Mr. Speaker, I tabled the English text of the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Sugar Industry to-day. As hon. members will notice, it is a voluminous document, comprising 381 typed folios and it has, therefore, unfortunately not been possible to complete the Afrikaans translation thereof. When the translation is ready, Afrikaans copies will also be made available.

Although I have already conveyed my thanks to the Commission through its Chairman, I wish to avail myself of this opportunity to express publicly my appreciation of the expeditious and workmanlike way in which the Commission has executed its task. In my opinion the report submitted is a valuable one.

Officials of my Department had full discussions last week with representatives of the various sectors of the sugar industry and in regard to the vast majority of the recommendations agreement has been reached. Although I have not yet presented the matter to the Cabinet, I have reason to think that these recommendations will also be acceptable to the Cabinet.

Some of the Commission’s recommendations will most likely be implemented in a somewhat modified form. A few other recommendations, which may be regarded as more contentious in nature, form the subject of further studies in regard to their practicability by working groups nominated from the ranks of the sugar industry.

I think, however, that in regard to all the recommendations it will be possible for the Government to arrive at final decisions before the end of the year.

I want to raise again the question I mentioned to the hon. the Minister with regard to the deductibility of moneys paid to private medical aid schemes. We discussed yesterday the question of the allowance of R150 and the hon. the Minister said that according to the Franzsen Commission’s survey it was found that the sum of R150 was above the average amount which the average citizen expended on his medical requirements like medical and dental attention, etc. The question I put to the Minister was whether the subscriptions to medical aid schemes were deductible. He gave an answer to the effect that he believed it would be deductible if it were a compulsory payment. It is that particular aspect I would like some more clarity upon. I may say that what might have been an average probably three or four years ago when the Franzsen Commission did the survey—it reported in 1968—has changed considerably since; by way of example, the Department of Health has provided new tariffs for the medical profession, tariffs which it sought for some time. In addition it is common cause, I think, and I need not stress this particular issue, that the cost of drugs and medicines has gone up considerably, especially recently. Further, we know that the hon. the Minister has always held the view that membership of medical aid schemes should be encouraged, particularly in view of the fact that we do not have a national health scheme in the country. Over a period of time the whole issue may evolve itself into a national health scheme when we find that the majority of citizens in the country in some form or another belong to a medical aid scheme. The subscription to the medical aid scheme is as essential as it is to pay a doctor’s bill or to seek dental assistance. It is as essential as any allowances which may be required in the interest of the citizen and it certainly should form part and parcel of the deductible amount in addition to the R150 which has been provided to cover what was regarded as well above the average and which would save the Department a considerable amount of administrative work. That particular move, I think, was a very sound one. It was helpful to the taxpayer and also to the Department. But I do make a plea that the subscription to the medical aid scheme should be a deductible allowance.

I may say that in most schemes, as I mentioned yesterday, there are rules and regulations which call for membership of a scheme in the particular employment in which the taxpayer finds himself. Usually when a person joins a firm or company, or even a State undertaking, he will find that there is a medical aid scheme among the facilities offered.

These medical aid schemes usually require the particular organization to ensure that all its employees become members of that scheme, and in many cases it also makes a contribution towards the subscription. It is very easy under the I.R.P.5, I think it is, for the employer to certify what the taxpayer has paid himself in connection with the subscription. In many cases the employee pays the whole of this subscription. Another interesting aspect of this matter is that if an employee leaves that particular firm or group which forms the affinity group to which the taxpayer belongs, the taxpayer very seldom takes away any advantage with him. He does not carry it on as in some pension schemes which are applicable to-day to large authorities like municipalities, where in recent days they have agreed that the pension can transfer itself. In medical aid schemes that does not necessarily apply, except in certain big organizations, and therefore the advantage is completely lost. If it is placed, as it is at the moment, with the premiums for which a certain formula is laid down, one must bear in mind that premiums which are payable in connection with insurance do guarantee an advantage to the taxpayer.

It is a premium in respect of some insurance which is payable either on death or on the attainment of a certain age, or some payments in the case of an accident or sickness or anything of that nature. But it is a guaranteed and underwritten form of benefit which flows out of the payment of the premium. In respect of a medical aid subscription, there is no guarantee at all. The taxpayer may fortunately never need the assistance for which the subscription provides, and secondly, as I have said, the taxpayer does not gain a benefit from it if he should leave the group through whose affinity he was able to become a member of the medical aid scheme.

So taking the whole perspective of medical aid subscriptions by and large, I feel that that is an advantage which was lost when the amount was reduced from R250 to R150, because the average medical aid subscription for a man with a wife and a child or two is in the region of R17 a month, which itself already is approximately R200 per annum. Now if any advantage is given at all then the advantage would be the figure which originally pertained, namely R250. I do not know that I would like to ask for more, but I think at least consideration should be given to restoring that figure with the same advantage of not supplying receipts. It could be made a condition. If the taxpayer was a member of a medical aid scheme, the allowable amount would be R250. On the other hand, it may perhaps not even be wise to limit it to that extent, because very often the taxpayer who is not a member of a medical aid scheme is under the serious disadvantage that he has no protection at all. If his bill runs to a very high amount there is no return from a society, which through its group effort is able to give him the benefits which a medical aid scheme gives.

Therefore my plea to the hop. the Minister is that it should be increased to R250, but I should also like clarity on this question of the decuctible amount. Where a person, is a member of a medical aid scheme and the rules provide that the group to which he belongs must ensure that he becomes a member of that scheme, is it deductible? We should have much more clarity on this problem as to whether it is deductible together with the R150, or whether it falls under section 11, which deals only with premiums.

I listened attentively to what the hon. member has said. I can only tell him that contributions to medical aid schemes are deductible in the same way as insurance premiums. In addition to the R75 which is deductible for medical expenses in the case of unmarried persons and the R150 in the case of married persons, all subscriptions to medical aid schemes are deductible as a rebate in the same way as insurance premiums are deductible up to a certain maximum, which I think is R375 per annum which is the equivalent of a rebate of R30. Let me put the position again: A married couple may deduct R150 per annum for medical expenses. On top of that insurance premiums up to a maximum of R375 per annum which represents a rebate of R50 are deductible, but the medical aid contribution is deductible as a portion of this R375.

In regard to the whole question of medical aid, the survey to which I referred yesterday afternoon was not undertaken by the Franzsen Commission but by my Department. That survey, I admit, is a few years old already but I had discussions with my Department this morning and we will again go into the whole question of medical expenses. We do not want to make the position more difficult for the contributor and we do not want to make the position administratively impossible or difficult for the Department. The hon. member will understand that, But we shall go into the whole matter again in view of rising medical fees and the rising cost of medicines. We cannot make any promise at this stage, but we shall go into the matter to see whether for example a higher deduction should be allowed or not in the case of aged persons. I can assure the hon. member that we are going to go into the whole matter again in the light of present-day circumstances.

Clause put and agreed to.

Schedule 2:

This new schedule 2 brings about the consolidation of the various matters pertaining to the loan portion of normal tax and will become the fifth schedule of the principal Act. Sir, we have an opportunity here to study the provisions of this schedule which is now before the Committee and to ascertain its effect on various taxpayers who have to pay the loan levy; and to look into the rate of interest that the taxpayer receives, namely 5 per cent, and also the repayment period, which at the discretion of the Minister shall not exceed seven years. I want to point out that the period of repayment now becomes seven years as against five years under the previous legislation during the 1950’s. We know that large numbers of people who paid the loan levy during the 1950’s did not claim repayment of their loan levy, perhaps through negligence. According to figures recently disclosed by the hon. the Minister an amount of something like R2½ million is still owing to taxpayers in respect of loan levies paid by them during the 1950’s. The repayment period can be determined by the Minister, subject to a maximum of seven years, as provided for in paragraph 6 of the schedule which consolidates the various loan levies imposed from 1965. Sir, I believe that the period laid down for the repayment of the loan levy is extremely important because it affects large numbers of taxpayers who may not be able to claim repayment of the levy. Although the Minister may argue that the loan levy is subject to a minimum amount of R10, the application of the new schedules for this coming tax year ending on the 28th February, 1971, means that a married person resident in Natal, with a taxable income of R2,600 per annum, would be liable to a tax of R166 normal tax and a minimum loan levy of R10 as provided for in the schedule.

Sir, the older taxpayer views this period of seven years with a good deal of trepidation because he himself may not be able to claim repayment of the loan levy. Paragraph 2 of this schedule provides that—

1. (1) the liability for the payment of any unpaid amount of any loan portion due by any person shall cease—
   1. (a) upon the death, insolvency or liquidation (in the case of a company) of that person.

This means that in many cases the older taxpayer, who has to wait for a period of seven years for the repayment of the loan levy, will not be able to receive repayment together with interest at 5 per cent in terms of this schedule. I would therefore like to urge the hon. the Minister to take into account the older taxpayers and to see whether it is not possible ro reduce this period progressively. Sir, I understand that it is not possible for me to move an amendment to exclude a certain group on the ground of age, but I believe that a person over the age of 65 should be exempted from the payment of this loan levy. A person of 65 will be 72 years of age before he will be able to claim repayment of this loan levy, and I would therefore like the hon. the Minister to give his consideration to this particular aspect. There are many people who prefer to make provision themselves l'or times of emergency in the future rather than be forced to save by way of a loan levy which they will not be able to claim for a period of up to seven years. Sir, I again urge the hon. the Minister to consider the question of reducing this period of repayment in the case of persons over 60 years of age. Under previous clauses passed by this Committee the person who is over 60 years of age has been given a concession but those married persons who receive a taxable income of over R1,500 per annum and unmarried persons with a taxable income of R1,000 are liable to tax and they are also liable to pay the loan levy where their income reaches the level which I mentioned in the example which I quoted of a married person in Natal. I believe that it would have been more beneficial to have left the period of repayment at five years. If the hon. the Minister could give consideration to the age of the taxpayer over the age of 60, for instance, if the person between the ages of 60 and 65 could have that loan portion repaid during a period of five years, it would mean that all those persons would receive the repayment of that loan levy before attaining the age of 70 years. Further, if the hon. the Minister would give consideration to providing for the exclusion of those over 65 years of age from paying a loan levy, it would mean that these people would be able to have this money that is put aside for them, the money described by the hon. the Minister previously as an attractive investment. However, I can assure the hon. the Minister that there are many who believe that there are far more attractive investments available to them than the compulsory loan levy. Whilst dealing with the question of the attractiveness of this investment, to use the hon. the Minister’s words, it would appear that in view of the increase in interest rates, it is a pity that the hon. the Minister, in consolidating the previous legislation that was passed in 1965, has in terms of paragraph 7 of the schedule, pegged that simple interest to a rate of 5 per cent. I believe that it would be making the investment more attractive—if the hon. the Minister wishes to make it an attractive investment—if he were to pay a higher rate of interest than that of 5 per cent, as provided for in this schedule.

The difficulties involved in the repayment of these loan levies are certainly great. We know, for example, that there are many paople who do not keep a record of the certificates received. Indeed, in terms of the schedule that is now before us, it is not necessary for the hon. the Minister to issue a certificate if the period should be reached when the person is to be repaid that particular loan portion of the tax. I do hope that the hon. the Minister will be able to give an indication that the question of the issue of these certificates is being expedited, as provided for in terms of the schedule, in order to ensure that persons have an accurate record of the amount owing to them by the Government. We have heard figures quoted showing that, since the increase from 5 per cent to 10 per cent, the amount of indebtedness of the State to the taxpayers, regarding this loan portion of the tax, will be in the region of R275 million. Therefore it is important for the taxpayer to be fully aware as to what amount is owing to him over the years of assessment where a loan portion is included. With regard to the practice and the policy of the hon. the Minister, it appears that loan levies and the loan portion of the income tax have become a permanent portion of the hon. Minister’s taxation proposals. This schedule before us sets out the full details of how this loan levy is to be administered. I do hope that the hon. the Minister will be able to give an indication to the Committee that, in the administration of the loan portion of the taxation that is collected in this manner, the tax-payer is fully protected, so that he has confidence in the medium of taxation which the hon. the Minister is imposing.

Mr. Chairman, the matter of the loan levy has been discussed quite often by this Committee and the House. I do not want to repeat what I have already said concerning it. Firstly, as regards the period of seven or five years, nothing can be done about it to-day. If there should be any more loan levies in the future, which I cannot tell at the present moment, we can then consider whether the duration of the loan should be five or seven years. The period of seven years has been accepted, I think, in order to give the hon. the Minister of Finance more scope. This introduction of loan levies is also a measure in the fight against inflation. It is a withdrawal of money from circulation and the repayment of these loan levies is a matter which has to be considered very carefully, because one does not want to repay these loan levies and put more money into circulation at a time of inflation, if possible. So a period of seven years gives one more scope to select the time of repayment. The right time for us to repay the loan levies will be when there is a recession or a depression —although we hope these will never come to South Africa again. I think the hon. member will fully understand that.

Now the matter which has often been broached in this Committee is whether levies should no longer be levied on people over 65 or 70 years of age. In this regard, I want to repeat that loan levies have been introduced partly as a measure in the fight against inflation. Inflation has its effects on all people in the country, whether young or old. I think that the elderly people too have a duty to play a part in this fight gainst inflation, through the loan levy. People who request that the loan levy should not be imposed on people over the age of 65 or 70, mainly base their arguments on the premise that people will not live long enough to receive repayment of the loan levy and the accumulated interest. I think that this is a very negative approach to the whole matter. Old people also save; in fact they often save more than young people. If the old people are prepared to save by investing in the private sector, why should we say that they are no longer entitled or able to, and should not be given the opportunity of investing in any gilt-edged securities such as those provided by the State? I do not think the matter of hardship arises in this case.

The hon. member has mentioned a particular salary which is taxable in Natal. In general, a couple will only pay a loan levy when they have an income of about R2½ thousand, which I think is quite sufficient, because the loan levy only starts now when a couple pays R100 a year in income tax. I really do not think there is a very strong argument in favour of abolishing this loan levy and in regard to the present one, nothing can be done at the moment. Maybe we shall not have to resort to loan levies in the future, but if we do, all these remarks will be taken into account.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. the Minister for his reply to the points raised, but I feel that the age of the taxpayer and the means of making this levy an attractive investment are important. It is true, as the hon. the Minister has said, that there are many people who save. Their reason for saving is that they invariably, particularly in a later stage of life, require money for health or other urgent reasons which may arise. They invest their money in such a way that they can obtain a loan against it, or withdraw a certain amount of it to meet a situation which may arise. With this loan levy which is now before us, a person will be compelled to make a payment of a portion of his normal tax and it will not be possible for him to utilize any of the money which is paid in this way to raise a loan. He will not be able to pledge it in any way. I believe that the older taxpayer, who may require this money, should have the opportunity of being able to obtain it. I have recently studied the taxation position in Great Britain. There it appears, from the progression of tax scales, that the older person is more leniently dealt with. From the age of 50 years onwards, the rate of tax can be adjusted according to the age of the taxpayer. The principle that is involved here therefore relates to the age of the tax-payer and I do not believe that it is an un-important aspect of this matter.

The hon. the Minister has also raised the question of the rate of income before a person becomes liable to pay this loan levy. When I spoke earlier, I mentioned the position of the married person in Natal. I pointed out at what level he would become liable to pay this loan levy. One must also bear in mind the position of the older taxpayer. The Minister says that they are receiving a higher income, but one must remember that death duties must be paid in many cases where the deceased has been a high taxpayer. Invariably the estate of a person who has been a high taxpayer and who had substantial investments is called upon to pay estate duties. Although the primary deduction of R25,000 is taken into account for a surviving spouse, it does mean that in many instances the estate of a person who has had a considerable income, is called upon to pay death duties in any case. As far as that is concerned, the person will therefore still be liable, if he was a high taxpayer, to pay death duties. We on this side of the House believe that an important principle is involved here. The older taxpayer is now being called upon to pay a loan levy for a period of up to seven years. I should therefore like to move an amendment in terms of which these people will receive special consideration. Paragraph 2 deals with the liability for the payment of any unpaid amount of the loan portion due by any person and then details conditions upon which that liability shall cease. I should now like to add a further condition and move the following amendment—

1. (4) No person who attains the age of sixty-five years before the end of February 1971 shall be liable for any loan portion in respect of the tax year ending 28th February, 1971.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to support the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo. It is a matter we have taken up with the hon. the Minister on a number of occasions. I do not think we can accept the reasons why these elder citizens, as the hon. the Minister calls them, should have this tax inflicted upon them. The hon. the Minister says that he is engaged in a fight with inflation. We accept this entirely. But I do not really believe that the amount of money involved in the amendment, that is to say, in removing from the loan levy the incomes of those people who are over 65, would be a disaster from the point of view of inflation. However, there is another aspect. When I dealt with this matter on the Votes I said to the hon. the Minister that we are not so concerned with these people who have large incomes, in other words, if Mr. X is paying R100,000 per year in tax, we do not have the slightest objection to his paying a loan levy of R10,000. The hon. the Minister can have a limit. What we are concerned with is the middle income group. I think the most potent point that has been made in this issue is the point made by the hon. member for Umbilo. Elderly people do save, but they have a reason for saving. They save in order to give them a sense of security for problems which may arise at a moment’s notice. We all know that this does happen, that elderly people suddenly find that they require a certain amount of money to really keep them out of financial trouble. If they invest in a building society or an organization, where they can go and collect their money at a day’s, seven days’ or a month’s notice, they know that they have the security of being able to lay their hands on X amount of cash. However, in terms of the loan levy, they cannot. They have to wait until the period of repayment expires. I hope the hon. the Minister will accept this amendment but I have reasonable doubts that he will do so. We want to establish the principle that in so far as elder citizens are concerned, at least in the lower income groups, they should not face the imposition of this loan levy. Therefore I support this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I already discussed this matter, where age is taken as the criterion for taxation, during another debate yesterday. I think what I said then applies to a very large extent in this case as well. Being older does not mean being less able to pay tax. The younger man of 30 may be less able to pay an extra tax than the older man of 65 or 70.

But this is not a tax.

Indeed, he may be even less able to pay a loan levy, but this applies to tax as well. The person of 30 years is less able to pay tax or a loan levy than the older person who has amassed money in the course of his life. I therefore think it is wrong to take age as a basis. If the hon. member should take ability as a basis and not age, it would be something we could think and argue about, and something for which provision could perhaps be made in future. However, I do not think that age alone should be used as a basis. Elderly people do not save for emergencies only. Elderly people save for other purposes as well, for example to leave something to their children in the form of an inheritance. It is not only elderly people who save for emergencies. Young people also save for emergencies. I see no basic difference between the motives for saving of elderly people and of young people. Elderly people and young people both save for the same reasons, which are, inter alia, to have something in case of an emergency. If I should accept this amendment, we would have a further consequence. In actual fact I would then have to repay all the persons who had paid a loan levy, when they become 65 years of age. To those who had to pay loan levies in the 1960s, I would have to repay everything when they become 65 or 70 years of age. This would result from this amendment. It would immediately plunge my Department into an endless amount of unproductive work. For these reasons and for the reasons which I have already mentioned, I unfortunately cannot accept this well-intentioned amendment Amendment put and the Committee divided:

Tellers: A. Hopewell and J. O. N. Thompson.

Tellers: G. P. C. Bezuidenhout, P. C. Roux, G. P. van den Berg and H. J. van Wyk.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Schedule 2, as printed, put and agreed to.

We enter the last stage of a debate to which South Africa has looked forward with interest, particularly since the statement by the hon. the Minister of Finance in the Budget debate in which he promised a dialogue on this vital issue which faces South Africa. That dialogue has been referred to by other hon. members on this side of the House and we have found the strange situation that the hon. the Minister of Labour has flatly and specifically repudiated the hon. the Minister of Finance. He has flatly and unequivocally repudiated the hon. the Minister of Finance. I want to place on record again the words of the hon. the Minister of Finance in his speech, where he stated—

It is a clear undertaking, and he seeks a dialogue which will include the possibility of more non-white labour for those industries which remain in the white area. The hon. the Minister of Finance stated it clearly and specifically and there is no argument about it. But last night the hon. the Minister of Labour stated equally specifically that there was to be no change in Government policy and that the objective of the Government, the target of the Government, was not more non-white labour but less non-white labour in the white areas. The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration supported him. So now we have two senior Ministers of the Government at complete odds on an issue of fundamental policy. The hon. the Minister of Finance recognizes the economic consequences to our country if we do not have a change, but the hon. the Minister of Labour and the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration say clearly and equally specifically that they are not prepared under any circumstances to depart one inch from their policy of having not more but having less Bantu labour in the white areas.

Now these Ministers have to sort out this dilemma, because South Africa is entitled to know where she stands. South Africa’s industrialists are entitled to know whether the hon. the Minister of Finance’s undertaking was a genuine one, or whether he was dangling bait for the provincial election; of course the hon. the Minister of Labour’s bait comes from another source. His is an admission that the verkrampte element in the Nationalist Party has taken control over policy. There is no question about it that sitting on the shoulder of every Government member who has spoken in this debate has been the shadow of Dr. Albert Hertzog. [Interjections.] I hope that the hon. the Minister of Finance will come into this debate and that he will explain this repudiation of his clear statement. What have we had from the Minister? The mixture as before; no answer whatsoever to the challenge which we have put to him. The United Party has stated the cold, hard facts, the reality of the situation which faces our country, and the failure of the Government to deal with it. We had another example this morning. We are told that what we say comes from United Party stooges. Is this another United Party stooge? In this morning’s Burger the newly appointed Postmaster-General in his first statement as Postmaster-General says the following—

So as lately as this very morning we had support, not from a United Party supporter but from the Government itself, for the factual situation which members on this side of the House have put before the House. From the Government, speaker after speaker, there has not been one single indication that there is even a glimmering of realization of the depth of this problem, and much less is there any sign of a solution which they have to offer. We have had the hon. members for Brakpan, Vanderbijlpark, Springs, Mayfair, Germiston, Westdene and Stilfontein one after the other standing up in this House and speaking in the words of the Herstigte Nasionale Party, closing their eyes to any attempt to face up to the issue.

And then we had late last night the first happening after this series of non-happenings from all those other hon. members, the happening when again for the second time in this debate we have had a fundamental repudiation of basic Nationalist Party policy. We had the hon. the Minister of Labour, who last night repudiated the policy of his own party that the Bantu in their own areas could rise to the maximum of their ability. The hon. member for Stilfontein, who spoke last night, said: “Daar sal geen plafon wees nie”; there will be no ceiling. They can rise to the maximum of their ability. And the hon. the Minister of Labour, by a clear interjection, repudiated the policy of his own party and said that there would be no relaxation in this regard within the Bantu areas. Secondly, he made this significant statement that the Bantu homelands are not yet independent; in other words, that the whole policy of the Nationalist Party is a policy in Never Never Land, a policy which will not be applied until they become independent. The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration should also come into this debate and we will challenge him on this repudiation of basic Nationalist Party policy when his turn comes. The hon. the Minister of Mines this morning again evaded the issue. This is the test of the sincerity of the Government, a policy on which they must stand or fall. The fact that they are falling on it is evidenced by the hon. the Minister’s repudiation of the basic policy of his party, his statement that there will be no relaxation within the Bantu areas, no lifting of the ceiling above which Bantu mineworkers can rise in their own homelands.

Sir, this is a fundamental issue. This is basic to the philosophy of the Nationalist Party. We have evidence recently given, by a person who again cannot be classified as a United Party stooge. At the recent Sabra Congress, Professor Reynders estimated that during the period 1970 to 1980 88,000 new Bantu would be seeking work, 40,700 in the Bantu homelands and 47,300 in the white areas annually. The hon. the Minister has set as his targer the reduction of the number of Bantu in the white areas. He repeated in his debate that that was his policy. Here are 88,000 people for whom work must be found. [Time expired.]

Order! I wish to point out that hon. members are discussing Vote No. 27 together with Vote No. 23. Vote No. 27 is Bantu Administration and I am not going to allow a further discussion of Vote No. 27 after the hon. the Minister has replied to the various questions put to him.

