Mr. Speaker, I move—

1. (1) That notwithstanding the provisions of the resolution adopted on 2nd February and of Standing Order No. 22—
   1. (a) the hours of sitting from Monday, 23rd February, to Thursday, 26th February, shall be:

      10 a.m. to 12.45 p.m.

      2.15 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

      8 p.m. to 10.30 p.m.

   2. (b) Saturday, 28th February, shall be a sitting day;
2. (2) that the provisions of Standing Order No. 23 (Automatic Adjournment) shall be suspended with effect from Friday, 27th February;
3. (3)that on Friday, 27th February, and Saturday, 28th February, the House shall meet at 10 a.m., business being suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.15 p.m.; and
4. (4) that the provisions of Standing Order No. 49 (Stages of Bills) shall be suspended with effect from Monday, 23rd February, for the remainder of the Session.

The Government regards Orders of the Day Nos. 1 to 15 as essential measures which must be dealt with by the House before Parliament adjourns. It is therefore necessary for the House of Assembly to sit for longer hours as from Monday in order to enable the House to dispose of all these various Orders of the Day. We are hoping that the House of Assembly will be able to adjourn by the end of next week, but this of course depends on hon. members. If they restrain themselves a little in discussing certain of the more contentious measures, the House of Assembly may be able to adjourn earlier, but that is completely in the hands of the Opposition. I also want to say that if it is absolutely essential. Parliament will have to sit in the following week as well and then the nomination date will simply have to be postponed for a week, but if hon. members co-operate, we can adjourn at the end of next week.

Legislation by exhaustion.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to register the protest of this side of the House to the motion before the House. To our mind this motion is unnecessary, and it is unnecessary because much of the legislation that the Government desires to put through need not have been introduced during this short Session of Parliament. All that was really necessary was to pass the Part Appropriation and Additional Appropriation Bills to run the various services of the country. An opportunity would obviously also have presented itself to pass a certain amount of legislation. In fact. if that had been done the House could have risen to-day. That could have been the position. We have, of course, spent some time on legislation. Moreover, some of this legislation is of a controversial nature. I do not think that the House does itself justice in agreeing to motions of this type. I think the reaction of the public outside is this: If Parliament wants to do its business in this way, it seems to be foolish, but let them get on with it. They do not approve of this manner of passing legislation in Parliament. When this sort of thing happens there is a tendency for debate to cease on some of these measures because what happens is that Government members do not participate in the debate, in order to get the legislation through; Opposition members put forward their points of view and the various measures are not fully debated. I do not think it is in the interests of Parliament to have such a situation arising. The test, the barometer of the success of a session, seems to be how many Bills Parliament can churn out. If it passes a record number of Bills, then it has been a wonderful session. Sir, I believe the test is just the opposite. The test of a good session of Parliament is how few Bills it has been necessary to put through in order to govern the country. More and more in this country we are creating a situation where the test has been how many Bills have been passed during a session. I do not think that is a good thing. I think sometimes it is a very bad thing and on occasions it is almost a disaster for the country.

Then in regard to the last tag of the motion, i.e. to do away with the right under Rule 49 of three members to object to the stage of a Bill, I regret that the hon. the Leader of the House has seen fit to put this forward. It may be argued that this is a temporary alteration, but it is an alteration of a rule that caused a great deal of discussion when the Rules were altered, and they were altered by agreement. Prior to that, it had been possible in this House for one member to object to a further stage of a Bill. I can recollect very vividly that the then member for Illovo. Mr. Marwick. took it upon himself time after time at the end of a session to object to the next stage of a Bill when it was quite unnecessary to do so. This resulted in a great deal of expense because the reprinting of a Bill costs a great deal of money.

Others did the same thing, and therefore it became necessary to give consideration to the alteration of this rule. But, Sir, there has not been a tittle of evidence of abuse of the present rule—not on any occasion. The Opposition has been most responsible, and I may say— and I think it is the right thing—that we have been able to arrive at agreement as to when the various stages of Bills will be taken. Over the last few years a spirit has grown up which is all to the good from the point of view of Parliament and its workings. We have been able to come to an understanding with regard to the business of the House. There have been differences, but generally speaking there has been agreement and there have been no real difficulties. Here this right to object to the next stage of a Bill is being taken away from the? Opposition.

I may say, Sir, that there are still some very controversial Bills on the Order Paper. Does the Leader of the House intend, in the case, of Bills which have been partly disposed of and others which have not yet been taken, to force them through in all their stages, one after the other? I do not think that should be done in this Parliament. This motion makes it possible for the Government to do so. My experience has been that taking a Bill through all its stages at once, has, with rare exceptions, been to the detriment of the House and Parliament. I have never regretted having held up the next stage of a Bill but I have regretted allowing a Bill to go through all stages at once, for the very reason that representations are made to the parties in the meantime; different points of view are put to members, and things that you never thought of crop up after a Bill has been given publicity 3t one of its stages.

If a Bill is not put through in all its stages on the same day, you then have an opportunity of putting forward those points of view, if they are sound and valid ones, and of having them discussed in Parliament. This motion deprives Parliament of that opportunity, and I do not think that this is in the interests of Parliament. This motion seems rather innocent, but it nevertheless seems to savour a little of the guillotine mentality the Government shows from time to time. They display a readiness to take an opportunity, or threaten sometimes, to alter the Rules because some occasion which has arisen has perhaps caused those Rules to be not quite to their advantage. Mr. Speaker, the Rules of this House are for all members of the House of Assembly and for all parties, and not for the one side of the House alone. I feel that when such proposals are made, the most careful and serious consideration should be given to them before they are put before this House.

The hon. the Leader of the House has told us what legislation has to be passed this Session. He said that items 1 to 15 on the Order Paper had to be disposed of. That is quite a considerable legislative programme. Even in the case of Bills which one may call agreed measures, it is not a bad thing for a point of view to be aired in this House, so that the country may know what the legislation is about. I believe that this sort of resolution does not make that possible. Therefore, this side of the House protests.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to reply to two points raised by the hon. member for Von Brandis. In fact, he made only two important points. One is that, in his opinion, the Government intends to proceed with legislation which is not important. I think it is a tradition in this House that the Government itself decides which legislation is important to it and which is not. The Opposition may as well leave it to the Government to decide about it in this case too. The Government will know best which legislation it wants passed and which not.

The hon. member also raised a second point, with reference to the proposed suspension of the provisions of Standing Order No. 49, which will dispense with the practice that objection may be made to two or more readings being taken on the same day. I want to ask the hon. the Chief Whip whether he knows why Bills were originally submitted to Parliament for several readings. Originally, several readings of a Bill were taken because members of Parliament were, by tradition, unable to read. It was customary for the Speaker to appoint a person to read the Bill that was before the House, from beginning to end. [Interjections.] Sir, it seems to me as if there are hon. members on the opposite side who still cannot read to-day. It was customary for the Speaker to order the Secretary or the Clerk, who was in actual fact a priest, to read the Bill. Members of Parliament at the time could not, however, remember for such a long period, and the Bill therefore had to be read again the following day in order to refresh their memories. In earlier times Bills were in fact read as many as eight times. As recently as 1946 a British Bill was inadvertently read four times. Only when it appeared later on that the several readings were being used to delay Bills was a decision taken that there should be a fixed number of readings. Indeed, that was when the number of three was decided upon, on account of the sacredness of this number in the Bible. That is why Bills have been read three times ever since. The principle of the matter is that Members of Parliament have the complete Bill before them to-day, as from its first reading. A Bill need no longer be read out to a member to remind him what it contains, because he has it before him all the time. He can make a study of it, and when it has been read a first time he can already decide precisely what his attitude is going to be. During all the readings he can consult the Bill again. That is why this practice has in fact fallen away. It is a tradition which has no meaning any more for us in the modern world, where Members of Parliament can read and write. I think it is something which is completely old-fashioned, something to which Parliament need not really be tied down, and Parliament will not collapse if we do away with it temporarily. As a matter of fact, as hon. members know, this rule does not apply strictly in the Other Place any more. In other words, Parliamentary tradition itself has already watered down the rule to a large extent. I therefore think the hon. the Chief Whip is quite wrong in saying that we are breaking down a tradition or a convention of Parliament, and that it will encroach upon other Parliamentary customs as well. I do not, however, begrudge him his objection. It is his privilege to raise it.

Mr. Speaker. I shall be very brief. I should just like to place on record the frustrating of the Opposition in connection with this motion. I also want to express my concern at the kind of argument which the hon. member for Middelland used, because it is indicative of an attitude to the procedure of this Parliament which gives rise to deep anxiety. Apparently the idea in the mind of at least one of the Whips on the Government side is that the rules of this House should be curtailed even more, and that it should be done on a permanent basis.

No.

That is the impression one gets, but I do not want to go into that. This whole action is contrary to the attitude adopted by the Opposition and the Government when, under the late Dr. Verwoerd, it was decided to simplify the rules of the House so that the proceedings could be expedited. The Opposition made great sacrifices at the time, because the aim was to achieve unanimity. It was decided that nothing would be altered unless it could be done by a unanimous decision. The Opposition made the sacrifices, but now it still happens every session that the Leader of the House proposes a measure which is contrary to that gentlemen’s agreement. I just want to register my protest at this. I also want to point out that it is not worth the trouble to ask Parliament to accept this curtailment of its rights merely for the sake of the kind of legislation which the Government regards as essential. Except for a few Bills dealing with pensions, virtually all these Bills are unnecessary. Many of them are controversial and ideological measures which could just as well wait until July. There are few measures on this Order Paper which are really to the benefit of the ordinary citizen of South Africa. If these measures were aimed at providing real benefits to the citizens of South Africa, the Opposition would still have cooperated, but, with two exceptions, all these Bills are ideological ones. Therefore we want to protest most strongly This step is unnecessary. It is not in the interests of the people, nor is it in the interests of Parliament. It is arbitrary and it definitely does not enhance the prestige and the status of our legislative institutions.

Mr. Speaker, I naturally anticipated that the Opposition would object. If they had not objected, they would not have been worthy of being an Opposition. That goes without saying. If I were in the Opposition, I too would object to any curtailment of rights. I just want to say, however, that the suspension of the provisions of Standing Order No. 49 is nothing new or nothing unusual. It was done in 1960. It is only a precautionary measure which is taken. It does not mean that it will be applied as from Monday, or that all the stages of all the Bills coming before the House will be taken forthwith. It is merely a precautionary measure, because the position to-day is quite different from what it was before. We cannot allow three or four members to object to certain stages on the last day, when Parliament must adjourn, so that Parliament would then have to sit the following week. This is therefore a precautionary measure which will perhaps not be used.

Just take the legislation to which hon. members are objecting so strenuously. Except for two of the items on the Order Paper, they support all the measures. The hon. member for Yeoville has probably not read any of these Bills.

That is a certifiable untruth.

I know that hon. member. He is so superficial that he never studies anything properly. He never does his homework. All these Bills are in fact important measures. The two which are controversial relate to Bantu. There has never been a Bantu Bill before this House which the Opposition did not oppose. The moment we mention the word “Bantu” they are up in arms immediately and then they talk about it for weeks. They intend to do the same in the case of this legislation. After all, I saw what happened in the Committee State of that one Bill yesterday. If hon. members tell me that there was no unnecessary talking yesterday and that there was no unnecessary wasting of time, I do not know what wasting of time is. I have been in this Parliament for many years, and I know when time is being wasted and when deliberate attempts are being made to delay the business of the House. These two Bills must go through. Let us consider a few of the other Bills. The hon. members are constantly complaining about the manpower shortage. This is one of the main themes of all their speeches. With the Industrial Conciliation Amendment Bill an attempt is being made to do something in that connection, but they say that it is unnecessary and that it need not come before the House this Session.

That is not going to achieve your object.

What does the hon. member know about this matter? He has not yet read the Bill. He does not know what it contains. I know how the Opposition set about matters. They have their groups for each Department, the same as this side of the House. When a matter dealing with labour affairs crops up, it is referred to the labour group. I do not think that hon. member is…

He is the secretary for the labour group.

Is that hon. member the secretary for the labour group? Then it is no wonder that they always come to light with such stupid and silly proposals. Only now do I realize what happens. If they come here with proposals that are cooked up between the hon. member for Yeoville and that hon. member, we can expect anything.

Let us take the next item on the Order Paper, the Anatomical Donations and Post-Mortem Examinations Bill. All the medical practitioners are asking for this. Then there is the National Monuments Amendment Bill. This is a simple little Bill which all of them will support. Then there is the Wine and Spirits Control Amendment Bill, which the agricultural industry wants very badly. I think the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also wants this Bill to be placed on the Statute Book. Or does he not want it?

You have not discussed it with me.

My colleague the hon. the Minister of Agriculture must really not allow any delay in doing this. He must go and talk to the Leader of the Opposition about it, because then it will have a speedier passage through the House. Mr. Speaker, I can continue in this way. As I have said, there are only two controversial Bills. I just want to point out that the next session will be devoted mainly to the Budget. There will not be much opportunity for legislation. Besides, the Bills which are not passed, will then have to be introduced anew. Those hon. members say they are going to come into power. Then they can, after all, arrange the Order Paper as they think fit in July. They can then drop the Bills which they do not like. In any case, it will be a short session and there will not be much opportunity of dealing with legislation, and therefore as much as possible of this important legislation must go through this Session, as was done in 1966. In 1966 we had to deal with one of the most controversial of Bills, namely a Suppression of Communism Amendment Bill. That Bill went through and it was discussed thoroughly. Although the Opposition objected strenuously to that Bill, they did not waste time. Then there is another thing. I think they are far keener to return to their constituencies than we are, because they have to fight for their lives; they are on the defensive, while we are on the attack. They will have to defend for all that they are worth so as not to lose their seats.

We do not have an internecine conflict to cope with.

They will have to try to prevent themselves from losing their seats. The last part of the motion is a precautionary measure. If necessary, it will be used, but hon. members may rest assured that the good cooperation which there has been between the Whips on both sides throughout the years will continue next week as well. All I ask is their co-operation and their help to pass these Bills as quickly as possible. Then we may perhaps still finish before Friday.

Motion put and the House divided:

AYES—93: Botha, M. C.; Botha, M. W.; Botha, P. W.; Brandt, J. W.; Carr, D. M.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, J. A.; Cruywagen, W. A.; Delport, W. H.; De Wet, C.; De Wet, J. M.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Toit, J. P.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Erasmus, J. J. P.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Havemann, W. W. B.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Holland, M. W.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; 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, W. T.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, H.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pienaar, B.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rail, J. J.; Rail, J. W.; Reinecke, C. J.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Roux, P. C.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J. D.; Stofberg, L. F.; Swanepoel, J. W. F.; Swiegers, J. G.; Van Breda, A.; Van den Heever, D. J. G.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Visse, J. H.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. J.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Vosloo, W. L.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J. J.

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

NOES—34: Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Connan, J. M.; Deacon, W. H. D; Emdin, S; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Radford, A.; Smith, W. J. B.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher. D. M.; Sutton, W. M.; Suzman, H.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Waterson, S. F.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

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

Motion accordingly agreed to.

I move—

That this House approves—

1. 1. The excision from the scheduled Bantu area in terms of the provisions of section 3 (b) of the Bantu Trust and Land Act, 1936 (Act No. 18 of 1936), of:
   1. (a) Reserve No. 6, district of Lower Umfolozi, Province of Natal, in extent 4,856.2320 hectares, property of the South African Bantu Trust in terms of section 6 (1) (b) of the Bantu Trust and Land Act, 1936 (Act No. 18 of 1936);

      and the inclusion in the scheduled Bantu area of the province concerned of:

   2. (b) a certain block of unsurveyed State land, approximately 36,354 hectares in extent, bounded westwards by the Pongolo River and the Ndumu Game Reserve, northwards by the boundary of the Province of Natal, and eastwards by Reserve No. 14, district of Ingwavuma.
2. 2. The amendment in terms of the provisions of section 3 (b) of the Bantu Trust and Land Act, 1936 (Act No. 18 of 1936), of the Schedule to the Bantu Land Act, 1913 (Act No. 27 of 1913), by the deletion therefrom of the land referred to in paragraph (a) above and the inclusion therein of the land referred to in paragraph (b) above.

Mr. Speaker, this House is being asked to accept the excision of certain scheduled land, known as Reserve No. 6, near Richard’s Bay, and its replacement by another piece of State-owned land bordering on Mozambique.

We are not opposed to the excision of Reserve No. 6, which, as I have stated, lies near Richard’s Bay. We realize that it will be required for the development which is to take place there. But what we are worried about in the first place, is what is to happen to the Bantu living in that reserve at present. When the Select Committee considered this matter, we were unable to get details from the department as to where these Bantu were to be placed. The only information we received, was that at the moment they are concentrating them in a certain portion of this reserve, but ultimately they may go to Reserve No. 5 and Reserve No. 10. But it was not thought that any of them would go to the land which has been exchanged. We feel that before an excision of this nature takes place and the House gives its permission to the excision, we should know what is going to happen to the people who are occupying the area which is to be excised. As I say, we have been unable to get that information.

Our main objection to this measure is that the land which is to be exchanged, is at present State-owned land which borders on Mozambique. In doing this, approximately 12 miles of our frontier on the boundary between Mozambique and South Africa, will with the Government’s stated policy of giving the reserves independence ultimately, eventually become part of a sovereign independent Bantu state. We will be handing over our boundary to a foreign state. We are opposed to that. I know that the Minister will probably say that the land alongside Reserve No. 14 already abuts on the State of Mozambique, and that it is therefore nothing new. But I submit that because that is so, it is no reason why we should give up more of our boundary to what will eventually become an independent state. We should rather go the other way and try and retain the whole of the borderline under the control of the Government of the Republic. Alongside of the Ingwavuma land, which is to be exchanged, is the Ndumu Game Reserve, which the Government of the Republic will be keeping out, for the time being at any rate. We feel that the line should go from the Ndumu Game Reserve further along and right across down to the coast, and that that land should be retained as part of the Republic. Because of these objections we will oppose this proposed excision.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Transkei only raised two points here. In the first place the hon. member wanted to know where the present residents of Reserve No. 6 were going to. In the second place he expressed his concern about this, as he called it, 12 mile international boundary which is thereby being created. I immediately want to say that I do not believe that there will be any difference of opinion between the hon. members of the Opposition and ourselves on the basic point that Reserve No. 6 as such must disappear. I think that hon. members opposite and ourselves will agree that, with the new development that is going to take place at Richard’s Bay, it is necessary for Reserve No. 6 there to disappear. We shall not quarrel about this. Nor do I believe that hon. members opposite are going to quarrel about it, because it is a new development that is coming and that is going to be applied for the purpose of industrial expansion. It will also be applied for the establishment of townships. It is an altogether new development that will take place here. Whoever the inhabitants of that area may be, they would have been hit by this new complication. It so happens that in this case there are Bantu living in the area. At present there are 647 families living there. This represents a total of 5,579 individuals. At present these people in that reserve own 2,568 items of large stock and, in addition, about 400 items of small stock. But we must now bear in mind that these 5,579 individuals are not all employees. They are not all working units. Only a percentage of these people are in employment. I now immediately want to add that in the Richard’s Bay complex there are at present about 200 Bantu employees. New contractors arrived there with Bantu from elsewhere. In other words, these Bantu living in Reserve No. 6 still have the prospect of new employment opportunities which are going to be created for them as a result of the new project. I want hon. members opposite to weigh up this new work sphere against the removal of the Bantu from Reserve No. 6. But now I want to state immediately that the present inhabitants of Reserve No. 6 will not necessarily be shifted to the land that is being offered to them as compensation. In fact, the present inhabitants of Reserve No. 6, who already work in the Richard’s Bay complex and want to work there, or who, as a result of new employment opportunities that are developing, would want to work there, may for residential purposes as the hon. member for Transkei said, be resettled not only in Reserves No. 5 and 10, but also in No. 9, where a township is also being established. But new townships will also be established in Reserves No. 5 and 10. In other words, in the Richard’s Bay complex where this new project is in progress, there will be more opportunities for the establishment of townships into which these people can be assimilated. Here the people will be able to obtain houses. I now want to say that the Bantu Commissioner consulted the interested parties. In consultation with these people this entire matter was explained to them. The expected complications and the development associated with it were explained to them. These people understood this. Their reaction was favourable when they heard of these new developments; they realized the implications of the developments. They only had one request, i.e. that they should obtain a job at the new project. This will mean that many of them who have to go and work elsewhere at present, for example on the mines in Johannesburg and in other towns throughout the Republic, will now be in a position to obtain work there, near their families. This is something altogether new to them and they accept it in that light. They were promised that they would be assimilated into those new jobs when the jobs came along.

Why were we not told about that in the Select Committee?

It was given to hon. members in a nutshell by officials of the department. But, in addition, any intelligent person ought to know that these are the prospects for those people. Had the hon. member for Transkei only given it a little thought yesterday or the day before, he would have joined me in realizing that this was the position, because he already accepts it now. These people were also informed that, apart from this new employment which is going to be created for them and which is in the offing in this area, there is also compensatory land available which will be given to them. I want to emphasize that the State land which is now to be included is not the poorest of agricultural land. On the contrary, parts of it and also parts of the adjoining reserves are relatively good agricultural land. We cannot get away from this fact. The industrial and mining potential of this land is not known and has not been investigated. Neither is it at all relevant at this stage. As hon. members are aware, section 3 (b) (i) of the Bantu Trust and Land Act, 1936, provides that the compensatory land should have a pastoral or agricultural value at least equivalent to that of the land that is being excised. It is an important point at this stage. The intention behind this is simply to prevent the Bantu homelands from decreasing in pastoral and agricultural value as a result of excisions and inclusions. It is a protective measure. The State land which is now being offered is not necessarily compensatory land for the Bantu now living in Reserve No. 6. Neither is this land calculated in order to determine the quota of Trust-acquired land. I want this to be very clear. During the meeting between the Bantu Commissioner and the Bantu Captains and their followers it was common cause that people who would decide to go to the Bantu townships would not be able to take their livestock with them. Furthermore, it was explained that if someone wanted to take his livestock with him, and if he did not want to work in the vicinity, his case would be considered on merit. An open authorization for the removal of livestock or for their placement in other areas can therefore under no circumstances be given, particularly not at this stage. This goes without saying, because the reserves are full. Consequently all cases must be treated on merit as they submit applications.

I now come to the question of the international borders. This is the second point raised by the hon. member for Transkei. At present it is the custom for the department to grant grazing rights right up to the border, even though it is an international border. For the purposes of occupation the department ensures that a strip of between two to three miles from that border is left unoccupied. This is for security considerations, patrolling, etc., to which thorough consideration is given. It is also important to keep the families away from the families on the other side of the border. If this is not done border arrangements with our neighbouring states are simply hampered. In respect of the provision of labour and the movements of people to and fro across the border we have arrangements with Mozambique, Rhodesia, Malawi, Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho. Passport control posts have been established for this purpose. I want to make it very clear now that a great deal could be said about the control of international borders. We could argue about that for a very long time. It goes without saying that there can be various standpoints in respect of international borders. However, I want to plead for the question of principle in respect of international borders not to be linked with this case. Because why should this be done? We have hundreds of miles in the rest of the Republic of South Africa where there are already international borders. Why should the question now be linked with this specific case of a mere 12 miles?

It is a very bad position and does the hon. member now want to increase it?

Yes, only 12 miles. I want to adopt the standpoint that if this question of international boundaries must be discussed, it should be discussed as a matter of principle. I simply cannot understand why hon. members specifically want to link it to this case. If this were to be done the entire nature of this case would change. This goes without saying, and I therefore feel that we should not link it with that. The fact is that we have similar cases throughout the country, and why do hon. members specifically want to link it to this case? Is it not because hon. members opposite agree that it is right, accept that the people of Reserve No. 6 must disappear and because they accept that the development entails this, but then they want to add that it cannot be done for certain political reasons. To justify this they now jump around and look for loopholes in order to start arguments. I say that this does not belong here and I cannot, under any circumstances, see that it does.

I now want to conclude by saying that in my opinion we must bear in mind that according to international law it is not possible for a State to negotiate with another subordinate state without the permission of the sovereign state. This is a policy question we can discuss in respect of all the areas where we have international borders. However, we cannot link it to this specific case where it is a question of about 12 miles. I think we all realize how far-reaching this question could be, and I therefore want to express the hope that it will not be linked to this particular case.

Mr. Speaker, I listened with pleasure to the swan-song of the hon. member for Klip River. I am sure we will miss the hon. member in this House. The hon. member for Klip River says we are opposing this matter purely for political reasons. I want to remind the hon. member that he has told me repeatedly, and other hon. members on this side, that there are no votes for us amongst the Bantu. I want to remind the hon. member of those words. We are not opposing this for political reasons. We want to see fair play done. The hon. member knows that on the Select Committee we were presented with a half-baked scheme. He knows perfectly well that on the Select Committee the hon. member for South Coast made it perfectly clear that we agree that Reserve No. 6 must go. We agree that Reserve No. 6 must go, but let us have a scheme for the handling of the people who are resident there to-day. The hon. member told us that there are 5,579 souls in that area.

