the first opportunity when the sworn valuation came before him and some time elapsed before the final accounts were advertised and were open for inspection. If, when they are open for inspection, there is no objection the Master advises the executor to proceed with the finalizing of the estate. The executor then transfers the property in terms of the will and in terms of the authority given by the Master. After all those processes have taken place, the revenue office, will therefore have had two opportunities first of all when examining the original sworn appraisement and secondly having read the advertisement in the Gazette. If it still fails to protect the fiscus or to raise an objection at that stage, it is going to create a state of affairs where there can be no certainty in the winding up of the estate. People are going to be prejudiced, but we do not want the State to be prejudiced. The State can take every opportunity, both at the sworn appraisement stage and some time later when the accounts are advertised. I think the hon. the Minister will meet these difficulties if he makes some provision that when the accounts are advertised as open for inspection, they should notify the Master of the Supreme Court if they would like to have the matter held over pending further valuation.

In that way the hon. the Minister has a second opportunity under the existing law, and by taking these additional powers, which I suggest, he could meet his difficulties when he considers the matter in the Other Place. He meets it first of all by the sworn valuation and then, supposing they have second thoughts on the matter, the Minister has the opportunity to exercise those second thoughts when the accounts are advertised. When the accounts are advertised and once the fiscus has failed to raise the objections, the affairs of the estate should not be disturbed. The fiscus has had two opportunities to discharge this matter and I suggest that the hon. the Minister should look at that aspect and see whether he cannot, when the accounts are advertised, raise the objection then, because once he has missed that opportunity, I suggest it should be finalized in the interests of all concerned. It is not fair that this uncertainty should continue for an indefinite period.

Mr. Chairman, I think I can give satisfactory information to the hon. members. Their arguments in regard to estates have not impressed me. The Department has informed me that in the case of deceased estates there is an exemption from such duty in all these cases. Therefore, estates are not affected at all.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister is correct, but the point we are trying to make in regard to the estate aspect of an heir who takes over from the estate, is the procedure which is followed there and is quite simple. It does not take over two years. This has been referred to by the hon. member for Pinetown. If a property is being taken over by an heir, at a valuation, without it being sold, the sworn appraisement is submitted to inspectors and checked by revenue officers. An all clear is given to the estate as to the valuation on which estate duty has to be paid. The valuation is determined. I cannot for the life of me see why a similar process cannot be followed where there is a query in regard to a matter where transfer duty is to be paid. Where estate duty is to be paid, the valuation is put in, the sworn appraisement is examined by the examiners and then the decision is given. The estate accounts are then drawn up on that basis and I have never heard of a revised valuation in that regard. Where an estate sells property, or where property has to be transferred into an estate …

It would make easier the transfer to a company.

Yes. Where property is being transferred into an estate, those difficulties do arise. You have an estate being wound up and there are circumstances where the two years of uncertainty can still continue. I appreciate the hon. the Minister’s point that he does not deal with these matters from day to day. Those of us from the Side Bar know the problems, trials and tribulations we have in getting finality in some of these cases. It is not the fault of the department. It is difficult where people are dealing not at arm’s length to evaluate a true valuation for duty purposes. Where people are at arm’s length at public auctions or private sales, very few queries arise.

I do feel that the legal profession, at any rate, those dealing with conveyancing, would rather see a delay of some days in the determination of that value being referred, if necessary, to one of the central revenue offices for confirmation if it is being paid in some small country place where there is not an experienced representative of the department. They would rather have that delay than to have this uncertainty for a period of two years hanging over transactions. I accept the hon. the Minister’s undertaking and we appreciate that he will go into the matter with the department to see whether this is not perhaps quite as essential a matter if regarded against the disadvantages to the general public.

Clause put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this is the clause which establishes the procedure for applying the proposed sales tax through the existing machinery of Customs and Excise. Customs procedure is designed to deal with goods coming into the country while excise is designed to deal with goods manufactured in South Africa. Throughout the method of application of the sales tax we find that those two methods, the customs and excise procedure, will now apply to the manufacture of any item which falls within the ambit of the sales duty. During the Second Reading I suggested that the procedure used should not be that of customs and excise. A simple procedure should be designed based upon information which is readily available in most factories, rather than a method which will force factories to institute a complete new system of record keeping, of stock controls of paper work and with it, in many cases, a considerable increase of clerical staff who will have to be recruited for the purpose.

Business suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

Afternoon. Sitting

Clause 1 (contd.),

When proceedings were interrupted, I had been appealing to the hon. the Deputy Minister to consider abandoning the proposed procedure for the collection of the sales tax, the procedure which flows from the amendments incorporated in clause 1. I appreciate that the hon. the Minister and I were caught on the wrong foot when he concluded his speech in the Second Reading and, let us be quite frank, he skimmed over the various points raised. I had raised a number of points concerning the method of application of this tax as opposed to the detail of the tax itself, with which we will deal later. I have pointed out to him numerous anomalies and numerous impossible requirements which are being demanded and which flow from this inclusion of the definition of “sales tax” under “Customs and Excise”. In other words, through this definition we are applying an existing system of revenue collection to a new concept of taxation without, I submit, having worked out the implications of that decision. I believe we have not taken into account the realities of factory production, the reality of how factories operate in practice, the existence of hundreds of small factories which do not have the administrative machinery to provide the information which will be demanded under this measure. We are trying to impose on our industrial machinery in South Africa commitments and obligations which they will not be able to meet without, firstly, increasing staff, and secondly, in many cases, changing their whole record and stock control systems. It sounds, in theory, a very easy way of applying this tax. In theory, if you are sitting with the Government, looking at it from the fiscal point of view, you would say: Well, here we have excise and we have customs, two methods of collection which work at the moment, and therefore let us apply those systems to this new tax. But I have already said that customs collections are based upon two simple documents, a certified invoice and a bill of entry, two documents only, and on those two documents you bring in goods into South Africa and pay on them the impost laid down in terms of the Customs Act. That is, except for the amendments introduced last year which, despite the Minister’s statement in reply to the Second Reading, are only being applied in specific isolated cases. Despite that reply, in practice and for 95 per cent of all imports you require only two documents. In the case of excise at the moment, it applies to a limited range of products manufactured almost entirely by large factories with proper clerical and administrative procedures in those factories. Now you are trying to take those two systems and apply them to the whole of South African industry which is affected by this measure.

But this clause goes further and in subsection (e) of clause 1 we find that packing or measuring off of any excisable goods liable for sales duty now becomes a manufacturing process. Therefore not only factories which manufacture the goods, but also persons who re-pack goods, become classified as factories. Therefore, in terms of this provision, every single retailer in South Africa can be classified as a factory, and every wholesaler in South African can be classified as a factory. I do not want to deal at this stage with clauses which appear later. There are provisions in later clauses which impose responsibility on ownership as opposed to manufacture. Those provisions, taken in the light of this provision to include “measuring off”, mean that the whole of our commerce as well as our industry are brought within the scope of this measure. I admit that the application of this clause is within the discretion of the Secretary, but where does that discretion stop? When does the measuring of a product and the packing of a product end—and it is not packing and measuring; it is packing or measuring; therefore the simple fact of measuring a product brings it into the scope of this measure at the discretion of the Secretary. I ask the Deputy Minister where he is going to draw the line between one person who measures a product and another who measures a product. If you are measuring mustard or pepper or sweets, or whatever the item may be, what is going to be the criterion which will determine whether you are brought into the provisions of this clause as a manufacturer? As we move through this Bill point after point will arise of this nature, where in fact what we are being asked to do amounts to this. We are being asked to give to the Minister of Finance the power to impose within the proposed scale any tax he likes, to exempt anyone he likes from it, to apply it if he wants to in one case and not in another, to take into account things like competitive influences, and here again, in this clause, the right to bring in the whole of commerce. We are in fact being asked to give a blank cheque. I have suggested to the Minister that not only does he not have the staff to control this, but industry does not have the staff either to apply this system, and that he should therefore rather introduce a simple system based upon records which every factory has, based upon the sales which it makes. Because let us face it, although we are not moving such an amendment, we believe that this is not a sales tax but a consumer tax. This is a tax on the consumer because the consumer will have to pay it.

Of course.

My hon. friend says “Of course”, and therefore the correct description of this tax is a consumer tax.

But if he does not buy he does not pay the tax.

We will deal with that under the Schedule—the question of who must buy. [Time expired.]

The point which the hon. member for Durban (Point) now raised under clause 1 is, in my opinion, basic to the entire Bill. The fact of the matter is that the Franzsen Commission considered this very point very thoroughly for months. They considered all the aspects of the introduction of a sales duty. They considered the implications of its introduction at the end point and also the implications of its introduction at the starting point, and after months of very thorough investigation, research and consultation, they came to the conclusion that the only sales duty which they could recommend for South Africa was what we rightly call a selective sales duty, which is based, firstly, on commodities. This is absolutely basic to the taxation we are discussing here to-day. It is based on commodities. In the second place it is based on varying rates, which go from lower to higher, for the purpose of making the duty progressive and not regressive, because if one has the same scale for all commodities, there is a proportionately heavier burden on the person with the lower income than on the person with a higher income. That is why the commission tried to recommend a progressive scale, and the Government accepted it. The alternative was a turnover tax, with no exclusion of any goods. Now we have a selective tax with the exclusion of certain commodities and with the inclusion of others. When the Government accepted this, a decision had to be taken as to which department should handle this sales duty; how should it be administered? There are probably only two departments that can do it. The one is Customs and Excise, and the other is Inland Revenue. Inland Revenue, in my opinion, is totally incapable of deciding about the inclusion or exclusion of commodities. If we must handle this duty on a commodity basis, it can only be administered, as we administer all indirect taxes, i.e. by the department which has the experience and the knowledge of indirect taxation and which knows how to administer it. The hon. member for Durban (Point) must take his case still further, because he did not say precisely what alternatives he had in mind, whether his side of the House advocated a commodity tax, or whether they advocated different percentages on different commodities. This is basic. If they advocate that, he must still argue why Customs and Excise should not handle and administer this tax, and then he must show us which other department is equipped, has the administrative machinery, the knowledge and the experience to do so. But my standpoint is that as long as one has a selective sales duty, based on various commodities, with the inclusion of commodities and the exclusion of commodities, and as long as one imposes different percentages of duty upon different types of goods, there is only one of our departments which can do it, and that is the Department of Customs and Excise, which has years of experience of the administration of indirect tax and which has the machinery to do it.

I now want to say that initially we issued procedures which contained certain provisions. We naturally had to have something ready. But I should like to tell the House that with the issuing of those procedures we worked on a stock basis in connection with this tax. We have to a very large extent relinquished that basis, and we are continuing to administer and collect this duty chiefly on a financial basis. Discussions were held with the Federated Chamber of Industries. They stated their objections and their problems to us in connection with the handling of the sales duty as we originally intended it, and we appreciated these, and after thorough discussions a new formula and a new basis was agreed upon. I can tell the Committee to-day that the Federated Chamber of Industries is at present altogether satisfied, and before the end of this week particulars will be submitted of the new procedure which will be followed, a procedure with which they are altogether satisfied.

What is that procedure?

The new procedure, as I said, is that the duty will be collected chiefly on a financial basis, on three-monthly returns from them, which will be reconciled once a year on the basis of audited statements.

That is exactly what I suggested.

If that is the hon. member’s suggestion, then I can assure him that the Department of Customs and Excise will be handling this duty precisely on this basis, that the Federated Chamber of Industries is now satisfied and that we shall ask nothing from a factory that is not reflected in its records and in its statements. We are going to reduce the paper work as much as possible and we are satisfied that we have the full cooperation of the people concerned.

Mr. Chairman, I am amazed; I am absolutely amazed at this hon. Deputy Minister whom I would have credited with far more ability to listen to and to understand an argument than he has shown.

He has more than you have.

In my Second-Reading speech on this measure, after criticizing the proposed method of application, I ended by making three proposals to the hon. the Minister. I listed them, I numbered them and I spelt them out in words of two syllables, so that anyone, even those noisy hon. members opposite, could understand it. My proposals were that he abandon the idea of a certificate of value and that he impose the sales tax on selected commodities, in terms of an amended Schedule, on a three-monthly audited certificate of the sales of taxable items. If the hon. the Deputy Minister looks at my Hansard, which I have not altered, he will find that that was my suggestion. I suggested, secondly, that the payments should be made 30 days after the end of each quarter and not seven days as proposed, and thirdly, I proposed that ingredients and components which were taxable should be rebated. Those were the three proposals which I made. To-day I repeated the basic principles on which I had argued, and then the hon. the Deputy Minister gets up and replies to a speech which I never made. Not once did I suggest that the commodity basis of the tax should be removed. The hon. member for Constantia, in the name of the Official Opposition, accepted the principle of a sales tax on commodities. He spelt it out in simple language. He went on to say that we accepted that luxury items should be taxed, and that our objection was to the method of application and to the range which was covered. That has been our case right from the very start. We have never suggested that anyone other than Customs and Excise should handle this. They are obviously the department to handle it. Sir, look at this legislation. This whole book covers over 1,060 pages of Customs and Excise Acts and amendments to it. To handle any single item, you have to wade through this book. Eighty or 90 per cent of this book consists of schedules, and we said that the system was unsuitable and undesirable for the application of the sales tax; that it was clumsy; that it was ill-considered and that it was impractical. We never suggested doing away with the commodity basis. We never suggested that Customs and Excise should not handle it. Sir, the hon. the Deputy Minister said that we had not put forward an alternative. In fact, the hon. member for Constantia stated his alternative at the beginning of the-Second-Reading debate when this tax was proposed. He stated then that he felt that the proposed system was impractical; that it covered too wide a range of products; and he made positive alternative proposals. His alternative was a method of financing the shortfall through the application, on an experimental basis, of this tax on genuine luxury items only. We argued this in the Budget debate; we argued it in the Second-Reading debate on this measure; I raised it again now, and now the hon. the Deputy Minister blandly says “You never proposed an alternative”; but at the same time he says that they in fact, are going to do exactly what we have suggested. Why did he not say so in the first place? Where do we stand now? We are now going to have exactly what I proposed, namely that audited certificates of sales, rendered quarterly, should form the basis of this taxation.

Why not wait until we get to that clause?

This is the basis for the application of the system, and I want to deal with it now. The hon. the Deputy Minister has now accepted exactly what we proposed; he says that that is going to be done, but he is going to ask us to pass this Bill clause by clause; he is going to ask us to pass provisions which he has now announced he is in fact not going to use. Is the hon. the Deputy Minister going to amend them?

No.

It is obviously impossible to amend this measure now in the Committee Stage. We have 42 clauses in the measure as it is before us now, 42 clauses based upon customs and excise procedures. If the hon. the Minister in his Second Reading reply had said: “What you propose in the Opposition is acceptable and that is what we are going to do,” then we could have come to him with amendments, but when he turns down our representations and says that he is going to proceed with the Bill as it is, how on earth can you amend a measure such as this in the middle of the Committee Stage? It would mean that you would have to sit down with officials of the Department and with experts and spend days and days to work out the machinery of the new procedure. The hon. the Deputy Minister now says: “I accept now that this whole mechanism which I proposed is useless; I am now going to apply a completely different principle, but I am going to ask Parliament to pass this law and then I am going to act in terms of my exemption powers.” That is what he is going to do. We will come to those as we go along. He is going to act in terms of these exemption powers. I think it should stand on record that Parliament is being asked to pass a measure which in point of fact is not going to be applied in practice, and that we are therefore being asked to grant to the Minister, largely to the Secretary—because most of the powers are in the hands of the Secretary—the power to apply the sales tax as the Government thinks fit. Sir, this Government has so little knowledge of industry, so little understanding of the practical running of industry, that after introducing a Bill, a White Paper and an explanatory memorandum, running to 23 and 33 pages respectively, after introducing 11 forms, after upsetting the whole of industry in South Africa, after spending two months in negotiations, it comes to Parliament and says: “We did not know what we were doing; we made an absolute shambles of this; we proposed something which we now accept cannot work, and therefore we are going to have to bring in a radically different procedure.” Sir, is that how we are being governed; is that how South Africa is being governed?

You are talking nonsense.

Sir, I ask the hon. member for Paarl to stand up and to say that the procedures outlines in this Bill, in the memorandum and the White Paper were in fact sensible, intelligent and practical methods of collecting this tax. The hon. the Deputy Minister has just told us that next week he is going to send out instructions accepting what industry has suggested, what we suggested and what is the obvious, logical way to handle this. [Time expired.]

Sir, the Opposition blows hot and cold to such a degree and is so confused that they do not know what they themselves are saying …

Particularly the hon. member for Durban (Point).

Yes, particularly the hon. member for Durban (Point), and then they blame us if we do not understand what they are saying. The hon. member for Durban (Point) has just said that, at the commencement of the Budget debate on 8th of April, the hon. member for Constantia pleaded for a sales duty on what the hon. member for Durban (Point) called genuine luxury items. Does the hon. member for Durban (Point) want to deny that that is what the hon. member for Constantia said on 8th April?

That is what he said.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) admits that on 8th April the hon. member for Constantia said that the sales duty had to be introduced on “genuine luxury items” only.

Yes.

We now have the hon. member’s confirmation. Sir, I want to quote what the hon. member for Constantia said (Col. 3522)—

That is correct.

But the hon. member did not read the passage in full. He blames us on this side of the House for not reading passages in full, but he does not finish reading what his own people say, and he does not hear what they say either; because, in addition, the hon. member for Constantia said—

No one ever said what “other things” includes, but I accept that “other things” means other commodities—

On a restricted list.

Yes, a restricted list, but this is an altogether different concept from that which the hon. member for Durban (Point) presented to the House when he put words into the mouth of the hon. member for Constantia which implied that he had merely asked for a duty on “genuine luxury items”. That is the way in which the hon. member for Durban (Point) and that side of the House present matters to the South African nation; they do so in an ill-considered manner and deny what they themselves have said, and then they expect us to have understood what they meant.

What is your point?

My point is this; is the hon. member to stupid to realize it?

Order!

I just want to state very clearly that the hon. member for Constantia asked for a luxury duty plus an additional duty of 2½ per cent on other things which he neglected to identify. The hon. member for Durban (Point) was therefore presenting this Committee with a half-truth, as is apparent from Hansard.

To deal further with the suggestions which the hon. member for Constantia made and to which the hon. member for Durban (Point) referred, I want to quote what the hon. member went on to say on the same day (Col. 3521)—

The hon. member asked here for “a year of experiment and research”. In this speech there is a contradiction because, in the first place, the hon. member accepts the principle and asks for an additional investigation while, half a column further on, he makes certain proposals in respect of this sales duty. Now, after two months, the hon. member comes along and presents us with only the last portion of the statements and says that this is what they are advocating.

The problem with the hon. member and other members of his side of the House is that they want to run away from the control measures, the control mechanisms, which the Department of Customs and Excise has at its disposal. The speech of the hon. member for Durban (Point) attests to that fact. He wants a tax structure which is ill-considered and unpractical; he does not want the control mechanism, which the Department of Customs and Excise has at its disposal, to be applied for the specific restriction of the sales duty to a selective basis, i.e. to control and to facilitate its collection. The Department has the control mechanism, and experience in its application. To establish another mechanism at this stage would cost the country a great deal of money and would mean a duplication of services. The hon. member surely knows what the Franzsen Commission said. In paragraph 189, page 43, of the report, it is stated that if the Department of Customs and Excise were to control its collection, only 70 additional staff units would be necessary, as against 240 if another Department, such as the Department of Internal Revenue, were to control it. But, now it is hon. members opposite who are continually complaining about overspending on the part of the State and about a staff shortage. And yet the system which they are advocating will further accentuate the staff shortage, but nevertheless they want to make the nation believe that they have made such polished and practical proposals for the collection of this sales duty.

But our proposals have been accepted.

Hon. members opposite must not think that we cannot see through their haphazard and muddled statements, and the hon. member must not fling his arms into the air in sanctimonious indignation. Despite his loquacity he neglected to reveal the truth to this House this afternoon.

I was surprised a moment ago at certain remarks of the hon. the Deputy Minister, but I am even more surprised at the remarks of the hon. member for Wonderboom. He said that we were adopting an attitude here of sanctimonious indignation in respect of this legislation. When the Second Reading stage of this legislation was under discussion, we made several suggestions, we suggested several methods to try to improve upon this half-baked scheme as it is at present. And we did not only suggest a duty on luxury goods; we went further and suggested that this duty could also be levied as a purchase tax. The consumer is, after all, the man who must pay the duty and if it is introduced on a percentage basis on the commodity, he ought to be able to determine how much duty he will pay. The retailer will then be the one to collect the duty.

Now the hon. the Deputy Minister, or any other hon. member, must tell me what other vast machinery they now need for collecting this duty. But now the hon. the Deputy Minister comes along and says that this duty will be collected on a selective commodity basis. Well, it cannot be done in any other way. If one does not want to tax bread, then one does not want to tax it; if one does not want to tax flour, then one must not do so; and if one wants to tax sweets, then one taxes sweets. We shall still hear a great deal about whether this basis is selective, because how many of these items are going to increase the pressure on the middle and lower income groups of our population? But the principle of this form of duty has already been accepted and therefore we cannot hold another debate about it. But we have said repeatedly that this whole scheme was a half-baked one. Now the hon. the Deputy Minister comes along and says that, at a later stage, it will also have to be done on a financial turnover basis. I agree that this is the only practical way for it to be done, i.e. on a commodity and financial turnover basis. It can surely not be done any other way. But we see many provisos in this legislation, even right here in the first few clauses.

For example, the Secretary is empowered to do this or that, and then again the Minister. They can, for example, make exceptions. For me this is an indication of what a half-baked scheme this is and in how unprepared a manner we are tackling things. We say that if there must be a decrease in income tax, and if that decrease must be supplemented from another source, we must find a simplified method for doing so, and we must do so on a selective basis. Yesterday the hon. the Deputy Minister spoke about this selective basis and about the sorting-out process which eventually left an amount of R700 million in turnover for the purposes of this duty. But this is surely subject to import permits and other things, not so? This can surely not be a final figure upon which a final calculation can be based? How can the hon. the Deputy Minister make an analysis of last years trade and, on that basis, want to collect a tax while he knows, as well as we do, that from now on up to the end of the financial year, the entire picture could change. My argument is that if this consumer tax is collected, on the basis of a percentage on commodities, and one finds, at a certain stage, that one is collecting too much and stripping the nation unnecessarily of a portion of its income, it is so much easier to change the percentage on selective lists of goods, easier than it would be to do so in terms of this proposal. My argument is that we are dealing here with a half-baked measure. Even before it is being applied it is already creating so many problems that the hon. the Deputy Minister himself must acknowledge that the system of selective commodity tax, which we have accepted, will apparently not work, and that we shall in any case have to replace it in the near future with a financial tax. It is surely clear that this will have to be done, as the hon. member for Durban (Point) also indicated. It is now no longer possible to submit amendments in order to change this system. The principle as such was accepted. All that we can do, at a later stage in the discussion about this Bill, is to argue about specific commodities.

The fact remains that this method of taxation, which is being introduced by this Bill, is such a half-baked method that to-day we no longer know what to do in order to put it right, except for the proposals which we could make in the course of the latter discussions about the Bill. However, we must not lose sight of what was said during the Second Reading of this Bill. There was a great deal of conjecture then. The figures which the Deputy Minister mentioned yesterday were also based largely on conjecture. The amount which will be collected as a result of this system, which does not yet want to function properly, and which has not yet been completed to the extent where it has crystallized into a method of taxation, can also be determined only by conjecture. We think that much more will be collected than what the Deputy Minister or the Minister of Finance himself ever intended. We conclude with that. At a later stage we shall try to amend the system, but the fact remains that it is half-baked and incomplete.

Sir, hon. members on both sides of the House are agreed that here in the Republic of South Africa a sales duty should be introduced.

A consumer tax.

I call it a sales duty. It is a sales duty which is being introduced. All of us are also agreed that there will be problems. But it is unreasonable of the hon. member for East London (North) to stand up and say that the Minister has introduced a half-baked measure. This is the first time in the history of our nation that we are introducing a sales duty. It is true that there are going to be problems along the way. We all admit as much, but who is in the best position to take the most effective steps in the course of time?

The Opposition.

The Minister and his officials will be able to do so. The Deputy Minister made this clear to us. He is having talks with commerce and industry to enable this duty to function as smoothly as possible. If, at this stage, there are perhaps one or two forms too many, is this such a tremendous sin? Is this now the greatest sin we have ever committed in this House? The Minister is being guided by the Franzsen Commission. He is being guided by his officials, and commerce and industry are prepared to co-operate. Why are we therefore not prepared to give this legislation a reasonable chance? Give it that chance. To expect the Deputy Minister to promise us a utopia this afternoon and to tell us that there are not going to be any problems is surely asking too much of any man. I strongly hold it against the hon. member for Durban (Point) for having said: “He does not have the ability.” If there has ever been a Deputy Minister in this House who has had the ability to pilot legislation through here, it is that Deputy Minister. The hon. member ought to be ashamed for having flung such an accusation at the Deputy Minister. It was also unreasonable of the hon. member for East London (City) to have said that we want to strip the nation outside. We do not want to strip the nation outside. We want to see that the pressure of taxation is distributed proportionately and reasonably over all in the Republic of South Africa. Therefore we are all agreed that there should be a sales duty. All I want to ask hon. members is to give the Deputy Minister and his department a reasonable opportunity to use this experimental period and to make the necessary forms available. If there are consequent problems, the Minister of Finance has said that he would be prepared to iron them out, and that he would be prepared to hold discussions in this connection. Hon. members must give him the chance. In a year’s time hon. members will realize that he has all the ability to implement this legislation. He is not half-baked.