Before dealing with the United Party’s escape from replying to the cardinal questions which were put to them here—and before the end of this debate they will be afforded the opportunity of replying to those cardinal questions if they wish to do so—I just want to reply first to a few requests addressed to me by hon. members in regard to other matters of a divergent nature. I want to start with the hon. member for Johannesburg (North), who referred here to the training and retraining of workers. I can tell the hon. member that in terms of the measure which, during the previous session, was piloted through here in regard to training schemes, provision has already been made in industrial council agreements for training schemes in quite a number of trades. In the clothing trade here in the Cape such a scheme for the training and also the retraining of workers is already in existence; such a scheme also exists in the clothing trade in the Transvaal, in the motor trade in the whole Republic, in the chemical trade in the Republic, in the building trade in the Transvaal as well as in the engineering industry in the whole Republic.

The hon. member for Brentwood asked for an improvement of the benefits payable out of the Workmen’s Compensation Fund. I can inform him that at the moment my Department and I are considering the possibility of effecting an improvement in workmen’s compensation benefits in the course of the next session of the House of Assembly. The hon. member also made a plea in regard to the introduction of a chair of industrial relations at one of the universities. This is a matter to which I am very sympathetic, and I really trust that one of our universities will in due course dare to undertake this task.

The hon. member for Mayfair took up the cudgels for apprentices who sometimes had to wait a long time before they could sit for tests. It is true that there is an increasing number of apprentices who want to take these tests, and sometimes this causes delays, but we are now in the process of effecting a rearrangement which amounts to our wanting to establish separate test centres for Coloureds and for Whites, which would then expedite the taking of tests.

The hon. member for Westdene raised the question of greater use being made of female labour. This is a matter with which we and our Department are occupying ourselves all the time, and I may just tell him that we have the power to grant exemption from wage measures so that women who, for instance, only work in the mornings, may receive a wage lower than the proposed wage. In this way the utilization of women for morning work is being encouraged, and I trust that we shall be able to make even more progress on those lines.

The hon. member for Stilfontein raised the question of the five-day working week in the mining industry. As hon. members know, this question of a five-day working week is a matter for negotiation between the workers, by means of their trade unions, and the employers. This is not a matter which is being enforced by the authorities. So far it has not been forced upon any organization and, what is more, this is quite in conflict with our labour legislation. In terms of the provisions of our labour legislation at present, workers may either work the five days or the five and a half days which have been prescribed, but this forms the subject of negotiation between the organizations which I have already mentioned. In the mining industry a start has already been made with these negotiations; finality has not yet been reached, but in this case it is for the organizations in question, i.e. the Mine Workers’ Union and the Chamber of Mines, to decide whether to proceed with these negotiations. I trust that they will resume these negotiations before long so that a satisfactory arrangement may be arrived at in this regard.

As regards the industrial tribunal’s inquiry into the surveying, ventilation and samplers’ work. I want to say that this is a complicated matter. The inspections in loco have now been completed, and the sessions at which interested parties may give evidence, started on 24th August. I trust that as soon as those sessions—at which interested parties who want to give evidence, are being given a hearing—have been completed, the industrial tribunal will be in a position to finalize rapidly its recommendations to me.

Sir, now I come to a labour matter in regard to which a considerable number of questions still remain unanswered. If we on this side thought that by means of extending the debate on this Vote by an hour, instead the half hour, we would gain clarity in regard to the attitude adopted by the United Party, then I think we would be deceiving ourselves. Sir, even if the discussion on this Vote were to last another three days, I want to tell you that as I sum up the United Party, we would still not obtain any clarity from them. No, what we shall obtain, will be a continuation of their ambiguity. What we shall obtain, will be a continuation of their desire to have the best of both worlds; that is the continuation which we get.

You, too.

Sir, alas, this ambiguity there holds a danger to the white worker, but also implied in this is the downfall of the United Party. When, in the course of the main Budget debate, I mentioned here a number of shortages in the various industries in the country, and pointedly asked the United Party whether they would want those shortages to be met through black labour—as this would be in line with their entire agitation and the agitation carried on for months by their Press for the increased utilization of black labour—what happend in this House? When I had pointedly tabulated the shortages for them, not a sound was to be heard from them. None of them had the courage to reply to that. I had hoped that in the course of the debate on this Revenue Vote, which has now been extended by one hour, we would at least have the opportunity of getting clarity from the United Party.

But did you not listen to the hon. member for Yeoville?

I am glad that the hon. member has referred to the hon. member for Yeoville. Now, let us hear what we had from the hon. member for Yeoville, the United Party’s shadow Minister of Labour. After all, he is the one who furnished the solution in regard to this matter, i.e. that the trade unions be consulted. According to his Hansard he said that the trade unions had to be consulted. You know, Sir, this does rather sound very responsible and, I would even say, Nationalist in character. But the country and this House are still waiting to hear from the United Party what they are going to do in the event of the trade unions refusing to go along.

I replied to that as well.

The hon. member should spell it out to us more clearly, against the background of what his colleague the hon. member for Rosettenville told me about the trade unions, i.e. why I would not take up the matter with the trade unions and tell them to “allow these people to advance”. The hon. member should spell it out to me against that background.

But that was in regard to the homelands.

Before saying any more about the attitude adopted by the trade unions, I should like to put this question to the Opposition. Last night I stated what the attitude of the trade unions was in the motor trade and in the engineering industry. I could tabulate, from beginning to end, which trade unions are adopting a very strong, conservative attitude in this regard. Now I should like to hear the Opposition’s reply. In a moment hon. members will be afforded an opportunity of replying to this question of mine. Last night I mentioned the substantive examples of the motor trade and the engineering industry. These examples are not unfounded. If the trade unions refused to accept their proposal, what would the United Party do with the millions of Blacks trained in terms of their crash training scheme? Would hon. members reply to that question now? The hour by which this debate has been extended, has not yet passed. I hope that in the time that is left hon. members opposite are going to tell us what they are going to do in that case. The House and the country want to know what they are going to do with those millions of non-Whites whom they will have trained. It will be of no use to the hon. member to shake his head. In the course of that meeting the Leader of the Opposition referred to the 20 million from the ranks of whom the labour might be drawn. Do hon. members remember the “crash training programme” announced by the Leader of the Opposition for training 20 million people? Hon. members must give the reply to my question now. The House wants to know what they are going to do in the event of the trade unions refusing to accept their proposal. As the hon. member said, there is one world which they want, i.e. the best of both worlds.

You have the worst of all the worlds.

Just tell us, after you will have had the best of that world and after the trade unions will have refused, what you are going to do. [Interjections.] No, the hon. member may reply in a moment. In a motivated, serious and convincing speech he should tell us what they are going to do. After all, they are the alternative government. At present the Opposition is seeing dreams and visions of itself as an alternative government. They must come “to grips” with realities now. These are the words you are using, not so? The reproach was levelled at me that I was unable to come to grips with realities. Those hon. members must come to grips with realities now, must tell me now what they are going to do with this mass of non-Whites whom they will have trained through their crash training scheme. What are hon. members going to do in the event of the trade unions refusing to employ them? Sir, do you know what is going to happen? We see right through the tactics employed by the United Party, which wants to have the best of both worlds. Last night, when the hon. member for Rosettenville took up the matter of the Mineworkers’ Union with me, he used these words—

This is the attitude adopted by the United Party. According to them we should dictate to the trade unions. We should not take them into consideration, but simply tell them: Admit these people. Incidentally, a moment ago the hon. member for Durban (Point) wrongly accused me of having said last night that there were no opportunities for promotion for the Bantu in the homelands. Let me just read out what I said last night, in order to refresh the memories of hon. members. I thought at least that hon. members would remember what happened as recently as last night. The hon. member for Rosettenville said—

This is the question which was put by the hon. member. He continued as follows—

Sir, do you know what my reply to that was? I said—

Now the hon. member for Durban (Point) is saying that we are not affording the Blacks that opportunity in their own areas. Is that the way the hon. member wants to grapple with the truth? It is this attitude of the United Party which has resulted in their whole political credibility being reduced to shreds. With this double-talk on the part of the United Party they are saying on the one hand that they will do nothing without the concurrance of the trade unions, and, on the other hand, that strong action should be taken against the trade unions in the future. Sir, if the United Party were ever to govern South Africa and wanted to carry out this “crash training programme” of theirs, they would not be able to train the non-Whites and then to employ them. They would not be able to do this, for in this country this would simply give rise to the greatest measure of racial tension which one could have.

In order to get away from replying to the cardinal question which I put to them, the United Party has fallen back on Dr. Diederichs. Dr. Diederichs must be dragged in as well. Now they want to hide behind him because they do not have the courage or the will to reply to these cardinal questions. I should now like to read out passages taken from two speeches made by Dr. Diederichs. Then we shall be able to see to what extent there is a difference of opinion. In the first place, I want to read out a passage taken from a speech which has not been printed as yet. However, I have here the typed copy of Dr. Diederichs’ reply in this regard. I should now like to read out what is of importance.

Is it the Minister’s Budget speech?

No, I am coming to the Minister’s Budget speech. This is the only speech which those hon. members have considered worth quoting. I shall come to it in a moment. Hon. members will hear parts of that as well. In this reply, to which I am referring now, the Minister of Finance said, inter alia, the following, which has a direct bearing on this matter (Hansard, 24/8)—

I emphasize “under its policy”—

This is the first quotation which purely represents Government policy. The same applies to the next quotation. Having referred to the necessity of border area development, Dr. Diederichs said the following—

Now, my hon. friends in the Opposition only find it necessary to quote from the Budget speech made by the Minister of Finance, from which I am also going to quote now. On 12th August the Minister said the following (column 1534)—

It is “non-white labour” and not “black labour”—

What one actually finds so deplorable, is the attitude adopted by the United Party, i.e. that, with this black employment agitation of theirs, they are interpreting that statement made by Dr. Diederichs as being a reference to “black labour”. The Government is not against the employment of non-Whites in white areas. As the Minister of Labour I am engaged in affording, in our white areas, opportunities to the Coloureds and the Indians. There is, for instance, the recent case where, in the O.K. Bazaars in Sea Point, I gave permission for a whole floor to be staffed by Coloureds. Let me also say in this regard that it is the policy of the Government to grant more opportunities for employment to Coloureds and Indians in the white area, i.e. in terms of our system of controlled employment. In pursuance of this system I have just decided that Barclays Bank will be granted the right to employ 31 Coloured women in their reception department. In the first place this was done because Whites were not available.

Is there any unemployment amongst Indians and Coloureds?

There is unemployment amongst them—not a particularly great deal, but there is some unemployment. The point I want to make, is that in this respect the Government is also granting Barclays Bank the right to employ Coloureds. The principles on which they may do so, are that it has to be done in accordance with Government policy; in other words, that there shall be no instances of Whites and non-Whites working side by side.

Does the employment of Coloureds and Indians mean integration?

No. I am pleased that the hon. member has put this question at this stage. From the other conditions which we are placing upon the employment of Coloureds and Indians, we shall now be able to infer what the difference is between the National Party policy of controlled employment and the U.P. policy of integration. The hon. member, who is a new member, should listen carefully now; he will still be afforded ample opportunity in this House to refer to it. As regards the Coloured women who are going to be employed by Barclays Bank, we are making the following conditions: Firstly, that there shall be no mixed working conditions—for instance, Whites and Coloureds may not work at the same desks; in the same employment situation there may not be instances of Whites and non-Whites working side by side; secondly, no white person shall work under the guidance or supervision of a non-white person. Here lies the basic difference between the policy of the National Party and that of the United Party. We say that this is our explicit policy …

This is already happening to-day.

Where this is happening, hon. members ought to lodge complaints with me so that I may rectify the position. [Interjections.] Last night I extended an invitation to all of you to bring such instances to my notice so that I may rectify the position. Another condition is that there shall be no replacement of Whites. Therfore, employment is to be effected in such a manner that there will be separate toilet and restroom facilities. This is the National Party’s policy of controlled employment as distinct from the policy of mixed working conditions which is being advocated by the United Party.

Is there anything to prevent a non-white businessman from employing a white person as his employee?

In the legislation there is nothing to prevent this. However, it is possible for us to rectify such matters by way of administrative action. For instance, the arrangement with Barclays Bank and O.K. Bazaars was effected administratively. It was not effected in terms of statutory powers.

But in those cases the employers are Whites.

The hon. member should listen first to the whole argument and get his next question ready in the meantime. Barclays Bank and O.K. Bazaars can refuse to do so. They need not even come to us; that is true, but if this came to our notice—that was why I asked you last night to bring cases of this nature to our notice—I would tell them that this is in conflict with our labour pattern, with our labour policy. If at that stage they are still not prepared to rectify this position by way of consultation, I have the power to refer the matter to the Industrial Tribunal and to obtain a recommendation from them.

If it is stated in this recommendation that there must be job reservation, I have the power to make it retrospective to any date which I deem necessary. Therefore, the statutory power will always provide us with the necessary leverage for causing administrative measures like these to function properly.

But I want to come back to the misrepresentation of the speech made by Dr. Diederichs, to the way the United Party is now wresting his speech from its context and to the way they now want at hide behind it so that they need not enlighten this House and the country as to their own lack of policy in this regard. Amongst other things, the Minister said—

But let me state now on what condition this will have to be done, a condition made by the Minister himself. He went on and said—

Do hon. members want to know what the condition is? It will interest them. Referring to the industrialists, the Minister said the following in this regard—

Therefore, if hon. members are of the opinion that they can play off the Minister of Finance either against me or against the Government, they are making a mistake. Dr. Diederichs is standing by the standpoint of the National Party as firmly as any of us can hope to stand. This escapism on the part of the United Party will not get them anywhere. This cunning will not get them anywhere. If they think that they will get away with these dust-raising tactics of theirs, they are mistaken. For if these tactics of theirs, this policy of a crash programme for 20 million, were to succeed, the inevitable result would be that Whites would be ousted from their employment and that white cities would become blacker instead of whiter. As these matters are of so much importance to South Africa, to the white worker and to the public in general, there is no occasion for me nor for hon. members opposite to leave any doubt about our standpoints in regard to these matters. Therefore, I hope that in what is left of this debate the United Party will display the courage and the will to tell us in very clear terms exactly how and where they want to employ those Blacks whom they want to train through this crash training programme of theirs; they must tell us exactly what they are going to do with those Blacks if the trade unions are not going to co-operate. They owe it to the white trade unions and to the workers to state this. If they do not do this, they will be perpetrating a calculated deception of the public.

Mr. Chairman, the previous speaker on the United Party side, i.e. the hon. member for Durban (Point), intimated that they had rather looked forward to this debate with interest. Now, I can assure him that we have been looking forward to it with more interest, because now, once and for all, we want those replies from them. On that side of the House there is a so-called shadow Minister of Labour. However, the only shadow I can see him throwing, is the black shadow which he wants to throw over South Africa. I hope that he will give us decisive replies to the questions which were put by the hon. the Minister of Labour. We have now seen once again examples of their typical tactics of running away and distortion. Once again they wanted to put into the mouth of the hon. the Minister of Finance words which he never used. I did not make any wild allegations here, and I want to quote from the speech made by the hon. the Minister.

You are trying to put words into his mouth.

Uncle Jan, if you can read, I shall show you where this was said in his speech, and if you cannot read, I shall read it out to you.

Order! I just want to point out to the hon. member that Uncle Jan is not present. The hon. member must be addressed as the hon. member for East London (City).

Mr. Chairman, I just want to quote from the speech made by the hon. the Minister of Finance. Amongst other things he said the following—

Is there a more explicit guarantee to be stated, i.e. that those people should not derive from this expectations which they would like to have seen in this? On the other hand, we are given the guarantee for our normal labour pattern in our country.

Here we have that typical howling of the wolves, the wolves who are howling for the blood of the white worker. Those wolves are merely the capitalists and certain employers who only care for their own gain. We heard them here. The hand of Esau and the voice of Oppenheimer. They are here. It is those people who, for the sake of bigger profits and enriching themselves, want to disturb our traditional labour pattern and racial harmony here in South Africa. As the hon. the Minister put it, they are prepared to exchange for the golden calf the continued existence and the industrial peace which we have here. Our birthright is now to be exchanged for a mess of pottage. But, on the other hand, they also have the wolves, the liberalistic English Press. Some of their former columnists are sitting on that side of the House. But now we do not hear him saying anything about labour. I wish he would take part in this labour debate so that we may hear what he now has to say about the integration which he always advocated in the Rand Daily Mail and the Sunday Times. It is they who are stirring up these United Party supporters by means of a manpower agitation campaign, which has no other purpose than that of destroying our existing social and political pattern in South Africa. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for East London (City) must give the hon. member for Boksburg a chance to make his speech.

Mr. Chairman, they realize that, if they were to pit policy against policy, they would never be able to destroy this National Party at the polls. However, now they are coming forward with different attacking tactics. By bringing up economic factors they now want to force us to our knees. It is in these attempts that they are being backed by the agitation of the English Press and the capitalists in order that the policy of separate development may be destroyed and room may be made for that policy of integration.

Recently the hon. the Leader of the Opposition very unambiguously stated in the Budget debate once again that they would repeal section 77 of the Industrial Conciliation Act if they came into power. They should tell us now whether this means that there will be mixed working conditions on an unprecedented scale, conditions where non-Whites will be senior to Whites in certain posts? Lat night the hon. the Minister extended an invitation to them to bring such cases to his notice. But they will not do that, for look at the dilemma in which they will land themselves if they were to come across such a case and were to bring it to the notice of the hon. the Minister. They dare not do it. But that is not all. They also know that through that policy of theirs they will force down the standard of living of the white worker, so that he will not be able to compete in the same sphere of employment and on the same standard of living as will be the case with the non-white person. They know he cannot compete with the non-Whites in that respect.

All day we have to hear from the United Party agitators and Press that the National Party’s labour policy is imposing restraints on the growth rate of the country. But let us make it very clear that the National Party also appreciates the importance of a sound growth rate. But we say inexorably that the growth rate is not priority number one with us. If we had to choose between the growth rate and the position of the white worker here in South Africa, we would immediately and unambiguously tell them that we are giving preference to the position of the white worker. That is our policy. Nor are we afraid of saying this to them. What is more, I think the white worker is entitled to know this. Now we are asking them that they, too, should tell the white worker what their replies are to the questions which are being put to them by the hon. the Minister. But they will not do so. Just as they did during the past elections, they will not tell us the truth as regards their policy. Who will ever trust the United Party? Who will ever believe them? Is this not the same party which, if pressure is brought to bear upon it, is prepared to make concessions? Hon. members will recall that a year or two ago the hon. the Leader of the Opposition himself admitted here, when pressure was brought to bear upon him, that he was prepared to admit Bantu to this Parliament. That is how far they will go if pressure is brought to bear upon them. I can predict here to-day that if those capitalists and the English Press brought pressure to bear upon them, they would yield once again, as they have already done in order to destroy the colour bar here in South Africa. But I want to ask them whether they are prepared to be consistent in carrying through, in every aspect of society, that rate-for-the-job policy of theirs. Are they prepared to do so?

No.

But, surely, in that case the United Party are not being honest in their policy if they are only going to apply it when it suits them. All of a sudden that side of the House is concerned about the economic growth of the country. But when they had the opportunity to develop South Africa economically, they were merely concerned about the economy of Britain. At that stage they were prepared to allow our own people to work with picks and shovels. What was their attitude in respect of Iscor and Sasol? At that stage they were concerned about the steel of Britain; they did not think of possibilities for our South African white workers.

But I should like to state a problem to the hon. the Minister. I am referring here to the mentally retarded pupils in our special schools. On the East Rand we have approximately 1,000 of these pupils. These children have to attend school until they are 16 years of age. At the request of their parents, those children may remain in those schools up to the age of 18. However, the problem is that 90 per cent of those children are not suitable for any work other than sheltered employment. This problem is in fact created by these boys for whom there are no opportunities for work, for they must become the eventual breadwinners. It is in fact because of the highest standard which they passed at school, that they do not qualify for being enrolled as apprentices. Hon. members will be astonished to see at these special schools what work can in fact be done by those boys. But all of this is in vain if the labour market is closed to those boys. I should like to see a continuation of the good work done at those schools. Let us utilize the services of those boys more effectively. They have the ability. We should merely grant them the opportunity to develop further.

Now I just want to ask the hon. the Minister whether they cannot be given training in certain institutions, even if it takes as long as 10 years. By doing this we can make it possible for them to become economicaly independent as well. Is it not possible to establish special training centres for them? But I may as well ask the question now which I actually wanted to ask. Is it not possible for us on the East Rand, too, to be granted a sheltered employment institution for those boys? [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Boksburg made an interesting attempt at making political capital out of this debate for his side. The only point which needs a reply, is his question as to whether we shall apply the principle of the rate for the job in every respect. The United Party’s standpoint is that the rate for the job is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end. [Interjections.] Oh yes, this is how it is all over the world. That is why it originated, i.e. to prevent workers who have reached a high standard of living, from being undermined by other workers who can take away their employment from them because thty maintain a lower standard of living. I just want to assure the hon. member that wherever that danger may exist in South Africa, the United Party will implement the principle of the rate for the job. There will not be any exceptions in respect of which it will be necessary to uphold that principle.

But I should like to come back to the hon. the Minister. The hon. the Minister has now made his second contribution to this debate, and with his second contribution he disappointed the people even more deeply than he did with his first. I want to deal at once with the mighty catch question which he put to us, this catch quesion which he feels convinced in his heart will crush the United Party, because we cannot possibly answer it. I want to answer it now.

Just answer it honestly and frankly.

I shall answer it honestly and frankly. The hon. the Minister ought to know me by this time. I try to be honest. [Interjections.] Does the Minister want to say that I act dishonestly?

No, the Minister merely knows you.

Of course, the Minister’s question is based on a totally wrong premise. This proves that he is not paying much attention to this debate. He is merely sitting there in order to see what political points he can score, and whether or not these are concerned with the argument, does not matter. What is his question? Sir, you should listen carefully to the time sequence of his question. He wants to know what we shall do with the thousands upon thousands of non-Whites whom we are going to train.

With the 20 million.

He wants to know what we are going to do with the thousands upon thousands of workers, [Interjection.] Sir, I am pleased to see how nervous my friends opposite are. He wants to know what we are going to do with the thousands upon thousands of non-Whites whom we are going to train, i.e. what we shall do in the event of the trade unions refusing to employ them. what we shall do with them, after we shall have trained them, in the event of the trade unions refusing at that stage to employ them. But, surely, he cannot put such a question if he knows what the point of the discussion is. The attitude adopted by the United Party has consistently and all along been that a change will have to take place in the labour pattern in South Africa, and that that change can only be brought about in consultation with the trade unions through the process of industrial conciliation and collective bargaining. And if a crash training programme has to be introduced, then that training of manpower will have to take place in consultation with, and with the assistance of, the trade unions. [Interjections.] Sir, can you believe that a Minister of Labour can ask such a question while he knows or ought to know that skill can only be transmitted from one skilled person to another? This is the process of the training of skilled workers. If the trade unions do not co-operate, and if the skilled people are not willing to transmit their skill in the apprenticeship of the unskilled ones, then such a plan cannot work. In other words, the Minister's question is based on ignorance and a wilful refusal to see the policy of the United Party as it is clear to see, a recreation of the labour pattern through making use of the existing means for collective bargaining between organized labour and organized employers. Nobody can be trained under our policy if it is not effected on that basis. I have now replied to the question put by the Minister, and I can only say that never in my experience has a sillier question been put with more bravado in this Parliament than has been the case with this one. [Interjections.]