They do not have a scheme according to which they will deal with those people. We were told in the Select Committee—and that hon. member confirmed it just now—that they are now being temporarily moved to some corner of the reserve. He said that these people were voluntarily moving into a corner of Reserve No. 6, farthest removed from where the development is taking place until such time as some plan can be made for their accommodation. When it was asked where they would be accommodated, the answer was: “We do not know at this stage. We anticipate that a township will be built in Reserve No. 5, which is about five miles away. Another township will be built in Reserve No. 10, which is between eight and ten miles away. These will be built in the future. Possibly these people could be accommodated there.” A question was put directly to the Secretary of the Department as to whether these people can be accommodated in the reserves in the vicinity. He replied that that would not be possible because they are full. That hon. member confirmed it now when he spoke. They just want to take these people away.

Let me say that they are acting fully in terms of the letter of the law. The letter of the law, as the hon. member pointed out, lays down that the Trust must get compensatory land of at least an equal pastoral and agricultural value. Let us have a look at that. We have the position where 4,800 hectares, a little over 12,0 acres, of a pastoral value of R1,020,533, which works out at R210 per hectare or R80 per acre, are being excised from the Trust land and being compensated for with 30,354 hectares or nearly 100,000 acres, an excess of 90,0 acres. The pastoral or agricultural value of this piece of land is around R1,026,540, R7 more than the other, but it is almost nine times the size and works out at R28 per hectare or R11 per acre. I want to place on record that from my own knowledge of the area, Reserve No. 6 is grossly undervalued and the State land which is being given to the reserve is grossly overvalued. The hon. the Minister knows that that land has already been condemned by the Veterinary Department when it comes to the keeping of stock in that area. He knows that it is white sandveld and that there is no grazing on it. He knows that it has been condemned by the Department of Agriculture from the point of view of irrigation. The most damning point of all is that he knows that that whole area is already occupied by Bantu. In fact, one could say that it is already overstocked with people.

The hon. member has made the point that the Department does not necessarily have to give the Bantu removed from the piece of ground to be excised, that portion which is to be added. I accept that. But what are they going to do with these people? We do not know what they are going to do with them. The Department does not know what they are going to do with them. They perhaps have plans for the future, if these people are put into these townships which may be developed in these reserves, what will happen to their stock? The hon. member gave figures in this regard. He spoke too quickly and I could not quite catch the figures he mentioned. However, these figures indicated that there are some thousands of head of stock in that area at the moment. These people have led this type of agricultural and pastoral life. What will happen to their stock if they are moved to the townships? Are they going to be permitted to keep their stock? Where will they be permitted to keep their stock?

Come on, Henry, tell him!

But I did.

Must one now speak in between or must one wait till the speaker has completed his speech?

Keep quiet, Oom Bronkie!

Order!

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Klip River said that the Bantu Affairs Commissioner had consulted with the people in this reserve. I wonder how that consultation took place. I accept that they were consulted and were told what the Government’s plans were. The hon. member said that their attitude was favourable. “Gunstig,” was the term that he used. We put this question directly to the Secretary of the Department in the Select Committee. That is not the answer that was given by the Secretary. The answer given by the Secretary was that they had accepted it “tacitly”. When we questioned him further on this tacit acceptance, he said it was tacit acceptance because they were moving their kraals to this corner of the reserve where the Department intends to concentrate the Bantu. Was this once again a case of departmental officials being instructed to go to these Bantu and tell them what is happening and once again a case of the Bantu saying: “umtetho ka uHulumeni,” this is the law of the Government and we accept it. These are law-abiding people and they are being pushed around. They are being pushed around here in a half-baked scheme. This whole Government has gone off half-cocked in the development at Richard’s Bay.

We do not oppose this development. We want to see the development. We have said this reserve must be excised if it is in the road of development. We accept that it is in the road of development. However, let this Department and this Government come with some idea of what they will do with these people before they ask this House to approve such a motion. The hon. member said that the Bantu would be settled in the adjoining reserves. He made the point that there was good agricultural ground in those adjoining reserves. But he knows that they are overstocked, not only with animals, but with people as well. He knows that there are more people than those reserves can carry. There is another question which arises. Are these people in Reserve No. 6, a tribe on their own? Are they a section of the tribes in reserves Nos. 4, 5, 9 or 10, or are they all part of the same tribe who are living in separate units? This is something which has to be considered. We were told in the Select Committee that any of these Bantu who wanted to move to the land on the boundary at Ingwavuma will be permitted to do so. The hon. member is aware of conditions in Zululand and he knows that those people will never move up there because of the factions. The one lot are uSuthu and the other are Mandhlakazi. They will not mix.

Has the hon. the Minister consulted with the hon. the Minister of Agriculture on this question of the international boundary? I believe he controls the State land. I know that other negotiations have been taking place in connection with portion of this land which it is proposed to now be handed over to the Bantu Trust. In connection with those negotiations, this whole question of international boundaries has been considered. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister of Agriculture has been consulted. Has he agreed to the handing over of this land to the Bantu Trust? Can the hon. the Deputy Minister tell us?

Of course; he has agreed to it. You can rest assured.

That is all I wanted to know. Of course, all that the hon. member for Klip River said about the international boundary, the fact of the three mile clear limit being kept, justifies our objection to this being placed on the international boundary. If this is to become an independent state, it means that our South African international boundary will be in the hands of this Bantu government.

To summarize, we are not opposed to the excision of Reserve No. 6; we are not opposed to development in the Richard’s Bay area, but all that we ask is that before we approve this excision, the Department and the hon. the Deputy Minister must come to this House with some definite concrete plan of what they intend to do with these 5,000 odd souls in that area.

Mr. Speaker, I regret having to say that as soon as the hon. friends on that side of the House no longer know what to say these days, they speak of a swansong. I do, however, want to assure that hon. member that I shall be here again next session. Perhaps he will also be here. Then we are simply together again.

The two speakers on that side of the House, who spoke about this matter, made fairly superficial allegations. I want to make the assertion that, since we are here dealing with the removal of Bantu from the scheduled Bantu area of Reserve No. 6 and giving certain other compensatory land in return, we are, in fact, engaged in the policy of separate development. Irrespective of the development at Richard’s Bay, we are here dealing with a separate reserve which would, in the future, have had to be removed in any case in terms of our policy. That process is only being hastened. But because hon. members on the other side of the House realize that the removal of these Bantu are in line with the execution of our policy, they are opposed to it. I should like the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) to listen now. I want to make the prediction that within a month or so that hon. member is going to get onto the platforms in Natal, particularly in Pietermaritzburg, and tell the people that they must be careful because a Bantustan is developing five miles from their City Hall.

It is already there.

Exactly. Those are the stories they will tell. Their basic motive is their opposition to the policy of separate development. Just to frighten people those hon. members are once more going to ask the question: “Where will the borders be?” Here we are specifically indicating to them “where the borders will be”. Reserve No. 6 is being removed and transferred to another place with a view to the consolidation of areas.

What are you going to do with No. 4?

The hon. member asks what we are going to do with No. 4. We are not dealing with No. 4 at the moment. I said that the removal of No. 6 is in line with what is going to be done in the direction of consolidation. Now the hon. member must simply wait until such time as we deal with No. 4 in the Select Committee one day. Then it will be time for him to speak about it. We are now dealing with Reserve No. 6.

I said that No. 4 was the boundary.

Let us now pursue this argument in a logical fashion. Reserve No. 6 lies between Richard’s Bay. where the new harbour is going to be built, and the small town Empangeni, i.e. precisely where a white urban area with a large industrial concentration is going to develop. Hon. member are not happy about the removal of Reserve No. 6. in spite of the fact that they know that it is going to be a large urban complex. If Reserve No. 6 were to be left in its present position many Bantu would have to be housed there. Hon. members opposite would then be the first to say that it is the Government that is allowing all these Bantu in a white urban complex. This is precisely what they are now doing in respect of other cities. The Government is now removing the possibility of a large concentration of these people within a white complex.

The point I want to make is that the attitude of hon. members borders on hypocrisy where they are supposedly pleading …

The hon. member must rather not use the word “hypocrisy”.

I withdraw the word, Mr. Speaker. Those hon. members’ motive is something quite different. What is actually upsetting them is the execution of the policy we are dealing with here. It is now being said that this is a half-baked scheme. In the Select Committee the hon. member had the amplest opportunity, and made use of it, to put questions to the officials about this matter. All the information he wanted was given to him. This is not a half-baked scheme. It was put to him very clearly—and this also serves as a reply to the hon. member for Transkei—that, in respect of what is being proposed here, the process will be a gradual one. Those hon. members apparently do not understand this. A start cannot be made with the removal of these Bantu before the measure has not first been approved by both Houses of Parliament. The gradualness of the removal of those Bantu lies in the fact that, whereas they are now dispersed over the entire Reserve, they will first be drawn together into one spot. Had hon. members been familiar with the local circumstances, they would have known that at most there are 1,000 labour units in the total Bantu population. As a result of the development already in progress, all those labour units have been assimilated. They are already working there. The extensions to the harbour have not even been started yet. When the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) is making a plea on the grounds of the agricultural basis of their previous existence, he must realize that while they were previously agricultural people, they will now become industrial people. The hon. member must understand this.

Did they agree to that?

The hon. member says that he agrees with that, but then he asks what will happen to their livestock.

I asked whether they agreed to that.

I would have come to that point, but I shall now deal with it immediately. Negotiations had been taking place for a long time between the Bantu Commissioner at Empangeni and these people. Nothing is being done against the wishes of these people. The hon. member is shaking his head.

I know that a year ago they were told …

I think the hon. member should rather confine himself to his affairs in Pietermaritzburg (District). In every possible newspaper that hon. member does his utmost to set himself up as the authority and expert on conditions in Zululand—one of these days he may possibly do so in the Friday Times as well. If the hon. member has the time one day he must really come along so that I can point out the deeper-lying facets of the region to him. He is no authority on Zululand. The hon. member must please not pretend to be one.

It is said that the Bantu areas in those regions are full. The point I have already made is, firstly, that we are going to have a shift from agricultural people to industrial people. This is the first important point. But there is other State land in that area. I am now referring particularly to the Mfuli area. The Government is busy settling people here. There is still a great deal of available space for those who want to practise agriculture. As far as that is concerned there is nothing to fear.

I want to correct another blunder. If hon. members had looked at the sketch accompanying the memorandum concerned, they would have noticed that the western boundary of the compensatory land, which is now becoming a Bantu area, borders on the Pongola River. That hon. member now wants to make the House believe that this is a poor type of land and that it is not irrigable. The banks of the Pongola River are pre-eminently those stretches of land which are going to come under irrigation from the J. G. Strydom Dam. If the hon. member wants to go and drive around with me on the plains one day, I would gladly go and point out the A1 and A2 or the B1 and B2 types of land to him. This ground is indeed irrigable and it is not sandy. If the agricultural value of the land being given here in exchange is taken into consideration, I would sooner think that too much compensatory land was given.

You disagree with the valuation?

I cannot hear what the hon. member is saying.

Order! I think the hon. member should simply continue with his speech.

Mr. Speaker, I now come to the last point dealt with by the hon. member for Transkei. It is an argument that the Opposition frequently seizes upon, i.e. the question of our country’s borders which are becoming Bantu areas. The hon. member for Klip River has already pointed out that the addition of more or less 12 miles to the Bantu area in the north, up against the Portuguese border, is not actually important because Reserve No. 14 already borders on Portuguese territory. There is also Reserve No. 16 which is already a Bantu area. In how many other areas in South Africa does a Bantu area not border on another international state? For example, the whole of the Tswana area borders on another country.

That is why we are against your policy.

The position is that when necessary the South African forces will enter that area for the defence of the country. They will enter the area and do their work there for the defence of the country, as, in fact, we already have to do in Reserve No. 14 and No. 6. Actually the argument holds no water and I think we must reduce this matter to its basic principles and then come to the conclusion that this measure will probably not be supported by the Opposition because it is very clear to them that it forms part of the implementation of our policy. This is precisely what they do not want to support. There is little else to be said against this measure.

Mr. Speaker, to-day we once more had the strange phenomenon of the hon. the Opposition coming along here and saying that they support the excision of Reserve No. 6 for various reasons, but, at the same time, that they have objections to it. Three objections were levelled against it. The hon. member for Klip River has already replied to two of these objections. One of the objections was that there would now be an additional 12 miles of international border under Bantu Control. The hon. member for Transkei says that we have increased the portion of the international border under Bantu control, i.e. that of Reserve No. 14. He is, of course, speaking about the area from Oro Point in a westerly direction up to the State land. He says that the Ndumu Game Reserve will then form the border. However, I doubt whether the hon. member will ever get there. One must be able to hold one’s own if one wants to go driving around there. I have already done so. I do not think he will get there, but, if he cannot manage to do so, let him simply consult a map. I invite him to come to my Office and there he can see that Reserve No. 16, which just lies to the west, is identical. Then the hon. member could also give some thought to how Swaziland borders on Mozambique. But since when has Mozambique become a terrible danger? Let the hon. member also take a look at our northern border and there he will see how a large portion of our territory borders on Angola. It is simply a lot of nonsense to come along here now and to make so much of a fuss about an additional 12 miles of border.

The second point that was raised here, and to which my hon. colleague also replied, is the question of whether the Bantu were consulted. While replying to this question I also just want to reply to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District), who acts as if he is such a great expert on the Bantu. He wants “fair play” in respect of the Bantu. In Act No. 18 of 1936 provision was already made by the legislators, because they knew that this kind of exchange would rear its head. The Act made provision for parts that were scheduled or released, to be exchanged or interchanged. In this case valuations were made. The Bantu were consulted, and I just want to say that not all the Bantu in Reserve No. 6 will trek away to live in the compensatory area. Some of those Bantu are just as anxious for Richard’s Bay to be developed as the Whites are. The Zulu people, for the greater part, are going to benefit by the development of Richard’s Bay. The Bantu will actually benefit as much as the Whites from the development of Richard’s Bay. Knowing that there is going to be development at Richard’s Bay, the Bantu of Reserve No. 6 want to be near the development when it begins to take place. The chairman of the Bantu Affairs Committee rightly said here that the people, who had moved temporarily and who say that they know that Reserve No. 6 is necessary in the planning of Richard’s Bay and for the industrial development which must take place there, can be given the assurance that one township will shortly be under construction. I speak of townships under construction, because in my opinion a construction of a town is never completed. For example, the construction of Cape Town is surely not complete yet, and therefore it is also still under construction. The people can surely go to Ngwelezana, which is under construction in Reserve No. 7B. In Reserve No. 5 Mseleni is under construction. The hon. members opposite know that the planning of the maximum development at Richard’s Bay also includes a large Bantu township in Reserve No. 10.

In No. 10?

Yes, in Reserve No. 10. The hon. member must wait for the information and not simply draw his own conclusions. These people are still going to work in that area. Why, then, can they not be taken there? It is a fact that we cannot provide immediate accommodation for them, but they are surely not going to be moved to Reserve No. 6 immediately. Only the legal steps are now being taken in that connection, as is required of us in terms of Act No. 18 of 1936. In Act No. 18 of 1936 it is provided that we should give compensatory land wherever we expropriate land. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) also asked whether the Minister of Agriculture had been consulted. All of a sudden he is now very concerned about that. Does the hon. member now think that this department would go along and excise State land on behalf of the Bantu Trust without the permission of the Minister of Agriculture? My Minister would no more give permission for such a thing to be done than the Minister of Agriculture would allow Trust land to be excised without his permission. It is a measure that has been agreed upon. To ensure that we comply with the leal requirements of Act No. 18 of 1936, the valuation of the land was also done by the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure. This now automatically brings me to the hon. member who wanted to create a smoke screen here this morning by saying that the Bantu of reserve No. 6 were being tricked and that he wanted to see “fair play”. He said that he knew that that soil was all sandy, but I can tell him that I know that that soil is not all sandy.I have, in fact, been there and I have good reason to wonder whether he ever has. I shall now give the hon. member the valuation. This valuation was made by the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure. Does the hon. member have confidence in them? Does the hon. member have confidence in the valuations of the Land Tenure Board? When I have to make offers, and I am frequently criticized about those offers, I am dependent upon the valuations of the Land Tenure Board. According to their valuation there is 1,038 morgen of good irrigable land in that area which has already been valued. In this same list I am in-formed that this land is being valued cheaply. However, hon. members must remember that we are coming to a basis upon which the valuations of the two areas are virtually equal. They value it here at R300 per morgen, but they say that it would easily be worth R600 per morgen; but the canals have not yet been completed and the deforestation has not yet been done, and therefore it is only being valued at R300 per morgen. And who is going to build those canals and do that deforestation? Do you see how these people are being benefitted by the receipt of 1,038 morgen of land under the Josini Dam, land they do not have in Reserve No. 6 at all? According to the valuation I have here for Reserve No. 6, it is good forestry land, but here they are obtaining 1,038 morgen of good irrigable land, and then another 772 morgen of irrigable land, poorer in quality than the other. Then there is another 763 morgen of irrigable land, and this is probably what the hon. member was speaking about, but he forgets about the other 1,800 morgen of land. But one would have to place these 763 morgen under spray irrigation be-cause, as a result of its sandiness, one cannot apply gravitational irrigation. The hon. member is on that Select Committee, I am not. Why did he not take the opportunity of gleaning this information and of asking about the valuations? No, hon. members on the other side are afraid to say that they are opposed to the excision of Reserve No. 6. They now want to pretend that they are also in favour of it because they know that the development of Richard’s Bay cannot he planned for and continued with if possession of the entire area is not obtained, as the Planning Committee has already recommended. But then they come forward with the argument that there is something wrong with the compensatory land that is being given. Sir, my department could have allocated compensatory land in any other place in Natal and it would not have been the right land either, because they are essentially opposed to the consolidation of Bantu areas and the implementation of Government policy.

I welcome this report of the Committee and I want to tell you that the Ministery supports it in full, and we ask both Houses of Parliament to accept it as such.

Motion put and agreed to (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause 7 amends section 18 of the Urban Areas Act. I just want to ask the Minister a question or two in regard to the effect of this amendment. As I see it, the effect is that where alternative accommodation is to be provided as a result of a Bantu township being declared unhealthy or unfit for habitation, the alternative accommodation need not necessarily be in the area under the control of the urban authority concerned. It appears to me that this amendment very radically affects the section 10 rights of the residents of those Bantu townships. I understood the Minister to say that he does not intend to take away the rights conferred by section 10. but it seems to me that he will have a situation in some of these Bantu townships where they become unhealthy or unfit for habitation as a result, possibly, of neglect by the urban authority concerned. It may also be that the urban authority has difficulty in raising the finance required to rebuild the township, and so the residents of the township find themselves in the position that they are penalized and possibly moved to another area not as the result of any default of their own. I think that somehow or other the Minister should reconsider the matter to protect these rights, and I also think the hon. the Minister would make it clearer to us if he quotes a couple of examples of where this might well happen. He has spoken about the removal of Bantu from Windhoek and Harrismith, but are there any other villages where he contemplates a similar state of affairs arising?

The position in regard to clause 7 is just this, that where a medical Officer condemns a Bantu house it is being provided here that the Minister can order that adequate accommodation is not necessarily granted only in that prescribed area where the house has been condemned. but that it can also be in a Bantu homeland, that is all. This clause has nothing to do with the removal of a Bantu town, or any other type of case. It deals solely with the case of a medical Officer condemning a house. I want to say at once that very few cases like this occur where Bantu houses are condemned by a medical Officer for health reasons. Therefore I am quite unable to share the view of the Opposition in this regard that section 10 is involved here. This was what I was explaining to the hon. members when the House adjourned yesterday evening, and I do not think I need cover that ground again. Suffice it to say that it is not the intention here to involve Section 10 cases. In any event, the cases which occur where medical Officers are compelled to condemn houses for health reasons, are few and far between, and therefore I do not think that the dangers which the hon. member for Walmer who has just spoken sees in this clause, exist.

Last night I put questions to the hon. the Deputy Minister and I think, with your leave, Sir, I should remind him that he did not answer the questions. I asked about the responsibility of providing accommodation and why now, when it was not the responsibility of the Bantu people themselves to provide suitable accommodation when these Bantu find themselves in the position, through no fault of their own, of having to live in houses which have been condemned by the medical Officer of health, they should now be removed from the urban area. I want to react further to the statement the hon. the Deputy Minister has just made now that we must accept that this provision, if it is applied, will not affect the rights of those people who qualify under section 10. I want to disagree with the Deputy Minister entirely on that, and I want to refer him to section 10. Section 10 (1) lays down that no Bantu shall remain for more than 72 hours in a prescribed area. This gives the Bantu the right to remain if he qualifies under certain conditions and subsection (b) refers to the Bantu who has worked continuously in such area for one employer for a period of not less than 10 years, or has lawfully resided continuously in such area for a period of not less than 15 years and has thereafter continued to reside in such an area. Now, he does not provide his own house. The house is provided by the local authority. Due to the dilatoriness of the local authority, or due to the fact that the Minister of Community Development and the National Housing Commission will not make funds available, that house falls into disrepair and it is condemned by the medical Officer of health. In terms of this provision, the Minister can remove that Bantu from the urban area and compel him to live in some other township outside of the area of jurisdiction of that local authority, in which case his rights under section 10 are lost. That is why the hon. member for Transkei, accepting the bona tides of the Deputy Minister. has moved this amendment to protect those particular people to whom I am referring now. I want to make it clear to this Committee that we are not only worried about those persons who have rights under section 10; we are also worried about all the law-abiding Bantu residing in these townships. But it is apparent that this Government intends to push this through and it is apparent that the main object behind all this is the removal of the Bantu from the white areas, and because of that we are powerless to defend those who do not have the right, but provision does exist in the legislation for the protection of those who qualify under section 10. Once again I want to ask the Deputy Minister to accept this amendment. Let us at least protect those people and let us show the Bantu people of this country that the Whites at least have some charity towards them.

I want to point out again that this clause relates only to houses which are condemned by a medical Officer. From the nature of the case, scheme houses, in other words, houses built by the local authorities, do not fall under this at all, for of course there is a fund, called the maintenance fund, which the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) ought to know about, for those scheme houses. This type of case therefore does not occur at all, and if he now wants to accept my word that it occurs very rarely that a medical Officer is compelled to condemn a house, it would not be necessary for me to explain further, for the only type of house which is involved here is the self-built house. To reply now to the question he put to me, as to who supplies that house, I have already replied to him by implication. Where it is in a prescribed area the local authority provides the House. If the House is in a Bantu homeland Bantu Trust supplies the house and then my Department is involved. That is therefore the reply to that. Lastly I want to return to the question the hon. member has once again asked in regard to section 10, the position is simply this, that if such a Bantu whose house has been condemned by a medical Officer is employed, properly and legally registered in employment, then there are four possibilities open to such a Bantu if his house should be condemned by a medical Officer. Now, you must remember that this category is already a very minor one, because this is merely a self-built house. There are four possibilities open to him if he is therefore in registered employment. The first is that he can go and live in a hostel, and then the local authority is the body which effects this.

And if he has a family?

If he has a family there, other adequate accommodation can be made available to him by the local authority if he is in legally registered employment. That is the second possibility. The third possibility is that such a Bantu can take lodgings, and the fourth possibility is that the local authority can allocate an erf to him and a house can be built for him there. Those are the four possibilities if he is working.

Under what conditions can that be done?

Under the ordinary location regulations, the position under the ordinary location regulations is this, and this is the reply to that, and there is no other reply to it, because these are the facts. This deals with Bantu if they are employed, and surely I have now indicated to the hon. member and to the Opposition that in this category, as far as my Department and I can judge, section 10 is not in any way involved. Now we are left with one type of case, and that is the Bantu who is not working and whose house has now been condemned by a medical Officer. I want to ask the Opposition whether they are arguing that a Bantu who is not in service and whose house has been condemned by the medical Officer for health reasons must under all circumstances simply be offered adequate accommodation in that prescribed area. This is all we are doing in this clause and this is all that this clause provides. In cases of that nature, which of course—I want to amplify this again—will occur very infrequently and which occur infrequently in practice, in other words, the case of a Bantu who is not working there and who can in any case be picked up under Section 29 of the Urban Areas Act if he on the other hand is an undesirable person, or under section 14 of the Urban Areas Act. what is wrong with inserting a clause here which provides that he should not necessarily be offered adequate accommodation in the prescribed area, but that he can be offered, at discretion, adequate accommodation in a Bantu homeland.