Mr. Chairman, I am afraid that the last speaker has thrown more heat than light on this subject. There was no criticism of the Minister personally. Our criticism was aimed at the Government.

The hon. member said the Deputy Minister did not have the ability. Is that not criticism of the Minister?

The trouble is that those who are advising the Minister look at the matter from the point of view of the department, as has happened so often in the past. They do not take both sides of the matter into account. The Franzsen Commission recommended a sales tax, or, as we on this side of the House call it, a purchase tax. We agree with that in principle. We disagree with the range of articles affected and we disagree with the method to be adopted here. The hon. member for Durban (Point) when he spoke during the Second Reading, criticized the method to be used. As has already been shown, especially by the Deputy Minister, it is the method which is at fault. The difficulty is that so many officials study the problem from the department’s point of view only. I think it is high time, when drafting legislation of this kind, that consideration should be given to the duties which have to be performed by the people who have to pay the tax. These people should have the opportunity of considering what paper work has to be done, and other details in this regard. If any elementary thought had only been applied to this matter in the early stages, we would not have had this multitude of forms. But for the fact that the Minister is able to do what he likes if this Bill does not suit him, the Bill, as it stands, is quite impracticable. Commerce and industry have shown the Minister, and the Minister has admitted this afternoon, that it is quite impracticable to carry out the provisions of this Bill. Therefore the Minister, following discussions with commerce and industry and industrialists in particular, has met their objections. He met their objections in the way which was recommended by the hon. member for Durban (Point). Because of the fact that, in the case of so many of these regulations, only the Government’s point of view is considered, the public, who have to pay the taxes and who have to fill in the forms, are in the position that if they fill in a form incorrectly, it is not interpreted as an honest mistake. It is interpreted as a gross dishonesty.

No.

Oh yes, Sir. Last year, when the suggestion was made, in connection with the Excise Bill …

If it is a genuine mistake, it will be recognized as such.

The general attitude of Government officials is that, if the fiscus would have been deprived of income as a result of the incorrect filling in of a form, there must have been an ulterior motive. A member of the public has the utmost difficulty indeed to get the department to accept the fact that he has made an honest mistake. That is the last explanation the department is prepared to accept. That is what happened in the case of the Excise Bill. After the Excise Bill was introduced, the Minister told this House that there were numbers of members of commerce and industry who had defrauded the Government, but in the final analysis it turned out that they formed a very small percentage. The hon. member for Rosettenville interjected and spoke about income tax. In the case of income tax there is not the same excuse. In the case of income tax, the public has had many years’ experience of filling in forms. The forms are perfectly clear, and can be filled in by people who have experience. However, when a new tax of this kind is introduced, and forms have to be filled in, suspicion is laid at the door of the taxpayer by the department. The department is starting with a disadvantage because it has no previous experience. The taxpayer is starting with a disadvantage because he too has had no previous experience but the taxpayer is held up as the rogue. This problem is not going to be solved in a year as the hon. member for Brakpan said. It is going to take three or four or even five years before all the difficulties in this Bill are ironed out. The experience on the part of the Government and on the part of the Departments of Commerce and Industries will have to be used to iron out the difficulties and make this measure workable and practical and also to cut down the amount of paper work to a minimum.

Mr. Chairman, I must say that I am also very much astonished at the hon. members opposite. We expected that they would try to look for political advantage for themselves in this Bill. We expected that they would raise a political dust storm here, but I did not expect it to come so soon. We expected it to come at the end, under the schedules. What is the position? Here we are dealing with a certain type of law and with the drafting of the procedure for its implementation in respect of which no consultation could have taken place between the Government and commerce and industry on account of its specific nature. It is logical that when a Government is in a situation where it can consult, changes will be introduced. The Government had the principle, which was supported by the Opposition, approved by Parliament. It could not have consulted commerce and industry about its precise form, what it should look like and how every line and sentence should read. These are the people who have the practical knowledge. Now that amendments have been effected, the hon. member wants to claim the credit for himself. Let me set him right. He is quite behind the times. There have been proposals from many quarters, and also from hon. members on this side of the House, but long before that hon. member spoke at the Second Reading, the ideas in regard to the new form were virtually completed after commerce and industry had already been consulted. The ideas he submitted to this House during the Second-Reading debate are possibly ideas he also got from commerce and industry. He did so long after the Government had progressed up to a certain stage. The Government did it long before the Second-Reading debate was held and he made his speech. Therefore he must please not claim the credit for himself as though it is his wisdom. In my opinion the hon. members opposite need not discuss this matter any further. Commerce and industry, which are mainly responsible for the amendments which have been effected as a result of requests and on the strength of the new information the Government has received only now because it could not consult them at an earlier stage on account of the nature of the matter, are now satisfied. I cannot understand why this debate is being continued, except that those hon. members are looking for political gain by doing so.

Mr. Chairman, we must not forget that this is a taxation measure and that it must be accurate, because there are penalties. I do not agree with the hon. member for Florida. Commerce and industry are having a headache as a result of this measure. Some of the bigger firms are having to employ extra staff and they are having simposia and lectures on this measure at considerable expense to try to understand its operation, because the penalties are fairly severe. Therefore in implementing any taxation measure, the measure must be exact and clear. One must not have to go down the line to various officials to try and interpret and find out what is happening and what it all means, because an official is really no different to us here. We can only read in the Bill what is printed. When we consider clause 1 we come to the definition of a manufacturer. Mr. Chairman, further on in the Bill we hear about reconditioning. I wish later to deal with the reconditioning of tyres but there is nothing in the definition clause as to what reconditioning means. We therefore have the difficulty here of a man who has an old article which he reconditions, which then becomes taxable under this Bill. Surely when we design a taxation measure, it must be clear. The definitions in clause 1 of the Bill are not clear about this matter. Mention is made in this clause of conversion, but we do not know what conversion means, and there is nothing about reconditioning although the Bill mentions reconditioning. When it comes to clarifying the position for industry later on, we will have the officials saying to us that conversion means reconditioning. It does not. Converting an article is not reconditioning it. You can convert an article from a tyre into a pair of shoes, but conversion is certainly not reconditioning. We should therefore have some clarity in the definitions and there is certainly not clarity about this in this particular Bill. I agree with the hon. members who have said that when we are dealing with a taxation measure such as this, we should be very careful because it is not only industry but also the man in the street who has to pay. You find that commerce and industry rather than be prosecuted will overpay. It is however, the most difficult thing after overpaying the Government to try and get your money back. The Government was hasty in introducing this measure, but even at this late stage we say: Let us have some clarity on it. Nobody in Government circles knows what is going on outside. The hon. member for Florida is wrong. Commerce and industry are having a most difficult time with this measure. The hon. the Minister has had deputations to see him and they have tried to iron matters out. The position has been very difficult but industry is still expected to pay this tax, rightly or wrongly. This is a taxation measure and you cannot merely put it off until next year. Money has to be paid on the turn and if you underpay or forget to pay, you pay the penalty. We must not forget that. I should like to prevail upon the hon. the Deputy Minister to reconsider the first clause in the Bill so as to give us a little more clarity on the definition of reconditioning. He mentions reconditioning later on in other clauses, and in the schedules, but there is no mention of it in the definition clause.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Florida said that the thoughts which were expressed by hon. members on this side of the House had already been put in the mind of the Minister by the time this measure came before the House. I wonder who is trying to ride on whose back now. If these suggestions had already been put in the mind of the hon. the Minister and if the hon. the Minister was already considering them, surely it was his duty to present those thoughts to this hon. House. But he did not do this. I want to say that that hon. member is merely trying to climb on the backs of those hon. members of the Opposition who had the foresight to see these objections before they were raised. Let me go further and say that the complete denial of what he said is the words of the hon. the Deputy Minister this afternoon when he said that he was accepting these changes.

I want to return to the hon. member for Brakpan. He made a statement here this afternoon which has been refuted time after time. He said that the object here was to spread the tax burden.

Of course it is.

How has it been spread? It has been spread on the shoulders of the poor. That is what this Government has done. How many wealthy people in this country to-day are rubbing their hands together and staying: Look at the saving we have in income-tax, R93 million. They are saving R93 million on income-tax and who is paying for it? It is the poor people who have to buy soap, candles, etc. Those are the people who pay that income-tax which the wealthy people should have been paying. It is a sales tax which is bringing in that R93 million which is being lost in income-tax. It is the poor man who is paying the bulk of that sales duty.

Sub-para. (h) of the clause under discussion gives a definition of sales duty, as follows—

If we go to Part 3 we find that there are notes. Note 1 reads—

The definition of “manufacture” in paragraph (f) of clause 1 reads, inter alia—

This is included in the definition of “manufacture”. Anybody who prepacks, measures off or packs any goods which are dutiable in terms of this Schedule is liable for the tax. I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister how he is going to apply this. Who is going to pay the tax? Commodities such as sweets, pepper, mustard and oils are to-day dutiable. You have your manufacturer, you have a wholesale packer, and you then have the retailer who does the biggest amount of packing. The bulk of the packing to-day is done by a retailer or by a supplier to a retailer. At which point is the tax going to be levied? To-day it applies to only a few commodities which are packed by retailers. We have been asked this afternoon to embody this principle into this Act. How is the hon. the Minister going to apply it? The time might come when this will be extended to other commodities. Quite honestly I should like to hear from the hon. the Minister who is going to pay this tax in the case of sweets. Is it going to be the manufacturer? What is going to be the position with sweets which are sold loose to a retailer for packing? Is the manufacturer going to pay the tax, or is the retailer going to pay the tax?

Both.

Or both. That of course is also a point. This is what the hon. member for Florida suggested, namely that it might perhaps be collected at both ends. I should very much like to hear from the hon. the Minister what his thoughts are on this point. There is this clause which says “in the discretion of the Secretary”, and we would like to know in what way the Secretary will exercise that discretion.

Mr. Chairman, the Opposition must not be angry with me. They should be angry with themselves. I call the entire House to witness. Hon. members want to hold a Second-Reading debate on this Bill this afternoon. Why did they not hold a Second-Reading debate last week? Last Friday we sat here and laughed at their antics in connection with a previous Bill, which was then before the House. Why did they not use that time to hold a proper Second-Reading debate? This is not our fault. They wasted all Friday, and on what? They will know on what. And then, shortly before the time for the adjournment, we quickly had to dispose of the Second Reading. Hon. members could have had quite a few hours for the Second Reading. They could have said all these things they said to-day and got replies to them. But that did not suit them. So they wanted to hurry it through as it was. We are not having a Second-Reading debate now.

And this point that was raised a moment ago?

What does clause 1 have to do with that point? I shall reply to the aspect of manufacture. I shall come to that. I am replying to the discussions now. Five minutes before the House adjourned I had to reply. Those hon. members used up all that time so that I had only five or six minutes in which to reply. What reply should I have given to hon. members then?

And yesterday?

Yes, and yesterday? Yesterday we had to press on to get a reading in order not to lose a day. The fact that there was no proper Second-Reading debate is not my fault. It is the fault of hon. members on the opposite side of the House. I hear they still have six or seven hours left on the 100 hours allowed. There are a large number of clauses here. The points that are now being raised by hon. members can be discussed very profitably under these clauses. These clauses do in fact relate to them. The hon. member for Durban (Point) knows it and that is why he keeps quiet. Now hon. members want to have the big fight on clause 1. I should very much like to tell hon. members two things. Countries which have more or less the same sales duty as we have and levy it at more or less the same stage, countries such as Canada and to some extent Great Britain, have legislation differing very little from ours. Their legislation and our legislation correspond to a very large extent. That is so. Then I want to say something else with which the hon. member for Durban (Point) will have to agree. The hon. member mentioned procedure. The document that was issued the day after the hon. the Minister made his speech is a procedure document. That paper and those forms are procedure.

Which you are now discarding?

No. Now the hon. member does not want to have anything to do with the Act because he did not like the procedure. Surely the procedure does not affect the legislation at all. How can you have procedure without having an Act?

Actually, it is an Act without procedure.

I am coming to the hon. member for East London (City). I want to ask the hon. member at once whether he is half-baked to-day or whether he was half-baked in the Budget debate. I am calling the House to witness. In the Budget debate that hon. member pleaded for a turnover tax in the retail trade at the final point. He wanted a small percentage on everything bought by the consumer at shops. That was what he pleaded for. The hon. the Minister gave the hon. member a good talking-to about that.

I never said that. I mentioned luxury articles.

But to-day the hon. member says he quite agrees with us. He has now become converted to our side, and wholeheartedly agrees with us that this tax should be the way it is. Then I also want to tell the House and the hon. member for Durban (Point) that at the very moment the hon. the Minister rose here to make his Budget speech over the radio on 26th March, discussions had already started in the offices of the department. When the hon. the Minister rose, discussions were started to launch and administer the sales duty. At that time we did not have the faintest idea of the wonderful wisdom the hon. member for Durban (Point), after he had consulted commerce, would give us here in the House the week after. Let us be very honest now. Even if there had been no opposition in South Africa, or if they had not said a word about this, we would still have had these discussions with industry. The system on which we decided, we would still have worked out in practice in collaboration with the people who are the most interested. This is precisely what we did. This is a sign that this is a very good government, despite its having been said here that we sometimes behave like a bull in a china shop, breaking everything to pieces and wanting to force our will onto other people. That is not so. We are prepared to cooperate with people. We are prepared to see the standpoint of people and to do the best for all of us where we are working on something so important in South Africa. For the rest it seems to me as though, except for the question of manufacturers, the Opposition has no objections to clause 1. Their only objection is that we are including the sales duty in the provisions of the Act. As regards manufacture, if one excluded packing, certain processes could take place which it would then not be possible to tax. I am thinking of certain bulk commodities such as certain sprays and other things that are exempted from duty when in bulk and that may be sold by agricultural cooperatives, for example. The packing of these commodities in small quantities, i.e. in retail quantities, is, for the purposes of sales duty, a manufacturing process. We do not say that it is a factory; we are not entitled to say that something is a factory or not. We merely say that for the purposes of sales duty that article is a manufactured product. Such commodities may also be imported and packed locally. In that case we would not be able to levy sales duty on them. That is why the Secretary is being given the simple discretion to decide whether a certain process is manufactured or whether it is not manufactured, according to circumstances. The flexibility of the Bill before the House to-day has been criticized. I think that this is not one of the Bill’s weak points, but, on the contrary, that it is one of its good points. The Minister and the Secretary are being granted certain powers to relax the provisions. If there are any powers here to increase the duty, hon. members may point them out. There may be one or two such cases, but generally speaking these discretionary powers are concessions and in the interests of all concerned in this important matter.

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to delay the discussion of this clause too long, but there are two specific points I want to deal with. The first is the allegation made by the hon. member for Florida that we on this side of the House are trying to take the credit for the revolutionary changes in the system that would have been applicable under this Bill. I want to say at once that we are not trying to take the credit for that. The credit…

… is due to the Government.

No. The credit is due to the Federated Chamber of Industries. They are the people who, by negotiations and proposals based on their experience, enlightened the Government. The credit is therefore due to them. The only credit which this side of the House claims for itself, is the credit of at least having had enough knowledge to say, the moment the Budget was introduced, that that system would not work. We immediately realized that the procedure was wrong. The credit for the solution of that goes to industry, but the credit for having the sense to realize that the proposed procedure was unpractical is also due to us. I can appreciate that it hurts very much to have to admit now that the Government was wrong. I realize that it is difficult for a Deputy Minister and the Nationalist Party, the so-called powerful Nationalist Government, to have to admit: “We were quite wrong. We are dropping our entire proposal and we are accepting a new system.” I know it hurts, but if a person or a government makes a mistake, they should be prepared to admit it.

There is only one other point I want to refer to, i.e. the attack levelled by the hon. member for Wonderboom. That hon. member complained because my colleague, the hon. member for Constantia, had suggested that there should be a trial period of one year in which the system was to be tested. The hon. member took this very much amiss of us. The hon. the Deputy Minister has proved now, however, how important it was to have tests, discussions, and investigations in order to find out where the snags are. The hon. the Deputy Minister therefore duly put the hon. member for Wonderboom in his place. In addition, I just want to say, and I am speaking in all seriousness now, that we welcome the fact that the Government has now seen the light as far as the procedure is concerned. I even want to go as far as congratulating the hon. the Deputy Minister for having seen the light and having admitted that he was wrong. We shall therefore not vote against these particular clauses of this Bill.

Mr. Chairman, I did not want to make this accusation against the hon. member for Durban (Point), but after the words of wisdom he has just uttered I should like to point out to the hon. member that I have an unrevised copy of his Hansard speech of 13th June in my hand. It was on Friday that the Second Reading debate on this Bill was held, and it was on Friday that the hon. member, according to him, allegedly gave the blueprint to the hon. the Deputy Minister for him to react upon. If that hon. Deputy Minister and his Department could work out a completely new system between Friday the 13th and Tuesday the 17th, on the basis proposed by the hon. member for Durban (Point) then it was indeed an enormous task they performed.

But I do not take the credit for that.

Now the hon. member says that he does not take the credit for that. In his first speech of to-day the hon. member said that that hon. Deputy Minister had said exactly what he had proposed during the Second-Reading debate. This is precisely what the hon. member said, and now in his third speech he climbs down and says that he does not want the credit for that, but that he does have the intelligence. I do not know in terms of what criteria the hon. member measures or defines intelligence. The hon. member gives the credit to the Chamber of Industries. I now want to make the accusation that in terms of the hon. member’s Hansard of Friday the 13th he already knew that the hon. the Deputy Minister would propose new procedures. On Friday the hon. member said: “In practice he is already having to make different procedures and different methods.” What does this mean? He said that in practice the hon. the Deputy Minister was already working out various other procedures and methods. He knew that the hon. the Deputy Minister was already working out procedures at the time. Now the hon. member said this afternoon that those procedures he proposed on Friday were taken over unchanged by the hon. the Deputy Minister. If this is the attitude of honourable people, I wonder how far we have progressed. I now make this accusation against the hon. member for Durban (Point), i.e. that when he spoke on Friday, he knew that the hon. the Deputy Minister and his Department were devising new practices and new methods which would satisfy industry, and which would involve them in the minimum of costs and entail the minimum of administrative staff. The hon. the Deputy Minister was already working out and perfecting those procedures at that time. The hon. member knew at the time that the hon. the Deputy Minister was engaged on that, but to-day he said that the hon. the Deputy Minister had copied his proposals.

He merely forgot.

If the hon. member had forgotten it, he would not have persisted a few moments ago in claiming the credit for himself. I want to quote further what the hon. member said on Friday—

But then, surely, the charge made by the hon. member for Florida is correct. Then it surely is quite justified to say what the hon. member for Florida said, i.e. that the hon. member for Durban (Point) had probably drawn upon the brain power and the experience, as they must have, of industry. Knowing that the hon. the Minister was working on new procedures and methods which would cost less and would require less manpower, the hon. member made certain proposals which he knew the hon. the Minister was implementing, and to-day he claims the credit for that, first for himself and then for the Chamber of Industries. Such conduct does not behove a frontbencher of that side of the House. Even a United Party member should be basically decent.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 6:

Mr. Chairman, in view of the hon. the Deputy Minister’s announcement that the tax will now be based on audited certificates of sales, I submit that clause 6 becomes unnecessary. This provides for the removal of goods from the factory to either a warehouse or another licensed warehouse, requiring then the completion of form DA32, or, if there is an amendment, form DA32A. If you move, for instance, the semi-completed goods from a factory to a warehouse, you then have to have a transfer form if your warehouse is licensed. If not, you have to pay the sales duty. In view of the fact that the hon. the Minister has now accepted that the tax will now become payable on the sales figures, I want to urge him to withdraw clause 6 as I suggest that this requirement now falls away and that the audited certificate of sale will cover this. I hope the hon. the Minister will agree to withdraw this clause.

Mr. Chairman, I do not think I can agree to our complying with the request of the hon. member. What is being dealt with here, is the removal of goods in bond to a warehouse.

In bond.

Yes, it provides for the removal of goods in bond to a warehouse. Provision is being made for the removal of such goods with deferment of payment of the duty.

No, the duty is paid only when the goods are sold.

What is being dealt with here, is the removal of dutiable goods in bond to any place in the Republic appointed as a place of entry under this legislation. This concession was originally granted in respect of customs goods so that the goods need not be cleared in port, but be removed to the inland depot and be cleared there. Provision is also being made for the storage of goods in a customs or excise warehouse. If we were to do this in respect of sales duty goods, we would not be able to cope administratively. For that reason we cannot grant this concession in respect of sales duty goods, in other words domestically manufactured goods, which include thousands of articles. For that reason we are inserting the proviso that this can, in fact, be done provided such goods are actually stored in such warehouse to be re-exported or sold to persons entitled to general rebates. It would place a tremendous burden on the Department if such goods were allowed to be removed to an inland warehouse from which it would be cleared for home consumption. That would mean that goods would have to be removed in bond, followed up and controlled while the duty would only be paid there. For that reason we say that when goods are cleared for home consumption, they should be cleared at a special customs and excise warehouse or manufacturing warehouse. If the goods are required to be removed in bond, it should be kept for a bona fide storage in the customs and excise warehouses.

Mr. Chairman, what I am trying to do is to cut down the documentation. The principle now accepted is that consumer tax or sales tax will be paid on audited certificates of sales. That will include all the sales by the manufacturer. His auditors cannot falsify that figure. The tax is going to be paid on the sales of all sales tax goods. Why then, if that is going to be the final point, must there be all this intermediary documentation? Why then will you not be able to remove goods except in cases of re-warehousing in bond? It makes no difference to the Department. It is not going to affect the tax payable, if you move goods from your factory to a warehouse. I want to take a practical example. There is a border industry in, say, Hammarsdale which has a warehouse in Durban. Now, both have to have licences, and you have to go through all this procedure of documentation to move the goods from Hammarsdale to Durban to the licensed warehouse from which it is then sold. But the tax only becomes payable at the point of sale and at the time of sale on an audited certificate of actual sales, not on the removal from one point to another. That is the implication of the hon. the Minister’s change of system he has just announced. All I am trying to get at is to remove the need for unnecessary documentation. If the hon. the Deputy Minister can show me one reason why this documentation is needed, when it does not affect the sales tax paid, provided that it is from a factory to a licensed warehouse, I shall withdraw my objection. As I see it, there is no further need for this in the light of the new procedure which has just been announced.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to know from the hon. member for Durban (Point) what records he is going to keep of the goods which have to be removed from the factory to the warehouse. I should also like to know in what manner the auditors will have to check such goods and issue a certificate when there are no proper documents between the two warehouses.

There are documents.

Then I also want to know from the hon. member in which way he is going to exercise control. Those goods may get lost on the way; they may get lost at the factory or they may get lost at the warehouse. The goods are handled by various people at various points, and this is how it should be so that such control may be exercised at both the factory and the final destination, namely the warehouse, so that the auditors may check it and issue the certificate certifying that the goods are, in fact, in the warehouse. If those documents do not exist, proper control cannot be exercised.

Those are business documents. I am complaining about the official documents.

The official documents may be incorporated into the whole system so that they may form part of it. There is no need to have both the business documents and the other documents. Everything could be incorporated and control could then be exercised over it.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member is missing the whole point of the argument of the hon. member for Durban (Point). In any factory records have to be kept of what is kept in the factory or of what is kept in the warehouse. That is quite obvious. The hon. member is complaining about the documentation from the manufacturer to the department. It is the filling in of a lot of forms that he is complaining about. The hon. member for Durban (Point) gave us the example of Hammarsdale. That is very true. There is at least one textile factory which makes clothing at Hammarsdale. They send all their goods to the City of Durban to be pressed, packed, and cartoned up ready for display. That is just a movement from the factory. A record is made in the books that these goods were sent to the City of Durban where they are kept in another warehouse. Now they do not have to fill in another form for the Government department. In terms of this clause, however, they will be required to fill in forms—yet another process of red tape—which is quite unnecessary. In view of the hon. the Deputy Minister’s changed attitude in that he is prepared to accept an audited certificate at the time of sale, I suggest that these forms are unnecessary. For that reason I support the objections which the hon. member for Durban (Point) has made.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to ask the hon. member for Pinetown a question. If a portion of the goods is sold at the factory and the remainder is sold from the warehouse, in other words, when one has the case where just the opposite applies, how are the documents to be dealt with then?

Mr. Chairman, I do not know whether I have perhaps misunderstood the hon. members. As a matter of fact, to my mind this provision has nothing to do with the payment of the sales tax. When one has a factory as well as a depot in the same city, in the same area or in a different part of the country, the sales tax becomes payable only when the goods are cleared from the factory or from the depot or from the warehouse or from the agency for delivery to the public. Only then does the sales tax become payable. Then there is another system in terms of which taxable goods, whether imported or locally manufactured, may be removed in bond to a customs and excise warehouse without sales tax having to be paid. The sales tax is paid only when the goods are cleared. We were able to grant this facility to the customs. This concession was granted to them years ago. Excise goods are only a small variety of goods. But if this concession were granted in respect of thousands of articles which are locally manufactured and which are liable to sales tax, it would place an impossible burden on the department. If one allows the goods to leave the point of manufacturing without sales tax being paid, one would have to follow the goods in any case. One also has to make sure that those particular goods are cleared at a later stage and that the sales tax on such goods is paid later. This involves additional work and additional administration. We say that we cannot grant this concession in respect of sales tax in the case of these thousands of items. We can only allow this if the goods are intended to be reexported at a later stage or to be sold to people who are entitled to a rebate on sales tax. But we cannot allow the goods to be cleared there for home consumption whenever it suits the owner or the manufacturer. We do not have the facilities for that.

They have made a survey of the stock.