Because, as I shall show in the minute I have left, the Minister did not contribute anything to this important discussion, because he is frustrating the people and because he refuses us an opportunity of obtaining the means for finding a truly satisfactory and just solution to our problems, we have no alternative but to express our dissatisfaction with the Minister as a member of the Cabinet—not as an individual—by moving the following amendment—

Sir, you will know that this is a step which we do not often take, but in these circumstances we have no option. With his explanation to-day and with his repudiation of the Minister of Finance, the hon. the Minister has rendered meaningless that apparently significant statement which was made by the Minister in his Budget speech. The Minister must now tell me this: Whereas he mentioned that according to his own survey there was at the moment a shortage of far more than 40,000 white workers—and I still think he left out the women; he should check his figures a little—and whereas there are predictions made by people with similar convictions to his, good and learned people, to the effect that this shortage will increase to 75,000 within a year or two, does he honestly want to tell me now that the Coloureds and the Indians of South Africa can meet that shortage? Surely, he knows that is not true. What can in fact happen and what we do welcome, is that these Coloureds and Indians will now be allowed to do more skilled and skilful work. A change has occurred in much of the pettiness in the attitude of the Government, which we have come to know so well. Even the hon. member for Houghton remembered this along with me —how, during the discussion of the Industrial Conciliation Act and especially clause 77 in 1955, we were informed that that legislation was necessary to prevent what the Minister is now doing for the O.K. Bazaars and for Barclays Bank. But we are glad. Every advance being made in the direction of United Party policy, is in the interests of South Africa and we welcome it. But here we have no permanent solution, and for that reason we must express our dissatisfaction. As a result of the Minister’s actions, what is left of the policy of the Government? It is the policy of the Government that it should be possible for the Bantu in the reserves to make as much progress as they can, but the Minister gave us no reply to the question of the mineworkers in those four mines, no reply whatsoever. We say it is our policy that these changes should take place in consultation and in conjunction with the trade unions. The Government says its policy is “the sky is the limit” in the reserves. What has become of their policy now? There is no reply. Hopeless, helpless, clumsy and incompetent at stating or implementing their own policy. But this is not all.

The time has arrived—and the Minister appreciates this, for he has now done this in the case of the Coloureds and the Indians—for us to cause the pattern in South Africa to change in other spheres as well, on the understanding which I mentioned, i.e. that this is to be effected in consultation and in conjunction with the trade unions. And one of the matters which they will take into account, is the availability of labour in every trade, whether or not it is White, Coloured or Indian. Those factors will be taken into account. They will have to take into account the mores of our people, the spiritual and the ethical values and the views of our people, whether they are right or wrong. For that reason there will have to be separate facilities. Over the years these have been in existence in the old Shops and Offices Act and the old Factories Act, legislation which was placed on the Statute Book by the United Party. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Yeoville has once more given a fine demonstration here of the ambiguity of the United Party. While he spoke he put me in mind of the Jacobs egg. You know that on 19th August the hon. member for Hillbrow stood up here and said that the Government was separating the yolk and the white, thus making the egg sterile. But then he also said that the hon. member for Houghton was mixing the two, and that when the yolk and the white were mixed one had a rotten egg. I want to agree with him there, because such a rotten egg usually explodes. But he neglected to say what they were doing with the egg. I shall tell you what they are doing. They are mixing the shell, the membrane, the yolk and the white, and then sitting on it to see if something does not want to hatch. That is what they are doing, because they do not actually know what they want. I am struggling here to make out, from what the hon. member for Yeoville said, whether he now wants to train the Bantu, and with which trade unions he now wants to reach an agreement. He says they want to reach an agreement with the trade unions, but with which trade unions do they want to do so? With Tucsa?

With the trade union concerned.

I can assure him that with the white trade unions he will not get anywhere.

Sir, the policy of the National Party is, after all, so obvious. We realize the tremendous industrial development that there is and we have also never denied that there is a labour shortage. We say that there will have to be many adjustments from time to time, and we also know that there are big challenges being brought to bear, not only on the Government, but on all management levels in South Africa, because one does not only find productivity in a worker. There are raw materials and capital, etc., and all those factors affect productivity. Then there is the workers corps, as the third leg, who must also do their share in accepting the challenges. And then there is, in addition, the Opposition as well, which must be more responsible and not make all kinds of strange remarks just for the sake of politicking. But they are disappointed because separate development succeeded. That is their problem, and that is why they carry on like this.

Labour peace is one of the greatest assets of any country. Apart from the good relationships that must exist between employer and employee, one must also guard against racial friction and industrial unrest, because it is important to have those things. We have also experienced such good relationships in South Africa under National Party Government during the past 22 years. In addition everyone must receive his fair share and feel happy and satisfied. From time to time the Government brings about amendments in its Acts, to adapt to the times we live in, and those shortages are supplemented, not in an uncontrolled but in a controlled way. The United Party wants it to continue unchecked with their laissezfaire policy. There must be a balance between labour needs and growth rate. That is why the balanced, healthy and realistic approach held by the National Party has resulted in a growth rate objective of 5.5 per cent being set, which will cause the fewest bottlenecks. The needs of the economy dare not jeopardize the Government’s relationships policy, because then we have industrial unrest which is unhealthy for any country. The obverse is also true. No one is more specifically aware of this than this extremely responsible Government. Political economists are obsessed by the materialistic side of the national economy, while the Government says that we must establish a balanced economy there, along the guidelines the Minister mentioned, i.e. that the Whites should not be ousted from the labour field; that the position of the Whites should be protected; that there should be no integration, no working together in the same job, and that non-Whites should not be placed in controlling positions. Sir, the National Party is the only force between the blackening of the industries and the preservation of the position of the white man in the industrial world. The National Party’s policy is a long-term policy. It is not a short-term policy of just solving this small problem now and then having many problems to-morrow or the next day. The National Party is the party of yesterday, today and to-morrow.

Sir, there has hardly been an economist, removed from the political field, who does not warn against the dangers of a too rapid growth rate. A growth rate of 5.5 per cent, is, therefore, the present ideal, while the United Party wants to let the reins go. In the Vaderland of 21st November, 1969, a senior lecturer in economics at the University of Pretoria said the following, and I shall quote it, since the hon. member for Yeoville is so fond of quoting (translation)—

The National Party’s policy is aimed at this from the outset. The National Party’s policy is a practical policy that takes cognisance of the development rate in the metropolitan areas. ?s well as the availability of labour. No matter how important growth rate may be, it will not receive precedence over the white worker’s position in the industrial world. The Government has no intention of reliquishing the policy on which it has worked for the protection of the Whites.

Sir, in addition I want to quote something in connection with the building industry, the industry that is being exploited to the largest extent in recent times. In the Daily Mail of 5 th February, 1970, it is alleged, in large thick letters, that “Builders’ Workers’ shortage worsens”. In the December 1969 issue of the monthly magazine of the Building Industries Federation, The South African Builder, these interesting particulars appear—

It continues by stating—

That is in the building industry. It continues by stating—

The article concludes with the following—

[Time expired.]

Sir, I want to say very briefly that I shall support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Yeoville. I too feel that the hon. the Minister of Labour has given a most disappointing performance in this debate. He has answered none of the really relevant questions which have been put to him on the basic economic issue that is worrying the country. To one’s deep disappointment one heard a reiteration of National Party policy irrespective of the harm which it is quite obviously causing the economy of South Africa. We heard a lot of talk in this House last night and to-day, I may say, about materialism and derogatory remarks about capitalists. Sir, I wonder how the entrepreneurs who support the Nationalist Party are beginning to feel about the sort of remarks that hon. members in this House are passing about the rôle played by the capitalists and the “materialists” in South Africa. Perhaps it is as well to remind hon. members that those people have developed this country; that they are the ones who pay the lion’s share into the coffers of the State and the taxes that keep this country ticking over and that they provide the employment that keeps the workers relatively comfortable-—certainly the white ones. [Interjection.] I would like to remind that hon. member that this is a capitalistic country; this is not a socialistic country; this is a free enterprise country, and the profit motive as far as I know is perfectly acceptable. Very high taxes are paid by the capitalists of this country—very high taxes indeed.

I am also very disappointed in the fact that the hon. the Minister gave no answer whatsoever to the very important basic question of principle about the employment of Africans in skilled jobs in mines in the homelands. Not very long ago Bantu published an article in which it said that encouragement of the State was to be given to African workers in the homelands in the mining industry to reach any height which they are capable of reaching. As I understand the position, the tribunal is making an investigation into this whole position. We got a completely non-informative answer from the hon. the Minister of Mines to-day that this matter will be pursued at a later date. But the hon. the Minister’s tribunal is now apparently making an investigation. As far as I know the tribunal generally acts under the Industrial Conciliation Act, and as far as I know the Industrial Conciliation Act has been suspended in the homelands. I think it is a relevant question to put to the hon. the Minister as to what locus standi the tribunal has in the homelands and why the hon. the Minister did not simply take his courage in his hands and, in terms of Government policy, allow Africans to do skilled work in the mines inside the homelands by suspending the relevant section of the Mines and Works Act and its regulations. This is a question that I think one is entitled to ask.

Not one word has been said in this debate about the position of the majority, of our workers in this country, the economic position of the African workers and the wages which they are earning in this economy. There has been a lot of talk about industrial peace, of course. It does not apparently occur to anybody that the African has no collective bargaining right, and that he has not got the legitimate right to strike. Indeed on the two occasions in the last two years where there have been strikes—the one of the dockworkers in Durban and the one of the coal hauliers recently in Johannesburg—summary action was taken; either the workers were dismissed or simply hauled off to court, charged with striking illegally and fined.

Are you propagating strikes now?

Of course, Sir, we have industrial peace under such conditions. I want to know what the hon. the Minister’s work committees are doing to see that the legitimate grievances of workers whose salaries and wages are well below the poverty datum line are properly investigated. As far as I can understand, there are only some 49 of these work committees set up under the Settlement of Disputes Act operating at all in all the thousands of establishments that we have in this country. So what happens, Sir? Every time there is a new wage agreement; every time certain jobs are reclassified and Africans are allowed to take over those jobs, as happened recently in the iron and steel industry, the Africans are cut down to nothing; they get a miserable 2½ cent rise while a very much higher rise, of course, is given to the white workers who have all the advantages of collective bargaining. How long does the hon. the Minister think this undesirable state of affairs can continue, when the starting wage in manufacturing is still roughly R40 a month; when the poverty datum line figure in Soweto for a family of five has risen to R59.70, according to a Johannesburg City Council calculation? What is the hon. the Minister doing about this enormous labour force which falls under him? It does not fall under the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. What is he doing to see that there is going to be some reasonable increment in the wages of these people? He can tell me, of course, that wages have gone up by 16 per cent over the last couple of years. What one has to look at is the ever-rising cost of living. Even though real wages have gone up slightly, the Minister must look at the basic figure on which that increased percentage has been calculated. If that basic figure is far too low, Sir, then this 16 per cent increase does not mean a thing.

I am therefore not as enamoured with this expression of “industrial peace” as everybody else is because I know that conditions are not ideal in this country and that the Africans who are denied all these opportunities of collective bargaining are getting a very poor deal indeed. It is the responsibility of the hon. the Minister of Labour to see that something is done about it. Some of the trade unions themselves are complaining about this. Only a month or two ago the Garmet Workers Union said that it had become increasingly perturbed about the increasing spread between the wages of skilled and unskilled workers in this country. It is a dangerous phenomenon. This is the only industrial country in the world where the spread between the wage rates for skilled and unskilled workers is not narrowing. In South Africa the spread is widening all the time, and that is so for one simple reason; it is because the African workers do not have collective bargaining rights. The intelligent, experienced, veteran white trade unionists in this country are themselves worried about this because they feel that this is leading to a very dangerous position in South Africa. Mr. Tom Murray of the Boilermakers’ Society has also pointed out that 190,000 African labourers in the steel and engineering industry will not benefit from the recent improvements which have been brought about in the conditions of the white workers in that industry.

Nobody really takes up the case of the African workers. The so-called Government representatives may do their best, Sir, but it is not good enough and it is not good enough because the employers in this case know full well that the Africans do not have a union behind them which can take action, if necessary, if no improvements are effected. Mr. Grobbelaar, the General Secretary of Tucsa, has also stated that it is essential that this whole question of trade union rights for Africans should be reconsidered. He says that to say that Africans are not ripe for trade unionism is ridiculous because nothing has been done to make them ripe, and that is absolutely correct. Trade unionism and collective bargaining are part and parcel of a modern industrial society. It is absurd in this day and age that we are not even considering the question of granting any of these rights to Africans who are not only unskilled workers to-day but who, despite all Government legislation, despite all the pressure against them, are steadily making their way into the semi-skilled occupations. I predict that it will not be very long before they will be in the skilled occupations as well. The sheer force of economic circumstances is going to bring this about and whatever big talk comes from hon. members on that side about materialism being of secondary importance and South Africa’s traditional way of life being the main thing, let them wait until there is unemployment in this country among the white people and then they will see that the choice is going to be very different indeed I want to conclude by saying that something must also be done about this whole question of the customary colour bar. It is all very well to talk about wanting revolutionary changes in the labour pattern in South Africa, but unless the Government and the official Opposition are prepared to do something about the traditional customary, colour bar, we are not going to get those changes. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Houghton surely does not expect me to follow up on what she had to say, because the white worker in South Africa is not prepared to commit hara-kiri by accepting the hon. member for Houghton’s policy, though she is at least honest in connection with her labour policy. Sir, permit me to begin on a more restful note, because I want to deal with the position of a very small group of artisans. I want to take up the cudgels for them with the Minister. I am now speaking of the monumental workers in the “stone masons” trade. These are the people responsible for making gravestones and for doing ornamental stone work on certain buildings. They also have a minimum apprenticeship period of five years, after which they can be appointed at a minimum wage of R1.15 per hour. That is the position in the Cape Province, at any rate. It is a trade reserved for Whites, though Coloureds are not actually interested in this field. To-day in the entire Cape Peninsula there are only 11 such artisans and two apprentices. Because the whole industry is actually in the hands of a few bodies, these people’s hands are actually tied in the sense that essentially they have no bargaining power. This is one of the loveliest and most creative of trades, and it is dying out as a result of its wage structure. In the Peninsula to-day there are only two such artisans who earn more than the minimum wage. I mention this just to indicate what their bargaining power is. Then there is yet another difference in wage determination between the Cape Province and the Transvaal. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he cannot urge the Wage Board to investigate this industry, with a view to determining wages for these people. Particularly because they make gravestones we must not let these people leave the industry. They must still be around for a while so that we can at least still be of service to the United Party in this respect!

Throughout this debate a great deal was said about a labour shortage. The Opposition was also nagging continually because it was the preconceived pattern with which they came along to this sitting, i.e. to greatly exaggerate this labour shortage. Throughout this entire process the impression is being created that they have woven an instant solution for this problem into their policy. They are trying to pretend that this shortage can be ascribed in toto to the National Party’s ideology of job reservation. I want to ask the United Party on what they base the extent of that shortage, which they are now exaggerating to such an extent. Is it based on particulars they obtained from surveys of the labour needs conducted by the Chamber of Industries? If not, from where do they obtain their particulars which are now being so greatly exaggerated? Are they not perhaps unfounded?

We obtain them from the Minister.

Yes, they could have obtained them from the Minister, but where does he obtain his information when he makes inquiries about the labour needs of industrialists. At this stage it has probably become necessary for us to take a much more critical look at the needs in the field of labour. I do not want to allege that in these replies to surveys there is a very strong political undertone to be detected, but if I were to have said it, I am very sure that I would not have been very far wrong. I shall leave the matter at that for the moment. I want to claim that these surveys definitely do not give us, at all times, a correct representation of the real needs in the labour sphere.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

Sir, in ten minutes time the hon. member for Maitland may ask his questions. I have only ten minutes. The replies to these inquiries, which are sent to industrialists, in the majority of cases indicate their needs to be much greater than they really are. I want to make the claim to-day that if the Department of Labour were to be in a position to supply every industrialist with the labour he wanted, in accordance with his reply to the inquiry, that industrialist would not be prepared to employ all those people. That is so because the industrialist is not bound by the reply he gives to such a survey. There simply cannot be any enforcement. If one were to return to such an industrialist he would say: I indicated my needs as such because I expected to obtain a certain contract, which I subsequently did not obtain. That is why I do not really need the people. I therefore do not think that we have, at this stage, an absolute picture of what our real labour needs are.

Let us take an example. A trade which the hon. member for Yeoville mentioned yesterday as an example of a field in which an artificial shortage developed as a result of this Government’s ideology of job reservation. It is an industry which has already been mentioned several times. I am speaking of motor mechanics, and in particular of those in the Cape Peninsula. The present position is that there are few if any Coloured artisans in this field. There are a few of them, but they are the exceptions. It is the members of the Motor Mechanics Trade Union who do not train Coloured apprentices. It has nothing to do with this Government’s policy of job reservation. It is that trade union’s right to lay down its policy. I want to repeat the question to which the Minister has not yet received a reply, although he asked the question repeatedly. If the Opposition had been in a position to implement its policy, what would its actions have been in respect of this Motor Mechanics Trade Union? Would hon. members negotiate with them? As the Minister has indicated, there have already been negotiations, and they are simply not prepared to train Coloured apprentices. Are those hon. members going to compel them to train Coloured apprentices if they are not prepared to do so? The argument of the United Party, and in particular of the hon. member for Yeoville, that the United Party is specifically better equipped to negotiate with trade unions, is simply another of the quasi-solutions they are presenting. The overall majority of workers in South Africa, who are organized into trade unions, do not trust the United Party to handle their affairs for them. I do not want to give a final answer on that, but if they are not prepared, in this field, to negotiate with a National Government, a Government which, as they know, will at all times protect the white workers as a result of its policy of job reservation, what guarantee has the hon. member for Yeoville that the trade unions would specifically be prepared to negotiate with him?

The hon. member said recently that the labour pattern in South Africa must be change. If we now inquire a little more closely into this “crash programme”, then the hon. member says that the hon. the Minister’s question is ridiculous, because he proceeds from the assumption that the trade unions will not be prepared to employ non-Whites after they have been trained. He says that we should obtain the co-operation of the trade unions in connection with this “crash programme”. Sir. I am now asking, with tears in my eyes: If these people are not prepared, under normal circumstances, to train Coloureds in the Motor Mechanics Trade Union, for example, is it not hypothetical to accept that they will be prepared to co-operate in connection with the “crash programme”, which will actually endanger their own position. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, on 12th August this year the hon. the Minister of Finance stood up in this House and took an extremely important step. He extended an invitation to the industrialists of South Africa and told them that he would like their co-operation in the development of the border areas and the Bantu homelands. As a quid pro quo, he would try to give them more non-white labour. The hon. the Minister could promise that quid pro quo only because he knows that there is a tremendous shortage of white labour in South Africa. Because the industrialists are aware of the tremendous shortage, because they know how serious the matter is, they regarded that invitation as being of such importance that they, as it were before the hon. the Minister’s words were cold, accepted the invitation to negotiate with him in an attempt to help themselves by means of obtaining more non-white labour. I may just mention in passing that everybody gained the impression that non-white labour was meant to include Bantu labour. But what did the hon. the Minister of Labour say in this House this morning? He said that it was never meant to be Bantu labour. By non-white labour, they had meant Coloured and Indian labour only. When I asked the hon. the Minister whether there was any unemployment among the Coloureds and the Indians, he replied that there was in fact unemployment, but not much. Does the hon. the Minister of Labour really want to tell this House that the offer which the hon. the Minister of Finance made to the industrialists, related only to Coloureds and Indians and not to Bantu? The hon. the Minister talks about foxy moves (jakkalsstreke), but this was the foxiest move I have ever heard an hon. Minister make in this House in an attempt to prove that he had not deviated from the policy as stated by the hon. the Minister of Finance.

Now the hon. the Minister puts questions to us. He must first obtain clarity for himself. After that he must obtain clarity for South Africa. Who is right, the Minister of Labour or the Minister of Finance? Both cannot be right. But if the hon. the Minister of Finance was wrong and if the statement which he made related to Coloureds and Indians and not to Bantu, I maintain that this invitation to the industrialists not only meant nothing, but meant more than just that. Then the hon. the Minister’s statement of this morning was a tremendous slap in the face to the industrialist who had shown himself to be prepared to help the Minister to implement his policy. It amounted to nothing else. Now the hon. the Minister must tell us which of them is right. Both cannot be right. There is not enough Coloured and Indian labour available to make up the existing shortage. We want to know what other form of labour the hon. the Minister of Finance had in mind.

He said it.

No, there is no escape. The hon. the Minister’s reply amazed me. I really expected a better reply. In fact, when I come back to the Minister of Finance’s speech, I shall work out a better reply for him than he gave us this morning. No, it was not a reply. I am sorry that the hon. the Minister plunged the labour position into greater uncertainty than existed previously.

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

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Chairman, before the lunch hour I pointed out that unless the hon. the Minister can say that there is a considerable amount of unemployment among the Coloureds and the Indians in South Africa, the explanation which he has now given and the statement by the hon. the Minister of Labour have made the matter completely valueless. In fact, he put a damper on the statement which the hon. the Minister of Finance made in this House on 12th August.

I want to make another point. The hon. the Minister continues to fling specific questions at our side. The hon. the Minister said that we referred to a crash training programme. He wanted to know from us how we would train the 20 million people under our crash programme. My hon. Leader said that South Africa had a total population of 20 million people. Now the hon. the Minister asks how we want to train the 20 million. The hon. the Minister is the Minister of Labour. I would have thought him to be a practical man who adopts an essentially realistic attitude. Does he expect us to train the total population of South Africa? Does he expect us to train the 20 million from the cradle to the grave? Surely the hon. the Minister must know that if you are thirsty and you have a full dam of water on a farm, you will not drink all the water in that dam at the same time. Surely one drinks as much as one needs? If the hon. the Minister continues as he is now doing and wants to drink all the water in the dam at the same time, he will drown. He will drown, just as the Minister of Labour is drowning in this debate. But the hon. the Minister continues with his questions.

Let me say that labour is not an end in itself. Labour is a means to an end. The end is production. South Africa wants greater production, in other words, growth. The basic idea is that if we want substantial growth in South Africa, we must face the fact that we have a white manpower shortage of 45,000 at the moment. I think the figure is too low, but I shall accept it. The question which the hon. the Minister must reply to, is whether he is satisfied to continue with the manpower shortage of 45,000, which will continue growing. Is he satisfied to let the economic machine operate with this and to face its consequences? Or what is the hon. the Minister going to do to eliminate the white labour shortage? That is the question. He must reply to this question even before he comes to the issue of trade unions. Trade unions enter into the matter only later. Before the hon. the Minister asks a question about trade unions and whether they will agree or not, he must tell us what he intends doing about the manpower shortage of 45,000. This is the question to which he owes South Africa a reply. Long before he issues a challenge to this side of the House, there is the heavy responsibility resting on his shoulders, to give a reply in regard to the white manpower shortage. Unless he can give it, he has failed in his obligation to this House.

My second point is that if the hon. the Minister were to come to this House and to say that he had no more plans, and that he could do nothing about the shortage of 45,000, he must tell us what other methods he is now going to apply. Where is he going to get the labour now?

Is he going to train baboons?

He might succeed with a few. It depends which party they support. This is where we make the point that South Africa has a built-in body of manpower. It so happens that they are not all white. But we have a built-in body of manpower and I cannot think that a Minister who is in cahrge of this important Vote cannot devise methods by which we can use this manpower without endangering the white worker. I cannot accept that. The hon. the Minister must tell this House whether he has held discussions with the various trade unions and how far he has progressed in his attempt to eliminate the manpower shortage. If he has not done so, I say that he has neglected his duty in this respect as well. As far as I know, the hon. the Minister has not yet gone far enough in his discussions with the labour powers in South Africa in an attempt to persuade these people to allow non-white labour on a controlled scale. In passing I may say that this question of opening the flood gates is absolute nonsense, and the hon. members know this. It is political propaganda of the worst type. No person will open the flood gates in South Africa and no labour machine can function in that way. The fact that the United Party says that it is prepared to negotiate, is in itself proof that we are prepared to exercise control over the employment of both Whites and non-Whites in South Africa. This has always been the position. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who has just sat down had a great deal to say here about a dam he was drinking dry, and I think he is the man who is going to drown. The policy which he and his party are advocating, is one which has the potential of drowning the South Africa we love so dearly when one sits in this House day after day listening to the speeches coming from that side of this House, I am afraid one gets a very sombre picture of what is happening in South Africa. A very sombre picture is being painted here of what the position in South Africa is to-day. It is a picture of despondency, a picture of intimidation, a picture of tragedy and a picture of a country which is poised on the edge of a precipice. One would say that it is a country which is on the brink of collapse if one were to believe the sad tales of the members on that side of this House. However, one is grateful when one leaves the confines of this House and comes into contact with the true Republic of South Africa. Outside there is a country which is full of confidence, full of happy faces, and there is a satisfied population. Outside there are still cheering and to-morrow we shall again hear the people cheer in the Northern Transvaal. Outside there is employment for everybody, there is vital growth and progress. There is economic prosperity and life is bubbling and pulsating in all its reality. Outside where the kettles are boiling and the fireplaces are burning, is the true South Africa of happy and satisfied people.