Amendment put and the Committee divided:

AYES—33: Basson. J. A. L.; Basson. J. D. du P.; Connan. J. M.; Deacon. W. H. D.; Eden. G. S.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De. V.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hushes. T. G.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman. J. H.; Moore. P. A.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield. G. N.; Radford, A.; Streicher, D. M.; Sutton. W. M.; Suzman, H.; Taylor. C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwrlght. C. J. S.; Waterson. S. F.; Webber. W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

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

NOES—85: Botha. M. C.; Botha, M. W.; Botha. P. W.; Brandt. J. W.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, J. A.; Cruywagen. W. A.; Delport. W. H.; De Wet, C.; De Wet. J. M.; De Wet. M, W.; Du Plessis. A. H.; Du Toit. J. P.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Eras mus. J. J. P.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Havemann, W. W. B.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Herman. F.; Heystek, J.; Holland, M. W.; 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.; Malan, W. C.; Maree, G. de K.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Muller, H.; Otto. J. C.; Pansegrouw. J. S.; Pelser, P. C,; Pienaar, B.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall. J. W.; Reinecke, C. J.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Roux. P. C.; Schlebusch. A. L.; Schlebusch. J. A.; Schoeman. B. J.; Schoeman. H.; Schoeman. J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J. D.; Swanepoel, J. W. F.; Van Breda, A.; Van den Berg. M. J.; Van der Merwe. C. V.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Vuuren. P. Z. J.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Viljoen. M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Visse. J. H.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster. B. J.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Vosloo. A. H.; Vosloo, W. L.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel. J. J.

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

Amendment accordingly negatived.

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

Clause 8:

Mr. Chairman, I object to this clause. During the second-reading debate I mentioned the reasons for my objection and I should like to repeat them to the Committee now. Sir, as I understand it, the Urban Areas Act provides that an urban local authority’s Bantu beer account shall be chargeable only with the costs incurred in the manufacture of the beer and, secondly, any service, expenditure or grant which may be certified in writing by the Minister as being calculated to improve the social or recreational amenities available, to the Bantu residents within the area of the urban local authority, or otherwise to promote the social welfare of such residents. That is how I read the existing provision of the Act.

Quite right.

Two-thirds of the balance of the unused profits can be expended to subsidize housing or any service or expenditure or grant certified in writing by the Minister as being in the interests of the Bantu, irrespective of Whether or not it relates to that urban authority because that amount has gone into the General Municipal Bantu Revenue Account; so two-thirds of that amount can be expended on housing, etc., if the hon. the Minister approves of the expenditure. There was an amendment introduced in 1964, I think, whereby that expenditure does not have to apply only to the urban areas but can also be used to subsidize amenities, etc., in the homelands.

So far so good.

The hon. the Deputy Minister says: “So far so good.” Now here is the rub. Sir: What does the hon. the Minister propose now? In his White Paper he has given us one of his usual, what I call, smooth explanations. It says this—

Well, that is all very well, but, of course, much wider powers are now being taken in regard to the expenditure, because what it means, as I interpret this—I may be wrong, but I am sure the hon. the Deputy Minister will not hesitate to tell me if I am wrong—is that any part of the unexpended profits which used to be reserved for use only in the local area concerned, can. at the discretion of the Minister, be expended on the homelands. In other words, he is taking charge of the lot except for the cost of producing the beer. In other words, he is grabbing the lot. He is not allowing part of it to be used only and exclusively in the urban areas concerned; he wants to be able to debit to the Bantu Beer Account any expenditure incurred in the homelands for housing, recreational facilities and better social amenities. So far we are on common ground.

You are off the rails now.

No, I do not think I am. The explanation he gave us in the second-reading debate was that this was only fair and just because after all who were the consumers of Bantu beer in the urban areas but the migratory workers who came in from the homelands. He said that therefore it was only fair that some of the profits should be ploughed back into the homelands so that these people could enjoy the benefits.

Do you not agree?

One could carry this argument to its logical conclusion. Does the hon. member who is asking me this question realize that of the African mineworkers and the Africans in the municipal areas, who are large consumers of beer, more than 50 per cent come from outside South Africa? If one carries this argument to its logical conclusion, some of the money should be sent to Lesotho, Swaziland, Rhodesia or Portuguese East Africa, or to any country from which our foreign mineworkers come. That is therefore not a very sound argument. What worries me in any case is that the migratory workers who buy their beer in the urban areas, spend 11 / 12ths of their working lives inside the urban areas anyway. Therefore that is where most of the money should be expended. I may say that we are not dealing with pin-money in this regard.

I shall be told very quickly if I am wrong, but my information is that the sales are reaching the neighbourhood of R1 million a week in Soweto. That is what is being realized on the sale of beer. That is a very considerable amount. If we now give the hon. the Minister the power to take as much as he likes from the urban local authorities and then spend that money on recreational and housing facilities in the rural area, the townships are going to be left with very little, bearing in mind the official policy of the Government. This is the important thing. We must remember that their policy is that as many people as possible should be returned to their homelands, so I see this money being spent on housing in the resettlement areas in the reserves. Already the Deputy Minister’s predecessor, the present Minister of Community Development, spoke about it being wrong to provide the urban African with luxuries. I think his words were: “We must not spoil them.” When one sees the facilities these people have, one realizes that they are the bare minimum.

He never said that.

Yes, he did. He said that it was quite wrong to spoil them and provide them with luxuries. I shall fish out the exact reference for the hon. member if he wants me to. I am not wrong. This matter was raised last year, and I am raising it again now. I know perfectly well that the hon. the Minister will be grabbing as much as he can of the beer profits and as little as possible will be spent in the urban areas where that money is in fact gleaned, and as much as possible will be spent in the rural areas. For all these reasons I am dead against this reallocation of the profits on the sale of beer. The Deputy Minister is now appropriating part of the additional one-third of the profits for himself in terms of this clause, and I therefore intend to vote against it.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Houghton started off by giving a very fine exposition of the various aspects of this matter, but then she started misunderstanding things and went off the rails. That is the point at which I shall start. All that is concerned here is surpluses in the beer account. As hon. members know, there is a two-thirds beer account and a one-third beer account. The two-thirds beer account remains absolutely unchanged. It is still statutorily guaranteed, as is set out in section 2 (c). That position remains the same. In terms of this section, as paragraph (c) reads, the position under the present circumstances is that, if a local authority has a surplus in its two-thirds beer account, that local authority can, if it wishes, donate a part of its surplus to the Bantu Trust so that that money can be used for the development of the homelands. In terms of the present position, a local authority cannot use the surplus, should there in fact be a surplus in the one-third beer account, for any other purpose at all than that provided for in the Act. In other words, if a local authority has a large surplus in its one-third beer account, it cannot, in terms of the present provisions of the Act, use that money for productive purposes or as a gift to the Bantu Trust for the development of the Bantu homelands. All we are doing now, is to create the necessary statutory measures so that a local authority which has a surplus in its one-third beer account, may, after applying it to the purposes in its area to which it may be applied, make a donation to the Bantu Trust, in the same way as it can already do in the case of the two-thirds beer account. We are therefore merely enabling a local authority to make such a donation if it wishes to do so. Nothing more is envisaged in this regard. I am not trying to be smooth. I am trying to state a fact. Nothing more is involved in this.

Sir, if I have explained this properly, I have already said that this only concerns surpluses in the one-third beer account. But a number of other important facts follow from this. The first important fact following from this is that the initiative for the donation to the Bantu Trust comes from the local authority. It would only come if there is a surplus in the one-third beer account. It cannot come in any other way. We are not going to grab that money.

You are going to take it.

We are not going to take it either. Those moneys will come to us on the initiative of a local council, if such a local council wishes to grant the money, this can only happen in the event of such a local council having a surplus in its one-third beer account. That is all there is to it. Anybody who reads anything more into this provision, is definitely completely off the rails. I can assure hon. members of that.

There is one last point I wish to make. It is obvious that my department does not wish to assist local councils to spend unnecessary funds on social luxuries in the European areas. The hon. member is quite correct. In terms of our policy, that is so. This is so not because we are unfair, but because those luxuries should properly be provided in the Bantu homelands. That is the point I was trying to make in my second-reading speech. Who can quarrel with that?

We.

There is no need to quarrel about this. It is only right that unnecessary luxuries should be given priority in the Bantu homelands.

Mr. Chairman, I am afraid that we are not a bit impressed by the explanation which the hon. the Deputy Minister has now given. With regard to the surplus on the one-third beer account, the Deputy Minister says that this provision is really to help those local authorities who want to donate a portion of their surpluses to the Bantu Trust …

On their own initiative.

Yes, but I submit that the White Paper puts the position more correctly than the Minister does. The White Paper says that the proposed amendment gives the Minister wider powers with regard to the expenditure of funds in the Bantu beer account. Why did the White Paper not say that this is to enable municipalities to make donations to the reserves for social developments. This is in fact what is going to happen: The Minister will refuse the council permission to build “social luxuries”, as he puts it, and then there will of course be a surplus in the fund. The Minister will then merely take that surplus. The Deputy Minister says that they will take the surplus in the one-third beer account.

I did not say that we would take it. If they want to give it, they can do so.

No, not if they want to give it away. The Minister said he could deal with the surplus in the one-third beer account. The Minister can stop any money being spent on luxuries and social services in the townships. The profits will then accumulate and there will be surpluses. There will be surpluses and what will happen to that money? The hon. the Minister is not merely going to allow it to lie there. The hon. the Deputy Minister himself has said that they will not allow social luxuries.

Unnecessary luxuries.

Now they are unnecessary. When the hon. the Deputy Minister spoke he used the same tone and the same language as his predecessor, the present Minister of Community Development. The reason he gave then was that the reserves should be made more attractive. Now the hon. the Deputy Minister says that he agrees that the reserves should be made more attractive. Why, he asks, should they therefore have luxuries in the townships? But what about the Bantu who are permanently resident in the townships? Why should they also not have luxuries? What about all those people who are protected by section 10? Why should they not have luxuries? Why should it only be the Bantu in the reserves who can have luxuries? If the hon. the Minister wants to give luxuries to the Bantu in the reserves, why do they not develop the reserves so that there will be money to be spent in the reserves for luxuries there? Why not give the Bantu who are living in the urban areas and working there, who are getting a service from the municipalities and from their particular locations, luxuries to enjoy while they are working there? They are spending their money there. Why should they not have swimming baths, to which the hon. the Deputy Minister objects?

You supported the clause just now.

When did I support the clause? I do not know what the hon. member is talking about.

It was only the hon. member for Houghton who got up.

Mr. Chairman, that hon. member must not talk nonsense. As I have said, we are not impressed with the reasons given by the hon. the Deputy Minister. After listening to him and bearing in mind what his predecessor said, we suspect that the Minister will now curtail expenditure in the townships and will refuse to give his permission for luxuries, as the hon. the Deputy Minister calls them. Mr. Chairman, what are luxuries? Are swimming baths and sports-fields luxuries? What are luxuries? I do not know what luxuries are as far as this matter is concerned. I would be glad if the hon. the Deputy Minister would tell us what he intends stopping as far as the townships are concerned because I cannot think of any unnecessary expenditure on luxury in the townships Perhaps the hon. the Deputy Minister will tell us how money had been wasted in the townships on luxuries for the Bantu.

Mr. Chairman. I wonder if the hon. members on the other side would be so kind as to tell this House whether they are opposed to the spending of any of these surpluses in the Bantu homelands. I want to ask the hon. member for Houghton whether she is opposed to it.

Yes.

The hon. member for Houghton is at least honest. She says she is opposed to it. But the hon. member for Transkei must also please tell this House whether he is opposed to the spending of any of these surpluses there. Then I also want to know why these surpluses should be left lying unproductively in an account. Why can these surpluses not be used after provision has been made, as is being done now.

This provision empowers the Government to spend the money there as they like.

That is quite correct. But this is a responsible Government which is supported by responsible officials. They are not a lot of children who waste their Saturday morning pocket-money. That is the position. These hon. members only want to retain the money for the urban Bantu because they are as scared of section 10 as can be. In the case of every clause section 10 is dragged in. Why do hon. members not take a wider view in these matters? Surely they know what happens in the urban areas. They see which sports fields are being developed there. They see the theatres and the libraries. They see the transport services there. They see all the services there. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Houghton knows these things very well. But where must the unproductive Bantu of these areas be cared for? Where must the urban Bantu get holiday amenities? In case you are not aware of it, Sir, I want to point out that the urban Bantu are asking for holiday resorts in the Bantu homelands. This is only one undertaking for which this money can be used, namely the development of holiday resorts in the Bantu homelands. The urban Bantu are also asking for something else. They ask: “Provide housing for us in our own areas where, for example, our aged can be settled”. Municipalities are keen to make donations, amongst other things also for this kind of development in these areas. The urban Bantu ask us: “Help us to establish our towns which are here, in our homelands”. In case those hon. members who come from Johannesburg and other urban areas are not aware of it, I just want to tell those hon. members that I myself have had discussions with the leaders of urban Bantu. They asked for this and said: “Help us to transfer this town of ours to our own territory. Help us with transport services in that territory”. This does not mean that the hon. the Minister is now going to take all this money and spend it there, but there are such fine things which can be done for the development and uplifting of these under-developed peoples. In spite of this, the hon. members on the other side want to leave these surpluses lying unproductively, because how much money do we need to spend on luxuries? If one has a surplus of R1 million, one cannot spend it just for the sake of spending it. This is what the argument of the hon. members on that side amounts to. I really think that we should take it amiss of the hon. members that they adopt such a negative attitude while we are dealing with an important matter here, namely the uplifting of these under-developed peoples who are not settled in urban areas only. The interests of the urban Bantu are just as much in the homelands, because they have direct links with their homelands.

Mr. Chairman, as the hon. the Deputy Minister knows, I quarrel with the remarks he has made. In the first place, I wonder why there should be a surplus at all in any of these municipal accounts. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister has paid a visit to some of these municipalities. These people are not merely short of luxuries, but short also of some of the basic necessities of life. Let me mention a few of them. I do not know whether schools, for instance, would fall under something which would promote the social welfare of such residents in terms of the definition in the Act, but if they do not they certainly should. If any amendment should be introduced, it should be one to include schools among the needed social amenities or anything which contributes to their social welfare. One has only to go into a Bantu township at the beginning of the school year to see the thousands of children that are turned away from the doors of the most inadequate schools in the country. This is just a little suggestion I wish to make. The existing schools are all woefully short of all basic equipment, such as desks. Their libraries are a disgrace except where private donors have contributed towards them. One could go on indefinitely giving examples. Let me mention the example of crèches for the children of working women. There are some creches run through public benevolence but they are desperately short of facilities, such as buildings, all the necessary equipment and money to pay for staff to look after the small children of the women who go out to augment the very low incomes of those families. There should not be a surplus of one penny lying in the municipal account. All that money which comes from the Africans themselves should be expended on these essential welfare services. I have mentioned only two such services but there are others I could mention, such as recreational and sports fields. Some of that money should be diverted to providing foot bridges at the stations so that there need not be the terrible accidents, seeing that the South African Railways seem unable to provide them. If anything is needed, it is an amendment to broaden the scope of the uses to which this money can be put. That is my first point. There are no unnecessary luxuries in the townships.

To talk about spending money in the European areas, which is the phrase the hon. the Deputy Minister used … What does he mean by “European areas”? I know that Soweto technically speaking lies within the Johannesburg municipal area but can the hon. the Deputy Minister honestly say that that is a European area? Between 600,000 and 750,000 Africans live in that area. I may point out that that is nearly two and a half times the population of Lesotho.

But it is still not in a Bantu homeland. It is still in white South Africa.

That is only by the accident of history, simply because there was not a tribe living there in 1913 and 1936. That should have been the largest African urban area. It should have been far bigger than the Rosslyns, the Hammarsdales and the Umlazis. It is purely an accident of history. Since the hon. the Minister is busy swopping black spots all over the place, he should swop this very large black spot and he would get out of a lot of his difficulties. It is absurd to call an area where 600,000 people live, many of them permanently resident there, a white area.

That has nothing to do with the Bill.

Many of them are permanently resident there. Whatever that hon. member may say to himself, those are permanent residents. They were born in the area and are second and third generation Africans.

There is nothing in this clause to do with that.

Everything in this clause has to do with the expenditure of money on facilities for Africans living in that area. That hon. member has not read this clause. He never reads a Bill and he never knows what he is voting on. I am therefore not going to waste my time arguing with him. I want to come back to this other point. The hon. the Deputy Minister has said that the municipalities are dying to spend these surpluses on facilities in the homelands. Some of the municipalities over which he may have some influence, no doubt, by gentle persuasion have already made their donations. I wonder what he uses for gentle persuasion and what he promises them in exchange if they only add to the coffers that he is building up in this respect. He is very proud about it. One remembers that in the no-confidence debate he gave us a long list of the donations that have been given to him by the municipalities for expenditure in the reserves. He wants to add to that. He wants to be able to come to this House next session and say to a11 of us “Look at the millions that I now have!” Donations, my eye, Sir! I wonder what he says to those municipalities when he makes them hand over their shekels so willingly. I should like to know what this gentle persuasion is.

I say that there are no unnecessary luxuries in the townships. I do not think hon. members ever set foot in a township. It would do them the world of good to do so. If anything, the scope of expenditure of the one third unused profits—and there should not be any unused profits—should be widened so as to include amenities such as schools. I wonder if the hon. the Deputy Minister can tell me whether he objects to the money which is to be spent on schools?

I shall reply to that.

Well, I hope he does not object, because I have a lot more to say to him if he does.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Transkei said that this clause gives wider powers to the Minister. This is quite correct, as the White Paper also states. But the question to be asked is what those wider powers are. As I have explained, it simply means that, if there is a surplus in the one-third beer account and a municipality wants to donate some of that surplus to the Trust, they will now be given the opportunity to do so, while in terms of the existing legislation they are not able to do so. These are the wide powers, and there are no others.

I have also been asked “What are luxuries?” I do not intend to try to give a definition here about what constitutes “luxuries” and what does not, but, as the hon. member for Potchefstroom indicated, hon. members may even go to visit the Bantu townships in the white areas. Then they will see that, where there are profits in the one-third beer account, trouble is really taken to satisfy the needs of those people. That hon. member is quite correct. There are libraries, sportsfields, swimming baths, etc. These are regarded as essential facilities which must be provided there. Surely this is only fair. But if a municipality wants to build a five-storey house, I would very definitely regard it as a luxury.

For whom?

If certain basic, uniform costs in connection with the provision of housing are exceeded, then I would say that it becomes a luxury while there is a great need for houses. This is the position for the simple reason that, in terms of our policy on this side of the House, a Bantu who is in a white area is still there as a visitor who has come to work there, as a person who is there in a temporary capacity. His home and the place where he should have all his civil rights and all his other rights, is in his own homeland. That is our policy. Those hon. members differ with us, as does the hon. member for Houghton. It is a basic difference and nothing which I shall say from this side will convince those hon. members of this standpoint, because their standpoint is directly opposed to our standpoint that a Bantu in the white area is only working here temporarily. Therefore he is entitled to only a fair modus vivendi here. I think the modus vivendi we provide is a very fair one. The local authorities do their utmost to provide it as fairly as possible. This clause is not at all intended, and no further attempt is being made at all, to withhold that basic, fair modus vivendi from any Bantu. All we are doing here, is to create a channel through which surpluses can be applied in the homelands.

As far as the schools are concerned, the same argument applies. I honestly do not think it is quite relevant to this clause, but I promised that I would reply to it and I want to do so now. By means of a separate Bantu education account, we are trying to establish the necessary school facilities for the Bantu throughout the Republic of South Africa. We have made excellent progress in this regard. But our policy in regard to this matter is that in the first place the accent must fall on the Bantu homelands. Therefore I do not think it is relevant here to ask whether this profit will be used for that purpose. In certain cases it can and is in fact being done, but what is primarily involved here, is not the provision of school facilities from the one-third and two-thirds beer accounts.

Mr. Chairman, we asked the Deputy Minister to tell us what these luxuries were that he objected to. What did he say is the luxury he objects to? A five-storey house. Now who is going to build a five-storey house? One cannot build it in terms of section 19 as it now stands, which reads “calculated to improve the social or recreational amenities”. How can a five-storey house be a recreational amenity for the Bantu? The Minister still has not told us what these luxuries are to which he objects. I am afraid we cannot accept the reasons he has given us.

Mr. Chairman, previous legislators in this House in their wisdom provided that one-third of the excess profits on the Bantu Beer Account must be used for the amenities for the Bantu resident within the area of the local authority. They did this in their wisdom. They did it with a reason. The object was to keep those people happy. I want to say to the hon. the Deputy Minister that to-day the situation is unchanged from what it was then. The white community of South Africa are as dependent to-day upon the labour of the black people who come to the urban areas as they were in 1945.

I do not think that has anything to do with the clause. The hon. member must come back to the clause.

Mr. Chairman, I am trying to make the point … [Interjections.] … if I could get a little bit of peace from those hon. members over there, that this is now a move to empower the Minister to use all of the Bantu profits in the Bantu areas to override the intention of the legislature at the time when this was placed on the Statute Book, namely that one-third of those excess profits must be used within the area of the local authority to provide these amenities. I am sure that the hon. the Deputy Minister is prepared to concede the point that I have made, but he now speaks about “unnecessary luxuries”. He cannot tell us what unnecessary luxuries are. I want to ask him, is there any place in South Africa where he can point out any such unnecessary luxuries? Is there any local authority in South Africa who has not spent all the money which it has been allowed to spend on the provision of amenities for these people? I want to ask the hon. the Minister something, if I could get his attention for a moment. [Interjections.] No, Sir, this is the Minister concerned.

Mr. Chairman, when this Committee adjourned for the lunch interval I was asking the hon. the Minister or the hon. the Deputy Minister if they can tell us of any instances or if they will advise this Committee whether they have at any time refused to give a local authority permission to spend that one-third of the balance of the beer profits, which is set aside for that purpose, on the provision of amenities within the area of jurisdiction of such a local authority. I am asking that particularly in the light of comments made by the hon. member for Potchefstroom where he asked the question: Why let the money lie idle in the coffers of the local authority? I want to put it to that hon. member that if the hon. the Minister took a realistic attitude and if he was not so hide-bound by the ideology of this Nationalist Party which considers these people to be temporary sojourners in the so-called white South Africa, there will be no need for any money to lie idle in the coffers of any of these local authorities. If the hon. the Deputy Minister will allow local authorities to spend this money on necessities, and as the law stands to-day, on “social and recreational facilities,” and I would like to add schools because I am sure they will be covered by this definition, this money will not lie idle. The hon. member for Stilfontein has been interjecting right through this debate and said that these people have no rights and that they are only here temporarily. I am serious because I feel it is pertinent to this particular debate, when I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister if he can tell us whether he, the hon. the Minister or the department, has at any time refused permission to any local authority to expend money in this way.

Col. 1580:

Line 27: For “Clause 7”, read “Clause 8.

The hon. member for Potchefstroom said that he felt this money should be used for the development of holiday resorts. He pointed out that these holiday resorts should not be in what he calls white South Africa, but that they should be in what he calls the homelands. I will agree that the development of holiday facilities for all the Bantu peoples is an urgent necessity, and I want to agree that they should be developed. But I have said before in this House, and I want to say it again, that if the development of these holiday resorts, and particularly at Umgababa on the South Coast was turned over to private enterprise amongst the Bantu people, we would get somewhere. If all the money that this Government has collected, and all the money it has collected from donations for the development of just such a project as Umgababa, is taken into account, I want to ask what they had done. At Umgababa there is nothing. I think there are only five holiday cottages that have been established there. Some have been established in the disused buildings of a mining enterprise, but this Government has done nothing. If one looks at the report of the Controller and Auditor-General one sees that donations from local authorities made to the department totalled R281,400 in the year 1967-’68. When one also sees how much of it this hon. Minister has spent, one realizes that it is no good making these donations because the Government is not spending it any way.

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

Mr. Chairman, I must abide by your ruling.

The hon. member is discussing in detail all the different ways that the money could be spent. If he continues, this debate will continue for another two weeks.

It is not my intention to do so.

But the hon. member is doing so. He must come back to the clause now.

I just want to mention that the figure that was spent in terms of this report was R3,749 out of a total of R281,400 that was donated. I will resume my seat now and I look forward to the replies of the hon. the Deputy Minister.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member has asked me whether we have at any time refused to allow a local authority to spend one-third of the amount of its profit account. The reply to that question is that as far as we know, permission has not been refused in one single case. I am grateful that the hon. member put this question to me. It gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to local authorities for the exceptional sense of responsibility they display as regards these matters, and one is highly appreciative of and pays tribute to the manner in which they are doing it.