It does not matter whether a survey of the stock has been made or not. Surely those particular goods have to be controlled and followed up. The sales duty on such goods will not have been paid yet, but you have allowed them to pass in bond the point where sales tax has to be collected. What will happen if we were to allow this to happen in the case of thousands of items every day? For that reason we say that we cannot grant these facilities in respect of sales tax goods. It is unpractical. As regards the new basis on which we want to collect sales tax, I may just tell the hon. member for Durban (Point) that we shall discuss this matter under the appropriate clause. The hon. member for Pinetown likes to talk about the “changed attitude” of the Deputy Minister. We shall discuss that point under the appropriate clause where we will thrash out the matter, because those hon. members are not right either. They are interpreting the matter wrongly.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 10:

Mr. Chairman, I want to raise a matter under this clause. It appears also in other clauses, but I think this is the appropriate time to raise it. If not, the hon. the Minister can tell me. I want to raise the question of components and ingredients which are subject to sales duty being used in the manufacture of other items subject to sales duty. In terms of the amended section 27 sales duty will be payable on any component or ingredient imported or locally manufactured before it goes into a factory for the manufacture of goods. “Sales duty shall be entered for home consumption and any duty thereon shall be paid prior to such use.” The secretary may subject to such conditions as he may impose, exempt the manufacturer of any class from any provision of this section. As I say, there are other clauses where this perhaps comes in more clearly, but this is the first occasion on which ingredients as such clearly come into the picture. I want to appeal to the hon. the Deputy Minister to rebate sales duty on ingredients and have it paid on the final article. The documentation, the record keeping that will be involved with the hundreds of ingredients, will make an impossible job for many factories. Already my information is that he has had to change and make provision for this problem.

No.

The hon. member who has just said “Nee” obviously does not know what he is talking about.

He did not speak to you.

Oh, he was talking to himself. This problem is a real problem. It is a problem which is being met now by exemption; it is a problem which I suggest to the hon. the Deputy Minister should be met by total exemption of ingredients. Take as example a foodstuff. You are going To bring into the scope of this every factory which uses mustard or spices in its manufacture of food. At the moment those factories are not included, because there is no sales tax on food. However, now they will be buying ingredients subject to the sales tax. Therefore, they come into the picture of factories which are involved in manufacture with sales tax goods as ingredients. There are cases where those goods are used in an item also subject to sales tax. Let me take the example, for instance, of a child’s toy. A child’s toy has incorporated into it paint. Paint is taxed. Therefore, the manufacturer of a child’s toy has to keep double records, namely records of the paint he uses in painting the toy and records of the final article. Then he has to offset the one against the other and apply for rebates. The person who is using mustard in pickles, has to keep his record on the consumer tax on the pickles and also on the mustard and spices which he puts in, separately. Then he has to offset the one against the other. So it continues with every factory using ingredients. The problem, I believe, has already arisen with cosmetics and oils. There is a proposal in the minutes before the House dealing with the exclusion of base oils for industrial purposes. There is provision for rebate. Why not rebate the whole lot instead of creating this vast administrative machine to gain a very small amount of duty, comparatively speaking? I would appeal to the hon. the Minister to rebate ingredients and components which carry a sales tax and which are being used in the manufacture of another item also carrying a sales tax. I will not take it further into rebating a non-taxable item. That is different. I am dealing now only with the rebating of a taxable ingredient in a taxable item in order to try to eliminate the administrative shambles which will evolve from the application of the present proposed methods.

In cases where various components are used in the manufacture of an article, the Departments has, as far as possible, tried to exclude from Part 3 of Schedule No. 1 goods required in the production process. The aim was, in as far as it was possible to do so, to exclude from being subject to sales duty these basic goods which are required in the manufacturing process.

But there are still a great many left.

It is true that it was not possible to exclude all of them. The reason why some of them are still left, is that they are also consumer goods in their right. If one were to allow them to be brought into the factory without duty being paid, one would of course come up against a quite impossible situation, since they are also being bought as consumer goods and sales duty has to be paid on them. One simply feels that, if one had to work on the basis of the system of rebates or repayment of duties, one would be faced with a vast administrative problem in this respect.

To a much smaller extent than is the case now.

We think that this would be very difficult to administer. One would receive thousands of applications for the duty to be rebated. In our opinion the easiest system is that the goods which enter the factory, which are used in the manufacturing process and which also come under this Schedule, should carry the duty and that the manufacturer should then be allowed in his quarterly return to offset, against his commitments to the State, the duty which has already been paid on the component parts. The factory will calculate this and the Secretary will approve it. If he says that in the process of manufacturing chairs he uses so much varnish, the Secretary will then allow him to deduct a certain percentage in respect of varnish. The system will be made as easy as possible.

The Minister is being wrongly advised here. How can it be more simple to have to apply for a rebate which relates the amount of raw material to your finished item? In other words, every motorcar factory has to work out how much paint is on each car. If there is 10 per cent on paint and there is 5 per cent on the motorcar, they can then apply for a 5 per cent reduction on so much worth of paint which has been put on to that car. And there are different kinds of paint. There is interior paint and there is exterior paint. The manufacturer now has to calculate all that detail and then apply for a rebate. Surely it is far better to say that because paint is going into an item which is taxable he therefore applies for a full rebate of the tax based on the full cost of his paint. Trying to relate it to the item makes it impossible. One can show how ridiculous it is. I mentioned toys. How much paint is there on a tricycle, or on the face of a doll? How much varnish is there in furniture? You are getting into such intricate calculations that it is not going to work, and the Minister knows it will not work. Why does he not say he will rebate ingredients in a taxable item and simplify it to one application applicable to a fixed invoice for the goods he bought as ingredients? If he buys so many thousands of gallons of paint, the duty on that paint is X, and he applies for a rebate for X instead of trying to relate it to goods manufactured over a whole year, while he buys the ingredients perhaps once a year. Then you have to calculate that one purchase and spread it over your monthly production and work out the percentage unless the Minister has given special permission, etc. This is the sort of nonsensical administrative burden which can be so easily avoided without loss of money to the State.

I should just like to know from the hon. the Deputy Minister whether the statement made by the hon. member for Durban (Point) is quite correct. Would the manufacturer who buys paint or varnish be able to determine how much paint he uses every month, let us say approximately 10 gallons of paint for that manufacturing process, and would it then be possible for him to apply for a rebate? I am asking the Minister in order that we may have clarity in regard to this matter, because I should like to know whether this is correct. If what the hon. member said is correct, I want to join him in pleading that the position be changed, but as yet I am not quite sure as to whether the position is as he said it was. I should like the Deputy Minister to give me this information. If in one’s factory one uses 50 gallons of paint every year for the manufacture of toys or any other article, may one apply for a rebate on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis? What is the position?

The hon. member for Brakpan should not try to drive me into a corner by his questions. He should bear in mind that these matters are not so easy when one does not work with them every day. We have already said why we chose this system. If one collects this duty at the factory, there are 5,000 points as against 125,000 points in the retail trade. If one has 5,000 points at which sales duty goods are brought into factories, from time to time, and the person concerned has to fill in a form and write a letter to the Secretary every time, how much of his time would that not consume? And now these thousands of letters arrive at the office of the Secretary, or at the office of the Controller, and they have to deal with them. They have to calculate the duty and they have to grant such a person written authority for a rebate. This would entail a vast amount of administrative work. I think it would work much more easily in the case of a motor-car, for instance. Once the Secretary has told Volkswagen that in respect of a motor-car they may offset a certain percentage in respect of the paint against the sales duty they have to pay, then they are after all manufacturing cars for a year and would not have the slightest difficulty. Then the matter will have been settled, and the same applies to toys.

In that case the hon. member’s statement is not correct.

You are so wrong, They would have to work this out for every model.

I suppose one would have to be worked out for Volkswagen and one for Ford and one for Mercedes, but once this has been done, it would only amount to 10 or 15 or 20 which have to be worked out, it would cover the whole production line of the factory. If this procedure is not followed, one would have to write a lot of letters and fill in a lot of forms whenever one buys such items. I do not pretend to know everything about these matters because my knowledge is rather superficial, but personally I agree with the Department that this is the best arrangement, and I just want to say that this arrangement with our industries is already working excellently. This is one of the things which have been introduced and they are satisfied. I can give the House the assurance here in public to-day that this system of offsetting duties against the sales duty on the final article is already working satisfactorily.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 11:

Time is going and despite the Minister’s wishful thinking that we might use the whole of the available finance time on this measure and leave nothing to continue their embarrassment on the Appropriation Bill, I do not intend to spend time on every clause. Therefore it will be necessary to let pass without debate most of the clauses which follow, without dealing with them properly. But this clause, the proposed new section 36A, carries such far-reaching powers that I believe it is necessary that they should be drawn to the notice of this House. In terms of this clause the Minister and the Secretary—and in most cases the Secretary—can do almost anything they like with the duty. The Secretary can apply it; he can in his discretion give exemption; he can apply conditions; if there are exceptional difficulties in the collection of sales duties, he can drop the sales duty altogether; and he can determine in his discretion the processes which shall be deemed to be included. He can grant one licence jointly and severally and he can grant exemption from tax because there is competition, where a sales duty can have competitive side-effects. That is actually in another clause, but it is the same principle. These are all powers given to the Secretary to do what he likes, to change duty, to apply duty, to exempt, to rebate, to lay down conditions or not to collect at all. This is an indication that it is appreciated that as envisaged, this tax will not work, that it cannot be applied. I want to place it on record that this is the backdoor clause of this whole measure, which gives all the power to the Secretary. We do not need a Bill, and I would like to suggest to the Minister that it would be much simpler to withdraw this Bill and to introduce a three-clause Bill, for which we will give him stages which will replace all this rigmarole we should have a simple three-clause Bill which says a sales tax shall be imposed, that it shall be imposed on the audited certificates of sales, and it will deal with the essential items. You could deal with the whole matter in three or four clauses, and then you could do away with this sort of clause which makes a mockery of the whole thing. I do not want to delay the discussion any further, but I feel this must be placed on record.

Since the hon. member did not deal very severely with me, I shall not deal very severely with him either, but the fact that he says that this Bill is a “rigmarole”, does after all show that he has not made a very thorough study of it. This new section 36A does in fact provide that one has to take out a licence, but as for the rest it is virtually a concession all the way through and it grants concessions to people.

This is the guts of the thing.

The hon. member’s comment to the effect that one may introduce a three-claused Bill with those provisions, was probably not intended seriously, and we also view it in that light.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 20:

Under this clause, can the hon. the Deputy Minister please say what he has in mind with regard to the licence fees? According to Schedule 8 the licence fee will be R1 for a factory, or will it be R10? I was not clear, on the definitions, whether the licence fee will be R10 under item 805.10, “Approved for other purposes”, or whether it will be free, under item 810.15, “Approved for any other purpose, for the first period of validity” or whether it will be R10 “for manufacturing purposes” but R1 “for sales duty purposes”. Which of these will apply to the normal factory which has to pay a licence fee in terms of this clause?

The normal factory, which we shall licence as a special customs and excise warehouse, will pay no licence fee in respect of the first year.

But why is it shown here that it will be R10 for manufacturing purposes?

I am giving the Committee the assurance that the licence fee in respect of all warehouses which are being licensed as special warehouses, for sales duty purposes, will be R1, for the second period, and subsequent to that it will not be payable again. Mr. Chairman, I have made a mistake. I thought that it was only payable once, but the position is that it will not be paid in the first period and subsequent to that it will be R1 per year.

I do not agree with the hon. the Deputy Minister. It is not clear here, because clearly for manufacturing purposes the licence fee will be R10. What is a special customs and excise warehouse for manufacturing purposes? Surely that is one which is manufacturing and has to pay a sales duty. If it is for sales duty purposes, which I read as re-warehousing or a warehouse apart from the factory building, the licence fee will be R1; or if it is approved for any other purpose, it is free. I do not think the hon. the Deputy Minister is right, but I do not want to waste time.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 22:

This clause deals with the certificate of value and clause 23 with the value for sales duty purposes. In view of the fact that we are now going to have the sales duty based on audited sales figures, I submit to the hon. the Deputy Minister that these clauses, particularly clause 23, can fall away. Clauses 22 and 23 deal with the basis of establishing a value for sales duty purposes.

We could not possibly remove or effect changes to those clauses which provide for the assessment of value. That is quite impossible. After all, one has to determine what the value for the purposes of sales duty will be. How is one going to assess the duty if one has no basis for assessing the value?

Sir, did the hon. the Deputy Minister not say when clause 1 was under discussion that he was going to base the tax on a quarterly audited certificate of sales? That surely replaces the establishment of a value for every individual item. In any case, he has done away with that in a number of industries already. He has done away with it in the cosmetics industry and also in other industries where he has found it physically impossible to establish a value for every item. It is just impractical; it is unrealistic, as he said. Surely, if you are going to have an auditor’s certificate of sales, you are not then going to establish a value for each item and go through what I called this rigmarole when it is not going to affect the tax paid. The tax will be paid on the sales figure.

The idea of a sales duty at the starting point is to introduce it in such a way that the various distribution channels will not be adversely affected by the duty determined at that point. It is now being proposed that manufacturers should prepare quarterly returns based only on a broad analysis of sales in accordance with the various tariff headings. In a case where a manufacturer sells to-day an article which is subject to sales duty—in other words enters it for home consumption—we provide in another clause that the mere invoice will be acceptable as a preliminary clearance certificate, and on that basis the factory will have an entry in its records, in its books, of the quantity and the value of the specific tariff goods it has sold, at either 5 per cent or 10 per cent or 20 per cent. That is all we shall ask such a factory to do every three months.

You won’t have a value for every item which this clause provides for.

No, we will not have a value for every item but you must have some value on which to base your sales duty. You may have one factory that sells only to one of these big supermarkets, under a special brand, and it will get a tremendous quantity discount. Naturally, the ordinary bookkeeping value of the sales will be much lower than in the case of the other factory. You have to find some value that is comparable; some value that would be fair and that could apply to all your distribution channels. We cannot therefore allow these clauses dealing with values to be diluted in any way. I am sorry.

Clause put and agreed to.

Schedule 1:

Sir, I move the following amendments, as printed in my name—

The first of these amendments deal with the excise tax on beer, on page 74 of the Bill. We have here an amended procedure for laying down what is still, despite its amendment, an unacceptable and in our view an immoral type of tax. It is a tax based on efficiency and on production and it is a discriminatory tax against, in practice, one company in South Africa. We have always been opposed in principle to this sliding scale. We have been opposed in principle to a punitive tax applied by the Government as a punishment for nothing more than efficiency and size of a specific company, to the prejudice of that company and to the benefit of its competitors. We believe that there is no moral justification, no justification of any sort, for the imposition of this type of tax, because once you have accepted this principle, where do you stop? Are you going to say that Volkskas will be taxed on a different principle from Trust Bank and Barclays? Are you going to say that a company such as General Mining will be taxed on a different basis from Anglo American? Where are you going to end when you start discriminating between company and company in the application of your fiscal measures? Here we have an excise duty aimed at one company only, on a punitive basis, and therefore in principle we are opposed, as we have always been, to this type of sliding tax. My amendment removes this sliding scale and places a flat excise duty of 60 cents per gallon on all beer in the middle strength class. It leaves the under-proof beer, unaltered and the illicit beer at 90 cents and it leaves the over-proof beer at the proposed 94½ cents. It takes the lower level, the level of 1 million gallons, as the basis for the duty on all beer.

We have deliberately chosen this figure because it is not a ridiculous reduction. It is in fact what the Minister himself accepts as being a reasonable excise on a factory selling 1 million gallons. I do not know what the output is, but I assume that it would be a reasonable excise on a factory such as Stag. Therefore, if it is reasonable for one company—and the Minister has put it into the proposed Bill as a reasonable figure—then it should be reasonable for all breweries. It is not as low as I would like to see it.

But. Sir, there is a new facet, and that is that this is a discrimination against a company, 80 per cent of whose shares are held by South Africans, and it is a discrimination in favour of a company which in the last year has sold the 37½ per cent of its shareholding which was in South African hands and which is now a 100 per cent foreign-owned company. And, Sir, this is the Government which is supposed to put South Africa first. Here it is discriminating against a 80 per cent South African company in favour of a 100 per cent foreign-owned company. If that is putting South Africa first, then it is a strange way of showing it when it comes to taxation in this House.

Despite this, I understand that it has not solved the problem; that the other company is still operating at a loss, and that other approaches have been made. In spite of all the help, in spite of the condition that every outlet must carry their stock, and in spite of the sliding scale, they still cannot meet the competition of South African breweries. I therefore suggest that the time has come to abandon this sliding scale (a) on principle and (b) because it has not achieved its object and because it will not achieve its object. But there is another reason why I plead for a reduction to the lowest level of tax on beer, and that is that beer is the most heavily taxed alcoholic drink on the market in South Africa in relation to its alcoholic content by volume. Beer carries a tax of nearly 7 cents per reputed pint or per drink, compared to a quarter cent on natural wine and five cents on spirits, which carries the next highest tax. Over 33 per cent of the price of beer goes to the Government.

Sir, every sociologist will tell you that we should aim at doing what the Malan Commission recommended, which is to encourage the drinking of the beverage with the lower alcoholic content. It is well known to this House what the opinion of sociologists on this subject is. Every sociologist, every father of sons, will agree that we should encourage the drinking of beer rather than the drinking of hard tack. The only people who are happy about this trend, which is so disturbing in South Africa to-day, are the “verkramptes” who are happy to see white spirits being drunk by white boys; but we are not happy to see white spirits being drunk by white boys. We would sooner have them drinking beer, which has an alcohol content of 3 to 4 per cent, compared with the 43 per cent alcohol content of spirits. I do not want to take this matter any further, Mr. Chairman.

What is the blood content?

Yes, the hon. the Minister of Health has a very good point. The beer-drinking countries, it is acknowledged, have the lowest level of alcoholism of all the countries in the world. The hon. the Minister must agree with me. We should be encouraging the drinking of the light alcoholic drinks rather than the others.

I have moved, at the same time, all the amendments standing in my name. These move into the realm of the sales tax. From here on, we will move the remaining amendments seriatim by the hon. members who put them on the Order Paper. Then we will come back to debate them as a whole, so that before we have a general discussion each member will have moved his own amendment. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Durban (Point) has excelled himself to-day. He has a reputation for exaggerating matters and for presenting matters in a distorted light. This afternoon he was at his best in that respect. During the course of my speech, I shall deal with various aspects he has dealt with in his speech.

He said, inter alia, he was opposed in principle to the tax on beer for two reasons. He said it has not succeeded in achieving its object. In other words, he attributes to the fact that tax is levied on a luxury item, certain aims which are wider than those actually contained in the law. He began his speech by saying that the tax was being directed against efficiency and against a particular company. The precise words he used were, “This is a tax based on efficiency directed against one company on a punitive basis”. To my mind this is a preposterous statement to make and I think the hon. member should be ashamed of himself.

Is it untrue?

I think the hon. member should be ashamed of himself because the principle of progressive tax is an old one. We have been paying income-tax on a progressive scale in this country for many years now. I have here in front of me a schedule which tells us how much tax, including personal and provincial tax, an unmarried person in the Transvaal is going to pay in terms of the new income-tax scales on the basis of his total income. A person with an income of R1,000 will pay 4.4 per cent of his total income; on R2,000, 8.6 per cent; on R4,000, 11 per cent; on R6,000, 14 per cent and on R8,000. 17 per cent. According to the accusation we had from that hon. member this tax structure, which has been recognized and accepted and in force in this country for many years now, is a tax directed against efficiency and against the taxpayer “on a punitive basis”, to use his own words. Surely this is nonsense, Sir. The principle of levying taxes on a progressive scale is an accepted one. There can be no argument on that score. On occasion those hon. members had a great deal to say about the economies arising out of large undertakings. If this were so—and they said it was so—it is quite fair that a person with a greater production should be taxed on a progressive scale because the economies which are connected with the extent of his production will yield greater profits than would accrue to the smaller undertakings. Those hon. members must tell us now whether they are in favour of monopolies. Are they prepared to allow the dead hand of monopoly to rest on a particular industry? Do they want to encourage the younger undertakings? The hon. member for Durban (Point) is very active over there, but he does not answer my question. I must accept therefore that he is opposed to the policy of this Government in encouraging the small undertakings. Does he support it or is he opposed to it?

But do they not pay company tax on their profits?

But does the hon. member for Durban (Point) deny that a larger production series implies particular economies which, if not taxed, leave a super revenue structure and earnings structure which in turn, leave room for additional tax? Moreover, does the hon. member want to tell us that they, in opposing this measure, want to encourage the small undertakings to establish themselves and to develop? Surely it goes without saying that they cannot have the best of two worlds. I say this principle is acceptable. I want to ask the hon. member what the implications would be if his amendment were to be accepted? Has he considered that? The implications would be that the State would lose revenue to the extent of approximately R6½ million. If the State were to lose that revenue as a result of the fact that tax was no longer levies on a luxury item—because beer is a luxury item; water still remains the best thing to quench one’s thirst—what would he suggest this should be replaced with in order to compensate for this loss to the State coffers?

It is R1½ million.

It is R6½ million, Sir. That hon. member can go and work out his sums again. But this is typical of that side of the House. They come forward with half-baked notions and amendments and say that we should reduce taxes. In another debate they demanded additional spending by the State and nobody ever tells us where the funds would come from. After I have finished my speech the hon. member can tell us what he suggests should be done to compensate for the loss of revenue should his amendment be accepted. I will give him the opportunity of doing so. He should get up and tell us.

But the hon. member has failed to take into consideration a further aspect which he did not mention in the House when he motivated his amendment, namely that every branch of a chain brewery, in other words, an undertaking with more than one brewery, is assessed separately. This is not a pyramid where the total production in this country and in South-West Africa is lumped together. The basic tax structure of 60 cents for the first million gallons applies to every branch. This does not mean that the tax should be interpreted as to mean that the total production of all the breweries falling under one management should be lumped together. This tax does not therefore constitute such a heavy burden as the hon. member wants to suggest.

The announcement in regard to this levy made by the Minister of Finance on 26th March, made it quite clear that it was aimed at removing certain anomalies, certain discrepancies. In other words, the position of the brewer is being facilitated, and the problems which have arisen as a result of the levy as it applied, are being reduced and made easier. Besides, even if there were a loss of revenue, it would not be a substantial one. On R30 million the loss to the State coffers is estimated to amount to approximately R300,000. This does not amount to an increase in taxation; this amounts to tax relief. But the hon. member does not say a word about that. He wants to reduce the minimum of 74 cents per gallon to 60 cents per gallon right through. How the loss of income is to he recovered does not concern him at all. He will probably suggest—as has been done by the hon. member for Constantia—that the loss should be made good from the Stabilization Fund, which would promote inflation. But the hon. member is not concerned about that. Inflation may simply be allowed to increase unchecked; this does not concern him. He simply says it is unreasonable to have this levy. He says this is a levy which is being directed against one undertaking alone, and for that reason it should be reduced. I say this is a contemptible attitude and I reject it. I challenge the hon. member to tell me now how the loss of revenue should be recovered. How is he going to recover that loss and how is he going to cut back on spending if he is not prepared to levy additional taxes? Which items is he going to reduce or eliminate when Treasury is going to have R6½ million less at its disposal?

Mr. Chairman, I should like to move the amendment standing in my name on page 721 of the Order Paper, as follows—

I shall not go into detail, as the amendments are there for all to see. They deal in the main with three items, namely toilet paper, tissues and tarpaulins. I should like to ask the Deputy Minister to give very serious consideration to this amendment. I think that, particularly in the case of the first two of these items, nobody can class them as luxuries. They are absolute essentials to-day. As we become more and more urbanized, we find an increasing tendency in the urban areas to use septic tanks. It is essential that paper with no printing on it be used in septic tanks. The Deputy Minister will know that one finds the widespread use of septic tanks in urban areas where there is no mass waterborne sewage system, or a proper sewage disposal system. Paper on which there is printing can damage such a septic sewage work. In most of our urban areas, for example in the City of Durban, there are large sections which are not connected with a waterborne sewage system, and which depend on septic tanks. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana knows that septic tanks are used in most areas in his constituency. To provide for a substantial duty on an item like toilet paper, which is an essential item of hygiene, is, I think, quite unreasonable and shows an unrealistic approach.

I now come to the question of tissues. Especially during flu epidemics, and when it is the season for colds, one will find that every medical practitioner will advise the use of disposable tissues as far as possible, as a matter of hygiene and health. If the Minister is going to give any relief at all, this is an item to which he should devote some attention. These are two essential items which should have the Minister’s attention. I should like to suggest that he give very serious consideration to my suggestion to remove the extra duty on these items.

We now come to the next item mentioned in my amendment, namely tarpaulins. I do not think that a case can be made out for regarding a tarpaulin as a luxury item. Every farmer who wants to protect his crops, particularly in a season when they can be damaged by a sudden storm or something of that nature, has to use tarpaulins. In the country areas where there are not enough buildings to house his crops a farmer has to use tarpaulins. For that reason I suggest that it is unrealistic to regard tarpaulins as luxuries.

There is another item included under my amendment, and that is tyres and retreads. I do not propose to go into this matter in detail. I suggest that, seeing that motor cars are already taxed, one is running a great risk in taxing tyres and retreads. Particularly those people who own old second-hand cars will run their tyres for too long. This will increase the risk of accidents because people will put off having their tyres retreaded or replaced when their old tyres become unsafe. I believe that the Minister is taking a risk when he inflicts a duty of this magnitude on these items, particularly having regard to the fact that new tyres are in any case taxed on a new car. I submit that these are all reasonable and practical requests, and that these items can by no stretch of the imagination be regarded as luxuries. For those reasons I move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Durban (Point) spoke about discrimination just now. I want to associate myself with the hon. member for Wonderboom and tell the hon. member that the statement he made has no foundation at all. In terms of the Bill before us we are dealing with indirect taxes; it concerns certain commodities. The names of the companies which the hon. member mentioned were not given at all. There can definitely be no question of discrimination, because the Bill only provides for taxes on certain commodities.