I am grateful that there is another South Africa than the one painted for us in these debates. I can understand why that is being done; it is because they realize that they are not governing and will never have the opportunity of governing either. For that reason they are so despondent, so frustrated, so embittered and in many respects, so reckless as well. This side of the House has not at any time whatsoever denied the fact that there is a labour shortage in the country. We admit that fact, but we should in the first place ask ourselves what the causes of that labour shortage are. The labour shortage in fact arises from the economic prosperity, the rate of development and the growth which our country has been maintaining for more than two decades. During this short time our country has developed from an agricultural community into one of the most highly industrialized communities in the world. Our own small white population not only has to develop our own country, but we also have to utilize of our powers to give the best to those who look to us for the best. If we were to have a depression to-day, the problem of that labour shortage would be solved immediately. If one had to queue for work again, as one had to do when they were in power, that labour shortage would definitely no longer exist. Therefore the National Party has to maintain the country’s economy at a high level, but at the same time it also has to implement the policy of separate development and make it succeed.

What role is the United Party playing in this regard? This United Party in fact wants that policy of ours to fail. Indeed, it wants to use this labour shortage for political gain. It is high time for the United Party to be unmasked completely. When one asks them to state their policy, they are dumb. When are they going to tell us clearly whether they will allow Whites to work under non-Whites? Will they state their policy in respect of job reservation very cleary to us.

Yesterday evening we heard here what is contained in that booklet which was issued just before the election. The United Party should remember, however, that an election is approaching and that we shall unmask them then. Will they then throw those trades open?

The National Party refuses to throw the existing labour peace and quiet overboard. It would be more detrimental to the economy of our country than the labour shortage if such a thing were to happen. The labour peace in the Republic of South Africa is very closely linked to our race relations. It has been maintained for many years. In this respect we probably hold a world record. It is also the best proof that the worker in South Africa trusts the National Party and this Government. It is also proof that the National Government can be trusted with the interests of the white worker. The judicious way in which non-whites are being used for supplementing the labour shortage, fills the white worker in South Africa with confidence. Surely it is clear that the Government of South Africa can use non-white labour only on a very limited scale. It is not enough to eliminate the shortage, but it is also not enough to provide employment for the large number of Bantu in our midst. Therefore the rapid development of our border industries and our homeland areas is essential. I do not want to elaborate further on that aspect, because it has been sufficiently debated in this House.

I just want to refer briefly to labour conditions as the manifest themselves in my constituency. In the first place, I have in mind the building industry. In my constituency phenomenal building projects are in the course of execution. Massive shopping complexes, roads, bridges as well as factories are being built. Large housing schemes are being constructed on an unprecendented scale. These construction undertakings which are building large townships, are draining the labour market in this field. We are very grateful for the fact that the private sector is providing those homes for us. These private building contractors not only render a valuable service to the community, but we must also remember that the building industry has developed into a very flourishing business to-day. The building industry is a very profitable one and therefore so many people are needed in this industry. Building contractors compete with one another for labour and this creates major problems for them. We know that even immigrants who have been here for a short time only, do not do the plastering work for a very long time after their arrival, hut become the contractors and start building houses on their own. In this way we have set off a chain reaction.

Who does the work? Non-Whites, not so?

No, it is done by non-Whites. Where the shortage of non-white labour exists, many of the problems can be solved. Along the right administrative channels these people have the opportunity to negotiate with the authority concerned in order to eliminate those non-white labour shortages.

There is also another aspect for which I want to plead. Reference has been made to this matter and the hon. the Minister has already replied to it, but I just want to Point out that the partial solution of our problems is to be formed in the shortening of the training periods of apprentices. That will allow of people being used where they are needed in the shortest possible time. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Boksburg made a plea for the employment of retarded children. I just want to say to the hon. member that both my Department and I adopt a very sympathetic attitude to these children to such an extent that we go out of our way even to have the children who have received training at those special schools enrolled as apprentices We are in fact having a fair amount of success in this regard. What is more, they are of course employed in industry as operators, as semi-skilled Persons, with a reasonably good income Over and above this, the sheltered labour factories are there to provide them with housing, and an livelihood and an income. I may just mention that our sheltered labour factories are not fully occupied, which indicates that there is definitely room for them.

Then the hon. member for Tygervallei made a plea in connection with the wages of stone-masons. These stone-mason also fall within the scope of the industrial council agreement. They fall under the Industrial Council for the Building industry here in the Western Cape. That industrial council agreement makes provision for their wages together with those of other groups. I assume that these stone-masons also belong to that trade union. There is no reason why they should not belong to it. In such a case, that trade union usually negotiates with i s minority group as well. Their wages are then prescribed in that same agreement. I am afraid I cannot comply with the hon. member's request to refer this matter to the Wage Board, because the legal position is such that where workers are covered by an industrial council agreement, the provisions of any wage determination are automatically suspended. They fall under it, and I hope they will find a solution along that channel. Now I just want to address a final, word to hon. members in concluding this debate I want to refer very briefly to the Opposition’s motion that my salary be reduced. I cannot remember by how many thousands it is.

You do not deserve any salary.

I just want to refer to it in a single word. I regard this motion of the Opposition s to reduce my salary as a very great compliment. I would have been upset today if I had heard songs of praise from the Opposition to-day and yesterday about my standpoint in regard to labour matters If I were to have made the so-called “major policy statement” to which they referred that policy statement which should have dealt with only one matter according to their approach, namely uncontrolled employment of Blacks in White areas, I would certainly have been able to receive all the songs of praise which one can hope to receive from the United Party and the English Press. But, Sir, do you know what I would have done had I received that praise? Apart from violating my own conviction and my own conscience, I would have exchanged the policy of the National Party the white worker and the position of our white areas for a mess of pottage.

The hon. member for Maitland again asked what we were doing about the matter. I have stated this on innumerable occasions. Let me summarize it in a few words. The manpower shortage is something which we do not deny. How many times have I not furnished figures to hon. members in this House in order to indicate its extent? There is not one single member on this side who denies its existence It is typical of any developing country But apparently the United Party wants more unemployment rather than full employment. But let us leave that there. In regard to the question of our manpower shortage, the position is that we as a Government are applying various measures in order to deal with this situation. In the first place, we insure that the training facilities for our future workers are continually being expanded, whether it be in the field of technical education or whatever held. It is not necessary for me to elaborate on that. We are engaged in our selective immigration programme, of which hon. members are aware. We are continually helping to increase the productivity of our workers. Now hon. members ask what can be done to eliminate these shortages. There is a very important method by which they can be eliminated It has been calculated that if every worker performs only 3 per cent more work a day the entire existing shortage will be eliminated. It is my task, your task and the task of every responsible person in this country to make an appeal to our people, and to themselves as well, to do their best for South Africa. If that is done, it will be possible to eliminate that shortage.

There is another very important method by which we control this labour position, and that is to maintain sound labour relations. We cannot have labour productivity in this country, and we can by no means increase it if we do not keep the workers, in this country, and specifically the white workers, happy and satisfied If. this is not done, we can forget about labour productivity. Thanks to this Government's policy of affording the white worker, with, his higher standard of living the necessary statutory protection against his wage level being undermined by people with a lower standard of living, we have brought about a feeling of security among our workers.

That security, which is so often scorned by the Opposition, is one of the most important elements in the maintenance of our economic development and of productivity in this country.

The United Party, however, is not satisfied with that. They have a different solution. We had hoped to penetrate to the core of that solution in this debate, but unfortunately they said nothing in this regard. The whole debate, from the first to the last United Party speaker, clearly showed that the United Party has one strong desire, and that is to have more and more Bantu pushed into work spheres in white areas. That is the one overwhelming impression left by this debate. In this prolonged debate we received no satisfactory reply from the United Party in respect of the way in which they want to use these trained blacks. What we did receive, were smokescreen replies, such as the hon. member for Yeoville gave us. He suddenly wanted to hide behind the trade unions. Let me once again quote to the hon. member who mentioned the example of the dam the words of his Leader. In his speech to the Cape Chamber of Commerce he said—

[Interjections.] Yes, this is true. I read it out repeatedly.

He said “drawn from 20 million”.

Very well. Of the 13 million blacks who must be trained we may assume that at least a million or two will be trained. Where must that million or two who are going to be trained under this crash programme, be placed in employment? The United Party did not supply that answer. No, they are hiding behind the trade unions.

May I ask the Minister a question? Will he explain to us how he calculates that any person can train 13 million black people for work in South Africa? I do not think my Leader said that 13 million would be trained.

The hon. member must listen. I said that there are 13 million, and I assume that one will be able to train about a million of them. Did the hon. member not hear? Sir, if hon. members who are sitting directly opposite one cannot hear that, one can understand how difficult it is to make them understand something which they do not want to believe. Let me tell the United Party that it will not help them to hide behind the trade unions in order to defend this crash programme of theirs. If this matter of the trade unions has suddenly become so serious to them, I want to ask, in the first place, why Sir de Villiers Graaff, in this speech which we have the report of, did not make one single reference to the trade unions having to be consulted in this connection. He did not refer to them when he made his “Chamber speech, in which he announced the crash course”. Shortly after that, when the United Party realized they were in a corner, they thought up this trade union story with their characteristic ambiguous attitude. The hon. member for Yeoville, who is no novice in this connection, then came to light with this matter. Let me ask the United Party why, if they in earnest as regards the trade unions as a pre-requisite, they consulted neither the Tucsa trade unions nor the conservative trade unions of Lucas van der Bergh in advance in order to hear how they would feel about such a crash programme. The reason is that it was never the intention to do this.

Therefore, in conclusion, I want to say to the United Party that it is very clear that they are not prepared to take the white workers and the electorate of South Africa into their confidence about their true aims and the methods by which they want to achieve them. Under these circumstances this debate will be characterized by the fact that, instead of having used this opportunity to restore its political credibility, the United Party, by its continued disregard of the facts and its avoidance of the cardinal issues and of stating its attitude, proved conclusively that it is not to be trusted. Therefore this side will regard it as its task and duty to unmask the United Party in this House and outside. We owe it to the white worker and to South Africa.

Amendment put and the Committee divided:

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and J. O. N. Thompson.

Tellers: G. P. C. Bezuidenhout, P. C. Roux, G. P. van den Berg and H. J. van Wyk.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Revenue Vote No. 23, as printed, and S.W.A. Vote No. 9 put and agreed to.

Revenue Votes Nos. 24—“Interior”, R4,640,000, 25.—“Public Service Commission”, R4,865,000. and 26.—“Government Printing Works”, R7,280,000, and S.W.A. Votes Nos. 10.—“Interior”, R95,000, and 11.—“Public Service Commission”, R75,000:

Mr. Chairman, may I have the privilege of the half-hour? Unfortunately the very able chairman of our Interior Group, the hon. member for Green Point, is indisposed and I was asked to deputize for him this afternoon. Sir, one glance at the Estimates is enough to show that we are dealing here with an important and comprehensive portfolio. This portfolio covers the Publications Control Board, elections, the implementation of the Electoral Act, the Population Register, passport control and various other services. The hon. the Minister, although he is a senior member of the Cabinet, was placed in control of this Department only a matter of months ago, and, as he knows it is customary for Parliament to give a new broom a chance to show that it can sweep clean and tor that reason we propose to offer most of our criticism this time in the form of advice.

There is the question of elections. In April of this year we had a general election for Parliament which was preceded by a long period of campaigning and of registration of voters, and now, only a few months away from the parliamentary election, we are to have a repetition of the whole procedure in order to elect members for the provincial councils. This kind of thing has happened before. I remember one case where the provincial elections were held a mere three months after the parliamentary elections. I must say that to me this looks wasteful and unnecessary. Looking at the Estimates, I notice that allowances to returning officers, presiding officers, polling and counting officers, just one item which is but a fraction of the total expenditure in connection with an election, cost the State an amount of R364,000. I feel that the time is long overdue for us to consider holding the two elections on the same day. It happens to suit our party at the present time to have the forthcoming provincial elections separately, but I want to look at it from the broader point of view.

I think that the hon. the Minister can do his country a good turn by looking into this matter and considering the advisability of having the two elections on the same day. Actually, Sir, I cannot bind my party—and I am not doing so—to any final point of view, and I do not suppose that the hon. the Minister can bind his party to any final point of view on this matter. But I see no reason why Parliament should not go into this matter while there is time now before the next round of elections in our country. I want to call upon the Minister to consider the appointment of a parliamentary Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament to consider this matter, to consult with the provinces and to report to the House. South-West Africa was wise enough on 22nd April, to have their elections for Parliament and their Legislative Assembly on the same day. With a small adjustment to the delimitation system in the Free State and in Natal the same could be done quite easily in the Republic. Personally I believe that the arguments are overwhelmingly in favour of joint elections for Parliament and the provincial council. I do hope that the hon. the Minister will see his way clear to have the matter investigated by a joint committee of Parliament.

Unfortunately this is not the only matter that needs the serious consideration and, in this case, the reconsideration of Parliament. I am referring to the postal vote system. This is as wide open to fraud and abuse as ever if not more. I truly think that it is in the interests of the country, the voters and our parliamentary system that the present state of affairs be corrected. I do not want to report to this Committee what my own experience was in this connection. I do not intend doing so for a simple reason. I think the hon. the Minister and members will agree that it would lead to a fruitless debate if one side were to accuse the other of malpractices. There would be no point in our side accusing that side of the House and vice versa. I want to look at it from an objective point of view. I should like to avoid any direct accusations. I am however quite convinced that every fair-minded Member of Parliament in this House will agree with this point of view which I wish to make.

Our election system is based on two very important principles. The one is secrecy and the other impartiality. But this very foundation of our electoral system is completely destroyed by the postal vote system as we have it to-day. This system allows ballot papers and the whole process of voting to pass into the hands of party organizers and party agents. To us the answer is quite clear. That is that the system of special voting which is entirely under official control should be extended and that the system of postal voting which allows for party political manipulation should be completely abolished. Shortly after the April election the returning officer of Queenstown publicly expressed his disgust with the system of postal voting and openly called for its abolition. I want to impress upon the non. the Minister that this too is a matter which he could profitably refer to a Select Committee and also consider himself.

Then there is one more request in respect of elections. We believe that it is the duty of the Government, of any government, to run elections smoothly and efficiently. We found again that one of the major problems which faced returning officers and which they had to contend with in this last election, was the serious lack of officials who were at all knowledgable about the technicalities of conducting an election. In the case at Randburg where we had recently had a recount the presiding Judge commented specially on the slovenly way in which the election was conducted. I personally witnessed hours of disruption and long delay and inconvenience to voters due to a lack of proper briefing of officials at the election polls. Admittedly the Electoral Act and the regulations are a very complicated piece of work. As I have said, it is the duty of the Government of the day to ensure that elections are conducted efficiently and smoothly. Therefore I wish to suggest something to the hon. the Minister, but before I do so, I would like him to tell me across the floor of the House approximately what number of officials are involved in the conducting of a general election. I am referring to returning, presiding, polling and counting officers. My estimate is that it must be in the vicinity of 5,000. Is that correct?

I shall reply to that.

As I have said, that was a rough estimate. When as many as 4,000 to 5,000 officials are involved in assisting with the technicalities of a general election and also with the by-elections as well as the Coloured Representative Council elections, I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether it has not become necessary for the Government to offer to civil servants, perhaps through the University of South Africa, a special course in electoral practices and the conduct of elections. Then a diploma can be provided and on that basis an incentive bonus or an addition to the salary can be offered to those who pass the diploma and who manage to achieve knowledge in this field. I believe this is a suggestion which is worth considering.

Then there is a final point I want to raise with regard to elections. I want to raise a voice of protest at the growing practice of the Government and also of the provincial authorities who, when it comes to elections, must consult with the Central Government, to leave seats vacant to suit their own convenience rather than the Republic’s interest. According to Press reports a seat, such as Maitland, when we have the provincial election, would have been vacant for more than a year. Other seats have been vacant for ten months, and eight months and I must say this type of thing makes a mockery of the whole concept of public representation on a constituency basis. We feel that if the Government cannot control itself in this respect, there should be some constitutional control over the Government in matters of this kind. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to set a code of conduct for his Government in respect of electoral vacancies or we shall have to seek an opportunity in another debate, because we cannot do so now, to propose correcting legislation.

I wish to come to the question of passports and passport control and the very serious responsibility that rests on the hon. the Minister in this respect. The hon. the Minister must be aware of the fact that one wrong or ill-considered decision in respect of a passport denial, can cost our country more in terms of condemnation and bad propaganda and hostility than money and the Ministry of Information’s propaganda can ever repair. There was the unbelievable case of Mr. Athol Fugard who is now seen as a sort of South African Boris Pasternak. Reports from the United States indicate that whoever was responsible for not letting him get a passport to attend the opening of his very famous play in New York must have had no conception whatsoever of the harm that this was going to cause to our country. This matter has caused wave after wave of anti-South African propaganda in the United States of America. It is quite fair to assume, if we take this as an example, that there are one of three possibilities why he was not given a passport.

The first possibility is that Fugard has done something wrong for which he needs to be punished. But as far as we know he is not under any internal restrictions in South Africa. He has not faced a charge for a misdemeanour in a court of law in our country. I must therefore rule out this possibility. The second possibility is that his appearance abroad, the appearance of one man abroad, would constitute a threat to the peace, security and stability of our country. Surely, this is so laughable to contemplate that, in deference to the Government itself, I must dismiss this immediately as a possibility. The only remaining possibility is that the Government does not approve of his artistic tastes and his ideas and is using their political power to penalize him. In all fairness I would leave it to the Government to explain which of the three considerations apply in the case of Mr. Fugard.

I admit that I do not know of any country where there is not some form of passport control, but we believe it is quite wrong for a Minister, a political figure, to use these wide powers in regard to the question of passports in the manner in which it is done by the present Government. As it is, the decision of the Minister, and I am not talking to him personally, but to any Minister in charge of that portfolio, whatever decision he takes about a man s passport, his decision is based on secret and one-sided evidence. There is no way in which a victim can determine what there is that the Government has against him and whether what they have against him is true or has the meaning the Government places upon it. He is simply not to know and has no right of defence or explanation at all. There is also nobody above the position of the Minister, a party politician, to whom such a man can appeal. To deny a man a passport is a hardship in every case, but can in some cases be an extremely severe punishment for an individual citizen. That punishment is meted out by a politician on one-sided evidence without any kind of trial whatsoever. I think it is the worst possible system you can have in any country. I am not suggesting that the hon. the Minister is an unreasonable man. This is not my point at all.

Recently, however, we have had an interesting case regarding a visa, namely the appalling case of the Japanese jockey. This champion was refused a visa to visit South Africa. After the hon. the Minister’s predecessor refused the visa, he reversed his decision. When he reversed it he pleaded as an excuse and as justification for reversing it, that he had had “insufficient evidence” when he first refused that man a visa. This is precisely the danger. Here is an admission by a Cabinet member that he did have insufficient evidence, and made a wrong decision on that basis. Now here we have the danger of a person being refused a passport under this system. I am sure the hon. the Minister will not claim that he or his Department is infallible. What we are interested in is what safeguard the hon. the Minister, who is responsible, provides to make sure that an injustice is not done. We believe that a man to whom a passport is denied should have the right to defend himself It can be done in camera Provision should also be made for him to be able to appeal to somebody outside the political field, say to a specially appointed Judge, or maybe two Judges. The Government’s case can also be heard in camera. It is also not necessary to hear the case of such a person and that of the Government together. It can be done separately. One thing is certain, however, namely that the existing system is completely unfair and indefensible and that it has caused untold damage to the image of our country.

As far as the Fugard affair is concerned, I want to support Die Beeld, a Government paper. In an article on the 14th June Athol Fugard is described as follows:

That is the position in which Mr. Fugard has been placed. I read further:

I want to say that this expresses the point of view of this side of the House in the best possible terms. I do not think it will be of any help if I appeal to the hon. the Minister and his colleagues in future to try and make some personal contact with artists like this and perhaps even try to get on a more friendly footing. Maybe, if this is done, they will have a better understanding of these people. But one thing is certain: There is nothing that our people would appreciate more in South Africa than a few less victories for verkrampte thinking in Government quarters and a greater degree of normality in the business of governing South Africa. What I sincerely hope the Minister will appreciate, is that we cannot continue with the present state of affairs where, in fact, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Foreign Affairs are constantly pulling in opposite directions. The Department of Foreign Affairs is pleading that we are being misunderstood abroad. It is challenging everybody to come and have a look and see for themselves how things are in South Africa. Then the Department of the Interior comes along, in direct conflict with this attitude of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and they perpetrate one fiasco after another, refusing passports to South African artists to go abroad and telling important men, like American congressmen, members of parliament in America, as happened in the Diggs case, that they cannot get a visa and that they should stay out of South Africa and keep away. So I do not think that the money we spend in order to clear up, through the Department of Foreign Affairs, what is done by the Department of the Interior, is justified. I think it is unfair that the Department of the Interior is not more aware of the effects on our position abroad of the type of decisions they make.

Now, Sir, there is one more point about passports which I should like to raise. I have once before in this Committee, complained about the fact that our South African passport is boldly stamped in front with a list of countries “that thou shalt not enter”. I know that the hon. the Minister, when he travels, does so with an official document. His problem is not the problem of the ordinary South African. When I put a question to him on the Order Paper on the 28th July, he gave me a list of 13 countries which South Africans are not allowed to visit and which are stamped prominently on a front page of the passport. The countries listed, he said, were all communist states. Well, Sir, I looked at my own. On my passport there are 14 countries stamped. I notice that Ghana, stamped on my passport, is not included in the hon. the Minister’s list. But neither are all the communist states. Yugoslavia is not listed in the countries that may not be visited. In other words, there is no consistency on the part of the Government, even in respect of communist countries. The point is, why must there be this negative approach? Why must South Africans always be the odd man out, the queer one in the company of other people? I remember when last I travelled on the passport I now have, my wife and myself found ourselves with other travellers in this position that time and again—we were the only South Africans in the group—when they came to the South African passports, there was a special delay while they were studying the list in front of our passports. Why must this be done? To take another example, foreigners who visit Berlin to-day are allowed to visit East Berlin in a strictly organized fashion. It is a most interesting experience for everybody, South Africans included, to go to East Berlin to see the contrast between East and West. As I have said, it is done on a strictly organized basis. Here again South Africans are at a disadvantage because of the nuisance of having East Germany listed as one of the “thou shalt nots” on their passports. Surely there are better and more positive ways of dealing with the matter and of bringing it to the attention of South African passport holders that there are certain countries for which the passport does not apply and where our Government cannot provide them with protection. All we are asking the hon. the Minister is to make it possible for South Africans to feel that there is not something abnormal about them when they travel abroad. I think we are entitled to that. I do hope the hon. the Minister will be able to give us satisfactory replies to the questions I have put to him.

Finally, I should like to raise the question of the Publications Board. There are members who will discuss this matter more fully, but in the few minutes left to me I must say that the feeling we have is that the board does not have the leadership it should have. Case after case illustrates this fact. Recently there was the case of “Jannie Totsiens”. There was an outcry over the age restrictions which were applied to this film. The Minister stepped in and changed the decision. There are so many cases of this nature that I merely want to pick one or two. There is the case of the film “Helga”. It is an educational film on the question of human sex. Not even married people, husband and wife together, could see the film. I happened, as a matter of chance, to see the film in Heidelberg, Germany. The film was open to male and female students. I must say that it did not even draw a large audience because it was considered so ordinary. It is unbelievable that a husband and wife should not be able to see such a film together. In this case again the Minister stepped in and reversed the decision as the result of an appeal. This sort of thing has been going on to such an extent that one of the Government’s newspapers recently said, in respect of another film “Die sensors wil ons nie laat groot word nie”. That is the general feeling. This sort of thing recurs time and again, also in regard to the banning of books. I have studied the lists of books that have been banned and have found the same state of affairs there too. I am not talking about pornography now. because in that regard the Committee is absolutely at one. However, when it comes to matters of a political nature, the censors go far too far. I do not think that South Africans should be considered as immature as the Publications Board would like to have it. Seeing that this sort of thing has become a pattern, it seems to be necessary for the hon. the Minister to do some reviewing both of the personnel and of the work and the attitude of the board.