I now want to make a most important point, in my humble opinion, which is directly concerned with this question. In saying this, I think I am dealing with the fundamental reason why this clause is contained in the Bill. We have here in the Cape Province divisional councils which have one-third profits at their disposal but which do not have any Bantu villages or locations. They have that money at their disposal while they are not in a position to use it. I do not want to mention the names of such places if it is not necessary, but I have in mind divisional councils with, for example, contract workers. There is no location there, but beer is sold to those people. There is, therefore, a one-third profit account and, as the Act reads at present, they cannot use the one-third profit in that area at all because the law does not make any provision for them to use that money.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 11:

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Deputy Minister will know that our main objection to this Bill is the provisions of this particular clause. As we have stated during the second-reading debate, and also in the motion to resume the debate on this Bill this Session, we object to the dictatorial powers which are being given to the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. The hon. the Minister can, through these powers, control not only the lives of Bantu throughout the country, but also the future of all other races, for example, our industrialists and in fact our whole economy. The powers that we propose to give the hon. the Minister in this clause will enable him to control the whole future economy of South Africa. The hon. the Minister has quite blatantly told us that the objective of this clause is to stop integration; to stop work flowing from white hands into black hands. He said the object of this Bill was to prevent that. We point out that there are other Ministers who have powers to control this. The hon. the Minister of Labour by means of job reservation can stop work going from white hands to black hands. That is the whole object of giving that hon. Minister his powers under the Industrial Conciliation Act. In that Act the hon. the Minister of Labour has powers to reserve occupations for certain racial groups. The reason given then was to stop work flowing from white hands to black hands. Where we questioned why this hon. Minister of Bantu Administration and Development had now taken over this task, we asked if he had lost all confidence in the hon. the Minister of Labour. I see that the hon. the Minister has now, in reply, put an amendment on the Order Paper which has not yet been moved, but which I take it will be moved. This amendment will oblige the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development to consult with the hon. the Minister of Labour before he advertises a restriction of employment regarding the Bantu. I want to know why it is necessary in this clause to insert that the hon. the Minister must consult. Was he not going to consult in any event with the hon. the Minister of Labour? Why, if he is going to consult with the hon. the Minister of Labour, can he not leave it to the hon. the Minister of Labour to handle the matter, because after all it is a labour matter? We know why it is. The simple reason is that before the hon. the Minister of Labour can reserve any work an industrial tribunal has to investigate the matter at a public hearing. They can hear evidence from the interested parties and only after all that, can the tribunal make recommendations to the hon. the Minister of Labour.

In terms of this Bill which we are now considering, the Minister of Bantu Administration of course can act on his own. He does not have to have any enquiry, he does not have to consult any of the interested parties, he can merely on his own by publishing in the Government Gazette limit the work of a Bantu, not only to special types of work, but also in specified areas or to specified employers. I know the hon. the Minister will say that another amendment will be moved later allowing the Minister to amend any such notice. He can amend it and exempt certain employers from the operations of his notice. This is again government by exemption. This Nationalist Government keeps on passing laws to show that it is carrying out the policy of “apartheid” in restricting the Africans from doing certain work or from being in certain places. What does it do then? It then grants exemptions. In this case by merely giving the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development these powers, we are bringing general uncertainty into the lives of all Bantu. Every African, whether he has been born in that area or whether he has acquired rights under section 10 or not, will not know what his position is from the time this Bill is passed. He will never know when he will be stopped from doing his work, the work he has been taught to do, the work he has done all his life in an urban area. Industrialists and other entrepreneurs and employers will never know when they might be stopped from employing a Bantu. Not only a Bantu in a specified class of employment, but also a specified employer may find himself banned. I say that this is going far too far. No other Minister has asked for these far-reaching powers. Other Ministers have wanted powers and have taken them, but no other Minister has come forward with a Bill of this nature to give him such wide powers which will enable him to control the whole economic future of the country and the lives of every Bantu working outside the Reserves. Therefore we will oppose this clause.

Mr. Chairman, before hon. members are given the opportunity to speak, I should like to move the amendment standing in my name—

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Deputy Minister’s amendment makes no difference whatever to the operation of this clause. He has to consult but then he need take no notice of the consultation. After that he is on his own. He has all the powers already mentioned by the hon. member for Transkei. They are powers that exceed the powers presently held by the hon. the Minister of Labour, because he at least has to have an enquiry and give reasons. They are also beyond the powers held by the hon. the Minister of Planning, because he also has to give the employers the opportunity of putting their case before him and cannot cancel existing contracts.

The real authors of this clause are not in the House to-day. The real authors of this clause sit here on the benches immediately to the right of me. I call this the Herstigte clause because that is what it is. It is only since certain members have complained that white women were being displaced in certain occupations which the hon, the Minister specifically mentioned in his Second Reading speech that indeed it has been necessary to inject this absurd type of job reservation into our laws. There have been complaints that African women have been serving behind counters, have been acting as clerks and typists in Offices and that these are displacing white women. Of course, there has been a question on the Order Paper this Session asking how many white women have been displaced. And the Government out-Hertzogs Hertzog in this case. Therefore it must go ahead with this sort of legislation so that from the week after next onwards it can rush around the countryside from platform to platform proclaiming that it is protecting white women. That is the whole objective of this ridiculous exercise that we are indulging in here to-day. One cannot get an answer from the hon. the Minister as to how many people have in fact been displaced by African women. How many white women have lost their jobs as a result of African women taking jobs as clerks, typists and shop assistants? In any case, is it not very likely that the sort of women who have taken these jobs are highly efficient, that they are doing good competent jobs and that they deserve to be left entirely where they are? I see no reason for legislation to protect inefficient white people. That is all that the Government is trying to do with this legislation. I say that the white women who can be employed in South Africa, who want to be employed in South Africa are employed in South Africa. There is no unemploment among white women in South Africa. The only people who do not get jobs are the ones who cannot get jobs because they are inefficient. For us to come in 1970 with this sort of legislation to protect inefficient white workers is the height of absurdity. That is the one point I wanted to make.

The other point is that this clause states that white occupations in white undertakings in white areas, etc., are to be reserved for white people. But the implication is, of course, that African women can get jobs in their own areas. I want to point out two aspects. The first is that there was a departmental circular a few years ago that was sent to local authorities and precluded the granting of licences for shops, etc., in the townships if the requirements of the Bantu, as the circular said, can reasonably be supplied in the adjacent white towns and cities. So the Department of Bantu Administration is not assisting African entrepreneurs to set up in the townships and thereby provide employment for African clerks or African shop assistants. Quite the contrary. It is blocking the further extension of African trade in the townships which, as I say, looks after hundreds and thousands of Africans who are living there on a permanent basis and who are not there on the temporary or migratory basis that the hon. members would like them to be.

The other point I wanted to make is in regard to the question of border industries. I understand that the hon. the Minister’s predecessor, the present Minister of Community Development, stated some years ago that he intended to take steps to stop Whites from putting up shops in the border areas so that the people employed in the border areas would spend their money in shops in the Reserves. I want to know from this hon. Minister whether he followed up on this suggestion of his predecessor? Is it his intention to try and prevent the setting of shops in the border areas so that Africans would spend their money earned in the border areas in the Reserves? I, of course, do not treat this as a justification for the introduction of this clause. As far as I am concerned, this clause is absolute nonsense. In this day and age we should not be contemplating a further extension of a job reservation law which cannot be put into practice anyway. We have job reservation under section 77. The hon. the Minister said it requires too many inquiries and time-consuming investigations. That is why he is going ahead and introducing this clause. He wants it for specific occupations. He also wants to be able to apply it swiftly in any specific district. I want to point out to him that the wide powers given to the Minister of Labour under section 77 of the Industrial Conciliation Act cannot be applied. As we all know, blanket exemptions are given in practically every single occupation in South Africa for the simple reason that the white workers for whom those jobs are meant to be reserved, are just not available. The same position will apply here. The hon. the Minister will single out a number of shops which happen to be situated in a peculiar “verkrampte” stronghold. He will say that in such and such a shop in Benoni or Brakpan, white women only can serve behind counters. I know the hon. member for Brakpan is specially keen on this clause. The hon. the Minister will do this so that he can rush around Brakpan and say “There you are, we saved white South Africa. We saved it from a fate worse than death. We have saved the Whites in South Africa from having to be served by competent black hands.” This is an absurd clause. No matter what explanation the hon. the Minister has given in his White Paper and despite everything he had to say about this clause in the Second Reading debate, I certainly am going to object to it.

Mr. Chairman I can quite understand that the hon. member for Houghton adopts the attitude she is adopting here now. As far as we are concerned, we understand her policy and we know what her policy is. The hon. member for Houghton makes no secret of the fact that the policy of the Progressive Party is an out and out one of integration. The hon. member for Houghton and her Party accept the fact that South Africa is a country for the approximately 20 million people who are living here. The hon. member makes no secret of it. We differ radically from her. What the hon. member for Houghton said here this afternoon, was not really meant for local consumption. It was meant for foreign consumption. That is no concern of mine. If the hon. member wants to serve her mother country in that way, she may as well carry on doing so. She and her Party have been doing this all along. The result of that was that we are held in contempt and mistrusted by the rest of the world. Something I fail to understand, is that the United Party is opposing this clause with all their might, as we have just heard from the hon. member for Transkei. The hon. the Deputy Minister said that the provisions of this clause would be applied in a just and fair manner and after consultations with the Minister of Labour. The hon. member for Transkei has now found fault with the fact that the Minister of Labour will be consulted. During his Second Reading speech the hon. the Deputy Minister said that this provision was supplementary to the Industrial Conciliation Act. The hon. member for Transkei knows full well that the administration of the Industrial Conciliation Act falls under the Minister of Labour. Since this provision is of a supplementary nature, it follows that consultations and discussions should take place with the Minister of Labour. I find this astounding and it surprises me that the United Party can blow hot and cold in this way.

I have here an article which appeared in The Cape Times this morning and which was written by Mr. Hamilton Russell. In this article he attacks the United Party candidate in Sea Point, Mr. Jack Basson. The slogan of this candidate in that constituency is: “Keep Sea Point white”. I agree one hundred pet cent with the attitude adopted by the United Party in this connection. What are we trying to do here? We want to go further. We do not merely want to keep Sea Point white. We want to keep the whole of white South Africa white. We want to reserve white South Africa for the white worker. I am sorry the hon. member for Sea Point is not in the House this afternoon. I said I would be discussing this matter. I want to know from the United Party and from the hon. member for Sea Point how they are going to succeed in keeping Sea Point white when they do not have the provisions and means contained in this specific clause? How are they going to keep Johannesburg white when they do not have this clause? One need only look at the shops in our major cities and in Sea Point to see in whose hands the distribution trade is to-day. It is in the hands of the non-Whites. This kind of thing is taking place on a reasonably large scale in the industrial areas in Johannesburg, Benoni and other parts of the country. This is why we need this provision. It is to stop this sort of thing from happening.

I want to mention a specific case to-day, that is the case of the United Party City Council in Johannesburg. Is the United Party taking up the cudgels on behalf of those people? I want to accuse them of being the worse culprits in this respect. I have seen with my own eyes what is going on in the Johannesburg City Council. In the mayor’s Office in Johannesburg a Bantu delivery clerk is sharing an Office with two white typists. I want to ask the hon. member for Houghton, who also has a sense for finer things, whether she will allow her daughters to share an Office with a Bantu clerk?

Absolutely.

I want to ask the hon. member for Transkei whether he would be satisfied if his daughter shared an Office with a Bantu clerk? I want to ask the great, up-and-coming Progressive-shining light of the United Party, the hon. member for Hill-brow, whether he would be satisfied if his daughter or his wife were to share an Office with a Bantu clerk? This is the type of thing one finds in practice to-day and which we as a National Party wants to avoid and prevent. What the provisions of this clause gives us in particular, is this very same power. During the coming election we are going to accuse the United Party of being the people who allow our sons and daughters to work with Bantu in the same business Offices.

Have you a Bantu servant in your home?

I do have Bantu servants in my home, but I shall not allow my daughter to go and work in a business concern and share an Office with a Bantu.

What about the servant and employer relationship?

This is employee and employer relationship. Does that hon. member wants this to be a parallel case? The United Party has now admitted by implication here that they have no objections to integration and that we should simply throw open our distribution trade and clerical jobs throughout the country to Whites and non-Whites working together. This was said by the hon. member for Rosettenville and confirmed by the hon. member for Transkei. What is happening in the Office complexes in Johannesburg and in industries to-day? These people are working in the same Offices there. Are there separate toilet facilities for those people? Are there separate rest room facilities? Are there separate eating facilities? There are cases where such facilities simply do not exist. The United Party has become so blunted as far as racial feelings in South Africa are concerned, that it no longer cares about this sort of integrational mixing which is taking place between the various races. We on the other hand, welcome this measure. We are looking forward for this type of measure even to be extended at a later stage and that the position as regards the other race groups in South Africa be rectified as well.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Prime Minister made a plea yesterday that racial feelings should not be exploited in this House and in the election campaign. However, the very first thing we heard was a leading hon. member opposite making an attempt of that kind. I want to remind the hon. members opposite that in countless spheres of our national life Whites and non-Whites are working alongside. They are working alongside practically in equal numbers in the Army of our country.

That is not so.

They are working alongside practically in equal numbers in our Police Force. Indeed, I believe that the non-Whites at present outnumber the Whites in our Police Force. They share a van when they go after criminals and they share in risks and dangers, endeavouring to curtail crime and so forth. They are working alongside each other in countless spheres. As has been pointed out, Whites and non-Whites work together in the most intimate places, namely our homes. There we get non-Whites working alongside ourselves and our children. I suggest that it is a resort to the most blatant form of racialism to be hammering on this type of case at every possible opportunity. This is more particularly when we consider the fact that the hon. the Prime Minister has made a plea not to exploit racial feelings.

The hon. member for Benoni says he is surprised that the United Party is opposing this clause. The new section 20A will empower the Minister to prescribe by notice in the Gazette that no Bantu labour is to be employed in any particular area, or any particular category of employment or by any particular employer of class of employer. This is really where the fundamental difference between this side of the House and that side of the House comes in, We say that ever since the beginning of time in South Africa the Whites have been the leaders and have had the leadership of the country. We are opposing this provision because we believe this is one of the measures which will help to undermine that position. I quite concede that hon. members opposite can take a different view. They believe that by refusing work opportunities and thereby causing unemployment in other spheres they are going to achieve what we believe should be achieved here in the interest of all. We most sincerely believe that measures of this kind will have the reverse effect. We say that if South Africans are to retain leadership, and nothing is needed more badly than that the Whites should retain the leadership, it is most essential that we should be strong economically so as to be able to support our forces to cope with outside interference and thereby enabling us to work out our problems ourselves. Secondly, it is most essential that we should have rising standards of living. There is one thing that the hon. members opposite must surely accept and that is that there should be no unemployment in this country. No less a person than the hon. the Prime Minister has stated quite categorically that it is the policy of the Nationalist Party to ensure full employment, ft was also stated quite categorically not so long ago by the hon. the Minister of Transport. He said that whatever else the case may be, they wish to ensure full employment. A measure of this kind is undoubtedly going to cause unemployment.

Nonsense!

An hon. member says that it is nonsense. The hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education proudly got up in this House and said that in the course of the first year of the Physical Planning Act about 6,000 morgen have been denied to be developed for industry. As a result approximately a j million Bantu were no longer able to obtain employment. If the hon. the Minister is correct in stating this figure, I say there are at least a ½ million Bantu without employment at this very moment. Hon. members opposite live in a dream world if they think that those people are sitting happily in their huts in the Transkei and other homelands. That is not so. Those are the people of whom the Herstigtes are taking pictures in order to embarrass the Government. Those are the people who illegally infiltrate these so-called White parts of South Africa and they are the people who double up in the houses of friends in the townships. They are also the people who double up with servants who are working for White people outside the Native townships. It is an absolute myth to think that because you prevent these people from coming into decent employment they thereby sit peacefully in the Reserves. They cannot afford to do that. They have got to live and therefore they force their way in here. I am sure many of the hon. members attend the Native Commissioners courts regularly where one sees hundreds and hundreds of Native people who are being prosecuted because they have entered the urban areas illegally. It is so much a habit nowadays that they literally come in here in their scores and when they have saved up RIO they go about freely until they are caught. When they are caught they pay their RIO and they carry on as before in this way. If hon. members think that by denying employment to these people they are going to keep South Africa White, they are absolutely wrong. They are just going to have an ever-increasing number of Natives in the so-called White areas on an illegal basis. The United Party will admittedly retain influx control so that the number of Native people bears relation to the job opportunities and the housing available. However, we will most certainly not do what the Government is doing and that is artificially cause unemployment and keep a shortage of houses for the Natives in this country. In regard to the shortage of houses I want to make a serious accusation against the department. They thereby hope to force them back with the result that these people flock to the White townships where they find it more convenient to stay.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question?

I have a very short time at my disposal. I should like to answer his question, but I still want to make several other points. I want to stress again that there is no White unemployment, there is no Coloured unemployment and therefore no Whites and Coloureds are going to suffer when some of these people are taken up in their work. Indeed, the whole experience of the hon. the Minister of Transport is, and he has said so, that the Whites rise in the work that they do. These are some of the reasons why we oppose this measure. I have no hesitation in saying that South Africa cannot afford to put brakes on its economy. I want to read to the hon. members what Mr. Jan S. Marais has said in a recent speech on the country s economy. Under the heading “Rate of private investment dangerously low” he says:

You only have to put enough discouragement in the way of industrialists and they just will not build their factories. When the Government prevent opportunities in established areas, the hon. members on that side hope that everybody will go to the border areas. However, that is not the way an industrialist works. They are discouraged and eventually they are so frustrated with regulations, prohibitions and difficulties that they just will not invest their money. Here, a most respected person, Mr. Marais, says that our rate of private investment is dangerously low. What does it mean if our rate of private investment remains so dangerously low? It means unemployment and under-employment. Even the words of the hon. the Prime Minister were that it is a basic aim of his policy to ensure full employment for no lesser reason than the fact that it is essential for the peacefulness of the country. Everybody knows this is the case. In order to have a contented population, there must not be unemployment and perhaps a suffering from not having sufficient money to buy food, etc. Consequently, when we oppose a measure like this we want the economy, within reason, to be set free. By the end of the century we will have a population of 40 million Blacks in this country, leave aside the 8 million Coloureds and 6 million Whites and Indians. We are going to have a big population and we have a big population already. The figures already show that far too many people are living below the poverty datum line. If hon. members think that when people are below the poverty datum line they are more likely to be peace-loving than if they are well to do, I disagree with them. I therefore say that in the interest of the things the hon. member for Benoni and other hon. members opposite want, which is that the country should go forward under White leadership, we believe that we have a duty to the whole country. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Pinelands made a terrible fuss, but in my opinion he was not hitting the mark. This clause does not deal with unemployment or with brakes on our economy. This clause deals with the protection of white workers in the white areas. This seems to be the point on which there is some misunderstanding. The Minister is taking wide powers so as to enable him to take certain steps when it is necessary to do so, and this is an anti-integration measure. But the hon. member for Pinelands made great play here of the attitude the hon. the Prime Minister adopted here when he said that we should not disturb race relations. The hon. member said this clause would disturb race relations, but does he not understand that the very reason for including this clause is to preserve race relations. There is danger of a certain degree of integration and a certain number of non-Whites is being taken into certain jobs and trades; unfair competition is taking place. Work reservation is the accepted policy of this side of the House and this side of the House has undertaken to protect the white workers in their own areas. Now the hon. the Minister is taking these powers to protect the type of worker for whom no provision has been made in the work reservation legislation, and the very reason for taking these powers is to make provision for that as it takes a considerable time to implement the procedure laid down in the work reservation legislation. I think the hon. member is taking a completely wrong view of this position. I can understand their being opposed to this, and I shall say why this is so, but before proceeding to do so, I just want to say that the hon. member for Houghton has become the protector of the Hertzog Party. She accused us of having introduced this clause because of that party, but she is wrong. That party is not important.

This clause is a logical consequence of our policy, and this Bill was drafted and introduced last year, before that small party even existed. She should not hold any brief for them, because they are as extreme in the one direction as she is in the other. I can understand why the hon. member for Houghton will vote against this legislation, because she advocates equality. She is not interested in the Whites nor is she interested in the non-Whites; they should compete against one another, and the devil takes the hindmost! But the United Party will also vote against this measure because it is not interested in either the Whites or the Bantu. Their interest in the Bantu goes no further than the Bantu being an employee in and an appendage of the economy of the Whites. They want to use the non-Whites as cheap labour in order to fill their own pockets at the fastest possible rate. [Interjections.]

After all, they speak of the “rate for the job”. They do not care if non-Whites come into the white areas and work more cheaply than the Whites do. They are simply concerned about the economy, no matter what that might lead to. [Interjection.] They do not want to protect the Whites. But the National Party has introduced this clause, as well as this measure, for the basic reason that the protection of the Whites is its policy and because the National Party admits that the Whites are the only ones who have any right to be in the white areas and that non-Whites who come into that area cannot come there with demands. This, i.e. that the non-Whites may be present there, is a concession made by the Whites.

That is very generous.

Exactly, because that is our policy, and during the coming election you will hear a great deal more from us about the attitude you are adopting in this regard. This is why you have lost one election after the other and will lose this one as well. You get angry when we say that you stand for integration, but what are you doing now? You are voting against an integration measure. [Interjection.] In other words, the Opposition is in favour of integration. The Government will see to it that the white workers will be protected against unreasonable and unfair competition, and these people we are dealing with now are people who are sorely needed for promoting the development of their own areas.

As far as I know this clause is not going to be applied in the border areas. Some of these people are already employed in those areas, but this clause will be applied in the heartland of the Whites. As I have said, this Government will proceed and will carry this clause through, and this clause will stand as another foundation of our policy. If we cannot carry this through, we may as well drop our policy, but we are doing this because of the mandate we received in 1948. We are still building.

Where did you get that mandate?

Has the hon. member already forgotten that? Have they already forgotten the 1948 manifesto of the National Party? But those hon. members will find that during this election the electorate will again give us a similar mandate to proceed with the implementation of this policy.

The hon. member for Pietersburg made a very revealing comment at the end of his speech. He said to this House that the Government is introducing this measure in fulfilment of the mandate they got in the 1948 election. Then why on earth has it taken them 21 years to carry out this mandate? You see, Sir, the chickens of the Nationalist Party are beginning to come home to roost. The “volk daar buite” are beginning to realize that the Nationalist Party made a whole number of rash promises in order to get into power in 1948, and although they have been in power for 21 years these promises have not been fulfilled and their policies have not been carried out. If the hon. member for Pietersburg wants to use our opposition to this clause and to this Bill in order to stir up racial feeling against the United Party and to make propaganda to the effect that we are an integrationist party, he is welcome to use this sort of propaganda in spite of the fact that his Prime Minister urged him and other hon. members of this House not to conduct the election campaign on this basis. But if he wants to do it on this basis, he is welcome to do so, and we are not going to follow him because the “volk daar buite” are going to show this Nationalist Party on 22nd April that they are sick and tired of this type of propaganda in this day and age. The Nationalist Party still thinks that the voters are a lot of cattle who are unable to think for themselves and who cannot see how this Government has been misleading them for the last 21 years. They are going to show this Government at this election that they are not going to be bluffed any longer.

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

I propose to do so now, Sir. Now, in order to appreciate this clause in its full effect, it is necessary to see it in the context of what the Nationalist Party has been trying to do for the last 21 years. One would have thought that after 21 years in Office, with year after year amendments to the Bantu laws of this country, the Nationalist Government would like the country to believe that at this stage it has completed, or at least almost completed, its apartheid blueprint.

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

I am just trying to put the clause into its right context. We find that just about all the legal and administrative machinery to carry out separate development exists, but in practice what do we find? That it is not working, and the more it does not work, the more it fails, the more there is a continuing physical presence of urban Bantu in what the Nationalists like to refer to as white South Africa, the more desperate they become and the more far-reaching and wide powers they take; the greater the conflict between the theory of separate development, the theory of apartheid, and the continuing inter-dependence of the South African economy on white skills and capital on the one hand and black labour on the other, the more that conflict takes place, the more uncompromising the Government tries to get in its legislation and in its attitude in order to try to make something of its ideology. So we have this latest example of madness on the part of this Government. That is the only way it can be described, as madness, when you consider that one Minister, the Minister of Bantu Administration, is taking upon himself the power to control completely the Bantu work force in this country in every possible sphere and in every possible comer of this land. This is what the amendment in this clause is going to do. It is giving the Minister such far-reaching powers, and the hon. the Deputy Minister will not deny that. His own White Paper says that this is to empower the Minister to prescribe by notice in the Gazette —now he is going to change this by saying that he will give a month’s notice, but he will still do what he likes whether he gives notice in the Gazette or not—that no Bantu labour is to be employed in any particular area. He can prevent any single Bantu from being employed in any particular area, and a particular area can also refer to a complete province, if he wishes to do so. He can prevent the use of Bantu labour in any category of employment, which means in a particular industry, or by any particular employer. He can tell a specific employer, “I am not going to allow you to have a single Bantu in your labour force”. Finally, he can prevent any class of employer from employing a Bantu. Sir, I doubt very much that this House has been asked to grant to any one Minister more far-reaching powers than these.