But look at the schedule.

We are dealing with commodities here. Apparently the hon. member does not understand it.

The taxes are determined according to the volume of the commodities.

Yes, but no mention is being made of companies. The hon. member cannot therefore use the word “discrimination”. The analogy of and the comparison with direct taxes which the hon. member has tried to use here, cannot even be discussed because it does not affect the matter. A vicious attack was made on the hon. the Minister to-day. Hon. members opposite reflected on the inefficiency of the Deputy Minister and implied that this Government and this Bill were half-baked. I heard that the hon. member for Pinetown and Durban (Point) moved certain amendments appearing in their names on the Order Paper. Sir, if you want a complete mess, you must look at those amendments. I want to refer to page 84 of the Bill and to item 60.02. As far as that item is concerned, the hon. member for Durban (Point) proposed that the 20 per cent under that item be reduced to 10 per cent. On the other hand, the hon. member for Pinetown proposed that this item 60.02 be deleted. I now want to ask the Opposition to make up their minds as to what they want to do. I think they should rather adjourn to have a caucus meeting. They should put this to the vote and decide who is going to win and who is not going to win. They are so confused that they do not even know what is going on.

Mr. Chairman, it is quite obvious that the hon. member who has just sat down cannot read. The amendment moved by the hon. member for Durban (Point) refers to item 60.02. The item proposed to be deleted by the hon. member for Pinetown is item 62.02.

Mr. Chairman. I should like to move the amendment standing in my name on page 721 of the Order Paper, as follows—

This amendment refers to various items, of which the first two are, if anything are, basic essentials. They are basic essentials in every home. I am referring to china or glazed pottery, table-ware, such as cups, saucers, plates, dishes, etc. and ordinary domestic glassware. In the hunt for money, these are surely items which must be regarded as basic essentials which should not be taxed. I think something like 35,000 or 40,000 houses and flats are erected every year. They all have to be equipped. Many of them are equipped for the first time by younger people, for example young married couples. The addition of 10 or 20 per cent to all the things they have to buy in order to obtain the bare essentials for a home, seems to be absolutely unjustified. After all, the hon. the Deputy Minister is there to protect the interests of the taxpayer. His department is there to find ways and means of collecting money, but the hon. the Deputy Minister and his colleague, the hon. the Minister, have the job of seeing that, while that money is collected, the taxpayer is not unnecessarily burdened. Here is a case where I feel that the ordinary taxpayer is being dealt with unnecessarily harshly because of the imposition of a tax of this sort.

I now come to knitting needles, pins and hairpins. The hon. the Deputy Minister and I do not need hairpins, but they are nevertheless essentials in many homes. Why these items should be taxed by an additional 10 per cent is beyond my understanding. In the same section of this schedule, we have iron and steel articles for domestic purposes. I feel that this item is one we should look at particularly, because this includes iron cooking pots. Thousands of these are used by the poorest section of our population, namely the Bantu people. They are all going to be taxed an extra 10 per cent for the iron cooking pots which they all use. The next item is similar. I want to exclude from item 73.40 steel and metal trunks and tool boxes. Who uses those? Surely the only people who use metal trunks these days are the Africans who travel from their homes to their places of work in the towns. Who uses tool boxes? I have never seen a member of Parliament carrying a tool box. They are used by the working classes. They are used by artisans and men who go to work every day carrying tool boxes, and what we used to call scoff boxes with their food in them. This duty of 10 per cent on metal trunks and tool boxes is definitely a 10 per cent tax on the basic essentials of large sections of the working classes of this country. I hope that the hon. the Deputy Minister will give very serious consideration to accepting the amendments proposed by us.

Mr. Chairman, I should just like to say a few words as regards the tax on tyres. I am grateful for the fact that tractor tyres are not included in these items on which a 20 per cent tax is levied. I want to make a special request to the hon. the Minister, namely that the 20 per cent tax should not be levied on truck tyres, both light and heavy trucks. This will place an additional burden on our farming community, because light trucks are being commonly used as a means of transport on farms to-day, The majority of farmers also have heavy trucks to convey their wheat, livestock, and so forth, from their farms to the station from where they are transported to the big markets, A tax of 20 per cent on the tyres of a large truck involves a lot of money. I can almost say that it would amount to approximately R100 for a set of tyres in the case of a heavy truck.

I now want to deal with bulldozers. A bulldozer is no longer a luxury item to-day. It is something which is being used on every farm for soil conservation to-day. Light tractors are not suitable for that type of work and the tyres of bulldozers do not last very long. I speak from experience when I say that when bulldozers work on very rough and rocky terrain the tyres could very easily be cut and would have to be replaced. It costs a few hundred rand to replace the tyre of a bulldozer. I should very much like to see a concession as far as the tyres for light trucks, heavy trucks and bulldozers are concerned. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to agree to this, because it would be a great concession to our farming population.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to see that at long last one of the Government members has come forward to support us in our plea for the reduction of taxation on farming requirements.

I want to start at page 88 of the Bill. I want to refer to item 76.15, which relates to articles manufactured from aluminium for domestic use. I want to say that the articles, which are manufactured from aluminium usually are the cheaper articles of kitchen-ware such as ladles, etc. These are the very articles which the, less well-to-do people and the Bantu use. The more well-to-do people can afford to buy steel pots and steel utensils, which are in fact subject to tax. Let those people be the ones to pay the tax. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to abolish the tax in respect of this item and also in respect of other items to which I want to refer. I now come to item 80.06, which relates to articles manufactured from tin. The same reasons apply in this case as well. Bread tills and all the other articles used in the kitchen are necessities and everyone needs them, except those who no longer bake their own bread. There still are many people who do bake their own bread. These are the people who are too poor to buy bread. The same reasons also apply to item 82.04, which relates to kitchen hand tools. The same reasons also apply to item 82.09, which relates to knives. The same reasons also apply to item 82.11, which relates to razors and razor blades. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether there is anybody who need not use razor blades. Very few of us can use electric shavers and those of us who can, do not want to do so. Therefore we still have to use razor blades. The most humble of people have to use razor blades. Is it really the intention now to tax these people? I thought the intention as regards this sales duty has always been to tax people who are still able to pay tax, even though we want to spread taxation. The same applies to item 18.12 which relates to scissors and 82.14, which relates to spoons, forks, fish-eaters, etc.

I now come to page 90. The item concerned relates to refrigerators and refrigerating equipment. In this item we should like to insert the words “costing more than R150 each” after the word “Cabinets”, because we maintain that to the ordinary housewife a refrigerator is not a luxury item, especially if it is a cheaper model of refrigerator which costs less than R150. A housewife has a refrigerator like that simply to keep her butter, milk, eggs and meat fresh, because if she does not have one all these things will go bad. A refrigerator has become a necessity. Item 84.25 relates to lawn mowers. In this connection we want to suggest the exclusion of hand-propelled mowers. This is not a very expensive article. I suggest that the physical exertion it requires to push such a mower overtaxes the user as it is, and therefore he ought to be spared having to pay any additional tax. Item 84.41 relates to domestic sewing machines. In this item we should like to insert the words “costing more than R75 each”, which will have the effect that the additional tax will only be levied on the more expensive sewing machines and not on the cheaper sewing machines which all housewives have to use. On page 92 reference is made to dry-cell batteries, which we use for torches, etc. Reference is also made to wet-cell batteries, six volt as well as 12 volt, which are used for any kind of motor-car and light motor vehicle and any kind of light tractor. To me it seems undesirable for us to make taxes payable on all kinds of batteries, both dry-cell and wet-cell batteries. Item 94.00 on page 94 relates to furniture, bedding, mattresses, mattress supports, etc. In this connection we want to state very emphatically that these are necessities of life, also of the most humble of people. No one can do without them. The same argument applies to item 97.00 (2), which relates to toys, other than those specified in item 97.00 (1). The toys referred to in item 97.00 (2) are ordinary toys. It could never have been the intention of the hon. the Minister to tax the toys of a child, toys of all kinds and even the most simple wooden toy. To tax the toys of babies and children is no way of collecting tax. The last item on this page is item 98.03 which relates to fountain pens, stylograph pens, etc. These articles are essential in every home and in every office. I want to make these suggestions on behalf of this side of the House.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. gentlemen opposite have moved their amendments now, and I was given to understand by the hon. member for Durban (Point), who, without any doubt, is their leader in this matter, that a general discussion would in fact follow, Hon. members on this side of the House will participate in that discussion. As regards the amendments, at a later stage I shall participate in that debate as well. At this stage I should like to reply in brief to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Durban (Point) in respect of beer. I should like to make it very clear that I am unable to agree with the hon. member. As regards his statement that this excise duty was aimed at one particular company in South Africa, I want to dissociate myself from that. This is not so.

How many companies pay this duty?

The proposals before us have absolutely nothing to do with companies. The hon. member knows that. These proposals concern individual breweries. The company which the hon. member has in mind owns some five or six breweries throughout South Africa. It has breweries to which the very lowest rate of duty applies. It has breweries to which the next rate applies, and one brewery to which the top rate applies. However, these proposals have nothing to do with the company as such. The hon. member said this was a new principle in our country. I want to differ from him in this regard as well. We have different rates of transfer duty on small and large buildings. We have one tax formula for small gold mines and we have another tax formula for large gold mines. This is not something which is so far-fetched.

And for marginal mines.

Yes, for marginal mines and for border industries. What is more, I do not think it is wrong of this side of the House to adopt the attitude of wanting to accommodate a small brewery by assisting it to find its feet in the industry. I must say that there was an anomaly in the rates of last year. I concede that that does not change the argument of the hon. member in any way. The Act of last year still read that a brewery paid duty on its production of the previous year or on the quantity of beer cleared from its brewery during the previous year. This year it pays duty according to the figures of the previous year. Before, if the top rate was applicable to such a brewery, it paid duty on its entire production according to that rate. Now we have changed this. The proposal now reads that on the first million gallons all breweries pay 60 cents whether they are small or large breweries or breweries of whatever size. On its second million it pays 66 cents. On the next two to four million it pays 72 cents. If it does not produce such a large quantity, it does not pay this duty. It does not pay the duty ab initio. It merely pays duty on the quantity to which that rate is applicable. We think this is an improvement. I also think this is an improvement and a concession to breweries. This is what I wanted to say in connection with the excise duty and the proposals in connection with breweries.

There is something else I should like to say prior to the general discussion of the amendments of the Opposition. The list of sales duty goods as contained in Part 3 of Schedule No. 1 is the outcome of a thorough study of all the available data in respect of all the commodities on which a sales duty could possibly have been imposed. The selection was made according to certain predetermined principles. The most important of these principles are as follows: (1) the duty should be made as progressive as possible; (2) goods which can be substituted one for the other, should be treated on an equal basis; (3) double levying should be avoided as far as practicable; (4) goods should be classified according to the nature of the goods only and not according to the use to which such goods are put; (5) intermediary goods should only be included if doing so would not have a marked effect on the production costs of the final product and trade inputs should be selected in preference to production inputs; and (6) administrative costs should be kept as low as possible and categorization should be as clear as possible.

These are the principles which guided us in considering and taking decisions in connection with Part 3 of Schedule No. 1. Therefore it will be realized that it will be difficult to take all these principles into account in the consideration of any amendments and suggestions such as those which came from the hon. member for Colesberg and which one did not have the opportunity of considering thoroughly in advance. I may just mention that I saw the amendments of the Opposition for the first time at 9.30 a.m. this morning. Here we are dealing with a new tax and with principles not previously applied in the tax structure in South Africa. However, similar taxes have been in existence for a long time in other countries and we can benefit greatly from their experience. In the United Kingdom, for example, experience has taught that Parliament was hardly the place where amendments could be debated before a thorough knowledge had been gained in advance of the considerations which had applied in respect of the original proposals. In this connection Sir James Crombie states the following in his book “His Majesty’s Customs and Excise”—

They do not have stupid proposals there.

I have no intention of restricting the freedom of hon. members in any way whatsoever. Probably they still have quite a few hours left before the expiry of the allocated number of hours. I have no desire to restrict them in any way. I have only indicated what experience in Great Britain has taught. In the passage I quoted it is stated that what used to happen actually was in the nature of a Dutch auction where bidding continued into the early hours of the morning.

As I have said, here we are dealing with a completely new tax and by accepting any amendment we would be running a great risk if the hidden effect of that amendment had not been thrashed out and considered properly. In the available time a quick calculation has been made of the amount of the sales duty involved in the amendments which appeared on the Order Paper this morning. This calculation shows that the acceptance of the amendments may mean a loss of revenue of more than R40 million. However, no indication is given of what other goods should be brought in under the duty in order to avoid a loss. In my Second Reading speech I pointed out that the goods from which the selection had to be made, were not unlimited. It was not possible to find the given amount without including certain intermediary goods and certain essential consumer goods. Now amendments have been moved to omit certain non-essential goods, for example scent and perfume and articles of pewter. I stated clearly that the only alternatives which remained were more essential goods such as food, clothing, medicine, etc. I find it difficult to imagine on what grounds the omission of such goods may be defended when the alternatives are taken into account. The omission of non-essential goods are being proposed, whereas it is clear that all that remains to be taxed instead of those goods are essential goods. There is also a further consideration. If it should be found at a later stage that from a revenue point of view and on the grounds of merit, it would be possible to offer relief, the Government would have to give very careful consideration to what products had the strongest claim to relief. At this stage there is no indication that more than the estimated amount will be collected, and the Government cannot anticipate the matter by accepting amendments even at this stage which will bring about a reduction in revenue. I want to repeat, however, that if it should be found at a later stage that from a revenue point of view and on the grounds of merit it was possible to offer relief, the Government will give very careful consideration to what products have the strongest claim to relief. In my Second Reading speech I informed this House that the hon. the Minister did have the necessary powers to bring about a change to or a reduction under the Schedule after Parliament had prorogued if one wanted to do so for this reason.

Mr. Chairman, I want to tell the hon. the Minister and his colleague that as far as the average housewife in South Africa is concerned, they are the two most unpopular men in the country. I think it is very unwise for these two hon. Ministers to get the women voters in the country up against them at this particular time as they are doing, because there are a far larger proportion of women voters in this country than there are men. I predict that the manner in which this tax is being applied, and the extent to which the housewives are feeling it, will lose this Government more votes in the long run than anything they have done since 1948.

I think the hon. the Minister’s ignorance, if he will forgive me for using that word, and that of his advisers, of the domestic scene in South Africa must be very profound indeed, because he has said here quite openly that domestic goods are deliberately being taxed. I suggest, with respect, that if this Government had appointed one single woman member to the Franzsen commission there might have been a little more reality about some of their proposals, particularly the items in the schedule under discussion to-day. There are plenty of women who are competent to sit on that commission. It is still not too late, and I suggest to the hon. the Minister that he appoint a woman to sit on the commission for the second half of its deliberations.

I thought when I went through the list of goods on which a 10 per cent tax increase is to be imposed that the Minister—do not forget that it was the preacher when we started off—would have been more honest and fairer to the South African public if he had concocted a short list of those items to which the sales tax would not apply instead of the interminable list of domestic items to which it does apply and which we have in front of us to-day. The hon. the Minister and his colleagues live in a sort of ivory tower surrounded by Cadillacs and chauffeurs and official residences, which are fully equipped and furnished at Government expense. They do not appreciate what happens to the working public. They do not spend half their lives, as we do, in supermarkets buying disinfectants, biscuits, animal fats, baby powder, soap, dish cloths, clothes pegs, dusters, soup ladles and things of that kind. All these items are included in the schedule and are taxable. By the time these items reach the supermarkets the tax is not 10 per cent, but 15 per cent or 20 per cent. Let me ask the hon. the Deputy Minister how he thinks this sales tax is going to affect certain categories of people? The young married woman, for instance, who is not working because she has young children to look after at home, so that she is not able to augment the family budget, is affected. There are also people with fixed incomes who have no reserves of any kind when this kind of tax hits them. There are also the pensioners, who are trying to maintain a relatively decent standard of living on an absolute pittance. If I am not mistaken the average income of pensioners is R38 per month. Another category are newly married couples, who try to furnish and equip a home in anticipation of having a young family to care for. They are all told that they should have babies as fast as they can. How can they do it with all the things that are taxed under this schedule?

Even plastic “potties”.

I am going to talk about babies in a minute. In fact, one can talk about the babies and larger families straight away. The cots, the glass bottles they drink out of, the vegetable puree they are given when they are a few months old, playpens, the powders and lotions, bedding, soap and washing pegs are all taxed and all these items apply to the care of young children. One can even include their toys. Another category of people affected are the thousands of Bantu and Coloured people who live below the poverty datum line. The hon. the Minister of Transport told us before the recess that more than 90,000 Bantu were employed by the South African Railways and Harbours at a wage of less than R2 per day, which works out at between R8 and R9 a week. With a 20 per cent tax on matches 10 per cent on soap and edible animal and vegetable fats, 10 per cent on candles, 10 per cent on footwear, 10 per cent on tin pans, ladles, shovels, spectacles, razor blades, bedding, and all the things these people have to have, how does the hon. the Minister expect people in this category to live at all? Worst of all the bicycles which a large number of them use to go to work, are also taxed by way of the 20 per cent tax on bicycle tyres and inner tubes. I can also include shopping bags and the satchels their children use for their school books. Where does it end?

I want to remind the hon. the Deputy Minister of the extent to which some articles which appear in this schedule have increased in cost during the period 1958 to 1968. The price of fats, oils and margarine, taken at 100 points in 1958, was 106 in 1968, and these articles are now subject to a 10 per cent tax. Sugar and allied products with an index figure of 100 in 1958 were 144.9 in 1968 and are now subject to a 10 per cent tax. The price of furniture has increased from 100 points in 1958 to 124.8 in 1968 and is now also subject to a 10 per cent tax. The price of non-electrical equipment has also risen from 100 points in 1958 to 122.8 in 1968 and is now subject to a 10 per cent tax. The price of vehicles has risen from 100 points in 1958 to 121.5 points in 1968 and they are now subject to a 20 per cent tax. I want to remind the hon. the Minister of the figures given by the Cape Town Chamber of Commerce in their information circular dated 27th May, 1969. They gave a survey of the cost of living index and it appears from the figures that between 1958 and 1968 there was an increase of 25.1 points in those ten years That is an average of 2.5 points per year. After the introduction of the sales tax, the consumer price index increased in one month, namely to the end of April, in Durban, by one point, .8 in East London, and .7 in Port Elizabeth. In the nine principal areas of the Republic it went up from 125.8 points in March, 1969, to 126.8 points at the end of May, 1969. In other words, there was an increase of 1 point in just over one month as a result of this tax we are talking about to-day.

Let us examine the hon. the Minister’s purchase tax list in a little more detail. I have merely extracted from it those practical items which are essential to the running costs of any lower or middle income group family in the Republic. When the hon. the Minister introduced his Budget he spoke about luxury, semi-luxury or durable goods. Let us take one example, namely that of cosmetics. We as women feel very strongly about this. Can hon. members tell me whether they consider their wives to be luxury, semi-luxury or durable goods? [Interjections.] I want to ask the hon. the Minister why he cannot do something about the knitting needles and crochet hooks. The hon. the Minister can laugh. I think he should get in touch with Mr. Yssel. I am surprised the verkramptes have not climbed into this. If our knitting needles and our crochet hooks are going to be too expensive, of course we can find other things to do than staying at home knitting and crocheting. We could go out and have a good time. The hon. the Minister is taxing sewing machines and knitting needles, all the things which women enjoy using when they are staying as nice quiet domestic people at home, unlike the hon. member for Houghton and myself.

What about footwear? If you take the question of footwear, we are not all like Sandie Shaw; we do not all like walking around on bare feet. If you take footwear, as it applies to the average labourer, it is the most fantastic tax one could possibly imagine. If there is one thing everybody has to wear, it is something on their feet.

To what item is the hon. member referring? I am sorry but I will have to tell the hon. member that that is not included in the sales tax.

Oh, I am sorry. [Interjections.] Never mind, I am quite capable of apologizing.

If you look at this list and you take an item such as tarpaulins and camping goods, these are the poor man’s holiday camping equipment. More and more people are going to caravan parks because they cannot afford to go to hotels with their families. These are the items they have to pay tax on. Let us take chinaware and crockery. How does any married couple set up house without a big outlay on items like these? If you look at all articles of a kind commonly used for domestic purposes, the items which have been taxed include coal buckets, wheelbarrows, ordinary buckets, dustpans, garbage bins, kitchen sieves, cutlery, pokers, tongs, shovels, etc. All these items are items which we use in our homes. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, if we are to look for the reason why the Opposition have been occupying those Opposition benches for so long, I think we found it this afternoon. They have been sitting there for so long because they display a lack of responsibility as far as governing the country is concerned. They came here to-day to ask that 40 of the items that are subject to sales tax should be deleted. They did this without making any calculation of the financial implications this may have. However, this is not all. In the second place, it is that side of the House that has been pleading year after year for tax concessions for certain income groups. Hon. members can look up the records. Hon. members will find that they pleaded mainly for the income group from R6,000 per annum upwards, in other words, where we had the so-called “bulge”. When we conceded this to them and appointed a commission to remove certain anomalies, however, they had to find another excuse for attacking the Government. They then put forward the inexpert proposal that the Government should only tax a few items this year and finance its affairs mainly out of the surplus of last year. Apart from the financial irresponsibility of such a proposal, they are trying to make political capital by asking all kinds of concessions for a total of 43 items.

The hon. the Deputy Minister said that it would amount to approximately R40 million. That is approximately 40 per cent of the total income expected from this source of taxation. Does this look like responsibility on that side of the House? Nothing is more popular than to get up and to say: “Abolish this item; abolish that item; it should not be subject to sales tax.” I can tell hon. members that we can all take part in this race, and we shall beat them too. However, what would we achieve by that? Would it be responsible? Does it do credit to this Parliament when its Opposition displays that amount of responsibility towards the Government and the Department? I now want to strike back at them by quoting from their own periodicals. Hon. members know a certain person who often stands up for the rights of the non-Whites in particular. Hon. members know Sir Harry Oppenheimer.

Sir?

Mr. Harry Oppenheimer. He publishes a periodical which deals with financial matters through the Union Acceptances Corporation, U.A.L., and which is called Economical and Financial Review.

It is a good share.

I am quoting from the May, 1969, edition of this periodical, where he says:

He poses these questions and answers them one by one. Furthermore he pointed out the larger selection as far as items are concerned which should be subject to sales tax. He referred to this question. Hon. members are also referring to this question of larger selection to-day; in fact, they want to select articles in such a way that only 60 per cent will remain, regardless of where the money is to come from to run the country. I quote further—

He gives no reasons in support of this, but I shall give them to hon. members later on. Now I want to ask straight away: Do hon. members’ suggestions satisfy this basic point, that is to say, if 40 per cent of the basic income is excluded?

Yes.

That hon. member says “yes”, but he has never talked such arrant nonsense before.

He always talks nonsense.

Then he goes on to say—

I want to emphasize this. He goes on to mention one more point. He says that the Franzsen Commission envisaged that this tax would subsequently be changed into a tax such as the “value-added tax” which we have in European countries. He also says that administration is one of the most important points. He says that a system of taxation has to be introduced which would limit the administration to the minimum; otherwise the cost of collection would be exceptionally high. I quote again—

Here we have the words of an expert, and not of political vote-catchers. Hon. members know that we are dealing with experts here, and they are experts who do not support the Government. These are their considered economic conclusions. This is our reply to that side of the House and our reply to what they are pleading for here to-day. I have noticed that the hon. member for Parktown has not yet taken part in this race to-day. I hope that the hon. member will maintain the responsibility which he has displayed up to now. I do not have the time to go into this matter fully here. The question is now being asked: How can the people be met to some extent and in what form can they be met? This report says that the right way to do so is to subsidize certain basic necessities. The Government has been doing so for a long time. In 1947-’48 the total food subsidies paid out only amounted to R12.068 million. By 1967-’68 that amount had increased to R82.657 million, in other words, it had increased almost sevenfold. This just goes to show how the Government is endeavouring to keep the cost of living low for the less well-to-do. These amounts will increase in the years to come.

My time is limited and therefore I want to conclude by saying that I expect and trust that where that side, the Opposition, have in the past years asked for a change and have been co-responsible in principle, they should now have the courage to accept the consequences of this. The hon. the Minister of Finance gave income-tax concessions to the value of R120 million to the public and the four provinces. We have to recover that amount. We must recover it in a way that will be to the greatest benefit of this country and its people. After an expert commission of inquiry had been appointed, of which the Director of the Association of Chambers of Commerce, Mr. Mabin, who is also an expert, was a member, they recommended unanimously that this was the method to be applied by us. They recommended that we make use of the sales tax in order to recover those amounts. We would not have been able to grant those concessions if we had to accede to all the requests from that side of the House, namely the abolition of the sales tax on so many items. That is quite impracticable. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I am not very much impressed by the defence put up by the hon. the Deputy Minister in discussing the amendment that my hon. friend, the member for Durban (Point), moved. He put up a very poor case indeed on this question of taxation according to the amount of your production. He had the temerity to quote gold-mining taxation. He said: “Look at gold-mining taxation.” The small producer is taxed at a lower rate than the big producer. If he would look at the mining taxation formulae, he would learn a lot more about it. I refer to page 293 of the Minutes. We do not have only those two cases. We have four scales of gold-mining taxation. They are so confused with their gold-mining taxation that they do not know where they are. This is the case he puts up.