Mr. Chairman, that hon. member received a reply to his arguments on passports last year, for he made the same speech in this debate last year he made a moment ago. If the hon. the Minister were to look up Hansard, he would see it there and in that case he would not reply to the arguments advanced by the hon. member either.

However, I want to respond to one argument advanced by the hon. member, and that is his argument as regards postal votes. I admit that this matter is always a very delicate one. However, I take it amiss of a responsible front bencher who makes such an irresponsible statement to the effect that the postal vote system is wide open to fraudulent practices.

That is absolutely true.

That is absolutely untrue. When a person makes a statement of that nature. I say that that person judges others by himself. The Electoral Act has been amended on innumerable occasions.

It has always been the practice to appoint a select committee to go into the matter thoroughly before the Eelectoral Act is amended, while at the same time an attempt has been made to obtain as much unanimity as possible in this House on such amendments. The United Party saw the system of special votes as a solution to the postal vote system. But, as usual, they do not practice what they preach. They are ambiguous and dissembling. During the short session prior to the general election an argument was advanced in this House in regard to special votes and postal votes. Both in this House and in the Select Committee the United Party wanted the system of postal votes to be abolished completely. However, we said that it was not possible. But they, the great champions of the special vote, do not practice what they preach. In my own constituency my experience was totally different. We had more special votes than postal votes there. On the other hand, the United Party handled far more postal votes than special votes. And then they are the people who come to this House with high-priestly sanctimoniousness. From the nature of the case, our problem is somewhat different from that of the United Party. I shall refer again to the system of special votes later on, because it is working well. However, we cannot have the one system without having the other; the one is supplementing the other. As I have said, our problem differs somewhat from that of the United Party. The United Party no longer represents the rural areas. In the rural areas we have to cope with vast distances. The system of special votes does not always work very well there, because we cannot always provide all the facilities there. When advancing a plea for the system of postal votes, we do not advance a plea for something we want to retain so as to indulge in fraudulent practices. But as I have said, the United Party does not practice what it preaches. There is always a difference between what they say and what they do.

We want it abolished.

But we do not want it abolished, because our circumstances are different. We represent the vast rural areas. The United Party does not remember what it is like to represent a large constituency any more, because it has not represented the rural areas for the past 20 years. The deficiencies in the electoral law were remedied by the previous select committee. It is no longer possible to tamper with postal votes on a large scale, as has been alleged by the hon. member. The present position is that a postal vote, which has been tampered with, is not considered when the votes are counted. Now, it may happen that the United Party gets one of the voters in my constituency to fill in an application form for a postal vote. In that case I tell my people: Bring that voter in and have him cast a special vote. [Interjections.] Any party who thinks that I will allow my votes to be tampered with … I want nothing to do with a supporter of the United Party, because I do not want to do the United Party’s work. The United Party must do its own work. In my constituency my organization arranges postal votes for my supporters, and when I find out that the United Party has arranged for a postal vote for a voter, I have that voter brought in and I take him to the magistrate’s court and have him cast a special vote.

Sir, a few deficiencies still remain in the special votes system. This system works quite well at magistrates’ courts, but in cases where this system is handled by the Police, it does not work very well and for one reason and one reason only. The offices of the Police are open only between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. They have not made arrangements for a special vote to be cast after 5 p.m.

The system could be extended.

But we do not what I am doing now, is to lay my problem before the hon. the Minister and not before that hon. member who has so much to say about fraudulent practices. I say again, the Police offices are working well, but the majority of people cast their votes only after 5 p.m. The magistrates’ courts have rendered a service from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and I say it has worked excellently. In my constituency 60 per cent of the votes were special votes and only 50 per cent were postal votes. As regards the out-lying constituencies, we allowed all the voters to cast a special vote. We did so quickly and with all despatch, because we could start a week before the time, and in this coming election one will have even more time because, for the purposes of this coming election, it will be possible for special votes to be cast as early as 23rd September, while, I think, it will only be possible for postal votes to be cast on 7th October. One will then have this long period in which to do the work of the out-lying constituencies. But I want to ask the hon. the Minister to make more facilities available. I am aware of the problems the Police have. They have their work to do. What I am asking, is that if it is done by the Police stations, they should preferably be allowed to do the work from 5 o’clock to 9 o’clock. This will be more convenient. The majority of the people are not available during the day. During that time when they have been doing this work, that is from 9 o’clock to 5 o’clock, we had all their services at our disposal, but this was not a convenient time.

I now want to make another suggestion. The hon. member has also put forward suggestions. These relate to the registration of voters. To my mind the registration is one of the major problems of the Department. Not one of the voters’ lists I have seen in my time was any good. All of them were unsatisfactory. I have had a lot to do with elections and byelections, but all of them were unsatisfactory. Not one of the voters’ lists were up to date, and to my mind there is only one solution. A general registration is not the solution, because after a general registration the voters’ lists are most unsatisfactory of all. This is not done by the Department and by full-time officials, but by part-time and retired workers who do not visit all the voters. A general registration is therefore not the solution, but I see only one solution. A voter is compelled by law to register and he may be prosecuted and fined if his name is not included in the voters’ list. In this respect we, the Government and the Opposition can reach an agreement, as we have done as regards the Electoral Act. Let us agree that these people should be prosecuted. Sir, one need only prosecute a few of them, only three or four, and one will find that the same applies to people who have to register for military training at the age of 16 years. One has to register one’s motor-car, one has to register one’s fire-arm and one has to register one’s radio and one does not get many prosecutions because people can be prosecuted if they do not register these things. How many prosecutions of national servicemen are there as regards the Defence Force; how many people are prosecuted because they do not have radio licences or fire-arms licences; how many people are prosecuted because they do not register births? Very few, Sir. I think it is time—and to my mind this is the solution —people who do not register as voters are prosecuted, and then our problem as far as the voters’ list are concerned will be solved.

I want to follow up what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout has said about the question of passports and speak more particularly of the case of Athol Fugard. I have been fairly closely associated with this matter since 1968 when Mr. Fugard personally approached me to try to get his passport returned. It had been originally confiscated in, I think, 1967, the day after the BBC televised his play “The Blood Knot”. A year later Mr. Fugard wished to go to America in order to discuss with an American playwright the adaptation of his play for the stage and at that time he approached me to see whether I could do anything about getting his passport back. I approached the then Minister without any success whatsoever.

He went to the wrong M.P.

Yes, probably he did. I should have sent him to the hon. member for Prinshof who, of course, is well known for his willingness to take up such cases. In future I will refer people to him; he might have more influence with the Government than I have. Recently, after I returned from overseas, I read that Mr. Fugard was trying once again to get his passport returned so that he could be in New York for the premiere of his play “Boesman and Lena” and that this had been refused again. The new Minister was unfortunately away but I approached the Department but nothing was forthcoming. Sir, I cannot emphasize too strongly the harm that this is doing South Africa, this absurd business of denying a well-known playwright the opportunity of going overseas to see that his own material is produced there. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout mentioned three possibilities as to why the Government has refused Mr. Fugard his passport. I mention a fourth possibility and that is that the Government does not approve of Mr. Fugard’s political views.

Nonsense.

If that hon. member knows, I hope that he will give this House the benefit of his knowledge. [Interjection.] Mr. Fugard says himself that he does not agree with the Government. He has stated himself that he can only assume that the reason is that his political views, which are opposed to those of the Government, have earned him the displeasure of the Government, and it may be that he associates with certain people of whom the Government does not approve either—a sort of association by guilt, with which we are getting very familiar in South Africa. Whatever it is, Mr. Fugard himself, of course, has not been told why he has not been allowed to get his passport back, and if the hon. member for Prinshof does know the reason I will be very glad to hear it and so will Mr. Fugard. Considerable publicity has been given to this matter in America and it has not yet ended because I know that a well-known publication is going to publish a further story about Mr. Fugard and his difficulties. Sir, I want to know why it is that in cases like this the Government remains so completely intransigent. It is not prepared to give the person concerned any hint whatsoever as to the reason for the punishment that is being handed out to him. I say it is pure vindictiveness, and, of course, this is not the only case that we know of. Students are victimized because of their association with protest movements of which the Government disapproves. Students always know that if they in any way appear in the fore-front of student movements which are against Government policy, they are likely to be victimized by having their passports withdrawn. I do not think that this sort of behaviour behoves a country which prides itself, for reasons beyond my understanding, on being democratic.

Having said that about Mr. Fugard, I would like to ask the Minister if it is the Government’s intention to change its policy about the granting of exit permits. Up till now it has been customary, although I know that apparently the law gives the hon. the Minister the right to refuse, to grant exit permits where these have been applied for. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister if it is the Government’s intention to continue with this policy or whether it intends changing its policy in this regard?

I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he will not consider using his influence with the Censorship Board, with regard to the censorship which is applied to films to be shown Africans. Now, we know that it is customary in South Africa in notices and elsewhere to classify Africans with goods. We have had an incident of this quite recently. But now also as far as censorship is concerned, Africans are classified with children under 12 belonging to other racial groups. There is a long list of films which African adults are forbidden to see, like children under the age of 12 of the other racial groups. Adult Whites, adult Coloured people and adult Indians are allowed to see these films. But adult Africans are prohibited from seeing a long list of films, just like the children of the other racial groups I think this is a gratuitous insult to the African people. And what is more, they think so too.

You mean the Bantu peoples?

No, I do not. I mean the African people. I mean the 13 million African people. I am not interested in changing definitions like the hon. member for Waterkloof. He thinks when he changes a definition he solves the problem. He does not. There are still 13 million black people, African people to deal with in this country. Whether he like to break them up into eight ethnic groups is quite beside the point which I happen to be raising at the moment.

The Urban Bantu Council of Soweto has protested strongly against this gratuitous insult. They point out quite rightly that Africans are no more prone to bad behaviour than members of other races. They pointed out at there are Africans who are educated and cultured people and intimated that Africans who have grown up should be considered as adult people. I do think that for us in 1970 to have film notices which prohibits Africans from seeing these films whereas every other racial group over the age of 12 is allowed to see them, is utterly disgraceful.

There is a third matter which I wish to raise although I doubt whether I am going to have time to cover it. This concerns the question of disparity and discrimination in salaries This, of course, I raise under the Public Service Commission Vote. In particular I want to raise with the hon. the Minister the question of the increase in salaries which recently have been granted to white civil servants I want to compare this with the increase in the salaries of non-white civil servants. In August, 1969, the hon. the Minister announced that salary increases which had been announced the year before, would take effect immediately m respect of white employees. Then there was a hiatus of about 15 months before the non-white civil servants got any increase in their salary. During this time there was natur ally considerable ill feeling because of the discrimination. When the salaries ultimately were announced, it did not come as much of a surprise to people to learn that they were getting a very small increase compared to the increase that had been granted to the Whites. Roughly there are about 200,000 white persons in the employment of the Public Service. Their salaries were increased from a total of roughly R550 million to roughly R620 million. That amounts to an increase of approximately R60 million to R70 million. I am not sure of the exact number of non-white people in the Civil Service. But the approximate 275,000 to 300,000 non-white people in the Civil Service receive a total annual pay of R160 million. They have recently been granted an increase which roughly amounts to something like R34 per year per head. This was the increase in salary of non-Whites as against the increase to the Whites which now, with the additional amount granted, amounts to approximately R320 per head per year. That goes for the Public Service generally. There are of course special cases which should be raised separately. Those are the cases of the non-white nurses and non-white teachers. The new salary scales for white nurses range from between 20 per cent to 60 per cent and were announced on the 7th October, 1969, to take effect from the 1st October, 1969. In other words, they were backdated. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, hon. members know the well-known enigma that the flower to which the bee comes to get the nectar from which to make the sweetest honey, is the same which gives the spider the nectar from the deadliest poison is made. I wonder to what extent this applies to the hon. member who has just resumed her seat. I wonder how it is possible for her to make the kind of speeches she usually makes about South Africa and be a member of the supreme council of that very country at the same time. And then she says in the same speech that there is no democracy in South Africa. I have often wondered whether this is not taking democracy too far. To think that the kind of allegations the hon. member has made, can be made against one’s fatherland! However, I want to leave the hon. member at that.

I want to come back to a point which was raised in the Budget debate recently and I think this point deserves our attention because the hon. member for Green Point has presented such a distorted misconception to the outside world on this matter, namely the Public Service. That hon. member made a very serious accusation and other hon. members associated themselves with it. They said that the state of affairs in the Public Service had reached the point of a crisis or chaos, and all kinds of other expressions were used to present the Public Service in a bad light, and particularly the actions of the Government as far as the problems of the Public Service were concerned. During the course of his speech the hon. member for Green Point, as is his wont every time serious matters are being discussed, followed the well-known pattern of the United Party and the Opposition, and that is to mention the easy and instant solution the Opposition offers for all problems. They have an easy formula of doing it. They say that when you want to solve the problems of South Africa, you have to give greater economic benefits to everyone and take less money from everyone and in that way you will bring about a solution. If it were possible to do so and if anybody were so foolish to think that it could be done, it would be a fine solution for the problems. It would also be a fine solution for the problems of the public servants.

I think that if there ever was a sector of the community which deserves our gratitude, it is the public servants because they have rendered excellent services under difficult circumstances and they are still doing so.

The solution the United Party offers for the staff shortage there is in the Public Service, is a simple one. The United Party says we should increase the pay of all the public servants and compete with the private sector and everything will then be in order. Unfortunately, they do not tell us at the same time that if they want to find that extra money, they will have to take proporionately even more money from the public servants. These promises are not made only as far as the public servants are concerned; when the Vote Social Welfare and Pensions was under discussion, hon. members on the Opposition side agitated that more money be given to the elderly people. When young people are discussed it is said that more money should be given to young married couples. I agree that this is a deserving case. So the whole list goes on and election promises are made to everybody. They are told directly or indirectly that the United Party is of the opinion that they should get more because they deserve more.

Everytime another aspect of the debate is discussed, the United Party gets up and says that the elderly people are paying too much tax, that the young people are paying too much tax and that we should remove the “bulge” in the middle income group; in other words, we should simply ask everybody for less money. This is a fine solution, but it is so naïve that it borders on their doing so deliberately or their simply being stupid. If the Opposition thinks that the voters of the country will swallow that, it is making a big mistake.

Serious criticism has been expressed against the Public Service. Let me say immediately that I am aware of the fact that the Public Service is facing problems, In the Public Service, and not only among the top officials but also among the middle group, we have the most competent people there are in the service of the public in South Africa. Those people who are employed by the State and Provincial Administrations and by the Central Government. and by semi-Government establishments, such as local authorities, cannot be trained in a day to do the work they are expected to do.

It has already taken 22 years.

An hon. member opposite says it has taken 22 years. I just want to tell the hon. member that when we had to take over 22 years ago, people who had just come back from the war were taken on in the Public Service. They rendered an essential service which they thought was in the interests of South Africa and for which we respect them. However, they subsequently had to be appointed to posts where they had to do responsible work. All those problems had to be solved at that time. However, this is not all either. What did the public servants together with this Government, inherit from this Opposition? What was the work that had to be done? The hon. member for Green Point and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout complained that there were too many people in the Public Service and that the Public Service had been overexpanded. However, they did not mention to what extent the work of the Public Service had expanded as a result of the maladministration and lack of planning which there was when they, who are now sitting in the Opposition benches, were in power. What had been done in those years for water conservation, or for the other sectors of our economy? Naturally there was a war that had to be fought, and I appreciate this. However, an Opposition should also be responsible enough to realize that this Government and its public servants had to cope with the after-effects of those war years. Surely, public servants do not deserve to be accused by anybody of being insufficient, as hon. members of the Opposition did.

The accusations are, by implication, regularly made to the effect that the Public Service Commission is unable to do its work and that the Advisory Council which exists in terms of section 25 of the Act, is also unable to do its work. It is regularly being implied that the Public Service Association is unable to manage its affairs. Let me now tell the hon. the Opposition, with part reference to the speech made by the hon. member for Green Point, that the Government is giving this matter of the Public Service its constant and serious attention. This is borne out by facts nobody can deny. What is constantly being strived at, is an effective Public Service. What has also been strived at through the years, is a contented Public Service. Salary increases were granted in 1953, 1958, 1963, 1966, 1969 and will be granted again at the beginning of 1971. All these are attempts that have been made to compensate people at least in part for what they deserve. However, it will be a tragic day for South Africa when an Opposition starts to attract votes by making wild promises which cannot be fulfilled. Without suggesting that this is the attitude of the Government. I want to say that it is my specific opinion that if there is one danger in South Africa apart from the other dangers threatening us from the outside world, it is the danger that we will become rotten inside and that all we will be aspiring to, is higher salaries to provide our needs from month to month without having the responsibility to say that a service should be rendered for those salaries. This is what the hon. the Opposition wants to promise people.

The Government has acted on the premise that the labourer is worthy of his hire. The Public Service Commission and the Advisory Council have assisted the Government in this respect to see to it that the public servants are being given their remuneration regularly and in such a way that it can at least be compared with that of the private sector. Apart from expressing my gratitude towards the public servants and towards those who are managing the affairs of the Public Service for the way in which this has been done and particularly towards our heads of departments and others in responsible positions, I want to ask them that the inheritence they leave behind to the Public Service should be to teach the young public servant that to give is better than to receive, and that in a country such as South Africa it is not money that counts from day to day, but also the long-term benefits, the ideals we aspiring to and the service we are able to render to our people and to our fatherland. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, we on this side of the House certainly endorse any praise that is given to that fine body of dedicated and overworked men in our Public Service. I am sure that many of them will be surprised to have heard this afternoon that we, the Official Opposition, are being criticized because we have asked for better pay and working conditions for the Public Service. We have been called “irresponsible” by the hon. member for Witbank. We make no apology for asking for those better conditions, and we shall continue to do so, despite the veiled attack made by the hon. member for Witbank in this respect. The hon. member said that all we were asking for. was for greater expenditure and nay equal to the private sector for the public servants, and that it was an irresponsible request, since money was not overflowing in this country But if less money were to be spent by this Minister, for instance on the Publication Board, if he did not act in the way he did in the case of Athol Fugard, where hundreds of thousands of rand of the Department of Information had to be spent to rectify that mistake of his, if he were not going to spend millions on this new population register, if there were not these unnecessary ideological laws over the years, there would certainly have been more funds for bettering the position of the Public Service in South Africa. However, Sir, that is not what I want to discuss at this moment. We shall return to the Public Service later.

I want to take this opportunity of appealing for a relaxation of the rigid censorship in our country to-day, censorship of publications, films and plays, as exercised as by the Publications Board. The present Act contains no less than 97 different prohibitions. The list of banned publications is approaching the number of 13,000 in this country. The rate at which books and publications are banned, is increasing. In 1967, approximately 34 publications per month were banned. To-day, 54 publications per month are being banned, more than 340 during the first six months of this year. Over the years books by famous authors have been banned, for example James Baldwin, William Faulkner, John Updike, Leroy James, John Steinbeck, people whose works have literary merit, people whose works should never have been considered for banning. Academy award films have been banned. Plays such as “Virginia Woolf” have been cut by the censors. I believe that with the broadening of man’s knowledge there should also be a broadening of his mind. Those days when Copernicus and Galileo and people of that calibre were ostracized and their work banned, when people were burned at the stake, were days when people had narrow minds and narrow views. Civilization has progressed. The outlook of the mind of mankind has broadened. Why cannot we also be more broadminded in our censorship? Let me make it clear that I am not pleading for licence; I am pleading for liberty. Certain forms of censorship can be justified, for example against hardcore pornography, against the prejudgment of trials in newspapers, for the protection of minors in court cases and for the security of the State. But I do appeal that in our approach to censorship we should be more modern and tolerant and show a more educated attitude. The world is going ahead. Why should we be left behind again? I believe that the time has come to throw off more of the shackles of superstition, guilt and fear of past ages of religious and political persecutions. The modern view of man is that man is good, that he can be trusted. Why does this Government not trust the citizen of South Africa? Why does it impose this rigid form of censorship, even more rigid than it has been in the past?

We have heard that this Government is now adopting an outward-looking policy. I am delighted to hear it. May I ask that this outward looking policy should also be followed in the field of censorship? All evidence throughout the world has shown that relaxation of censorship measures has not led to greater immorality; it has not led to greater crime. I appeal to the Government at this stage, where they are pursuing a so-called outward-looking policy, to apply this policy in the field of censorship as well. Do not let them kowtow to the Mother Grundies. the Pecksniffs, snoopers and intolerant people in their own ranks.

I wish I could persuade the Government of the fact that the rigid way in which censorship is applied to-day, is harming our country. It is harming our image abroad in the West. Over-rigid censorship has always been recognized as something associated with persecution and dictatorship in the past. It is something associated with the Nazis and the Iron Curtain. I am not saying that ours can be equated with those systems, but why create an image, through our type of censorship which gives fuel to those lighting the fires to destroy South Africa?

Censorship is harming the literature and the arts in our country. It is not I who say so. It is our great Afrikaans and English writers in this country, who have stated this over and over again. Think of the wonderful literary explosion there would be in this country if only some of the rigid rules could be relaxed. I believe that this censorship harms the morale of the ordinary citizen of South Africa. It causes an insidious undermining of the morale of the people. People are becoming timid and afraid to write or to perform what they wish. One of the most evil effects of a too rigid censorship is this fear that writers and playwrights have of actually expressing themselves as they feel they should in their work. They usually say: “What is the use? Let us cut out this paragraph. Let us cut out this scene. We shall then not get into trouble.” It is demoralizing to the film importer as well. He has to impose self-censorship because he is not going to spend thousands of rand bringing a film into South Africa, knowing that it might be declared obscene or illegal by the Publications Control Board. Furthermore, it inhibits the importers of books. Already it has been estimated that booksellers have lost up to a million rand through publications being turned down by the board. They are being inhibited. They are actually afraid to bring in books, many of which would probably have been accepted by the board.

Let us look at the list of films that have been cut or banned this year alone. I have them here. Among the films that have been banned are “The Gay Deceivers” and “The Lady of Monza”, which many of us saw. I do not think that any of us really objected to them. The following films have been banned: “Lady Hamilton”, “Blow hot, blow cold”, and “Hell’s Angels”. Films that have been cut include the following: “The Damned”, “The Bridge at Remagen”. “Sand of the Desert” and “Desert Battle”. There is even a film called “The first Church of Christ”. Other films that were cut include: “British Movietone News No. 2127”, “Zabriskie Point”, “Eagles over London”, and even “Midnight Cowboy”. I saw that film the other day. Why on earth there should have been anything objectionable in it. I do not know. “Airport”, “Jannie Totsiens” and D. H. Lawrence’s “Women in Love” were other films which were cut.

I believe that censoring also harms the person who does the censoring, because he has to apply rules which to his common sense and judgment very often appear to be unfair. This censorship is harming our economy. Officials of Customs and Excise, who are paid thousands of rand a year, have to waste their time in presenting many of these publications to the Publications Board, only to find out that two-thirds of the publications that they submit to the board are actually passed by the board afterwards. This is a waste of time. The Post Office has to do the same thing. Officials of the Department of the Interior have to do so too. I believe that the cost of all this runs into several hundreds of thousands of rands. The Publications Board alone is going to cost this country R84,000 this year. So much of that expenditure can be avoided. Why can we not simplify the rules? Can we not get the Publications Board to adopt a much more broadminded view and to adopt the point of view which is known in law as that of “the reasonable man”? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I am not getting up to reply to this discussion. I shall do that a little later. I am only getting up to make an announcement, i.e. that Dr. Van der Merwe, the Deputy Minister of the Interior, will deal with, inter alia, the matter of publications and the Government Printing Works.