Commissar Koornhofsky!

It is clearly intended to use this power. Despite the way in which the hon. the Deputy Minister in his Second Reading address tried to show this House that this was a very mild measure, the White Paper says that it would be possible under this clause, for example, to prohibit the employment of Bantu typists or receptionists outside the Bantu areas. “Outside the Bantu areas”; that means in the whole of white South Africa and outside the border industrial areas. Sir, it is all very well for the White Paper to speak about Bantu typists and receptionists because there are probably not very many of them, but if this clause goes so far as to empower the Minister, as indeed it does, to prohibit the employment of Bantu typists or receptionists outside the Bantu areas, it also gives the power to the Minister to prohibit the employment of for example, Bantu domestic servants or Bantu building artisans or Bantu tractor drivers anywhere outside the Bantu areas.

What about the miners?

I would like to come back to the hon. the Deputy Minister’s Second Reading speech in which he tried to play down this very point. This is what he said (Hansard, volume 27, column 8478)—

[Time expired.]

Sir, it is conspicuous that two successive speakers of the Opposition wanted to hide behind the hon. the Prime Minister. They wanted to look for assistance from the hon. the Prime Minister, hut yester day the hon. the Prime Minister asked this House in an extremely responsible way not to incite racialism amongst the Whites and racialism towards the Bantu. But the hon. the Prime Minister has already set the example for us on this side of the House in three powerful speeches of how we are to make short work of the United Party and the people between that party and the hon. member for Houghton in the course of our campaign for the coming election. The hon. the Prime Minister has set that example for us in this House and that is what we are going to do with hon. members opposite, including the hon. member for Houghton. It is a great pity that one never finds the opportunity to enter her electoral division.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Houghton also said a very important thing here, something which illustrates the basic difference between her party and our party. The statement she made was that she and her party were not interested “in the protection of inefficient white people”. As the hon. member for Benoni said here, this is the very issue on which our policies differ as far as this section is concerned. I should like to tell the hon. member for Houghton this: We on this side of the House are interested in those Whites, “efficient or inefficient”.

Even if he is lazy?

Even if he is lazy, we are still interested in him, and this is more than those hon. members can say. Even if he is lazy we are still interested in him and we shall try to place him on his feet.

Then he does not deserve it.

There we have the other basic difference I want to point out, and I am sorry to see that the hon. member for Pinelands is not present at the moment. I take it that he has left the Chamber for a few minutes only, but I cannot wait until he returns. The hon. member for Pinelands wanted to make a very great issue of the United Party allegedly standing for white leadership and for the protection of white leadership, also in the field of labour. But what do we find in this booklet of theirs. “You want it, we have it”? From this booklet it appears that that can never happen. It is stated here—

This all sounds very good—

This is what interests that party most, i.e. the economic advantages. As soon as a debate is conducted in this House on any matter which may affect the economic advantages of the people whose interests that side of this House wants to promote, we have the kind of tirade we had here this afternoon. I quote further—

In other words, the United Party is opposed to the restriction of non-white labour; this is what it amounts to. They are opposed to the restriction of non-white labour; that is their policy, and that is what the whole problem is about. Now I should like to put the following question to hon. members opposite: If one reads this policy of theirs correctly—one need not even interpret it—i.e. no restriction on non-White labour, how do hon. members opposite expect, with the numerical ratio we have in South Africa, to protect the white man as leader in this field of labour?

Through the efficiency of the white man.

The hon. member says, “Through the efficiency of the white man”. Surely, Sir, that does not hold true if one is eventually going to have 3 million as against 20 million. Hon. members opposite realize this, and it is also very clear from this booklet where we read on page 8—

Then seven points are given. Where in this booklet do we find that there will be protection of the Whites against inundation by the coloured races? It is not the policy of the United Party to do so, but it is the policy of this party, and that is the basic difference. We are not only interested in work reservation in terms of section 77, something of which the hon. member is making such great play.

You want to keep the white people down.

No, we do not want to pull anyone down, but that party wants to work for the downfall of those people. That is what this whole thing amounts to. We are prepared to come forward with a measure like this in order to counteract labour integration, wherever that is necessary.

Those words will not get you anywhere in the election either.

The hon. member for Houghton likes to make the statement in this House that we as Whites should feel inferior for some reason or other, and the question is posed whether we do regard ourselves as being inferior? I want to tell the hon. member for Houghton that the danger of inferiority is not involved in this at all. She likes to say that the verkrampte members on her right are the cause of this, but, Sir, in my town there is no verligte or verkrampte people—that is for the hon. member’s information. There are positive people in my constituency and I can tell you, Sir, that everyone in my constituency, supporters of both the National and the United Parties, welcome this measure. The members opposite and the hon. member for Houghton are the only ones who are making such a fuss about this measure. We welcome the support which is being given to the measure, because what this measure deals with is not something verlig or verkramp; it deals with positive people who have their feet firmly on the ground, who realize that one cannot allow labour integration on such a scale in South Africa. With regard to labour integration, I want to tell the hon. member for Pinelands that he need not point out to us the fact that Whites and non-Whites are working together in the Police Force. Of course we recognize traditional fields of labour. In this case, as the hon. member for Benoni said, the basis is completely different; this is a field of labour in which employers-employees’ relations exist. But this side of the House is prepared to protect certain traditional fields of labour for the Whites. This side of the House is prepared, as far as certain traditional jobs are concerned, to ensure that the White man will be able to go on doing those jobs in South Africa for many, many years to come. There is no point in asking us, “Who is looking after your children; who is working in your gardens and who is working in your kitchens?”. It is nonsense to argue in that way. What we are concerned with here, is employers-employees’ relations on the broader basis as against labour integration. The fact of the matter simply is that hon. members opposite are only interested in the economic aspect. As long as they are able to obtain non-White labour in excess at the cheapest rates at which they can obtain such labour so as to fill their own pockets in that way. the matter is of importance to them, but when other matters are at stake, we get the kind of thing we have been getting here to-day. I think it will do hon. members opposite a great deal of good if they will bear in mind the following paragraph that was written by the editor of The Friend in April, 1966. To my mind this is the basic difference between the two parties. With reference to the National Party he said —

Sir, this party is also inspired with the cultural aspects of our people, with the entire cultural way of life on which it is intent—economically, politically and otherwise—but hon. members opposite cannot realize this. They cannot experience these things, because it is too nice to look at pounds, shillings and pence. That is what this whole thing is about. Hon. members opposite should begin to see this matter in its wider context. I do not want to discuss the development in the border areas and in the border industries and the challenge that awaits us there; perhaps this may be discussed later in the debate, but this is where the basic difference is to be found, and this is the reason for the opposition of the other side.

It is quite obvious how nervous hon. members on the other side of the House are about the coming election campaign. They are trying to convince themselves that their past supporters are going to continue to support them. Sir, it is obvious to us that they are not going to do so. We do not share their nervousness about the coming election campaign and I am not going to be dragged into the election fight in this debate.

Order! This is not a Second Reading debate. Hon. members must come back to the clause.

Sir, I have to answer the remarks made by the hon. member about this Party.

Order! I have given my ruling: the hon member must come back to the clause.

Sir, on a point of order, you allowed the hon. member for Potchefstroom to deal with precisely these points. Surely, I am entitled to reply.

I came into the House while the hon. member was making his speech. I do not know what it was all about.

He devoted practically the whole of his speech to the United Party policy and to the United Party’s attitude towards labour; that has nothing to do with the clause.

Order! I have given my ruling. I allowed the hon. member a minute or two to reply to the hon. member for Potchefstroom but he must now come back to the clause. Other hon. members too must confine themselves to the clause.

Sir, I wish simply to say this to hon. members on that side of the House that if they want to go on with their dishonest propaganda against the United Party’s attitude and policies they can go on doing so. The electorate is no longer going to believe them.

May I put a question?

Sir, I only have ten minutes to make my speech.

Order! We are in Committee, and the hon. member for Bloemfontein (West) may make his own speech later.

I want to return. Sir, to the passage that I was reading out of the hon. the Deputy Minister’s Second Reading speech. He said (Hansard, Volume 27, column 8478)—

Sir, if that is not the intention, then why is the clause drafted in this way? Because this is precisely what can be done in terms of this clause. Why make the clause so far-reaching if this is not the intention? I want to emphasize the following passage, because this is completely contrary to what is stated in the White Paper. He goes on to say (Hansard, Volume 27, column 8478):

This is exactly what can be done. The White Paper even says so. It says that Bantu can be prohibited from being employed in any particular area. Such an area could be the Western Cape. They can also be prohibited from being employed in any particular category. Such a category can include lorry drivers. Bantu can therefore be prohibited from doing any work in the Western Cape. So what the hon. the Deputy Minister says this clause cannot do, or was not intended to do, is precisely what the White Paper says the clause is presumably intended to do, because this is what it says the clause means. If it is not intended to do that, why do we have the clause at all? In his speech last year (Hansard, Volume 27, column 8478), the hon. the Deputy Minister continued to play down this clause, and said:

Sir, this is typical of the Nationalist Party. It takes far-reaching powers to control the lives of millions of Bantu in order to deal with circumstances which the hon. the Deputy Minister himself describes as “relatively negligible”. Sir, this House cannot be expected to pass a law on this basis. The key to this extraordinary measure is of course to be found in a new subsection which the hon. the Deputy Minister wishes to introduce. How does this new subsection read? It is very curious. Subsection (3) of the new section 20A will read as follows (Hansard, Volume 27, column 8479):

I ask you, Sir, who are the employers who will get these exemptions? It is quite obvious that the persons who have been getting exemptions from this Government in the past will get them again. They are the Nationalist supporters and persons who are prepared to pay money to this Government. They are the ones who will get these exemptions. That is exactly what is going to happen under this far-reaching measure. [Interjections.]

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

By what, Mr. Chairman?

That people who pay money to the Government will get exemptions.

Mr. Chairman, I am speaking of those people who are asked for money to support the Nationalist Party.

What is the hon. member insinuating?

Mr. Chairman, the Nationalist Party goes to various people to obtain money to support it.

In other words, people are buying privileges from the Government? Is that what the hon. member means?

Mr. Chairman …

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the remarks he made, and apologize.

Mr. Chairman, this is not the insinuation I made.

It was. I have given my ruling. I ask the hon. member to withdraw and apologize.

I withdraw it, Sir.

And apologize.

And apologize!

Mr. Chairman, I have explained to you that this was hot the insinuation which I made. If it was therefore not the insinuation, I submit that I cannot be expected to apologize. You have asked me to withdraw my remarks, and I have withdrawn them. That was not the insinuation I intended.

The hon. member may continue.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to emphasize that this is what is going to happen in terms of this clause. This new subsection (3) has been put in in the usual way. We have a far-reaching clause here, giving the Minister unlimited powers. He knows himself that he will never be able to run the labour force unless he introduced subsection (3) to enable him to grant exemptions. This is what he does. He takes powers of exemption, and I submit once again, Sir, that the persons who will be granted the exemptions will be those persons who claim to be supporters of the Nationalist Party. This is the state of government that we have come to.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that and apologize now.

Mr. Chairman, I am entitled to say that they will grant exemptions to their own supporters.

Order! The hon. member is continuing to suggest that people can be bought in that way.

Not to be bought, Sir. I said that they will grant exemptions, to supporters of the Nationalist Party. I have not said that they will be bought.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, the hon. member is now making the statement that this Government is corrupt …

It is corrupt. [Interjections.]

Order!

… and I think that that is a reprehensible statement from that side.

Order! Will the hon. member please withdraw from the Chamber.

Mr. Chairman, I shall happily leave.

The hon. member for Musgrave thereupon withdrew.

Mr. Chairman, yesterday, we had much ado about Maoris and to-day we are having much ado about a subject which is almost as ridiculous. We have had one hon. member after another on the Government’s side standing up and talking about the necessity of this clause.

Why do you not bow to the Chair. [Interjections.] I am sorry, I was referring to the hon. member for Musgrave.

Everybody is very hot under the collar. Perhaps I can infuse a little sweet reasonableness into the Chamber. You know how soothing I am, Sir. The hon. member for Benoni is probably the hon. member who interests me most in this House. He made the allegation this afternoon that he had witnessed the scandalous sight of two White typists working together with an African clerk. They were sharing an Office with an African clerk. Imagine that in this day and age! What a shocking thing, when you come to think of it! I do not know what one is supposed to do at this revelation. Is one meant to throw up one’s hands in horror, or just say that after all South Africa is a multi-racial country. There are 3] million White people living here, and about 17 million non-White people. The chances are that in every single walk of life we are going to find Africans, Coloured people, Indian people, and White people sharing what this country has to offer by way of employment, facilities, and everything else. Whatever laws this Government has passed, that in fact is still the pattern in South Africa. The hon. member would like to retain a master-servant relationship. Apparently that is all right. As long as there is a relationship of White man equals master and Black man equals servant, the relationship between those two can be as intimate as one can imagine. There can be intimacy in the home with a Black servant caring for White children, caring for the White mistress and caring for the White master. That is all right. A Black labourer can work under the most intimate circumstances with a White apprentice or White journeyman. That is all right, but the minute this contact takes place at any level of human relationships, at the level of equality, that is wrong. “Equality” is the hideous word. This is the word that turns all Nationalists grey. This is what the thought of equality between the races does to them. I have news for these hon. members It is now 1970. The world has outlawed race discrimination. Even the speech yesterday of the President of the United States, who is not known to be a wild liberal, shows quite clearly that the official stand in America is against racial discrimination per se. Sooner or later, unless this country wants to be completely isolated at the tip of a Black continent where something like 300 million Black people live, we are going to have to fall into line. The sooner people begin to adapt their philosophy and their psychology to the simple facts of life in the world in the 1970s, the better. I want to tell the hon. member quite frankly that I do not get upset at the idea of my daughters sharing an Office with non-Whites. It does not worry me in the slightest. [Interjections.] They have the choice. I would not force them into it if they did not want to do so. If they objected to something like that, they would net have to do it. Will the hon. member for Benoni tell me why those two White typists do not leave the Johannesburg Municipality? Are they shackled to their desks, in chains? There is a shortage of trained clerical workers in Johannesburg and those two young ladies, if they wanted to, could get a job to-morrow anywhere else they like. Presumably they do not mind. Why should the autocratic member for Benoni decide that they have got to mind? This is what I want to know. By virtue of what does the autocratic member for Benoni and the hon. member for Potchefstroom, Potchefstroom which after all is a metropolis, as all of us know, and the hon. the Deputy Minister take unto themselves these autocratic powers to decide that people must mind. Let them choose for themselves. This is after all meant to be a democracy of a sort. Therefore it is not up to this Government to impose its narrow-minded bigoted philosophy on everybody else in this country from above. That is my first point. Incidentally, not one of these members has been able to offer one single explicit example of racial friction as a result of this. Perhaps some old lady ran into the residence of the hon. member for Potchefstroom and complained bitterly that she had been served by a Black woman. Perhaps the hon. member can tell us whether this was what happened.

No, I did not say that.

No, it did not happen. He cannot tell us about this. I will tell you, Sir, when the lady will come running into his Office and that is when she cannot get any service at all. That is when you will find the White ladies complaining. It is when they cannot get any service in the Offices of a municipality, the Civil Service and even of private enterprises. That is when the complaints come flying in and that is when job reservation goes out of the window. It interests me that nobody can give me any example of racial friction under this so-called economic integration that has got to be prevented. Nobody can. Yet whenever anybody talks about racial friction, the first person who has got to suffer is the non-White. It is never the White who has got to give way, it is always the non-White who has got to give way. But interestingly enough nobody has given us one single example of racial friction. This is all a lot of nonsense. I want to tell the hon. member for Benoni and the hon. member for Potchefstroom that jobs that 10 years ago were considered White jobs, to-day have all been taken over by non-Whites. There is no such animal as a traditional White job anymore, for the simple reason that there are not enough White people to do these jobs that used to be done by White people. There is one excellent reason for this too and that is that South Africa, thank heaven, has an expanding economy. As the cake grows bigger, all of us are getting bigger slices and not smaller slices and all of us are even getting a few of the crumbs. The transition that has taken place, has taken place to the advantage of every single person in this country. Everyone benefits as the non-White becomes a consumer, as the non-White is able to produce more and as the non-White is able to spend more. Every farmer in this House has benefited. Every person who provides a service has benefited.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the clause now. She is making a second reading speech.

Mr. Chairman, I am dealing with this clause which gives the hon. the Deputy Minister …

Order! The hon. member is dealing with the principle of the Bill, which was discussed during the Second Reading.

The hon. the Deputy Minister will have the power in terms of clause 11 to cancel contracts with the stroke of a pen. This is a power far greater than that of the hon. Minister of Planning. He cannot cancel existing contracts. He can stop the extension or expansion of existing businesses but he cannot cancel existing labour contracts. But that hon. Deputy Minister crouched in his corner over there has taken unto himself this power. I want him to give me one concrete example of where the racial friction that he talks about has been brought to his notice. If he has such an example, is it the sort of example of which an intelligent person ought to take any notice or is it the sort of bigoted nonsense that one would expect from the super verkramptes who sit on my right. [Interjections.] They are not here at the moment. In his Second Reading speech the hon. the Deputy Minister said: “This is a precautionary measure against White-Bantu labour integration”, a precaution, something like a Nationalist pill. It is a precaution against something which if it is happening, has not caused any racial friction at all, and if it is happening, is happening for the simple reason that South Africa is expanding and that her economy is demanding that more and more people be gainfully employed. There are not enough Botha babies being produced to meet the needs of the country. The hon. the Minister looks very dejected about this.

How many did you produce?

Two. They are very bright girls and they do not mind sitting with African clerks. I am quite sure that they would not mind that at all. As I have said, I would not force them to do this. I would leave it entirely up to them. They can always say “no”. This is the classical answer I give. I am very often asked this question by Nationalists who suddenly believe that they have thought of a final answer to my frightful liberalism: “Helen, would you like your daughter to …”! I always answer: They can always say “no”. That is all because nobody is going to force anybody to do anything. That is the perfect answer. I am now going to sit down because I can see that the hon. the Deputy Minister is champing at the bit. He is dying to get up and give me hundreds of examples of racial friction caused by Black typists, Black clerical workers and Black ladies standing behind counters in the bazaars or wherever they are standing and most courteously and efficiently, may I say, serving the White public of South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Houghton provided the answer to her own problem a moment ago. She said that she would not like to see her daughter dancing with a black man. We have to make laws for those people who cannot buy separate development like the hon. member for Houghton can. That is the difference.

Do you know that in Killarney there are African women serving and they do it very well and nobody objects.

I am not going to reply to that. That is no answer to my statement at all. I say once more that there are people who cannot buy social separation. The hon. member for Houghton can do it, and for that reason she is able to advocate a philosophy such as this from her pedestal. But I leave her at that. It was stimulating listening to a standpoint which was put vividly and in direct juxtaposition to ours, but I want to discuss this matter with the hon. members of the Opposition.

In reply to a statement made by the hon. member for Potchefstroom, the hon. member for Walmer said that they did not find it necessary to protect the white worker. He said that there was only one criterion, and that is “efficiency”, as he called it. I want to know whether I heard him correctly. I challenge the hon. member to tell me that I did not hear him correctly.

No, you did not hear me correctly. I said that it was not up to us to protect the lazy people.

They are not prepared to protect the lazy people. The hon. member did, however, use the word “efficiency”. In any event, it means that if that is the only criterion, they can see no reason for protecting the white workers against integration in industry. I challenge them to deny that this is a logical deduction. The noisy back-benchers are keeping quiet now. I ask them to reply to my question. I say again that this is a logical deduction from their opposition to this clause and from their interjections about “efficiency” as being the only criterion, that they do not reesrd it necessary to protect the white worker against integration in the industry. They are keeping quiet now; they are not saying a word now. We therefore have to deduce that this is in fact the case. I have an interesting document here which reads, inter alia—

Do hon. members agree with that statement or not?

But that is from our pamphlet you quoted from.

It is your pamphlet I quoted from. But, surely, in that case you should not agree with the hon. member for Walmer.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, would one of our members be allowed to reply to the speech made by the hon. member?

Yes.

They are welcome.

The hon. member must please proceed.

That is basically what the Opposition has against this clause. That is why I had to reply to them.

The hon. member must stop indulging in generalities and come back to the specific clause.

This clause is essentially of a positive nature and that is that it creates the climate to protect the position of the white worker from being threatened. For that reason the Opposition should support the clause. But they are not going to support it. Furthermore, it will enable us to canalize the labour which is returned to the homelands and to create an infra-structure there. That is another reason why the Opposition should support this clause. But they have a policy which is based on a chance to escape through a backdoor.

Order! I want to point out to the hon. members that this clause has been agreed to in principle at the Second Reading. Hon members must discuss the details now and not indulge in lengthy discussions about the principle.

Mr. Chairman, I am confining myself to the-clause. What we are dealing with here, is the point that Bantu may be excluded from a specific kind of work—I am referring to paragraph (b). This Opposition is opposed to this and I finally charge them with indicating in this way that they do not want to protect the white workers.

Mr. Chairman, if the hon. member for Bloemfontein (West) had not had a copy of our policy statement, he would have had nothing whatsoever to say. It is quite obvious that the Nationalist Party now is using our pamphlet as its textbook. Really, if it had not been for that, the hon. member would have had nothing to say.

No, but he is quite right.

What is quite right?

What he said was absolutely right.

He was completely wrong, with respect to the hon. member. He was completely wrong. He took completely out of context something which was written in that book. He also took completely amiss a statement made by my friend, the hon. member for Walmer. He did not accept the word of that hon. member that he did not say what the hon. member for Bloemfontein (West) said he did say. Because of that, I am afraid we cannot accept anything that he has said. It is impossible to accept it. I hope the hon. member for Umhlatuzana does not run away, because I want to speak to him. He is not important but there is something I want to say to him anyway. If the hon. member had taken the trouble to read that book, “The Answer”, intelligently, if that is possible, he would have seen that we will protect the white worker. [Interjections.] Now really and truly, what is going on? Oh. there is the hon. member for Umhlatuzana. He is terribly nervous of losing his seat on the 22nd April. I will speak to him in a moment. He must just wait his turn. His turn is coming. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (West) knows perfectly well that we would have known, had he read the book and had he been able to understand what was written, that it is our intention to protect and to do so by the only equitable method in which all workers can be protected, namely the application of the rate for the job. The rate for the job is the only equitable method that can be applied.

Order! The hon. member must address the Chair.

Mr. Chairman, with respect, the hon. member must know that the only equitable method in which all labour in South Africa can be protected is through the application of the principle of the rate for the job.

Even if that is so, the hon. member must still address the Chair.

Yes, Sir. I do not think it is necessary to waste any more time on that hon. member.

While dealing with this particular aspect, the hon. member for Potchefstroom a little earlier made the statement that the United Party was against the limitation of non-White labour. I guess that by his statement he meant that we would throw all jobs open to all people.

Your little book says so.

Order! Hon. members must stop referring to the Second Reading debate now.

I want to put one question to the hon. member in reply to his statement. Is he afraid of competition from non-White labour?

No.

Is he afraid of competition in his own particular profession? I certainly am not. I have non-White competitors and I am not afraid of non-White competition. But it is quite apparent that everyone of those hon. members on that side is afraid of competition from the non-Whites. They cannot hold their own against the non-White.

Order! Will the hon. member come back to the clause?

All right, Sir, I shall come back to the clause now. Mr. Chairman, you did give a ruling that I would be given an opportunity to reply.

The hon. member had enough time to do so up to now.

Thank you, Sir. Now I will come to this clause.

Order! Hon. members must please refrain from making so much noise on this side.

We have here a clause about which I can imagine a visitor to this country would say, “This must be one of the most wonderful countries in the world, because it must have over-employment”. A clause such as this, where a Minister takes power to limit the spheres in which certain people can be employed, can only be presented in circumstances of over-employment of all the people in the country. Is this the position in South Africa to-day? Is there full employment in South Africa to-day? The hon. Minister of Labour perpetually says “No” when we ask this question. But when we ask for statistics on the number of Bantu who are unemployed, he is unable to give those figures. When we ask the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development for those figures, he is unable to give us those figures.

The hon. member must come back to the clause now. He is busy with a Second Reading argument.

Mr. Chairman, with respect, I am dealing with the question of employment.

No, the hon. member is dealing with the principle involved, which has been argued and voted on during the Second Reading debate.