Do you think I do not know?

He knows he is confused.

Of course, he is confused. We say in South Africa we will tax a gold mine whether it began before 1966 …

Order!

But I am replying to the hon. the Deputy Minister.

Yes, but I want to know what item the hon. member is speaking on.

I am speaking on the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Durban (Point) and I am replying to the defence put up by the hon. the Deputy Minister, which is most important. This is what he based his defence on. He said this would be discriminatory taxation on beer. What about discriminatory taxation on gold mines?

Order! I cannot allow the hon. member to discuss gold mining.

The hon. the Deputy Minister has been doing so. I am not discussing gold mines; I am discussing the form of taxation, the principle of discriminatory taxation according to production.

But there is no necessity to reply.

It is not necessary to reply! Perhaps that is true. I quite agree, because if he would just study that taxation he would be able to come with a better story. We do not say, for example, in taxing beer that if your brewery started before 1966 you will have one scale of taxation, but if your brewery started after 1966 there will be another scale. That is What we do with gold mines. The other kind of taxation is for small breweries and big breweries. It is discriminatory.

Surely you know better.

It is discriminatory because we can get cheaper beer if we have big breweries. We want cheaper beer. That is the important point. We can look for an example in another field if this idea of quantity is to be accepted, because on the Maize Board some years ago similar suggestions to this, but in reverse, were made, namely that the big producer of maize should get a different price per bag from the small producer. What did the big producers say to that? They are naturally on the Maize Board. They said: “Not on your life.” It was suggested to help the small producer that he be given a higher price per bag and that the bigger producer should have a lower price according to his production. If we are to tax according to production, we will find ourselves in that dilemma. That is what my hon. colleague has pointed out. That is the whole basis of his amendment. It does not matter how much is produced. A pint of beer or a gallon of beer should be taxed at the same rate for everybody. That is the only way to get fair competition. What is most important is that we will get cheap beer.

And better quality.

Of course, it is obvious. Why do we have free markets in the world? If we could have a free market on beer, the hon. the Minister would not be able to introduce this kind of taxation. I think he has put up a very weak case. The amendment of my hon. friend is an excellent amendment and should have been adopted instead of this discrimination. We argued it with the late Minister. I remember his justification very well. He said there are in Germany small breweries that produce a special kind of beer. The only small breweries I have known of in South Africa are in the northern part of the Transvaal, where they produce a different kind of “mampoer”. I do not know of anyone producing a different kind of beer. I think the case put up by the hon. the Deputy Minister to justify this discrimination is the weakest case I have ever heard put forward on a Bill in this House.

Mr. Chairman, if we look at the amendments moved here by the hon. the Opposition to-day, we find that they relate to items such as knitting needles, hairpins, cooking pots, steel trunks, tool boxes, toilet paper and facial tissues. But all those items which have been mentioned here to-day are not items that are bought every day for domestic use. Does one buy knitting needles every day? Does one buy hairpins every day? A woman may perhaps buy them once a year, and if she uses them with care they can last for five years. Yes, those hon. members are not very serious about their proposals. If they had only mentioned the one item, which, in my humble opinion, will cause an increase in the cost of living, it would have been a different matter. The hon. member for Colesberg mentioned that item. He pleaded that the hon. the Minister should give consideration to motor-car and motor truck tyres. But the Opposition made no proposals in that connection. As far as the Opposition are concerned, their amendments have been moved and disposed of.

Consider whether you are talking the truth. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout discussed this.

Mr.

Chairman, there is no amendment in the Minutes to-day in which they ask that attention should be given to vehicle tyres. [Interjections.]

Look at the Order Paper. You will find it there.

Very well, I apologize. But why did hon. members not move it now?

We have moved it.

I also want to plead with the Deputy Minister to-day … [Interjections.] Hon. members should not tell me where to vote. I am not in a daze like the hon. member for Sea Point. I should like to associate myself with the hon. member for Colesberg. We know that the Deputy Minister has taken the powers and we realize that motor-car tyres are no longer a luxury article to-day; the workers on the Witwatersrand in particular are the hardest hit by this to-day. [Interjections.] I am here to ask the Minister for certain things and it is up to him to say yes or no. I am not restricted as you are in having to say what the Chief Whip says. But I should like to ask the Deputy Minister, since he has taken the powers, to consider this if possible. I am not being unfair towards him or towards the department; I know that taxes have to be levied; but I do not come forward with ridiculous proposals like the hon. members on the other side, who speak about things which may perhaps be used once in a lifetime, and ask that the duty thereon should he lifted. Take hairpins. How long does one use them, and how long does one use knitting needles? I doubt whether the hon. member for Houghton has ever touched a knitting needle. How long does the worker use his tool box? He uses it for a lifetime. Surely it is ridiculous to come forward with these proposals. Surely that money has to be found. A cooking pot is not bought every day. The hon. member was very concerned about facial tissues. Hygienically, I think they are worthless. We should return to the old ways where one carried a proper big handkerchief.

But I want to come back to the Minister. If it should become evident that there are certain items in regard to which he can meet us in the recess or at some stage or another, I want to ask him, as the hon. member for Colesberg did, to see whether he cannot first of all pay attention to tyres, retreads and truck tyres, because as far as all these other articles are concerned, the United Party will not get one vote from lady supporters of the National Party. On the contrary, with these tax concessions the Government has accommodated the working woman to such an extent that she need not pay tax on the first R500 which she earns. This is a tremendous concession and all the working women are greatly indebted to the Government for this. If we look at the tax concessions we have received, and if we see how the taxes have been reduced, we find that it is the working man and woman in particular who benefit by them. Therefore I want to say that the hon. members on the other side are only trying to make cheap propaganda with these proposals of theirs, but it will be of no use to them, because the voters realize that the Government must impose taxes and they realize that the Government has imposed fair taxes over the years.

What about the surpluses?

How must the country be governed then? With nothing? That is the way the United Party feels; they never have any money, but we know what money is. [Interjections.] We plead with the Minister to make a concession there, if possible, when the time comes, but we also say to him that we do not want the country to lack sufficient money to be properly governed. We are even prepared to vote for this increase on tyres, but we ask him to think of this first if he should want to introduce any change in the rates.

If the Government applies the sales tax as well as the Chairman has selected the next speaker, they will be doing very well. The hon. member who has just sat down accused us of being irresponsible in the way we are suggesting that certain items should be relieved of sales tax. But I think we have been very responsible indeed, and I am sure our suggestions will receive the support of the public outside. I want to support the amendment of the hon. member for Durban (Point) in respect of Item 134 on page 78, specifically dealing with Heading 19.08, which reads “Biscuits being fine bakers’ ware and commonly known as dry biscuits, whether or not containing cocoa in any proportion”. I want to support the suggestion that we add at the end of those words “excluding biscuits fortified by any process which specifically increases the nutritional value thereof”. I raise this point specifically because I know that these biscuits are one of the sources of nutrition for under-privileged children who benefit through school-feeding schemes. As you know, Sir, most of the organizations dealing with school-feeding are charitable organizations whose funds are raised by contributions from the public, and a tax on these fortified biscuits will be a tax on charity. Therefore I strongly suggest to the Minister that he release these particular biscuits from the sales tax. I am very well acquainted with the functioning of these school-feeding schemes and I know that one of the limiting factors which these schemes have to operate under is a shortage of funds, and I suggest that one very tangible way in which the Minister can help these schemes to carry on, is to release these fortified biscuits from the tax.

I would like to support the plea just made by the hon. member. It is absolutely essential that these children who go to school, usually with no food at all, should get one meal with a little protein in it at school, and that they should be allowed to continue to do so without an additional burden being laid on the organizations responsible for school feeding.

I want to come back to the speech made by the hon. member for Brakpan, and I agree with him that of course one does not buy all these articles mentioned repeatedly. I cannot claim to have any real personal knowledge of knitting needles, because I am not a great knitter, but I should imagine that there are other ways of using up knitting needles than by wear and tear, such as losing or breaking them, and therefore it might well be necessary to replace them. But I want to deal with specific items mentioned here, which are bought over and over again, because they are items which are used up, like soap, laundry soap, floor polish, shoe polish, tyres, etc. All these things have to be bought over and over again. I have no objection to people paying taxes according to their ability to pay. I am all for that and I think that in a country like this it is wrong to put the burden on indirect taxpayers rather than on direct taxpayers for a simple reason.

This principle may be acceptable in countries with a more even spread of income such as England and the Continental countries, and there is a point to be made for more indirect taxation because the rich are taxed to the hilt anyway, but the lower and middle-income groups, which constitute the great bulk of the people, have a fairly even spread of income, whereas in South Africa there is a very great difference between rich, middle-class and very poor. Of course the vast majority of the very poor are the non-Whites and now this indirect tax is going to fall more directly on them. The other point is that in other countries where there is a bigger emphasis on indirect taxes, the position is that more benefits are given in social welfare in those countries, but in this country that is not the case. For those two reasons I am against more emphasis being placed on this indirect form of taxation. Now a lot of studies have been made since the Minister announced his Budget estimates of what the increases will be to the ordinary family man, and more particularly the lower-income group. One such study was made by Tucsa and it came out with these final figures. Excluding articles such as household items like stoves, refrigerators and household linen, which are also taxed, but simply taking items that are bought over and over again throughout the year, like blades, soap, shaving soap, laundry soap, floor polish, tyres and car repairs, the amount of the additional amount to be paid by way of sales tax by a married man with three children, and estimated on a very conservative basis indeed, is in the neighbourhood of R37.42 per month. That is a big increase for a man in the lower-income groups. Now let us take the really low income group, the Africans. A survey done in Soweto very recently shows that R9.77 per month is spent on commodities which will now carry the sales tax. On bedding and linen the amount spent is R1.07 per month, on furniture R4.07, on crockery and cutlery 52c, household equipment R1.81, washing and cleaning materials R2. Very important, is the increase on all items bought on hire purchase. I do not think this is a point which has been nearly sufficiently emphasized. I know there has been some attempt made to control this, but it is a very difficult thing to do, because the inspectors are inadequate. Already there have been examples where retailers who sell items especially to non-Whites on hire purchase are taking advantage of the new tax. But even without the advantage taken by dishonest traders, even where honest traders are concerned, there is a very heavy additional expenditure on items bought under hire purchase, and these are all the things like furniture, which is essential after all, because a man has to have a bed, a stove, bed-linen, etc. These things are often sold to non-Whites on hire purchase and they are all now carrying an additional tax. As I have said, it has been worked out that for an average Soweto family minimum expenditures total something like R9.77 a month on some essential commodities, and the tax is going to be a very heavy burden indeed. On two items only that I have mentioned, washing and cleaning materials, over the year the additional expenditure will be roughly 2  times that of the R1 reduction in poll tax which is being given to Africans, so they really are the losers. I think the Minister should show some mercy in the range of articles on which indirect taxation will be charged. I do not think one can object to indirect taxation on luxury items. I think that is reasonable. If one is looking for additional revenue, one must find it from people who can afford to pay. I think luxury items should carry an additional indirect tax, but there are quite a number of luxury items omitted from the indirect tax list; yet a large number of essential commodities have been included. I therefore strongly support all the pleas made so far for the Minister to revise the list of items carrying additional sales tax, and wherever possible, if he is not prepared to remove them entirely from the Schedule, he should at least reduce the percentage amount of sales tax to be added on these items.

I want to point out that many of these items do not apply to rich people at all. It is not the rich woman who sits down at a sewing machine and makes clothes for herself and her family. It is the poorer woman who has to do this to save on expenditure on clothing. An item like a sewing machine can by no stretch of imagination be regarded as a luxury item. Women seldom buy them once as a cash item; they buy them under hire-purchase agreements; the payments are spread over a number of months and the hire purchase is in itself taxed by this additional amount because none of these traders is going to allow any opportunity to make an extra profit to pass. I want to put forward a special plea therefore that the hon. the Minister should revise his list of taxable items.

Although the Opposition say that they do in fact agree in principle with a sales duty, they come along with proposals which mean in effect that virtually this whole system of indirect taxation is being broken down. Sir, I should like to come to the hon. member for Durban (Point) and also the hon. member for Pinetown. I do not want to say that these two hon. gentlemen misled this Committee, but they did not do their homework very well. I want to deal with only two of their amendments. In the case of matches, they proposed that the full 20 per cent should be deleted. Their other proposal dealt with the tax on motor-car tyres. But they failed to tell the Committee that both these items as well as gramophone records were excluded from excise duty. They admit that these items were excluded.

But what is the difference?

It is approximately 10 per cent on all those items. That is roughly what the concession under excise duty amounts to.

The excise duty on tyres was 2½ cents per pound. That amounts to approximately 10 cents per tyre, and now the sales duty will be approximately R2 to R3 per tyre.

Now you are really talking nonsense.

Sir, those hon. members omitted to tell the Committee that the duty on these three items was reduced by 10 per cent as a result of the fact that excise duty will no longer be payable on them.

Your arithmetic is wrong.

If I am wrong, the hon. member can give us the correct figures as soon as I sit down. If he questions my figures, I should like to hear from him what the correct figures are.

It is definitely not 10 cents.

This 20 per cent therefore does not seem so high at all, because the difference between the excise duty and the sales duty is 10 per cent. Then I want to point out that tractor tyres are excluded from this sales duty and neither are they subject to excise duty. In other words, there is a concession of about 10 per cent in respect of tractor tyres. Hon. members of the Opposition make a great fuss here about things which seem to be bad, but they make no mention of these concessions which are made unobtrusively by the Government.

Sir, the hon. member for Wynberg pointed out that there was a total increase of 1 per cent in the cost of living up to the end of April this year. But that must be so; the Government accepts that there will be a rise in the cost of living as a result of this indirect taxation. But let me also take into consideration the concessions made by the Government as regards direct taxation. As far as the higher income groups are concerned, a concession of 50 per cent or more was made, and as far as the lower income groups are concerned, concessions were also made by the Central Government and provincial authorities. Just think of the enormous salary increases which the Government has now granted to public servants and to workers in other public sectors. No, Sir, we simply have to face the fact that this indirect taxation has indeed brought about an increase in the cost of living, but the taxpayer is more than compensated for this by the additional concessions made by the Government. In addition to that, hon. members must remember that it is the persons in the higher income groups who have to see to it that the country’s economy flourishes and grows. They are the people who are indirectly responsible for the economic boom of the country. As a result of the reduced tax which they have to pay, they are able to create more employment opportunities for our people. Better salaries are paid to our people as a result of the fact that these groups now have more capital for extending their businesses. We must most definitely consider these things when we come along and make such a fuss about the sales duty on these items, which is not so very high.

Sir, the hon. member for Brakpan actually had the temerity, combined with abysmal ignorance, to say that this side of the House did not plead for a reduction in or the removal of the tax on tyres.

Not up to that stage.

Has the hon. member looked at page 80, item 40.11? Shall I read it to him? It reads—

Is he not aware of the fact that the hon. member for Pinetown pleaded for the exclusion of these items from this tax? Sir, we have had so many strange accusations from the other side of the House about the attitude of the Opposition. Listening to the hon. member for Florida, one would really say that we on this side are undermining South Africa by pleading for the removal of the tax on razor blades and on toilet paper.

That is an irresponsible deduction.

Is it irresponsible to demand things of this kind? Sir, this is supposed to be a tax on durable goods, on luxuries. How durable is soap? It is not durable on this side of the House. That also applies to razor blades. Is kitchenware a luxury for the housewife? These measures strike at every citizen in South Africa. This tax strikes at the father and his household; it strikes at his pipe and matches, and it strikes at the housewife, at her furniture, at her toilet goods, it strikes even at the children with their sweets which are now being taxed and at their toys which will cost more in future.

Sir, this Government is based on three basic principles, when it comes to the ordinary citizen and his goods in South Africa, and the first of those principles is this: If anything moves, confine it; The second is: if anything speaks, muzzle it; and now they add this third principle: If anything does not move, tax it. Look at the list of items which are being taxed. I cannot think of anything that has been excluded. Vacuum flasks, fountain pens, propelling pencils, toilet preparations are all being taxed as items which do not move. Loudspeakers, radio sets, tax them! Television sets: Tax them and tax them to such an extent that if coloured television is introduced in this country each owner in this country will have to pay R60 on his set.

Sir, the hon. member for Brakpan said that we should not use tissues, that we should use ordinary handkerchiefs. Does he remember a very distinguished lady, the wife of a member of the Cabinet, who advised Nationalists to use tissues and who suggested that in order to bring down the cost of living they should tear those tissues into four different parts?

The only type of person who will not be affected by this sales tax is a person living in the Cave Man age—not the Iron Age, because iron material is taxed; not the Bronze Age, because bronze material is taxed. You have to go back to the Stone Age, to the flintstone, to the neolithic, to the palaeolithic age, and then only do you get the benefit of tax-free items. This is a Stone Age Budget: that is all it is. It hits at the family man, at the wives, at the children, at the ordinary man in South Africa.

I wonder what hon. members on the other side are going to say to their voters about the fact that they did not raise a single voice against the tax on furniture; that they did not raise a single voice of protest against the tax on kitchen goods, against the tax on cutlery, against the tax on perfumes. What are they going to say to the male voters about the fact that they did not utter a single word of protest against the increase in motor spare prices? Sir, I cannot deal with all these issues; let us take one or two. There is a tax on pepper; there is a tax on condiments; there is a tax on thyme and bay leaves. Surely, when we invite tourists to our country we want to give them the best of our food in this country, and now you are undermining “boerewors”; you are undermining “sosaties”; you are undermining our food by preventing the housewife from using these things. Sir, can you imagine it; here we have a tax on pepper! Let hon. members on the other side go back in history; let them go back to the salt tax, the gabelle, and let them remember that it was one of the causes of the French Revolution. How can the Government levy a tax on pepper! Waatlemoenkonfyt is to be taxed, and the Government is now going to tax food and vegetables which have been prepared in a special way. It is going to tax “blatjang” and is going to tax sugar which is the source of energy. It is going to tax paints and dyes. The hon. the Minister of Community Development wants us to eliminate slums and to make our environment look decent. The ordinary householder would like to paint his home, but now has to pay an additional 10 per cent tax on the paint for his home, and so it goes on. Sir, take soap. Why on earth should soap be taxed? At least to one section here and to a very large section of the population outside, soap is an essential item.

But they want to be Nat (wet) without soap.

To the housewife cleaning her clothes, doing here washing, detergents are essential. Why should blue be taxed? Why should matches be taxed? When the ordinary member of the household goes home at night, he first of all, tries to light his pipe and then he finds that apart from the old tax on tobacco, his pipe is taxed and that the matches are taxed and that his slippers are taxed; the match that he uses to light his fire will be taxed. These are the things which will be hurting the people of South Africa and for which they will not forgive this Government because, mark my words, Sir, the country has not yet felt the full effect of the rise in the cost of living which will take place as a result of this tax. When people feel the effect of this, I trust that they will realize that it is the fault of this Government which has introduced this outrageous system of taxation, this system of trying to tax everything that does not move simply to make up for the utter incompetence of the Government up to now. They tell us that there are no funds to run the country; that they have to find the funds somewhere. Sir, it has been proved by the hon. member for Parktown that this Government has a huge nest-egg which is estimated to be something like R400 million or more. Why come forward with so many of these unnecessary taxes; why not follow the suggestion made by the hon. member for Constantia who asked for a sales tax only on certain luxury and durable goods? Give it a test and let us see what happens after a year’s time. The Government has sufficient funds as a nest-egg; it has sufficient money under its mattress to pay for the running of the country. Most of these items which I have mentioned are being unnecessarily taxed, and this tax is hitting at the ordinary man in South Africa. This is not the first time that this Government has shown itself to be the enemy of the ordinary man in South Africa, of the ordinary family man …

Order! The hon. member must stop repeating arguments. He has been saying that over and over again.

I have not mentioned the fact that carpets are being taxed. Furniture goods are being taxed.

I am talking about the hon. member’s generalizations, not about specific items.

The family man will still vote for the Government.

Sir, when one looks at the results of by-elections over the past 18 months, one finds that at each by-election more and more of the ordinary people have voted for this side of the House.

You will see what happens in the provincial elections next year.

If there are any verligtes remaining, yes.

Sir, textiles and textiles articles are being taxed; carpets, carpeting, rugs, mats, matting, gloves, mittens … [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I want to add my support to the plea made by the hon. member for Walmer, when he asked for a review of the tax on biscuits. This is a very serious matter and, as the hon. member for Walmer said, there are many different types of biscuits. He asked that fortified biscuits be excluded from the provisions of this Bill. I want to go a little further than that. I want to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that there are also other types of biscuits which I think are deserving of consideration when it comes to the exclusion of certain items from this special tax. I would say that dry biscuits can be divided into four different types. You get the fortified biscuit which is given to invalids and to those in the less privileged classes, who need extra feeding. The hon. member referred for example to school feeding. But then we also have food for diabetics, which includes biscuits. These are not fortified biscuits, but they are made especially for diabetics. I think that the hon. the Deputy Minister should exclude this type of biscuit from the list he has before him, because these biscuits are not included under dry biscuits.

The next type of biscuit to which I should like to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention is the type of biscuit which is used particularly for animal food. There is a type of biscuit which is made for animal feeding.

Chicken feed?

Yes, chickens are fed in this way as well. All types of animals, pets and so on, are often fed in this way. I should like the Deputy Minister to exclude this type of biscuit as well. It is also included under dry biscuits. He has, I think, excluded biscuits known as “sailor biscuits”. I should like to ask him also to exclude the type of biscuits used for animal feed and pellets, which are included in his list.

I want to say a word or two about the tax on beer. I shall be as brief as I can. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister should not discriminate against those companies which produce large amounts of beer. I think it is unfair of him to protect the smaller brewery. The Deputy Minister does not go out of his way to protect small factories which produce other types of goods. Is a shirt factory, for example, to be protected because it turns out a million shirts, as opposed to a factory which turns out 2 million shirts? This sort of protection which the hon. the Deputy Minister wants to introduce is rather dangerous. For that reason alone he should not have this discriminatory type of tax. Secondly I want to point out to the Deputy Minister that he should not encourage young people to drink spirits. If he can reduce the tax on beer, it will be much better for the youth. If young people are going to take alcohol, it will be better for them at least to drink beer. What do they do now? They drink spirits, especially the white type of spirits, which I feel can be very harmful.

I want to join with the hon. member for Brakpan in his plea to have the tax on tyres reviewed. I may say to the Deputy Minister that those people who have had “their bulge removed”, are not the people who continually buy tyres. They buy new motor-cars with new sets of tyres. By the time their tyres have worn out, they buy a new motor-car. I am talking about the man who very often buys a secondhand motor-car, and has to change his tyres. He changes them frequently, because he not only cannot afford new tyres, but he buys secondhand tyres or retreads. These tyres are now being taxed as well. I leave these few suggestions to the Deputy Minister, to consider.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask the hon. member for Rosettenville whether he and that side of the House want to suggest that shirts should be taxed. He mentioned the example of a shirt factory which manufactures a million shirts. He asked why a large shirt factory should not pay tax, while the large breweries do have to pay a larger tax than the small breweries. I now want to ask him: Is that side of the House in favour of this sales duty being extended to clothes, footwear and foodstuffs? That is the example which the hon. member used. This again merely implies the irresponsibility which hon. members on the opposite side of the House displayed to-day, and the irresponsibility with which they approach the problems and the tax structure of our country. Another senseless statement made by the hon. member was that the hon. the Minister should not encourage young people to drink spirits. It is completely senseless to put forward such a standpoint. The Minister and this Government do not encourage young people to drink spirits.

Yes, you are forcing them to do so.

No, this Minister is not forcing them to do so. Neither does this Bill force them to do so. I have said before that pure, cold water is still the best way to quench a thirst, and it is not taxable. Beer is a luxury item. If one wants to drink beer, you must be prepared to pay for it. The fact that the tax is adjusted according to the volume which is produced is no new principle. It is an accepted principle. It is totally senseless of that side of the House to make the accusation that this side of the House is encouraging young people to drink spirits.

Sir, I now come to the hon. member for Houghton, who, unfortunately, is not here. She constantly quotes unspecified sources in order to show how this new sales duty will affect the Bantu. She never discloses her sources. I noticed this previously, and again to-day. She talks about surveys made recently, but she does not say where the surveys come from. I have here in front of me a survey which I brought to the attention of the House the other day, namely “An African Day”, which was published in 1968. The survey was made in 1967. According to this survey R2.3 per month is spent by the average family in Soweto in respect of “washing and cleaning materials”. The hon. member said that the tax in respect of cleaning materials and soap alone would entail an additional burden of R2.5 per year for the Bantu family. But in terms of these statistics that does not make sense. I challenge hon. members, who are so loquacious, to prove to me, on the basis of the new sales duty which is levied on soap and cleaning materials, how a monthly expenditure of R2.3 per month can be reconciled with an additional annual burden of R2.5. Let hon. members who are so clever as for example the hon. member for Durban (Point), make that sum. Let the hon. member for Orange Grove, who was so loquacious, and who tried to outdo the hon. member for Durban (Point) in his loquacity, make that sum. It does not work out. The burden is not so heavy. But hon. members opposite time and again get up with only one object in view and that is to represent whatever this Government does, as ridiculous in the eyes of the public. They talk in weepy voices about the sweets which the children can no longer buy. After all, the principle of tax liability has always existed. It existed before this sales duty was introduced. If hon. members asked why soap had to be taxed, surely they knew what the answer is. If soap were to be excluded and if sweets were not to be taxed, some other more essential article would have to be taxed. Then criticism would be justified. Each article which is excluded from this list must be replaced by another article, because the revenue brought in by those articles will then have to be collected in some other way. If hon. members now say that the children should get sweets and that soap should not be taxed, are they prepared to say which items should be taxed instead? Would they suggest that mealie meal should be taxed? Would they suggest that footwear should be taxed, or that clothes should be taxed? They are sitting there as quiet as mice. Whenever they have to reply to a responsible question, they are as quiet as mice. The hon. members over there only shout for the benefit of the Press gallery. That is what they do. They want the message to be sent out that members on that side of the House plead that soap should not be taxed. Why do they do that? They do that in order to create the impression that they are looking after the interests of the people living in this country, but the people living in this country are not fooled by that. There is no sense in asking why soap and sweets are being taxed. There is no sense in asking this if they are not prepared to say: Remove those articles and insert these articles in their stead, or reduce State revenue and reduce State expenditure on the following items.