Mr. Chairman, it is a long time since I have last heard such a destructive speech as the one which the hon. member for Orange Grove has just made. What, in fact, did he say? He said absolutely nothing. He only said that 13,000 books had already been banned. What does that matter? Surely the hon. member should tell us where the board has erred. Surely the hon. member should state an intelligent norm. After all, we do not know whether it was a lot or tripe that was banned. I must say I believe it was tripe. Now the hon. member occupies himself with small calculations and there makes general statements and comes to conclusions which are absolutely meaningless. He tells us we should be “broadminded”, but he does not tell us what his “broadmindedness” means. Surely the hon. member should make a positive contribution and tell us how “broadminded” we should be and what the board should lay down as norm.

You as a lawyer should know what “a reasonable man” is.

Really, does the hon. member not know that “broadmindedness” depends on whether one is in Hillbrow or whether one is in another urban area? After all, there is a world of difference between norms. It depends whether one is at a celebration party. Then one may perhaps be “broadminded” if one does certain things. If one is at another more decent place, one will, on the other hand, not do something one would have done at a celebration party. That hon. member should not come forward with utter nonsense. He tells us that we should abolish censorship completely. Does the hon. member not know that Denmark has done so; I want to ask the hon. member whether he wants us to do what Denmark has done with its pornography? Does the hon. member, on behalf of his party, want us to go far as that?

I did not ask for that.

But how far does the hon. member want to go? He did not tell us. Now I am asking him whether they want to go as far as Denmark did?

No.

Now how far does that hon. member want to go with the abolition of censorship? The hon. member cannot answer me. He has no norm at. all. He comes to this House with a negative speech.

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

No, I am busy.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member told us of two films he had seen. I happened to have seen those two pictures. Does he want the film “Gay Deceivers” to be shown in South Africa? This picture deals with homosexuals and their parties. Does the hon. member want such a banality to be shown in South Africa? I am not speaking of homosexualism as a disease, or whatever it may be, but of the banality of such a film. Is that hon. member being serious when he says in this House that these films should have been shown in South Africa? The second film to which the hon. member referred, deals with the atrocities the Catholic Church allegedly perpetrated against its members in the Middle Ages. This is a delicate religious situation. We in South Africa have respect for every person’s religion. I think the Publications Board was quite right in not allowing such events to be shown in a church, because it would have hurt the Catholic people in South Africa. Does the hon. member really want that film with all its atrocities to be shown in South Africa? Another producer may come along and show a great many atrocities perpetrated by other churches, and then we may be faced with clerical difficulties as a result of people’s feelings having been hurt. The hon. member should not make that kind of speech and make all kinds of insinuations. I do not know whether the hon. member knows precisely how to judge a film. I must say that after the few years during which I have heard the hon. member speak about films, I am beginning to realize that I can attach very little value to his opinion. The idea of a modern film is that a member of the audience must share the experience of a slice of life with other members of the audience. These characters must appear authentic and the experiences of those characters must be understood by the audience. In fact, the most successful films we have ever had in South Africa, were those ones where the majority of the audience could identify themselves with some character. [Interjection.] Therefore I want to say that the film maker must incorporate into his film all those various aspects which he wants to achieve. He must put colour, scenes, people and situations into the film. The length of the scenes, the background and the characters must all be calculated at rounding off a certain scene depicted; that is what the film critic looks for. Now I want to make the following request to the hon. the Minister. I want to make the statement that if one has to make too many cuts in a film, and I want to ask the board that if too many cuts are necessary in a film—I want to state categorically to-day that I am of the opinion that the board does act judiciously in making cuts—when more than four or five cuts are necessary, the board should rather reject the entire film, because otherwise the film becomes disjointed and loses its emotional tension, and then we hear this kind of talk about the board, which we had from the hon. member for Orange Grove to-day. We should prefer such a film to be rejected instead.

Allow me also to refer to the age restrictions which we impose on films. We find the age restrictions are four to twelve, four to sixteen, or four to eighteen and over eighteen. I should like to see the Film Board or the Ministry impress on film makers and importers of films, that what we need in South Africa, is sound films for children for matinees, nice films dealing with animal life, nice films dealing with family life, nice films dealing with heroic deeds. We must tell film importers that South Africa is not interested in all the rubbish they can bring into the country; they should not only bring films into the country to make money, but they should bring in films which are of an uplifting nature. Then I should like to see the importers of films concentrate more on nice family films, ones in which family life is idealized, films in which the mother of the family creates a fine image so that people will come to have more respect for family life. There are many such films and all that has to be done, is that these people have to have it impressed on them that this is the inclination of the South African people. Then I want to tell the board that I admit there are authorities on art. I admit there are art films which are such that they do have a message, but which children ought not to see. I want to plead that the usual age restrictions should virtually be abolished, but that films of that kind which are not suitable for children should be screened in some theatre in a city. Then the parents will know that their children should not go to such a theatre as it is showing a film which has been passed for adults by the authorities on art of the Publications Board.

I just want to reply briefly to what the hon. member for Houghton asked me about Mr. Athol Fugard a while ago. I have nothing against Athol Fugard. I have absolutely nothing against the man. There are many people in South Africa who disagree with our politics, and there are even some of them sitting in this Parliament. The most confirmed liberalist in South Africa is sitting in Parliament and we are not angry with you because of that. My experience is that our Department of the Interior deals most judiciously with applications for passports. I do not know what the reasons are, but I have the fullest confidence that there are particularly good reasons why Mr. Fugard did not get his visa. [Interjections.] Yes, I know the hon. member is sceptical, but she is, after all, sceptical about everything. If the hon. member herself obtained a passport, then she must know that any person who is like her will also get a passport; after all, that is the norm. No this Fugard-case has undoubtedly been seized by the Opposition and by the enemies of South Africa to cause even more trouble, and the less is said about this case, the better. However, let me just tell the hon. member for Houghton this: She is sitting here trying to extract certain information. and she is not going to succeed. According to law it is not at all necessary to give reasons for refusing something. Every country in the world refuses to give reasons as to why a passport has not been granted. It is only the hon. member for Houghton who wants to have the reasons, and I want to tell her that if she should ever come into power, she would pursue the same policy as this side of the House is pursuing at present.

Having listened to the hon. member for Prinshof, all I can say is that when it comes to deciding what films should be shown, it is largely a matter of opinion as to what is right and what is wrong Generally in dealing with this matter of censorship, a. good deal more heat than light is engendered in the discussion.

Sir I want to deal with another matter. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he agrees that the time has come for a more reasonable attitude on the past of the Government with regard to the treatment of ecclesiastics in this country. The other day I put a question to the Minister’s colleague, the Minister of Immigration. I asked him—

The reply to the first question was a continuous period of four years and the reply to the question as to what other classes of persons are required to serve the same period the Minister said none. The Minister knows that some time ago I raised with him the case of the Rev. Cadigan and I do not propose to discuss that across the floor of the House. This matter which was dealth with by the Minister’s colleague concerned a minister who came out to this country and who had to return at the end of his period. Here we find a state of affairs where ecclesiastics as a whole are discriminated against. They are the only class of persons who have to serve a period of four years before they can get permanent residence here. I think the Minister will agree with me that we should be given the reasons for discriminating against this class of person.

All over the Western world it is known that South Africa discriminates against clergymen. When one thinks of the history of this country, Sir, one wonders what would have happened if the Murrays and the McGregors and the McDonalds who came out here in the early days of the Dutch Reformed Church, the Methodist Church ministers, Lutheran missionaries in Zululand and the German missionaries in the Natal Midlands had been subject to this restriction; one wonders what would have happened to religion in South Africa? I suggest that it is guite unreasonable to discriminate against these people, who have to make great sacrifices. Ministers of religion are not paid very highly; they are people who follow a calling. I had a case a year or two ago where a minister came from Northern Rhodesia. He was on the borders of Northern Rhodesia and the Congo where conditions were very difficult indeed. His church disappeared. He then came to another church in South Africa. When he arrived here he found that he was subject to this restriction. He brought back with him his furniture, his clothing and his motorcar, but because he could get no permanent residence here he had to pay full duty on these items. I raised this matter with the Minister’s predecessor who said that he could do nothing about it. I raised the matter with the Minister of Finance who could do nothing about it. Every other immigrant who comes to this country to take up permanent residence is given a rebate of duty. They do not have to pay the full duty on their car, their furniture and their personal effects. This is not only a discrimination against ministers of religion but they are also discriminated against in that they have to pay an additional amount of duty. That additional amount of duty in many cases does no come out of the pocket of the minister. He has not the income to pay it. It comes out of the congregation. The congregation has to raise money specially to pay the duty on the minister’s personal effects. This is a sad state indeed in the year 1970 that this Government is making special restrictions against ministers of religion. I know that members on the other side may say that there have been cases of ministers of religion who have come here and who have adopted an attitude which is contrary to the laws of the country. The Government has its remedy. Persons who flout the laws of a country can be sent back to their country of origin. But in effect the hon. the Minister is saying to the outside world that all ministers of religion are suspect until they have served a period of four years. I therefore suggest that the time has arrived when the Cabinet should reconsider this matter. On the other hand, if the Minister does not intend recommending the matter for reconsideration, the hon. the Minister should give us the reason why it is his policy to discriminate against clergy in the interests of the policy of the Government of South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to associate myself with the general remarks made about the operation of our electoral machine by the hon. member for Malmesbury and I think by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout as well. I recently had the privilege of assisting in the British general election in making a study of the general operation of the party machine and the general electoral set-up in that country. In many respects it was an experience for me to see how the potential of almost 40 million voters went to the polls with the greatest of ease on voting day. I could observe how a percentage poll of about 93 per cent was recorded in a constituency with approximately 50,000 voters. In this process I gained the impression that in this regard South Africa can learn a tremendous amount from a country like Britan, where the party system has been functioning for more than 100 years. The few remarks which I want to make, I should like to make as a result of what I was able to observe there, and I should like to submit them to the hon. the Minister for his consideration. I am aware that at the moment we are planning in South Africa in respect of our population register. I am aware that it is possible that the introduction of our population register will eventually affect our entire electoral machine. I understand, however, that it may take quite some time before the population register is in full operation. Against this background, I want to take this opportunity to present a few ideas to the hon. the Minister which we may perhaps consider implementing before the population register is put into operation, or in preparation for what we will gain from this population register in general. I first want to content myself with making the general statement that the State of the authorities in Britain accept a much greater responsibility or a greater obligation towards the country’s electorate, especially immediately before and during an election in relation to the situation in South Africa. I wonder whether the time has not arrived in South Africa as well that with our growing population we have reached a situation where we should start thinking basically about this stand point. I want to refer especially to four aspects: the registration of voters in general and the part played by the State in that; the compilation of the voters’ roll; the part played by the State in activiating the voters on and before election day; and lastly, the supplying of information over the radio.

In regard to the registration of voters, we find that the State undertakes an annual general registration in Britain. There is no interim registration of voters. Hon. members know that there is a general registration in South Africa every five years. I think on the last occasion we had to postpone it to about six years, and eventually it became more than six years. In practice it actually boils down to the fact that during these five years the various political parties do their share as far as registrations are concerned. They see to it that in the supplementary registrations in between the five-year registrations for which the State has accepted responsibility, the general registration of voters is done with the aid of the various political parties. In Britain the State accepts far greater responsibility for compiling the voters’ roll. Every year the State generally provides very thorough organization, and it makes use of the radio and various State institutions in order to draw up the new voters’ roll in a very effective way with the help of the various political parties. In other words, the State does not accept responsibility for compiling a thorough voters’ roll every five years only, as is the case in this country at present. In practice, it means that a voters’ roll is always final between two periods. In other words, that voters’ roll is final between January, 1969, and January, 1970. In this period, no additions to or deletions from this roll can be made. This system means that the voters’ roll is always final and any addition or general registration which is done after a period of one year, is done on the preceding two months. In the meanwhile, that list always remains final between two dates over a period of a year.

Secondly, the composition of the voters’ roll is totally different to that in South Africa. In South Africa we have the situation that the voters’ roll is compiled in alphabetical order. In their case, the voters’ roll is compiled on the basis of the addresses. In other words, at the top of voters’ roll it is stated that the address reference is Long Street, for example. Then the list starts at Long Street No. 1 and stops, for example, at Long Street No. 20. The addresses therefore form the basis of the particular voters’ roll. I have a voters’ roll available here and if there are hon. members who would like to see it, they may do so later on. In other words, there is a complete difference in the composition of the voters’ rolls when this voters’ roll is compared with that of South Africa. To my mind this particular system of compilation has countless advantages. I was impressed by the tremendous practical advantages it holds for the various political parties. In the first place, there is more than one polling booth in a polling district. In South Africa we have the position that we have polling districts with 5,000 voters who all have to vote at the same place on one day.

10,000.

Yes, there are even 10,000 and more. Because the basis of this voters’ roll is the addresses and not an alphabetical list of names, it means that 50 or 60 polling booths are provided in a single polling district. At a complex of flats, for instance, one polling booth can be provided. The people living in Long Street, for example, can vote at one polling booth in the same polling district. With the growing urbanization of our population, I think this really is a system which South Africa can very conveniently adopt.

Secondly, there is the organization of the various parties. When we start fighting an election in South Africa, one of the first things which the parties do is to write out so-called canvassing cards. Here it is very easy, because the voters’ roll lends itself to it. The voters’ roll lends itself to that because it can simply be torn up because it is printed on one side only. There the people living in Long Street are all together, those of Bree Street are all together, and so are those in blocks of flats, for example. Seen from the point of view of political parties, this is a very great advantage, which we can consider.

In connection with the handling of postal votes, too, I want to say that because the voters’ roll is always final between two dates, the whole system of postal votes is facilitated tremendously. For example, as soon as a person moves after 1st February, postal votes can be attended to on any date, whether there is an election or not. I have here a number of applications for postal votes which are used in Britain and hon. members can see them if they wish. It is not the clumsy form which we use in South Africa. After the list has come into operation on 1st February of any particular year, it remains final until 1st February of the following year. The moment a voter on this list moves from one address to another within a certain distance, his vote is an ordinary postal vote, whether there is an election or not. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I do not have the slightest doubt that the Press will be delighted to hear that I am going to speak this afternoon. As short a time ago as last Saturday, a little note appeared in the Argus to say that I have not yet spoken in this House this Session. Incidentally, I knew a fortnight ago that this was going to appear.

It then goes on to say the following: …

Order! What has it to do with the Vote under discussion?

Yes, but apart from this I am going to deal with general elections.

It falls under the Vote “freedom of speech”.

The Press may not believe it but there is something like freedom of speech in this country.

There is no freedom of speech under this Vote and this matter falls outside the rules.

Mr. Chairman, I can assure you that I will keep within the rules. The article reads as follows:

They are of course referring to the election result. I am mentioning this matter because I will in a moment or two prove, or attempt to prove, that a new way of fighting an election has emerged in South Africa. We in this House, in our wisdom or otherwise, have tried over the years to create machinery for the orderly conduct of elections. We have made bribery and corruption illegal. We have prohibited the playing of bands and martial music and the flying of the national flag on election day. We have also prohibited the use of loudspeakers on election day. It is quite easy to see why all this had to be done. We have limited the expenditure of candidates in the past, but we have now done away with that limitation. I do not think it was a wise decision. After having gone through the mill with the Progressive Party which has unlimited funds, one might well have second thoughts about the advisability of having lifted that restriction. We introduced special and postal votes for people who cannot be present to vote on election day. We have also done away with the two months’ residential requirement for registration and have substituted intended domicile only. We have also made compulsory provision for identification of voters by postal votes and special votes, but not, unfortunately in the case of ordinary voters. We have also made it compulsory for publications relating to elections to be signed by the writer if that statement is made after the proclamation day when an election is about to take place. We have also prohibited public meetings and other election meetings on licensed premises and we have also prohibited candidates of political parties from providing food, entertainment or lodging during the election.

I now make bold to say that during my election campaign, and anyone who fought the Progressive Party will know that it is true, the mode of the Progressive Party of holding meetings are usually at so-called house parties where liquor and food are provided free to anyone who attends that particular meeting.

The second matter is that the prohibition of meetings which do not take place on licensed premises, has become obsolete. Although the premises are not licensed, the liquor is freely available. We have in our wisdom decided that publications must be signed by the writer or the issuer of a particular pamphlet or article in a newspaper. But in the light of this character assasination, which is a technique, an art, and has blown over from America to this country—I shall deal with that in a moment—I think it will be necessary for the Minister to think again whether political correspondents of newspapers should not sign their names on all occasions, so that we can know who the people are who are working up to that psychological climax where they want to assassinate the character of a person. Just to give hon. members an idea of how elections are being fought these days, I have here an article which appeared in the Sunday Times on 26th April, just after the election. It was written by a lady by the name of Pamela Diamond. It is very well written, too. But what does she say in this article? Referring to the battle of Sea Point, she said:

Then it says that one woman worker said the following about the result:

She did not say why she was divorced. She continued—

The Police, of all people! She started weeping in the arms of the Police. Then the article goes on to say how they had a man here from Australia, a lawyer, who had stayed here for two months. The article continues:

Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I am just giving hon. members an instance of how these American ideas are now being brought to South Africa. I can only attribute it to strange influence from outside the country, because before we certainly never saw this way of fighting an election. I just want to give hon. members an instance of how character assassination takes place. I have here a poster that I had printed. Here hon. members can see it. It is printed in blue. The heading reads “Progs and communists”. There I had a photostat copy made of one single paragraph as it appeared in the Cape Times on 17th April, 1970. I deliberately had the top portion inserted of another paragraph as it appeared, as well as the bottom section of the preceding paragraph, to show that the middle paragraph was not taken out of context. It reads:

That is all right. If she wants the communist party to operate here there is nothing wrong with it. But now look at the character assassination. Now I must show hon. members how the newspapers dealt with that pamphlet. They called it the “meanest thing” ever, the “most shabby trick”. They are referring to this pamphlet. After all the dirty work attributed to me, that newspaper telephoned various prominent citizens and asked what they thought about “this foul manner of fighting an election by Jack Basson”? I may say, Sir, that this poster was pulled down by the Progressive Party and actually children under the age of 12 years were assaulted by them because of it. But then they gave the comment of Mr. Ben Rabinowitz, who says that “It is shameful of Mr. Basson to sail under the ‘colours’ of his opponent.” Another man, Mr. Dubow, art authority, said that “Mr. Basson’s tactics have reached an all time low.” The only reason why they can say that I have reached such an all time low”, is because I have used the blue colours of the Progressive Party. So they say. Actually, the Methodist Church has the same colours. Why it belongs to them, I do not know.

Then it goes on to say this: “They will challenge me to produce a single respectable and decent Member of Parliament or candidate of the United Party that would sink to this level. I will now give them the name of a good, decent, respectable Member of Parliament who also used blue for his propaganda pamphlets, namely my colleague the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. He was not attacked. According to certain of the newspapers, it was apparently not the colour but the contents that mattered. The contents would lead to this character assassination, and by repetition of the same lie, they eventually worked up a hatred against a person in his individual capacity. I have other very interesting cuttings here, which will prove how character assassination works. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout who stood in to-day for the hon. member for Green Point, opened the discussion and also referred to the indisposition of the hon. member for Green Point, in regard to which I also want to express my regret. I am sorry that he cannot have been here to-day to introduce this debate, but it is a good thing that he has a substitute who was able to start the ball rolling for us.

Arising out of the reference made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout to the tact that polling day for the provincial election and for the parliamentary election should be on the same day, I can inform the hon. member that this side of the House has been considering this matter for years now. As the hon. member, who spent some time in the National Party, knows, this is something which has quite frequently in the past been discussed at party congresses. It is a matter which is at present again receiving the serious attention of the Government. I can inform the House that the hon. the Prime Minister is very interested in this question, i.e. that the two elections be held on the same day. As a result of that our Department has recently been giving this matter serious attention I shall in due course therefore come to this House with a report. I shall leave for subsequent decision whether it should be in the form of a Select Committee, which should sit to consider this matter, or in what other form it should be done.

During the next session?

Yes, that could be. It is very probable that we will then be able to come forward with a report or a motion in regard to this matter.

At this stage I should like to refer now to the Gazette Extraordinary which appeared today. The hon. member for Durban (Point) apologized for not being able to be present here to refer to this matter. It relates to the election of Senators. I should have liked to have made a statement about this in any case, but I am just mentioning that he wanted to discuss this matter. In this regard I should now like to make the following statement:

I now come to the further replies to the matters raised here by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and others. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout referred to the postal vote system. He expressed misgivings on that score and actually advocated the abolition thereof, a plea with which my side and I can in no way associate ourselves. The hon. member for Malmesbury has already pointed out that our geographical position differs greatly from that of other countries and that a comparison can in no way be made. Owing to our vast expanses a postal vote system is indeed of great advantage. For the sake of interest, during this recent election the number of postal votes cast totalled 70,000 as against 104,000 special votes.

Then the hon. member for Bezuidenhout complained about the officials who operated the electoral machinery on polling day. I want to concede that not all those officials were experienced people, but the Department does on its part make very certain that they are well-instructed. They are properly informed on the matter and this is what we shall continue to do in future. I repeat that not all were experienced. Not all had participated in previous elections, and this could in fact have given rise to problems. The hon. member wanted to know from me how many of them were utilized in this way. The total is between 4,000 and 5,000, based on the premise that plus-minus 30 officials were active in a constituency. The hon. member advocated that a course be introduced at a university for officials having to receive training in electoral techniques. Whether a university would be prepared to do so, is another matter. We are continually asking the universities to introduce new courses. Under my Vote yesterday, someone on my side also advocated that a chair for labour relations be introduced at the universities, a matter towards which I am very sympathetically disposed. The same applies to this matter, but to cover all these matters by establishing chairs at universities, is really a major task. I really cannot take this any further now.

I meant a correspondence course.

By way of correspondence is certainly a matter which one could put to them. I shall ask my Department to take this up with the University of South Africa to see whether they could not perhaps introduce a correspondence course in this field.

The hon. member had a great many complaints in regard to passports. He admitted that it was a major responsibility which one placed on a persons shoulders, and specifically on the Minister’s. It is a major responsibility. In exercising that responsibility one must take many aspects into account. One must take into account the aspect of your country’s security and you must place your country’s interests above all else, above personal interests. In the execution of this task it is the case that one has to take certain decisions which sometimes seems strange to people because you cannot of course elaborate on your reasons. It is also standard practice. The hon. member for Houghton complained about this and of course she went further and said that I had refused Mr. Fugard a passport because he was supposedly opposed to the Government. No, if we had to refuse passports to people who were opposed to the Government, dealing with this matter would certainly have been very easy. Then one would simply have had to establish whether or not he has a blue card, and then you could deal with the matter accordingly. But that is not the way we do it. The hon. member need not think that we do it in such an unreasonable manner. We have never interfered with her when she wanted to go overseas, even though she is an elected member, and if she were to lose her seat, we would certainly still give consideration to her case in this connection. The considerations are the interests and the security of the country. The doubt which exists as to whether there is a conflict between Foreign Affairs and Interior, is totally unfounded. There is continual consultation. In fact, consultation takes place between Foreign Affairs and Interior in regard to every case of this nature.

There was no hesitation, either, in dragging in the Japanese jockey again, and saying that this was a result of “insufficient evidence”. No, it was not “insufficient evidence”; it was a case of additional facts. When we received those additional facts, the Minister could view this matter in a different light and could form a different opinion.

After all, the onus rests on the man who asks.

Yes, as the hon. the Prime Minister has quite rightly said the onus rests on the man who asks. Then, newspaper editors were quoted here. Die Beeld was quoted, which also wrote in favour of Mr. Fugard. With all due respect for newspaper editors, whether they support my side or your side, they are after all not informed of the facts concerning these people. When these particulars in regard to a passport come before me as Minister, the Department has already sifted and sorted out the matter, and there has been consultation with Foreign Affairs and other bodies. When it comes before you, very reliable and authoritative sources have been consulted, sources of which the newspaper editors, favourably or unfavourably disposed, have no knowledge. A Minister must exercise that responsibility, which the hon. member said rested on my shoulders, in the light of all the particulars at his disposal.