Up to now we have not been able to get figures of unemployed Bantu in the White areas. In the absence of any such figures, perhaps this clause could be justified, if we were satisfied that there was no unemployment. But we were given figures by the hon. member for Nelspruit last week that there were 30,000 unemployed Bantu males and 420,000 unemployed Bantu females within the White areas. Surely, Sir, this must have a bearing on this particular clause. If there are 450,000 unemployed Bantu in the White areas, why does this hon. Minister want to take the power to further reduce the employment opportunities available to these people? He went further than that. I asked the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development if he could tell us how many registered work seekers there were in certain areas of the country to try to establish whether or not these powers are essential to this Government or not, whether they are in the best interests of this country. What was the reply of the hon. the Minister? He replied on the 10th February as follows:

Is this hon. Minister satisfied that there is no unemployment? Does he think that there is over employment of Bantu in this country? Is that why he requires this legislation now, namely, in order to remove Bantu who are employed? Is the hon. the Minister able to provide them with suitable alternative accommodation when he has removed them? During his Second Reading speech the hon. the Minister said that this would enable him to prevent Bantu being used as drivers. I want to ask the hon. the Minister the direct question whether he has been able to solve the difficulties of the Johannesburg City Council in regard to bus and lorry drivers? Is the hon the Deputy Minister introducing this clause for the express purpose to enable him to compel the Johannesburg City Council to desist from using Bantu as drivers of buses and of lorries. Mr. Chairman, I see you are looking at the clock and I presume my time is running out. I will resume my seat now and I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister will reply in this regard.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) said nothing at all. What he said, was of minor importance. He made one statement, however, and that is to imply that our people are lazy and that we were afraid of the Bantu. That hon. member may in his heart be afraid of the Bantu because of where he comes from, but I do not know of anyone who is afraid on this side of the House. This clause is a very important one. I find it interesting that the hon. member for Houghton, in spite of the filthy (liederlike) statements she makes, for example, that she does not mind two White typists working with a Bantu clerk, is at least honest …

Order! The hon. member should moderate his language a little. “Filthy” (“liederlik”) is an unparliamentary word.

I withdraw that word. The hon. member for Houghton makes wrong statements, but she is at least honest and says what she believes. However. I do not like the smokescreen and the egg-dance of hon. members on the other side. Why do they not rather mention the positive aspect of this clause? I want to say that this clause is one of the most important clauses regarding Bantu laws ever to have been piloted through this House. The hon. the Opposition is aware of this and that is why they say there are so many unemployed people among the Bantu. The hon. member for Hillbrow is in and out of this House all day because his whole policy of economic integration is at stake. It is very interesting to see what the hon. the Opposition is most afraid of. We are dealing with three Opposition parties now. One of them consists of a lady who is not afraid of airing her opinions, although I am completely put off by her. She forms the smallest opposition party. The second smallest party displays so little interest in the future of the White man in South Africa that not one of them is in his seat. They are busy intriguing in the dark again. That is characteristic of them. My greatest enemies, however, are still those of the third group, that is the United Party. [Interjections.) The hon. member for North Rand is a blue-blooded U.P. man. Those hon. members know that this particular clause in the Bill will ensure the success of the policy of distinctive development. This clause will exercise the control. The hon. member for Houghton knows that economic integration is possible to-day because it is possible for two White typists to work with a non-White typist. The hon. member mentioned her own daughter, and said she could do what she wanted to. Surely, the hon. member knows that she is leading a protected life because she is financially strong. I do not think the two white ladies in the Johannesburg municipality she mentioned are in the position financially to tell their employers: “We refuse to work with a Bantu.” The hon. member, however, is protected at her social parties and in her other associations with the Bantu. She can always protect herself by means of her money. The people of South Africa object to and repudiate any concept of integration, whether economic or social integration. Economic integration leads to social integration, and that is why I say that clause II is a very important one. We shall make great play of the objections of the United Party in this respect during the coming election. Hon. members on the other side are throwing up this smokescreen about unemployment. Has the hon. member for Pine-lands not read Dr. Rautenbach’s report? Has he not read of what is being done in connection with border industries? Has he not seen the employment prospects of the Bantu in border industries and in their homelands? The hon. member for Hillbrow is on his way out again, and so it will continue, but on 22nd April this liberal tendency will be finally repudiated by the people of South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, for more than a year now this clause has received a great deal of attention in the Press and once again in this House today. This clause is of cardinal importance to this side of the House. Why? Because this clause perpetuates labour apartheid. That is why it is so important to us. I want to say at once that what is at stake now, is by no means a new principle. In 1951 a certain piece of legislation was passed in this House, the so-called Building Workers Act, which prohibited Bantu building workers from building in White cities. Hon. members in this House are all aware of this. Therefore, this is no new principle. A great deal has been written about this clause, and as regards what was written I can say that I have seldom had to do with a matter in respect of which there has been as much misinterpretation as has been the case in regard to this specific clause. I have here a thick file of these misrepresentations with which I would be able to take up the time of the House, but I am not going to do so now. To-day some of those misrepresentations were once again heard from the Opposition. However, what are the real background and facts in regard to clause 11? In the light of the misrepresentations that have been made, we are obliged to know precisely what this is. Most of what I am going to say was said in the course of the Second Reading debate, but judging by the arguments advanced by hon. members opposite, it has still not been grasped. The first is that what this clause seeks to do— for social reasons, not for other reasons—is to exclude Bantu from professions where their employment in this White part of South Africa gives offence and where it threatens to disturb racial harmony. This is the object of this clause. I replied to the question whether all the prohibitions now contained in clause 11, could not in any case be dealt with by the Department of Labour under the work reservation provision of section 77 of the Industrial Conciliation Act. The answer is no, for the simple reason that we are dealing here with two separate matters. In section 77 one has to do with competition in the sphere of labour and how to eliminate it, i.e. to eliminate competition in the sphere of labour, not only between Whites and Bantu, but also between Whites and non-Whites in South Africa. That is what is involved under the Industrial Conciliation Act. However, this clause does not deal with that at all. This is not a so-called job reservation clause. What is more, I have already said this and it has also been recorded in Hansard, column 8477 on 18th June, 1969. At that time I said very explicitly that this clause was not a work reservation clause. And I said that it does in fact follow that this was complementary to the section on work reservation, section 77.

I also want to make a second point to indicate why, in terms of section 77, which falls under the Department of Labour, we cannot put a stop to this labour integration which we want to stop. The provisions of section 77 of the Industrial Conciliation Act apply to all trades. In terms of this section every specified trade has to be gone into. This is a lengthy and cumbersome process. As I have already said, it applies to all non-White races. Consequently it cannot possibly comply with the objects of this clause. For that reason my Department and I had our first talks on this question as far back as 1963. These have developed in the wording of clause 11 as it reads to-day. The question that may now arise, is what do we envisage with this clause 11. As I have already put it before, our aim is to stop up small cracks which are appearing in the wall. In the categories where male and female Bantu workers are working along with Whites and giving offence and disturbing racial harmony in that process, we want to intervene so that Bantu may be prevented from working in those specified categories. I want to name these categories of employment. Those specific hair-cracks which are appearing in the wall— those who have travelled all over the country have probably noticed them already—are. for instance, Bantu typists employed in White Offices. For social reasons the Whites in South Africa are not content with this. There are many Bantu who are not content with it either. Why does this have to be the case? I want to emphasize that only Whites and Bantu are involved here. We want to put a stop to this in good time, since we are absolutely convinced that if this is not done—precisely because of the arguments the Opposition has often advanced here, i.e. that there is a manpower shortage—it would have far-reaching consequences. In this manner, in 1951 for instance, skilled Bantu building workers were forbidden to work in the White area. Who can rise herp to-day and say that this was not done for the benefit of the Bantu? If we had not done that, we would never have been able to provide the Bantu housing that has in fact been provided. In this case we want to do precisely the same thing. By preventing, in good time, Bantu typists from working in White Offices, we want to prevent friction between Bantu and Whites. This would, in addition, only be to the advantage of the Bantu. I am being very specific in my explanations. I do not want any misunderstanding, because many wild allegations have been made here about this Bill and about clause 11 in particular. I do not think this is in the interests of South Africa. I want nobody to be under a misapprehension in regard to this matter. Nor is there any need for anybody to be under a misapprehension if he has ears to hear and the intelligence to understand.

The second category of employment which is involved here, is that of counter-assistants. In this case we are once again doing it for social reasons and for no other reasons. By these means we want to eliminate racial friction where Bantu counter-assistants are increasingly being employed in the private sector for the purpose of serving Whites. There are many Whites who are not content with this. Similarly there are many Bantu who are not content with this, either. All we seek to do is to put a stop to it. We cannot do this in terms of any section of any other Act. That is why this legislation is necessary.

The third specific category in respect of which we seek to eliminate racial friction, is the category where Bantu women are employed in the reception rooms of doctors and other organizations for the purpose of receiving Whites there. This does, of course, cause racial friction. It does, of course, cause social problems as well. We want to put a stop to this in good time.

The next category of employment which we specifically have in mind here, is where Bantu are employed as barmen. I could easily have asked hon. members on that side of the House whether they are content with Whites being served by Bantu typists, Bantu counter-assistants and Bantu barmen, because before long we might have the case of a Bantu woman standing behind a bar counter and serving liquor to the White men present there. In order to put a stop to such a thing in good time, we need clause 11.

The fifth category I want to mention, is the category where Bantu telephone operators are employed at hotels and other public places for the purpose of serving Whites. I want to repeat that this has caused a great deal of embarrassment. Hon. members will notice that the actual number of Bantu involved in these six categories of employment I mentioned, is from the nature of the case very small at this stage. That is why I say that we want to stop up in good time the hair-cracks appearing in the wall. Let me say with great emphasis that at National Party congresses resolutions Were passed in regard to this matter. Resolutions in this regard have also been passed by other organizations, and requests have been made to the Government to place such a measure on the Statute Book so that a stop may be put to this by these means. That is why I find it so astonishing that hon. members on that side of the House object so vehemently to this legislation in terms of, as they put it, their policy. I simply cannot understand this. I have already said with great emphasis that the statements made in newspapers on this clause and also the way hon. members represented it here to-day, do not reflect the true state of affairs. At times my hair literally stood on end when I read how this clause was represented in the newspapers. According to the newspapers and those hon. members, the hon. the Minister will now have the power to exclude large numbers of Bantu from employment here in South Africa; he will have the power to regulate the life of every Bantu in South Africa; he will have the power to control the economy of the country and to paralyse it. But the accusations which are now being levelled, are not acceptable to a reasonable person, particularly not if they are viewed in the light of my explanation of what is being envisaged with this legislation and why this clause has to be placed on the Statute Book. In order to add emphasis to this point I just want to say that this kind of statement which has been and is being blazoned forth into the world and has once again been made by hon. members on that side of the House this afternoon, is definitely not aimed at promoting racial harmony in South Africa. I notice that the hon. member for Pinelands is not present. But he became eloquent here as a result of the Prime Minister’s having said here yesterday that racial harmony should have priority in South Africa and be maintained at all times. We endorse every word of that. But the statement made on that side of the House to-day is precisely aimed at disturbing racial harmony. If the Bantu outside are really to believe what the hon. Opposition is saying here, namely that this side of the House is now going to turn Bantu out of their employment and cause large-scale unemployment in South Africa and paralyse the economy of South Africa as a result, then, surely, friction will be caused. Surely this will not go down with the Bantu. We viewed this in a serious light, and last year on 25th April I addressed roughly 40,000 Bantu at Meadowlands. That was after the Second Reading had been passed here. This is what I told those Bantu at the time [translation]—

Bear in mind that I was addressing 40,000 Bantu—

This is how simple the whole position is. However, a few other statements were made as well. The hon. member for Houghton has asked me and expects me to mention a string of examples of racial friction caused as a result of this state of affairs in South Africa. I am very grateful that I am not able to do that. If I were able to do that, it would have amounted to this Government’s having neglected its duty shamefully. I am grateful that I am unable to do so. I am also grateful that it is possible for me to introduce this clause for the very purpose of putting a stop to that sort of thing in good time. If we do not put a stop to it now, I shall perhaps in one or two years’ time have to come to this House with a long list of instances of racial friction.

That proves that this legislation is just in time.

It shows, therefore, how timely this legislation is and how absolutely essential and urgent this legislation has become. I think I have replied in general to all the points raised by the hon. members on that side of the House. Therefore I do not consider it necessary to reply further to specific questions. I therefore want to content myself with saying that it is absolutely wrong to make the statement that by means of this Bill uncertainty will be caused amongst the Bantu and amongst the White employers as well. I submit that the opposite is true. By placing on the Statute Book this clause along with the amendments which have now been moved, certainty is precisely what is going to be created amongst the Bantu workers. They will know that it will not be possible for them to obtain work in certain categories of employment. It will also bring about certainty amongst employers as they will now know that they wilt no longer be able to place Bantu in specified categories of employment. I want to emphasize once again that every individual determination made, has to be tabled in this House. This is done by notice in the Government Gazette. If a determination is made in respect of any category of employment, it will be possible to discuss it in this House and call the Minister in question to account if it should have any adverse effect. This is a timely and important measure. It is a measure in respect of which I have received numerous telegrams and letters of support throughout the country. It is being welcomed as a mighty step in the right direction by the National Party towards establishing in South Africa properly regulated labour conditions as far as the Bantu are concerned, and to quash labour integration. That is what we are doing here.

Mr. Chairman, I am not going to keep this Committee very much longer. I have said all that I really wanted to say. But I do want to say one or two things in reply to the hon. the Deputy Minister. He tells us that he cannot give us any real examples of racial friction caused by the employment of African typists, receptionists and counter hands but that he is stopping the cracks as they appear. He is preventing widespread racial friction. Does it not occur to the hon. the Deputy Minister that over the last 20 years there has been a tremendous transformation in the entire labour field in South Africa when so many jobs that used to be done by white people are to-day being done by African people? Does he know that there has not been any racial friction as a result thereof? There might have been times when the white trade unionists were protesting. They sooner or later gave way because the force of economic circumstances were too strong for them or because they got higher wages as a result of relinquishing certain jobs out of skilled categories and allowing them to be reclassified into semi-skilled categories. This is happening all along the line in every branch of our economy. It will happen even in the service industries which the hon. the Deputy Minister is now hoping to protect from a change which in fact has been nothing but beneficial for South Africa. I was interested to hear the hon. the Deputy Minister quoting the building industry of all things as an example of success. He could not have chosen a more unfortunate example. As a result of the Building Workers Act which prevents African skilled building workers from doing jobs in the white areas, the entire building and construction industry in South Africa is semi-paralysed. Every single major building and construction employer in the country, every single one, has uttered on this over the last year or two. They have been complaining bitterly that they cannot supply the bricklayers, plasterers, painters and electricians. And as a result of all this they cannot supply the houses that South Africans so badly need. The houses they do supply are far more expensive than they ought to be. Does this not occur to the hon. the Deputy Minister? Is he so blinkered by this overwhelming job that he is trying to do that he does not see these things? And I dare say that he too, will pass on to another portfolio, leaving some other poor man to pick up the wreckage just as his predecessor did, who having made a lot of rash predictions and promises rapidly moved off into the night before he could be called to order. This same hon. Deputy Minister is going to find all his hopes crashing in ruin about him because he is trying the impossible. He is doing a Canute. King Canute of course had enough sense to know that he could not hold back the ocean. What he tried to do was to demonstrate to his foolish followers who thought that he could hold back the ocean. This hon. Minister honestly believes that he can hold back the ocean. Fancy choosing the building industry out of all the unfortunate examples to show how successfully integration has been prevented in South Africa. That is the one thing.

The hon. the Deputy Minister and one of the other hon. members here said that there were resolutions at their congresses asking for this. I am quite sure that congress took place before the Herstigtes walked out or were kicked out, whatever you want to call it. I am quite sure that most of those resolutions were inspired by super verkramptes of whom many hundreds of thousands are left in the Nationalist ranks. Is it not the duty of politicians and of members of Parliament to lead their people rather than to be pushed in a foolish direction by them? I remember that there was a resolution at a Nationalist congress asking for shop apartheid. No less a person than the Prime Minister himself said that thus far they could not go. He said we cannot have shop apartheid much though we may like it because what would happen if you wanted to send your black servant to the shop to buy a loaf of bread. I must admit that he did not say that we cannot have shop apartheid because it is an utterly repulsive thought anyway. No. He had to give this other rather racialists explanation. But never mind, he at least stopped this movement. Why did not the hon. the Deputy Minister stand up at the congress and tell his people who were pushing for this sort of absurd thing that it was not the sort of thing that he could possibly implement without damage to South Africa’s economy. Because this is the case. There are not the white typists and receptionists that he wants to place in the jobs which African women are now holding. There is another point that has struck me and I wonder whether it has struck anybody else. The hon. the Minister in his Second Reading speech mentioned only three categories. He mentioned shop assistants, receptionists and typists. Those were the three categories that he has mentioned. Now he has been very careful to assure us that this is not a job reservation clause, and that he does not want to use it extensively. Not six months have passed and the hon. the Minister has already added two more categories. Did anybody notice that? This afternoon he added two more categories. He suddenly thought of African barmen and barmaids. He never mentioned those in his Second Reading speech six months ago and he never mentioned those in the White Paper.

That was six months ago.

Naturally, that was six months ago. Six months ago he did not think of them. Who knows what he will think of in six months’ time. And six months after that we will have categories numbering dozens. The hon. the Minister will suddenly have to stick his busy-body thumb in the cracks that are appearing. He is the little man on the dyke wall who sticks his thumb in the cracks, but unfortunately he has not got enough thumbs to fill the cracks in this particular regard. He will not be able to fill all the cracks because we have a shortage of labour in practically every single solitary occupation in South Africa. I want to make one final point. Has it ever occurred to this hon. Minister that he is in his position in order to safeguard the interests of the Africans by any chance?

I am very conscious of the fact.

The hon. the Deputy Minister says that he is very conscious of that fact. All I can say is that every single piece of legislation which has been introduced by the hon. the Deputy Minister and the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, in whose tender care the destinies of millions of Africans are placed, has been a law which has been to the detriment of the people of whom they are supposed to be the guardians. Such has been the case ever since I have been a member of this House. I think it is a disgrace. The hon. the Minister comes to the House to-day with a law which is specifically aimed at throwing out of jobs decent, hard-working, competent and efficient African workers. That hon. member is the Minister of Bantu Administration, and it is a disgrace.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Deputy Minister made a point and I am grateful to him for bringing the debate back to the clause, apart from some wilder implications and ramifications. He made the point that any reasonable person would agree with him that this was not a job reservation clause and that it was not a clause which made the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development the commissar of the economic development of South Africa. I again want to refer to the words of the clause because I want to put to the hon. the Deputy Minister the paradox with which he is faced. The words which stand in the clause and which he has said reflect the intention under which he will act and the spirit in which the Bill will be interpreted say that the Minister may prohibit employment or continued employment of a Bantu in a specified area, in a specified class of employment, in a specified trade or in the service of a specified employer or class of employer. Any single reasonable person who looks at the power which is given to the hon. the Minister by this clause, must come to the conclusion that this is a total power. It is a total power because he can prohibit or exclude the employment of the Bantu in any one of the categories listed. The hon. the Deputy Minister says that it is intended to limit only five categories of employment.

I have mentioned the five.

The hon. the Minister has mentioned the five, but he has not given us an undertaking that there will not be more. We must understand that there are going to be more. The hon. the Deputy Minister says that this is being done in order to fill up the cracks. The cracks in what? The cracks in the apartheid wall; the cracks in the apartheid of labour? He pretends that this is something which is essential and vital to the continued existence of the white man and the white worker. If he says it is essential, will he tell us why he is introducing an amendment which will allow for exemptions?

This is a social clause.

He said the clause was introduced in order to protect the white worker. If this is to protect the white worker or to prevent social integration for the social reasons that the hon. the Deputy Minister has mentioned, why has he introduced an exemption clause? This proposal will enable him to exempt certain classes of people. If this is so vital that it has to be put into practice and that it has to be passed during this session, in spite of the urgency of the election work outside, why does this hon. Deputy Minister take powers to exempt any one of those classes of people in order that non-Whites may do a certain class of work? As the hon. the Deputy Minister sits in this House, he knows that he will not find white people to do that work. The only reason why non-Whites are being employed in that kind of employment is because there are not white people to do the work.

You will get an answer.

I am looking forward to an answer. I want to refer the hon. the Minister to the case of the Indian barmen in Durban. A great gesture was made by the hon. the Minister of Labour some years ago in order to protect the white barmen in Durban. He issued a declaration which said that in Durban the work of barmen shall only be done by white people. However, he promptly issued exemptions to every single hotel in Durban because there were very few or no white barmen in the whole of Durban. Here in this clause we again find that provision is made for the protection of white barmen. They are already covered by one of the determinations of the hon. the Minister of Labour. Why does the hon. the Deputy Minister mention barmen as one of the categories when white barmen are already covered by another provision? The hon. the Deputy Minister must not wave his paw at me; I beg your pardon, I mean the hon. the Deputy Minister must not wave his hand at me. Listening to the hon. the Deputy Minister, when he dramatically tried to prove his point, I have come to the conclusion that either this is a very real determination to take control of the total labour pattern of South Africa or …

It is not.

If it is not one of the reasons, the only reason that remains for the introduction of such a Bill, is election propaganda. There can be no other purpose whatsoever.

We intended to introduce this Bill long before there was talk of an election.

It is something that the Nationalist Party has had up its sleeve for years. This is now part and parcel of the pattern of the dear old apartheid policy that is going to save White South Africa. Here we have the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration who is to be the man who will divert…

Order! The hon. member is dealing with generalities now. He must come back to the clause.

Mr. Chairman, I am talking about the prohibition on employment of a Bantu outside the tribal area.

Order! The hon. member is talking about the general election. It is not at issue at the moment.

The hon. the Deputy Minister himself has said that it is not a matter which will give him total control over the labour pattern of South Africa. I ask him again, and I ask anybody to consider whether any reasonable person putting any interpretation on this clause, will not come to the conclusion that it merely gives the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development total control over the labour pattern of South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Deputy Minister has said that this is not a job reservation Bill and that it will not bring about job reservation. I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister what will be the consequences once the hon. the Minister prohibits Bantu from doing work in a certain area? What will the consequences be? Who is going to do the work? Will it be a white man, a Coloured man or an Indian? This hon. Minister can only prohibit Bantu from doing the work, and if the whole object of this measure is to avoid offence because a non-White serves a White, why is it not the task of the hon. the Minister of Labour who can prevent other non-Whites from doing the jobs as well? If this Minister is going to prevent Bantu from doing …

That is not under discussion now.

I am sorry, Sir, but this hon. Minister has told us that it is being done in order to avoid offence being given.

This Bill deals with Bantu and Whites only. It does not deal with the other races.

The point I want to make is that if the Minister says that the object is to prevent offence being given to the different groups, such as when a white person is served by a black person, if the object is to prevent offence, I want to know if offence is not also given when a white person is served by a Coloured person.

I have dealt with that.

But you cannot avoid it. It is the whole consequence of it.

That has nothing to do with this clause.

With all due respect, if the object of this Bill is to avoid offence being given to different groups, then I say it must go the whole hog, and bring in job reservation.

Are you pleading for that now?

Order! The hon. member should have raised that point during the Second Reading. He wants to introduce a new principle now.

I am not introducing a new principle.

Yes. The hon. member must confine himself to the clause now.

The Minister dealt with typists, and I want to ask him how many Bantu typists there are. Are they not mostly Coloured typists?

I was dealing with Bantu typists and nothing more, because they fall under my department. Coloured typists do not fall under my department.

I know Coloured Affairs is not your department and the Coloureds are very lucky not to fall under your department. What I say is that the Government is not going to achieve anything by passing this Bill. It is only for election purposes, because I say that if the Minister can ban a Black woman from being a shop assistant in a certain area, is that going to bring about Black shops and White shops? [Interjection.] The question is relevant because the Minister says it is not only the White people who object to being served by Blacks, but the Blacks also object to being served by Whites. Now is he going to stop the White person from being served by a Black person in a shop; must the Black person then go to another shop where he can be served by a Black person, or can he be served by a White person? It is quite all right for a Black person to be served by a White person, while it is not right for a White person to be served by a Black person.

That is in a White country.

In a White country Whites can serve the Blacks and he takes no offence. He takes no offence where he has to serve a Black person, but he takes offence when he is served by a Black person. That is what the Minister is saying. [Interjection.] But the Minister says offence is given to the White person if he is served by a Black person. [Interjection.] It is offensive, but if it is offensive for a White person to be served by_ a Black person, is it not offensive for a White person to serve a Black person? Surely it must be worse. I say that if the Government’s policy is brought to its logical conclusion, then you must have separate shops where Black persons will be served by Black people, and White people can be served by White people. This whole thing is impracticable and cannot be carried out.