Mr. Chairman, we on this side are getting rather tired of being accused of wanting to represent the Government as ridiculous and of making irresponsible statements. This has already come from two quarters this afternoon, namely from the hon. member for Brakpan and the hon. member for Florida, whom I do not see in the House now. The ridiculous aspect of this Budget is that the Budget is ridiculous and irresponsible. If the hon. the Minister or any hon. member on the opposite side can tell me how on earth one can include articles manufactured from tortoiseshell, mother of pearl, birds and bone as well as gypsum and so on, under the same tax system as furniture and kitchenware, then they must also tell me whether it is irresponsible of us to criticize it. We are told that we are trying to make political propaganda out of this. We want to see to it that the ordinary housewife who does not get tax concessions because she does not work, the ordinary housewife who has to bring up children, will get some relief and that the luxury articles and the non-essential articles will then be taxed. In the previous debate we also made these suggestions. We said that higher tax should be levied on such articles. Mr. Chairman, I see my time has run out. I am satisfied as long as I have made this statement, namely that the ridiculous and irresponsible aspect of the matter is this Budget before us.

Mr. Chairman, to begin with, I just want to come back to the excise duty on beer. In actual fact I just want to react to something which the hon. member for Kensington said. I want to tell the hon. member for Kensington that I am surprised at him. He can take the Minutes of this House and look at the taxation proposals. In the English on page 293 he will see that a gold mine with a small profit is taxed according to a different formula than a gold mine with a larger profit.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, when I proposed to deal with that matter in reply to the hon. the Deputy Minister, I was ruled out of order.

By me?

No, Sir, by the Deputy Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Kensington wants to run away now. He had the chance to make his point.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Deputy Minister must resume his seat, because I am speaking on a point of order.

Order! I will decide whether the hon. the Deputy Minister is out of order.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, my point of order is that when the Deputy Chairman was in the Chair, the hon. the Deputy Minister had made a speech on similar lines and I was proposing to deal with that speech. The Deputy Chairman then ruled me out of order and I could not proceed. Now the hon. the Deputy Minister has returned to that matter.

The hon. the Deputy Minister has not yet made his point. I shall listen to what his point is and then decide whether it is out of order or not.

Mr. Chairman, my point is that the hon. member for Kensington ought to know better. Because of his ignorance he tried to belittle me here to-day. It takes more than ten of his kind to do that. I want to give the hon. member for Kensington this good advice. He must make himself fully conversant with matters and then refrain from passing the remarks which he passed here to-day.

I think it is most unfair if I cannot reply to the hon. the Deputy Minister. What kind of debate is this if I cannot do that?

The hon. member has had his turn.

Order! This is a Committee Stage. The hon. member will have another turn after the hon. the Deputy Minister has spoken. The hon. the Deputy Minister may proceed.

Mr. Chairman, the Opposition’s attack on this schedule did not make a very good impression on me. On the one hand they made a joke of the matter, and specifically the hon. member for Orange Grove. Other hon. members had a good laugh about it. Furthermore they only tried to make politics of the matter, to such an extent that they criticized items which do not even appear in the schedule. They said: Imagine taxing shoes.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, after I made that statement I tendered my apologies to the hon. the Deputy Minister.

The hon. the Deputy Minister may proceed.

Mr. Chairman, I accepted that and we accepted that the hon. member got up and admitted that she had made a mistake, but I mention this point in order to show the House and the country that the Opposition makes propaganda from day to day on unfounded statements in connection with the sales duty. But the hon. member for Wynberg also said something else. She said that candles are taxed.

I am sorry, but I did not.

Mr. Chairman, I shall withdraw what I said, but I just want to tell the hon. member that I gathered that she spoke about matches and candles which are used by the poor people, namely the non-Whites who earn so little. [Interjections.] If she did not do so, then I accept that that is so. However, the hon. member for Orange Grove did say that textiles are taxed.

The heading says textiles.

Now he says that the heading is “textiles”. If he could get away with it here in the House, one could imagine that he would have repeated it outside too, because textiles are not taxed.

Linen goods are in fact taxed.

Yes, but they are manufactured textiles. They are not textiles. The hon. member can go to a shop to-day and ask for a certain number of yards of linen and it will be free of duty. If one is really poor and you want to make your own pillowcases and sheets, you need not pay one cent in sales duty.

But he does not sleep under a sheet.

Hon. members opposite said: Just imagine, the only means of transport the non-Whites have, a bicycle, is also being taxed now. Where does that stand?

Nobody said that.

Only the tyres of bicycles are taxed.

It was said that bicycles are also taxed. Apart from that, the hon. member for Durban (Point) ought to know better. If he wants to refer to bicycle tyres, then I want to tell him that they are not taxed. Does he not know that? He said just now that bicycle tyres are taxed. [Interjections.] I heard them referring to bicycles and I shall not withdraw that.

Mr. Chairman, I referred to the tyres and the inner tubes of bicycles. That was all.

I repeat that they are not taxed either. I cannot recall her talking about it, because I only listened to the general debate and tried to remember the matters that were raised. I mention this so that we can see clearly that the intention of hon. members in connection with this matter was to make as much politics out of it as possible. Therefore we also heard about Cadillacs and such things this afternoon. Was this now a sincere attempt to say something constructive to the country this afternoon?

In conclusion I just want to say that I am convinced that the effect of the sales duty is being exaggerated. My opinion about the matter is that when we meet here again next year, we shall find that the matter has taken a good course and has been accepted by our people. We shall find that this side of the House, which has always had its finger on the pulse of the people, will also make this sales duty an instrument in our tax structure which will be acceptable to all our people.

Business suspended at 6.30 p.m. and resumed at 8.05 p.m.

Evening Sitting

Question put: That the proposed Note 2A in Column II, in Part 2, and paragraphs (1) to (6) of the proposed Tariff Item 104.10.20, page 74, and Sales Duty Item 132.00, page 78, stand part of the Schedule.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—80: Bodenstein, P.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Brandt, J. W.; Carr, D. M.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Jager, P. R.; De Wet, M. W.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Erasmus, J. J. P.; Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J.; Le Roux, J. P. C.; Lewis, H. M.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, W. T.; Maree, G. de K.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, S. P.; Rall, J. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Raubenheimer, A. L.; Reinecke, C. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C; Roux, P. C.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J. D.; Swiegers, J. G.; Van Breda, A.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Visser, A. J.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J. J.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: G. P. C. Bezuidenhout, P. S. van der Merwe, H. J. van Wyk and W. L. D. M. Venter.

Noes—30: Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Lindsay, J. E.; Malan, E. G.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Raw, W. V.; Smith, W. J. B.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Waterson, S. F.; Webber, W. T.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and A. Hopewell.

Question affirmed and first, second and third amendments proposed by Mr. W. V. Raw dropped.

Amendments in Sales Duty Items 134.00, 136.00, 137.00, 139.00, 140.00 and 141.00, proposed by Mr. W. V. Raw and Mr. A. Hopewell, put and negatived.

Question put: That the figures and words in Sales Duty Items 143.00 and 145.00 up to and including Tariff Heading 76.15, page 88, stand part of the Schedule.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—81: Bodenstein, P.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Brandt, J. W.; Carr, D. M.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Jager, P. R.; De Wet, J. M.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus. A. S. D.; Erasmus, J. J. P.; Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J.; Le Roux, J. P. C.; Lewis, H. M.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, W. T.; Maree, G. de K.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, S. P.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, M. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Raubenheimer, A. L.; Reinecke, C. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Roux, P. C.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J. D.; Swiegers, J. G.; Van Breda, A.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Visser, A. J.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J. J.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: G. P. C. Bezuidenhout, P. S. van der Merwe, H. J. van Wyk and W. L. D. M. Venter.

Noes—30: Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Lindsay, J. E.; Malan, E. G.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Raw, W. V.; Smith, W. J. B.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Waterson, S. F.; Webber, W. T.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and A. Hopewell.

Question affirmed and amendments proposed by Mr. S. F. Waterson and first amendment proposed by Dr. J. H. Moolman negatived.

Remaining amendments in Sales Duty Items 145.00, 146.00 and 150.00, proposed by Dr. J. H. Moolman and Mr. W. V. Raw, put and negatived.

Schedule No. 1, as printed, put and agreed to (Official Opposition and Mrs. H. Suzman dissenting).

Schedule No. 7:

Mr. Chairman, this schedule deals with the rebates and refunds of sales duty and is an important one. We believe we should offer relief to certain organizations which we feel would be adversely affected by the sales duty. Therefore I move as an amendment—

This would grant a full rebate to institutions that are administered by registered welfare organizations. Due to the time factor, it is not possible for me to further enlarge upon this amendment. We believe it is an important one in that these organizations will now be faced with an additional financial burden through having to pay the full sales duty on a number of necessities that they require for the maintenance and the extension of the institutions which they administer and in respect of which they receive small subsidies from the Government.

Mr. Chairman, in the course of my Second-Reading speech I warned that rebates would not be granted freely in this connection because it would erode the entire source of revenue. The result would be that we would have to include additional goods in this schedule or that we would have to increase tariffs. The amendment moved by the hon. member for Umbilo is quite unrestricted as far as commodities are concerned. I am not in a position to accept the amendment on the strength of that alone. For example, I may mention to the House that if I were to accept the amendment, such organizations would be in a position to purchase motor-cars for their own use on which they would receive the full tax rebate. We are dealing here with a tax in respect of less essential goods, and favourable consideration cannot be given as regards the granting of unrestricted privileges to institutions to purchase goods on which they will get a tax rebate. I regret that I cannot consider this amendment.

Amendment put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—30: Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Lindsay, J. E.; Malan, E. G.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Raw, W. V.; Smith, W. J. B.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Waterson, S. F.; Webber, W. T.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and A. Hopewell.

Noes—85: Bodenstein, P.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Brandt, J. W.; Carr, D. M.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Jager, P. R.; De Wet, M. W.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Erasmus, J. J. P.; Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jurgens, J. C; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J.; Le Roux, J. P. C.; Lewis, H. M.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, W. T.; Maree, G. de K.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, S. P.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Raubenheimer, A. L.; Reinecke, C. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Roux, P. C.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J. D.; Swiegers, J. G.; Van Breda, A.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Visser, A. J.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J. J.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: G. P. C. Bezuidenhout, P. S. van der Merwe, H. J. van Wyk and W. L. D. M. Venter.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Schedule No. 7, as printed, put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Mr. Speaker, when this debate adjourned I was putting two points. The first was in regard to the high prices of building land. I do not want to elaborate any further on this.

The second point I deem to be of so much importance that I should like to mention it again this evening, since the hon. the Minister of Police is present here this evening. Over the week-end there was a report in the newspaper that Bantu women were being used as traps by the Police to ensnare white persons. I do not want to make a party political matter of this, because I think the House is absolutely unanimous in its absolute condemnation and disapproval of the use of traps in this way. Apparently it is only the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development who is in favour of the use of traps.

You are raving mad.

Order! The hon. the Deputy Minister is not allowed to say that the hon. member is mad. He must withdraw that.

The hon. member for Sea Point is implying a very unfavourable remark against me, but if my interjection is contrary to the rules of this House, I shall withdraw it. However, I think the hon. member ought to feel ashamed at making such allegations.

I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but I would prefer to say nothing more about that hon. Deputy Minister.

The hon. member need not say anything, for it leaves me cold.

I just want to say that after supper that hon. Deputy Minister should have a little less to say.

That is another base remark.

Order! What does the hon. member mean by that?

That one is quicker to anger after supper than before.

The hon. member may proceed.

I hope that I am not indulging in party politics when I say that all of us, without exception, condemn the use of Bantu women as traps and the remuneration they receive from the police, as deplorable. I hope the hon. the Minister of Police will inform us that that report is wrong or that it will not happen again. In the past we have already had unfortunate cases where the police made use of traps. At the moment there is a young person in prison who is serving a life sentence. In his case traps were used against him in the diamond case, and a certain person even lost his life as a result. Previously there have also been such cases, and I hope the hon. the Minister will make a statement as to precisely where and when traps will be used in future.

I have issued statements in this regard I do not know how many times.

If the hon. the Minister approves of this use of traps, I have nothing more to say of course. However, I will no longer feel like paying taxes if that money is being used to hire Bantu women of the lowest calibre to trap white people.

The hon. member is making allegations against me which he cannot support.

I am not making any allegations. The hon. the Minister can say that he is sorry and that something went wrong somewhere. He can say that those people were employed without authorization, or something like that, and then I will understand. However, the hon. Minister must not try to justify this behaviour.

Did it or did it not happen?

Did it or did it not happen? The matter is as easy as that. That is what is wrong with this Government. The Government cannot bring itself to say that it or its officials can also make mistakes. If they would admit this and are human, there would be no further difficulty. One gets the impression that when this Government does something wrong, they will defend whatever it is they did wrong and continue to do so, because they regard every admission to the effect that they can also make mistakes as a form of weakness. That is not so. It is not a form of weakness, but a form of strength to be able to say, “Look, we have made a mistake and now we are rectifying it”. I would not easily tell people to break the law. However, I want to say to the hon. the Minister that I would definitely not shed one tear if the white mothers of this country, if they were told that non-white women were being used as traps, took up sjamboks for this type of thing and drove those black women out of town so that they would never return. I would welcome that. In the same report it is stated that a young boy of 15 was arrested for contravening the Immorality Act. Is that a way to do things?

Whose fault is that?

It is the fault of the person who hired the traps. Who hired them? [Interjections.] Now we see once more that the Government cannot make a mistake. I hope it will not happen, but not one of us is such a good person that one of our children or relatives could not perhaps be arrested under these circumstances. There have been eminent people in this country, eminent officials and church dignitaries, who have been caught and prosecuted in terms of this Act. I think that to hire people to entice other people and in this way trap them is as immoral as contravening the Act itself. I am sorry that I cannot get unanimous support, because I do not want to make another political matter of this.

But you are making a political matter of it.

No, I do not know why there are some members in this House who think that every time a mistake is pointed out to the Government and the Government is asked to rectify it, this is indulging in politics. After all, it is not anything sacred one is attacking. We just want to try to help the administration by saying that they must issue orders to the effect that this type of thing must not happen again.

But do you want to imply that we must accept your nonsense unconditionally?

No, I just want the Minister to rise and say that this will not happen again, or he must say that if it is in fact happening, he will see to it that it does not happen again. That is all.

Do you now want to prescribe to the Minister what he must do?

Of course I am prescribing to him, because that is what South Africa expects of him.

There is a second matter I should like to raise and that is the question of the Bantu in the Western Province. We realize only too well that it is the policy of this Government to accept all Bantu labour as temporary migratory labour in the Western Province. If that should be the case, I am unable to change that policy and then we must simply accept it, but then I am asking the Government just this one thing. Try to establish whether it will be possible to get this Bantu labour in the Western Province for a longer period of time and to allow them to work on the farms in any case, so that a Bantu can come here with his wife for a period of four to five years. I am not asking the Government to reply to this to-night; I am simply requesting that this possibility of dealing with the Western Province as they are dealing with the Karoo areas, where the Bantu stay on the farms with their wives, be investigated. We are allowing the Coloureds of the Western Province to interbreed with Bantu migratory labour and become blacker. I have often been told that I should not besmirch the name of South Africa, and I do not want to do this, but I also think the Government is unfair. Every time we mention convict labour we are told that we must not mention this because it can do us harm overseas. But then the Government should also play the game and not do things which besmirch our name overseas. I hear—and sooner or later somebody will have to say this—that there are bodies who want to boycott us to-day because we are making use of convict labour in the production of certain fruits and vegetables. If this is the case and I understand it is, then I say this Government must now begin to devise a plan for replacing that convict labour. We cannot go to sleep on the farms every night in the fear that our women and children will be murdered in the night by escaped bandits, and in addition have the sword hanging over our heads that our products are going to be boycotted. This happened in Tulbagh and Worcester, and is now happening here. Is that the price we have to pay? Is that what the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration meant when he said that, at all costs and at any price, the Government would continue with its policy? Continue with this policy if you want to. If you believe that these Bantu should not be here and that they should be temporary labourers, go ahead. I do not agree with that but I can do nothing about it, and I have to acquiesce to it. All that I am asking is that you investigate the possibility of making it as easy as possible for us in the Western Province to continue to make a living and bring in our products which we will be able to sell, and to leave our wives and our children safely at our homes. I do not think that is too much to ask. For us who are Calvinists and who believe in a family life for out non-Whites as well, this is not too much to ask, without incorporating them for all time in the white areas and without turning them into white people. If they must remain migratory labourers, at least bring them in such a way which we can reconcile with our Christian conscience. I hope the Government will investigate these few matters with open mind and that they will not decide in advance to reject it and now they must look for reasons as to why they reject it. I would be pleased if those Ministers in the Cabinet who represent us in the Western Province would realize what is happening. Since the Minister of Police was so quick to reply to me a moment ago, I just want to tell him that in his own constituency, near to where he lives, in Bonnievale, I see that one of the biggest farmers, one of the Jonker brothers …

I do not live there.

But you did live there, at Robertson, until you became a Minister. Do not pretend that we no longer know you, now that you are in the Cabinet. [Laughter.] One of the Minister’s biggest supporters, one of the richest farmers, Mr. Jonker, is now putting his farm on the market for R½ million, for he cannot see his way clear to continuing his farming activities with the labour difficulties this Government is creating for him.

That is not my constituency.

But this man is after all one of your supporters. I want to inform the Minister that it is all very well riding on a man’s back until you have made the grade and are in the Cabinet, and then to say you no longer live there and you no longer know these people. The hon. Minister may say that he no longer knows Mr. Jonker, but Mr. Jonker still knows the Minister. I say again: Give away whatever parts of South Africa you want to, as long as you keep the Western Province as part of the Republic.

I do not know where to begin. I would have liked to have confined myself to-night to certain matters in regard to community development, since we were unable to participate in that discussion the other day on account of the Minister being indisposed. But now the previous speaker has jumped from pillar to post, and came forward with a lot of scare stories. I cannot reply to all those things now, but I would like to deal with a few of them. Here he was getting very upset because a few Bantu women had been used as decoys to lead certain white men into temptation. No reasonable person would approve an action like that, but how can the hon. member ascribe it to the National Party? Was Beyers Ras a member of the National Party?

Who is Beyers Ras?

Does the hon. member expect me to approve of what Dr. Ras Beyers said the other day? Was Harris, who took the life of a white woman, a member of the National Party, or did he adhere to the Opposition’s side? When such an offence is committed it must never be ascribed to a party. Irregularities can take place. Do you expect the Minister of Police to look after every policeman and tell him what he must do and what he must not do? Your own leader is not even able to look after you. Just look how obvious it is, where did the United Party stand last year? They were creeping in under the wing of the National Party. Everything the National Party advocated they claimed to have come from them, as if they had been the people who had inspired it, but where do they stand to-night? Yesterday we witnessed a spectacle in this House the likes of which we will not soon experience again. The hon. member referred to Calvinism, and his leader rose to his feet and referred to the hon. member for Ermelo, but who is the leader of that side of the House to-night? It is not Sir De Villiers Graaff. We are being led by a man of dynamic power. He is a leader, and he does not take his cue from the back benches; there the hon. member for Hillbrow is sitting and he is leader of that Party. It cannot be disputed that a certain person has taken over the leadership on that side of the House. After the hon. member for Hillbrow received instructions from Mr. Harry Oppenheimer he has been taking over on that side. It is simply a question of time before Harry Oppenheimer will say to him: Because you have been faithful in a little, have you authority over many. I sincerely hope hon. members are not engaged in swallowing one another up. Either the Leader of the Progressive Party is going over to the United Party or the United Party is going over to the Progressive Party.

Tell us about your policy.

Let me just inform that hon. member who is interrupting me that he always puts me in mind of the addled brain of an ape. After all, there is open competition on that side to see who is the greatest liberalist and who is the greatest progressive. [Interjections.] They all wanted to find their political home under the leadership of the Progressive Party. One finds an open conflict taking place between the hon. member for Port Natal and the hon. member for Wynberg. They are trying to see who will be the first to find a political home with the Progressive Party, and let me say to-night that I think the hon. member for Port Natal is going to win. Do you know why he is going to win? He appears in public with Wollheim, one of the biggest Progressives in the Cape. But I want to address this word of warning to the hon. member for Wynberg to-night and tell her that she is going to lose the fight. This is simply a law of nature. She must remember that the Leader of the Progressive Party in this House is a member of the fair sex and the law of nature states that two hens with different feathers and spurs unfortunately do not hatch on one nest. I want to tell the hon. member for Wynberg that she must wait until there is a male leader, until the hon. member for Port Natal takes over the leadership of the Progressive Party. Then they can get together, for then one would at least have one male and two female persons and then they can call their Party the cluck-and-crow party. Do the hon. members want to tell me that they are not moving over to the Progressive Party? You can see that all the dynamic strength has been drawn out of the United Party. Formerly one had the inspiration which one derived from General Smuts, an old Boer general, but you no longer have a Boer general to lead you. You know there is a crisis in your party and your greatest concern is that there is no dissension within the ranks of the National Party. [Interjections.] The hon. member must not make interjections. He always puts me in mind of the old farmyard, where I always heard that noise being made by the lowing cows. [Interjections.]

The United Party, I say, is moving more and more to the left. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout got to his feet here the other day and said that we must tear this race classification Act out of the Statute Book. How is one then going to maintain apartheid in one’s schools, in one’s colleges, at universities and in the Public Service? Are you going to say to that young girl or boy, sitting on the school bench: You are not White; you are a non-White. How is one going to prove this? I want to say to the United Party that they must know their history. What did they do in 1948? In 1948 we had a common voters’ roll, a common voters’ roll for Whites and Coloureds. We had the coalition agreement of 1933 between the late General Hertzog and the late General Smuts, according to which the Natives would be removed from the common voters’ roll, but in 1948 the United Party brought Bantu to the polls in their cars. Do they deny bringing Bantu to the polls in their cars in 1948, Bantu who were on the common voters’ roll well knowing that that was not allowed? In 1948, as I have said, we had a common voters’ roll for the Coloureds and the Whites. How could any man prove that the person arriving there to vote was a Bantu and not a Coloured, or that he was a Coloured and not a Bantu? They were registered under the following names: You had Mitchells, you had Moolmans, and you had droves of Bassons.

And Potgieters.

No, there were no Potgieters among them, they have had too much respect for the Potgieters since the Great Trek. Sir, the United Party now wants to do away with race classification. Do you know why? That hon. member on the opposite side stood up here the other day and posed as a great Afrikaner; he said: “We stand for separate residential areas, but on a voluntary basis.” They want to do away with race classification and they want separate residential areas on a voluntary basis, but then they go along and establish private schools to which members of the Opposition send their children. I, who am a poor man, and other poor people, cannot afford to establish private schools. Our Children must be satisfied with mixed schools. It is proved throughout the history of South Africa that the private schools established in South Africa were established by supporters of the United Party. They had the capital to do so, and there their children were inspired with an old Victorian liberalism, but we had to be satisfied with mixed schools. How can we then prove that a child is White or non-White?

The United Party wants residential apartheid on a voluntary basis, but then their city councils come along and build mixed residential areas. If there is no race classification, how can one prove that the non-White who has moved in next door, is a non-White. For then one is not going to have any legal proof that he is not White. Just see how he has been eliminating the remains of the mixed residential areas here in the Republic during the last few years. See how we have been resettling people. See how we are engaged in clearing up those nests which the United Party Government created as breeding grounds for Communism, where they lumped Whites and non-Whites together. Hon. members of the Opposition come forward here with police matters; they engage their attention with petty things. They are running away from what the struggle in South Africa is all about, i.e. the survival of the white civilization and the retention of this white Parliament.

The other day the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that apartheid had failed. What does he want to put in its place? Does he think that one can simply establish apartheid with one stroke of the pen? Does he not have the sense of the spider to know that this takes years of preparation? We are engaged in implementing bus apartheid here in the Cape Peninsula. The hon. member for Sea Point states that apartheid has failed, and he pleads for Bantu education on his farm. Sir, can you see where this is headed? One day we are being accused that we are the suppressors of the non-White and on the other we are being accused of doing too much for them. The policy of the National Party is not a policy of suppression of elimination or of intervention. We are not looking for the road; we know the way. Throughout the Stygian years of barbarism we kept the light of Nationalism burning, and we will not allow ourselves to be stampeded by the Opposition. There will be another election, and there we will challenge the hon. member for Newton Park to say: “Do away with the work of the National Party and its apartheid policy.” Can the hon. member for Newton Park state here to-night that he wants those shanties along the Korsten lake back? Will he say to the voters of Port Elizabeth: “We want the non-Whites back in Holland Park.” Would the hon. member for Walmer tell me whether he has ever pleaded for those Whites who lived under such disgraceful conditions in his constituency? Did he ever get up in this House or outside the House and say to his liberalistic city council: “Come, let us build houses for those people who are living there in poverty.” No, he is as silent as the grave.