The hon. member once again discussed the stamp on the passport, which he discussed last year. Last year he was furnished with a detailed reply, and I do not think I need give it to him in such great detail again.

I had hoped that you were a new broom.

No, there is no such idea. If we were to supply all the particulars you desire, pages and pages would have to be added to that passport. That is the reason why this pattern is now being followed. If we were to accede to your request, if we were only to mention certain countries which a person could visit, then we are going to have repeated applications from that person if he should want to visit other countries. So, it is not really practical in this connection. I now hope the hon. member will adapt himself to this and raise a new matter next year in this discussion.

The hon. member for Houghton also wanted to know whether I had any intention of abolishing exit permits. No, the Government has no intention of abolishing these. The hon. member for Pinetown raised the question of clergymen, the manner of their residence and the time required. I have here a copy of the letter which was previously sent to the hon. member by my predecessor and I do not deem it necessary to read it in its entirety. This letter is dated 6th May, 1969, and, inter alia, it amounts to the following—

There is no need for me to hide anything in regard to this matter. Clergymen are people whom we place on a high pedestal. Most of us have some or other church affiliation in which we have very high esteem for the spiritual leaders, and specifically the Ministers, tout our experience in South Africa with foreign clergymen has sometimes been quite disappointing to us. Among foreign clergymen we have in this country in recent times only had the Huddlestones, the Reeveses and the Crowthers. They are not little angels; there areamong They are not little angels; there are among them people with ulterior political motives, and these ulterior political motives have to many been of greater importance to them than their clerical activities. Because this is the case, hon. members had better entrust this matter to us. If after four years we see that the clergymen is occupying himself with spiritual work, then one welcomes him in this country and his application for permanent residence here is given exceptionally favourably consideration. We should like to continue in this way, as far as dealing with this matter is concerned.

The hon. member for Malmesbury raised the question of the casting of special votes at police station. The position is that a sergeant of police is appointed to remain on duty until 9 p.m. to deal with special votes. He is even paid overtime. However, a request must be addressed to the returning officer by the parties in this connection.

Then, the hon. member for Houghton raised the question of the disparity in salary increases between white and non-white officials. I can only inform the hon. member that it always has been the policy to determine salaries with due consideration for the ability, the standard of living and needs of people, as well as the question of supply and demand.

The hon. member for Moorreesburg raised a very important matter here which has aroused particular interest. I have had the privilege on a former occasion as well of ascertaining what the hon. member’s impressions are. The impressions he had of the recent British election are significant and valuable. He has conveyed these impressions to me and he has already conveyed his impressions to my Department and has asked them to consider the matter further. The question of the consolidation of the voters’ roll in particular, is a very topical aspect. If voters’ lists can be compiled according to a block system, as is done in Britain, then it will obviously be of great value for the parties during elections. This is a system which constitutes many advantages and which I find exceptionally pleasing. The hon. member also referred to the question of more polling booths which would to a certain extent eliminate transportation problems. There is much to be said for that.

I have already asked the Department to investigate this matter, and when we meet again here next year, I hope that I will have a report from the Department which we can then submit for discussion to the various party groups. Whether it should then be referred to a select committee, is a matter which I leave in abeyance for the moment, but I hope to be able at that juncture to make recommendations in this connection. At this juncture that is all I have to say.

Sir, I was trying to point out here that newspapers have a great responsibility in a free democracy such as we are because they, after all, are the architects of public opinion, but newspaper comment will only be valuable and to the benefit of this country if the newspapers remain responsible and present news in such a way that it is useful and not misleading. Sir, I want to give you another example to show what newspapers are doing and how they can influence people. You may have heard, Sir, that a long time before the election I was telephoned by the representative of a particular newspaper and asked what the election in Sea Point was to be about. My reply was that the election would be fought on the same issues as in the rest of the country. I was then asked, “Have you any particular problem in Sea Point?” My reply, which was correctly reported, was this—

The report then goes on to say—

I then went on deliberately to say this—

That was quite clear. So this particular newspaper came with a heading to try and tag me onto the Nationalist Party. So incidentally I learned later on. This was agreed to long ago,long before this interview. The heading reads—

I shall deal with that at a later stage. When we get to the Third Reading I will have more to say about this. But that is all right. Let them write these things under headings that I am not responsible for. I never said those things. But what do they do? They publish that and immediately get onto the telephone. They then start telephoning prominent Coloured people, some of whom I am proud to say are my friends and for whom I have done much. Then they started contacting these people and asked them for condemnation of their own headlines which I was reputed to have said. I think that is completely scandalous.

But that is not enough. I addressed a public meeting with the hon. member for Green Point, Mr. Lionel Murray. There I said this—

I gave as my reasons the following—

I stand by that. And what happened?

The hon. member is carrying on a general discussion. I should like the hon. member to come closer to the Vote.

I am just trying to explain that under the Publications Board the hon. the Minister has the right to interfere. This is being discussed here right now. At that meeting too, Mr. Lionel Murray dealt with the Anti-Sabotage Act. He said that the United Party supported the principle. There was only one person who voted against that principle, namely the hon. member for Houghton. During question time a gentleman got up and said: Are you trying to insinuate that Mrs. Suzman supported the principle of sabotage? To that question Mr. Murray replied. I had nothing to do with it. But what appeared in the newspapers? It was published correctly in some newspapers. But another newspaper reported that I had said—not Mr. Murray—that Mrs. Helen Suzman supported the saboteurs. I had nothing to do with it. I never spoke about her. But not satisfied with that, what did they do? They started telephoning prominent citizens and asked them what they thought of a man with a character as low as mine who could attribute a thing like that to the hon. member for Houghton. [Interjection.] Wait a minute. I am coming to that too. I will deal with the whole lot if I have sufficient time. Not satisfied with that, the Sunday Times came with a story. The Sunday Times came with a beautiful story and published a nice photograph of myself too. That was the only decent thing in the whole issue on that occassion. The headlines read—

That is now Jaap.

This Basson is verkramp.

That is me. With reference to Japie they say:

“This Basson is verlig”, and with reference to myself they say “This Basson is verkramp”.

Then it says the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said:

He then condemned what he called “racially insulting remarks, intolerance and verkramptheid … irrespective of which party it comes from.” This is quite right and I agree with it. Mr. Japie Basson subsequently stated he never referred to me. However, next to it a gentleman whom I never have seen and whom I would not recognize if he walks in here because I do not even know what he looks like, a certain Mr. A. J. Wannenburgh, had a whole story about the “verkrampte Mr. Basson”. He never consulted me. But what does he say? He says:

Then he said the following:

Here are some of the things to which they object and which I was supposed to have said. I quote:

This is what they say that I said. Nobody has ever said that and most certainly I have never said that. So the character assasination Went on. They were not satisfied with this, so what did they do? They started phoning people, the clergy in particular, and asked them what they thought of a man who has accused them of dagga smoking. I never did anything of this kind. I can prove it, but unfortunately I only have two minutes left. In any case, I have never said so. So this character assasination goes on, this new phase which is now entering into South Africa’s political life; something which has been unheard of before.

I say the role of the Press can be great to make this country a happy country and to get democracy in this country to work, but democracy can only work if the electorate is capable of deciding what is right and what is wrong. The electorate can only be informed if the newspapers play the game and give truth and truthfulness to the electorate. Certain newspapers always dig for dirt. It is to be found everywhere in the world. I have travelled quite a bit in this world as well, and I want to tell hon. members that South Africa with all its shortcomings is still a better place than these new drop-outs are trying to pretend. South Africa is not bad and South Africa has served many of them themselves very well. I hope they will realize this.

Before I sit down I want to ask the hon. the Minister one thing and then I will say no more. See that you make it compulsory, because you have the powers in the Act, when people come to vote in areas where there is a large floating population, for those people to show their identity cards before they get their voting cards. If that is not done, we are going to run into difficulties. Where you have 800 people as canvassers, as has been admitted by Pamela Diamond, it is the easiest thing in the world to vote early, to vote Prog and to vote often.

Mr. Chairman, it has been a long time since I last enjoyed a speech and an altercation so much as this one to-day. Mr. Chairman, I almost asked you to give my turn to speak to one of them. This is almost an election which is being fought here.

Give me your chance to speak, Kas!

I will never do that. This is what happens when former friends take the field against each other in the political sphere. It is then that one gets scenes such as the one which has taken place here today. It so happens that I want to discuss the same subject, i.e. the Press. The Press is one of the major institutions in our country to which a freedom attaches. This Press freedom is one of the principal freedoms in the democratic world. Next to religious freedom and the freedom of speech it is one of the greatest freedoms in our Western community. The Press as an institution operates within the framework of an agreement with the government. This agreement with the government has inter alia four component parts. The first component of that agreement between the Press and the government is that the government has entrusted to the Press a certain educational task. It affords the Press freedom of movement to accomplish that educational task by means of information and the dissemination and supply of news over a broad field. The second component in that agreement between the government and the Press is situated therein that the Press must present a strong and an accurate overall picture of the people and the country in which it is operating to the outside world. A third component of that agreement is that the government and the Press must guarantee that there is freedom of movement of its workers to acquire that news and those educational means and to accomplish that allocated educational task in terms of that agreement so that all those facts can be assembled. The fourth component of that agreement is that the Press should accept and acknowledge that there is only one lawful, democratically elected authority which is able to exercise power, namely the government elected at the public polls.

This agreement between the government and the Press imposes certain obligations on the government, as well as certain obligations on the Press. Just as the government imposes certain requirements on its teachers in the schools and at universities, just as the church imposes certain requirements on its preachers, just as industry imposes certain requirements on its technicians, as much of an inherent obligation rests on the Press to insure in terms of that agreement that its people who assemble those facts for it and who have to accomplish that educational task, who have to supply the news and present that overall image of the people and the State, should also be identifiable. I am afraid, however, that this is not the case to-day with the Press. I stated that the government guarantees the Press freedom of movement to assemble those facts and in so doing inform the public, to form in that way an overall picture and to act as spokesmen for dissensients in the political sphere and in other spheres in the State. If the Press does not comply with this agreement and if the Press does not want to indicate to us who its workers are, what training they have received, and what their general background of experience is through which they can infiltrate and penetrate through vision and the ability to project, to the core of governmental science on a national and international level, then I maintain that it is the duty of the government, and that they are entitled to demand this of the Press. If the Press do not want to remove those ramparts of fictitious correspondents, speculative conjectures and occasional harmful and malicious speculative comment, conjectures and comments which they sometimes allow to encroach on the command level of the government, so that we can see who are behind these ramparts, then I say the government is entitled to break down those ramparts. To a large extent, and I think I am entitled to say this, the overall picture of our fatherland lies in fragments today. And as a result of whom? As a result of the so-called “our own correspondents” and “our political reporters”. When one reads newspaper reports, they teem with “it is reported” or “I am reliably informed” or “well-informed circles say”. I want to ask to-day what it costs our fatherland in honour, in prestige, in image and in money to confront this devastation. The overall image of our fatherland has been immeasureably obscured, distorted and demolished by speculative conjectures and malicious political speculation. Certain powerful Press organizations in this country did not perform their education task as part of that agreement. They have destroyed our overall picture and have horribly undermined our Government in a cruel manner in its lawful, allocated level of authority by means of lies, half-truths and malicious speculation, to such an extent that our Government to-day is in discredit with the nation, because in the performance of its directive it allowed feelings and emotions here in this country and in the outside world to be exploited and incited in an unashamed manner to its own benefit. They fed our enemies, who because of greed for conquest and an obsession with power wanted to assail our nation and our Government on all fronts, from our own country. I want to advocate again here to-day, and Die Vaderland and Die Beeld can go ahead and ridicule me as they did after I had advocated the same matter last year and the year before last, for a Press tribunal with statutory powers. In the interests of the overall picture of our fatherland and the educational task which has been entrusted to the Press, and in the interests of the truth, facts and deeds having to form the basis of criticism and freedom, this court must be able to act with such powers, with disciplinary measures, of a compulsory nature, against that which is having a devastating effect on the image of our fatherland, on the way of life of our people which is based on and directed by Christian principles and the ability of our Government to carry out the mandate of the peopole on the basis of good relations politics among White and non-White here in this country, to which our entire weal and woe in future will be linked. Such a Press tribunal must go and fetch out all those snipers in the mud pools behind those self-erected ramparts. We want to know who writes for our people: we want to know where they come from; how they got there and what value can be attached to their protections, speculations and coniectures. Since I have said this. I also say that it is the duty of the Government to open channels for the Press to acquire those facts.

I can think of two ways in which the Government can open those channels. I am thinking that more regular Press conferences on a Cabinet level will enable the pressmen, the assemblers of those facts, to acquire the necessary facts. [Time expired.]

I have listened intently to what the hon. member for Sea Point had to say, but I am not at all sure what the object of his exercise was. As I understand the position, the Press does not fall under the Publications Board. Am I then to understand that the hon. member for Sea Point is asking for censorship to be extended to include the Press? There can be no reason for his raising this question other than that he wants to see that being done.

I did nothing of the sort.

Then it was quite irrelevant for the hon. member to raise it. [Interjections.]

Order! Is the hon. member reflecting on the Chair?

No, Sir. No reflection on the Chair was intended.

The hon. member must withdraw it.

I withdraw any reflection on the Chair. There can be no reason for the hon. member raising this matter unless he inclines to the view that censorship should be extended also to the Press.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. I shall reply to the hon. member later on. [Interjections.]

I do not want to waste any time on that hon. member. I can tell him that there was no character assassination of him in the Sea Point election. The only character assassination which went on came from his side, from himself—and via insinuations were published under somebody else’s name. He never bothered to deny that he had accused young Progressives of being dagga-smokers. To-day he stands by the character assassination of the Young Progs as would-be communists. That, Sir, is character assassination.

On this question of keeping Sea Point white. I want to ask the hon. member why it is that although this article to which he objected was published on the 16th January. 1970. it was not until the 17th March, 1970. that he objected to the title “Keen Sea Point White”. He had many opportunities in the meantime to do so. As a matter of fact, letters were written to the Press about it and he even addressed a public meeting, but he said nothing about this. It was only when he discovered that the voters of Sea Point were more enlightened than he thought they ought to be and that there was a sharp reaction against his attempt to exploit racial prejudice in Sea Point, that he suddenly denied he had ever used the expression “Keep Sea Point White”. I understand that a report of the interview he gave was read back to him over the telephone, and that he made no objection at the time. I am not interested in the hon. member’s protestations. He was not misrepresented by the Press—on the contrary, I think they were very kind to him. The very fact that his majority was reduced by more than 3,500 votes shows that the voters of Sea Point very nearly did realize that the sort of representative they had did not in fact represent their way of thinking and their philosophy of life. I want to have nothing more to do with that hon. member. He should learn the difference between the Sabotage Act, which the United Party did support—both in principle and in the Committee Stage—and the Terrorism Act, which the United Party did not support. Now in the so-called liberal and enlightened constituencies they say they are against solitary confinement and indefinite detention. As proof of that they say they have opposed section 6 of the Terrorism Act …

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

Yes I shall do so, Mr. Chairman. I was only giving the hon. member for Sea Point a lesson in political history. I shall now come back to the Vote. I want to deal with a much more important subject than the hon. member for Sea Point. I want to deal with the question of salary increases for non-white nurses. This I consider to be a far more important matter than the hon. member for Sea Point and his quarrel with the Press.

Instead of the disparity in salaries between Whites and non-Whites getting less, it is in fact increasing. [Interjections.] It is not a provincial matter. Do not try to teach me my bisiness in this House. [Interjections.] Salaries are fixed by the Public Service Commission. The salary of a white sister has gone up, and I am glad about these increases. The salary of a white sister has gone up from R1,560 to R2,400 to R3,000. In comparison with that, Coloureds and Indians remain on a scale with R1,500 as the maximum, and the African nurse on R1,200. I want to tell the Minister that this is an enormous source of grievance among the non-white nurses. Already there is a considerable drop in the number of African women who want to become nurses, and that while there is already a serious shortage. So if this sort of thing is going to go on, we are going to experience serious difficulty in staffing our non-white hospitals in South Africa. At present Coloured and Indian nurses receive about half of the pay of a white nurse, and the African nurses about one-third. For this disparity there is no logical explanation. The argument that non-whites live on a lower standard of living is always put upside down. They have to do so because they are paid lower wages. It is not that they wish to live at a lower standard of living. Professional people, like nurses, receive the same training, have to assume the same responsibilities and must therefore have the same status. That there should be discrimination between the racial groups is, therefore, a disgrace. The same applies to medical staff in all our hospitals. It also applies to medical officers, where there is a large disparity between the salaries being paid to white cotors, Indian doctors and African doctors, particularly in the Natal hospitals. Recently we had five non-white radiographers who qualified in Cape Town. These passed exactly the same diploma course as the white trainees. However, their maximum earning capacity of R1,500 per year is R540 less than that of their white colleagues. I want to know how anybody can justify this enormous disparity in the salaries of professional people.

Coming to teachers, one finds that hardly a week goes in which Coloured teachers are not leaving the shores of South Africa. Many of them leave on exit permits because they are denied passports. They go because they realize that the opportunities for them to earn salaries commensurate with their training and experience are simply not attainable for them in South Africa. Here again, we are going to be faced with a very serious shortage of Coloured teachers if this sort of situation continues. Indian parents and educationists are also alarmed because numbers of Indian teachers are resigning in favour of other employment which will reward them in a fairer manner. The following are the applicable salaries which I worked out from the very complicated scales I was given. A senior assistant teacher, if white, can earn up to R5,100 per annum: if a Coloured, R3,600. Category A Whites, can earn up to R3,720, and Coloureds R2,700. while the African, Category A never goes higher than R2,070. Once again, these are people with the same training. At times they even have more responsibility, because African teachers have to handle enormous classes—something like 58 per class. White teachers have to handle a smaller number per class. I do not think there can be any justification for this disparity in wages. Of course, I reject discrimination in wages on a racial basis, no matter what the occupation. The argument that these people are living at a lower standard of living, cuts no ice with me. [Time expired.]

I should like at this stage to reply to a few points raised here. I hope, however, that I shall also be afforded a subsequent opportunity to say what I want to say. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout had a great deal to say about the Publications Board. In this he is of course not alone, but has quite a number of friends on the opposite side. But I shall give my views on the Publications Board and its functions later on. The age limit for a film such as Helga and the fact that husbands could not see the film at the same time as their wives, created problems for him. These are things which one could take into consideration: It is not merely a question of a husband and his wife; it is also a question of a man and a girl, and it is * also a question of two 18-year-olds who might have attended that film together. The consideration as to why Helga was shown to separate audiences, applies in a different way in the case of a man and a girl of 18 than in the case of a man and his wife who are adults, although 18-year-olds can lawfully be reckoned as adults. Then he said that the censors must allow us to grow up, and the implication was that our people are not adult enough. He had a lot to say about the type of matter which was banned, and then added that we were all opposed to pornography. But can he tell me where pornography begins and where it ends? Can he give me that reply? It is not that easy and it will never be that easy. I shall subsequently, towards the end, return to a plan which I have to show you that what I regard as pornography, is not regarded as pornography by Customs. A little more information and insight will teach him that the word “pornography” is very glibly bandied about without people really knowing what it means. Now I want to say this. I would prefer to tell you a little more about these two films, Helga and Jannie Totsiens. We cannot go into all of them, but by mentioning one or two, one at least illustrates the point of departure of the Publications Board, which people maliciously, and not always maliciously but sometimes ignorantly call the Censor Board.

Now, the film Helga was supposed to be a documentary, and it was unanimously banned by the Board. A B Certificate was granted for the age group 4 to 18, women only, and then for medical institutions or establishments. The idea was that it was a documentary film and that it could be beneficial for women, also young women. But then a fuss was kicked up about this matter, and subsequently another Helga arrived. I do not know whether the hon. member knows that there were two Helga’s. The second Helga was the revised edition. It was given precisely the same certificate, and in this case an appeal was then made to the Minister. The Minister upheld the appeal, but he laid down these provisions; It was once again a B Certificate, and in this case it was for separate audiences, women on the one hand above the age of 18, and men over the age of 21, and then Whites only. As far as Jannie Totsiens was concerned, I hope the hon. member saw the film. There an enlarged Board was involved, because it was an exceptionally interesting film, a film with depth, which actually gave one food for thought afterwards. It actually dealt with the behaviour of people who were not normal.

Like the United Party.

Yes, you might well say like the United Party, but perhaps not all of them; those of them who listen carefully to-day will not be that way after this. This film was unanimously allocated a B Certificate by an enlarged Board and the certificate specified no persons 4 to 16. Again there was an appeal and the Minister granted an A Certificate. An A Certificate means that everyone can see the film. Very well, we can agree with this, or we can differ.

Was anything cut?

That is not mentioned here. I take it that if there were cuts, there were very few. But I can mention this to you, that if one views the film with a scientific eye and perhaps by virtue of the fact that you have had experience in the background of people who are not normal, then it is a film which will not affect the very young child so badly, except for the shock scenes here and there. I think it was a very good decision on the part of the Board to consider this aspect, but it was decided that it should be otherwise. I just want to mention in passing at the end that the film Helga, which the hon. member discussed in the beginning, was not a documentary picture. To an extent Helga was a documentary, but Helga was to a large extent, if one looked at the rest of the performance, at the other scenes which were filmed, that it was also merely cheap sex for sale.

Then you should not have presented it at all.

If we refuse to present everything which is sex for sale then I wonder what will happen in this House. We are already allowing a little bit too much of that. The hon, member wants us to allow everything. He states that we must not allow pornography, but he did not define pornography to me.

I come then to the hon. member for Houghton, who also had a lot to say against censorship, a word we must get away from. This Board does not undertake censorship; it controls and selects, and in addition there are always appeals. It is not merely a line with which you can delete, nor is this the case with publications because there, on the other hand, you have the courts. We talk of censorship, but censorship is something final. In any case, the hon. member had a lot to say against censorship again, and in particular she had a lot to say about Bantu who according to the classification of pictures as far as the age aspect is concerned, are sometimes only able to go to see pictures which children under 12 can see. [Interjection.] In other words, they are being discriminated against. Very well, that is correct; there is discrimination, but this is being done with a reason. Nevertheless I think the hon. member is way off the mark in more than one respect, because scores of Bantu to-day who are already sophisticated go and see these films. Our problem, and the problem of the Board is simply this. There are films which you cannot approve for the more primitive Bantu, and if you say that Bantu are permitted, you cannot prevent the primitive Bantu from seeing them, and that is the drawback here. We cannot then discriminate between the more sophisticated Bantu and the primitive Bantu who could be very adversely affected by such a film, more so than the Bantu who have already been educated and who can distinguish between what will have a bad influence and what will not have a bad influence.

I then come to the hon. member for Orange Grove, who has just returned. Tht hon. member of course spoke about the relaxation of control. He wants to an increasing extent to relax everything. I do not know what the hon. members want to see, but if they had seen some of the stuff they did not see, I think most of them would agree that we were better off without it. The hon. member mentioned a lot of figures which I do not want to dispute. He spoke about Virginia Woolf and the 13,0 other publications which have been banned, and he also had a lot to say about the Act. But we are not really discussing the Act here to-day. Perhaps I shall return to that. [Time expired.]

I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister, who has replied to questions raised on this side of the House, will understand if I do not follow on him, but I would like to refer briefly to the hon. the Minister in regard to the reply he gave to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout in connection with South Africans travelling overseas on passports. I want briefly to tell him the experience of a member of this House just a year ago on a ship approaching Penang. When the passengers were told that if they wished to apply for permission to disembark, they would have to make application, my friend in this House decided it was no good even trying. He and his wife did not try but they were called forward and they were asked for their passports by the passport authorities at Penang and were issued with notices of refusal of entry. This is the sort of thing the hon. member for Bezuidenhout was referring to. This is what is happening to South African citizens overseas with our passports. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout had a perfectly good case, and I commend to the Minister that he thinks again of what was said by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, especially in regard to the treatment of South African citizens travelling overseas on our passports.