I should like to reply to those hon. members who have just spoken. The hon. member for Houghton made the point, and I found it very astonishing and regard it as a very irresponsible speech made by her, that the building industry was semi-paralysed in South Africa. This is an extremely irresponsible utterance, apart from the fact that what she said was absolute nonsense, because what are the facts? Last year, or rather year before last, the position was that in the building industry building plans amounting to R216.6 million were approved, and in 1969 it went up from R216.6 million to R263.6 million. Does this look like a building industry in South Africa which is semi-paralysed? Sir, I have respect for that hon. member and at times she can do her homework very well, but I have an intense aversion to the sudden fancies she sometimes takes to rise in this House and deliver herself of extremely irresponsible things which are blazened forth in countries abroad and are very detrimental to South Africa. The same applies to this point she made. That is not fair. And then she made another very irresponsible statement on which it would be possible for me to comment very sharply, for the very reason that that hon. Minister and myself and my department well and truly have the interests of the Bantu in this country at heart, since we regard it as our task and calling to ensure that racial harmony and racial peace prevail in this country. And it is not by chance that such racial harmony prevails in South Africa; it is because we, in our modest way, do our work properly, and I can only speak very highly of my officials for the way in which this has come about. We must also pay tribute to the thousands of officials who are employed by the municipalities and who are in the forefront as regards bringing about that racial harmony. But then the hon. member disparages this work by making the statement that all that hon. Minister and I have been able to do since she became a member of this House, has been to introduce here “abhorrent Bills” which are allegedly to the detriment of and damaging to the Bantu in this country. I want to tell the hon. member that I believe in this work which I pm doing in the Office I hold. I believe in the principle of separate development, and I find it a sheer pleasure to do this work, and I also find it a pleasure to be at the head of this development as far as the Bantu are concerned; and as this is such a pleasure and as it is so essential and important, and as one can really realize oneself in this work, I have no doubt that in this regard the seventies will bring to pass a very great deal of progress in the Republic, and that is why I loathe that kind of remark that was made by the hon. member.

Then she made a third point. She said that six months ago I had come forward here with three categories in respect of which clause 11 allegedly applied, and now I had come forward with five. That is quite correct. In the White Paper and in my Second Reading speech last year I referred to three, and now I refer for five. Which two did I add? One of them was barmaids and barmen and the other one I added was telephonists. And why? This explains—and I am grateful to the hon. member for having raised that point—why the wording in clause 11 reads as it does. You should not think that we did not discuss this wording very fully with the legal advisors. We do not want to create impressions which are not true, and we do not want to harm the country. I am not here to harm the economy of the country or to disturb racial harmony; I am here to benefit the economy and to promote racial harmony, and not to harm them, and my deeds ought to prove this to them. But for the very reason that it is not possible for me, and much less the hon. the Minister, to give the undertaking that these five categories I mentioned, will for the future be the only categories of employment in respect of which it will be necessary to put a stop to labour integration, and not to come to this House with a new law every time, but to make a law enabling us to do, in a proper and effective manner, what has to be done, it has been worded this way, and this explains why I had three at that time and why I now have five. But I want to ask those hon. members how many Bantu they think will be affected by the addition of bar assistants and telephonists. That is why I devoted my Second Reading speech last year to the fact that the Opposition was conjuring up spectres in regard to this Bill and this clause, and there is literal proof for this in every step-for-step discussion we have had at this Committee Stage up to now.

Then the hon. member for Mooi River said this clause was “to protect the White worker”. He said this was what I had allegedly said, but I never said that. In fact, I did explain that section 77 of the Industrial Conciliation Act sought to put a stop to competition in the sphere of labour. It deals with job reservation. I said this repeatedly, as you will see in Hansard, and this afternoon I once again said it here, i.e. that this is not a work reservation clause. I have repeatedly said that the object of this clause is to put a stop to labour integration, and I gave chapter and verse in order to prove to the Committee that its object was to put a stop to labour integration. Now I ask him where he gets this from, i.e. that I ever made the statement that this clause was “to protect the White workers”? This is not the case. As I have explained repeatedly, the one and only point at issue here is to put a stop to labour integration in the categories of employment which I mentioned and in the others which may be added, and no more. Then there is his statement in regard to Indian barmen. It was done by the Department of Labour at that time, not in respect of each and every hotel there, as he said, but only in respect of a few hotels, and it was only done as a temporary measure, because Whites could not be found to do that work. [Interjections.] And as far as the Department of Labour is concerned—the Secretary for Labour is sitting here and he assures me that this is the case—there has never been any question of forbidding, in terms of section 77, Bantu to work behind counters, because of the fact I explained here to hon. members a moment ago, i.e. that it is too cumbersome to do so in terms of section 77. I think I have now replied to all the questions.

Why is it necessary then to introduce exemptions?

Our original clause 11, as you will recall, did not contain those exemptions, but because of the newspaper reports which appeared about this clause, various organizations—the names of which I could mention but shall refrain from mentioning since this matter is not so important—throughout the country came to see us and had interviews with us on this clause. For instance, the Johannesburg City Council and the Chamber of Commerce and various other organizations came to sec us. What did they want? At the suggestion of various of those organizations, i.e. that provision should be made here for granting exemption if, on merit, truly sound reasons could be advanced as to why an exemption would be justified if in a category of employment this determination were issued, we thought—since we wanted to cause satisfaction as far as possible —that it would be wise to accommodate those people and to make that concession to them so that, if necessary, are might see once again whether, on merit, a substantial case could not be made out for it, and it is for this, and no other reason, that we introduced this amendment. It was done to satisfy those people and, by these means, to cope with the terrible way in which this clause has been described in the newspapers and used as a deterrent. This is the answer to it.

Amendments put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and the Committee divided:

AYES—84: Bodenstein, P.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, M. W.; Botha, P. W.; Carr, D. M.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, J. A.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Wet, C.; De Wet, J. M.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Toit, J. P.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Havemann, W. W. B.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Heystek, J.; Holland, M. W.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J.; Le Roux, J. P. C.; Lewis, H. M.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Muller, H.; Muller, S. L.; Otto. J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pelser, P. C.; Pienaar. B.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rail. J. J.; Rail, J. W.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Roux, P. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, H.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J. D.; Swanepoel, J. W. F.; Treurnicht. N. F.; Van Breda, A.; Van den Berg. M. J.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Visse, J. H.; Vosloo, A. H.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wentzel, J. J.

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

NOES—29: Basson, J. D. du P.; Connan, J. M.; Deacon, W. H. D.; Eden, G. S.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hughes, T. G.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Raw, W. V.; Sutton, W. M.; Suzman, H.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Waterson, S. F.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

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

Clause, as amended, accordingly agreed to.

Clause 12:

This clause is partly consequential and partly introduces a new principle. Sir, the new subclause (viii) which is being introduced here is consequential upon the clause which we have just dealt with, and this allows the Officer in charge of a labour bureau to cancel the employment contract of any Bantu who has been prohibited from performing a certain job in terms of the new section 20A which it is proposed to introduce. The new subclause (ix) has the effect that a district or municipal labour Officer may refuse to sanction the employment or the continued employment of any Bantu; he can also cancel or cause to be cancelled any contract of employment entered into with such Bantu if he is satisfied that adequate housing accommodation is not available to such Bantu. Let me say at once that we on this side of the House realize the necessity for influx control. We realize that you cannot allow people to come into the urban areas to work if there is no accommodation available to them.

They can starve in the reserves.

I hope that the Department of the hon. the Minister is not going to use this provision to keep people out merely because accommodation has not been provided. I want to repeat the point that I made earlier, that I consider it is the responsibility of the local authority concerned and of the Government to provide suitable and adequate accommodation for these people. But I also want to remind the hon. the Deputy Minister of steps which have been taken by this Government for the provision of accommodation for non-white employees by employers in so-called white areas. Sir, I have here a circular (ref. No. G.8/16/5) of the 20th August, 1965, issued by the Department of Community Development. It is addressed to all local authorities and regional representatives and begins as follows—

It then goes on to set out the circumstances under which the Government will allow employers to provide accommodation for their employees and it reads: “The pattern which was followed in the few instances to date is to the advantage of the local authority and to the advantage of the employees concerned.” They then quote a case in the Cape where one employer has erected plus-minus 60 houses for his non-white employees and another one in Pretoria who had received authority to proceed on a basis similar to the others, as laid down in this circular. The concluding portion of the circular reads—

Sir, here we have this new provision, which we have not had up to now. The Officer in charge of a labour bureau has not been allowed to refuse to register a Bantu for employment nor has he been allowed to cancel the contract of employment purely on the ground that there is insufficient accommodation available. We now have this new principle introduced, and I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to see to it that local authorities undertake their duty and that they provide sufficient and adequate housing for Bantu employed there, and, furthermore, to use his influence with the hon. the Minister of Community Development to see to it that the National Housing Commission makes adequate funds available to the local authorities at a low rate of interest to enable them to carry out his plans and, thirdly, to act in terms of this instruction of April, 1965, to encourage employers where possible to provide adequate accommodation for their employees, so that we will not have a situation developing where numbers of Bantu will be deprived of their employment because of the unavailability of adequate housing for them.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) and I had our quarrels but I really want to congratulate him on the very responsible speech he has just made. It was really very much to my liking. I have not only noted his appeal but I can assure the hon. member that I agree with him wholeheartedly that we should think more in terms of encouraging employers to give greater attention to the housing problems of their employees; I concur with him in that. Secondly, it is necessary for local authorities to do their duty by providing proper housing for those Bantu who register for employment in our prescribed areas. Sir, as you will see, I find myself in this rather extraordinary position that I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District).

Sir, I want everybody to know that I am on the side of neither the hon. the Deputy Minister nor the hon. member who has just spoken. I do not know what he means by adequate housing; I do not think he has explained himself. Adequate housing, in terms of the Nationalist Party policy, is hostel housing, not housing on a family basis at all in the prescribed areas. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister will admit that. He is making it extremely difficult, and the National Housing Commission and Government loans are not easily available to the municipal authorities for the provision of housing on a family basis. I do not know whether it is the policy of the United Party to make provision for housing in the urban areas. Do they make provision for hostel accommodation?

No.

Well then, why are the hon. the Deputy Minister and the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) suddenly in such complete agreement on this question of housing? It is very extraordinary, because the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) knows perfectly well that the Government, in terms of its policy, does not intend to provide housing in the urban areas on a family basis at all. They aim to provide hostel accommodation, single accommodation for married people who then have to send their children away back to the homelands. This is certainly not the sort of accommodation I would support. Furthermore, this clause obviously gives the Minister greater powers for the cancellation of existing contracts, and there are considerable consequences which follow from that. The consequences are in terms of an earlier measure passed by this House, which makes the endorsement out of people already in jobs a much easier matter, because if no accommodation is available, this is one of the factors whereby these people can be endorsed out. I am against this clause.

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

Clause 13:

Clause put and negatived.

New Clause 13:

Mr. Chairman, I move—

That the following be a new Clause to follow Clause Twelve:

Agreed to.

Clause 14:

Sir, the purpose of the amendment to this section is to make an employer liable to pay a monthly rate in respect of a woman employee as well as in respect of a male employee. At the moment an employer pays only in respect of male Bantu employees. The object of this clause is to make that payment applicable to women employees as well. We are opposed to that. We say this is going to be an added hardship on the housewives who want to employ Bantu women. It will merely mean that their cost of living will go up further because they will have to pay the additional rate. We say that this is quite unfair. It is part of the Government’s policy, I suppose, to make it as difficult for housewives as possible to employ Bantu women. That is contrary to our concept, and therefore we shall oppose this added burden on the Native women which this clause will effect.

Mr. Chairman, I want to support all that the hon. member for Transkei said, but I want to add another point. Why is it that the hon. the Deputy Minister is making it more difficult for the housewives of South Africa to obtain domestic employees? I think one will find that 95% plus of the domestics employed in South Africa are females. Up to now the housewife, in order to register the employment of a Bantu female, has had to report once to the labour Office, which is very often situated at the other end of town, to have the contract of employment registered. All she had to do was to pay a fee which covered her until such time as the employee left her employment. Now we have the situation where, because of this minor amendment, namely the deletion of one word, “male,” every housewife in South Africa is going to have to go to the labour bureau once a month at considerable inconvenience and considerable expense to pay 20 cents in respect of her domestic servant. Why is it that the hon. the Deputy Minister is making it more difficult for the housewives of South Africa? Surely the hon. the Deputy Minister must have known that, with the election coming up, this is one way of losing the votes of the housewives of South Africa. Sir, I do not think that 20 cents per month for the general revenue funds of the various local authorities is so important that we can cause this disruption to the housewives of South Africa.

There is another aspect as well. Has the hon. the Deputy Minister enough staff in his department, where this is administered, and have the local authorities got the staff to cope with this added influx of work they will now have to cope with? Most of these labour bureaus are really dreadfully understaffed. They are dreadfully overworked. They have a mass of regulations which they have to interpret and apply. Here we have something which I consider to be completely unnecessary. It is an inconvenience to the housewives and female Bantu employees, and it involves unnecessary extra work with which the labour bureau will have to cope.

Mr. Chairman, the position in connection with this clause is that fundamentally the 20 cents per month that will have to be paid by the housewives who do have domestic servants will to be to the advantage of those very housewives. Hon. members will readily concede that 20 cents per month is not much. It is negligible. Hon. members may ask why this is going to be to the advantage of the housewives, and ultimately, to the advantage of all concerned, including the Bantu. I shall explain the advantages of this, and at the same time I shall reply to the second question put by the hon. member when he asked whether we had the necessary staff for administering this. The advantage is that the funds which will be collected in this way will be used to employ additional inspectors at the labour bureaux, on a local territorial basis, so as to enable those labour bureaux to do so much more efficient work. That is the position. As hon. members know, the labour bureaux exist to bring employers and employees together. As far as this is concerned, the public does not always realize the very important function our labour bureaux are fulfilling. If this had been realized more fully, also by the housewives, there would most certainly have been fewer unregistered and so-called illegal Bantu in our White prescribed areas. Actually the provision for the payment of this amount of 20 cents has been kept in obeyance for a long time. Consequently it will give rise to the advantages I explained to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District).

Perhaps I should just tell this House as a matter of interest that, according to what I was told after I had made enquiries, the 20 cents which will have to be paid by the Bantu women will, in a city like Pretoria, bring in something like R5.500 per month. In a city like Johannesburg it will bring in an amount of approximately R30,000, in round figures, per month. Hon. members will notice that these amounts are not really very considerable. However, it will nevertheless be an important contribution in the interests,of the labour bureaux.

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

Clause 15:

Mr. Chairman, I have a number of objections to this clause. Indeed, I think that after clause 11, it is the most important and the most objectionable clause in this Bill. I object to both paragraphs (a) and (b). The first part is of course introduced to try to rationalize the labour supply. From this point of view I can understand the hon. the Deputy Minister attempting to supply employers of labour, including building employers, with a more readily available and constant supply of labour. He is also hoping thereby to be able to reduce the number of additional labourers who have to come into the area, because he is hoping that there will be a transference of redundant labour to the next employer, who may at that time be requiring additional labour. In this way he hopes to keep down the overall number of labourers coming into the area. I object to the whole principle of labour being recruited in this fashion, because it does have the effect of keeping down competition and it does mean that there is a tendency for wages to be kept lower. If we had a really efficient system of minimum wages in South Africa based on an appreciation of the rising cost of living and an appreciation of the basic necessities of life, below which employees could not be taken on by employers. I would not object to this provision. We have had examples of recruited labour in other spheres, and there is no doubt that the very existence of the recruiter has had the effect of keeping down the wage level. So, from that point of view, Sir, I do not approve of clause 15 (a).

Paragraph (b) has very far reaching consequences indeed. In terms of the proviso to paragraph (u), which is going to be deleted in terms of clause 15 (b), the African migratory worker is going to lose the right that he has, as of right, to return to the same employer within a year, should he leave the urban area and return home. That is the effect of the proviso to paragraph (u), which is now going to be deleted. I want the hon. the Deputy Minister to know, as he must surely know, that this is a right which is deeply treasured by the migratory African worker. It gives him some security to know that he can go home, visit his family in the Reserves, and return to the same employer as of right. What is more, if that employer has already taken on some other employee in his place, he may be allowed to remain in the urban area to seek work. That is, of course, permissive. That is not a right, but it does exist in law and it is therefore frequently observed by the officials of the department. Perhaps I should say at this stage that all my sympathies are with the officials of the department, who have to administer these laws. I do not criticize the officials. When I earlier criticized the hon. the Deputy Minister and his senior Minister, I was not including the officials. I want to make that quite clear. My sympathies are with them because they have to carry out and administer the unworkable laws that are so blithely passed by this Parliament.

That is nonsense.

It is not nonsense. The hon. the Minister should go and see some of these harassed officials in every Bantu Affairs Department throughout the country. He should go and see them trying to cope with the endless queues of Africans, trying to get their permits stamped, for permission to seek work in the prescribed areas. He never goes and visits them. He passes the laws and then he forgets all about the administration of them. I do not, and I go and see how they are administered. I know how the officials have to sweat it out among people …

I know more about it than you do.

Well, the hon. the Deputy Minister may know more, but I do not think …

I visit them.

I doubt whether the hon. the Deputy Minister visits them as often as I do. Anyway, let us leave that to one side. The point is that this right, in terms of paragraph (u) of the existing law, is now being removed. I know that the Deputy Minister has told us that he is taking this right away because it is no longer necessary, since he is introducing the call-in card system. I understand that that is the explanation he gave. He said that under the call-in card system, the African who leaves his employer, will be able to return to his homeland and, by virtue of being in possession of a call-in card, he will have the right to return. Now there are many difficulties in regard to this call-in card system which I should like to point out to the hon. the Deputy Minister. First of all. it is valid only for a month, so that the employee who goes home has to be traced by his employer, who then sends him a call-in card, if he can find him. I want to know how many employers keep adequate addresses of their African migratory employees. I want to point out to the hon. the Minister that under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, for instance there are thousands upon thousands of unclaimed amounts in the Workmen’s Compensation Fund for one reason only, and that is the employers do not have any idea of where to find their employees. They not only do not know their home addresses, but they do not know their surnames either. They are John or Philemon and so on. Nobody ever knows the surname of the African employee. nor his address. I want the hon. the Deputy Minister to tell me how this call-in card system is actually going to work in practice because under this system we are going to have this vast turnover of migratory workers visiting their homes and returning again, trying to find their old employers and their old employers trying to trace them.

It is already working.

No, it is not already working. I asked the hon. the Minister a question in this regard and he did not know the answer. I have that question here somewhere. He said that he could not tell me in which areas this system, although I cannot really call it a system, was functioning properly. He said that he would need a proper survey to be able to tell me. But long before the hon. the Minister knows whether his system is functioning properly and long before any survey has been properly carried out, he does away with an existing right without ensuring that the administrative procedures for what is replacing the existing system are going to function properly. What sort of organization is this and what sort of effect will it have in practice? From the moment this law is promulgated the right that thousands of Africans think they enjoy, disappears. They then have to go on to a call-in card system which I do not suppose one employer in ten has ever heard of or knows how to operate. You can be sure that not one African employee in a thousand has heard of the call-in system. Who administers it? The headmen in the tribal areas have to administer it. How many such headmen have been trained to operate a proper call-in card system? Surely the hon. the Minister cannot be serious when he tells me this afternoon that this system is functioning properly already. I find that almost impossible to believe. I do not know how these tribal headmen have been instructed and I am sure that the hon. the Deputy Minister cannot tell me because he could not answer the question I put to him.

I think you put that question to me last year.

I actually put a question to him in this regard during this year. The point is that I cannot believe that this call-in card system is now functioning smoothly throughout the tribal areas. Why is there such a hurry in regard to this matter? Why can the hon. the Minister not let the system operate for another few years so that the difficulties can be ironed out by trial and error before he forces this measure through Parliament? I really do implore the hon. the Minister to do this. I have tried shouting at him but that does not work. I am now imploring him not to go ahead with the deletion of this subsection until he is absolutely sure that the system is working smoothly. I do not think he appreciates how much store the migratory African labourer sets by this particular right to come back to his previous employer and know that his job has been kept for him. It is very important and I foresee long lines of unemployed Africans queueing up in front of headmen who do not have the faintest idea of what they are really doing but who have to collect fees. Many of them are in any case probably not fully literate and they have to operate this most complicated call-in card system which has now been gazetted. I have here the Government Gazette of 3rd January, 1969, in which this measure was promulgated; it is very complicated. One needs to be fairly well trained to understand how the system is going to function. I want to say again what I said earlier on when we discussed the call-in card system. I think that it is disgraceful that the one person who should know what he is involving himself in, i.e. the labourer, the employee, is not given a copy of the contract of service. He is the only person who is excluded. The employer, the tribal authority and the Bantu Administration Office all get a copy but there is nothing in the law Which makes it necessary for the labourer himself, the employee, to have a copy of the contract of labour under which he is hiring himself out. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, we are faced here with amendments to section 28 of the principal Act. Section 28 empowers the State President to make regulations, not inconsistent with the Act. about all or any of a number of matters. Clause 15 (a) provides for the substitution of paragraph (f) of subsection (1) and deals with the formation of groups of employers which in the past has been limited to those employers of Bantu who are engaged in agriculture. We on this side of the House feel that this is merely an extension of a principle which has already been adopted. The principle was adopted with regard to agriculture and now it is being extended to other spheres of the economy. We will therefore not oppose that particular part of the clause.

I now come to paragraph (b) of this clause which provides for “the deletion of the proviso to paragraph (u) of the said subsection”. Paragraph (u) of section 28 of the Act states that the State President may make regulations as to:

All this is set out in great length in the Act as it stands at present, but added at the end there is a proviso which reads as follows;

In terms of this proviso a right was bestowed upon the Bantu and here I agree with the hon. member for Houghton. But not only was a right bestowed upon the Bantu, there was also a right bestowed upon the employer. An employer derived from this proviso the right to say at any time within one year: “That Bantu was employed by me and I want him to come back and work for me. I have spent considerable time and money in training him. He is someone who knows my business. He is one on whom I depend to run my business.” I place particular emphasis on the latter sentence: “He is someone on whom I depend to run my business and I want him back.” Mr. Chairman, I know that you will not allow me to repeat all the arguments raised by the hon. member for Houghton in favour of the Bantu. I agree with the arguments raised by her.

You want to be able to take the same worker back into your employ.

Yes, I want the same worker back in my employ. I want that worker to have the right to come back to work for me if he wishes and I as the employer want the right to have that Bantu back in my employ. In the explanatory memorandum and in his Second Reading speech the hon. the Minister went to great pains to explain to us that this was being substituted by what he called a “call-in card system”. I grant him that this system is working in some areas but it is not working in all areas. I know of some areas where it is working very well where the officials of the department, employers and the Bantu themselves understand the proceedings. On the other hand I also know of other districts where it is most certainly not working, where it has led to terrible confusion and where the labour bureaux, the tribal authorities, the magistrates’ Officers, the employers and everybody else are at sea.

How long has it been in operation in those areas where you say it has not worked?

I am afraid I do not know. After I came back from overseas at the beginning of this year I made enquiries in this regard and this is the result of my enquiries. I admit that they were made hurriedly but I found both extremes as far as the operation of this system is concerned. The point I want to make is that even if the call-in card system does work, this does not become a right. It does not mean to say that if an employer signs a card and says that he wants his employee back at the end of June, that he will get him back as of right because if this amendment to delete the proviso to paragraph (u) is accepted, that right will be removed. The call-in card system might work in practice but the employer will no longer have the right to get his employee back and the Bantu will no longer have the right to go back to his employer. For that reason I move as an amendment—

Mr. Chairman, I am very grateful to the Opposition for supporting paragraph (a) of this clause. I therefore do not want to elaborate very much on this now. The hon. member for Houghton does not support it. I am quite amazed that she does not do so. I think the reason she does not support it in this case is not any ideological one. I honestly think it is because she did not have a good look at what this labour pool really involves. She made what was to my mind a very surprising statement here, namely that this measure would not be to the benefit of that labour. For my own edification I drew up a list here of about 10, 11 benefits which we in fact think will result from this labour pool. I want to mention them quickly. I do not want to take up much time with them. These benefits will be: (1) the retention of Bantu for a specific category of work; (2) the elimination of official intervention; (3) more intimate employer-employee relations; (4) increased and improved utilization through elimination of lay-off periods; (5) greater mobility of labour within that area and within that category of workers in the same pool; (6) promotion of improved conditions of service within that industry for example, food, transport, housing, hours of service and wages could improve. When people pool together much better conditions of service can be offered to the workers, and surely the hon. member will know this, than a small hotel or builder for example can afford his workers. In this way I can mention many examples. I am therefore surprised at the hon. member’s statement. A seventh benefit is the elimination of labour being lured away from the same type of industry. The eighth benefit is that as far as the labour pool is concerned illegal employment will be reduced and can be stopped entirely. The ninth benefit is that it will become easier to comply with departmental requirements, such as reporting of service. The tenth benefit is that a register of undesirable, or of proficiency can be kept up to date, which will be conducive to improve utilization of Bantu labour. Therefore, Sir, there are very considerable benefits, believe us, in regard to the labour pool. I honestly think the hon. member for Houghton did not do her homework well enough in regard to this point, because the only point she mentioned is that this would eliminate labour competition. I cannot concede that point to her either. I must say that it will not be easy for her to make out a case against these 10 powerful benefits which I mentioned to her here.