I shall challenge those two hon. members to say to their voters in Port Elizabeth: “We want to allow those conditions where Whites and non-Whites live together and have to sit on the same school benches to continue.” Those hon. members know what conditions are at present prevailing in Port Elizabeth. Have they ever stood up here and said to the Minister of Community Development: “Let us make positive attempts to cope with the housing shortage in Port Elizabeth.” No, they engage their attention with petty matters here for the sake of political gain.

Sir, one of the greatest processes of destruction, a creeping danger, is menacing Port Elizabeth to-day. Do you know what it is, Sir? Those two hon. members do not know what it is. Have they never heard of the creeping danger in the city they represent? We are dealing there with injudicious planning. The city council is zoning residential areas as industrial areas, with the result that the entire community is being disrupted. The State has built schools in those residential areas; churches have been built and now an intrusion of industry is taking place. Part of that residential area are being built up by speculators who want to enrich themselves. They simply buy up a piece of land here and there in the city and as soon as they have built up that piece of land, they apply for rezoning and then factories are erected there, and once you have a factory in a residential area, it gnaws away like a canker at that community and there is no guarantee that that community will survive. In this way a residential area is converted into an industrial area. Sir, it has been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt here and once again during the past few days, that the Opposition should not seek any division in this side of the House. There is no division on this side; it is all on that side. I want to give the assurance here to-night that when we meet here again next year, the United Party will have a different leader.

Mr. Speaker, I am afraid I will not be able to follow the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North). He covered a very wide field indeed, but I would enjoy a cosy little chat with him about new membership for the Progressive Party. I want to say one thing only to him and that is that race classification laws have existed in South Africa for a bare 20 years. South Africa has been in existence for over 300 years and it seemed to muddle along quite successfully without race classification laws. Twenty years is nothing in the history of a country. For the rest, Sir, the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) came back to what seems to have been one of the main themes not only in this debate but during the whole of this Session. There have, in fact, been two main themes throughout this Session. The one is the theme which has been largely followed by the Official Opposition which has spent a good deal of its time during this debate and during this Session in trying to extract the last drop of juice out of what I would call a rather dehydrated subject, and that is the subject of the Hertzog Happening. I do not mean this in a personal sense; I am talking of the incident.

The Official Opposition has attempted to extract all that it possibly can out of that incident. For myself I would say at once that I find this a pretty unrewarding exercise because I do not expect any significant political regrouping out of the sort of issue which up to now has been the cause of dissension in the Nationalist ranks. As long as they remain at one on the one great issue that confronts South Africa, and that is how to handle the non-white problem inside South Africa, I do not believe that issues like the admission of non-white sportsmen or even the issue of the dilution of Calvinism is going to split the National Party. Issues of this kind are irritants but I do not believe that they cause ruptures. I believe that the real testing time for the National Party is yet to come and I believe that that testing time will be caused by economic forces, the forces which are going to involve the greater and greater use of nonwhite labour, irrespective of job reservation or any other efforts made by the Government to prevent such greater utilization, and I think when that happens the chances are that the Government is likely to move more smartly to the right than towards a fusion, unless, of course, it is the sort of fusion which we have already experienced this Session, the fusion of the hon. member for Umlazi with the Government. The hon. member disappeared into that pool without much of a ripple. That is the type of fusion that the Government will accept.

Sir, I believe that the real problem for the National Government is still to come, and that will be due to the economic changes resulting from the greater utilization of labour. My advice to the Government is this, and I give it free, gratis and for nothing. My advice to the Government, which may save the Government’s skin when the real testing time comes, is to go in for a full-scale and rapid re-education of its own people because it is going to need to do this. For 20 years and more the Government has hammered on the issue of exclusive use of Whites in skilled and semiskilled jobs, and I believe that this has been done in order to frighten white voters, particularly of the working classes, into supporting the Government.

For years our labour policy in South Africa has been based on the spectre of poor whitism largely drummed up by the Government, and now, Sir, because of technological changes, because of the demand of our industrial development, unless there are truly those who would prefer to be poor and White rather than rich and mixed—and I doubt whether that will be the case when the test is really put—the Government must go in for a massive re-education programme of its own people, otherwise Dr. Ras Beyers and his boys are going to win in the long run. This is the piece of advice that I want to give the Government, free, gratis and for nothing. The Government is being hoist by its own petard. The very drums that they have been beating over the years are now going to be beaten against them. The hon. the Minister of Transport and other Ministers already find that they are going to have to make increasing use of African and non-white labour. That, Sir, is going to be the real testing point.

The other main theme this Session, as I see it, is the theme which we have had from the Government side and that is the theme that the Government is enjoying “rus en vrede”, peace and quiet, and, of course, the natural corollary to this is that South Africa is enjoying these conditions because we have a contented population. Well, is this a contented society or is it a submissive society? This is the 64,000 dollar question which we should be putting to ourselves. I am prepared to concede right away that as far as the white population is concerned, by and large this is a contented society. There are those, of course, who do not like what is going on around them; there are those who do not believe that the absence of disorder means the presence of justice; there are those who feel that way and I am one of those. But by and large I concede immediately that the majority of white people, at the moment at any rate, are fairly contented. The Stock Exchange is booming, or it was until a week or so ago; there are instant millionaires, even among the Nationalists, and there are new issues. All these things keep them very happy.

Are you an instant millionaire?

I wish I were. There are entrepreneurs who can, of course, find a way to circumvent brakes on expansion and development, brakes placed on them either by the Minister of Planning or by the hon. the Minister and Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Bantu Development. There are ways of circumventing the strictures which are inhibiting economic development. I must in all honesty admit that there are a lot of white people who have decided that it is better to play safe. For instance, there are import permits to be obtained, there are concessions to be gained and, so of course, it is considered wiser to play safe. Ironically enough, one becomes political the moment one is against Government policy and non-political when one agrees with the Government irrespective of what the issue happens to be. I may say that White employees are also, by and large, content at the moment. There is full employment and wages on the whole are rising. Moreover, they feel they are being protected against non-White competition.

Of course they are.

The hon. member must not get so excited. I am giving him some very valuable advice. If he wants to stay in power with his Government … [Interjections.] The hon. member may get up and speak after me; I am sure his Whips will give him that opportunity. As I was saying, I am giving him some valuable advice—to start re-educating the white workers of this country if he wants to stay in power, because what they fear is what the Government has told them to fear, i.e. that if non-Whites are used in jobs formerly done by Whites, that would be the end of white civilization. [Interjections.] When one turns to the other side of the question, to the 80 per cent side of the question—the non-Whites—then one sees a very different picture. Instead of being contended, they are submissive. If we believe that the non-White is satisfied with the status quo then we are living in a fool’s paradise. It is impossible for them at the moment to express their resentment in any constitutional way at all. It is all very well for the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration to come along, as he did last night, and tell us ecstatically what he has accomplished under the Government policy, that he has reduced the number of Africans in certain towns—Port Elizabeth, Cape Town and I think Krugersdorp also. He said for the first time they had succeeded in reducing the number of Africans coming to Johannesburg to a figure lower than their natural increase. But what has happened to all those people he has driven out? Can he tell me that? Can he tell me how these are living? Does he take any notice of the conditions under which these people are living? He told us ecstatically that there were now, over 1,600,000 contract workers, as he called them. I call them migratory labourers. My head reels when I think of the thousands upon thousands of people being trained and being de-trained, being shifted between agriculture and industry. What sort of lives are these people living—not seeing their families, not acquiring any skills, not obtaining any security? Does the Deputy Minister sit down for one moment and think of the lives these people have to lead or does this mean nothing to him?

Of course we do. Do you think you are the only one to think about them?

Does he imagine that they are enjoying this sort of life, that they enjoy never having an opportunity of improving their conditions in life?

Do you want them to live in squalor in the cities?

Think of it, Sir. He says he has stopped this business of every man bringing at least four other people with him! Imagine the number of people we could have had in the towns! Let me tell you, Sir, that I am much more depressed at the thought of these people living that sort of restless, rootless and dangerous type of existence, more depressed at that than I would be to have them with their families, settled and stabilized in the urban areas, earning a decent living as a contented part of our society. This is far less dangerous than to have this huge mass of male Africans in the towns, away from their families, breeding illegitimate children and thereafter abandoning them to crime and delinquency. It is, therefore, not only the Coloured problem we are leaving to our children; we are also bequeathing to our Children this tremendous problem of delinquency and crime.

The Government claims that South Africa is free of violence—“rus en vrede”, peace and quiet—but there is another interpretation of violence. Violence does not only mean violence …

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, may I ask the hon. member a question?

A little later, please. In the meantime just sit down and be quiet.

Order! The hon. member for Vanderbijlpark must not make a farce of the proceedings of this House.

Mr. Speaker, may I then put a question to the hon. member?

No. If that hon. member had not been so noisy, I would have been pleased to allow him to put a question. Moreover, I like to tackle somebody my own size. As I was saying, there is another form of violence. Violence does not only mean violence by citizens against the State; it does not only mean riots and attempts to overthrow the State; there is another interpretation of violence and that is the unfettered use of the powers of the State against a citizen, the use by the State of its powers against the citizens in such a way that citizens are deprived of their normal civil rights. In this sense it can be said that there is a great deal of violence in South Africa. In this sense the mass removal of people in South Africa is a violence; the contemplated removal of 3.8 million superfluous appendages—to quote the hon. the Deputy Minister of Justice—is a violence; the thousands upon thousands of Africans in resettlement areas, leading hopeless and helpless lives of poverty and unemployment, is a violence; the very way in which those removals have taken place is a violence—the fact that, for instance, these people were removed without any proper forward planning having been done for housing, health, education, medical services, etc. All this is a violence. The speech of the hon. member for Klip River was a violence. I am sorry the hon. member is not present. Speaking at Estcourt, where the Government has decided to establish a full employment area, he said he wanted to make it clear that the Government would not tolerate Africans leaving farms under the new conditions. He says they have been farm labourers for years and could therefore not suddenly change their jobs. Now the Government is changing the whole system. I do not like the farm labour system as it obtains at present. But to say that these people must stay while their families who, through the changed system, have become superfluous, should go back to the homelands, while the farm labourer has to stay whether he likes it or not, is a violence. Let me remind the hon. member that he is not living in the Middle Ages; this is no longer the day of serfdom with serfs tied to the land of the white overlords. And yet this is exactly what that speech means—nothing more. Those people will be forced to stay there, whether they like it or not, irrespective of whether the conditions under which they work have been changed drastically or not, without or with their consent. I think that the destruction of the community life of District Six is a violence.

What?

Yes, it is a violence.

Look at the conditions they live in.

Yes, they live in slums, but do you know what could be done? [Interjections.] Let me tell the hon. member for Rustenburg that in the first place there are perfectly good houses in District Six. In the second place it is possible to undertake slum clearance without having to remove everybody from the area. It could have been done in Sophiatown as well. One can undertake slum clearance in situ. You do not have to remove the whole population. You can clear slums without having to clear out the whole population. The so-called slum clearance of District Six is not slum clearance at all. It is the mass removal of a people for ideological reasons and for nothing else. And that is also a violence. Something like 39,000 Coloured families will be affected by group area proclamations. That is a violence, Sir. Something like 700 white families throughout the whole of South Africa have been affected by group area proclamations, as opposed to 39,000 Coloured families. I might even be under-estimating the number. Yes, I have underrated the number of families which will be affected. 59,000 families will be affected, and 35,000 Indian families throughout the country will be affected. Is this the so-called equality of sacrifice demanded from the Minister of the Interior when he introduced the original Group Areas Act?

I say that the pass raids are a violence. I say that uprooting people at dawn or on a wintry evening in a shanty town, and bundling women and children into Police vans is a violence. Those people could have been handled differently. If they were illegally occupying shanties, it was the Government’s job to do something about finding alternative accommodation for those people. You do not bundle women and children into Police vans at dawn or on a wintry evening. That is a violence. I say that the fact that we are turning something like a half a million people per year into statutory criminals in this country, as we are, is a violence. These are people who do not carry the right documents, for instance. The fact that they are turned into criminals for documentary offences is a violence.

You are violating your liberty here.

I am not violating my liberty. I am doing nothing of the kind. I am putting thoughts into the Government’s mind that it has happily forgotten. In the ecstatic picture that the Government presents of our country as a country of peace and quiet and as a country with a contented population, the Government has forgotten about 80 per cent of the population. It is so smug in its own entrenched position, and it is time that it was reminded of these things before the end of the session.

We have done more for the Natives than you have ever done.

Sir, I do not know about “doing more for the Natives”. Everything the Government has “done for the Natives”, to quote the Minister, could have been done without these additional violences. I give the Government credit for building houses where shanty towns existed. Why should I not do so? But it is the duty of a Government in a modern state, to provide for its poor people. The Government need not go around patting itself on the back in a ferment of ecstasy over this. It is the duty of any normal government in a democracy to provide housing. This is particularly the case when we are dealing with a people who are restricted … [Interjections.]

Order!

Thank you, Sir. This is particularly the case in respect of people Who are stopped by various measures from reaching their full productive capacity. If those people were able to be fully productive members of society they would not need the charity of the Government for these things. I should say that the Government thinks it is being charitable. I do not think it is charity. I think it is their rightful due. That is the difference between me and those hon. members who talk about doing so much for the Natives. The Natives do a good deal for the white people. I use the word “Natives”, since that is the word used by the hon. member. Let me point out that, by their very labour, those people have built up this country to the economic strength it has to-day. “There are no strikes,” says the Government. The Government proudly pronounces the fact that there are no strikes. Does it not occur to anybody that strikes are illegal for Africans and that there are no recognized trade unions for Africans in South Africa? Does it not occur to anybody that African trade unions are not recognized legally and that they have no collective bargaining machinery? And then the Government says that there are no strikes! Strikes are treated as a criminal offence and people lose their jobs and get bundled back to the reserves, as happened in the case of the Natal dock workers’ strike quite recently.

What is your definition of “violence”?

I have told the hon. the Minister what my definition is. This type of thing is as much a violence as rioting by the people is a violence. Let me tell him that, Sir. All the powers that circumvent the normal civil liberties are a violence. Banning without trial is a violence. When people are arrested, not tried and kept incommunicado, that is a violence. Those are not normal civil rights. The banning of 370 people without trial is a violence. All these things are a violence. I say that 80 per cent of the population of South Africa is not content. It is submissive.

I wonder whether or not it occurs to anybody, or whether anybody attaches any significance to the fact that to-day South-Africa is spending more than R367 million, or something like 21.5 per cent of the total budget, on Revenue Account only, on Defence and Police? I am not counting the R4 million thrown in for B.O.S.S. That I am leaving to one side Why do we have to spend these huge amounts? Does it not occur to people that we are spending R437 million on Defence, Police and Prisons, which is almost as much as we are spending on all social services in the country for Whites and non-Whites? Here I include education, health and housing. We are spending R437 million on Defence, Police and Prisons, and we are spending R472 million on Education, Health and Housing. I wonder whether it does not occur to anybody that we could rather spend the astronomical sums we now spend on Defence, Police and Prisons, on education, the wiping out of malnutrition …

You want to sell us on a tray.

Just keep quiet for a while.

It is not important. He talks such nonsense. Does anybody realize what could be achieved if we spent those amounts on wiping out malnutrition, on educating our people and on training our people so as to make them productive, and if we spent money on all the social services …

And slums?

Yes, and slum clearance.

And then you carry on the way you do.

Yes, slum clearance must be done, but not in the way the Government does it. Slum clearance can be carried out by leaving people where they are, without uprooting them. If all these things were done, I think that we would have a truly contented population.

Sir, I want to point out that it is the future we should be thinking of. I think it was Chesterton who once said: “The future is where we live ” That is what we should be thinking of That is why I say that the method of Government expenditure on this appropriation is unbalanced. We will do far better for ourselves and for our children if we were to revise our methods of spending the money we collect.

Mr. Speaker, I am just rising to reply briefly, particularly to what the hon. member for Sea Point said to-night. I read the speech he made last night in the dying moments of the debate. He allowed his choice of words and his allegations to sink to such a low level that at first I felt that I would not reply to what he said. However, since certain hon. members of the House have discussed this matter with me, I nevertheless feel that I want to clear up the matter. Particularly for the sake of those members who represent the areas which are implicated here I should like, in all fairness, to furnish a brief explanation of the matter. In the first instance I should like to ask, particularly of the hon. member for Houghton: What is expected of the Police? I am also asking this question particularly of the hon. member for Sea Point who became so upset about the whole matter. What does the hon. member expect from the South African Police? Is it not the task of the South African Police to ensure that the laws of the country are obeyed? That is the task of the Police. The Police do not make the laws, but when the laws have been passed by this Parliament and are placed on the Statute Book, it is the task of the Police to make sure that those laws are implemented. If the Police do not do their work in regard to the performance of their duties, that hon. member would be the first one to complain that the Police are not doing their work. In many cases the task of the Police is an unenviable task, for a different reason as well. I want to emphasize this here to-night, for it also applies in this case, i.e. that the public repeatedly come along and complain when the Police do not perform their duties as the public expect them to perform those duties in specific cases. This has happened so many times already, particularly in regard to immorality cases. I speak from experience when I say that it has happened already that a community in my own constituency came to me and said that immorality was being committed in that community and that they had gained the impression that the Police were not going out of their way to catch those people and bring them to book. Complaints are being made to the effect that the Police should take positive action and do something about the matter. It happened in many cases where the public is of the opinion that something is wrong and that in their opinion the Police are not acting as they should act. We have had the question of traps for many years in South Africa already. I want to inform the hon. member for Sea Point that we will have it in future as well.

For immorality as well?

I shall qualify that statement I want to inform the hon. member that we will in future, where it is necessary, have to use the system of traps where it is necessary to catch people.

For immorality as well?

I shall come to that and explain the position. The hon. member need not interrupt me. We have heard a great deal about traps here. We have heard about them so often in regard to liquor and diamond smuggling. The hon. member for Sea Point stated this evening that a man was shot and killed as a result of a decoy, while another man received a life sentence. That was not a case of it being a trap. Apparently the hon. member does not know what a decoy is. In the case where warrant officer Olivier was killed and where Meyer was first given a death sentence and subsequent mitigation of the death sentence was granted and he was given life imprisonment, there was no trap. It was not a case of a trap. A trap does not apply where a person is already in unlawful possession of some article. In that case Meyer was already in illegal possession of diamonds. If one is in illegal possession of diamonds, then one does not use a trap to ensnare him in order to prove that illegal act. One uses that person to produce proof that he committed an unlawful deed. In the case of Meyer, to whom the hon. member referred with a sweeping gesture of his arm, there was no trap. Warrant Officer Olivier and his men went there, not to supply the man with diamonds, but to prove that he had committed an unlawful deed. That is why they went there. That is the difference between the two cases. Even in this case, which is under discussion at the moment, there was no trap. I shall state in a moment what the instructions of the police in this regard were, and in addition, that the Bantu woman should in this case not have been used, according to the instructions of the police, but that the local warrant officer who dealt with the case, apparently in his eagerness, made use of this Bantu woman, also because she was a complainant in this particular case. He did so because she was one of the community of Schweizer-Reneke who had since 1966 already been complaining about the immorality which is being committed in this town and that the police are not doing their work which is to try to trap these people. The police did in fact make attempts to trap these people but they did not succeed. In this particular case the Bantu woman came to the police and complained that she was being pestered by men in the streets.

Was she charged in 1966?

No. Since 1966 there have been complaints about the immorality which was being committed in this town. The scope of this matter is a tremendously wide one, and the police are expected to act and give effect to the laws of the country and to ensure that the laws of the country are not infringed. When this woman complained to the police, the police asked her whether she was prepared to help them to get hold of these people who were pestering her. She agreed. They gave her certain instructions and she walked down the street. I want to emphasize that she was not paid a cent for doing this. She was not in any way paid for doing this. She offered her services as well. The police instructed her to walk down the street, and all her movements were watched by the police. She was under the continual surveillance of the police. The police instructed her to walk down the street, and that she was not, under any circumstances, to entice people.

But then she was not a trap.

That is precisely what I am telling that hon. member. Now he is the first to admit that she was not a trap, and this is precisely what I wanted to tell him. From time to time the police find it essential to use people as agents of the police. Over the years the police have made use of hundreds of agents. There are many of them whom we have paid a great deal of money for the implementation of the work which you expect the police must do in the interests of and for the security of South Africa. If it is necessary in this case I shall order the necessary investigations and obtain affidavits if there is any hon. member who doubts the circumstances which I have now explained. As I have already said, she was instructed to walk down the street. On not even the first, second or third occasion that a request was made to her by people in the street was she to give in to it. She was only to give in to it after the third or fourth attempt and in that way help the police to bring these people to book. That is what happened there. The police kept her under surveillance and after the third or fourth attempt had been made by persons to pick her up in a motor-car did she give in to it. The police then followed and caught these people. In a case of the young boy to which the hon. member referred, in regard to which a report appeared in a newspaper, I want to say that the young boy was not 15 years old, but 17 years old. In that case the boy ran after her. The police saw everything. He ran after her and grasped her by the arm. He dragged her by the arm into the back yard of the magistrates’ offices or the post office—I am not quite certain which—and then the police turned up and took steps against him. These are the circumstances under which these events occurred.

Now I should like to inform the House of the instructions issued to the South African Police in this connection. The instructions to the South African Police in respect of traps are, inter alia, as follows—

Particularly in respect of the illicit diamond trade which is usually not carried out by the lower classes of our population but by the upper classes, the more intellectual and intelligent people, it is extremely difficult for the police to ensure that the statutory provisions are properly complied with. That is why it is from time to time necessary to make use of the trap system in the case of illicit diamond trade. But I also want to give the assurance again that as far as the illicit diamond and liquor trade is concerned, specific instructions have been issued to the effect that an arrest must not be made after the first offence.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Has the hon. member read about the remark made by a Judge, where he stated that he was himself approached by one of these traps in regard to the diamond trade, although he had never previously had anything to do with it?

I read the report, but I should prefer not to give an explanation of the allegations made by Judges in the court.

Oh!

No, it is not a question of “Oh!” I am not saying this because I am afraid or hesitant or do not have the information at my disposal. I do not think it is fitting for me, since the image presented by our judiciary is such a good one, and it maintains such a high standard, to make remarks which will probably be derogatory in regard to the Judge who made these remarks.

In the second instance, there are instructions to the effect that children may not be used as traps. It is a standing instruction to members of the South African Police that children may not be used as traps. Thirdly, unless a person has previously been sentenced for liquor and diamond law offences, he must first be warned before steps are taken against him. That is what I said just now. Fourthly, no traps must be used for the purpose of proving contraventions of the liquor and diamond laws. As far as immorality is concerned, it is a specific instruction to the South African Police that this kind of thing, which took place here, should not happen, notwithstanding the fact that it is, in the narrow sense of the word, not a trap. It is in fact an agent acting for and on behalf of the police in order to make the arrest of transgressors of the law possible. The hon. member must distinguish between a person who goes out into the streets and invites people to break the law, and a person who simply makes himself available to people, who have to break the law. In this case there was no enticement whatsoever. Even though this was not a trap in the narrower sense of the word, an error was made and this should never have taken place.

[Inaudible.]

Wait a minute. Give me a chance. In this case the warrant officer, in his eagerness to take steps, made use of the services of the Bantu woman and these people were arrested. The detective officer of this division, who was actually responsible for steps of this nature, did not know about it. He only heard about it later. He stated immediately that this kind of behaviour was not allowed. The instructions to the police were that steps of this kind were not to be taken. The instructions to the police were that traps were not to be used in immorality cases, except with the consent of head office. In other words, if use is to be made of a trap system, it is done on instructions from head office, in other words, on instructions from the Commissioner of the South African Police. Unfortunately head office was not approached in regard to this matter. Now I also want to point out that in the narrower sense of the word this was no trap system. I have just risen to bring some clarity into the matter in regard to the report which appeared in the newspaper and which in fact gave a distorted image of what actually happened and what the true facts of the matter were. I should like hon. members to bear in mind that the demands which are being made on the police are very high. The demands which are being made on the police are, in the first instance, that they must ensure that the laws of the country are obeyed. We will be the first persons to complain if the police do not do their work. What is more, we want the police to do their work efficiently. In cases where people break the laws of the country, the police must not be negligent in their conduct. They must as it were do everything in their power to arrest those people breaking the laws. If they do not take effective steps against the law-breakers, then we would say that the police are not worth their salt. When the police are dealing with an offender the expression which is often used, i.e. “all is fair in love and war” applies. When the police are dealing with a law-breaker, that man cannot be handled with kid gloves.

You have just said that the police made a mistake. Now you are saying that they acted correctly.

No, I did not say that they were acting correctly. The hon. member is making a mistake now. I am sorry that his commonsense does not enable him to have a better understanding of this. I have already explained that this was not a trap in the narrow sense of the word. I am prepared to have the necessary investigation instituted if there are any objections in regard to the matter. I am also prepared to say that in this particular case the warrant officer acted without consent from head office. We must just remember that the police are there to satisfy the public that they are in fact doing their work. Often we are compelled to take stricter and fiercer steps against law-breakers precisely because the public insists that the South African Police give effect to the laws of the country when offences take place. I hope that I have now to a large extent cleared up this matter.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister of Police commenced his speech by asking us what we expected of the police. Shortly after that he spoke of the incident about which the hon. member for Sea Point complained. If those are the facts, it is a scandalous affair. The Minister said, as naïve as you please, that the adjutant at Schweizer Reneke was perhaps a little over-eager and therefore did what he ought not to have done. In addition he said, “The Bantu woman was not used as a trap. She came to complain that someone had talked to her in the street. She was told merely to walk down the street in the ordinary way, and four men subsequently spoke to her”. How naïve can a Minister be?