The hon. member for Witbank raised the question of the Public Service salaries and conditions, and he said that we were being irresponsible when we asked for better pay and conditions for civil servants. The Minister alluded to this in his reply, but I want to take the question of the Public Service a little further now. I want to deal with the problems which beset the Public Service to-day, problems which this Minister will have to solve and solve soon if we are not going to have a complete and utter breakdown of the Public Service in South Africa as we know it to-day. The primary problem is a shortage of adequately trained manpower. That is the problem to-day, but I want to ask the Minister whether he has thought what that problem will be like in four or five years’ time if he does not solve it now. I will go further a little later, but I want to start by quoting from a report which appeared in the Natal Witness of 14th August, 1970, under the heading “Bright Young Men Shortage. Warning to Public Service”. It reads—

This statement was made by none other than the Secretary of the Public Service Commission, Mr. H. G. van Zyl, and what Mr. Van Zvl has said here is perfectly true and correct. There was a time when men of above average ability entered the Public Service because they saw a future in it. I am talking about the ’thirties and even the early ’forties, but that is not happening any more, and I will produce figures to show it. There are very few talented people to follow those men who are now at the top and hold the top positions in the Public Service. This Government has had a respite of five years since it increased the retirement age from 60 to 65 years, but this was a stop-gap measure. Those civil servants who have given the best years of their lives, those people to whom to-day I pay tribute for keeping the civil service going, are now reaching the stage where they have to go on pension. They are moving out, and behind those people there is this vast vacuum. This is the problem the Minister is facing to-day and he cannot put off this question any longer. Unfortunately he has just inherited this Department and it is a problem he has inherited, but he will have to do something about it soon because we find that the Public Service cannot retain officers of any experience.

Because he cannot retain officers with experience it must detrimentally affect the work performance in the Public Service; in other words, there must be a falling-off in efficiency to the point where even we in this House must now have doubts as to whether the money which we vote for the various departments can be adequately handled, let alone whether the staff of the various departments can handle the stores and equipment and other things of which they have control.

Sir, this position is serious and I am sure the Minister realizes it. The staff position is critical. We find that in the Department of Labour, out of a total of 1,853 posts, only 1,100 are filled with permanent staff. In that same department, out of 403 administrative assistants only 240, a little over 50 per cent, have had more than two years service. This is the position in that department and it is not the only department in that position. The Department of Public Works has 138 professional posts for architects, quantity surveyors and engineers, and only 75 of the 138 posts or a little over 50 per cent are suitably filled. The Department of Inland Revenue during 1968 had new appointments in the administrative assistants group totalling 611, but it lost through resignations 711 personnel in that same year. The Public Service as a whole in the two years ended 31st March of this year (the latest figures I have been able to get,) ended up with a net loss in the clerical division of 649 units. There is 649 less staff, notwithstanding the increasing work.

What are the reasons for this situation? Sir, I do not know whether I can have the attention of the hon. the Minister. I do feel that it might be a little bit better if the hon. the Minister was listening to me. Perhaps he might do me the courtesy of listening when I discuss his Vote here. I see that I cannot expect that sort of courtesy from the hon. the Minister, so I might as well continue. Generally, Sir, there is dissatisfaction in the Service, not only about salaries but also about the different rates which are applied. I want to mention one here, the grade of health inspector. In the technical division of the Service you have two grades of health inspector: you have the grade of senior health inspector and chief health inspector on the respective salary scales of R3,600 X R150 X R4,200 and R4,200 × R150 × R4,800. But, Sir, in the administrative and professional divisions of the Service that scales are combined into one. When a man reaches the salary notch of R4,200, he does not have to wait for promotion to chief health inspector, for example, before he receives his next increment. Sir, this is the sort of thing which is causing dissatisfaction. There is also dissatisfaction with the salary scales generally, and the gap between the salaries paid in the Civil Service and by the public sector is too great. As I have said, a chief health inspector in the Civil Service receives a maximum salary of R4,800. In the South African Railways that same man with the same qualifications, holding the same job, goes to R6,900; in the Durban Municipality he would go to R6,540: in the Newcastle Municipality, a small local authority, he would go to R7,200

That is far too much.

In the Ladysmith Municipality, an even smaller local authority, he would go to R6,200 compared with the maximum of R4,800 in the Public Service. This is why we cannot keep men in the Public Service. The increases which were granted in April of last year had no effect; they did not stem the outflow of officials from departments, and as far as the latest increases which have been announced, are concerned, doubts have already been expressed by the Public Servants’ Association as to whether they would be adequate to stop this outflow.

Sir, there are other questions also. Primarily I think the hon. the Minister must ask himself whether the Public Service Commission is really serving its intended purpose; is it in touch with conditions and with reality? Sir, only the Minister can really answer this, but I want him to consider certain things with regard to the Public Service Commission, and the first one is one of the things which, I believe, has caused a lot of dissatisfaction within the Public Service. I refer to the increase in the political activities of members of the Public Service. Another thing which is a cause of dissatisfaction is the number of political appointments within the Public Service. [Time expired.]

Sir, I was replying a moment ago to the hon. member for Orange Grove. The hon. member raised quite a number of matters here. Because time does not allow, I cannot go into all these matters. I can just tell him, since he advocated greater freedom, that he is not alone. There is a school of thought in the country which would agree with him; in fact, there is always such a school of thought. But the question of how much freedom should be allowed, is a matter which is very difficult to determine, and if he is not specific, it is difficult for me to know precisely what he has in mind. But since the hon. member made the deduction that sex crimes have decreased in Denmark after pornography was allowed there, I want to tell him that this is an in correct deduction. It is not based on a scientifically grounded investigation.

I did not mention that example.

If it was not the hon. member who spoke about Denmark then it was perhaps the hon. member for Bezuidenhout.

It was neither of the two; it was mentioned by the hon. member for Prinshof.

Did the hon. member say that there were fewer sex crimes in countries where pornography was allowed or did he not say that?

No, I said that where there has been a diminishing of Control, crimes have not increased.

Very well then. That is more or less the same argument. I want to point out that sex crimes in Denmark have decreased as a result of legislation which was passed after pornography was allowed. The age of consent was decreased from 16 to 14 years, and if the woman agrees, then it is no longer a crime, and in the same way the possession of pornography was no longer a crime. Actions which were previously sex crimes have been reduced to a large extent as a result of new legislation. I am simply mentioning this.

I also think that the hon. member should not be concerned about the fact that the works of good writers are being banned. It is in truth the spirit which prevails in any period which determines what is good and what is not good, what is decent and what is indecent. The hon. member will recall that in Mother England, which was so democratic, Lady Chatterley’s Lover was for many years banned by legislation before it was eventually allowed. The hon. member referred here to Caliculus …

No.

Then I misunderstood him. If he spoke about Caliculus then I just want to say to him that that writers works were widely read in the time when the Roman Empire was beginning to decline. The same could easily apply in this case as well. Sir, I have now furnished the hon. member with a reply, as well as I am able. The hon. member for Prinshof has already replied to him in respect of “The Gay Deceivers”, and “Lady of Monza”. I have nothing more to add to that, except just to say the following: I must express my disapproval of film magrates who invite Parliamentarians and others to private exhibitions of film with the purpose of calling on their assistance to agitate against the decisions of statutory bodies in the country. This is a matter in regard to which, in my opinion, steps ought to be taken. We must protect those in the film industry who act lawfully and who show decent films; we have a duty towards them, I am merely mentioning this; I do not want to say anything more about it.

The hon. member for Prinshof made a very good suggestion here in regard to cuts. In a certain sense I can agree with him that one does not want to cut a film in such a way that one subsequently has 14 or 15 cuts, with the result that the continuity and the thread of the story is lost as a result. Even in this short time I have been dealing with the Board, I am also in a position where I can exercise criticism and can try to be Constructive. Sir, we can differ with them on the age limits; we can do so as long as we do not dispute the high-principled norms which this Board applies. We shall give thorough consideration to what the hon. member for Prinshof said here about theatres for adults and the question of cuts. I am quite certain that the Publications Board will take this into account, because inevitably one moves, without realizing it, slowly with the times. You must simply ensure that you do not allow yourself to be carried along against your own will. You must try to retain your own identity and your own sense of values.

The hon. member for Carletonville discussed the matter of a Press tribunal. I think what the hon. member had in mind was far stricter control over the Press. Hon. members know what the position at this stage is. It is that newspapers and magazines which are members of the Press union are not subject to control by the Board. They can appeal, but they are not under the control of the Board. If any hon. member finds that any other magazine is pornographic, or should not be allowed, then he can submit it to the Board, and since the end of last year, he need not even pay for that, previously he had to pay R2 to do so. Only printers and publishers and book-sellers have to pay this fee. The Board can then decide whether such material, whatever it may be, should be banned. If a monthly journal or a book is banned, then an appeal can be made to the courts. As far as the Press is concerned, the Press is in fact free. As far as I am concerned the freedom of the Press is something which is precious. The Press has a long tradition of freedom. Sir, these are not merely words I am using here, it is also the view of this side of the House that the freedom of the Press is something precious, but then that freedom must be utilized with great sense of responsibility. The freedom of the Press is something which any Government in the democratic western world must try to preserve to the best of its ability. But, Sir, the pen is always mightier than the sword, and if the freedom of the Press is abused then it is extremely dangerous. At this stage the Press Union and its members are in fact their own court. They have the Press Reference Board as their own body to which complaints can be referred. Sir, this council decided unanimously in 1963 or 1962, that there should be some or other form of control over the Press. The Press Union, against the findings of the then Press Commission, was then given the right to proceed to keeps its own house in order. I get the impression that the public either do not know enough about this or else have not been educated sufficiently in this regard. If any member of the public is dissatisfied with what appears in the Press, then he can appeal to the Press Reference Board, provided the newspaper in question is a member of the Press Union. At this stage I just want to inform you that there is no idea of interfering with the Press, but the Press must keep its own house in order. Sir, the Press has a very fine code which provides inter alia—

Sir, I should like to say this to the Press: You are people who are as responsible as we are; you have a long tradition; it is admitted that you occupy a special position in our society, a position of authority, a position of influence. I want to ask you whether you have ensured that your house has always been in order in the past? One sometimes receive requests of this nature which we cannot at this stage accede to, although the hon. member is perhaps right in more than one respect.

Sir, I want to make a brief statement in connection with the increase in party politics in the Public Service. I regard this as an extremely undesirable phenomenon. I want to express the opinion that it is basically unsound to allow party politics in the Public Service, and because this is so, I want to make a special point of avoiding party politics in my speech. The reason is that I want to address a very serious appeal to the hon. the Minister, and I do not want to chase up any political hares. We know, of course, what these cases were. Reference was made to those cases in this House. Questions in this regard were put to hon. Ministers and they replied to them. I do not have the time to go into those cases. I want to come to the principle without going into details.

Let us, in the first place, see what the Public Service Act, Act No. 54 of 1957, provides. This Act was passed during the régime of the present Government, and therefore one has to accept that the principles contained in that Act meet with the approval of the Government. Section 17 of the Act provides, inter alia, that any officer shall be guilty of misconduct if he becomes a member of any political organization or takes active part in political matters. It is in fact true that the Act gives the Minister a wide discretion. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the principle of participation in politics by a civil servant is undesirable and a punishable irregularity. My objection is that it is being condoned, that it is being overlooked and that it is increasing. I am not concerned about the odd cases. What does concern me is the watering down of the principle. There is a kind of permissiveness with regard to this matter. I am concerned that the watering down of the principle may lead to its total rejection.

But let us leave aside the discrepancies between the Act and what happens in practice. Let us rather consider the reason for the original prohibition, the principles involved in the matter and the consequences of the rejection of those principles. In the first place, there are very good reasons for the special confidence which has to be created between the public and the Public Service. The public believes that the Public Service occupies a very special position. They believe in the sincerity and in the impartiality of the Public Service. The Public Service must be like Ceasar’s wife —not only beyond suspicion, but must be seen to be beyond suspicion.

If a civil servant is allowed to participate in politics, no matter how lofty his motives may be, it may seem to the public that he is in fact partial in his dealings with the public. It is not a question of whether he is partial or not partial. The question is that he must appear impartial. This confidence he must create.

In order to maintain these principles there is a whole series of rules which is generally accepted in our democratic traditions. The first of these is that the civil servant must avoid participation in public politics. A second is that when he intends to stand as a candidate in an election he first has to resign from his position in the Public Service and then stand as a candidate. Another principle is that an officer must accept no posts which is in conflict with his duties in the Public Service. The fourth is that he may accept no directorships in businesses which are in conflict with the interests of his Department or in which he may gain personal advantages because of his special knowledge or influence. Another rule is that the civil servant may not use confidential information obtained by him from official sources. All these things are very important. When the civil servant accepts these principles, he earns special recognition and privileges. I want to present this virtually as a kind of social contract consisting of the civil servant on the one hand and the public on the other hand. The counterpart in this social contract is that the officer enjoys special recognition and confidence on that account.

For example, he is not regarded as legally liable for what he does in the execution of his official duties, and where he may possibly fail to execute his official duties, he is not regarded as being legally liable for that; he is not subjected to public censure. If he does perhaps make a mistake and the mistake comes to the attention of the public, the attack will be launched at his Minister, who is a political figure, and not at him personally. The most important things is that he enjoys security of office, especially when a change in Government takes place. In that case his office is secured because he has been impartial and has not participated in party politics. In that case the new Government will maintain him in his post.

In South Africa there is no question of a new Government.

But there are, nevertheless, principles in South Africa. If we do not keep to these principles, there will be certain consequences. There will, of course, be a loss of confidence in the Public Service and there will be a loss of confidence within the Public Service itself. If any officer may nail a political banner to his office door, then, when preference is given to him or when it seems as though preference is given to him, as regards promotion, etc., the other civil servants will be inclined to think that preference is being given to him on that account. Therefore, there will be a competition in the political field. As regards his dealings with the public, there will be the same dangers, and these must be avoided. I feel that very important principles are at stake, and I have learned with some concern of a likelihood that the Cabinet is going to give consideration to reconsidering the entire principle of participation by a civil servant in party politics. This virtually sounds as though a synod has been summoned to meet to reconsider whether sin may not, after all, be something good. To me this sounds unnecessary. The principles have been laid down very clearly and the authorities, whose books are all in the library, are all opposed to any weakening of this principle I am discussing.

I want to conclude by referring to a former Minister, the late Mr. Eric Louw. When he was Minister of Foreign Affairs he referred to this principle at times, i.e. he referred his civil servants to the old classical type of civil servant from whom we inherited this important principle. He said the motto of the old classical civil servant was: “To treat all governments with equal loyalty and with equal contempt.” He said this somewhat cynically. but the message is perfectly clear. “To treat all governments with equal loyalty and with equal contempt” means, of course, that they stand aloof from party politics, from the government concerned, but that they will always offer their complete loyalty to the government. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, in connection with the appeal which the hon. member for Von Brandis has just made, I am sorry but I should like to make exactly the opposite request to the hon. the Minister. My request is that public servants be allowed to participate in party politics after working hours. I personally will also be pleased if the members of the various services can be included in such a concession. The position is that the officials, as we know them in South Africa to-day, each have a particular disposition towards the different parties. After all, they all belong to a party, whether they participate actively in party politics or not. They all vote for a candidate who is a representative of a particular party. It would now appear to me that if this person who is entitled to vote and who can also make his will and his attitude felt cannot participate in politics after hours, it is a form of hypocrisy. In connection with the question of candidates, I can only say that a man who is prepared to make himself available as a candidate, should rather resign after he has been officially nominated as a candidate. I do not think he should resign when he only intends to become a candidate, as the hon. member for Von Brandis said. I want to say that the public have confidence in the objectivity of public servants and that they believe that the public servant who is a member of a particular party will not act in a way which will prejudice a member of the public who is a member of another party.

To-day I just want to say a few words in connection with the Press. One of the greatest assets of any community is its Press, provided its Press is free and responsible. A free Press is of great importance for the existence and survival of democracy. The task of a Press is not only to enlighten the community and to supply information. Often the Press is also the conscience of the people. The task of the Press is to encourage the people and to inspire them to action, but also to criticize and to reprimand the leaders of the people when they are wrong. The Press plays a powerful role and, as the hon. the Deputy Minister said, the pen is mightier than the sword. Today this truth is more generally applicable and has more significance than in years gone by. In South Africa we have Press freedom, but this is in fact a relative concept. Just like the freedom of the citizen, the freedom of the Press does not mean licence. The freedom of the Press is only one of the interest of the community which must be weighed up against the other interests of the community such as state security, public morals, and so forth. In South Africa it is not necessary to obtain prior approval for the publication of any article, except in so far as it concerns the publication of certain articles which are prohibited by the authorities. The general principal in South Africa is that the Press is free.

In respect of politics, the Press wields great power. It decides what is important and also what is necessary for the people to know. It creates the images of persons and especially the images of politicians. It also creates the images of political parties, and what is also important, it creates the image of South Africa.

Now, I feel that the English language Press has not carried its task in a responsible way, especially not in the last-mentioned case. Financially, the English-language Press is a powerful organization. It is able to do its news coverage widely and well. As a result of this good news coverage, many Afrikaners also read the English-language Press. In respect of politics, the English-language Press employes the best propagandists rather than reporters. It is a fact that the political thought and orientation of the English-language Press is extremely liberal, in contrast with which the people of South Africa are very conservative.

The English-language Press and the South African people are poles apart in South Africa. It is this liberalism which the English-language Press wants to establish in South Africa. We find that the English-language Press has to an increasing extent been making the lie its servant and misrepresentation is ally.

Mention an example.

The case of the hon. member for Sea Point is an example.

In its task, the English-language Press has certain aids and certain henchmen. Its aids are smear techniques and character assassination. Its henchman is the United Party. Once the English-language Press has achieved its goal, it will kick the United Party out of its nest. There are certain persons, however, whom it will not kick out of its nest, certain persons who are also sitting in the United Party.

It is important to note that by its actions in South Africa in general, the English-language Press has undermined its own credibility. If I may mention certain examples, I should like to refer to the case which was mentioned this afternoon by the hon. member for Sea Point. The hon. member for Sea Point is less liberal than the Progressive candidate who opposed him in that constituency. I can mention further examples about reports which appeared in the Argus and the Star about the so-called action of the hon. the Minister of Planning when he insisted on being served in Afrikaans. A slant was given to the correction which was made, when the Press said that he had said that he was not guilty of an “Abraham-type” of incident. This was done to create the impression that there was a clash, a difference between the action of the Minister and that of the Commissioner-General.

We recently had a very important example of misrepresentation in the Rand Daily Mail. The speech made by the hon. member for Brakpan in which he said that the 12 public holidays should not be abolished, but should for practical reasons be added to the annual leave of the ordinary worker, was interpreted by the Rand Daily Mail in a leading article as though the hon. member for Brakpan had said that public holidays should simply be abolished summarily. The small newspaper of Brakpan, The Brakpan Herald, elaborated upon this lie.

A week ago, with the assistance of Dr. Van Niekerk of Wits, the Sunday Times made a base attack on the judiciary of South Africa which covered six columns and was printed in heavy black type. Last week they corrected the matter and apologized in a small singlecolumn report. The position is that these people have no respect for truth or dignity.

But the question is what we should do about it. The answer is simply that the public here in South Africa must realize that in the English-language Press in South Africa they have an organization whose word they cannot accept, which they cannot believe and must take with a pinch of salt. But we on this side of the House say that we prefer the lies of Joel Mervis to a Joel Mervis who has become silent, or the misrepresentations of the Argus group of newspapers to an Argus group of newspapers which no longer wants to make any representation as a result of Press censorship. We prefer the poison pen of the Rand Daily Mail to a Rand Daily Mail whose pen has dried up as a result of action by the authorities. We are in favour of the freedom of the Press, but while we affirm this and believe that we shall always have Press freedom in South Africa and will fight for it, we also want to say to the people of South Africa, “Beware, those people are our enemies”.

Mr. Chairman, if ever we heard a one-sided story coming from the hon. member for Pretoria (Central), we have heard it this afternoon. The sins are on the one side and everything on the other side is pure and as white as the driven snow. But I must agree with him when he says that the people of South Africa are conservative by nature. I am glad to see that, when he referred to the Public Service, he referred to a conversatism which is inherent in our South African people.

The Public Service to date has been one which has served South Africa truly and faithfully without fear or favour and to the best of its ability. In particular I would like to refer to the Police who have served this country well and who have been the first line of defence ever since the days of Union. The Public Service Commission consists of five worthy gentlemen who have been appointed by virtue of their knowledge and experience in the Public Service. They have very creditable characteristics. But I regret to say that there is not a single policeman on that commission. Here I should like to inform the Committee that, as long as I was in the Police, it was a bone of contention that we in the Police were treated as the Cinderella of the Government Departments because we had no representation on the Public Service Commission. Our duties are not the same as those of the ordinary public servant. We are not bound by the clock or the five-day week, nor by weather; the crooks do not knock off at 5 o’clock when everybody else knocks off; that is when they start.

Order! The hon. member must not indulge in a general discussion of the Police Force, because that Vote will be discussed next week.

My point, Mr. Chairman, is that the time has come that the Police should be given representation on the Public Service Commission or else be entirely divorced from that commission. I ask this on account of the particular nature of the duties of the Police and service conditions which cannot be equated with those of clerks in the Public Service. No doubt there are other hon. members who can make representations in this regard for the Defence Force and for the teaching profession; I shall confine myself to the Police. The Police, as I have said, feel that the time is now ripe that they should either have representation on the Public Service Commission or else be divorced from it entirely. The members of the Public Service Commission have no intimate knowledge of the conditions of policemen’s duties and equate the ranks of policemen with those of clerks in the Public Service. That cannot be done. It has been a bone of contention.

You have said it three times now.

At least, Mr. Chairman, somebody is listening! South Africa is the only country, as far as I can determine, where the Police Force is being controlled by the Public Service Commission.

Carry on sergeant!

I shall carry on. This House shall earn the undying gratitude of every policeman if that could be brought about or if we can shed the shackles of the Public Service Commission so that we can build a happy Force, improve our efficiency and introduce electronic equipment which is so sadly lacking.

With these few words I hope I have put my message across, and I hope to hear something about this from the hon. the Minister.

In the last few minutes of this day’s proceedings, I want to convey to the Government my …

Thanks!

Yes, thanks for the salary increases granted to civil servants. Is that hon. member not also pleased about the salary increases of the civil servants? It really seems to me as though the Opposition has objections to the fact that Government has increased the salaries of civil servants. If so, they must say so straight out. As far as I am concerned, I should like to thank the Government on their behalf of this amount which has been set aside for them. I can give the Government the assurance that it is welcomed from all sides. I have many civil servants in my constituency and for that reason I want to thank the Government for these increases.

Another step of the Government which we welcome, is the appointment of an inter-departmental committee to inquire into the training of civil servants. Such a step is a necessary one and is welcomed. We trust that this committee will come forward with important proposals. I also trust that in this way it will be possible to relieve the pressure of the manpower shortage. When one listens to what the Opposition has to say about the manpower shortage, one notices that they have a negative approach; they are constantly trying to exploit the situation. They have no positive proposals. Apart from talking about relieving the manpower shortage by means of the employment of non-Whites and by means of immigration, we may perhaps, with a little bit of imagination, look at other ways in which we may wipe out the manpower shortage. The Minister once said—

I want to say that we should show a little imagination in connection with this problem. In this regard I wonder whether we cannot launch a system which will encourage all of us to greater productivity. In South Africa we have a Water Year this year. Perhaps the Government and private sectors may also come forward with a similar idea with regard to increased production, for example, during the summer months we can put in a little more work by starting earlier in the mornings. This, of course, will have to go hand in hand with additional compensation and we shall have to give consideration to that. Then we should also ask ourselves whether all the computers we have in South Africa are being utilized to the fullest extent. Personally I do not think so. I am, therefore, of the opinion that through the better utilization of computers we shall also be able to make a contribution towards relieving our manpower shortage.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23.