The next point she mentioned is in connection with the call-in card system. I have now dealt with paragraph (a), for the Opposition supports it and the hon. member for Houghton is the only one opposed to it. As far as paragraph (b) is concerned, I just want to say to the hon. member for Houghton first that the position is that according to our information the Bantu in the mines are very pleased with the call-in card system. The second point she made was not correct—and I can understand why she made this point; but the fact still remains that she was not correct—is that these call-in cards are only valid for one month. That is not correct. On page 2 of the document, which I have in my hand, in the second paragraph from the bottom, they talk about “one month”. Is that where the hon. member gets the information from? Then I can reply to her very quickly in this regard. This is merely a pro forma statement which is being made here. The position is that the employer can change at will that period of one month for the Bantu worker employed by him, but not for longer than 12 months. That is very clear. The hon. member can now accept my word for that. I expected this to be discussed. I have it here in my hand, because I thought it could give rise to misunderstanding. This is only a pro forma statement and it is not correct to accept that the period is only one month.

What did you say in your Second Reading speech?

Yes, but I am making it very clear that it is only pro forma. Within the space of 12 months the employer is given no time limit as far as the call-in cards are concerned. That is very clear.

The hon. member for Houghton asked one last question to which I want to reply before I deal briefly with this entire question of the call-in card system, as well as the deletion of paragraph (u) with hon. members. She asked how many of these call-in cards have now been issued. As a result of ordinary practical circumstances and administrative problems I cannot furnish her with the precise number, but I can give her the assurance that thousands of call-in cards have already been issued in South Africa. It surprised me that the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) should say this afternoon that there are places where this does not work. I must concede to him that he did make the point that in general it was working very well. When I asked him how long the call-in card system had been in force there, he was not certain. I want to invite the hon. member to come and tell me in private where these places are. I shall then go into it immediately. Our information is that the system is working very well as every place we know about. If I explain to the hon. member now what this comprises, he will see why there can be no reasons, of which I am aware, why the system should not work properly.

Now I should also like to make very clear a point made by the United Party in regard to the deletion of paragraph (u). We do not think that that paragraph gives the Bantu any right. What does paragraph (u) deal with? This paragraph provides that the Labour Bureau cannot refuse its consent to a Bantu who wants to return to his employer after an absence of less than a year. This implies very clearly, also in terms of legal advice obtained in regard to this matter, that there must therefore in fact be an application to the Labour Bureau for such employment. This does not imply therefore that a Bantu can simply, of his own accord, without the knowledge of the Labour Bureau, return to his former employer in the hope that he will find work there. What right is it now which is therefore at issue? I consequently find myself in the position that I cannot in any way agree with the hon. member for Houghton, or with any other person who argues as if this is a right. The position in practice, as well as according to what legal advisors have told us, is that the Bantu must go to the Labour Bureau in any case, in spite of paragraph (u). If the Labour Bureau does not give him the necessary leave to go to his former employer, then he cannot go. Consequently what right are the Bantu losing here? We think therefore that the Bantu are not losing any right whatsoever here. If hon. members are able to convince me to the contrary, I shall be quite open to conviction. I went into this matter very thoroughly and I can assure hon. members that there is nothing that I reject so much as that the feeling should exist that we are now rescinding rights here. This we do not want to do at all. If we are forced to rescind rights, it is only if we are convinced that we can put something better in their place. As I said earlier this afternoon we have the interests of the Bantu at heart and we want to maintain good relations here. Now I want to tell hon. members what the call-in card system really involves, and why we believe the system will work very well. There are two sorts of cases with which one has to deal in regard to the call-in card system. I do not think the hon. member for Houghton has a good understanding of this whole matter. I am saying this in all honesty. I began to realize this when she spoke in the Second Reading debate, as well as the other night on the motion. There are two types of Bantu which one has to deal with in regard to the call-in card system. This will interest hon. members in general because it is something with which they will have to deal in practice.

When the hon. the Deputy Minister talks about calling-in cards, can he please give-Us the authority for the use of this system?

I shall furnish the hon. member with the regulation number in just a moment. I have done this on a previous occasion, but I shall furnish it to him again with the greatest pleasure. I shall try to explain it as simply as possible to hon. members. There are two categories of Bantu with which we have to deal in regard to the call-in card system. The one category is the Bantu in service with his employer who has reached the end of his contract period of 12 months in terms of which he must return to his homeland for a period which must not exceed 12 months. It is not specified when such a Bantu need return within that period of 12 months; the period must simply not exceed 12 months. What is the position now with the call-in card in regard to that category? In the first place, the employer and the Bantu working for him reach an agreement as to when that Bantu should like to take employment again with that employer. Such a Bantu must just not stay away from his employer and work for longer than 12 months. In the second place, the employer obtains a call-in card from the Labour Officer and he has this certified to the effect that the Bantu who is now employed by him is (a) registered and legally employed by him, (b) that he has accommodation available for the Bantu and (c) in the case of the Western Cape—and only in the case of the Western Cape—that Coloured labour is not available. Hon. members will see that so far it is still very easy for both the employer and the employee to act according to this system. The third step is that the call-in card, after it has been certified by the Labour Bureau, is handed over to the Bantu worker and he displays that card on the pre-arranged day, when he wants to return to his employer, at his tribal labour bureau where the new period of employment contract is attested. He then pays R1 in labour fees for that. That is all that takes place between the employer and the employee. The tribal labour bureau will then inform the other labour bureau, and when such a Bantu is again working for his employer, he will be legally registered by the local labour bureau. The system is therefore very simple and there is absolutely no reason why it should not work. I do not want to wax eloquent now on the advantages of the call-in card system; it is nevertheless very clear that there are a tremendous number of advantages attached to this call-in card system. Firstly, in this way unnecessary, so-called red tape is completely eliminated. Secondly, the employer-employee relationship can be a very close one and it will be possible for it to last the lifetime of such a Bantu or his employer. This, is also in fact the intention with the introduction of the call-in card system. This will enable the employer to train his Bantu worker so that he can, to an increasing extent, enjoy the improved service of that Bantu worker. Such an employer can keep a Bantu, in uninterrupted continuous service with him for 10, 20 or 30 years by means of a simple procedure. He and his Bantu employee must reach an agreement, and that Bantu must obtain a call-in card from his labour bureau. The Bantu can then take such a certified call-in card with him to his homeland and can in this way return to his employer.

That right exists under the present Act, does it not?

Yes, but I am being charged that in place of paragraph (u) we are depriving them of a right, which I do not concede, and in reality we are putting in its place a very positive measure. For the information of hon. members I am just explaining what this measure is. Lastly, there is also a fourth category of Bantu, namely the Bantu who have already left their employers and who would then like to return to their old employers. In respect of them the procedure is equally simple. The only proviso is that such Bantu must return to their old employers within the space of 12 months. All that those Bantus have to do is to obtain a call-in card, and this can be done in one of the following ways. He can obtain it from his tribal labour bureau when he is in the homeland; he can also obtain it from a labour bureau if he is in a prescribed area. The Bantu’s employer to whose service he wants to return can also obtain a call-in card for him if the Bantu writes him a letter stating that he should like be employed by him again. In such a case this same simple machinery comes into operation to supply such a Bantu with a call-in card, which is then proof that he can return to his employer without interference from any red tape.

I want to conclude by saying that I have no doubt whatsoever in my mind that this call-in card system is a very positive and a major improvement, as hon. members opposite as well as the hon. member for Houghton have already admitted. According to our information the Bantu who are already making use of the call-in card system and who have therefore become acquainted with it, are very pleased with the system. If we find that the system can be improved here and there or that some point can be eliminated, I now promise that we will do everything in our power to eliminate or to improve it immediately.

I just want to give the hon. member this reference which he asked me about. It is “Bantu Labour Regulations, 1965, Chapter VIII. Regulation 21/4 and directives from the Director of Bantu Labour contained in labour information circular 16/-’69.” Since we have now apparently come to the end of the Committee discussion, I want to express my gratitude to hon. members opposite for having made the discussion so much easier.

Mr. Chairman, I must admit that I want to associate myself with what the hon the Deputy Minister has said, namely that it is pleasant to have come to the end of this debate in which we have discussed something positive and in which we have tried to meet each other. I agree wholeheartedly with everything the hon. the Deputy Minister has said in connection with this call-in card system, because it can work. [Interjections.] Really, Sir, is it necessary that I should tolerate the noise which comes from that corner?

Order! The hon. member can leave that to the Chair. He must also address the Chair. Hon. members must please keep quiet.

I can agree with all the hon. the Deputy Minister has said in regard to the call-in card system. I would like, however, to put something right for the sake of the record, and that is that I never alleged that no application was necessary under the proviso to paragraph (u). I agree that an application is necessary. That proviso gave Bantu the right to go back and also gave employers the right to take a former employee back into employment. When I asked the hon. the Deputy Minister the authority for this system, I knew all about the regulations that have been issued. A regulation is, however, issued under an authority, and an authority is given under some law or other. There must be some statute or other which gives the department the authority to issue this regulation under which this particular system has been introduced. Is the authority for this system not this proviso? Is this particular proviso, which the hon. the Deputy Minister has now moved to delete, the authority for this very system? In terms of this proviso no Bantu shall under any regulation be refused permission to re-enter an area after an absence of not more than 12 months for the purpose of taking up employment with his previous employer. I want to put it to the hon. the Deputy Minister that he can accept our amendment, retain this proviso and still retain his call-in card system. I want to put it to him that it would be better to retain both the proviso and his call-in card system from the point of view of both the Bantu and the employer. I want to put a hypothetical case to him which might be extreme, but being a hypothetical case it will illustrate my question.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, may the hon. member for Wolmaransstad read a newspaper and that, of all things, Die Afrikaner?

The hon. member may proceed.

Mr. Chairman, if a Bantu has received a call-in card from his employer, and is for some reason or other due to ignorance on the part of an official, refused permission to return to his employer, if the proviso to paragraph (u) is deleted, has that Bantu or the employer any legal right of appeal? I would submit that they would Have no legal right of appeal should the proviso be deleted. This proviso gives a right both to the employee and the employer to take the matter further. If the Bantu is refused permission to return, either the employer or the employee can go to court, and can obtain an order of the court overriding that official who has refused to give the permission for his return. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister in this time when we are removing more and more rights from more and more people in this country, to leave this proviso. It will not interfere with his system. In fact, I maintain it supports and is complementary to his call-in card system. I appeal to him to accept our amendment to delete paragraph (b), in other words, to retain in the Act the proviso to paragraph (u).

Mr. Chairman, I should very much like to do this, but it is not sensible and not the right thing to do what the hon. member has just asked me to do. I can explain to him why it cannot be done. Paragraph (u) without the call-in card system has already caused a measure of confusion. Why? It has caused confusion because some people assumed that it was a right they had, while in fact it is no right at all. Now innocent Bantu are being given the impression that they have a right here. What happens in practice? They are told that the Act allows them to return to their former employer and that nobody can refuse them that. I have already explained that in practice this is not true. In order to return to his former employer he must do so through his labour bureau. If he is a tribal Bantu then he must do so through his tribal labour bureau. I cannot accept the amendment of the hon. member because I think it is quite imprudent, because what is happening now in practice? Such an innocent Bantu would then return to his former employer. In the meantime, however, his former employer has employed someone else or he does not need him any more. Then the Bantu finds himself in that area illegally and before long in gaol. And that is what that hon. member and other hon. members of the Opposition are opposing all the time and what the newspapers are always publishing long reports about. We want to try to prevent this as far as possible. Here is one brilliant method which we want to bring into operation in order to try to prevent that kind of situation. If such a Bantu should now return, happily under the impression that he has a right which he, so help me, does not have, and he is not employed by his former employer, he is here illegally; the police pick him up and consequently he becomes a burden to the State. Is that what the hon. member wants now? Hon. members must not think that I did not spend a long time thinking about and mulling this matter over, and that I did not give my serious attention to it. I did that. I should very much have liked to have complied with that hon. members request. If he had an argument, I would not have hesitated to do so. However, I cannot do so because it would be imprudent and unfair towards the Bantu, and because it would create a Babel-like confusion among the Bantu, The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) himself admitted how very well this call-in card system was working, and the hon. member for Houghton will still find how very well it is working. I explained here this afternoon how simply it actually works. We already have this call-in card system, which is simple, which has proved that it can work, and in connection with which several thousand cards have already been issued. It really cannot be expected of me to retain, together with this call-in card system, another measure which has caused considerable bother and confusion. I am very sorry, but that is why I cannot do so.

†In regard to the question that was put to me, I can only say that section 28 (1) (u) without the proviso, will still be wide enough to authorize this call-in card system. Therefore, we will have no legal problems whatsoever, in that connection. We have gone into the matter and that is the reply given to us by the legal advisers. I think I have now dealt with all the points raised by that hon. member. I hope that I have convinced him and that he will withdraw his amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise briefly to thank the hon. the Deputy Minister for his information. However, I am sorry but I cannot withdraw this amendment which I moved. I feel that I have made a case that these two can run concurrently, that the proviso which gives the rights, can run concurrently with the call-in card system which has put it into practice. All that the call-in card system has done is that it put the provisions of that proviso into practice.

The hon. member has made that point already.

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. the Deputy Minister that the practice has been that these Bantu have come on their own to the urban areas. But I submit that this could still happen with the call-in card system. I want to point out that the proviso does not give them the authority to come. It merely says that they shall not be refused permission to come.

The hon. member is now repeating himself.

Mr. Chairman, I am sorry that the hon. the Deputy Minister cannot accept our amendment. We must leave it at that.

Amendment put and negatived (Official Opposition and Mrs. H. Suzman dissenting).

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

Title of the Bill put and the Committee divided:

AYES—82: Bodenstein, P.; Botha, M, C.; Botha, M. W.; Brandt, J. W,; Carr, D. M.; Coetzee, J. A.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Wet, J. M.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Toit, J. P.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Grey-ling, J. C.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Havemann, W. W. B.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Heystek, J.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J.; Le Roux, J. P. C.; Lewis, H. M.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Muller, H.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pelser, P. C.; Pienaar, B.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rail, J. J.; Rail, J. W.; Reinecke, C. J.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Roux, P. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smith, J. D.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Van Breda, A.; Van den Heever, D. J. G.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Vosloo, W. L.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J. J.

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

NOES—28: Basson, J. D. du P.; Connan, J. M.; Deacon, W. H. D.; Eden, G. S.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, de V.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hughes, T. G.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Murray, L. G.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Sutton, W. M.; Suzman, H.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Waterson, S. F.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Wood, L. F.

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

Title of the Bill accordingly agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, when this House adjourned on 12th February, I had pointed out certain objections which the Opposition had raised, although it supported the principle of the Bill. It is a pity that the hon. member for Musgrave was sent out of the House this afternoon, because I should have liked to reply to certain of his objections. It is a fact that there has been tremendous economic growth in our country over the past years. The National Party deserves all the praise for that, because had it not been for this party, we would not have had this economic growth and prosperity. As a result of this economic growth, we have to contend with a shortage of trained manpower to some extent. This is a problem which we must not over-emphasize or exaggerate. The utilization of non-white manpower which is advocated by the hon. member for Hillbrow is not the only solution to meet that shortage. In the first place, this Bill is chiefly aimed at making provision for training schemes by organized industry with its existing industrial systems which have already been proved over the years. In the second place, it must also be noted that section 48 of the Act, which provides for the enforceability of industrial agreements, is being amended. The measure to which the hon. member for Musgrave referred and which was submitted by the Opposition last year, was a loose piece of legislation which hung in the air; it was not well-founded. It contained no enforceable provisions. This is the basic and a very important difference between the Bill before this House to-day and that which the Opposition submitted last year.

You must read it again.

I shall quote what the hon. member himself said. According to Hansard of 28th February, 1969 (column 1626) the hon. member stated the following—

The maximum amount of incentive.

Yes, but it contains no enforceable provisions whatever. It is a loose piece of legislation.

The measure is also aimed at introducing a levy system in respect of training schemes. This levy system too will be compulsory, and will result in those employers who have never been prepared themselves to undertake training, or who have not been prepared to contribute financially towards the training of manpower, having to do their rightful share in future as far as the training of manpower in our country is concerned. The industrialist who has always merely bid on the labour market, and who has been enticing people away from the State and the public sector, which have provided the training, will in future have to do his rightful share.

Furthermore, this amending Bill will result in its being possible for agreements entered into by parties to be made applicable, in the first place, to the same industry in its own area over which such an industrial council has jurisdiction, and in the second place to the same industry in an additional area where such an industrial council has no jurisdiction. In this connection I want to give a very simple example. Let us first take the case where the industrial council has jurisdiction over a certain area. Let us take the building industry in the Transvaal, which exercises jurisdiction over the whole of the Transvaal. However, there are nevertheless building industrialists who are not parties to that agreement or to an industrial council agreement. The Act can now be made applicable to those parties as well. As a second example, we can take the building industry of the Transvaal. Suppose they put for-word a training scheme for bricklayers, for example. Now it will be possible to extend that agreement to the same industry, for example in the Port Elizabeth area, over which the industrial council has no jurisdiction. In terms of clause 2 (a) of this Bill, agreements can also be made applicable to another industry in another area. In this way we obtain coverage over organized industries in the different categories.;

Another important aspect of this legislation is that the system of collective bargaining which forms the basis of our existing legislation, is being retained. Each industry is in a much better position to judge what its labour needs are. It is important that that autonomy be maintained so that the industries will be able to decide about their own affairs. Therefore the whole of our labour legislation is organized in such a way that every industry has its own apprenticeship committees and industrial councils. If these bodies are not prepared to act in matters affecting their own needs, I should like to see how the proposed manpower board in the Bill of that hon. member would have managed it. That manpower board consisted of seven members. That hon. member’s Bill did in fact grant the power to prescribe to industries, that is to say, on the advice of the national manpower board. It is obvious that all industries cannot be represented on such a board. Therefore they will not show the necessary interest. It is obvious that the necessary co-operation will then not be forthcoming either. What success can one therefore expect from that scheme? This Bill does not make provision only for organized industry. This Bill also makes provision for unorganized industry. These constituted the objections of the hon. member for Musgrave too. I did not find it at all strange when the hon. Leader of the House expressed his surprise this afternoon that the hon. member is the secretary of the labour group. It is obvious that he never studied this Bill. It was obvious when he spoke that he did not have the foggiest notion of the contents of the Bill.

In clause 3 provision is made for unorganized industry. It will be possible for all the provisions of the Conciliation Act which are applicable to industrial agreements to be made applicable to such agreements as well. In this connection the hon. member must take note of subsection 3 of section 48 (a). The hon. member also maintained that this Bill does not extend far enough and is limited only to industrial councils. Industrial councils are, after all, bodies which consist of employers and employees. Surely these people know what activities are being carried on. Therefore it is up to them to provide or attempt to provide in their own needs by concluding agreements in respect of categories where training needs exist.

It is very obvious to me that the hon. member for Musgrave does not have the foggiest notion of this Bill. It is also very clear to me that after this proposed legislation has been implemented, that part of the private sector which has not yet contributed its share in eliminating the shortage of trained manpower, will have to contribute its rightful share in the future. They will no longer be able to live on the public and Government sectors as far as the training of our manpower is concerned. Who is the greatest trainer of manpower in this country to-day? It is the State, the public sector. Examples are Iscor and Escom. There are others as well. The private industrialist who merely wants to bid and offer a higher salary in order to entice these people away, has never contributed his rightful share. They will in fact have to do so in the future.

Another important provision contained in this Bill is that the employee who also has a share in the negotiation of industrial council agreements, will be able to guard over his own future. He will be a co-planner. He will have a joint say in training schemes. He will be able to watch over dangers which can possibly arise. I want to refer specifically to one danger, namely the economic integration policy of that hon. member. The only solution they have is to meet the manpower shortage by employing non-Whites. That is the last thing we can allow. We are in favour of the employment of the Black man. We need the Black man in this country, but he certainly needs us as well. We cannot afford to disturb that balance.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know why the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark who spoke the other evening and today adopted an aggressive attitude and said this side of the House is against every government measure and that we are planning to undermine the whole labour position in this country. He made some wild statements and asked us whether we understood the Bill and whether we understood the Industrial Conciliation Act. After listening to him this afternoon, I gathered that he had a fair knowledge of this Bill, but I cannot say that he understands the Industrial Conciliation Act nor am I sure that he has read it and knows what the basis of the whole Act is and what industrial agreements are. The hon. member did a disservice to this House when he started to bring colour into the debate. If he understands anything about industrial agreements as far as engineering, the motor industry and other industries are concerned, he should know that they make provision for both the White and the Coloured groups. When an industrial council introduces any scheme for training it does not only look after the one section, it looks after both. There is no suggestion that any Industrial Council itself is politically inspired or a supporter of the Government. Therefore I think it is wrong of the hon. member to try and make any political capital or major point out of this issue for the coming election. I do not think the workers will be too pleased either, because they take a great interest in Industrial Council matters and they know what is going on. From my experience of workers, I know that they take a very great interest through the trade unions in their councils; they know what is going on. The position, as far as the worker is concerned, is that he is sick and tired of politics being brought into his industrial relations with the Government. When he is dealing with the Government, he does not like to think that he is dealing on a political basis. Whenever that hon. member talks on labour matters he tries to bring in the political angle. The worker does not like the political angle, because the worker to-day, and every day, has to deal with the Government in power. Therefore he does not want to be an ally of this Government, nor will he want to be an ally of the United Party when it gets into power on the 23rd April.

This particular Bill is an important Bill, and I do not think that the hon. member has understood it fully. We in this country are faced with the necessity of training our youth and those people who are entering industry. They must be trained so that we can meet the high technological requirements of to-day. To-day we are progressing so fast in this field that the training, in order to keep pace with the world of industry, has to be of a very high standard. When the hon. member for Hillbrow introduced his private Bill last year, that was what he had in view. The hon. member for Vanderbijlpark has only one thing in mind and that is the training of apprentices.

I did not say a word about it under this Bill.

It goes further than that. Besides the apprentices there are technicians of various kinds who are not covered by the Apprenticeship Act. The Bill introduced by the hon. member for Hillbrow …

Order! That is not under discussion.

As far as this particular Bill is concerned …

Hear, hear!

I think it is a good thing to give the Government side the background of manpower training in order to get away from this political influence that has been brought in by the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark. Under the Industrial Conciliation Act the industrial councils have been formed to negotiate agreements between employer and employee who have equal representation on both sides of the table. It was never at any stage suggested that the industrial councils should take part in the training of manpower. I want to give the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark the background, because I have had a great deal to do with this scheme. There is a shortage of money for training and the only available vehicle which you can use to collect money from the employer and the employee is via the Industrial Councils. There you have members of both sides of the industry, namely the employer and the employee. That is why this particular vehicle is being used. At the present moment the motor industry runs a scheme and so does the engineering industry because it was found that it was very necessary to do something about the training of our youngsters. The hon. the Minister knows very well that there seems to be an unbridgeable gap between labour and education. Labour is on the one side and education on the other. When you have an apprenticeship committee, you have educationists who serve in an advisory capacity, but labour is a separate entity altogether. Therefore the training of the youngster is really an educational matter and not one for the Department of Labour. That is why the Industrial Council is used only to get the employer and the employee together in order to raise the finance for this purpose. That is the only vehicle by means of which they can collect the finance to assist in this training. It is done in the absence of any other body in this country as suggested by the hon. member for Hillbrow. There is no other body that can do this particular work. The employers and employees realize that these youths require extra training and extra expenditure is needed in order to provide the equipment for technical colleges etc. Money has to be found to do all this, and the only way in which it can be collected is by the Industrial Council. The Industrial Council at no time laid down any course of training. This was done in conjunction with the technical colleges and the employers and employees. When one looks at Section 25 of the Industrial Conciliation Act, one finds that one cannot have outsiders on the sub-committees for which provision is made under this Act. The committee can only consist of employer and employee, and therefore the educationists are only in an advisory capacity. They have no real say in the committee. Therefore this Bill itself can only serve a temporary purpose. The employers and the employees felt that something must be done in regard to the education of our youngsters as technicians. This had to be done because the Government did not go ahead as far as the education of our youngsters in this field was concerned.