How naïve can a United Party member be?

It is the Minister’s job and his duty to keep his officials in check. A United Party member can be much more difficult than that. Wait a bit, man, I shall come to that in a moment.

Order! The hon. member must address the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, a United Party member can be much more difficult; I say that to the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs.

The hon. the Minister of Police asked what we expected from the police. We do, of course, expect the police to preserve the safety of the individual and the security of the State. But there are methods and there are methods. We expect that when we submit complaints about burglary or cattle theft, the utmost will be done to track down the thieves or burglars. In many cases that is overlooked. Days afterwards nothing is being done yet. The case is frequently not even followed up. I can bring the Minister evidence in that connection. But what we do not expect is that the police will climb trees and peep through chinks in curtains, etc. That is not the work of the police. I do not want to go any further with that. I want to leave it there.

I want to come back to the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North).

If your sheep run away and are stolen, what must the police do? They must do anything at all to get hold of the sheep.

They must do their duty, that is all.

I should like to come back to the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North). The other day I called him the joker of the Nationalist Party. He repeated the process here this evening—the clown of the party opposite. He spoke for 18 minutes and he could not even say his piece. For seven minutes he was merely telling jokes. Do hon. members know what he did then? He turned round and repeatedly attacked the two hon. U.P. members for Port Elizabeth who are sitting on either side of me here. There are two hon. members for Port Elizabeth sitting on that side. Before the U.P. members could speak, he bitterly attacked them, simply while he was in the process of attacking the United Party. Do hon. members know why? Because, as he calls it, the United Party City Council of Port Elizabeth did not make proper provision for separate housing. Do hon. members know what the position is? Long before this Government came into power in 1948, Mr. Schauder drew up and executed a housing scheme for Port Elizabeth which was such a good scheme for the Bantu that even he was criticized. That hon. member ought to know that. I wonder where he was at the time, and how much he had to say.

[Inaudible.]

Sir, I sat perfectly still when he spoke; now he can also do so.

I did not propagate untruths.

He went even further. He actually became quite moved about how the Nationalist Party is carrying out the apartheid policy and about what liberalists we are. As a result of our policy which provides that the Whites should represent the Coloureds and Bantu here, we are accused from that side of advocating white “baasskap” (supremacy). Then in the very next breath we are accused of advocating liberalism. I wish that hon. member would now decide, once and for all, what we are. Sir, I want to leave it at that. That kind of talk is nothing but a smokescreen to hide the Government’s lack of planning. We heard quite a lot of that in the course of this Budget debate.

I now want to say here that there has never yet been a Government which has been given so much advice as this Government. They have been given advice by economic commissions, planning commissions, planning councils and people who are thought highly of in connection with the investigation and research work which must be done. And for all that, with this great economic boom, with all the advisers and with all the planning commissions, this still remains the most planless government this country has ever had. How unsuccessful are they not in long-term planning? I just want to mention a few examples. The first is in respect of the water position of the country. After 21 years they have only woken up during the last five years and decided that this country would one day have great difficulties in respect of water. Now there is a co-ordinated water planning scheme. After having been in power for 16 years they have begun with water planning.

As far as agriculture is concerned, we all know that agriculture is now in a much weaker position than it was when they took over. This is the wonderful planning which they did in the field of agriculture.

As far as the Coloureds are concerned, we are also all aware of what is going on. They say we should simply leave the matter over to our children. This is the dilemma in which our nation finds itself. The Government does not know what to do with them. There is an absolute lack of planning after 21 years in office. As far as the Bantu are concerned, we know of the lack of planning, of the lack of definition and of the lack of borders. We know of the wonderful talk of the progress which would supposedly be made, but do we know where the final borders of any single Bantustan are?

Look at this Budget. If ever a Budget showed lack of planning, this one does. In the previous Budget the hon. the Minister of Finance and his predecessors told us how the budgeting was done, how the planning was done and what the final amount would be. Year after year we hear of fantastic surpluses in the Budget. That is the wonderful planning of this Government! What about this Budget? There is not a single hon. member on that side of the House, not even the hon. the Minister, who can tell us what he thinks the outcome of this Budget will be. An experiment was done with a tax scheme. This tax scheme has been under discussion the whole day to-day. The hon. the Deputy Minister tried to enlighten us about it, but he cannot tell us either. He said that we could possibly collect a certain amount in tax, but what the extent of the collected tax will be he cannot tell us, as if there are no statistics. He told us that if all these items which we suggested were to be omitted, we would collect R40 million less in tax. Now I want to know. If, in this short period, from half-past nine this morning when he saw the amendments until he spoke about them this afternoon, the Minister could mention the figure of R40 million—I speak under correction—how is it then possible that over such a long period, from when the proposal first became known up to now, he could not even state an approximate but fairly accurate amount? We shall, in fact, reach the end of the financial year and then we shall see what the picture looks like. Then the hon. members must not reproach us when we say we were right in having stated that the Minister would collect a larger amount than he thought he would. This will happen unless, in the course of the period, many amendments and relaxations are proposed by the Secretary for Finance, or by the Minister himself, in respect of this duty on the most essential articles which we mentioned this afternoon; just to mention an example, the everyday requirements of the ordinary housewife. But we are not only faced by this Government’s lack of planning.

We also have here a strange phenomenon which has already been manifest for some time. The phenomenon is that when planning is in fact undertaken by the Government, it is concealed under a veil until matters eventually come to a head and only then is the planning made known. That is what happened in the case of the steel industry. We all know it. The investigation by the Planning Commission and a number of experts has already been in progress for years. The investigation concerns raw materials, social aspects and the economy. I want to know why it took such a tremendously long time for the eventual declaration to be made that the next Iscor would be established at Newcastle? Without casting any reflections, I nevertheless want to say that it is strange that so many people suspected that it would be established there, and that there was consequently so much speculation. I regret that the hon. the Minister of Transport is not here. The time has come for us to have more people on the Government side with as much decisiveness as the hon. the Minister of Transport. The hon. the Minister simply states his intentions immediately if he wants to build a harbour at Richard’s Bay. If he wants to lay a pipeline he says that he is going to do so and if he wants to buy Boeing 747 aircraft, then he says that they will be delivered in 1971. The hon. the Minister even goes much further than that. If he wants to hire Bantu labour, without consultation with the trade unions, he says so. He says that if it is necessary for the country’s welfare, he will employ Bantu without consulting the trade unions.

Then the United Party members squeal.

The hon. the Minister is so resolute that when the hon. member for Ermelo had to be repudiated, he stood up to do so.

[Inaudible.]

You can sit there and …

Order! The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) must not disturb the order. The hon. member may proceed.

He is so resolute that when the hon. member for Ermelo had to be repudiated, he was the man who had the courage to do so. This was again the hon. the Minister of Transport. When the time comes for it to be said—and it will not be long now—that the present Nationalist Party is the party of Hertzogism, it will again be the same Minister who will make the announcement.

Just listen to that!

Let us not play around with that. I do not want to dwell on this at length, but if there is an hon. member opposite who wants to argue with me, he must get up after me and tell me what the idealism of that side of the House is. Call the verkramptes what you like. They can be called the side which is more inclined to the right, or they can be called the more conservative side of the present Nationalist Party, but the policy which they are following and endorsing has brought Afrikanerdom this far. The Afrikaner was the pioneer; he opened up the country, but in his education and his economy he fell behind. However, when he eventually turned round and began to take a firm stand, he decided that this and that specific economic front had to be tackled first. This is correct. However, when the Afrikaner took over the lead in the political field, what could have been more natural than for him to have said that Afrikanerdom and the Afrikaner nation have succeeded in getting to the top and we shall do everything in our power to keep them there? I ask this for the sake of reasonableness. In the process of keeping him there, it was decided that the sun should shine first upon the Afrikaner. If there is then a little sun left, a little of it can shine on the other white communities in the country. Only then, if there is still a small ray left, can it shine on the non-Whites.

Are you the United Party’s ray of sunshine?

This is the policy of the Nationalist Party and they may make as much noise as they want to. In their hearts the greater majority of them also feel that way. One day the announcement is still going to come—it will come before, during or after the Provincial election—that the majority of those people, who are now still members of the old Nationalist Party, are going to break away from the others. The others will simply have to see what name they want for themselves.

What do you mean by the “old Nationalist Party”?

I again want to refer to the courage I spoke of a moment ago. Heath did not have any trouble kicking out Powell when he began to be troublesome in England and began to make statements about the Coloured question, but the hon. the Prime Minister, who is not here this evening, dare not do so because the current of Nationalism flowing behind Hertzogism is too strong.

Yes, and it is becoming stronger and stronger.

The current is too strong, and for that reason the hon. the Prime Minister dare not do so. I will not be told that a man with the status of a Prime Minister, a man who stands so strongly shoulder to shoulder with his political associates, does not have the power to expel a man from the party.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question?

I am sorry, not now. I want to continue by saying that the Hertzog dispute is going along at as much of a shuffle as the development of the Bantustans. I have already said that there are two matters which appear strange to us. There are two things this Government is suffering from. Firstly, there is the lack of planning. They cannot channel and crystallize any policy they tackle. I mentioned a whole series of examples. This can surely not be denied. Secondly, the Government is suffering from the fact that for quite some while they have left matters in the air. Then I want to come to what the hon. the Minister of Planning said recently in connection with a possible fourth Iscor in the constituency which I represent, i.e. East London. He intimated that an Iscor would perhaps be established a number of years from now. However, he added that there was nothing final. From here on we can now expect a lot of announcements. There was the announcement that during the next two decades R1,500 million would be necessary for development of the iron and steel industry. Then again there was the announcement that interests representing Iscor had bought up a great deal of land just outside East London. Names were mentioned of staff members and people who were associated with Iscor. Subsequently there was a direct announcement from Iscor, that land had not been bought up. But in the meantime it caused a great deal of uncertainty in that area. Tremendous speculation is taking place. What is more, speculation is not all; interests from afar are not only taking options there but are also buying a great deal of land. I now want to put it like this, that if the Government has any long-term planning in connection with the iron and steel industry, the oil industry or with the development of Sasol or any of these national undertakings, they ought to plan ten years in advance and then give us the correct programme. Then everyone will know where we are going to and this tremendous speculation will therefore not take place. If there are then estate agents who feel inclined to develop land, there is enough for them at East London. We do not need to draw them from the Transvaal.

What about Middelburg?

Oh, that hon. member can keep quiet for a while. But once more we get the idea that a little information leaked out again at some stage. This must be the case, otherwise it is very strange that interests have come from the Transvaal to buy land in the East London area. Initially I said that never before has there been a Government which had so much expert advice at its disposal, both in connection with planning and with economy. I mentioned the deficiencies of the Government. They are simply not sufficiently far-sighted, they cannot crystallize out any of their plans, nor can they persevere with them so that they can be completed. If I were to begin speaking about the Orange River Scheme, the delays and postponements of some of works, the fact that it is being continued with again, everything connected with the project and the length of the struggle in connection with sufficient water supplies, I would be able to speak for a long time. But this Government …

Is an excellent Government.

… no longer has so much time to continue with this lack of planning of theirs. At long last they will have to realize that they will have to act systematically in connection with our economy, Budget, Government and water needs. They shall have to make announcements before the time and then continue with the planning so that the population can help them.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pity that we had to conduct a debate in this House this evening about the services which the Police Force renders. There is an hon. member sitting on the Opposition side who is familiar with the responsible and dangerous work that the Policeman encounters daily. When there are occasional instances of policemen breaking the law, this is usually announced in the newspapers in big black letters, and a great deal of propaganda is made of the case. We, who constitute a responsible Parliament, must not allow ourselves to be dragged into cheap propaganda and sensation-seeking reporting. We must realize how tremendous a task the policeman has. Do we ever think that each time a policeman walks out of his front door, his wife and his children do not know whether he will return home safely again that night? I am grateful that there are so many responsible members of Parliament, because it is our duty to protect these men who do very dangerous and valuable work for us. Very often one hears the most scornful remarks made about our policemen. On numerous occasions trouble is caused at rugby matches by a lot of drunks. It is then the policeman’s task to separate those people. But if he does so he is ridiculed by almost everyone. They do not look up to him, as he walks along there, as the official of the law. It is the result of this incorrect reporting that the ordinary man in the street to-day no longer has the respect for a policeman which he ought to have. As a young boy at high school I had the greatest respect for a police sergeant. He stood there as the authority of the law. We must be very careful and display enough responsibility not simply to blame the Police at every opportunity and to say that they have acted wrongly. I even want to refer to our students to-day. Many of our students are laughing our Police to scorn. They carry on merrily, but the moment a problem or difficulty crops up, the Police are immediately phoned and asked to come and restore peace. I think that all of us sitting in this House owe a great deal of thanks to the Police for the wonderful work they are doing in the Republic of South Africa. We owe thanks to the white Police as well as the non-White Police. Therefore I hope that when something goes wrong we shall not conduct a debate about it in this House, but that we shall obtain the correct information from the Minister, because every matter has two sides. Unfortunately the slightest crime or misstep by our Police or our Ministers of religion are announced in the newspapers under banner headlines in the form of sensation-seeking reports. And this is wrong. We must protect these people. What will happen if the day comes when that young man decides to say that henceforth he refuses to become a policeman, and that he is not prepared to carry the sorrow, the scorn and the humiliation which everyone heaps upon his head? The hon. the Minister rightly said here that those policemen are only carrying out the law which we have placed on the Statute Book. We should rather look after them and not try to make cheap propaganda in this House. If we do this we shall have greatness again. This Police Force is doing wonders for us to-day. If it were not for the fact that they were serving in the Zambesi River Valley to-day, under difficult circumstances, we would not be sleeping as peacefully in our beds as we are doing now. They guard our borders and track down murderers and thieves. We must treat them with respect. I hope and trust that in this House we shall never again hear such an unsavoury speech as that which we heard from the hon. member for Sea Point.

Oh, please!

That hon. member is saying “Oh, please!”, but I want to tell him that we who live close to the Police Force know what they are doing for our country and what they mean to us. We have great respect for those men and know what they mean to us. For that reason I want to make an appeal to the effect that we must protect them and must ensure that the name of the Police Force is not dragged through the mud.

We have now come to the end of this debate and it is also nearly the end of this Session. Listening to all the speeches, there are one or two outstanding points on which I should like to focus the hon. the Minister’s attention. The one matter I want to raise concerns our housing problem. We are aware of the work the Government is doing in order to supply proper housing. We also see the tremendous work being done by the town planning companies. Those people are all competing to provide housing for the higher income group. The people in the lower than R5,000 per year income group find it extremely difficult to obtain their own houses. I think that if there is one matter to which the Government should give its attention, and I know it is doing so, then it is the matter of ensuring that housing is supplied to people in this middle income group in South Africa. We must have no illusions about this matter. These large companies are only out to make money, and I do not blame them for that. Let them continue to make money. But we, as a responsible Government, must look after the middle income group. I want to plead for the establishment to-day of a commission of inquiry in order to determine precisely what the housing needs in the Republic of South Africa are. The commission must determine how many houses are necessary and how much land the local authorities have which they can make available for housing under the various housing schemes. In collaboration with the city councils we must try to solve the existing housing needs, and this can only be solved if the Government takes positive steps in the construction of houses, and if the city councils alone must carry the responsibility of supplying these middle income and lower income groups with the necessary housing. The city councils do not make any profit. I now want to keep my promise and resume my seat.

Mr. Speaker, much of what the hon. member for Brakpan said in connection with the police we can of course endorse. But it struck me that, if the reports that worried him so much had appeared in the Opposition Press, and not in the Government Press as was indeed the case over the past week-end, we would have had a sharp reprimand from him to the newspapers of the Opposition. It struck me that he omitted to do something like that to-night. Instead of that he tried to create the impression that it was the Opposition he had to reprimand. I do not want to discuss the Immorality Act now, but I just want to say to the hon. member that Parliament is not here to cover up matters. Parliament is here rather to open things up. Mistakes can only be rectified and there can only be discipline in the administration of a country if that country has an alert Parliament which will rather make a mistake in opening up a matter than cover that matter up. Although we have the highest regard for the service rendered by the police, and I think this goes for all the people in the Republic, we must always maintain the right of Parliament to discuss matters frankly so that the Government can rectify genuine misunderstandings.

The hon. the Minister of Transport made a song and dance yesterday about certain alleged differences between me on the one hand and the Leader of the Opposition on the other hand about the question of party policy. He compared these differences with those that exist between himself and the Prime Minister on the one hand and the hon. member for Ermelo on the other hand. He said that I wanted to “do away with all race discrimination”, while the policy of the United Party was one of supremacy (baasskap) and domination. I should like to point out two things. In the first place the Minister did not go to the trouble of quoting chapter and verse in respect of what I had said. He simply formed a loose impression and on the strength of that he fired a few wild shots. I should like to tell the hon. the Minister, as Leader of the House, that we expect him to set a better example to hon. members here. What he says is placed on record. It is reported, and others who want to take as little trouble as he does to look at what was really said, will then in turn use his statements and propaganda. In that way the misrepresentations will grow in the course of time. I do not think that that is the way in which things should be done. If the hon. the Minister does not want to take the trouble of checking what he wants to quote or say, he should not use it.

I hope that, in the second place, it struck the Minister that his party is blowing hot and cold. One day we hear that we stand for integration, and the next day we hear again that this is a party that stands for domination for all time. Both statements cannot be true. I now want to ask the hon. the Minister and hon. members opposite pertinently: When does the Government speak the truth? Do speakers on that side speak the truth when they say that we stand for integration, or do they speak the truth when they say that we stand for domination? Yes, now they keep quiet. [Interjections.] I put this question to that hon. member who has just spoken: When do they speak the truth? Which of those two statements is true?

But we are asking you which one is true.

No, we cannot allow a double-barrelled attack to be made on the Opposition. One of those statements is not true.

But you are a double-barrelled party.

Now hon. members are trying to avoid this question. I asked which of the two statements was correct. On more than one occasion when we discussed population problems in this House, I adopted the attitude, firstly, that South Africa’s population problems are not at all unique. I disagree entirely with the people who say that our race problems are unique, and that we need a so-called unique solution for them. Human variety and human diversity are world-wide phenomena. Countries having homogeneous populations are in the minority to-day. Everywhere in the world one finds contrasts. There are contrasts between race and colour, between class and economic development, between language and religion. If one goes into the matter, one finds that contrasts between language and religion create much more serious problems in the world than the problems in connection with colour. Some of the most serious divisions of countries which have occurred in the world occurred in India, in Ireland and, to a certain extent in Palestine, not as a result of colour, but as a result of religion. We know of the language and cultural problems existing in countries such as Belgium, where there is even talk of a federal division of the two language groups. There are also Canada and Ceylon. In countries such as Switzerland, Yugoslavia and only recently in Czechoslovakia, cultural and economic contrasts led to political settlements which in most cases are of a federal nature in order to ensure that there is co-operation without domination among the various groups. The world, therefore, is acquainted with the problems of nationalism, identity and group personality. This is sympathetically understood everywhere. In fact, during the South-West Africa case in The Hague our own advocates submitted a list of 50 countries where there is recognition of diversity and where there is differentiation among various groups. Our problems, therefore, are by no means unique. I want to stress that the world is acquainted with differences, and especially with class differences and with the existence of discrimination between people in the private sphere. The question is where we are at fault. If this is a world-wide phenomenon occurring in so many countries, where are we at fault and why are we the only country which is, according to the Government side, called the skunk of the world? The answer is very simple. [Interjection.] It is that hon. member’s own newspapers who said that South Africa had become the skunk of the world, not I. But if we ask what the reason for that is and why it has happened, then the only reason is that the Government has raised discrimination against people to an official policy and is enforcing it with all the power and authority of the State. It chose colour, and colour alone, something about which the whole world is sensitive to-day. It chose colour as the basis on which discrimination would be applied. Mr. Speaker, allow me to mention a few examples of the kind of discrimination that is creating the problem for South Africa. We have the position that the Government stipulates that Whites and non-Whites may not buy a postage stamp at the same counter in a public building, or may not stand in the same place.

You voted for that.

No, I have never voted for that. It was done by regulation. Where the counter is small, people may not stand in the same queue. They must stand separately. At a station they may not walk over the same bridge, nor use the same subway. In many places they may not use the same lift. Recently there was an ordinance before the Cape Provincial Council to force owners of buildings to put in two lifts, so that even as regards lifts it can be stipulated that South Africans may not use the same lifts. In many buildings one finds one lift only, marked Whites only, and in that case the non-Whites must use the stairs. It is these small, unnecessary, irritating and insulting little matters that are known under the term “petty apartheid” that have brought South Africa where she is internationally. I know that everything is allegedly done “in order to avoid friction”, but there is nothing positive in it, and as regards friction, this is not true in all respects either. In many cases it is precisely where there used to be peaceful co-operation and contact that the Government interfered and broke down and destroyed that contact. The crux of the matter is that the system which applies here, unlike the kind of differentiation they have in other countries, is a standing insult to the entire non-white world. We can apply a very easy test. Let us take the Afrikaans-speaking people as a group. Suppose people of British descent occupied the dominant position in South Africa and introduced a system according to which no contact with the Afrikaners was allowed. At each post office, for example, there would have been separate counters for the Afrikaners and the others.

That is not comparable.

How can you say that it is not comparable? It is absolutely the same. Place yourself in the position of the other man who stands in front of a sign indicating that purely on the basis of his colour he is not allowed to buy a stamp at the same counter as others! Place the Afrikaner in that position and I ask you whether he would have been satisfied with that and whether he would not have revolted against it.

You defended that policy.

I have never defended petty apartheid. I have always supported the idea of territorial separation. [Interjections.] What the hon. member is forgetting is that I used to be a member of the National Party of South-West Africa. In South-West Africa the petty apartheid laws never applied. The National Party had a different constitution in South-West Africa. Group areas and race classification never applied in South-West Africa. Even to-day they do not apply there. The question is whether an Afrikaner would tolerate being treated in the way we are treating the non-Whites by means of humiliating petty apartheid measures. He would not have tolerated it for one moment.

Then the Minister of Transport was right in saying yesterday that you want to do away with all discrimination.

No, I am coming to that. I want to stress that what I said did not apply to “all discrimination”. My standpoint was about discrimination applied by the Government or by the State. It does not affect the right every person should have of applying self-selection and being exclusive in his private relationships. I said a moment ago that these things existed all over the world. One must be able to choose one’s own circle of friends and to arrange one’s life according to one’s own taste. Anyone should always have his own private right to discriminate and to arrange his life in a way he deems fit. My point was that enforced segregation applied by the State is of exactly the same nature as enforced integration. They are not two opposite things. They are birds of a feather. The principle is the same. The opposite of that is natural human relations, just as the Afrikaner retains his identity within the white community without there being any law telling him to retain his identity. There is no enforced apartheid between Afrikaans- and English-speaking people. But the Afrikaner has retained his identity. If we speak against enforced segregation by the State then we do not accept enforced integration, because the two belong in the same class. The opposite is normal human relations with the freedom to retain one’s own identity and to lead one’s own life according to one’s own taste.

Do you want to do away with segregation on the trains as well?

I shall come to that, if the hon. the Minister will only give me a chance.

There are only five minutes left. You do not have much time.

Yes, that is surely not my fault. If I have to blame someone, it is the hon. the Minister. The Leader of the House levelled a charge here and if I do not have time to reply to it, I shall do so later.

Did you not vote for the resolution too?

What resolution?

The resolution on limitation of time.

I may say that we think that the hurry in Parliament at present is not necessary at all. The hon. the Minister made a completely erroneous statement. In any event, I always added that one could not make any adjustments in this field overnight. Nothing I have said differs from the policy of the Government it is propagating in the outside world. I can furnish one quotation after another here to the effect that the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs declared before U.N.O. that the policy of his Government is to eliminate all forms of political discrimination. Does the Government stand by that, or is it dishonest? I can quote the Minister of Foreign Affairs as having said that it is not the policy to make colour the dividing line. One newspaper editor after another and one political commentator after another on the Government side proclaim that sooner or later colour must no longer remain the norm. Even the leading Calvinists of Potchefstroom stand for major territorial separation between White and Black, but for the elimination of coercive measures based on colour and colour alone. If this hon. Minister disapproves of this, he must tell me whether the attitude adopted by himself and his Government in the outside world is honest. May I ask the hon. the Minister that question across the floor of the House? Are the statements that have been made in the outside world policy or not? Is this honest or is it not?

Is it your policy you are propagating now?

I am dealing with the hon. the Minister of Transport now; why does he not reply? Why do you keep quiet?

Is it the United Party’s policy you are propagating now?

What kind of morality is this, that members on that side get up and attack us on the ground of statements which their own leaders have declared to be the direction in which their policy is moving? I want to put one last point to the hon. the Leader of the House. The hon. the Minister is quite wrong if he says that supremacy (baasskap) and leadership are the same thing. Does he want to tell me that the hon. the Prime Minister exercises supremacy over the National Party? Or is he the leader? There is a big difference between the concepts of leadership and supremacy. To mention those things in the same breath is quite unfair. Leadership implies consultation. Leadership implies co-operation. Let me give a practical example of our standpoint. In the case of separate residential areas, a concept which forms part of the policy of this Party, the difference is that while the Government enforces it unilaterally from the white side only, we would do it with the consultation and the co-operation of the people. That is the difference between leadership and supremacy.

If they do not want to do it, what do you do then?

That applies to every policy under the sun. If one cannot achieve something …

Will you enforce it then?

Let us take the case of the Indians in Johannesburg …

No, just tell me whether you would enforce it?

One can put such cases right because one has traditional residential areas in any case. [Interjections.] It has always been done in this way …

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